She-Hulk trailer 1 - May 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the trailer for the upcoming ‘She-Hulk’ series; even as a trailer, there is already controversy surrounding it, as some people have called it ‘woke crap’. To this, sirs and madams, I can reply with this repartee: and what is so woke about it?

What does the trailer actually depict? The titular character, of course, albeit in her depiction as a metahuman lawyer, rather than a vigilante or anything like that. This was a period in the She-Hulk’s comic life, though the last time I saw her, her character was redesigned, and she was working with the Avengers’ in her cousin’s place, while Bruce Banner did his own thing, with his own crew, as the Immortal Hulk, or something to this extent. Consequently, in the trailer, we see the She-Hulk mostly in her lawyer incarnation, we see her interacting mostly with Bruce in his green state and with her bestie, (an unnamed white female lawyer), and some shots of the Abomination as well.

What else does the trailer tell us? Why, nothing – it shows, not tells, just as the ‘Ms. Marvel’ trailer did. Only, in case of Kamala, we also learned that Disney/MCU has redesigned her character; in the comics, Kamala is an InHuman – her powers come from inside, from her DNA. In MCU, Kamala is not an InHuman – her powers will come from some cosmic bracelet instead. This is not surprising – between AoS’ InHumans being all over the places, and the ‘InHumans’ 2017 TV series being simply insipid, Disney/MCU doesn’t want to bring back the InHumans at all, (which makes bad news for Chloe Bennett’s Daisy/Quake character, but I’m done caring about her by now), so naturally Kamala is getting a redesign… just in time to meet her S1 archnemeses… who appear to be bland corporate types. Right. Where were we?

Right, the trailer for ‘Ms. Marvel’ was rather insipid in its’ own right, and the trailer for ‘She-Hulk’ is the same. Both trailers show the titular characters doing things, such as acquiring their powers, but nothing to little else. This is frustrating to the viewers to say the least, and so, naturally, they begin to accuse the two shows of being ‘woke crap’ – but there is nothing ‘woke’ about either ‘Ms. Marvel’ or ‘She-Hulk’ – the two trailers are just crappy, and that is that. Whether or not the same can be said about the actual shows remains for the future, when they will come out onto the streaming services…

For now, this is it. See you all soon!

Giant salamanders - May 16

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but we're going to talk about a RL animal altogether, since Marvel and co. are lying low for the rest of May. Therefore, where are we?

Let us talk about the cryptobranchid, or the giant, salamanders of Asia and North America, simply because they are in their own suborder. Pause

There are three suborders of the tailed amphibians, aka newts and salamanders, and the overwhelming majority of them belong to the Salamandroidea suborder; the only exceptions are the sirens of the south-east North America, (USA), and the aforementioned giant salamanders and their relatives, (more on them below).

The sirens’ differences from the rest of the salamanders are obvious: they are probably the most neotenic of all the tailed amphibians: not only they have external gills, but they also have only front legs – no hind ones. Pause.

Whereas in frogs and toads it is the hind legs that develop first, in newts and salamanders it is the front ones instead; plus, their tadpoles have external gills, while the frogs and toads acquire internal ones very quickly; the legless caecilians, the final group of the modern amphibians, also seem to have external gills, but they are much less known than the other two, so they will be mentioned only in passing – wait.

Getting back into the mists of time, the thing is that the modern amphibians only began to appear around the time of the K-T extinction 66 MYA; before then, especially during the Palaeozoic and the early Mesozoic, completely different groups of amphibians ruled. The thing is that while initially paleontologists went with a linear P.O.V. and proclaimed that amphibians evolved from the fish, and reptiles – from the amphibians, by now it is clear that these statements are much vaguer than scientists have initially imagined.

