Marvel Secret Warriors - Aug 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. On the other side, I found a… probably bootleg version of Marvel’s Kamala Khan animated movie – ‘Secret Warriors’ (2018). And?

MNW is voicing Hala the Accuser, firstly. I must admit that it was interesting to hear her voice someone else other than agent May, in a freaky way – this must be what it is like breaking the mold, (though yeah, I am not sure fully that this is what it means). There is a reason as to why Wen is in a good mood lately – she is leaving Melinda May behind, while staying on one hand in the Marvel Universe, (Hala is supposed to re-appear in at least one another ‘Marvel Rising’ movie), and coming to the SW universe on the other, (she’s playing some character in the ‘Mandalorian’, but so far details aren’t available). Go, Wen!

(Yes, Jon Favreau, aka Happy Hogan, from Disney/Marvel is also working on the ‘Mandalorian’. Disney is running a tight ship with all of its’ franchises, it seems. Hah.)

And go Chloe, who voiced herself… ok, Quake, in the same movie. Apparently, that woman is here to stay, and in this particular universe, she is partnered with Patriot, who is Rayshaun Lucas, aka a protégé of Captain America himself, in this corner of Marvel. As people can remember, MCU already had its’ patriot, Jeffrey Mace, in the S4, but that went nowhere fast, as this version of the Patriot didn’t survive AoS’ S4. Pity, but on the other hand, Mace is deceased in the Marvel comics proper, so Lucas can be the new Patriot without any copyright conflict. …Yes, a point is that Marvel continues to reboot its’ ideas, there was once a potential Quake & Patriot couple in a live action Marvel TV series…and now there’s a new potential Quake & Patriot couple in a Marvel animated movie series. 

Unlike Hala, who got her premiere in the Marvel animated movie in question, Quake is a well-established Disney/Marvel character by now, quite beloved, (regardless of what the fans think of the actual AoS TV series themselves), and ‘Secret Warriors’ 2018 didn’t really do anything other than to reboot her character – quite slightly – again. Chloe’s character Skye/Daisy/Quake/etc. had been rebooted a few times in AoS over the seasons, FYI, so ‘Secret Warriors’ 2018 don’t give any new twists in this aspect either. Ergo, go Chloe regardless! May you live long and prosper! Anything else?

Just wondering, how much the cast juggling had been influenced by Marvel’s approval and disapproval as the months, show’s seasons, and years went by? The critics loved the later seasons moreso than the initial ones, the audiences – otherwise, but Disney/Marvel itself? The Mouse is keeping mum, (at least until 2020, maybe moreso), but you cannot help but to wonder if Disney itself didn’t have a hand in making AoS the broken and re-set mess that it has ended-up at.

…There is another aspect to this situation – ‘Spider-Man’ the franchise. People are reckoning that AoS got cancelled at last for the same reason as to why Disney/Marvel is letting SM franchise going – they are no longer necessary. AoS had been the ‘proper’ Disney/Marvel toe- or fingerhold in the TV land, (even though not everyone in MCU proper thought that that was necessary, and as a result there were – and are – times, when AoS seems to exist in a slightly difference universe from the MCU one), but now that the Disney+ is launching properly, it is unnecessary, (and maybe also embarrassing) instead, and so they are getting rid of it.

With ‘Spider-Man’ the franchise it is more complex; ‘Far From Home’ (2019) set-up Tom Holland’s version of Peter Parker to be an important part of the MCU phase 4, and as we’ve discussed earlier, with him apparently gone, (and now it sounds like a done deal, Spider-Man is out of MCU for good for now), it will cause quite a bit of rebooting and redesigning to minimize the ripple effect; MCU has done it in AoS, and to a lesser extent – with Agent Carter both in regards to her own TV show and to her role in MCU proper – but it is a hit and miss thing. Does not mean that that fact will stop Disney/Marvel from doing that now that Spider-Man is gone, but Ms. Marvel, the Moon Knight, and the She-Hulk are in, (among other characters, new and old). Someone different will take over Peter Parker’s role, somehow, and we will only be able to wonder as to how Phase 4 was supposed to have been. Disney/Marvel will survive, somehow; Sony was able to hurt it quite painfully by standing its’ ground and not rolling over in submission, but nothing more. Now that it has acquired both the ‘X-Men’ and the ‘Fantastic 4’ franchises, Disney/Marvel has an even bigger range of options as to how to fix the damage its’ rift with Sony has caused. The fans, of course, are the true losers in this clash of corporate megafauna, but it’s real life. Did I not mention in the opening that it sucks? I believe that I have, but if you have forgotten, feel free to consider this a repetition of this mantra, period.

