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!

Avengers comics - July 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and MCU has taken a breather for 5 weeks – thanks God. Why?

Because MM, in particular, had been an uninspiring mess! MCU’s Phase 4 is about transitions and introductions…but it has stopped working in ‘Thor 4’, ‘cause Disney/MCU want to retain TW in their roster, and the latter didn’t want to work with the ‘Thor’ franchise unless CH remains Thor – so it was NP who got removed out of MCU for good instead. Well, not her, but her character – Dr. Jane ‘the mighty Thor’ Foster. Fun! However, never was it said that Disney/MCU would not step over their principles if they can achieve greater financial success! What next?

…So, in the absence of MCU, I tried to read some Marvel comics – especially the Avengers’ storyline, and it is the same old song, albeit done in different tune: initially, the Avengers had their own plotline, as they teamed-up with several other heroes to protect Earth from various beings, (who were being puppet-mastered by Mephisto). Eventually, that degraded into collections of one-shots, and cameos, and filler arcs, all of which clearly showed that Marvel themselves do not really know what to do with this version of the Avengers anymore, or why should it keep them.

Here, though, is an especial shout-out to the ghost rider, (the Robbie Reyes version). In the beginning, he became a ‘proper’ Avenger, (as opposed to a more vigilante type of crime fighter), with a burgeoning relationship with Captain Carol ‘Marvel’ Danvers. Why? Because he was about to get his own series in MCU, at that time. This did not happen, so by the time that the Moon Knight Story arc came along, Robbie got sidelined completely, and Carol teamed/coupled-up with Tony ‘Iron Man’ Stark instead, (complete with a fostered baby, who is more of a political statement, but that is another story).

Why the Moon Knight? Because he did get his own series at MCU, so his character did get some redesigning in the Marvel comics. Fun! However, this story arc had nothing to do with him anymore; rather it was all about the Phoenix.

…When the current Avenger incarnation began, Wolverine was the Phoenix, (do not ask, I do not know – or care about – the details). Then, abruptly, Wolverine was not the Phoenix anymore, and began to lead his own, ‘Savage’ Avengers, against a wizard named Kulan Gath (or something along those lines). Now there is no mention either of the Savage Avengers or of the wizard in question…and the Phoenix force resides in Maya ‘Echo’ Lopez instead.

Yes, that Maya, who starred in the ‘Hawkeye’ TV series, and who is about to get her own series, apparently. Therefore, now she is the new Phoenix in the comics, and Robbie is flirting with her, while Carol is with Stark, (see above). Frankly, the current Avengers should have their own soap opera by now, with Mephisto playing the main villain, which would be more appropriate for them… Where were we?

Ah yes, with the epiphany that while Disney/MCU have some idea of where they should go now that the Infinity Saga is over, but they are quite willing to diverge from it because of money, then Marvel comics don’t even have that, and just follow – vaguely – Disney/MCU’s lead. Yay for them, really. Sometimes, I authentically hate not only the real life, but everything else as well.

However, for the moment, this is it. See you all soon, instead!

 

 

Dr. Strange 2 movie - May 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hawkeye, 'Christmas' - Dec 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks - just ask Noth, who’s been declared a sex offender throughout the week, and everyone else is dropping him like hot shite. I can’t say that I blame them- team Carrie can’t afford to go against the flow: already their core base is fracturing because of AJLT take on their characters, and unlike SW they don’t have Disney to back them up; any more pressure, and they will become just 3 more washed-up actresses instead with AJLT being the albatross on their collective necks.

Ditto for RR - he got involved with Peloton, not with Noth, and he has his own problems, as the ‘Red Notice’ film turned out into a 200 million USD flop. So, let’s go to the greener pastures of ‘Hawkeye’.

…Actually, I’d rather not, since it’s not much of an improvement; sadly, JWD’s latest Input is a poster of Owen being harassed by an Atrociraptor- the franchise stopped making dinosaur hybrids and is just reimagining them from the get-go. Still better than ‘Hawkeye’.

Where to begin? Fisk’s big return was a joke - he didn’t do much and was killed-off by Lopez - supposedly, but still. It’s rather underwhelming, but then again, the conclusion of Maya’s story arc was underwhelming- she killed Kazi without much of a fight, and then just turned on to her uncle/surrogate father with nary a struggle. Not impressive character development, let me tell you; not to mention that Fisk cannot die - he is just too important for the Marvel universe.

