Captain America - agent of Hydra? ?? May 27

Now that AoS S3 is over, AC has been cancelled, and ‘Most Wanted’ has been cancelled pre-production once more, Marvel must have been bored, or something, since it came up with the idea of Captain America/Steve Rogers being an agent of Hydra all along. To paraquote the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the Hell?

Let us start again. In ‘Civil War’ the movie, captain America came off the screen as a right arsehole at times, especially when it came to Tony and his family. Tony himself can be a big-mouthed jackass from time to time, but he tries, he really tries, and the entire ‘Civil War’ movie is actually based on this. Steve has ideas of what a heroic life should be life, and so does Tony, and neither of them like each other’s idea, and then along comes colonel Zemo with his own grievances against the Avengers, and it all goes to Hell, and Stark and Rogers aren’t talking to each other anymore, and the Avengers are outlawed, and -

Okay, ‘Civil War’ was a very impressive piece of mass media, let us be honest here. The characters were well rounded and real people, the background and its details was awesome too, and Black Panther and Spider-Man were introduced (and will be getting their own movies in the future), and the Ant-Man kicked ass too.

Of course, this being the MCU, there was at least one sticky point – Ant-Man the movie. In the credits scene, the audience saw Cap and Falcon actually capture Bucky and working on de-brainwashing him; the Accords are mentioned too. Then comes ‘Civil War’, which seems to be ignoring this scene, as Barnes is out at large once more, and not really de-brainwashed too. Tough break, Ant-Man the movie.

Otherwise, however, ‘Civil War’ fits well enough with the rest of the MCU continuity; in many ways, it seems to be a direct continuation of the previous Captain film, ‘The Winter Soldier’. Now what?

Let us start with an important point – Hydra is gone in MCU. The Avengers, the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., had finished it off between the ‘Age of Ultron’ film and now. Crossbones/Brock Rumlow, who is an important Hydra-related villain in the comics, (and ‘Winter Soldier’ movie) is killed in the first half-hour of the film and is forgotten almost immediately in all the fallout that follows. Hydra as such is gone in MCU, general Talbot in AoS has destroyed it with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s help, so that’s it, the odds of Hydra returning to MCU is possible, but until the next MCU movie or series features it coming back, (and Werner von Strucker, for example, is still alive in AoS) it is gone. Case in point – Helmut Zemo. In the comics, he is an important figure in Hydra hierarchy; in MCU, he was a native of Sokovia, a colonel of its’ secret service, who had an axe to grind with the Avengers because of the ‘Age of Ultron’ events: his family got killed. He was not Hydra, he helped the Avengers to fall apart all the same – so it is quite likely that any villains that the Avengers, (or the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) will face in the future, will not be Hydra. Fair enough. So-

So now, Marvel comics release a new Steve Rogers series, where Captain America is an agent of Hydra. The Hell?

Yes, Marvel comics and MCU tend to be treated as separate entities, but they (especially the comics) seem to be blurring the lines, especially with the comics’ AoS story lines. S.H.I.E.L.D., by now, has become established in comics, and it seems to be reflecting the MCU, as Avengers and agents (and an occasional X-Man or so) interacting openly with each other in the universe. Now what?

Into the mix comes Grant Ward, who, in the MCU, was a Hydra agent, who eventually became a host for Hive, an InHuman villain in the last part of AoS S3, who almost turned a large part of the world’s human population into InHumans or Primitives – take your pick. Grant was a controversial character – odds are, that at first the writers planned to redeem him…and then changed their mind; but frankly, AoS the TV series constantly suffered from continuity gaps, canon controversies, some nasty characters who were supposed to be ‘White Hats’, and etc.; the point is that some people hate him, a lot, and others are solidly behind him, precisely because of this controversy, which is why, one suspects, the show had him finally killed in mid-S3 finale, and Hive became an independent character instead.

And also? AoS S3 finale was reminiscent of the first captain America film finale, where Steve and Peggy say good-bye and Steve vanishes, until Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. discover him in the Arctic. That is fine, except that here it was director Coulson, rather than Lincoln Campbell, who was supposed to perish alongside Hive.

To elaborate: ever since the mid-season S3 finale Coulson was growing increasingly haunted by him killing Ward on Maveth and needed repentance/closure/whatever for his actions. On the other hand, the first episode of S3 showed Daisy and Lincoln working their powers in perfect tandem to defeat Andrew/Lash; it was one of the worst episodes of the entire series, but still it was canon.

Again, it could have been a very dramatic finale – Coulson sacrificing himself to stop Hive, to fix his mistakes and shortcomings, and to give his adopted daughter, Daisy, and her new boyfriend, Lincoln, a fresh chance to be themselves, their own people, free from the past influences of Hive and Grant Ward. If, six months later, Daisy and Lincoln were on the outs, it would still work and create a further dramatic conflict between the team members, not unlike to how it went on ‘Civil War’ between the various Avengers…but it did not happen. Instead, Lincoln is dead, Daisy is swinging in the wind, and Coulson was demoted from his directorial office in S.H.I.E.L.D. This, too, can work – after all, after the Avengers’ Civil War, we had an ‘age of Darkness’ – we had Stark as a director of S.H.I.E.L.D., we had Osborn (and hey, he is Spidey’s archnemesis, so maybe he will appear in MCU in time?), and we had all sort of nastiness afterwards. Maybe Coulson’s demotion will make sense in S4 when it comes to screen…but mostly, this is just another AoS clusterfuck. Ian Quinn is gone, the Koenigs are gone, Hunter & Morse are gone, Deathlok, Joey – they all just left the show without a reasonable explanation. At least Mitchell, who played Lincoln, had closure for his character, cough.