…And for now, this is it. See you all soon!

Pathfinder 2nd edition - Aug 25

…Now about that Pathfinder bit that I have promised to talk about earlier this summer, about its’ transfer from the 1^st edition to the 2^nd. What can be said about it?

Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes your neighbor from across the street starts to play the blues and you want to kill them before you kill yourself, just because you’re in that sort of a mood and you don’t know as to how to get out of it. What next?

The Pathfinder transfer in and of itself was clumsily done; it took place with the ‘Pathfinder Campaign Setting’ companion piece on the land of Druma, and unlike the previous installments – about Osirion, Cheliax, Belkzen, Andoran, Nidal, etc. – this piece felt less helpful to gamers who wanted to play in Druma, and more like an extra from the ‘Inner Sea Races’ core book. The latter is one of the less successful 1^st edition Pathfinder core books, BTW. It is four-fifths filler and the rest is nothing that could not be found in the Advanced Race Guide core book, for example. The piece on Druma reads the same – the enthusiasm that you could find in other PCS pieces just is not there; it’s still written well enough, but nothing more.

…And the same can be said about the new releases – the new adventure module, the new installment in the Age of Ashes campaign. They are written well enough, and there is a lot of exposition in them, but-

But while there is no denial that Pathfinder was always big on exposition, especially when compared to the 5^th edition D&D, for example, somehow they always made it work, (in the 1^st edition, that is), and it looked good. Here and now – the 2^nd edition Pathfinder – not so much. There is an excess of information, crammed together with none of the care, consideration, pacing, etc. that marked Pathfinder the initial version, but just various RPG notes that may be considered helpful when planning a new Pathfinder campaign (or whatever), or it may not.

…Yes, this balance – rules vs. fun – is always important when designing an RPG rulebook, regarding an RPG world or otherwise. We are currently playing a Space 1889 campaign, whose rules are quite different from both Pathfinder and 5^th edition D&D, and have a more ‘5^th edition d20 modern’ feel, we think. …Not that there is too much similarity between d20 modern and Space 1889, but still. What next?

Nothing. Right now, we are playing a campaign that is set in Space 1889 setting, on Venus. (In Space 1889, it’s a tropical world, if anyone cares). Currently, we are trying to figure out how to deal with a cranky old T-Rex that decided that it likes to eat people. Our PCs are civilians – settlers and the like – do not have sufficiently powerful firepower to defeat it in a straight down face-off, so we are trying to figure how to deal with it otherwise. Oh and there’s a bunch of Venusian Lizard-People running around, doing their own things… fun. Sometimes to have it you just need a change in perspective, or something similar, no?

Anything else? D23 (let us call it that) has also presented a trailer for the upcoming CGI reboot of ‘the Lady and the Tramp’. No, it is not about Lady Liberty’s interactions with her Donald the POTUS; it is a love story of two dogs. Yes, not unlike the LK franchise we are talking about animals here, but because they are animals living in a human world, (the human characters did not look CGI in the trailer, so I am assuming they are not), it works, because it is a story about two dogs that are living in a human world. The end. So far, the viewers’ attitude towards this is friendly, unlike the remake of ‘Mulan’ (coming in 2020), as the actress of the titular heroine made some politically obtuse statements, pretty much worthy of the abovementioned Donald himself, and now the potential audience is pissed; there’s a talk of boycotting and what-not. Of course, given that this is still only late August 2019, there’s still plenty of time for tide to turn regarding ‘Mulan 2020’, but given that real life sucks, let’s not be overly optimistic.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