Getting back to Ronin… Clint burned the suit; so much for my prediction that Maya will be the next Ronin, just as Kate is the next Hawkeye. As I said before, the entire Maya story arc appears to be rushed through here, so maybe we won’t see an Echo mini-series after all, authenticity and equal opportunity or not. Instead, we got a hint that Laura might have been a Mockingbird…only MCU already has/had a Mockingbird- Bobbi Morse; already there are people upset about this decision, and Disney doesn’t like controversies after the SW mess… so odds of the watch vanishing now that the ‘Hawkeye’ mini-series are done aren’t bad.

And yes, AoS has started it by ‘spoilers’ - in the series’ last season they’ve explored the multiverse, sort of, thanks to the Chronicons, but this sort of backwards-engineering in ‘Hawkeye’ still stings.

Finally, The fact that ‘Hawkeye’ is done has also left a bad taste in my mouth - it itself feels rushed, you know? At least Clint had the good taste to bring Kate to his family’s home for further mentoring, thus tying into the ‘Endgame’ epilogue, but still…I expected fewer cliffhangers… and Yelena’s resolution… well…

This brings us back to transitions. ‘Hawkeye’ has followed this theme - the mantle has passed from Clint to Kate, (even though in 'Endgame' it was implied that it would be Clint and Laura's own biological daughter instead - ouch!), we got an update on Yelena, and maybe Echo will reappear in the future. However, the rushed story arcs and the unnecessary twists - it was Elinor all along, etc. - have rather ruined the impact. Still better than real life, though.

This is it for now; see you all soon.

Spider-Man, 'No Way Home' - Dec 17

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the latest Spider-Man movie instead.

…I mean, sure, it isn’t as straightforward, for example, the discovery of a brand new millipede specie in RL is really exciting, while the new JWD posters are something else: on the first, we have Claire stuck in a swamp, driven there by a therezinosaurus; again, I’ve no idea what a therezinosaurus would do in a swamp, plus the entire poster is too reminiscent of the ones done for the first film in the Jumanji reboot; and now we have the second poster, where Owen has lassoed a Parasaurolophus instead. A Parasaurolophus was a hadrosaur (duck-billed) dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous around the inland sea of the prehistoric North America, in a time, and a place, that was pretty much opposite to the boreal forest in which Chris had lassoed it on the poster, so clearly, the world of the JWD movie has a lot of issues to work out – by people, by dinosaurs, by both, and by anyone else. And the latest (Tom Holland) Spider-Man movie?

…And the latest (Tom Holland) Spider-Man movie is something else. When we talked about the ‘Ronin’ episode of ‘Hawkeye’, I said that ‘Hawkeye’ has becoming nothing more than by the numbers Marvel TV series, whereas ‘No Way Home’ has become a by the numbers… Sony Spider-Man movie.

No, seriously, the advantage of MCU over its’ competitors was that it had a greater picture, so to speak: every film was a step on the path to… the ‘Endgame’. No, seriously the ‘Endgame’ film was the endgame to the first three phases of MCU; just consider them the bigger and more derived cousins to the three seasons of a typical Disney property, and you’ll be set. Now, however, MCU is moving – has moved – onto Phase 4, and out of Disney’s comfort zone, so no wonder that it is meandering all over the place – and then it came back to Sony. Their previous collaboration with each other – the ‘Far From Home’ film – resulted in Sony and Disney/MCU fighting, and the latter was forced to retreat, and now…

…And now, we got another Sony & Disney/MCU collaboration on Spider-Man, and it is something else from what I have predicted. I predicted that it is going to launch the concept of the multiverse in the Disney/MCU universe for real, now that the previous Disney+ Marvel TV series have teased it – ‘Loki’ began to explore it – and so it had. By the final scene, where we see Dr. Strange encounter Wanda Maximoff after the events of WV, dismiss the events in Westview easily enough, and talk to her about exploring the multiverse for real: ‘No Way Home’ was a glorified pre-run instead.

It was also a reboot of the Sony Spider-Man universe, as we got to see Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin stab ‘his’ Spider-Man rather than be impaled by his glider before everyone was able to go home; Electro from the ‘second’ Spider-Man universe also got redesigned; and so on. Given that Sony is continuing its’ own Spider-Verse, (the upcoming Morbius film, etc.) this does bring possibilities – but not to MCU. Instead, in case of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, he lost everyone and almost everything, and is clear to start from a clean slate. MCU is done with the Web-Head, so the odds of him having to deal with threats from only ‘his’ universe are fairly good.

