Eyes of Wakanda - Aug 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Eyes of Wakanda’… Pause.

Well, first let me admit that, apparently, I got it wrong – the video of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee painting plastic pigeon figurines wasn’t the Kickstarter, more like a special feature to motivate the financing of the Kickstarter, or whatever… Fair enough, but listen: LN openly admits that her YouTube channel is a business venture, she is in for money – and she shares money with her underlings and coworkers. Have to respect her for her openness and honesty, if nothing else, (and there is much more).

BB, on the other hand… are largely similar, but are not as successful as LN is. In part, this is because they’re a part of PBS, and PBS overall is suffering due to the Donald’s meddling in the American world, (real life sucks, remember?), but still, the sight of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee just painting tiny pigeons while muttering some facts about the pigeons from the Internet… just no…

In addition, speaking of facts, what about the ‘Eyes’? Yes, they are a work of fiction, but in the episode 1x02, they went after the ‘Iliad’, and…

Yes, true, there was a Troy in RL, and there possibly was a Trojan War in RL too, but so far, we have no idea what actually went down, so we have to accept Homer’s version as canon, which makes ‘Iliad’ & ‘Odyssey’ about as real as MCU. Moreover, Achilles, Odysseus, and co. are a part of Marvel comics – and been so for a while, nothing new here, but, again, what is with the disrespect? The second episode of ‘Eyes’ plays fast and loose with the ‘Iliad’, so it will ruffle some feathers – it ruffled mine, which is why I am writing about the ‘Eyes’ more than 2 weeks after it had aired. Pause.

Taking a breath and starting anew. In many ways, the ‘Eyes’ are clichéd and banal. In the first episode, Noni is the maverick who makes the right in choice in saving Wakanda from… what? Exposure? The Lion did not care about it, he wanted to rule outside of it, but because Wakanda had a PR problem even in the 1260 BC or so, the Dora Milaje sent Noni to bring the Lion to heel – she caused him to die instead, but, hey, she recovered the artefacts, so yay! She becomes a War Dog instead.

That is one of Wakanda’s flaws – it is isolationist, it wants to stay largely isolated, it comes down hard on those, who disagree with it, yet when those dissidents leave and start their own thing, the Wakandan government (well, the royal family) short-circuits and does its’ best to bring those dissidents to heel or just kill them. MCU and co. deal with this problem by making such renegades evil, but still, it is not one of Wakanda’s best aspects.

Back to the ‘Eyes’… sigh. The Lion was a variant Killmonger from the first Black Panther film, and the final episode actually sets up the first Black Panther film, to a certain extent. The Lion wasn’t a bad character, but as a villain? He fell flat.

In addition, in the second, ‘Iliad’ episode, we have B’Kai, who joined the Greek army to retrieve a Wakandan amulet, and he does. He also lets Helen run away with Paris-

Helen never escaped with Paris; Paris died awhile before Odysseus came up with the Trojan Horse, and Helen would eventually return home with her legal husband, Menelaus. Helen of Troy, in fact, is partially a romantic heroine from the knightly stories of later days, and partially – a modern femme fatale, but we digress.

I don’t want to discuss all the ways how much did the ‘Eyes’ mess with the ‘Iliad’, I’ll just point out that Memnon/B’Kai isn’t from Homer – he is from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’; he was an Egyptian, or an Ethiopian, general, sent to help the Trojans. He was also the son of Eos, or Aurora, the goddess of Dawn. He went against Achilles, died, and his entourage became birds. Sigh. If the bigwigs in MCU wanted to, they could have made quite a story about the Wakandan meddling the Trojan War and remained much more true to the original classical sources as well.

As for the last two episode of the ‘Eyes’… Pause. The first two episodes were connected to each other via the character of Noni and the plot continuity; the last two episodes were much more detached from each other and the first two. Were there supposed to be more episodes of ‘Eyes’ than just four? Did some rushed editing had to take place? Disney/MCU are not telling…

Anyhow, the third episode feels like a filler – the south meets the east, that sort of thing, Wakanda meets the K’un Lun, eh? It does not amount to anything… and the final episode mostly just sets-up the first Black Panther movie. Fun!

Only not, as B’Kai, for example, reminded me of Grant Ward, who betrayed his new friends for duty. Only because B’Kai’s duty was to Wakanda, not to Hydra, he is a protagonist, rather than an antagonist instead. MCU really does its’ best to recycle the old ideas in new ways, but maybe it should just go with outright new ideas instead? It worked for the new F4 film…

There is one more aspect to the ‘Eyes’, however – the African/Afro-American one. As the ‘Black Panther’ films showed, they are MCU’s Afro-Futurism reps, and for Disney/MCU, political correctness in regards to the Africans/Afro-Americans is a very big deal.

Unfortunately, before the ‘Eyes’, MCU’s latest depiction of Afro-Americans came from ‘Ironheart’ – I’m talking about Riri here. In the BP2 film, she was… average. In ‘Ironheart’, MCU did not know what to do with her, and it showed – she made Sony’s Kraven look good. Also – competent and coherent, (the movie, not the main character). Something had to be done, so MCU quickly made, or remade, the ‘Eyes’, and used them to cover up ‘Ironheart’ as the latest MCU bit that features people of color. The ‘Eyes’ do a better job of it than ‘Ironheart’ did, but then again, almost anything would – ‘Ironheart’ set the bar this low, and the ‘Eyes’ still feel like a rushed job that MCU doesn’t really needs, you know? Ah well, Disney/MCU have a better idea of what MCU/its’ audience needs than MCU’s actual viewers do no doubt… That is real life for you. It sucks. Just look at the Donald, Putin, and the Alaska story – but we will discuss that another time…

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

 

Thunderbolts - May 3

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In part, it might be my doing – but I never denied it – so now let us talk about the new ‘Thunderbolts’ film instead.

First, it works. It works, because it mostly keeps away from politics, whether RL or MCU, and talks about the titular characters dealing, and defeating, their inner darkness, while managing the conflict with Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, or – ‘Don’t call me Val!’ Pause.

…Throughout SW, there was no mention of Val or the Thunderbolts, who are a bit of Marvel’s Suicide Squad, (run by DC instead). Moreover, the DCEU itself is being remade right now, so let us not talk about it, and get back to MCU and the ‘Thunderbolts’.

…Throughout SW, there was no mention of Val or the Thunderbolts, but now, in the post-SW MCU, there is no mention of the Skrulls, the She-Hulk, or the Marvels; MCU is pretending that all of the above haven’t existed, and the CA: BNA movie, the D: BA TV series, and now – the ‘Thunderbolts’ film confirm it; there’s a distinct feeling of ‘in with the new’ with all of them. Even the titular team is named not after the general ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, aka the Red Hulk, but after some obscure piece of MCU in-verse trivia instead. Fun!

MCU’s Taskmaster/Taskmistress is dead – a pity – and there is no mention of Kate, even though she and Yelena had plenty of chemistry in ‘Hawkeye’. However, the market (and the political climate) directs, and with 4 years of a Republican president in charge of the U.S., Disney and its’ branches, including MCU, are changing. We have discussed it, when we talked about AAA, so let us not repeat ourselves. Anything else?

The special effects were impressive, another one of MCU characters that vanished was Rick Jones or whoever, who helped Natasha in her ‘Black Widow’ film; ah well. ScarJo is going to appear in the next JP reboot now, and it makes the ‘Black Widow’ film appear like a classical masterpiece. What else?

…Everett Ross, who appeared in both ‘Black Panther’ films, was also killed off in the SW; since he was ‘Don’t call me Val!’ ex-husband, this is somewhat important. Only not, since Val is flirting (sort of) with the Red Guardian (Alexei) already. Well, since the Thunderbolts (the characters) are forming some sort of a crazy family, (minus the dead Antonia), this is to be expected. Whether or not this will amount to anything is another story; for all we know, in the next film there will be no mention of the Thunderbolts’ team… just as there was no mention of Sam in the ‘Thunderbolts’ movie, not really, making Bucky’s appearance in CA: BNW kind of strange and unbalanced…

So, in conclusion: the ‘Thunderbolts’ work. They work as a movie, and in particular – as a standalone movie. However, Disney/MCU is a live action Marvel Comics Universe, which means that it all will be interconnected – in theory. In practice, as depicted by the now forgotten AoS, this might not be so. In AoS, the first 3 seasons were sufficiently tied, with ties to the greater MCU. From S4 onwards, however, this was not the case at all, and after the final, 6^th, or 7^th, season, no one is remembering AoS anymore; they didn’t even appear on the ‘What If?’ series, (aside from Coulson, who doesn’t quite count there). Put otherwise, quite regularly, MCU discards characters, plot lines, and more – there is no guarantee that the ‘Thunderbolts’ will be different.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

Captain America: Brave New World and '...NSM' - Feb 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. That said, Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! This out of the way, let us talk ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ now.