AoS; S7 spoilers - August 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now, let us get back to AoS. Yes, they are on their finishing line, 2020 is supposedly the last season for them ever, though it should be acknowledged that it is possible that the SM fallout will affect them too, somehow, and they will get a reboot, or a reset or something – but that is not very likely. For the moment, Disney+ and co. are coming forth, and with them come the new TV series, including the Falcon-Bucky bromance, and the Wanda-Vison romance, and a Moon Knight new TV series, and several other, and SW series, (like ‘the Mandalorian’) and what else have you – put this way, even AoS finds itself to be unnecessary, and as for C&D & ‘Runaways’, it’s open end for them too – no one expected for ‘The Gifted’ to be cancelled with a with a whimper for example, did you?.. Of course not, but the truth is that AoS for a long time had been MCU’s main toehold in the TV world once AC got cancelled…and it is just as unlikely that it will return to the big screen, seeing how Captain Roger’s A: E finale had him back with Peggy, abruptly changing the entire minor plotline(s) that had been leading up until the CA: CW film in the MCU. It is not AoS alone that can experience reboots and resets, but in the case of Steve and Peggy it is a relatively minor one…but it cancels out the now-terminated AC the TV series for good, no matter how fun it was. In it, Peggy was moving on from Rogers, and in ‘Endgame’ Rogers moved right back in. For a while, he had a semi-relationship with Sharon Carter, but now she is gone for good, without a trace. Ouch again, unless there was never a Sharon Carter, but yet another one of Fury’s Skrull allies, which raises a completely different line of thought…where were we?

Ah yes, the promo for AoS final season. The bulk of it is taken by the Chromicoms, as they arrive in 1931 NYC, kill two corrupt cops and steal the face of a third one, literally, with a machine of some sort, in a manner that would make Cthulhu be impressed. Not too much, but still impressed. However, this was not what had caught my attention, but one of the lesser shots – in it, Daisy holds a bullet or a similarly shaped and sized object that had a glowing green Hydra logo on it. Oh, bother.

In the second half of S3 S.H.I.E.L.D. and general Talbot supposedly had killed Hydra for good…only for it to start to return in the last third of S4. Then, it was a Framework version of Hydra, supposedly not real, (the character of AIDA took on many roles in S4), but still Hydra. In CA: CW, Zemo tells a man he’s torturing/interrogating, that Hydra is done, gone, in the trash bin of history…and in AoS S5 Hydra promptly returns, this time as an ally of the Kree. S.H.I.E.L.D. defeats them both – again – and this time Hydra is supposedly gone for good, there were no indications of the evil organization in AoS S6, as far as I can remember, so let’s give AoS its’ due – but now, in the upcoming 2020 final season, it might be back. Why?

…Because AoS seems to be recycling its’ old ideas over and over, usually in new ways, but they do not always work well, as I have written repeatedly, discussing AoS in its earlier seasons and episodes. How AoS will handle Hydra’s return (to MCU proper?) this time I do not know, and I am unsure that it will be good, face-stealing aliens or not. Ah well, considering that Disney/Marvel and Sony are at loggerheads in real life, and suddenly MCU’s superiority is no longer assured, it might not matter for much longer – let’s first wait and see as to what happens in the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper by 2020 first and then try to make educated guesses.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

Spider-Man cancelled? - Aug 20

Real life sucks, and in this particular instance it does so because ‘Spider-Man’ is cancelled… wait, what?

I did not expect to return to my blog so soon, but the truth is that this is big news – Sony and Disney/MCU have come to blows at last, and Spider-Man is the biggest loser out of this fight.

On one hand, this is not too surprising: ever since our friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler appeared in the CA: CW movie, it was because of a Sony & Disney/MCU compromise, with neither side being too happy about it. Disney/MCU does not like Sony, and it is reciprocated. For a while – i.e., until now, late August 2019 – the two sides have maintained some sort of a truce, and then ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ came out into theatres, and it was a success, including in a financial manner – and it was also one of the few movies of the summer 2019 that Disney wasn’t in charge of, and didn’t get the better deal. Therefore, they moved forwards and demanded a more 50/50 cut from Sony, and when the latter refused, the partnership broke up. Now what?