Back to the comics – now, the comic version of S.H.I.E.L.D, has Grant Ward in it – as S.H.I.E.L.D. spy in Hydra, at least for now, (building an army of Iron Man rip-offs, in a plot similar to Iron Man 3 movie), and Captain is Hydra. Already there are theories that the Red Skull has used a cosmic cube to accomplish this, but it does not matter. People are upset. People are pissed. Moreover, people are claiming that the writers for ‘Steve Rogers the Hydra agent’ have ripped-off this idea out of AoS S1 (Grant Ward). Now what?

Well, it is ‘just’ a comic – people will get over it…eventually, because it is captain America, so odds are that this idea will go down like a lead balloon especially at first (and later on too, if this trend picks up momentum). Comics themselves are a confusing medium of mass media, especially Marvel with their interactive and intertwining plotlines, so odds are that the shock of cap being Hydra will be buried, eventually.

However, an aftermath, an aftertaste will remain. People will not forget how their beloved character was turned into a ‘Nazi’ (something that MCU tried to distance itself from, especially on AoS, again), and since the Internet is a ‘global village’ of sorts, this controversy will cause problems, especially among Marvel fans, for a time at least.

However, wait! Cap’s predicament is supposed to reflect on real world’s issues! Donald Trump and the right wing! No, just no. Trump is a most unpleasant man, but he, currently, is executing one of the basic features of the American society: equal opportunity for everyone. He saw, for himself, a chance to become the president of the U.S., and he took it. On the other hand, an American citizen named Krystal Lake, (works in Home Depot), used the same opportunity not to enter politics, but to order a custom cap, with a pithy slogan: ‘America was never great’ or something along those lines. As a result, Trump may become president of the U.S., while Lake has a cap with a pithy slogan, the end. The moral?

Yes, Americans are a people with a freedom of speech and they use it, and they will keep it, and yes, the American president is elected by the people (and for the people…maybe). Guess what, there are plenty of people behind Trump, and no pithy message will be able to change this, not alone.

Do you know what happened in Russia, after their WWI misadventure? The Royal family was deposed, but not by the Communists, no. By the aristocracy and intelligentsia, by the people who would be later depicted, (sometimes), as monarchists. They were not, not really – they honestly intended to depose the monarch and create something between a democratic republic (the U.S.) and a constitutional monarchy (the U.K.), not the USSR. Only, while they discussed, debated and talked, Vladimir Lenin (look him up on the Wikipedia, if you don’t know him) and his communistic comrades got together, produced several simple and straight-to-the-point slogans, and won the hearts of the masses – workers and peasants, primarily, but the rest of the social strata of Russia of that time was present too. The result? The USSR. Was it built to last? Gorbachev broke it from the inside, and ta-dah, we have Perestroika, and then, 25 years later, the U.S. finally realized that one more victory like this one, and they will be undone, so they…got involved in Middle East, and northern Africa, and now they are much more undone than before, for Obama the democrat just continued what George Bush II the republican has started, and- Enter the Trump.

Trump is not a very good person. He already backed out of a debate with Sanders, for example. However, he is a man with concrete, specific ideas, and people appreciate it. The international democracy, the global village that the U.S. has been practicing since the Cold War and beyond isn’t for everyone – hence the rise of new right-wing practice, hence the growing insistence that the Middle Eastern refuges go home or wherever/whatever, just – out of Europe. If Trump wins the election, he might be the American version of Gorbachev – but pithy slogans on custom-ordered headwear will not prevent this – and neither will comics. How does Captain America, as well as the rest of Marvel relate to the ‘Trump situation’ directly? They do not. As a result, Marvel is stuck with Cap being Hydra, and – nothing more, at least for now. Maybe Tony is a member of the communistic Leviathan or something like that, who knows? It is not the point.

The point is that Marvel has overshot its’ mark completely. If Captain America being Hydra is some sort of a pithy statement, that is. Otherwise? It is just another plot twist to boost up the sales, in the worst traditions of AoS the TV series, and it will reverberate/backfire on the Marvel comic series as such as well.

End

S.H.I.E.L.D. S3 finale revisited - May 18

After the recent events, let us talk about the S3 finale in greater detail.