…Whereas ‘YFNSM’ cartoon series just exist in a vacuum, the occasional cameo by Dr. Strange, Daredevil, or even the Iron Man regardless, (they don’t influence there anything, you know?), CA:BNW is a part of MCU, and unlike AAA, it cannot be ignored, as it sets the stage for everything new.

See the evidence: when Sam Wilson only MCU’s (original) Falcon, he and Bucky the Winter Soldier had their own mini-series, named after them, remember? In it, we were introduced to the post-Thanos MCU, and we met both Val, (ok, do not call her that), and Sharon Carter, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent turned weapons’ deal and villain, who was being set up as someone important. Roll even more forward, and Sharon vanishes without a trace, while Ms. Sonya replaced Val in ‘Secret Wars’. SW was one of MCU’s most insipid entries, and so Sonya and friends are gone now instead, and Val is coming back in the upcoming ‘Thunderbolts’ film.

This brings us to Bucky, and – Sarah Wilson, aka Sam’s sister. In the abovementioned mini-series, she was Bucky’s new love interest, (sort of). Previously, he had something going on with Shuri, but then came the ‘Black Panther 2’ movie, and any connections of Wakanda with the Avengers vanished in favor of a Shuri-Namor romance, (tentatively speaking), and Bucky was moved over to Sarah in a favor of another interracial romance. AOS has set MCU’s bar for interracial romances pretty darn low, and CA:BNW + ‘Thunderbolts’ have appeared to cleared it by a mile: Sarah Wilson and her children vanished from MCU, and Bucky seems to be bonding with Natasha’s sister and father in the ‘Thunderbolts’ trailer – no interracial relationships, no color mixing here. USA! USA! The Donald must be so proud!

…Back with Sam Wilson proper, and speaking of colors, we got the Hulk. Ok, we also got MCU’s Red Hulk now – ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, (in the comics, the Thunderbolts were often his team), but what about the original Hulk himself?

Pause, rewind to MCU’s ‘She-Hulk’, one of the unlucky contenders to challenge SW for the insipidness. For 9 parts out of 10, (or perhaps 11), SH was a typical Mary-Sue story, with the titular character being that woman; watching SH is just pointless, the most important parts there are the Hulk’s story: he went into space and brought home a son. Everything else can be swept under the rug safely… the Hulk and his son not so much, but by ignoring them, CA:BNW does a gamely attempt at doing just that; anything else?

Yes. It is a brand new world where everything from the previous phases matters about as much as the ‘YFNSM’ cartoon – nothing at all. Sam Wilson defeated the Red Hulk who has imprisoned in the Raft alongside Sam ‘the Leader’ Stearns. In addition, we were introduced to MCU’s version of Sabra – Israel’s superhero in the Marvel comics, (who is more closely associated with the mutants, BTW), and the mercenary group the SERPENTS, who will probably be the default villains of MCU for a while, until they all die or whatnot. Given how Disney is lying low while RL USA is changing… just changing, let us leave it at that, they just might be replaced instead, and no one will care. At least, since SW was worse than the ‘Sam & Bucky show’, Val is replaced Sonya once more. Ah, the perfidy of chance!

This is it for now. See you all soon. Have a happy Valentine’s Day once more!

AAA 'Reach/Teach' - Oct 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about this week’s episode about ‘Agatha All Along’ after all.

First, Sharon Hart/Davis is dead, and the coven replaced her with Rio. Sigh. AoS was notorious in how it dealt with its’ deceased characters: when the show needed to, it did a song and dance number, and when it did not, they de-facto just vanished into oblivion. AoS was a hypocritical show, as we have discussed in the long past – and now AAA has arrived. In this week’s episode it is all but revealed, Ms. Hart/Davis was all but a stand-in for Rio – she died so that Rio could arrive on the Witches’ Road in style, so to put it otherwise, AAA has AoS beat, and not in a good way.

In addition: remember Sharon’s probably-not-a-wake, when the coven’s members are pronouncing a list of what the ‘new’ green witch should be, and they get Rio? Does it mean that Rio is all of those things? Really? Given that AAA is her own debut in MCU, this makes Rio Vidal more pretentious than anything else. Does AAA really need this? Pause.

The greater question is, does MCU need AAA? So far, there is no indication just how exactly it is connected to MCU, aside from Wanda’s corpse; given that we have seen Wanda last in the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ film, which played around in the multiverse, AAA can be taking place in alternate timeline from the one, (because Wanda is a nexus being, among her other traits). Given how MCU has quietly put the kibosh on the multiverse after ‘Loki’ the TV series and ‘Ant-Man 3’ the movie, this is not very likely, but still.

Aside from Rio being injected into Agatha’s new coven with all the subtlety of a locomotive, the main goal of this week’s episode (‘Reach/Teach’) was Alice Lu-Gulliver confronting her demons, both metaphorically and literally. This was done well enough, but again, AAA is Ms. Lu-Gulliver’s first appearance in MCU so it’s hard to generate anything for her; the late Sharon Hart/Davis at least had her time in WV before she died here; Agatha and Rio bounce against each other, and TT is probably Billy Kaplan, (Rio tells Agatha that he isn’t her son, so Nick Scratch he apparently is not); but Alice? No one is too impressed over her victory over the demon, who was one of those monsters of the week that come and go with no impact at all. BtVS, in the 90s, had this scheme down to an art form, and proportionally, it was a better show than AAA is all along. Anything else?

No. Somehow, AAA is making much ado about little anything, probably substance. (We are not talking about the movie with the same name – someone else will have to review it entirely). It is fun to watch but little else, and there is no more ties in with the rest of MCU once it left WV and the state of New Jersey entirely. Where will it get from there, to success or disaster, only time will tell.

 

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

AAA 'Miles/Trials' - Sep 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I really hate my family sometimes. This is it, no epithets, no elaborations, (my apologizes to those who want gossip – I do not feel much like gossiping at this moment), so let us move onto this week’s episode of AAA instead. Here… we do not find much improvement, as the titular character, the ex-witch Aggie-poo, already loses one member of her new coven, one missus Hart/Davis. Let us shed a tear for this fallen worthy, and… not much more, because in the greater MCU the good Mistress Sharon was not much more to begin with. Aye, Wanda treated her – in WV – as one of the NPCs’ in her sitcom-based RPG, but the greater MCU… didn’t really treat her any different.

No, indeed, hold the outrage: in WV, the character was an occasional, albeit a recurring one, and once the WV miniseries ended, we never saw anything else of her or of her fellow West View denizens. The way that Wanda treated them – regardless of her own reasons, issues, and mental state – was abominable, but AAA is not about Wanda, Wanda is off the table due to her apparent death.

…As the ‘Dr. Strange-2’ movie showed, there are plenty of Wanda Maximoffs in the multiverse still; some of them are actually happy mothers (and wives?). A Wanda Maximoff may appear (reappear) in MCU still, who knows – but what about Agatha?

In WV, Agatha inserted herself into Wanda’s RPG and waited for the Scarlet Witch to exhaust herself mentally and physically before bringing her superior skills and experience into play. It was a good plan, but it failed nonetheless, and Wanda trapped the older witch in a Framework-like reality of her own.

Framework was a part of AoS portion of the MCU, which was more of science than of sorcery, but Framework itself was created with the help of the Darkhold – the same Darkhold that played an important role in both WV and ‘Dr. Strange-2’; it’s unlikely that any of AoS’ characters will appear in AAA, but who knows, a fan crossover is always possible. More importantly, however, that even under the spell that made her an officer of the law and a protagonist rather than an antagonist, Agatha remained antagonizing, petty, and selfish. When ‘The Teen’ (TT; might be Billy the Wiccan, Wanda’s gay son, or might be Nick Scratch, Agatha’s own son in the comics, or might be yet another MCU OC – who knows?) broke the spell and snapped Agatha back to reality (in a manner not unlike the Framework, again), she still remained this sort of person – and so far she doesn’t appear to be changing for the better, either.