Yes, the initial land vertebrates have evolved from fish, (as there were not any other vertebrates), but these days scientists tend to classify those early semi-terrestrial semi-aquatic animals as ‘tetropods’ and prefer to differentiate them from the amphibians because of reasons. Ditto, right now the actual ancestors of the reptiles is unknown; the reptiles have appeared back in the Carboniferous, (as shown in ‘Walking with Monsters’, for example), though they were small at that time – about the size of the modern lizards on average, (but, again, they weren’t really related to the modern lizards and snakes at all); yet they were already differentiated from the amphibians. However…

However, for a while, in the late Paleozoic, there were the so-called reptilomorph amphibians – amphibians that had reptile-like traits in adults, but their young still had gills and lived in water… and why should not they? The amphibious way of life – when the young and the adults of the same species have different… everything and thus do not compete with each other – is clearly advantageous, as the amphibians’ evolutionary history, from the Devonian to Recent demonstrates; however…

However, somewhere along the line, things have diverged at least for some tailed amphibians, as they evolved neoteny, a condition where juvenile traits persist into sexual maturity. Actually, neoteny is present in several groups of animals, including insects, so let us for now focus on the tailed amphibians: for them, neoteny is when a species has both sexual maturity and external gills, (with the sirens going one-step further, as we already said). However, the giant salamanders are a different story.

Why? Because while they are mostly aquatic, (as the neotenic amphibians are), their adults lack external gills. Yes, their young hatch underwater, have external gills, eventually grow legs…but unlike the axolotl and the mudpuppies, their gills disappear with sexual maturity; instead, they grow skin folds and the like to extract oxygen from the water instead, which is a different story altogether – but what it is?

To recapitulate, metamorphosis came before neoteny – for a while, there was no obvious reason to evolve the latter, but when it did… either the giant salamanders were too late, apparently, as plenty of other salamander groups and subgroups had, and so the giant salamanders couldn’t ‘fit in’… other the giant salamanders were too early: they began to stick to a mostly fully aquatic lifecycle before the other salamanders evolved neoteny, and since there was no competition, they flat-out didn’t evolve it, as there was no need for it. What next?

While throughout Earth’s history there were plenty of giant salamander subgroups, right now, there are only three species around – one in North America, and the other two in Asia. The American hellbender is the smallest of the three – no bigger than 70 cm long, about the size of a small child at best… but the bigger species of North American mudpuppies don’t grow over 48-50 cm long, so, obviously there’s some other factor at work, since the Japanese giant salamander reaches 150 cm in length – the size of a small adult – and the Chinese species – reaches 180 cm, which is the size of an average adult instead. Pause.

Let us get into the ecology of the giant salamanders instead. While they might be vaguely associated with the crocodiles, they really are not. The crocodilians divide, among other ways, into two broad categories: narrow-snouted fish-eaters and broad-snouted ambush-hunters of land animals. By contrast, the giant salamanders live most of their life underwater, and they do not ambush land animals, yet their heads and snouts are shore and broad instead. Therefore, whom do they resemble instead?

Why, the catfish, and especially the wels catfish – one of the biggest freshwater catfish species of them all. Just as the giant salamanders, the wels catfish is active mainly at night; it hunts by swimming along the river bottom, sensing the prey with its whiskers and swallowing them whole. The giant salamanders’ don’t have such as advanced whiskers as the wels catfish does, but neither does the burbot, (another fish), and it does the same thing too, but being around 1 m 24 cm in length, (in the size range of the giant salamanders, cough), it just cannot compete with the wels catfish size-wise. Where are we?

Ah yes, entertaining my theory that the giant salamanders, (also known as the ‘primitive salamanders’ in some nomenclature, while the other, non-siren salamanders, are known as the ‘advanced salamanders’ instead), are the ecological analogues of the wels catfish instead. The hellbender lives in the Eastern United States, where there is not any natural analogue of the wels, and, again, it is the smallest living member of the cryptobranchids. The Japanese giant salamander lives alongside the Biwa catfish – a wels catfish variant… which is endemic to a single lake only, and the Amur catfish, which is around the size of a large burbot instead, so the Japanese giant salamander can handle it.