There are not a lot of options, especially from an external P.O.V. Disney/MCU is the bigger juggernaut out of the two, and they are big enough to weather the fall-out if Spider-Man is gone.

…Here is the thing. Disney-Marvel MCU is, well, a marvel, working like clockwork, especially when compared to DCEU proper. As Comic-Con 2019 revealed, Disney/MCU have phase 4 all mapped out and are ready to proceed in 2020 with the Black Widow movie and onwards. The catch is that Spider-Man’s character is clearly an important lynchpin in the upcoming phase 4, as the ‘Far From Home’ movie has set him up: in his final battle against Mysterio, he takes on both Thor’s and Captain America’s characteristics, let alone the Iron Man’s – as the Iron Man’s heir, he may be the one to assemble the next version of the Avengers, and if he isn’t in MCU anymore, it makes ‘Far From Home’ a big fat red herring, and an unintentional one at that. As the ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ movie has shown, unintentional humor, red herrings and etc., are bad – ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ in particular is probably the worst X-Men movie ever—but we digress.

Can Disney/MCU make its’ phase four without Spider-Man…period? Yes, but odds are that it will be reminiscent of AoS from the second half of S2 onwards, and in a bad way. AoS constantly re-set and rebooted its characters, changed its’ script, and went around in torturous circles; if it wasn’t Marvel’s main toehold in the world of live-action TV, it would probably have never made it to S6/7, as it did. And now that Disney/Marvel is coming into live-action TV full steam, with Falcon and Bucky adventures, and Wanda and Loki adventures, and what else have you, AoS is quietly being shut down, in summer 2020, the end.

…But AoS is not MCU, and for a while, (especially in S3-4), it was almost a separate universe from the latter, and what it can make work, does not mean that MCU can. If MCU has to change its phase 4 from the plot where Peter/Spider-Man assembles the next Avengers in a post ‘Far From Home’ movie, to the one where there’s no Spider-Man per se, and someone else does his job, and ‘Far From Home’ just vanishes as water in the Sahara desert does, yeah, it’ll be a bigger loss for Disney/MCU than submitting to Sony’s demands – on par with Disney/SW alienating and fracturing its’ fanbase since the beginning…but that is another story.

Put more succinctly, it all comes down to money. Disney is greedy and does its’ best to make as much money for itself as possible. It is very good at doing that, but sometimes it fails – i.e., the ‘Solo’ movie only made millions of money, rather than billions, as Disney/SW had expected – and so they proclaimed that the SW9 movie will be their last movie for a while… and then that statement disappeared, rumors of more SW movies came forth, (though they have also dissipated by now), and also for a while, people were bombarded by SW comics, (though to what effect is debatable). Disney can do subtle and it doesn’t back down without a fight from anything, but in Spider-Man’s case, it isn’t dealing with public in general, or a specific fanbase in particular, but with Sony, which is its’ equal, in a lesser sort of way. Sony knows exactly what it is dealing with, and is not bowing down to the Mouse anytime soon. It knows that it has the advantage – if Disney/MCU decides that it is done with Spider-Man, then it is in a very uncomfortable position, (while Spider-Man can always re-surface in Sony’s own live-action universe, cough team up with Venom to defeat Carnage cough), as it will have to reboot and reforge its’ phase 4…and if it doesn’t, it will have to keep on the wall-crawler on Sony’s terms, so Sony wins again! Facing off with the Disney/MCU juggernaut, Sony became a smart fighter, so there!

…Unfortunately, it leaves us, as well as Tom Holland and his follow ‘Spider-Man’ (the franchise) co-stars hanging in the balance, as it is still not quite known if they will continue working with Disney/MCU in the future or not. Considering that we recently learned that Holland’s movie with Daisy Ridley (aka Rey from the Disney/SW universe) was deemed unsellable, tough break for him again, but that is real life. It sucks. Good luck to Disney and its’ associates: it seems that even nigh all-powerful juggernauts can be defeated on occasion, especially if their opponents are smart and know to hit it where it hurts – in the money.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!