Will Agatha change? The world of MCU, her corner of MCU is as much Neopagan as anything, and-

-and look at the Pinocchio franchise, of all things. (I know, of all things, but still). In the original novel, the philosophy was Catholic Christian (and it even reflected in the original animated Disney film), and so Pinocchio changed himself on the inside and became a better person, (among other things). In a Soviet spinoff of the novel, (much less known and widespread in the West, but still), the Pinocchio-counterpart remains a puppet, but he makes the world (his world) a better place for all but the villains. In addition, in the more recent Disney remake of the abovementioned-animated classic, Pinocchio just accepts as to who he is and does not change at all. Pause. So where does this leave Agatha?

The role of monotheism is downplayed in AAA, but the fact is that regardless the bracing discussion on the definition of ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’, for modern people witches are descendants of the pagan/polytheistic clergy, and their demons/devils/etc. used to be ‘pagan’ gods. As KAOS and ‘Twilight’ (recently released on Netflix) show, ‘pagan’ culture is alive and well in the Western society. Moreover, in that culture, a person does not need to change to be better; they already are good. In this context, Agatha doesn’t need to change – she just needs to survive Rio, the Salem Seven, and anyone else who’ll be gunning after her while she’s depowered, (probably not Wanda or Steven Strange though). If that happens, she will just kill the rest of her new coven; she will recover her power and move on to newer pastures. The end of this miniseries. Since aside from Agatha herself we have never met any of those characters, (Sharon doesn’t count for the abovementioned reasons), and Agatha herself so far has a bigger reputation than anything, this still could happen – but whom do we kidding? Agatha will become a better person despite all of the Neopagan paraphernalia AAA the show is dressed in, and become an important part in MCU’s next phase. If MCU does not collapse first, that is, but it probably will not, (events in RL notwithstanding).

…In any case, I probably will not be able to review and/or discuss the AAA episode 1x04 next week on time, so you have been warned. Sorry about this. Real life sucks. For now, however, this is it. See you all soon.

 

 

X-Men '97 - Extinction II

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. The RPG 2^nd Edition Pathfinder, in particular, seems to have gone marasmatic: they try to come across fast and lose, yet at the same time they try to micromanage everything. Look at the latest adventure path, one that is set in the Mosswood (or whatever it is called, it does not matter here). In the player’s guide to the path, the Pathfinder team is bombasting the readers’/players’ with oodles of suggestions and references yet all the while telling them it does not matter; they can be whomever they like. Fair enough, but… in this case either the readers/players really can be whomever they like, in which case all of the information in the guide is superficial and unnecessary, or this information is mandatory, in which case the players have to choose out of the options presented by the guide, and their personal desires are irrelevant. Pause.

Aside from the fact that both options are equally bad and annoying, there’s also the fact that team Pathfinder and the DMs don’t really have ways to enforce it, if the players will disregard the Pathfinder options, (remember, they’re supposed to be suggestions), and go with the flow. Not to mention that the DMs usually do not want to fight with their players, because often the latter are their friends too, on one hand, and on the other, RPGs are a luxury item, they aren’t needed, they cater to whims, and if they don’t, people will find other options (such as D&D) that do. Onto X-Men ’97, then?

Yes, pretty much. Not unlike the RPGs, this cartoon series is also a luxury item, it is trying to tickle the audience’s fancy with a lot of Easter eggs and references, and when they stop, we are left with something else.

For example, Magneto – in this episode – restarts the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, taking Rogue with him, as well as Roberto. Well, Magneto and Rogue’s relationship aside, firstly, Magneto actually saved the day – or at least helped a lot – in the first part of the season’s finale, so is he really evil anymore, or did the scriptwriters want to write yet another Magneto vs. Professor X fight? (The two of them did fight here, sort of). On the other hand, since Roberto is with Magneto now… err, with the Brotherhood now, Jubilee seems to be actually missing him… why? Throughout the season, Roberto was essentially a prop; his chemistry with Jubilee was nonexistent, and so was his role on the show, and now that he is with Magneto and Rogue, Jubilee actually begins to miss him? Can we say – ‘forced relationship’? And In the past, it looked as if the relationships on AoS were contrived. Anything else?

The bulk of ‘Extinction 2’ episode was about fights, with little being done, to be frank. The non-relationship between Jubilee and Roberto feels forced, and so’s the conflict between most of the X-Men and Magneto, Rogue and Roberto. This entire specific episode feels like filler, albeit an exciting one, so odds are is that it is. In fact, as it was said before, the entire X-Men ’97 now feels like a luxury product that is getting a bit desperate for whatever reasons. Ah well, it is no skin off our back.

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

X-Men/Deadpool 3 - April 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the X-Men ’97 instead. Um. This is akin to using capitalism to distract from feudalism, or reverse, or something along those lines anyhow. Shall we try again?

As we have been talking increasingly in those previous weeks, X-Men ’97 are fan service; the scriptwriters and co. behind them are outright adapting the older comic storylines for the episode plots. For the entire season’s plot too, for that matter. AoS had its’ own share of flaws, but at least it tried to be original, for the first 2-3 seasons of its’ run anyhow. X-Men ’97 does not. Rather, it has plenty of fan appeal; in this week’s episode, ‘Bright Eyes’, we saw a Steve Rogers/Captain America; last week, it was Ronan the Accuser. Therefore, where is Uatu? Shouldn’t he be watching – never mind. He is probably watching the live-action adventures of Wolverine and Deadpool instead.

Now that trailer is something else. Not unlike the X-Men ’97, it is a classic – it is shaping up to be a tale of redemption and resurrection; Deadpool flat-out proclaims himself Jesus, aka the Savior, and he’s saving Wolverine. Well, a Wolverine, but the fact that HJ is playing the character also clears up some things, doesn’t it?

Let us roll back a bit. To date, humanity has invented only two versions of religion: polytheism and monotheism. The two models are simply different, and it does not matter which is better or worse, but what matters is that salvation and damnation, temptation and redemption, and all the other ‘tion’ words matter only in monotheism; in polytheism, not so much. By talking about salvation, Deadpool, and ‘Deadpool 3’ flat-out tries at least to tap into monotheism, which in US means Christianity, at least the Protestant version of it. Pause.

The problem is that these days the U.S. does not acknowledge itself as a Christian country, not how it did before, before the 1990’s, at least. The entire wink-wink nudge-nudge approach does not work too good either – for example, Ms. Meg Cabot’s novels have plenty of Christian/Protestant moral values, (and they are not half-bad from the technical point of view), but because she never openly admits this, her novels fall flat, and instead of being mouthpieces for those values they… do not. They may be making Ms. Cabot plenty of money as people are buying and selling them, but not much else, and the same will go down for the ‘Deadpool 3’ film as well – it will make Disney/MCU/anyone else a lot of money, it will help establish the mutants in MCU somehow most likely, but the Christian imagery, motifs, and what else have you will just dissipate, and that is it. Still better than X-Men ’97, who don’t even have that. The ‘Deadpool 3’ film is clearly having a lot of effort behind it, effort and money, and so it will deliver, much more so than the ‘Madame Web’ movie had, for example. (The latter had potential, in fact, but it was squandered).

Therefore, to sum up, whereas X-Men ’97 is purely entertainment and fan service, ‘Deadpool 3’ is setting itself up as something more – much more than that. Will it be able to achieve this is another question, we just have to wait and see.

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

X-Men ’97 "Lifedeath1" - April 3

Obligatory disclaimer – real life sucks, lately our entire family life feels like a bloody house of cards, (in a bad way), so let us talk about this week’s episode of X-Men ’97 instead.

Regrettably, it is a weaker one. On one side, we have a reboot of the ‘Mojoverse’ episode from the original X-Men series: back then, Mojo kidnapped six of the adult X-Men, (not Jubilee), and forced them to act out live video games, with their lives hanging in the balance, until they burst free (with some local help) and went back home. (Mojo was not a regular character/villain in this TV-verse). Here, we have basically the same thing, but just with Jubilee/Roberto, and a computer-graphic-version of Jubilee instead…

…My problem with Jubilee and Roberto is that their relationship is… not so much forced, as rushed: in various other previous Marvel incarnations, (live-action, comics, cartoons), Roberto was often competent at worst and formidable at best. Here, however, he seems to be nothing more than Jubilee’s love interest… not that Jubilee herself is doing much better.