As for the Chinese salamander, this is where things get murky. These days, there are actually two species of this amphibian: the Chinese salamander proper, and the South China giant salamander; both species are critically endangered, (i.e., in a much worse state than their Japanese and U.S. cousins), and there may be more species of the giant salamander living there – they just have not been identified and confirmed by the scientists yet. Still, the Chinese giant salamander species’ complex is struggling – from habitat destruction, water pollution, harassment from humans, hybridization with the Japanese giant salamander…and maybe from the competition from the introduced wels catfish? Who knows!

One last thing. The kappa. In one of the RM episodes, our main man JW went to Japan to confront the Biwa catfish and the Japanese giant salamander, which he proclaimed to be the root behind the kappa legend. With all due respect, JW, but on this occasion you’re a flat-out wrong; the kappa was never depicted as even vaguely salamander-like, but as a turtle-like humanoid instead. Therefore, that is that.

For the moment, though, we are saying good-bye to the giant salamanders. See you all soon!

Paleologic, Elasmotherium - May 13

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let's talk about something different - the Paleologic YouTube channel. Way back when I have watched the Paleologic premiere video- about Elasmotherium, the ‘laminated beast’. Therefore, what about it?

First, the Elasmotherium- and there were several species, not just one - weren’t true rhinos, but their close cousins. Fair enough, for ecologically- and superficially- the two sister groups come off very similar to each other: yes, the Elasmotherium were grazing specialists, but so are the modern white rhinos, (there are two subspecies - yet), with their low-slung heads and wide lips & mouths, so the Elasmotherium weren’t too atypical from the ecological point of view.

To elaborate, perhaps unnecessarily: there are still 5 species of modern rhino, but except for the white rhinos, they are more of browsers instead of grazers. Their grazing lifestyle makes the white rhinos different from the other rhinos- but what about the Elasmotherium?

Second, the Elasmotherium may not have horns; actually, the horns alone are different, since the rhinos have them on their noses, while the Elasmotherium had them on the crowns of their heads. There’s less cave art and similar evidence for them than for some other Ice Age mammals, but it is there, and it shows the Elasmotherium with horns, rather than hornless. Plus, their fossilized bones imply that they had huge heavy horns on their heads as well.

Finally, given that the Elasmotherium died out so recently, there’s a chance that humans may have encountered them - and this was one source of inspiration for the unicorn myth. Yes, the Elasmotherium was probably about as ‘friendly’ as their rhino cousins can be, but keep in mind that the aforementioned rhinos can be rather horselike in appearance, (ever saw a black rhino run, for example? Its’ trot is surprisingly horselike), and second, while in the West the unicorn was a mild and gentle creature, in the Middle East, the one-horned beasts were brutish and fierce instead, especially the beast called the Karkadann, which the scientists declare now to be a fictional descendant of the modern Indian rhino instead, but who knows?

The Slavs too had their monstrous unicorn - the so-called Indrik-beast; its’ depictions are vaguer than the karkadann’s, but it too had a single horn, a robust body, (more like a bull’s than a horse’s, cough), and a fiery temper - a rather unicorn-like creature gone rhino-like. Was it also inspired by the Elasmotherium? Who knows…

Anything else? Well, if the Elasmotherium would still be around in the Modern times, it would have been quite interesting, though given as to how the humans are driving the modern rhinos to extinction ? This rhino cousin might have gone extinct anyhow instead. And so far, it is not much in the modern media- save for the “Prehistoric Park” mini-series, I have not seen the Elasmotherium at all, (and on that show, it was depicted- and acted - like a modern bull rhino, BTW).

So, I guess that this is the end of our talk about the Elasmotherium for now. See you all soon!

Dr. Strange 2 movie - May 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ film instead, now that there is no worry about spoilers. Therefore, what about it?

…Not unlike most of the Phase 4 MCU TV series, ‘Dr. Strange 2’ was a transitional tale, even moreso than ‘Black Widow-2021’ was. Both of the movie’s main characters – Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff – emerged greatly changed between the movie’s start and finish; the rest of the characters – well…

- America Chavez is a brand-new character in MCU, so she does not need to change; her being in MCU is a change enough.

