She-Hulk, Law - August 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘She-Hulk’ instead. In the show’s second episode, ‘Superhuman Law’, the titular character continues to evolve…along the expected lines of a Mary-Sue: her family sucks, they are a different aspect of the patriarchy, (and their indoctrinated female lackeys, of course), and they are keeping our plucky heroine down, until she embraces her different, outlier, destiny of being a lawyer for the outsiders, such as Emil Blonsky/the Abomination. Fair enough, and J.W. got her girl Friday Nikki to help her along, so yay! And who needs Titania anyhow? …Anything else?

…Yeah, in the B-story B.B. the original Hulk is back in space, probably to re-enact MCU’s version of the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline. A different studio – Lionsgate or something similar – has already released an animated movie version of that story some time before, so MCU has to do something much more complex to avoid any copyright conflicts… but what is the point?

The point is that ‘She-Hulk’ is continuing the traditions, initiated the previous Phase 4+ installments, such as the Sam and Bucky show, or WV: the old heroes are leaving, new ones are arriving. Steve Rogers is out, Sam Wilson is in. Carol Danvers may be leaving, but Photon is entering, but…

…but I guess we’re re-saying once more: real life happened, and it sucks, and so the MM Disney+ series, instead of being feted as a breakthrough of the Pakistani-US relations, got downplayed to the max, and may even join AoS in being MCU’s apocrypha instead – but nothing like that is threatening the ‘She-Hulk’, no sir: there’re no contentious real-life racial issues or anything, just straightforward girl power, (with Wong and Blonsky being the titular character’s gay wingmen), and B.B. is heading back to the stars… What else?

I genuinely do not care anymore, in fact. MM was flat-out disappointing, with its’ substitute InHumans and S.H.I.E.L.D., (aka Clan Destine and DoDC, respectively), and ‘She-Hulk’ is just trite and predictable, in a genre sort of way. Oh, and this week’s episode had a hidden reference to Wolverine apparently too. This makes it all better, no doubt. MCU has mishandled the InHumans about as badly as it had S.H.I.E.L.D., so now they are introducing the mutants, (and also other beings, such as the Clan Destine), to do something about that. Well, good luck to them!

As for us… right now, this is it. See you all soon, instead!                                                                                                                       

She-Hulk, series premiere - August 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, the electronics in my life and my home are going berserk, so let us talk about the ‘She-Hulk’ series premiere – and… it is a Mary Sue!

No, seriously, she is – she is better than her cousin BB is, (and he used to be a cosmic gladiator, remember?), she is better than Titania is, she’s better than everyone else, and it’s the patriarchy that is keeping her down, nothing else.

Yes, I am quite aware that this version of ‘She-Hulk’ is a direct descendant of the early 2000s’ comic version, where Ms. Walters got fired by her old legal firm ‘cause of her skin color, (cough), and who became a freelancer instead, battling even Dr. Doom, (hint-hint towards MCU), matching wits with the Daredevil in the court of law, (and look who is back, even in the trailers)… over the old Captain Rogers; (it resulted in Cap being acquitted rather than condemned, and in him punching Dr. Faustus in the face – in MCU, this role belonged to Dr. Whitehall, who seems to be dead after all); and she’d confronted Titania, who’d been… actually in employ of some minor villain-hero, who was revealed not to be so minor after all… and who had altered the Marvel universe somehow…and the She-Hulk had to team-up with the Shocker to fix things… yes, Marvel comics can be really confusing sometimes. What next?

Well, MCU’s Titania resembles a reject from the World Wrestling Federation, and, apparently, fights like one, so pardon me for not being impressed as to how Attorney at Law: She-Hulk kicked her ass. Any true Mary-Sue requires having other female characters around to be the villains for her to easily defeat, or maybe even redeem, but they are still inferior to her, because she is perfect, (and otherwise? She will bugger-off into the sunset, leaving the authors with a gaping plot hole, ‘cause she’s that sort of an a-hole instead). What next?

Well, the 355 film, (remember it?), failed despite trying to show this sort of a female protagonist, (or several, actually), and the same can be said about the DCEU, such as the “Harley Quinn’ films, which have also vanished by now with nary a mark left. We will see how ‘She-Hulk’ will fair next, and there is also a statement about MM.