In addition, there are signs that MCU has moved onto from Spider-Man: I am talking about ‘Hawkeye’, who has no mention of Wall-Crawler at all: seriously, you have adventures in a Marvel-verse NYC and no mention of the Spider-Man? That is just wrong. But that is also real life business politics: Sony, (including Spider-Man), and Disney/MCU are done with each on this level, and so Spider-Man got send out of MCU with a big fanfare, Sony got to demonstrate its’ past and present Spider-Man properties in a more tasteful way of HBO’s ‘Space Jam 2’ film, which has little in common with the original movie, and is worse than the original ‘Space Jam’ had been, which is just sad. Where were we?

Oh yeah, with the realization that ‘No Way Home’ was just a side-quest, an ejection from the otherwise slim and streamlined MCU phase 4, (no sarcasm intended). ‘What if?’ might be ‘What if?’, but it is apocrypha for a reason; there we saw situations that could have happened in MCU, but did not… just because. And even so, the end result of ‘What if?’ S1 was a variant of ‘Endgame’, a mix of the first and the last ‘Avengers’ films – nothing more. Disney/MCU always returns to its’ comfort zone… Pause.

Ah yes, the Daredevil (Charlie Cox) cameo. Now that the agreement between Disney/MCU & Netflix has ended, MCU is cautiously (re)-introducing the ‘Defenders’ characters, starting with the Kingpin and his archenemy Daredevil…apparently. What will come out of that we will have to see…

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

What if, 'Ultron' - Sep 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life is tricky; it is autumn in Ontario, Canada now, and all of the American toads and garter snakes and the rest of the cold-blooded animals are beginning to go to their winter hibernation sites; whereas the local songbirds – i.e., the American robin and the like – are flying down south, to the U.S., and beyond. Winter is only coming, it is not yet here, but the wildlife is getting the heck out of dodge already. As such, I often genuinely wonder as to how the world of ASOIAF would function – 10 years summer, 10 years winter and the such like? The local animals would find it to be murder, hence why GM never cared about them in his novels, dragons and dire wolves aside – but we digress.

This week, Marvel’s ‘What if?’ S1 has reached its’ penultimate episode, which has Ultron killing everyone, except for Natasha ‘Black Widow’ Romanoff and Armin Zola. Seriously, that is a character worth saving? Bloody Zola? Yes, obviously, the concept of ‘what if’ does imply from the start that here be unknown people with known names, but still? Zola?

…Zola aside, we got what? Further confirmation that the Thanos from ‘the sacred timeline’ was either especially tough, or especially lucky, or its’ Avengers were an especially measly bunch instead. Way back when, it took them two movies to actually defeat the grape goliath, and here in ‘What if?’, in the other timelines, various characters defeat him hither and yon. Puts a different perspective on all of those Infinity Stones found in the TVA, you know!

As for the episode itself, well… Yes, it is bad that Ultron won and killed everyone, to put it lightly, but we have already seen a variant of that, back in the episode 1x04, when that version of Dr. Strange did pretty much the same thing – and now he is back, as the Watcher has contacted him for help.

It should be noted that the Watcher had not shown initiative here; instead, it was the Ultron-Vision who attacked the Watcher, causing him to flee and start to assemble his own team, (though, notably, he has not contacted Zola or Romanoff yet), in order to save the multiverse and himself. Guess the TVA is going to be replaced after all, by the new mega-avengers, or else Ultron is going to kill the Marvel multiverse instead. This has happened before, actually, albeit by Deadpool rather than Ultron, but as we have seen, ‘What if?’ presents only the Avengers-associated characters so far, and Deadpool isn’t one of them; if you’re going to argue that the GotG aren’t exactly Avengers’ themselves, well, ‘What if?’ has them associated with T’Challa instead, and that hero began to be associated with the Avengers since the CA: CW film… unlike Shang-Chi, who never was, and so this movie of his is his first true appearance in the MCU, period. Where were we?

Ah yes, the Marvel comic arc called appropriately ‘Ultron Forever’, in which the titular character took over Earth, Asgard, and the rest, and only the brave yet ruthless Doombot stood in his way, so he assembled a team of Avengers from several time periods in Marvel history, and together the team defeated ‘the All-Father Ultron’ and brokered peace between the Doombot and the new free world… Where were we?