The problem with a big cast is that not all of the main characters get the same amount of exposition, especially if they are all on screen at the same time. Some shows try to fix it by alternating characters: i.e. one episode features – mostly – characters a, b, and e, while on another it is c and d, and on the third – it is d, e, and f – the sort of thing. The X-Men cartoon, on the other hand, tended to show most of them en masse – Cyclops and Jean, Gambit and Rogue, Wolverine and Storm, (the) Beast and professor X shared their onscreen adventures episode after episode… Jubilee was mostly pushed out… she all but disappeared, (technically speaking), in the later seasons, because she was not contributing anything to the plot, not really… Now, however, she is back, and it is again not clear as to what she is contributing to the overall plot specifically, and ditto for Morph – in the original series he was more of an episodic character, a former teammate, an unwilling enemy, an ally to the X-Men, but not part of the team. Now, however, he is back, possibly depicting sexual minorities in the show…and also allowing the showrunners to depict the various mutant characters without actually bringing him into the show just yet.

Speak of the new characters? In the other half of the episode, we also get to meet the Adversary; he was an occasional foe/antagonist of the mutants in the comics; he often clashed… with Forge and his team. Here, their relationships is less clear-cut, and Storm appears to maybe be caught in the middle.

This brings us to the following feature of X-Men ‘97: the scriptwriters just took several old comic plotline and are trying to adapt them to the silver screen. Sometimes it works out, (such as the first two episodes of the new season), sometimes, (as in the last week’s and this week’s episodes), it does not – not really. AoS, it can be noted, did something similar, especially in the later seasons – it recycled and rebooted its’ original plotlines in order to keep itself going… and now it is gone, and MCU is pretending that it never existed at all – no S.H.I.E.L.D., but also – no S.W.O.R.D., and the state of S.A.B.R.E. is also in flux – but this has nothing to do with the X-Men franchise. Instead, just as AoS recycled its’ old ideas, the X-Men ’97 is recycling Marvel’s old X-Men ideas, from comics than from other media, but regardless… The original X-Men cartoon was somehow better than this…

Is there anything else? No, not really. The new Godzilla/Kong movie is out, and it is a good one, but it deserves a discussion of its’ own, so for now, this is it. See you all soon instead!

Loki, Science/Fiction - Nov 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘Loki’ S2 instead. Here, in this week’s episode – ‘Science/Fiction’ – it is actually hard to figure out where to start.

Therefore, let us widen our discussion a bit. In the 2010s, there was a franchise called ‘The Librarians’, where the titular characters saved the world from various threats utilizing their intellect, rather than muscles, (though there was enough physical action as well). It ran for 4 or 5 seasons, had 3 or 4 independent films, and ended on a whimper, rather than a bang. So what?

In one of their earlier episodes, the librarians’ enemy of the season cast a spell that caused the librarians to assume that they were living their dream life doing their dream job… Fair enough, and in ‘Science/Fiction’ Loki’s friends seem to be doing something similar: their TVA personas were destroyed, (for a lack of a better term/idea), and they are back being civilians – and Loki has to fix it, or else the world is doomed. Pause.

In AoS’ S4 MCU did something similar: their villain of the season trapped them in a VR world where they were living… different lives, and were happy, (relatively speaking), at least for a while, until a) that world began to break down, and b) the villains began to take over the real world, (in a manner of speaking). In the episode 2x05 of ‘Loki’, we have something similar: Loki’s crew are out of action, and Loki has to fix the situation, just as how Flynn had to do it in ‘The Librarians’, and Daisy with Jemma in AoS. Repetition and recycling of plots/subjects isn’t anything new in MCU, here the main twist is that Sylvie (who’s less out of it as the rest of TVA team was) turns the tables on Loki, in a manner of speaking, and causes him to admit some harsh truths about himself – something that he’s really good at avoiding of doing, in fact. Good for the show!

What is not so good, however, is the absence of the multiverse: what gives? ‘Loki’ and TVA were all about the multiverse; in fact, the whole of MCU from Phase 4 onwards was supposed to be all about the multiverse, and the TVA – as shown, however poorly, in ‘Loki’ S1 was right in the middle of it. Now, however, Loki is almost at the end of S2, there is no sign of the multiverse per se, and the state of the TVA itself is in flux…

…One might argue that there are various secondary signs that the state of the TVA is affecting the multiverse in ‘Loki’ S2, but those signs are so secondary, that they’re easily ignored; at a glance, the world of ‘Loki’ appears in to be existing in a vacuum/separately from the rest of MCU…which might be Disney/MCU’s plan, given how MCU is struggling/redefining itself lately, from KK and ‘She-Hulk’ mini-series onwards. Given that it is Disney/MCU, the odds of them trying to be subtle and failing at it are quite good. Otherwise…

Otherwise, the script of ‘Science/Fiction’ was very good, as was the action, and the special effects. Overall, the impact of ‘Loki’ episode 2x05 was a favorable one. If only there was actually any multiverse and implications of the stakes for the greater MCU…

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

Loki, Heart - Oct 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and most of the time you cannot control it, as it just goes on as it has intended to, and all of your attempts to interfere in it result in cosmetic, secondary, (at best), changes – now onto ‘Loki’ S2.

Here, unfortunately, the situation isn’t any better – this week’s episode, ‘Heart of the TVA’ brings us back to the ‘Breaking Brad’ mess, where it was all about destruction; this week it is all about killing – pardon me, pruning – of the various characters. General Dox and her people – gone. Timely – gone. The ex-judge RR – gone. Even Miss Minutes and a variant Loki are gone, (temporarily or not). What gives?

No, seriously, what gives? MCU has not treated its’ characters so badly since AoS’ S2 finale, (and no, that is just a coincidence, the two shows barely interconnected at all). Back then, AoS S2 resulted in a massive killing-off of characters, (some of whom were quite interesting, and who weren’t Kara Lynn Palamas, who is another story completely), and now, ‘Loki’ S2 is doing the same thing: we barely get to know people (ok, characters), before they’re gone. The ex-judge RR and Victor Timely, for example, could have been just as important in ‘Loki’ as agent 33/Kara had been in AoS, and now, they are just gone.

…Right, some people are pointing out to me that within MCU ‘killing’ and ‘pruning’ are two different things, (however superficially similar): the show’s titular character, (as well as Sylvie and agent MMM), was pruned in S1, and it revealed that the ‘pruned’ characters (and things) go into some sort of a subspace wasteland where they stay forever, (or until a giant fog dragon eats them). To this, I reply: small consolation, not to mention it looks as if general Dox and most of her minions were killed, rather than pruned. I.e.: was it worth to introduce us to Dox and co. in the ‘Loki’ episode 2x02 only to get rid of them two episodes later? This sort of ill-treatment of characters is reminiscent of AoS at its’ worst, again.

…In addition, ‘Loki’ is all about the multiverse – or it is supposed to. The episode 2x03, ‘1893’, has kind of embraced this – at last, but now, in ‘Heart’, we’re back in the TVA proper, where various factions are fighting for its’ control, never showing openly just what are the stakes they’re fighting for. In S1, ‘Loki’ did show bits and pieces of multiverse, but in S2, the multiverse is being downplayed even more. Why? Is MCU being rebooted, some fans are wondering? To this, I respond: yes. Look, for example, at the information about ‘The Marvels’, the MCU movie coming out in Nov 2023: it features Carol, Monica and Kamala, and-

No Skrulls. The Skrulls were a big deal in the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, and they played a minor, but an important role, in WV, in which Monica got her powers. Since then, the Skrulls virtually vanished from MCU, and SI was an immediately forgettable show. It was also an insipid show… and it introduced Ms. Sonya, who took over from Countess Val with nary a comment. Put otherwise, MCU took time and effort in building countess Val, (Ms. Ross), as a character, only to replace her with Sonya when it really mattered. SI was supposed to be a milestone in MCU’s development and progress, and instead it became a forgettable side note – another sign that MCU is rebooting itself in mid-stride, not unlike how the SW sequel trilogy did do it. Moreover, there is no sign of Skrulls in the trailers and teasers for ‘The Marvels’, which further indicates a shift in the canon. What next?

Well, it is anyone’s guess, really. People are beginning to discuss for real that MCU is rebooting itself a-la SW. Of course, this reboot cost SW plenty of fans, but that does not matter: ever since ‘The Mandalorian’ S3, SW moved in the direction of the aforementioned sequel trilogy – that is the end game, to show how the SW world of the episode VI became the world of the episode VII and beyond. The SW fans did not like the world of the SW episode VII and beyond, but Disney/SW does not care, apparently, since it is returning its’ viewers there, albeit this time by a roundabout route. Will it succeed this time is an open question. What will this ‘rebooting in mid-stride’ approach/attitude do for Disney/MCU as well is another. ‘Loki’ S2 is already suffering from this, however, and that is not a good sign, for Disney/MCU or otherwise.