- Mordo got rebooted in a manner of speaking, since the Mordo we saw in this movie was a Mordo from a different universe than the one we saw in the first ‘Dr. Strange’ film, (2016), though the two versions of the good baron were similar enough to each other.

- Christine Palmer changed from the titular character’s main love interest into, well, not – she seems to be engaged to someone else now, and with Clea appearing in the mid-credits scene, clearly, she and Stephen are done with each other for now.

- And Wong… apparently, he is the sorcerer supreme in the film; I am not sure if it is the main timeline or one of the secondary though; regardless, Wong underwent some of his own changes, so yay for him!.. What next?

…The movie is wonderful in the way that ‘Morbius-2022’ was not: the script, the plot, the acting and the scenery all work, and the fact that ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is firmly rooted in ‘the greater MCU’, helps as well. This movie is a direct continuation of both ‘Dr. Strange 1’ film, and the WV TV series; Wanda Maximoff finally reaps what she has sown on one hand, while Dr. Strange continues to evolve as a hero and to make new friends. Pause.

Yes, the latter point is important enough for further elaboration: in MCU especially, heroes tend to have friends, while villains do not. Admittedly, the titular characters of such shows as ‘Loki’ and MK have blurred the line some, but the distinction is still there, even as Loki and MK become ‘proper’ heroes, (whether willing or reluctant or something else is another issue altogether). As such, Wanda’s growing social isolation since the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ film is a clear (one out of) sign that something is wrong with her, (at least on the obvious level). By contrast, Dr. Strange has no such problems – he’s got Wong, he got Christine, (more or less), by the end of his second film he’s got America, he may have Peter Parker and his friends… well, the last one is kind of squeaky, as at the end of ‘No Way Home’ Peter got his wish for total anonymity, and now he has to figure out as to where to from here to get out of this mess. Still, unlike Wanda, Peter does not appear to have turned to unholy magics to bring back his aunt back from the dead, but, again, when it was touch and go with the Green Goblin, Peter did have friends – and his counterparts from another two realities – to keep him afloat. Wanda Maximoff, on the other hand – not so much, unfortunately…

Getting back on track, another important point made by ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is that you cannot use the multiverse to replace what you have lost; the infinite realm of possibilities also has an infinite number of ‘yous’ using/utilizing those possibilities…but Michelle Yeoh’s take on the multiverse has already depicted this concept before this film did, so, what’s next?

America’s sexual orientation? Not unlike Disney/MCU’s overall policy, this aspect of her character was underwhelming…though in RL, Disney is already in trouble with U.S. Republican party regarding their take on the U.S. sexual minorities, while overseas, in China, the ‘No Way Home’ film was banned/censored because it used the Statue of Liberty, among other things. That said, clearly Sony and Disney/MCU have their issues with each other still, as Spider-Man also got firmly sidelined in the main Marvel MCU timeline; fair enough, the rest of MCU is moving on.

…One important point relates to the element of horror in the movie; while ‘Dr. Strange 2’ can be rather gory at times, (and we might get to it later), someone – at ‘The Wrap’, I think – proclaimed that ‘Dr. Strange’ isn’t supposed to entertain fans. I am sorry, but what is it supposed to do? Give Cumberbatch, Olsen and co. justification for their career choices? ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is a movie designed to entertain, rather than to educate and/or to inform, for example.

This brings us to the Illuminati, or at least – to one of their versions, which existed only for Wanda to kill them and to gain more XP in the process… I mean, to show the audience as to how much she fallen since the events in WV, and that is a lot. In WV, Wanda was bad enough, when she mentally enslaved the entire town of Westview with her powers in her grief, but now she is just killing people – and very powerful people, too. That said, the critiques that the Illuminati served only as props to show-off the new dark Wanda are quite justified, and the use of those characters in the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ movie are justified – maybe some different approach to give Wanda more XP would have been better…

However, ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is still a good movie, one that aimed to properly depict the multiverse of MCU for the first time, (even ‘No Way Home’ was more of a forerunner instead). The restraints of live-action films (it’s slightly different with TV series, as AoS’ S7 showed), is such that ‘Dr. Strange 2’ focuses on alternate versions of Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff only, but because ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is a good film, this take works, so yay!