Oh yeah, ‘What if?’ aimed to shock and awe as much as anything, but the problem is that just as with many other TV series, (MCU or not), the shock and awe wear off quite quickly, and we’re left… with a TV show in this case, one whose S1 is coming to an end next week anyhow, and whose final expression – so far – is more positive than negative. Yay, really!

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

Black Widow - July 12

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Black Widow’ film, which was released last Friday, (July 9, 2021), after about a year’s worth of delay.

The ‘Black Widow’ movie works. The characters are relatable, the plot is understandable, and the visuals are really good. Admittedly, the movie never goes ‘full woke’, but it still works; it is also politically detached, but fewer people are complaining about that.

Let us elaborate. No, ‘Black Widow’ does not go into the subjugation of women by men fully, though girl power is clearly the motto of the movie; male characters are shoved to the sidelines, or are outright evil, as they are in case of general Dreykov.

Again, let me elaborate: ‘Dreykov’, however you want to spell it, is not a Russian surname; Romanova, Belova, Shostakoff, Vostokoff are, however mangled by their adaptation to English. More importantly, while at least some part of the ‘Black Widow’ takes place in Russia, (because ‘Black Widow’, no duh), there’s little of that ‘Russian ethnic flavor’ that you could’ve expected this movie to have; aside from the occasional accent, (done for fun as much as for authenticity), and some throwaway location titles, the action of the ‘Black Widow’ could’ve taken place almost anywhere else, and in fact in part it does – in Budapest, which is a Hungarian city, not a Russian one. That is an important difference, you know!

…Am I griping? Perhaps. The fact is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie is also generic, by MCU standards; there’s the entire gender issue – some of the movie critics are complaining that Disney/MCU didn’t take it far enough, but the thing is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie isn’t controversial, there isn’t anything really controversial about it, that’s a big part of its’ appeal, (that, and the pleasant visual aesthetics), but it is also its’ main flaw – some of the people are upset about everything and anything – real life sucks, remember? – though many more of them would rather watch the ‘Black Widow’ – or any other movie, really – just to escape reality, for however little a time period. I know that I did. What next?

A brief mention of Marvel’s ‘What If?’ series, which arrive on August 2021. Even in the trailers, this series is already a spectacle, but if you dig just a bit deeper, you will recover the same lack of controversy that marks the ‘Black Widow’. There are plenty of Marvel characters that will be appearing in the ‘What If?’ episodes, but none of them belong to AoS, (aside from Brock Rumlow, but he was not a part of AoS at all). Clearly, Marvel is done with S.H.I.E.L.D. …that puts the ‘Black Widow’ in an odd position. Just like WV, ‘Sam & Bucky’, and ‘Loki’, ‘Black Widow’ is a transition story, one where the titular…well, title, passes from Nat onto Yelena, but to complete the circle, Yelena has to become an assassin for… S.H.I.E.L.D. Or an agent, technically speaking, but there is no S.H.I.E.L.D. in MCU anymore. AoS was supposed to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. back to glory after the events in ‘The Winter Soldier’ film, but due to a bunch of RL factors, that never happened.

…Ok, within the game terms it did, but in RL? Once AoS ended, Disney/MCU put S.H.I.E.L.D. under the rug and does not appear to be bringing it back anytime soon; rather, it is S.W.O.R.D. that is trying to fill-in the gap, but judging by how it didn’t appear beyond WV, MCU hasn’t quite worked-out all of its’ kinks with that plotline yet either.

…It would be nice to talk about the flaws of WV, and how that show flourished despite them, but I won’t; getting back to ‘Black Widow’, we got another shot of contessa Val…this time recruiting Yelena…or rather, she has already done that, and is sending her after Hawkeye in the mid-credits series. The story has come full circle, again. Natasha got involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. over Barton the Hawkeye, and Yelena might get involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the (new) Avengers over Hawkeye…either Barton or Kate Bishop, who will star in the upcoming ‘Hawkeye’ series. How will the absence of S.H.I.E.L.D. affect these series, (after all, Barton was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. just as Natasha was), remains to be seen.

And getting back to ‘What If?’, now that we’re talking about the various MCU series once more, the other thing that is noticeable about the (admittedly current) character roster is that there’re no Defenders, or X-Men, or anyone else that wasn’t a part of MCU, (up to Phase 4, anyways). By now Disney & MCU own them, of course, but apparently it isn’t a full ownership or something, and so the duo in question would rather keep them in a drawer somewhere rather than on… small screens and start yet another ruckus – the old one with Sony isn’t all that forgotten, it seems; the world of ‘Venom’ and cohorts stands apart from MCU, as do some other series, for example ‘Helstrom’.