Not quite a rant - Aug 19

Let us start this rant with the obvious: real life sucks. True, it sucks in various ways – in the People’s Republic of China, there is Hong Kong, in the RF – Moscow, and in the US – there is the Donald. It makes one wonder if Mr. Epstein didn’t commit suicide just to get away from it all; makes my problem – the fact that I’ve missed the AoS ‘S6 finale’ look positively pitiful.

…Of course, AoS in itself has become rather pitiful: the final two episodes – a double feature! – received some of the lowest numbers there were in AoS history, and that considering that on average AoS S6 did pretty good in its’ run. True, the fact that its’ other half – the so-called AoS S7 – will be airing only in summer 2020 – doesn’t help in the long run, but that is how life works. Anything else?

Officially – on 2019’s Comic-Con and the like – AoS did its’ best to pretend that Jeff Ward (Deke Shaw on the show) is one of them, possibly to counter the damage presented by him, when he stated on CM movie premiere back in spring 2019 that he and Iain hate each other; it was a better job than the one done by team Marvel, when they had Tandy and Detective Mandy appear on the ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ premiere to pretend that it was a part of the Marvel crew; that was simply sad – but Jeff Ward’s status on the show isn’t much better. Due to me missing the final three episodes, I do not know if he is with Snowflake or not, but if he is, it will certainly be a good and a convenient way for AoS to take him out of the picture without much of an effort.

No, seriously, while it is sad that May has died, and Yo-Yo may have died, and some other people have died, the truth is that people have died on AoS all the time, but as long as they were needed, they came back. And if they weren’t – they were gone, just ask Blood and Palicki; Blood did return for a S5 episode, but his role was perfunctory there, and when the old Marvel website published Blood’s interview for Marvel, it was also perfunctory and short – clearly, things weren’t as rosy there as Marvel wanted people to believe. Ah well, now that version of the Marvel website is gone, and so’s that interview. Life goes on.

And so do the characters of AoS – they constantly die and return. Coulson’s death was so tragic because he was supposed to stay dead, (CM the movie took place in the past of MCU-verse, so Coulson there didn’t really count, his role was more secondary to Fury’s, anyhow), but first we got ‘Sarge’, who was something of a faux-Ghost Rider, and now Coulson/not-Coulson is coming back for real in S7. Yay?

No, not exactly – yes, AoS as a whole retained a healthy fanbase, but the actual TV series has less and less to do with it, as the fans continue to ignore it more and more. Once the TV show is gone in 2020, the fanbase will go on, as it had done with GoT in 2019.

That deserves a mention of its’ own. GoT was also supposed to be present on Comic-Con 2019, but given its’ rocky finale and its’ now-damaged relationship with its fanbase…it did not. Seriously, its’ (former) cast and crew appeared on Comic-Con 2019 in a much abridged group, and then they quickly left altogether, leaving the fans behind. Yes, that was obviously intentional, seeing how the show and its’ fans parted ways badly – the fans almost practically demanded a remake of GoT S8, and the cast dismissed it very brutally, maybe unnecessarily so – behold the power of Internet, where you can talk flak about other people and they cannot do anything about it! …Oh wait, they can always confront you in real life, face-to-face, on such an unconventional place as a Comic-Con, and then what do you do? Apparently, you talk between each other, and eventually reach a conclusion that while you do not care about them, you are make sequels and spin-offs, and what else have you from GoT, so you actually do not want to alienate your fans further, lest they decide to abandon you completely in favor of something else.

This probably brings us to Martin-man himself – recently he claimed to be relieved ‘to be free’ of HBO and GoT or whatever. Jolly good, but we’re living in an age where printed media is on the downswing – I come to a bookstore, and find it full of unsold books – Riordan, and J-Ro’s HP, and even Martin’s ASOIAF sitting on shelves in various, glorious recent editions, unsold. In fact, some of the bookstores themselves are closing and are remaking themselves into Internet stores or something similar. By contrast, comic book stores and the like are going on strong, which rather brings us back to AoS: in the past, they tried to launch a comic series reminiscent of the series, but they couldn’t make two full volumes of their comics – that’s less than 12 issues, i.e. Given how AoS is relatively successful on TV, this is just sad. What next?