…And for now, then, this is it. ‘Dr. Strange 2’ is a good film, very enjoyable, (relatively aware of its’ limitations, and may not always be as imaginative as you’d expect, but still the good outweighs the bad here), and very fun to watch, so watch it! Otherwise, I will see you all soon!

Moon Knight, 'Gods and Monsters' - May 4

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the MK season one finale instead – and it is a jumble.

Ok, no, let’s try again: for a show that aimed at talking about the mysteries of the mind on one hand, and that was flipping between the various settings – a mental institution, U.K., Egypt, and so on – MK was remarkably straightforward and controlled: it was yet another hero’s journey, one that MCU kept under tight control…until the twist at the end… which could be seen a mile away.

…When AoS’ S1 had Ward turned traitor, it worked because it was so unexpected… and nothing gave it away. In MK S1, the appearance of a third personality – Jake Lockley (or whoever) – was choreographed several episodes before the S1 finale. Therefore, when the man – or the personality, whatever – did appear in MK and finished ‘the Harrow job’, no one was surprised. Except maybe for Harrow.

Let us elaborate. In the S1 finale, the Spector and Grant personalities of the titular character have reunited with each other and with Khonshu, and defeated Harrow and Ammit. We have discussed Ammit/Ammut before, and the same goes for Tawaret, who bonded with Layla as well. Again, Tawaret is not a warrior goddess; Ammit/Ammut is not much of a deity period, and I, for one, just could not help but to visualize Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, especially the second book, where the Kane siblings, Carter and Sadie, have their confrontation with Khonshu.

Again, I proclaim: MK has not ripped-off ‘Kane Chronicles’ directly; the two media are quite different, not to mention that Layla’s character is quite original… in that that she’s a strong, independent woman who lives in MCU, (the viewers of the 2021 ‘Black Widow’ film) will be so impressed… and who is an avatar of an ancient Egyptian goddess, just as Marc/Steven/Jake is an avatar of an Egyptian god. Pause.

…Khonshu appeared to be quite ready and willing to work with the Jake personality of MK, implying that he himself is just as morally shady and ambiguous as Jake himself is? Not surprising, given Khonshu’s re-appearance in the Marvel comics, when he appeared as an enemy of the Avengers, and while he was not as evil as Mephisto was, (the comic version, as we have not seen a live-action one yet), he certainly was a bad piece of work – and MCU’s Khonshu lives-up to that rep, no problem.

…The problem here is that Layla is still legally married to MK, regardless of which personality is in the driver’s seat, and Jake is quite nasty, by all standards; plus, there is Khonshu playing extra interference, and the god’s moral ambiguity and other personality flaws can easily make an already tense situation worse. What is left?

‘Dr. Strange 2’ is coming out in a couple of days, and people are already divided about it – fair enough. In RL – and did I fail to tell you that it sucks, ‘cause it does – the RF has pissed-off the West by trying to use the Holocaust as its’ justification regarding its’ conflict with Ukraine, and it didn’t work, while overseas, the U.S. will try to use the RF to ty to discredit the Donald again. Can’t say that I blame the latter; if the Donald runs in the elections-2024 and wins – and given the current POTUS’ less than stellar performance here, it could happen – if the Donald wins, then the rest of the Western world can freely tell America to shove-off and sort itself, because this sort of political unpredictability gets very tiring very fast – but we digressed.

…The final face-off between Ammit/Ammut and Khonshu is reminiscent of the showdown between Set, (possessed secretly by Apop), and Horus, in the first book of the ‘Kane Chronicles’, and here I have to talk about Ammit again – not only her/their deification by MCU is absolute fiction, their depiction of the ‘new’ deity is highly reminiscent of Sobek instead.

More precisely, Ammit/Ammut was a Chimera: hippo in the back, lion in the front, and a crocodile head to cap it all. Sobek, on the other hand, was depicted as a crocodile-headed human, (or a crocodile), nothing more, and yes, he was a proper god, a warrior and a protector, (among other things). To conflate him and Ammit (Ammut) was, and is, just wrong, it is cultural appropriation at its’ stupidest worst.