Firstly, Daisy Johnson. In many ways, DJ seems to have become whom she had hated the most – Grant Ward; maybe now she understood what it means to be him, at least to a point: unlike Kara, Grant hadn’t been brainwashed by the Faustus’ method, but conditioned and trained in a more old-fashioned way: for all of his flaws, he admitted to Skye that he hadn’t been brainwashed and had his free will (at least to a point). Leaving aside the fact that how does a person know that he had been brainwashed, it makes the show’s treatment of Ward only more hypocritical and the treatment of Daisy – only more prejudiced – in a favored, positive way, but still prejudiced and flawed. (Hell, Coulson did not treat Lincoln all that fine too – but this is a different plot line, we will talk about it when we get to Lincoln.) Yes, Daisy had been ‘swayed’ by Hive, but that doesn’t make it okay – yet Coulson and the others try to be nice to Daisy, to pretend that it is okay and to sweep it under the rug, so in the end it’s May who gives her former protégé some direction in which to go from – to make it up. This makes Daisy a ‘Black Widow’ kind of character, and one wonders why the writers didn’t do the same to Grant, but let’s just accept that they had designed him as a villain of some sort since S1, and then messed it up by making him sympathetic…perhaps more sympathetic than they have intended. Grant became a controversial character… but we will get to him later on.

The entire Grant/Daisy dynamic aside, there is also the matter of… Jessica Jones, which is another part of MCU. If you put Grant out of the brackets (the man is finally dead…one hopes), then Daisy became Jessica, and Hive – Killgrave. Seriously, watch JJ S1 on Netflix (or from other sources, of course) and the similarities between JJ and DJ will be obvious, while Mack, (on AoS) became a Luke Cage like character from JJ. The difference here is that in JJ, the titular heroine had saved…well, everyone that Killgrave had enslaved through his spores, while in AoS it was Daisy who had to be rescued – by Andrew/Lash in ‘Emancipation’, and then helped by Mack (not that Daisy/Mack is a bad ship, but still), and May, and finally, it was Lincoln (i.e. another man) who had to save everyone. How nice and…conservative. Whedon and co. tried to present Grant as some sort of a misogynist from time to time. One cannot help but feel that Whedon is a misogynist here instead, much more so than Grant ever was.

Flashing forward? More of the same. Daisy has apparently became a vigilante, just as Jessica became at the beginning of her show…which does tie into the Civil War theme – registration and co. Now AoS will have their internal conflict, and also a way to present the same situation from different angles…just as they have used Grant in S2 and the first half of S3. Fair enough, and hopefully they will not kill off Daisy in S4, because there are only so many ways one can go with her character now – they will either make a her a part of ‘the team’ once more…or not, in which case she will probably fall, alone, or…join the Avengers, perhaps?

This brings an important point: MCU is continuing to deviate further away from the comic canon. Hydra is gone, (well, for now – as Grant had shown in the beginning of S3, all you need to resurrect it are some thugs and a stencil of a stylized portrait of Hive), for example, and Rogers is alive. The movie’s producers gave some decent reasoning for Steve’s continued survival, but it is still a deviation, and the transformation of Daisy’s character, is another deviation. Just read ‘Secret Warriors’ comics to see the differences.

One can ask, what is the problem here? It is not so much of a problem, as a complication: some people will just go with the flow and enjoy the show… or they will not and stop watching it altogether, perhaps precisely because of this deviation: as far as ratings went, the S3 season finale managed to beat ‘Watchdogs’ by 0.02 million viewers, but it still quite a bit lower than the S2 finale was, for example. Now that Blood (Lance Hunter) and Palicki (Bobbi Morse) have left the show, the ratings have recovered, some, but they are still lower than they were even at the end of S2 – and the staff of AoS knows it. In the future, AoS will be running at 10 pm, rather than 9, and be darker and edgier. Again, this makes it different from AC, but ‘Agent Carter’ was cancelled. Pity, perhaps it could have been better than AoS.

Take, for example, the S3 finale – the fast pace of the double feature was very exciting, but also quite exhaustive even for the audience. Does it work to keep up drama and excitement? Yes, but it doesn’t quite replace the content: for example, May’s mourning of Andrew/Lash was reduced to a single shot in ‘Emancipation’, and as for the S3 finale proper? The entire attempt to defeat Hive with its’ hosts’ memories was kind of pointless and went nowhere, in no small part because Hive wanted to be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. so that he would unleash havoc and ‘Primitives’ upon them. Couldn’t something else, something that did not tie onto Grant, had been used?

Well, maybe not. Ever since Grant’s turn to dark side back in second half of S1 the show’s writers had tried to introduce an ‘anti-Grant’ onto the show, as Daisy’s love interest, perhaps. First, there was Trip – but then he died in the S2 mid-season finale…just because. Maybe AoS couldn’t handle two Afro-American actors in its cast? Mack took over as Daisy’s partner (and potential love interest?) in S3, but it was not the same, especially once Slingshot appeared as his love interest, especially since she did not die in S3 finale. That said, Trip never became Daisy’s love interest in S2, and neither did Mack, not really – that role went to Lance, and then – to Lincoln.

Seriously, if you watch the opening episodes of S2, then Daisy’s attitude towards Lance was like that she had with Lincoln for the second half of S3. Lance could’ve made a good ‘anti-Ward’, but then along came Bobbi, and the possibility of their own show, so Lance’s romance with Daisy vanished, and instead along came Lincoln, who died at the end of S3, just as Kara died in the end of S2, leaving Daisy devastated, as Kara did for Grant. …Yes, Daisy/Quake will not become a new Grant – i.e. a villain, hopefully, especially since she already did this in the second half of S3, thanks to Hive, but the similarities are there. Moreover, they are blatantly obvious: AoS disrespects its’ characters, unlike ‘Blindspot’, ‘Quantico’, or even ‘Killjoys’ – maybe that is why the ratings are falling? Who knows?