The other point of contention as to why my life sucks right now is the Pathfinder RPG. It had rebooted itself into a second edition, which is very much like the fifth edition D&D. D&D itself seems to be going through some redesigning crisis, but we have largely dismissed it since the fifth edition version took off. Are the two events connected? Hard to say.

…And getting back to our earlier discussion to the printed media, it should be noted that in the 3.5 edition D&D, there were two series of magazines, ‘Dragon’ and ‘Dungeon’. Actually, they were around since the first and second editions of D&D, so they were formidable! And then, when D&D switched from 3.5 to the 5^th edition, those magazines became completely online – you still had to buy them, of course, but it was all done through Internet, and PayPal, and what else have you – and its’ old website (from the 90s) became practically a paysite with minimum free features. D&D attempted to do something similar in the past, true, but that transformation was still unexpected, and not entirely welcome.

As for Pathfinder, their official website is largely a place to buy slash order their products online, (if you cannot buy them physically in stores), plus a forum, plus a newsboard – nothing so glamorous and encompassing as what the D&D 3.5 edition used to have, but then again, by now they have diversified into Starfinder as well – the sci-fi twin to Pathfinder’s fantasy. Neat! And there are also websites that offer an access to information from most of the core books as well. Go Pathfinder!

…Well, no, since its last campaign path – the one set to set the PCs against Tar-Baphon – had devolved into a hot mess. Thank someone that we did not get embroiled in it. But then again, this was supposed to be a rant about why life sucks, but we have veered into something different entirely, so let us call it a night and let us end here. Aka—

This is it for now, see you all soon!

PS: Here is an alebrije to finish off this rant, (from the Pathfinder campaign path mentioned above):

CROCODILE CR 4

XP 600

N Large magical beast (extraplanar)

Init +1; Senses darkvision 120 ft., dreamsight, low-light vision, scent; Perception +14

DEFENSE

AC 15, touch 10, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +6 natural, –1 size)

hp 32 (3d10+21)

Fort +6, Ref +4, Will +2

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft.; sprint

Melee bite +5 (1d10+8 plus grab) and tail slap +0 (1d12+6)

Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Special Attacks death roll (1d8+6 plus trip)

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3^rd, concentration +3)

3/day—dream, nightmare (DC 11)

1/day—dream council (DC 12), dream travel (DC 12), mind thrust III (DC 10), plane shift (self plus 50 lbs of objects only)

STATISTICS

Str 23, Dex 18, Con 21, Int 5, Wis 18, Cha 6

Base Atk +2; CMB +7 (+11 grapple); CMD 18 (22 vs. trip)

Feats Skill Focus (Perception, Stealth)

Skills Knowledge (arcana) +4, Knowledge (planes) +4, Perception +14, Stealth +11 (+19 in water), Swim +16; Racial Modifiers +8 on Stealth in water; Racial Modifiers +8 Knowledge (arcana), +8 Knowledge (planes)

SQ hold breath

Languages Common; telepathy 100 ft.

ECOLOGY

Environment warm rivers and marshes

Organization solitary, pair, or colony (3–12)

Treasure none

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Death Roll (Ex) When grappling a foe of its size or smaller, a crocodile can perform a death roll upon making a successful grapple check. As it clings to its foe, it tucks in its legs and rolls rapidly, twisting and wrenching its victim. The crocodile inflicts its bite damage and knocks the creature prone. If successful, the crocodile maintains its grapple.

Dreamsight (Su) Alebrijes are able to notice and locate sleeping creatures within 500 ft., as well as creatures engaged in similar rest, such as meditation or resting trances.

Hold Breath (Ex) A crocodile can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to 4 times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.

Sprint (Ex) Once per minute a crocodile may sprint, increasing its land speed to 40 feet for 1 round.

What do you think about it? How does it look?