Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but I was able
to squeeze out some time to write down this, so let us go straight into
escapism.
First – ‘Hawkeye’ episode 1x04, ‘Partners’. So far,
there is no sign of the Kingpin, though since Charlie Cox’s Daredevil is
returning to MCU, hope is kindling. Whether or not this reboot will be
connected to ‘Hawkeye’ is another story.
Let me elaborate. MCU tries to be a complex, combined
universe; it is trying to gain an advantage over team DC, when the latter had
created its own world out of ‘Arrow’, ‘Flash’, ‘LoT’ and ‘Supergirl’. However,
whereas DC tried to restrict itself to just those four TV series, (‘Black
Lightning’, ‘Batwoman’, and so on were more distant), MCU is trying to make a
much more tangled web, given how all of those Marvel TV shows are coming to
Disney+ in the future.
…However, as Netflix’s take on the ‘Defenders’
franchise showed, to make a shared universe is harder than how it looks; the TV
shows that made this franchise up were quite different from each other, and not
necessarily in the good way, so there’s no sign that Disney/MCU will have it
better: so far, the various Marvel TV shows were treated separately from each
other – but yes, Yelena Belova, I’m looking at you.
Yes, Natasha Romanoff’s baby sister has appeared in
‘Hawkeye’ at last, as she took the titular character – I mean, Barton – on for
size, but Barton was able to stand his ground and even send her packing, but
given that she’s Natasha’s replacement, (even before ScarJo had her feud with
Disney/MCU, cough), this certainly isn’t the last time that we’ve seen her.
What next?
Well, the other Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, was also able to
stand up to Maya Lopez/Echo and even get the best of her. Given that in
‘Echoes’ Barton was unable to defeat Maya, this is certainly important. But-?
But here is the thing. The action aspect of ‘Hawkeye’
is great and so far, it is the motor of the series; whenever there is a lull in
the action, the show has problems: the discussion that the titular characters
had with Ms. Bishop and William was painful to watch, for example. It did serve
a purpose, as Ms. Bishop then made some sort of a mysterious phone call… and
what do we know about her, and her deceased first husband, anyhow? Nothing in
MCU, but in the comics Kate’s mother did work with that version of Madame
Masque; MCU had its’ Madame Masque in the character of Agnes Cully, but that
was in the past, a different villain can assume that name easily. (Not to
mention that Agent Carter and her cohorts defeated Agnes). Where were we?
Ah yes, the mysterious phone call. So far, the fans
have enjoyed wondering just how Kingpin was going to fit – to re-fit, pardon me
– into MCU. Much was talked about how Echo was his stepdaughter in the comics,
and in MCU, she had a mysterious, unseen, ‘Uncle’. Sadly, it is never confirmed
that that man was Fisk, not to mention that ‘Hawkeye’ already had an uncle –
William’s uncle Armand, who died off camera in unknown circumstances, while
William himself owns a company that launders money from the Tracksuit Mafia,
which is led by Maya and Kazi. Oh dear, I fear that we are going to have
another red herring on our hands…unless Ms. Bishop is calling Fisk for real.
Now what?
Well, aside from the fact that Clint Barton tried to
dissolve his relationship with Kate Bishop – ha-ha, he thinks that it is up to
him – we got a new look at a new dinosaur from the upcoming JWD movie, and it
is the therezinosaurus. In RL, it was the biggest of plant-eating theropods,
(i.e. the dinosaurs that were usually carnivores instead), and it looked…well,
people know how it looked/looks – just look in the deviant-art website, for example;
it looked either like a cross between a giant ground sloth and a goose, or like
a prosauropod dinosaur instead.
Here is the thing: as far as the dinosaurs go, there
is the ornithischians, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus and
the Triceratops, and the saurischians, or the lizard-hipped dinosaurs. The dinosaur
carnivores – Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Archaeopteryx and so on – belonged to
that group, but so did such herbivores as the Apatosaurus: the sauropods, and
their prosauropod cousins.
For a good long
while scientists assumed that the sauropods such as the Apatosaurus have
evolved from the prosauropods, but now the two dino types are considered to be
sister groups instead. What does that entail for paleontology I do not know,
but what I do know that some of the prosauropods moved on two legs rather than
four, and their forelimbs had rather impressive claws – such as the
Plateosaurus, one of the last, and the biggest, of prosauropods. It was still an
herbivore, just as the other prosauropod and sauropod dinosaurs were, but so
was Therezinosaurus and its’ relatives, which physically were similar to
Plateosaurus and the like. I.e., yes, Therezinosaurus and co. were the dinosaur
analogues of the giant panda, carnivores, which switched to a purely
plant-eating way of life, but the thing is that the lizard-hipped dinosaurs
have evolved something similar way back in the Triassic, (Therezinosaurus and
the rest lived during the late Cretaceous instead), so it isn’t too unexpected,
actually. Nature tends to recycle its’ ideas, and while Therezinosaurus was
unusual, there was precedent for this type of dinosaur and dinosaur body plan
as well.
As for the Therezinosaurus’ role in the upcoming JWD movie…
I really cannot tell. So far, we only know that it might have chased Claire into
a swamp… or it may be just a promo poster instead. It is hard to tell, and since
this is a cloned Therezinosaurus, and not a member of the prologue, it may not
really matter.
…Yes, this may be crude, but at the end of the day?
The prologue of JWD was yet another attempt at authenticity in fiction, just as
the fact that the actress who plays Maya Lopez in ‘Hawkeye’ is disabled in RL.
No offence, but RL and silver screen are not directly connected, and though I
have enjoyed Maya’s interactions, cough, with the titular characters, that is
because her actress is naturally talented, not because of disabilities, RL or
otherwise. The silver screen and RL are not equal to each other, and neither
are they in direct symbiosis to each other, as the elections of 2016 showed
everybody. Not that the elections-2020 were much better, but that is another
story.
For now, though, this is it. See all of you –
eventually!