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

Loki, Breaking Brad - Octo 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now what about ‘Loki’?

Good question. In the second episode of the second season, (‘Breaking Brad’), we have general Dox, (played by Kate Dickie, apparently), destroy a large part of the multiverse. Pause.

Here’s the thing: we never saw this character in the first season off ‘Loki’, so they’re brand new, which is good, but they also may be the villain of the season, nothing more, the overall villain is Kang, or Kangs, but…

…But without the multiverse, can there be multiple Kangs? The ‘Quantumania’ movie established that the latter is true, but, again, this was before Dox destroyed a large part of the Multiverse, correct? If not, can we have some time framing here, please? In the first three-four phases of MCU, we had a good timeline where each portion of each phase goes, and how it correlates with each other; in phase 5, (ok, from the end of the phase 4 onwards), this is no longer the case. Instead, we got nothing, save for a question: what – literally – has happened to the Multiverse? Is it gone or not?

Obviously, the answer to the question has some large ripples and connotations as well: if the Multiverse is destroyed, (being destroyed), in ‘Loki’, does it mean that it is being destroyed for the rest of the MCU? And if so, was it sanctioned by Disney and the rest of the RL jazz?

No, seriously, ever since it was launched in the first season of ‘Loki’, the Multiverse was nothing but trouble in MCU. The 1^st season of ‘What If?’ went down well enough, but nothing fancy, and in its’ live-action incarnations the Multiverse was nothing but trouble. As the ‘Sequel Trilogy’ of the SW-franchise showed, Disney and its’ affiliates do not need to be too gentle to reboot themselves, and this may be what is happening here and now in MCU: the Multiverse is on its’ way out!

Speaking of SW, here is a theory as to what is going on over there: the Disney/SW franchise are quietly using its’ various films, comics, and especially TV series, to bridge the gap between the original trilogy (the 4^th-6^th movies) and the sequel trilogy (the 7^th-9^th movies). Since most people did not like the sequel trilogy, they are becoming unamused/disillusioned by Disney/SW’s current tactics and are beginning to be vocal about it. What next?

Anyone’s guess. Disney/SW’s original handling of the sequel trilogy broke the SW fandom, as we have discussed it way back when, and since then Disney/SW has done its’ best to undo this breaking, because it harms the entire franchise. However… First, you cannot please everyone, and second, the original issues – the original reasons as to why some people did not like the sequel trilogy – have never left. Disney/SW is trying to just re-sell it in a different package/wrapping, nothing more, and people are not fooled. They are not fooled and they are getting angry – and what the fallout will be this time, remains to be seen…

Back to Disney/MCU? There is not much remains to be said. Unlike the situation with SW, here things are less obvious: it has healed its’ rifts regarding AoS, (by removing it completely from itself), as well as the captain Rogers/Tony Stark rivalry, (ditto). Sadly, since ‘Kamala Khan’, the MCU branch of Disney is trying to reimagine itself for no good reason, and as a result, it suffers… without any obvious reason. The fallout from that has already manifested itself in SI; ‘Loki’ S2 so far is avoiding this fate, but this does not guarantee that it will be a smashing success either; more time – and data – is needed to make this judgement…

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI & Eric Flint

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI is no escape.

First, about real life: Eric Flint is dead. The man – the author – died in 2022, last year, and the world has become a poorer place without him. His 1630s series was a fun AH series of books, novels and story anthologies, even if they weren’t the most politically correct – i.e., in the last few novels, the new USE – United States of Europe – and their Swedish allies are fighting the ‘upgraded’ version of the Ottoman Empire. This could have been quite appropriate in the 1990s and especially early 2000s, when the U.S. has invaded, (for a lack of better word), Afghanistan and Middle East, but now, when U.S. has lost all of its’ earlier gains, (especially Afghanistan), not so much. What next?

SI offers little succor, save that it is over, and as people have noticed, the series’ finale redeeming feature is the abrupt change of tone in this particular episode. This is not neither new nor surprising: this has happened already in AoS, ‘Ms. Marvel’, and ‘She-Hulk’, as we have discussed previously, and indicates that regardless of whatever these shows have shown previously, in the future, this information will not be utilized, but be discarded instead, and moreover, MCU is starting anew with them.

…Aye, AoS was rather discarded completely as an alternative, and so far there’s no sign of ‘She-Hulk’, but MM the character is going to be important in the upcoming ‘Marvels’ movie – and so SI concluding shots are tied into it; the rest are just a rip-off of the Sokovian accords, which are done and gone and forgotten by MCU. Anything else?

About SI – not really: it was full of forgettable, surrogate characters, just as MM had been, and just as MM has, it is going to vanish into nowhere. About Eric Flint – I do not know, maybe his novel series will continue, maybe not. Real life sucks, eh?

This is it, then. Talk to you all later.

SI & FH - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but SI does not fare much better either.

…Now, some of you are raising a point that while AoS was a show about a group of people, (i.e. the titular characters), SI is a show about Nick Fury and his entourage, just as the ‘Hawkeye’ Series had been about Hawkeye… and the other Hawkeye, (you decide which is which). This is reasonable, but, again, if you look at ‘Hawkeye’, it was more than just about Hawkeyes one and two, it was also about their families, (especially about Kate’s), and about Echo, (another Marvel character who may or may not getting their own series in the future). In other words, ‘Hawkeye’ was part of MCU’s zeitgeist of that time, that of transitions: the title of ‘Hawkeye’ passed from Clint to Kate, and the landscape of MCU itself changed: NYC got a new vigilante, Echo, while Fisk was on the out, (supposedly), and Yelena Belova got further established in MCU than compared to her MCU debut in the ‘Black Widow’ film. SI does nothing like that, it is just Nick Fury running around, trying to save the world, while his few allies are just dying, and he’s blithely ignoring them: ‘Jeeves is dead? Thanks for the update, bye!’ There is no hook to capture and hold the audience’s attention, no nothing.

…AoS had the same problem, as a matter of fact, even from the start, but because they had several core characters who didn’t die in the initial episodes, for example, this show began to generate plenty of drama by the second half of the first season, and that was what kept it going, especially in the first three-four seasons. SI doesn’t have that either – the characters are both new and forgettable, and the new ‘Marvels’ trailer only further emphasized that SI is less of a milestone for MCU, and more of an aside, forgotten as quickly as possible. Why? Because that movie is about the Kree, not the Skrulls, as villains.

The fact that SI has evil Skrulls for villains, (rather than plain-mundane Chinese, North Koreans or Russians – thank God for that), is also a problem: by now MCU has established that Kree are the bad guys out of the two, and the Skrulls are allies of Fury and Earth’s humans; to have them suddenly become evil has made things even more convoluted and uncomfortable for MCU and its’ narrative, so the odds of SI being shoved aside and forgotten after its’ run ends is perfect.

Pause. Going back to the new ‘Marvels’ trailer, we also see Fury there, but no other member of the SI cast, including Ms. Sonya, who is just a variant of countess Val, of whom there’s no sign, which is proof that SI is about to be done and gone in MCU. True, the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film also starred Phil Coulson, who ended his AoS run being more live than dead, and the ‘Marvels’ trailer ignores that as well, but AoS is apocrypha of MCU on one hand, and on the other, MCU is restructuring itself even regardless of AoS by now. Is that it?

For SI – yes. For FH – not so much. This week the game has released a depiction of a new PC character, the Ocelotl. Succinctly put, this character is based on a RL and fantasy versions of the Aztec Jaguar Knight caste, but because of copyright infringement, or because FH is trying to be fancy, the character is named after the ocelot wildcat instead.

An ocelot is a sizeable feline, true, after the jaguar and the puma it is the biggest cat in the American tropics, but the jaguar could easily have an ocelot for breakfast if the latter got unlucky on one paw, and on the other, the North/Central American bobcat could probably overpower it as well. There is no idea as to why FH ignored the jaguar, the American biggest cat, in the favor of the ocelot, but it still did.

