D:BA SSS - March 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about D: BA once more?

Well, no, real life doesn’t always suck; for a couple of days now I’ve been seeing sharp-shinned hawks in my neighbourhood; of course, they can always be Cooper’s hawks instead, but I’m reasonably sure that they’re ‘sharpies’ instead, because of all the red color in their plumage – it is more in line with the sharp-shinned than with the Cooper’s hawks.

What are those avians doing? Hunting, of course – and primarily small birds, songbirds, it looks like, (as opposed to bigger birds, such as feral pigeons or ducks). First, I saw the hawk chase sparrows on a street corner: it came from down low to a tree, flushing the sparrows out – they promptly fled into a bush. The hawk came after them.

A sharp-shinned hawk is one of North America’s smaller hawks, but it is still larger than a sparrow; it could not get into the shrub, so it landed next to it and stuck its’ head and beak inside, trying to flush the sparrows out. It was not too successful, and the neighbourhood’s not-so-friendly Canada geese were not too thrilled by the raptor’s presence either: they promptly made a flanking manoeuver, and began to approach the hawk, hissing and flapping their wings.

The hawk looked at them, decided that it did not like the odds, and left, to the relief of both the sparrows and the local killdeer – they might be shorebirds, but any wet meadow is fine in their books, especially in spring. The Age of Dinosaurs is officially over, my foot!..

And later this week I saw another (or the same?) sharp-shinned hawk in the part. This time, the bird was hunting high in the treetops, but though it is the second half of March, the trees are still bare of leaves, and so the hawk was exposed, and the local songbirds, squirrels (both grey and red species), and chipmunks were avoiding it, easily enough. The local mallard ducks, on the other hand, were just ignoring it, and vice versa. Both events were interesting to see, and so the real life does not always suck; (the Norway rat that was lying dead on a road as roadkill would probably disagree, however. I wonder how long is will remain there, as it is a public road and all. Oh dear, maybe a turkey vulture will pop up too, as it is a big rat, dead or not).

As for D: BA, well, first a reply to all of you who pointed out that ‘YFNSM’ (remember it?) tried to racially diversify its’ characters; of all the main cast, only Peter and his aunt are Anglo-American, the rest tend of P.O.C.s, or else foreign immigrants to the U.S. instead. Pause.

In the current socio-political climate, you think that the U.S. mainstream culture needs more depiction of predominantly Afro-American street gangs in NYC, cartoons or not? In addition, oh, here comes an Anglo-American Spider-Man and handles them easy peasy! Oh, and the Osborns, (who are often Spider-Man’s greatest foes) are Afro-American too now! Hooray! The Green Goblin is going to be actually a different color, cough!

…Well, ok, ‘YFNSM’ might try to do something similar to what Disney did to Will Smith in its’ ‘Aladdin’ remake – make the Green Goblin a different color entirely. Given that Will Smith looked wrong in that purple-indigo shade and that Disney quickly had him walking around in his real appearance, probably not. The Osborns are going to be Afro-American, the Green Goblin – his signature color, and etc. Can we have more Miles Morales Spider-Man films instead?

No, of course not – onto D: BA. In this week’s episode, we get re-introduced to Frank Castle the vigilante, (as opposed to Richard Castle the writer), who claims that he didn’t kill Hector Ayala the White Tiger. We also get to meet Angela Del Toro, who is probably the next White Tiger. The catch here is that Netflix tried to introduce her already in one of the Jessica Jones episodes, but because that show was swept under the rug, (and JJ herself as well), guess that Disney/MCU is rebooting Ms. Del Toro as someone else, not a P.I. as she was intended to be on the ‘Defenders’ shows. What next?

A bunch of new and re-introduced secondary characters, some of whom are actually original, but so far D: BA seems to be going with the reinvention of the White Tiger as its’ main new engine for now – the other heavy hitters, such as the Punisher, Daredevil, and the Kingpin are already established. So far, the show is not bad to watch, and given that MCU aims to entertain first, and everything else second, this is what it planned to do with D: BA all along.

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