…Here is a shout-out to MCU’s Ghost Rider, whose show died before it was born. Played by Gabriel Luna in AoS, it was supposed to be his first hurrah; instead, MCU’s Ghost Rider joined its’ Deathlok in being a one-hit wonder; at least Grant Ward lasted for three whole seasons… where were we?

…With a very good movie in the character of ‘Black Widow’, (or whatever). It may not be controversial, (even the Taskmaster does not really push the envelope, not yet, anyhow), but it is still fun to watch and easy to enjoy – and that is really what Disney, (MCU or otherwise), is aiming for.

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

Loki, 'The Nexus Event' - June 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask the NatGeo magazine – in their July 2021 article about the Kenyan fossils they talk about ‘elephant relatives called proboscideans’, and all that I can say is: oh, for fuck’s sake! ‘Proboscideans’ are a taxonomic term that acts as an ‘umbrella’ that contains both the modern elephants and their extinct cousins, (the mammoths, the mastodons, and beyond). To call proboscideans ‘elephant relatives’ is just wrong, as the modern elephants, (the Asian and two African species), themselves are proboscideans. NatGeo once used to be a standard for scientific prestige and accuracy, and now that is gone. ‘Elephant relatives called proboscideans’ indeed!

…On to the more pleasant topics? This week’s ‘Loki’ episode, ‘The Nexus Event’ is…officially mediocre, as the show’s crew, apparently, just could not figure out the pacing in the show’s first season.

Let us elaborate, (if that is possible). From the start, Disney/MCU tried to downplay ‘Loki’; possibly because the titular character (characters?) are bisexual, and Disney hates controversy these days, and not just because it costs them money, but because. They just hate it after the entire SW, and MCU, and other messes. What next?

Well, again, I want to blame the troubles of ‘Loki’ on Disney/MCU trying to not have their LGBTQ+ cake and eat it too, but the truth is that the LGBTQ+ elements are minor in ‘Loki’, and the show itself suffers… from clunky, awkward plot. Loki and Sylvie’s entire side trip to Lamentis proved to be a monumental red herring; perhaps the duo needed to really bond, and there are few better bonding events than an apocalypse, (cough Thanos cough), but somehow ‘Loki’ the TV series mishandles this, by making Lamentis look like an unnecessary side trip from the TVA.

The TVA itself… I am no Loki, (though the post-credits scene introduced several more to the show), but I began to suspect that something was wrong with the TVA from the start; it was just too grand to be true, and now that the space lizard-gods proved to be robots… people aren’t being too surprised. Moreover, judge RnR is based on a character who has been associated with Conq the Kangaroo… I mean, Kang the Conqueror, who is a known villain in the Marvel Comics, so this sudden turn of events is not too sudden either.

In addition, Loki’s death? Also more dramatic than surprising, not to mention that I, for one, am kind of inured to this shit after the AoS’ S5 finale: they tried to make Fitz’s and Coulson’s demise oh so dramatic… and then they turned around and practically resurrected Fitz in S6, and as for Coulson and his look-alikes in AoS’ S6 & S7… don’t start.

‘Loki’, conversely, went in the other direction – all of the Lokis introduced in this series, (including Sylvie), are different from each other…and it will be interesting to see as to how the titular Loki figures out as to how to handle them, and how to deal with them, and so on. Straightforward enough, only ‘Loki’ the TV series does not deal with straightforward. Pause.

In AoS, the plot lines overindulged in twists and turns, especially in the first seasons…but regardless of this overindulgence, the overall plot still marched forward, from point A to point B, to oversimplify the situation. In ‘Loki’, conversely, the plot doesn’t go anywhere, it just circles around a single point – the TVA – and all the twists and turns serve even less purpose than they did in AoS, as they don’t progress the overall plot at all, but only make it more muddled. Anything else?

Ah, yes, back to the characters’ deaths. AoS already made a mockery of this aspect of MCU at the S5 finale, but ‘Loki’ took it one step further: apparently, all of the characters that are ‘killed’, or ‘deleted’, by TVA, don’t really die, but rather end up in some sort of a limbo, which is rather reminiscent of an apocalyptic NYC, (cough, the first Avengers’ movie, cough). I.e. instead of dying, Loki has found even more allies for himself, and whatever he will do now, he will do it with style and with help… (In theory about the last part). Anything else?