 Back to Lincoln? He became the ‘anti-Ward’, more or less, especially after Lance (and Bobbi) left the show. For, for as long as ‘the HuntingBird’ couple were on the show, Lance apparently got some of Lincoln’s lines and plotlines – AoS always had problems balancing out its cast, especially when it became large (10) in the S3 beginning, so it isn’t really surprising that ‘the fat’ was ‘trimmed’.

(Also – Palicki is more of a movie actress than a TV one. Ditto for Blood. That may too have been a factor in why ‘Most Wanted’ failed to launch – twice).

It is not likely that they will return to the series, especially since Palicki/Bobbi did not become ‘The Mockingbird’, no matter if she had been called this unofficially on various sites – the AoS itself did not call it this. Instead, Melinda May, Ms. Wen, became ‘The Cavalry’ – perhaps Bobbi/Palicki was supposed to star on Coulson’s team since S1? This could have made Ward much less sympathetic from the start, but instead things worked out in canon as they did, (May, Morse and 33 may have done something of a musical chair in S2), and Morse came out as a somewhat controversial character, at least for some viewers – and MCU does not like controversies. Nowadays, Hydra is gone, Grant is gone, and so’s Bobbi, alongside Lance.

The same goes for Lincoln/Luke. Just as in S2 were signs that Morse was supposed to be with Coulson from the start, and May – with Gonzales, S3 has signs that Brett wasn’t supposed to become Hive in the second half of S3, but remain Grant, albeit with powers of his own, all the way until the end. Brett, however, probably had it with character assassination, so Grant died in mid-S3 finale and Brett became Hive instead, making some of his best acting performances in AoS. Also, his last, (most likely), because not even Hive can survive a nuclear explosion in space. Yet…

Yet Grant Ward has appeared in AoS comics – as a double agent of Hydra for S.H.I.E.L.D., perhaps? He is certainly more redeemable and likable than how the show tried to present him. What gives? AoS show and comics are diverging further apart themselves, and making it all more confusing.

And as for Lincoln, then yes, he did become some sort of an ‘anti-Ward’ – and then died. As a hero, yes, but on his own. He was not part of the team, not ‘a piece of the puzzle’, which goes against the show’s own canon. Why?

Well, probably because Luke (i.e. Lincoln) did not want to be a part of the show anymore? Certainly, the twist where Lincoln decided not to stay with Coulson, despite his love for Daisy, was unfounded, but this is typical of AoS twists – they are not just unnecessary, but they are also unfounded. It is unknown, just who decided to keep AoS and let AC go, but it was a dumb idea. The AoS S4 is in the works. Just how successful it will be, and whether there will be a S5 is another story.

So. Skye/Daisy had experienced character assassination of her own and has come out broken. Lincoln is dead. AoS continues with plot twists, and has added episode pacing to them – some episodes go much faster, others – much slower, than the rest. Just like the plot twist idea, this idea is ambiguous and can go either way.

Finally, the old idea – of ‘Daisy and her men’, which was one of the major elements of the S2 and 3 plot – has been thrown out, and Daisy’s career and her relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. got restarted completely; AoS probably got restarted completely, with a brand new plot, just as it was supposed to do in S3, but instead it became an extension of S2, with plenty of old S2 ideas recycled for a newer, S3 season. Good luck to AoS with the upcoming S4 – it will most likely need it.

S.H.I.E.L.D., S3 finale - May 17

The final two episodes of AoS have aired, and what can be said about them? Just like ‘Emancipation’, AoS delivered drama – fast-paced, wonderful, epic drama, clad in sci-fi trappings. The actors, from Brett to Clark to Chloe to Ming-Na, have delivered wonderfully, truly coming alive for their characters, (although the connection between Hive and Daisy was just weird and did not went anywhere).

The pacing helped too – just as in ‘Emancipation’, the season finale was fast-paced – the faster, the better…at least in the writers’ opinion. It certainly added to the drama of the series, just as the plot twists helped. Ditto for the suspense. Put otherwise, AoS is a very different show from AC, which was cancelled – maybe because Hayley got a better deal, maybe for some other, unknown reason.

This is a note worth mention – ‘Agent Carter’, ‘Most Wanted’ (that is the second time in a row for this show that didn’t happen), few other shows, got cancelled a week or so earlier, for…no good reason? Weird, that.

Back to AoS… The season’s finale was fast-paced, was tangled, was twisted, as the agents and Hive sought to outtrick and outmaneuver each other, until Lincoln sent himself and Hive into space where no one could stop them from exploding with the warhead. As it was said before, the acting was superb, and the plot of the last two S3 episodes was solid, especially if NOT put into the rest of S3 context.

The bad sides? The finale was rushed – there were plot lines missing (i.e. what happened to Blake and the rest of his Watchdogs?), and there were characters missing – for example, the Koenigs, Thomas Ward, and especially Deathlok. 