…Whereas Layla’s current evolution into Tawaret’s representative smacks of copyright infringement instead: her new duds are just excessively similar to what WW wore in the WW84 film. Tawaret is a hippo goddess of fertility, (among other things), so why the slimming get-up? …Oh, wait; it is Disney/MCU, never mind. When money is not involved, Disney is certain to play it safe; and when it is… well; we will just have to see what, and how, the fight between Disney and the Republicans in the state of Florida will go. Did I not mention that the real life sucks?

…Getting back to the Egyptian myths and mythos… there were several falcon-associated deities in there, but they tended to be male, because they were associated with the pharaoh, (who were overwhelmingly male themselves, cough); the most famous are Ra, Horus, and their fusion, Horus-Ra – the Egyptian myths could be quite confusing on their own right, (which may be why WW84’s creative team tried to go with the Mesoamerican imagery instead), but we digress.

…No, we are not, not really. The final official judgement on the MK S1 is out, but mine is that it is one part reworked Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, one part MCU attempt to tackle serious issues, (mental issues in this case), one part MCU sticking to what they know best – i.e. entertaining people, and all of this is wrapped-up into an ‘independent’ MCU series, which takes place separate from the rest of the MCU. The end result is something that you can see for yourself, and I will take my leave of you now.

See you all soon!

DW, 'Lawrence vs. Teddy' revisited - May 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so today I have re-watched the ‘Lawrence of Arabia vs. Teddy Roosevelt’ DW episode. And-? And nothing.

Should I elaborate? More precisely – can I elaborate? When I have watched it on TV for the first time ever, I was struck by the similarities between this fight and the fight between Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington in the DW S3 premiere… and in hindsight, this is not too surprising: the S3 premiere was supposed to have the U.S. defeat the French, while ‘Lawrence vs. Teddy’ had the U.S. beat the British instead. It worked too, but…

…But at the end of the day, the fights were clumsily done, (when compared to the first two seasons of DW), leaving the viewers feeling cheated; there were other factors that contributed to DW’s demise, and we’ve discussed them back in the day; and now all that is left are clips and recordings of the old series, hardly a worthwhile repast for a person who’s down on his luck, and may be hearing the ‘call of the void’ whenever he goes out onto the balcony to chase the pigeons (feral-domestic rock doves or whatever), but still, it is better than nothing…

…Better than FH, at least. Yes, it is not quite right to compare FH to DW, as the latter was a TV series, while the former is an online game, and the former is still going strong, while DW was cancelled, but as we have discussed in the past, FH has noticeably relied on DW for content…which has grown to be little more than a list of moves, emotes, and the like. The last character that was added to the roster was the pirate, a character that was taken directly from the DW S1, as we’ve talked, and since then there apparently was nothing new – apparently, the imagination of the creative team behind FH is running dry. Anything else?

Not much; MK is almost out, but we got ‘Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’ coming up on May 6, and the Internet is already abuzz with the discussions of the movie, so maybe it’ll be able to liven things up – but given that the RF-Ukraine’s military conflict is turning RL is even more stupidly monstrous and violent, I wouldn’t bet on it; oh, and the Donald still isn’t down & out, and may return to the U.S. politics for the 2024 elections. Fun! Did I mention that real life sucks? – Because lately it feels like a real understatement. Still, we have our moments; lately, we got out this 3.5 D&D Dungeon magazine #136, and are playing one of the game scenarios presented there; reluctantly, I have to admit, that the old scenarios are sometimes to be the more fun ones than the new ones are; maybe there’s a point in it somewhere…

Moreover, as for ‘Lawrence vs. Teddy?’ Yeah, I still got nothing. I have enjoyed it – in a manner of speaking – back when DW was fresh and new, (ok, relatively fresh and new, but still), watching the show was fun, but now – not so much. Guess everything fades with time and you need to move-on into the future… Yay, I guess… Still, real life sucks in my opinion…

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