MM, by contrast, is less of a Mary-Sue, and more of a propaganda piece, aimed at showing just how well, and how domestically, Muslim immigrants are living in the U.S. Sadly, RL being what it is, this happened soon after the Taliban vanquished the U.S. army and the democratic regime in the Afghanistan, completely and utterly, so the American elite’s take on MM was underwhelming, but what could be done? Admit that MM is a propaganda piece with a message that not even its’ makers believe in? Yeah, that’s not how they do it in America; they adhere to their beliefs – in a half-ass manner that satisfies neither side; the result here is that MM got buried between ‘Obi-Wan’ and ‘Thor 4’, and the world moved on…

Therefore, let us move on as well; so far, MM offered little, and ‘She-Hulk’ offers less; as such, I’ll see you all soon instead!

Ned Leeds is hungover (fiction) - Aug 2

 ...Will be attempting something different for August - I'll be posting fiction here as well! Here's one piece:

Ned Leeds woke-up after the S.H.I.E.L.D. New Year party. His brain hurt.

With a truly herculean effort, Ned Leeds tried to put his scattered thoughts – and brain cells – together. They still hurt, but now he vaguely remembered that he – and other people – had been battling a giant three-headed rat that got conjured… probably not by him, and what’d happened next?..

“You fainted from mental exhaustion – not that the rest of us were much better,” came the reply from a young woman of approximately Ned’s age from the next bunk over. “Hi, by the way – I’m Kora Johnson!”

“Johnson, Johnson – why does that sound familiar-?”

“Because Daisy Johnson – or Quake – is my sister?” Kora did not sound too happy in talking about her sibling.

“…Okay,” Ned thought some more. “You’re the girl in the top, thong, and sheer pants from the last night, right?”

“Absolutely!” Kora beamed very, very happily at him. “You remembered!”

“…Yes, yes I did,” Ned winced. “I mean, I do. I remember the rat-“

“That sneaked-up through a tear in reality after Wong and Coulson got into an argument over an old orgy in Las Vegas-“

Ned blinked and looked around. “Hangover?” asked an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that Ned had never known before, while handing a glass of ‘hangover cure’ to him.

“Yes please,” Ned said gratefully, as he downed the entire glass in one swig, and things began to zoom back into focus almost straightaway; next to him, Ned could see Kora have the same experience.

“Hey, Daisy,” the younger Johnson sister said sourly; “did you take my sheer pants?”

“No, May did-“

“Ah, that’s ok then-“

“…I really hate you sometimes-“

“Did the three-headed rat bite you-?”

“No, we had to deal with the FitzSimmons’ and their time-travelling machine, as well as their counterparts from both the past and the future,” Daisy’s companion said cheerfully… before Daisy grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away.

“…What?” Ned just blinked.

“Oh, they’re just trying to figure out what their relationship is,” someone else replied from behind him and Kora. Ned turned around and blinked.

“Do I know you or do I not know you?” he asked the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker. 

“Eh, it’s hard to say, so I will just comment that while Dr. Strange’s heart is in the right place, he’s still an unreliable bastard,” Peter replied in the same tone of voice – MJ had shared her stash of weed with him, and it showed – literally, since MJ was sharing it with Ned and Kora now as well.

“No, I’m not!” the sorcerer in question snapped, as he briefly looked into the infirmary. “Also, Ned – nice work with Clea.”

“Who?” Ned blinked

“The extra-dimensional witch-queen who turned herself into a multiheaded rat-monster, only to be turned into a field of tulips by you,” Dr. Strange replied brightly.

“…I was going for begonias instead, but I was that stinking drunk by then,” Ned confessed.

“…I’ll be going now,” Dr. Strange spoke, after a pause that was just a bit too long, and that was exactly what he did, leaving the four young adults by themselves for a change.

“So, what do we do now?” Ned asked no one in particular, (while secretly wondering if he and Kora really did join forces to turn the treacherous Clea into a bunch of flowers, among other thoughts of his). 

“I don’t know – enjoy the next few weeks together?” Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, (see above), replied just as brightly, and this was what they did.

End