The last absence is especially surprising – the agents are going against a crazy, ancient InHuman, who has something of an army on side, so a cyborg super-soldier sounds like a very good character to have on their side, but Deathlok is absent: perhaps his actor decided that he had enough of AoS too?

Otherwise…otherwise the season finale, and in fact the entirety of AoS was… somewhat apart from the movies – aside from Talbot’s pitch in the previous episode, there wasn’t much of a connection with the rest of the MCU, though Daisy has turned vigilante/rogue/anti-hero and isn’t a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore.

Basically, ever since the death of Gideon Malick, Daisy had beent turning into Grant, or at least a Grant-like character, similar to the one that took place back in the first half of S2. Brett, now, is gone, as is Luke, (right?!), so Daisy will have to figure it out on her own. Of course, there is also a question of whether or not Chloe will be back in S4, (of course, one can ask if whether or not there will be a S4 – it’s all up in the air, especially after AC got canned), so we will have to wait.

Until then – this is the end. For now.

PS: And Dr. Radcliffe had survived, and he has made a robot girlfriend for himself. How’s that for a S4 hook?

S.H.I.E.L.D, The Emancipation - May 10

The tide has turned. Daisy Johnson is Hive-free.

(As Talbot has pointed out – who comes up with these names?)

Once again, the AoS cast has delivered wonderfully – the acting was superb (from all people), the music numbers, the plot twists – everything came together in ‘saving agent Daisy’ from Hive. For further dramatic irony, it was Lash who did it – Lash/Dr. Garnier who was something of a villain himself in the first part of S3. Yet it is not surprising, for this is the AoS stock in trade – plot twists: the only real question was how S.H.I.E.L.D., including Lincoln, would trick Hive – and Daisy; nothing more.

…Yes, it is a sore point that everyone gets a redemptive moment, even Lash/Andrew, except for Grant, but this is over, and frankly, one has no idea if Whedon and co. have a new idea/villain for Brett to carry out in S4 – hopefully, however, once S3 s done, he is done, and gone from the show – he had enough character assassination for one show. Moreover, for fans of ‘SkyeWard’, you can watch such shows as ‘Blindspot’ and ‘Quantico’ – they are more realistic versions of AoS, done better.

And once you put plot twists – and highly professional, amazing, dramatic acting – behind, what are you left with? A solid, almost stolid, episode about loyalty and the like – the writers are doing their best to put the mess of S2 behind: the integration and ejection of Blood/Hunter and Palicki/Morse has did AoS more harm than good in the long run, and now…

And now, if Mack is the one to die as ‘the fallen agent’, and Hive will be finally defeated once and for all, the AoS main cast will be down to just 6 people once, which makes the initial inflation to ten kind of bizarre and pointless, but-

However, ‘The Emancipation’ was still better than ‘Laws of Nature’, where AoS went overboard not just with clichés, but also with references to MCU, making it a very annoying episode to observe. Here, the entire issue of the Avengers’ civil war is barely scratched (yet?) with just a few references for the sake of conversation (and to give Talbot a reason to be present?) and the matter of registration: nowadays Coulson is quite against registration, so it’ll…put him against Stark and Hill? In the same camp as Rogers (and Fury?). As Civil War has shown, you do not have to be Hydra to be evil – MCU’s baron Zemo has done an admirable job of doing just that, so if agent Felix is to survive, he can be the next big bad of AoS – in S4.

Put otherwise, ‘The Emancipation’ was an episode that was more dramatic than surprising, very enjoyable to watch and a good enough prequel to the big finale of S3 that is coming next week. Who knows how surprising it will be?

Pathfinder: Insinuator

An insinuator is an alternate antipaladin, who themselves are an alternate paladin. This one is derived from the drow antipaladin of Monster Codex. What do you think?

Drow insinuator 10

CE Medium humanoid (elf)

Init +5; Senses darkvision 120 ft.; Perception +11

Aura ambition (10 ft.), ego (10 ft.)

DEFENSE

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 24 (+10 armor, +1 Dex, +4 shield)

hp 79 (10d10+20)

Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +9; +2 vs. enchantments

Immune sleep, disease; SR 16

Weaknesses light blindness

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft.

Melee +1 scimitar +16/+11 (1d6+5/15–20)

Ranged heavy crossbow +12 (1d10/19–20)

Special Attacks channel negative energy (DC 18, 5d6), smite impudence 4/day (+6 attack, +5 damage, the insinuator gains 10 temporary hp)

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th; concentration +3)

1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire

Antipaladin Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th; concentration +13)

At will—detect balance

STATISTICS

Str 18, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 16

Base Atk +10; CMB +14; CMD 25

Feats Channel Smite, Combat Focus (B), Combat Reflexes (B), Improved Critical (scimitar), Improved Initiative, Shield Focus, Weapon Focus (scimitar)

Skills Acrobatics +0, Climb +3, Intimidate +11, Perception +11, Stealth +8

Languages Elven, Undercommon

SQ greeds (as paladin’s mercy, but only to the insinuator herself), ambitious bond (weapon +2, 2/day), invocation, poison use, selfish healing 8/day

Combat Gear potion of cure serious wounds, potion of delay poison, potion of haste, scroll of defile armo r, scroll of invisibility, acid (2), alchemist's fire (2), antitoxin; Other Gear +1 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, +1 scimitar, heavy crossbow with 10 mwk bolts, belt of giant strength +2, 69 gp

Why 'Carter' Shouldn't Be Cancelled

Now, there are rumors, that Agent Carter, (AC, not AoS), can be cancelled. To be frank, this can happen, and it will be wrong. AC has its own flaws: S1, in particular, was somewhat lackluster and almost verged on uninspired (which is one of the worst things that can happen in a TV show), but curiously, after the S1 finale, there were no rumors of the show being cancelled, and now, after a more successful S2, there are.