As for the new character’s weapons… He wields a Macahuitl and Tepoztopilli. The first is a wooden sword/baseball bat studded with sharp shards of obsidian. The second is a wooden spear with a wide head, also studded with sharp shards of obsidian. In the original Mesoamerica, which had no metal armor, such weapons were formidable, tearing at a human body, and obsidian shards could and would splinter on impact, further hurting the human. Against metal, (ok, steel), arms and armor, however, as well as firearms, the Aztec weapon proved inefficient, and the Natives would acquire those weapons and armor quickly enough, though it wasn’t sufficient to save their empire from collapsing… from several reasons, actually, but none of them are relevant to FH. What is important, supposedly, is that the Aztec Jaguar was already featured in S2 of Deadliest Warrior, (DW), where he faced a Zande warrior of Africa, and lost. Now, under a new name, he is returning to mass media – it will be interesting to see how the ‘Ocelotl’ will fair in the game.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI, 'Beloved' - July 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI… continues to underwhelm, ditto. This week’s episode, ‘Beloved’, has Talos, (the male Skrull that impersonated Fury in Tom Holland’s 2^nd ‘Spider-Man’ film), killed, and whoever gives a damn about that? Whereas AoS at least tried to build its’ characters up so that their death would matter and/or impact the audience, SI does not. Pause?

Let us try again. As it was said the last time, AoS appears to overshadow SI in quantity at the very least, but still, as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man 2’ movie showed, SI has the advantage of having its’ characters appear in the rest of MCU’s franchise; unlike AoS, SI is an official part of MCU and as such it can use this status to ‘pull out’ characters from other corners of MCU to flesh itself other. Indeed, it appears to do so with the character of Rhodes, (War Machine)… who appears to become mostly AWOL himself since the CA: CW film, (the ‘What If?’ cartoon series do not count, as they are more of an alternative to the main MCU plotline)… The point here is that SI is also underwhelming on top of its’ other issues; it has its’ own advantages vs. AoS, which is does not use, or rather does not use them very well… or very much at all. AoS did not have them at all, or at least – not very many, but it still used them…

Ok, to be fair, what AoS also did was cannibalize/assimilate discarded plots of such discarded Marvel shows as ‘InHumans’ and ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Most Wanted’ in order to keep itself going. But, again, both it and SI were TV shows, not RL – Disney/MCU could abort them instead of running them full time, or else get rid of them before they aired – but no. Disney/MCU went through with AoS, even though there were multiple behind the scenes issues in it, and it is going through with SI, even though there are multiple issues with it as well. The result is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone from MCU on one hand, and SI is going to join it too, it looks like on the other. Sad, but that is real world politics for you – like the rest of reality, they suck.

Moreover, speaking of reality… It is only mid-July here, in the southern Canada, (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is a reality fact instead), and already fruits, berries, nuts and seeds are ripening, the leaves are turning red, and the flowers are going away. The insects are still out in force – we are talking pollinators here – but squirrels, grey and red, as well as their cousins the chipmunks and marmots, are already preparing food for winter. Guess living in the north – and not being a human – has its’ restrictions and rules overall. The local cicadas, however, are singing, meaning that it is mid-summer here after all…

(Oh, and the carrion is all gone now, washed away by the heavy summer thunderstorms – the vultures and condors are out of luck after all).

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI and real life - July 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks… but we will be talking about it regardless, it looks like.

Why, you may ask? Because SI continues to… not deliver: whereas AoS was all about ‘pieces solving a puzzle’, to quote Skye, SI is just mostly about Nick Fury, running around the world trying to stop the deviant Skrulls, yet almost never engaging them directly. Meanwhile, both Talos and Ms. Falsworth seem to be doing their own thing and so does G’iyah the Skrull-girl… who seems to be a rip-off of Skye/Daisy Johnson/Quake. Pause.

Let us try again, without going too far into an AoS-rant. Initially, AoS was supposed to be a big deal, as the above-mentioned character of Quake was an important character in the Marvel comics for a while, she even ran S.H.I.E.L.D., in one of the comic universes. Sadly, whatever the show’s intent was, it quickly went off in a completely different direction and from S4 onwards it became an outlier of MCU; now, there is no mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. in MCU – but we have discussed that earlier. Now, let me just stay that it is MCU’s loss, as out of the two shows, SI is the lesser one, and not just because it is 6 episodes long, while AoS had been 7 seasons long instead – both quality and quantity matter here.

AoS issues aside, so far SI seems to be mostly laying a groundwork for the upcoming MCU… elements, making the deviant Skrulls the main villains of MCU to come, as team Fury still doesn’t appear to have gotten their shite together, while the ‘evil Skrulls’ appear to have done just that. Therefore, let us leave them for now, go, and face reality.

What do we have there? As a California condor has proclaimed – “Carrion, of course!” The dead squirrel/skunk is gone from the road, the dead Norway rat/house mouse is… mostly gone from the street walk, but while those remains are few in number, (mostly the tail and some bones), they still fill the streets with the stench of ripe rotten meat… and since we got wild coyotes, (red) foxes and raccoons going around the neighborhood on one hand, and pet dogs, as well as cats, and human children on the other… the locals should really go an extra mile here and get rid of all the carrion, before something bad happens – but that’s just a condor’s perspective.

Done with the dead, onto the living. We have seen a couple of eastern cottontail bunnies feeding around, and they are both adorable and super-fast. However, quite a few people have seen rabbits or hares in their lives, either wild, pet or feral, so let us leave them aside, (for now, maybe). What we have also seen are mergansers.

What are mergansers? They are ducks, just as the mallards are, only not. The mallards are an example of dabbling ducks: they feed on the water’s surface, their bills are long and broad as they filter food from there; the Shoveler duck has a bill that is especially adapted for filtering; maybe not as derived as a flamingo bill, but still there.

A diving duck, on the other hand, dives. A dabbling duck may briefly turn downside up on the water surface before returning into the air, but a diving duck can soundlessly slide beneath the water’s surface just as a loon or a cormorant does. Moreover, just like them, diving ducks, such as mergansers, have long, thin bills designed to catch fish. Unlike loons or cormorants, however, a merganser’s bill, (there are several species, but all look similar enough to each other not to be distinguished without a bird guide), has serrations in it to better grasp and hold onto a slippery fish, while loons and cormorants don’t have them. Moreover, as in all of the ducks, male and female mergansers look different from each other, (though the female mergansers are much more colourful than mallard females are, for example), while loons and cormorants don’t have that. Put otherwise, the mergansers were amazing as they fed in shallow waters, (it was a female with ducklings, though a male was nearby – maybe a father of the family, maybe not), submerging and emerging with ease that a fabricated sub could only dream off. Anything else?

No, not really. The point that is being made here is that while usually real life sucks more and imaginary life sucks less, sometimes the reverse is true.

This is all for now, see you all soon!

SI, series premiere - June 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series instead.

The series’ premiere episode, ‘Resurrection’, is… no, it may be indicative of the series (mini-series), as a whole: it lacks heart.

No, let us try again. ‘Secret Invasion’ is a remake-reboot, not unlike TLM-2023, only if TLM-2023 is obvious, then ‘Secret Invasion’ is a ‘subtle’ way of rebooting both S.H.I.E.L.D., (AoS), and S.W.O.R.D., (WV, remember?). After AoS, WV, and – the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series, SI is the third attempt for MCU to develop a secret agency something or other. AoS was a spy TV series that veered into new pastures at the end of S4 or around that time and it took the titular S.H.I.E.L.D. with it. That series ended with S.H.I.E.L.D. flourishing… an ending that came from a previous incarnation of the show, and which ended in a metaphorical cul-de-sac as they were replaced by S.W.O.R.D. in WV. Skrulls also played a minor role in that series, but play they did, and as we’ve seen in the trailer for ‘The Marvels’ film, they, and S.W.O.R.D., were supposed to play a role in MCU – and so the Skrulls do. 

S.W.O.R.D., on the other hand, got replaced by something called S.A.B.E.R. with nary an explanation, though in ‘Ms. Marvel’ we just had surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D., represented by the government, chasing Clan Destine, aka surrogate InHumans, with Kamala being caught in the middle. However, by the end of MM, we learn that none of the above applied to Kamala, who had her own destiny, and who got swapped with Carol ‘Captain Marvel’ Danvers at the end – an act that ties-in directly with ‘The Marvels’ as the trailer shows – but there the villains are to be the Kree, not the Skrulls. Pause.

