Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Therefore, let us try to talk about WV the TV series instead.
First, yes, a big shout-out to the upcoming ‘Godzilla vs.
Kong’ movie trailer. After months, if not years of waiting, it was worth the
wait, showing the titular titans duking it out across the world, with Godzilla getting
the worst of it… in the trailer. How will the movie play out is another issue,
but the trailer was certainly very enjoyable. Now onto WV?
Here is the thing. Already ‘Now in Color’ was examined under
the metaphorical microscope and examined tightly. The most important topics of ‘Color’
were Wanda’s pregnancy and birth, and the official confirmation that ‘Geraldine’
is Monica Rambeau, aka Photon, so let us start with them.
…The pregnancy and birth themselves were done in a rather
light-hearted, airy style – i.e., unlike the first two episodes, ‘Color’ was
not just colorful, but pointedly sunny, light-colored, (pardon the tautology), and
light-hearted, whereas the first two episodes were, obviously, black and white,
(aside from the occasional splash of red, cough), aka chiaroscuro, creating a
rather stolid, if not a downright static, atmosphere within the series. Now,
with ‘Color’ we got color, and right now, it is of a pale and/or bright variety…
as opposed to, for example, the birth of Hope on X: WP back in the 90s.
Not unlike ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’, X: WP deserves a more expanded
mention if only because Xena/Lucy Lawless briefly appeared on MCU’s AoS in S2.
Despite her name, Hope was Gabrielle’s daughter from a demon-god Dahak, (in RL,
the name belongs to an apocalyptic dragon from the Zoroastrian religion), who
was one of the main villains on the show (and also on H: TLJ) for a while,
before Hercules killed him, (if I remember correctly), while Xena and Gabrielle
were able to eventually slay both Hope and Hope’s son, the first of the
supposed Seven Destroyers, a chupacabra-like monster… The point here is that Gabrielle’s
pregnancy and Hope’s birth were shown in a pointedly ominous style, complete
with a placid-looking goat, which is an indirect reference to the ‘Great
Adversary’, cough – and nothing like this was shown on WV; instead, we got
butterflies and a stork coming to life.
…Whether or not the butterflies are a reference to a Marvel’s
character I have no idea: the name slash moniker ‘Butterfly’ belongs to about
10 of them, and I do not know enough Marvel to decide as to which one. What I
want to point out here is the stork – we have talked about storks in the past,
about completely non-Marvel-related topics, (remember?), and one of the
stork-related themes was, and is, its’ association with bringing children, and
how it – we’re talking about the ‘common’ white stork, Ciconia ciconia – is a ‘positive’, ‘solar’, ‘life-bringing’ bird,
(especially in the European and Russian folklore). Put otherwise, Wanda’s
pregnancy and the birth of her twins appears to be a positive event, at least
for the MCU. And-?
And I got nothing, actually. Here, the world of MCU is
colliding with RL – the Disney/Marvel PR are making WV and its’ events A Big
Deal, but in reality? Neither Wiccan nor Speed, (the twins in the series), aren’t
that big of a deal in the Marvel comics; Wiccan, at least, appears on a regular
basis in them…because he is one of Marvel’s official same-sex characters, which
is A Big Deal…just for reasons that we won’t talk about here and now…but Speed?
He does not appear in Marvel comics at all lately, (though yes, due to
COVID-19, following Marvel comics has become rather tricky for some people;
real life sucks, cough). Where were we?
Ah yes, ‘Geraldine’. The 1x03 episode established that she’s
an agent of S.W.O.R.D., (probably), and showed her helping Vision and co. with
Wanda’s delivery, thus laying the groundwork for a potential friendship, if not
comradery, between the two women, (cough, future Avengers, cough). Sadly, given
how Wanda ejected ‘Geraldine’ from the pocket universe, the two women have a
long way to go just yet, if they’re to succeed in becoming friends, or at least
comrades…which is no way certain in MCU, let’s be fair…but there’s something
for that, for now.
However, before anything will happen in the future episodes
of WV, we must still discuss… no, not ‘Geraldine’s’ ejection into the world out
of the pocket universe, and yes, it is a pointedly and a purposefully sharp contrast
with the world inside the pocket: it is dark, it is night, and it might be
raining; plus, we don’t know anything about Monica’s position and status in S.W.O.R.D.;
and then, there’s Hydra…
Now that deserves face slap, and no mistake. Disney &
MCU just cannot make-up their mind about this evil organization: it was
supposed to be done and gone by the AoS’ S3 finale dash CA: CW movie; Zemo,
(who will be coming back as one of the main characters in ‘The Winter Soldier
& The Falcon’ series), says that Hydra is done flat out loud.
…And then AoS’ S4 happened and Hydra came back, and the
titular characters continued to lock horns with it on a regular basis; it would
be nice to assume that they have stopped Hydra for good in their final season,
but given how the AoS’ concluding scenes seem to be a remastered version of a
very different AoS, anything is possible.
On a more serious note, it seems that Hydra is just too
convenient and easy a villain slash organization for Disney/MCU to stop using,
as last week’s ‘Hydra Soak’ shows – already there are fan theories that Hydra
is behind Wanda’s pocket universe, rather than Mephisto is, for example. If that
happens… I got nothing just more proof that not just AoS, but also the rest of
MCU keeps on recycling and reviving their own old ideas, rather than bringing
in more original ones, from the comics, i.e. the ‘House of M’. …Without mutants
being an established presence in MCU, ‘House of M’ does not work anyhow, so I
confess that I am observing with some curiosity as to how the events in WV will
continue to develop…
Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!
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