Let us pause and talk about what makes AC different from AoS. (Yes, there are Marvel shows on Netflix – ‘Daredevil’, ‘Jessica Jones’, etc., but they are a different case.) It does not try to do plot twists and turns the way that AoS constantly does, since the beginning of S2 – it is a fairly straightforward show: the good guys are good; the bad guys are bad; and yes, they both seem to be coming out of a Hollywood movie (and not an A-lister either): they may be almost clichés, but they are grounded in historical realism, which makes them more enjoyable to watch.

Yes, this is correct: AC does care about ‘historical authenticity’; maybe through a prism of sexual, and later on – racial inequality, but it is still more than what AoS does. Yes, Joey seems to be a gay character, but he comes and goes on screen, and the writers just might decide to write him off by killing him as the much-vaunted AoS S3 finale. …And it would be a bad idea – ‘100’ has killed off one of their sexual minority character, and maybe even more than one, and now they had a lot of bad reactions from the critics, something that AoS is trying to avoid in the first place. …Of course, this sort of ‘avoidance’ isn’t a best course of action too – ‘Blindspot’ (and maybe ‘Quantico’, maybe also ‘The Family’) is doing its best to depict the more controversial interracial and same-sex relationships; ‘The Catch’ is quite big on interracial relationships too.

The latter deserves a mention of its own. By now, most people know about the ‘Zootopia’ movie, which too has dealt with a number of modern controversies, including, perhaps, the racial issue, disguised there as the issue of relationships between various species, for example Nick the fox and Judy the rabbit, who are the main characters of the movie. For a further twist, Judy was a cop and Nick a street hustler for the better part of the movie – and now, in ‘The Catch’, we have two protagonists: a con artist and a private detective. Cough.

Yeah, the cough was intentional: ‘The Catch’ is largely ‘Zootopia’ for adults, turned TV series and with realism – i.e. it is a criminal/mystery drama, no sci-fi, no nothing. It is… a drama, with the actors acting out their characters really good; it is the other parts – the detective mysteries, the cons, etc. – that do not deliver and seem to be largely secondary, to add further spice for the drama. That said, it is not a bad TV series, just, almost, uninspired. Then again, so’s the latest version of ‘Supergirl’, and she is still very popular among the fan audience.

This brings us back to AC and AoS. The S1 of AC too was kind of uninspired and flat – but between the historical realism and a small, but tightly knit, cast, it still worked, and got even better in S2, where not just historical realism got more intense (i.e. the references to WWII), but humor got added, and integrated, quite well.

Now, AoS also uses humor as break in the tension, but sparingly, and only for a greater dramatic effect, as it did in ‘Failed Experiments’ episode, for example. When standing side to side, AoS is much more serious and dark than AC had become, not to mention the way it treats its characters, by killing them off on a regular basis? The AC does not do it, no, just no. Every member of the character cast is important and is not killed just for extra realism or drama…unlike on AoS. And no, do not talk about this sort of ‘fridging’ being important for realism – so far, ‘Blindspot’ is much more realistic than AoS is, (for the obvious reasons, but still), yet it doesn’t kill of characters just for drama. Yes, the FBI protagonists of the show often kill ‘bad guys’, but they are largely that – nameless, almost faceless, douchebags who are terrorists, or some other sort of criminal, and almost deserve to be killed by the heroic FBI people.

…Yes, this sort of attitude has led the U.S. to its defeats, military and otherwise, abroad, but still, this is more honest than AoS, it makes more sense than MCU, who want to make the audience ‘feel’ for Thanos. They already tried it with Grant Ward, and as a result made him into a more controversial character than they must’ve liked, so they tried to turn him back into ‘just’ a villain’ in the first half of S3, before just killing him off. Frankly, the man was better for it, while Coulson, who did the actual deed, is worse off, for the way that AoS has done it? It could have been done better, period, without the unnecessary drama, for example. Xena, the warrior princess, (cough, agent Izzy, cough), had killed Callisto once on her own show, and she did it much better than what has gone down with Coulson and Ward.

…And then there was the talk of redemption and second chances. Even S1 (Grant as Hydra) story arc didn’t really handle it very well, and when Coulson had tried to channel Obama during S2, when he was selling T.A.H.I.T.I. to Grant (and ignoring Kara, which was even more wrong), it didn’t really go down well either – for the audience. (In-between character interactions are a different thing). As a result, the entire talk of trying to save Daisy/Skye (at least), while creating parallels between her and S1 Grant are hypocritical, at least in part. Period.