Going back to the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, we learn that in MCU the Skrulls are good, while the Kree were bad. Therefore, now we got a splinter group of the Skrulls, who are bad after all, and Fury, Hill, and the good Skrulls need to stop them. Can we say ‘unnecessarily complex’? Whatever was going on in the heads of MCU’s creative team regarding them will remain unknown – it just too convoluted to be revealed.

However, the ‘plot development’, where the splinter Skrulls are beginning a conflict between USA and Russia is all too predictable: it is safe. Sure, MCU could have used China, North Korea or Iran, (to name a few), in place of RF, but RF is safe. Disney/MCU knows that it will not offend anyone by using RF as cat’s-paw for the main villains – the splinter Skrulls – and anything else is more risky.

Sure, USA is not too happy with China these days, for example, (just ask Biden the POTUS), but Disney/MCU is ready to commit to that train of thought and would rather be somewhere else. As it was written before, Disney loves to make money, but it hates to lose money even more, and controversies cost money, and so Disney prefers to end controversies before they begin. The result? Things like the almost featureless ‘Elemental’ that go down easy, go out easy, and are forgotten just as easily. You remember the Spider-society in Sony’s™ second Miles Morales film? On one hand, this organization is quite democratic - we got people of all shapes, colors, sexes, species, etc. On the other hand, this organization is quite inefficient, as Miles is able to avoid them… period. The Spider-society is less of an organization and more of a crowd that is not very efficient at executing tasks period. (The titular organization of AoS had a similar problem, but on a smaller scale). This is… not unlike the actual US society these days, which is quite democratic and politically correct, but not very good at executing various tasks; the fact that the RF’s ‘special military operation’ is floundering is their fall, not US’ achievement, and it shows. If RF ever gets its’ things together, (a tall order, true, but still), then Ukraine is in real trouble…

Leaving real world behind and going back to ‘Secret Invasion’… we got more of AoS, really. AoS had FitzSimmons to show the American unity with the U.K., and here we got Ms. /agent Sonya, who is a member of MI6 and Fury ally, (supposedly). In reality, the relationship between the two countries is more fractious, but Disney/MCU has nothing to do with reality, you know? Real life sucks as it is…

‘Secret Invasion’, on the other hand, is just lackluster – it isn’t as bad as ‘She-Hulk’ had been, but judging by the more than slightly subdued reaction from the media, everyone is aware that it isn’t ‘What if?’ or even ‘Sam & Bucky’. It is just a much-shorter clone of AoS, and people are treating SI as such. Pity, I would say, but there is nothing to pity – Disney/MCU should have just stuck with S.W.O.R.D. instead.

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

Elemental - June 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. This is all I want to say about it right now, so let us move onto the ‘Elemental’ movie instead. Regrettably, ‘Elemental’ is much of an improvement, topic-wise – it also sucks, not unlike how ‘Doolittle’-2020 sucked, only moreso.

Let us elaborate. Superficially, ‘Elemental’ isn’t too different from Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ film (2016), save that in place of anthropomorphic mammals we got anthropomorphic elements instead – air, earth, fire and water. No, the ‘Avatar/Korra’ franchise had people who could control such elements instead, (and they had people who had no such powers too). The world of ‘Elemental’ is more restrictive than the world of Aang and Korra is, as well as the world of ‘Zootopia’ – there are only four main elements, (any ‘crossbreads’ such as mud or steam embodiments don’t appear in this film), and nothing else. In fact, at least some critics are asking why are there sentient/self-aware elementals, of water, for example, and then there is just plain water, which is neither sentient nor self-aware.

Next, we got the actual plot. In ‘Zootopia’, we got a love story between a red fox and a bunny rabbit, an unintentional and flattering parody of Harry and Megan. They have to solve a mystery of the night howlers, figure out who is trying to set carnivores and herbivores, (well, ‘predators’ and ‘prey’) against each other, as well as deal with prejudices, biases, preconceptions and superstitions against each other. In ‘Elemental’, we got a female fire elemental named Ember and a male water elemental named Wade who… pause.

The main conflict in ‘Elemental’ is that Ember had blown stuff up, and Wade has to report her to the city hall. Since that would put the kibosh on Ember’s entire family and their dream, done in the ‘Straight-off-the-boat’ style, Ember has to persuade Wade that she isn’t so bad and he shouldn’t report her – and when she does achieve it, in a manner of speaking, (among other things), she loses her temper shortly afterwards once more, and creates another explosion that she and Wade have to solve together. Fair enough, but the plot of ‘Zootopia’ is simply better and more complex out of the two.

Then we come to romance. As it was said above, in ‘Zootopia’, romance is only a part of the movie; the mystery of the night howlers is just as big a part. In ‘Elemental’, there is only romance… wait, what do I hear? It is an interracial romance and therefore it is more important? Right, once again, from the topic.

As TLM-2023 showed, racial issues are still big and thorny in the U.S. society: after TLM-2023 aired, I saw many videos and read fan reviews that – while claiming that they were not racist, certainly made a lot of noise about H.B. and her race. The fact that TLM-2023 is a bad movie on its’ own merit does not help the situation either. However, what matters is that TLM-2023 is one side of a coin – a film that brings out a lot of race-based critique in a manner that helps no one.

…Meanwhile, ‘Elemental’ is the other side of the same coin: it is supposed to be a responsa to the interracial relationships’ critique, but it does so smoothly and glibly that it helps no one.

Again, the U.S. society, or at least its’ elite, don’t deal with interracial relationships very well. Look at Disney/Marvel, for example: in AoS, there were no WASP/POC relationships; in ‘Avengers’ – ditto, and SW did not do any better. TLM-2023 handled this sort of thing very, well, heavy-handedly, pardon the pun, but at least they tried – and ‘Elemental’ doesn’t do the interracial relationship any better, certainly worse than how ‘Zootopia’ did it.

Put otherwise, ‘Elemental’ is ‘Zootopia’, not only simplified to just four races/species, but with all the rough edges sanded and smoothed out, which only hurt the film. In ‘Zootopia’, characters had to deal with real prejudices and outright segregation – tall, small and short characters were often treated differently from each other and without any political correctness either. ‘Elemental’ does not really have that; yes, Ember and Wade come from different social classes, but ‘Elemental’ does not explore that either; the main conflict here is that Ember and Wade are fire and ice…I mean, fire and water, ha-ha. Couldn’t they make them earth and air instead? Are earth and fire, for example, all that compatible?.. Never mind, where were we?

Flat-out, by smoothing out any controversies and conflicts, the creative team behind ‘Elemental’ has decreased its’ value, has decreased the value of Wade and Ember’s relationship… period. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and MJ have value as a couple; Sony’s Miles Morales and Gwen, (as well as Peter B. and MJ Watson) – ditto. Ember and Wade – not so much. You want to see a fictional interracial couple that works as a team, defeating enemies and overpower obstacles? Go and re-watch ‘Zootopia’ once again. ‘Elemental’ is just a faded copy of it.

Anything else? Yes, Ubisoft’s FH franchise seems ready to go Mesoamerica soon – already there is a conquistador-like character in the works. There was a conquistador – Hernan Cortez himself – in the third and final season of DW, but that is another story…

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

GotG Vol 3 - May 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I apologize for my tardiness. Now let us talk about the GotG, Vol 3. What is it?

A really great film, to put it down concisely. Without getting into details too much, let us point out as to what is absent from GotG Vol 3 – multiverse and Kangs.

No, seriously, let us try again. Throughout the GotG series, aside from the Christmas special that titular characters went from challenge to challenge, growing and developing as a team/family from film to film, including the ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ movies – only not, as some of them were dusted by Thanos… and Gamora died in a non-reversible way – and got replaced by an earlier copy of herself, who acted quite differently from the previous incarnations. So what?

Therefore, compared to the previous Marvel film, ‘Quantumania’, GotG Vol 3 is more toned down out of the two, it is more restrained, and the stakes for the cast and crew – not the characters – are higher. Put otherwise, the former put a better performance than their counterparts in ‘Quantumania’ did. What next?

Next, the movie is more restrained, by Disney/MCU standards. ‘Quantumania’ is supposed to be a leap into the multiverse. Sadly, Disney/MCU hasn’t gotten the hang of the multiverse so far; the best take on it is ‘Loki’, and so far the info about its’ upcoming second season is kept close to the chest: apparently, Disney/MCU is aware that they haven’t figured out as to how to play the multiverse card correctly, and ‘Quantumania’ was supposed to be a test run. Like a test run into something new, it was not a smashing success, even if Elon Musk’s went worse, but that is real life for you – it sucks.