And in AC, on the other hand? There actually is redemption, and mercy, even if they actually are not spoken about aloud. Dot, who was an evil minion back in S1, is becoming her own person, (and maybe not fully evil anymore), in S2. Whitney, who was the ‘big bad’ of S2, is not killed either, but is incarcerated, (which is better than death is, yeah?). Nothing like that has ever happened in AoS, where all villains die, period. (Moreover, see above, regarding ‘Blindspot’ on this sort of thing). Add this to the tightly knit character cast, and you get a different show from AoS yet again.

Yes, it is about Lance and Bobbi. Part of AoS problems is the fact how it tried to integrate this couple in itself in S2, only to part ways with them completely in S3, as they finally got their own show, (whose relationship to AoS is somewhat blurry at this stage). Seriously, WTH was with that? Blood and Palicki needed more cred with the audience? Considering how it went down with Kara and Bobbi, they really could have lived without it instead – and nothing like this has happened on AC either. (Not yet, anyhow.)

Anyhow, let us stop. AC is a very good TV series, and it does not deserve to be cancelled. The catch that at least one another TV series, Primeval: New World, became cancelled, regardless of it being fairly decent in its own right. P: NW became cancelled because the entire Impossible Pictures™ company went down – in part because of its own inconsistency, but in part because BBC™ was releasing a ‘new’ version of ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ TV series – this one a 3-D film regarding dinosaurs, and it was clearing the field from competition beforehand. One cannot help but wonder if this is something similar in MCU – AoS, and maybe ‘Most Wanted’ (the one that is going to star/be centered on Hunter and Morse) is trying to get rid of competition? One hopes not.

…In either case, I hope that I gave a good explanation as to why AC has become a better show than before, and why it does not deserve to be cancelled.

End

PS: And speaking of shows and cancellations? Hello, ‘Castle’. ‘Castle’ without Beckett just won’t be the same, you know? Now there is a show that should just quit on a high, rather than a low note. Period. 

S.H.I.E.L.D., Failed Experiments - May 3

And so, as the clock continues to tick down to the season finale, AoS tries to wrap up the stakes, especially considering that Civil War movie is hitting the big screens – or rather, HAS hit the big screens, and MCU’s other assets (well, primarily AoS at this point) are trying to catch up. What can be said about “Failed Experiments”?

The title is supposed to be dramatically ironic, one supposes. Hive was a failed experiment of the Kree; his, and Daisy’s, and Radcliffe’s experiment with the Kree had failed; S.H.I.E.L.D.’s experiments to free Daisy (and any other InHumans) from Hive’s control had failed; and Mack’s attempts to get to Daisy have failed. The only question is why Mack isn’t dead? AoS is toying with its’ audience, trying to rack up as much drama as possible before the big finish, when the good guys win…to a point. Lately, in S3, AoS seemed to have picked up BtVS’ earlier method, to finish an episode with a twist from the dark side, to hint at what the Scooby gang, (or nowadays the Agents’ gang), will be up against next. Well, it works.

And the actors do too – the acting between Henry (Mack) and Chloe (Daisy) was amazing; the other actors slash agents delivered too, but…now what? Yes, the question is rhetorical, for obviously the conflict will be escalating – S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. InHumans with Watchdogs and similar entities thrown in for the spice of it. From now on, AoS will be fairly straightforward, for Hydra has been destroyed and isn’t coming back…well, probably not. At the beginning of S3, all it took Grant is a gang of thugs and some Hydra™ stencils on walls to bring Hydra back. Who has to say that someone, like Baron Zemo, will not hit on the same idea, hm? However, this is theory, and in practice, Hydra seems to be finished, all that’s left is Hive, and either he will be destroyed…or not, since AoS S4, (if there will be one) will need some sort of a designated villain…and apparently Brett is the man to play them all. Even Lash had been taken out of equation for now, (and Andrew had been redeemed, sort of, so why the writers could not have done this for Grant?).

Otherwise, AoS has become a fairly straightforward TV series, which isn’t a bad thing, not considering how S2 had gone down (in part because of the integration of Blood/Hunter and Palicki/Morse, who are gone, and their spinoff is going to be quite separate from AoS, it seems), and so, as the nerves are getting racked up, (and the audience numbers/ratings keep going up, hopefully for AoS), the S3 finale is approaching. Let’s see what’ll happen next!

Captain America: Civil War - May 1

And so, Captain America: Civil War has finally became available to the masses. What can be said about it?

Great movie, great action sequences, the actors themselves pushed each other to the limit in order to depict their characters’ inner struggles. What else?

Per se, there are no ‘bad guys’ (something that lately has been played out in Marvel TV shows, especially AoS and AC). Well, no, there is Brock Rumlow/Crossbones from Winter Soldier film, but he is killed fairly early in the film, he is less of a character and more of a plot device, in the overall film. This is not a problem; Brian Jacques did this with his villains on a regular basis, but-

However, who is Brian Jacques? He was, during his life, a fairly popular author for children, writing faux-medieval novels about anthropomorphic animals: ‘Redwall’ and the like. As far as books went, Brian Jacques’ were straightforward: there were ‘good’ animals, such as badgers, mice, squirrels and hares, and ‘bad’ animals – rats, foxes, mustelids, etc. In any given Brian Jacques’ novel, all ‘bad’ characters would die by the end, and almost all ‘good’ characters, would survive, save for one or two, who would die for greater drama… Right. Any coincidences with AoS, especially the current season, are just that – coincidental, which is good, for nowadays, with Brian Jacques being, sadly, gone, so are his books: they had no staying power and were quickly forgotten once he was no longer around to write them; hopefully, this won’t happen to AoS (though every hiatus, at the end of the season, or the middle of the season, of AoS results in the decrease of viewers, cough).