Back to Disney/MCU the fact that the titular characters disband at the end of the film, marking something of an end for the group. This is important, for everything has to end, for otherwise it risks overstaying its’ welcome. Now, this is something that has been harped about in regards to Disney/MCU for a while now, so some elaboration is in order. Let us begin.

Firstly, nothing is set in stone, and as long as MCU continues to make money for Disney, it will continue to run. However, the overall reputation of Disney/MCU will continue to suffer and what will come out of that is another question. Of course, this means that the voices of Disney/MCU’s critics will continue to sound, but by themselves, they are nowhere near enough to end the MCU, for they matter less than they like to. In the elections of 2016, the American mass media did its’ best to ensure that Hillary Clinton would win – and she did not. Since then, the American mass media wasn’t the same, and neither is the rest of the American society – but the Donald is still neither arrested nor affected overmuch; he may’ve lost the election-2020, but he’s still kicking, and the Democrats are trying to stop him from running for the election of 2024, and are mismanaging that strategy…badly, but that is another story.

Back to GotG Vol 3, they have actually ended and kudos to them for this. Disney tends to make its’ series a trilogy, and GotG confirms to this… unlike the Ant-Man franchise, whose third film, ‘Quantumania’, feels more like a beginning instead – but it also leaves the ant-family high and dry. That is a cheap shot, it is, and even Disney (and MCU) admit it… somewhat.

Ah yes, the villain issue of Disney/MCU. Until ‘Quantumania’, the villains of this franchise came and went in a range of a single film – normally. There were exceptions. Thanos was one, obviously. The characters in AoS were another, but AoS itself is buried deeper by Disney/MCU than Thanos is, but where it does leave Kang?

Pretty much in the same place as the rest of the villains, save that now there is a multiverse – as in a nearly limitless supply of Kangs. Now when one Kang dies, another can replace him with little effort, and that is it. It is the same old story, just cheapened even more, since death of any Kang will be almost meaningless on one hand, and on the other, the rest of the villains are now redundant as there’s probably always a Kang who can do their job just as well.

To expand – ‘Quantumania’ differs from Vol 3 is that it has a hero, who was left high and dry, as with ‘Quantumania’ over, there’s no indication as to where the Ant-Man and the rest of his family will go, (i.e. they are all left hanging), and on the other hand, it has a villain that had no meaning in the greater structure of Disney/MCU, no matter how much the latter tried to up-play the multiverse. Sad, but GotG Vol 3 did not have these issues, which is why people like it much better than they had ‘Quantumania’, and that is that.

This is also the end for now. See you all soon!

Honor Among Thieves and Co. - March 23

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us try to find some different topic of discussion. Pause.

Sadly, there does not appear to be any; ‘The Mandolorian’ is already being discussed to death, while ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves’… ok, let me rant.

‘Honor’ may be a D&D film, supposedly, but it is set in a very specific setting: The Forgotten Realms. Initially, The Forgotten Realms were just one setting within the broader D&D spectrum, but now, apparently, they dominate it, with their rivals, such as Eberron and Pathfinder, seem to have fallen by the wayside.

…Actually, that may not be really fair: the RPG sector began to suffer, just as many other luxury goods and services, ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, and it has not really recovered from it. However, the decline of some of its’ aspects, such as Pathfinder, began pre-COVID-19, and so I’m not fully sold on this state of affairs being the pandemic’s fault alone – something else might’ve worked behind the scenes, but what? Who knows…?

Anyways, ‘Honor’ is set in The Forgotten Realms’ setting, something that has not been openly/officially acknowledged so far. That is one. Two, is that it is a relatively conservative movie rather than a progressive/liberal one: a person of color plays the barbarian character, (so’s the paladin, but he’s more a temporary character in this film), and the druid character is a tiefling rather than a human or an elf. Second pause.

…Since this is a rant, may I point out that lately RPGs have this weird issue regarding tieflings. In fact, tieflings are only one out of several ‘planetouched’ races, a group of humanoids that have extradimensional ancestors… think the InHumans of MCU – initially regular humans with alien DNA, they became a brand new separate species by the time of them being featured in the MCU. The planetouched are similar, save that, the tieflings have demon or devil genes, (to use the term incorrectly, but still), while the descendants of the various celestials are called, the aasimar… and they are represented much less often than their tiefling counterparts are. I have no idea as to why, but this is how it rolls at least since the 3.5 D&D edition. Weird!

Getting back to the film, let us note that the tiefling druid here is a tiefling because the party needed one non-human character, to pass as a fantasy racial minority, probably. Again, this is not exactly new – Pathfinder, for example, tended to stick with human NPCs, when regular old monsters would not do; oh, it had its’ dwarves, elves, half-orcs and so on, but humans dominated. Since Pathfinder takes place on imaginary planet named Golarion, I do not know whose issue this was and why and how it was addressed, if it ever did. Still, Pathfinder 2^nd edition is a lot like D&D 5^th edition, so we do not care about Pathfinder as much anymore. Where were we?

Right. So, ‘Honor’ is peddling a specific setting as a general one, and it is quite conservative with its’ PCs, and it took its’ plot straight from the SW – Forge is a discount Palpatine, (“I cannot bare to see you die, so I’ll leave”) while his ally Sofina the Red Wizard is a discount Assajji Ventress. More precisely, Neverwinter and its’ lords are Coruscant and its’ Jedi, while the Red Wizards are Sith, with Thay being their home country. So what?

So nothing, especially since The Forgotten Realms’ setting itself has changed a lot in passing from the 3/3.5 edition onto the 4/5 one. Not sure, if it was for the best either – but while the different editions of D&D differ quite a lot, none of those changes came into the movie because of reasons. Where we are left with them/without them?

Again, with a conservative film that has several heterosexual couples – Forge and Sofina, Edgin and Holga, and Simon and Doric. This is never emphasized, of course, but it is there; Edgin and Holga, especially, are the Not-A-Couple of the film, as Holga tends to rebuff Edgin’s advances, (at least some of the time), but at the end of the film, Edgin, (and his daughter, who’s a minor character in the film – at least this one), choose to resurrect her than his late wife – symbolism is hitting the audience on the collective head here.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the good old classics, but could you acknowledge it, at least? In Pathfinder – at least the 1^st edition, not certain about the following ones – there were plenty of sexual minorities, (since it is a different world altogether and our rules don’t apply to it) – and so it seems to get cancelled, as I, for one, no longer can find much of it aside from the Internet, but the same can be said about many other RPG rulebooks and the like… Where were we?

Ah yes, the conservative values disguised as progressive ones. It isn’t just RPGs, you know? For a while, I was invested in Mr. Riordan’s PJ novels, as well as those spun-off/inspired by him. On some level, they were progressive as they utilized various racial and sexual minorities, but then-

But then I realized that it was ‘The Whale’ scenario – you remember our discussion of ‘The Whale’ as in the 2022 movie? In the discussion of it, it was pointed out that ‘weight’ and ‘race’ were window dressing for the actual movie message, (such as it was), and the same can be said for the latest novels of Mr. Riordan both about Magnus Chase and Apollo, as well as for the spin-offs.

Take, for the example, Mr. Yoon Ha Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ novels, (there are two of them so far). They’re chockful of sexual and racial minorities… whose gender and race don’t play any role in the series, they’re just window dressing, and the main characters are a gumiho (fox spirit) from ‘the wrong side of tracks’, and a tiger spirit from a noble clan that’d disgraced themselves by treason against the emperor, or whoever. I.e., they are variant Skye and Grant from AoS, (I am going down with that ship). Ergo, does it matter if the supporting cast are not heterosexual? Hint: it does not… and the same largely goes for the rest of the spin-offs. There are some divergences from that mould, for example the ‘Tristan Strong’ series, but they are the ones that I cannot find on shelves anymore since the pandemic ended. Gee, I wonder why… What else?

Ah yes, one final part regarding the ‘Honor’ film – its’ main cast are a bunch of misfits that make a regular experienced N/PC face palm. No, wait, there are two – the team’s sorcerer is a descendant of Elminster. If anyone outside of the RPG community, (especially the parts keyed to the Forgotten Realms) know and care who Elminster is – good for them. They can go back watching ‘The Whale’ – the two sets of media are equally good. In addition, as for the misfit part, now this fossilized cliché is almost a requirement that you need to succeed in a film… unless you are in something akin the SW films seven through nine – but that is another story.

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