However, AoS aside, what about the current movie? Not unlike the comics, Civil War film was about superheroes fighting each other, over the UN decision of registry and the issue of Barns: is he redeemable or not? Of course, there is also the thorny issue of what is redemption and how does one ‘eat’ it, but anyhow. The point is that the Avengers did not need any bad people/villains to have problems, and neither did the rest of the world, not when it had to wonder did it need the Avengers in the first place, and how do they fit in? Even Baron Zemo (he is called Helmut here; his name has changed over the ages) is not exactly a villain: he is just obsessed with revenge for what Hydra did in Sokovia back in Avengers: Age of Ultron movie.

This is actually a fairly notable deviation: in the comics, Baron Zemo is Hydra/Nazi, something that is not really depicted in MCU, and-

Last week’s episode of AoS had Hydra destroyed, perhaps for good, by the heroic U.S. military, cough. Between this, and Crossbones’ own demise in Civil War, Hydra is not likely to appear in any future MCU features. 

On one hand, this is to be expected. Hydra is causing quite a bit of controversy on the Web these days: whether or not it is Nazi or just fascist? In the comics, Hydra is depicted as predominantly Nazi, ((just as Leviathan is implied to be communist), but to be honest? It is the same type of argument as whether or not Adam and Eve (the book of Genesis), had bellybuttons, or not. To those who do not care, the entire issue is uninteresting, or worse, but to those who DO care, they care. A lot. In addition, they argue. Even more so. Creating arguments, controversies, etc. Moreover, odds are that neither Marvel nor Disney want it.

Few years back, back when MLP: FIM cartoon was in its second/third season, a background character was given a role and a voice: Ditzy/Derpy Hooves. Immediately, her debut produced many arguments between the fans – whether or not the character had a mental disability, whether or not the show was depicting her ‘correctly’, whether or not the show was depicting mentally disabled characters properly or not, etc. The result? Ditzy/Derpy vanished back into background – no speaking roles, no nothing, and has re-emerged only recently. Hasbro did not need the controversial hassle, and neither do Marvel and Disney in regards to Hydra, one supposes: they are moving MCU into a next phase, anyhow, so they can leave Hydra behind, only-

Only Hydra is a major part of the Marvel comic universe. Getting rid of it will cause problems at least for some people – not even because they were fans of it, but because it was a part of Hydra: ‘I hate you, but I will defend your right for freedom of speech because it is the right thing to do,’ cough. Odds are, this will hit the AoS show the hardest, because most other Marvel TV series do not deal with Hydra as much: AC is more concerned about Leviathan, ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jessica Jones’ are more concerned with more down-to-Earth threats, (relatively, since the Hand would certainly try to take over the world if given an opportunity), and ‘Power Man’, as well as ‘Punisher’ haven’t really been unveiled yet (‘Marvel’s Most Wanted’ isn’t likely to be dealing with Hydra too, but this is a separate topic), so who knows what they will be about?

But then again, stepping away from Hydra for a moment, there is also the matter of Captain America himself: in the movie, he does not die, and actually takes his share of the ex-Avengers to Wakanda. Make no mistake, this is a good thing, (at least in the short term), but the death of Captain America was a landmark, a milestone in Marvel comics; a feature that was a key element in Marvel for issues and months to come. Captain America isn’t dead; there is no Hydra or Red Skull (and WTF with that?), where will MCU go from here?

In the comics, the death of Captain America caused Tony Stark to take over S.H.I.E.L.D., which then, eventually, enabled Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) to take over – and in the process, there was the attempt of the aliens named Skrulls to take over Earth, but the Earthlings defeated them, with Deadpool, (yes, the same bloke, whose film also appeared ins still not distant past) killed the Skrulls’ Queen – and then Osborn stole the glory for himself, founded HAMMER, and initiated a stage in Marvel comics called ‘The Dark Age’. Here, the Captain is alive; Norman Osborn…ok, Spider-Man was also in Civil War, and he is getting his own film too, so Green Goblin, (his archnemesis), may not be far behind; and instead of Skrulls we got Kree and InHumans. Only InHumans’ movie was cancelled, (for now at least), so who knows what happens next?

The same thing goes for Spider-Man, at least to a point. Yes, both Captain America and Iron Man will appear in his film, but he had been ‘reset’ at least twice now in the Marvel-related films, so with him anything can go too – but this is beyond THIS particular film, eh?

So. Captain America: Civil War, is a very impressive and marvelous movie, (pun intended), which, however, still raises more questions than answers, and shows a further divide between MCU and Marvel comics. What will be next? No one knows.