Sadly, no. Real life still sucks – a condo has collapsed in Florida, a man was attacked by a great white shark off the coast of California, (I believe), and yesterday we had to live through the mother of all the thunderstorms while dealing with a fire alarm. Put otherwise, my good readers, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #44 - May 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. No, I am not talking about the COVID-19 for the moment, but rather about the Asian giant hornets, better known as the Japanese killer hornets. A couple of inches long at least, and armed with a stinger and venom glands to match, this insect is more hated for killing honeybee colonies, especially outside of its’ native range in Asia, where the local honeybee populations have been known to swarm scouting specimens of this species and literally cook them to death, using their special powers. Pause.

Now, so far, (May 4, 2020), the giant hornets were spotted in the West, in the Washington state (and maybe the province of British Columbia). There were about one or two specimens of this giant insect, but given everything – they may devastate honeybee colonies, but their venomous stingers can kill humans and other creatures as well – everyone is panicking already, especially since with the COVID-19 still on the loose, humanity’s control over nature is more tenuous than how it usually is. What next?

Back in the East, in Brampton, Ontario, an American beaver got confused for an American alligator, or something similar among those lines. Considering that recently, (about May 3, 2020, or so), a woman in the U.S. state of South Caroline did die from an alligator attack, there is some reasoning beneath all the hysteria – I hope. The American beaver is one of the bigger rodents in the world and it is certainly the biggest in North America, and people have certainly died from beaver attacks, as a matter of fact – but proportionally, there are fewer beaver attacks, successful and otherwise, than there are alligator attacks, (and the fact that there are more horror movies featuring American alligators than beavers has a reason, you know?).

Pause. I will not tell a lie – today, I planned revisit our old friends the elephants. Why? Why not? It’s May the 4^th, people are talking about SW related jokes all over the Internet, and I’m feeling despondent – yes, the 2^nd season of ‘The Mandalorian’ is coming to Netflix, or Disney Plus, or some other streaming service… and judging by the trailer, Marvel’s GotG and the last two ‘Avengers’ movies left a mark on the SW series – baby Yoda is more of a teen now, and he acts rather like how the teen Groot acted in the aforementioned Marvel films. And-?

And nothing. The last SW movie ended on a low note for all sorts of reasons, (though the Rey/Kylo Ren ship lives on), including the fact that it was a damage control attempt that failed. So far, ‘The Mandalorian’ is the SW franchise’s last and only attempt to fix itself, and if it tries to do so by ripping-off the Marvel franchise… not cool.

…Yes, the ‘Trolls 2’ movie has also ripped off the last two ‘Avengers’ films, but they tried to be subtle-ish about it, plus this film did end on a rather different movie than the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ film did, so it kind of blew over and vanished in the COVID-19-related smog of obscurity. The fact that it was aimed at a younger audience than the ‘Avengers’ films did probably did not hurt either. ‘The Mandalorian’ does not have that.

What does it have? Plenty of distance, (especially metaphorically speaking) from the SW Sequel Trilogy, which was not good. It was not bad, but it certainly was not good either. The 1^st season of ‘The Mandalorian’ established that it was not connected to the Sequel Trilogy… or at least it did not appear to when the 1^st season was aired. Now that the movies are over for the moment, and we don’t have much information about the 2^nd season so far, the situation can always change – and as we’ve talked about above, the 2^nd season of ‘The Mandalorian’ may fail due to its’ own flaws and not be related to the Sequel Trilogy at all…

…Well, this is it for now. See you all soon! May the Fourth be with you indeed!

Doolittle-2020 - Jan 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It sucks just because, and your family, as well as yourself, are a part of it. Yes, every new day is different, one way or another, but as a rule – real life sucks. You may want to discuss the long-tailed duck or something, but you cannot, simply because real life sucks, and your personal life sucks, and you suck. Plus – priorities. No matter how much you love nature, sometimes you just cannot master the enthusiasm to write about the ducks, (or the woodpeckers, hedgehogs, squirrels, etc.). So, let us talk about something else – the doctor. He, (i.e. Doolittle), is in the house!

…And apparently, he sucks almost as much as real life does, according to many reviews and critics. They are wrong. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not bad. It is insipid.

Does anyone remember Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ that’d aired several years back? If not, it is not surprising – the show lasted for a single season, and it numbered only eight episodes. Yes, in the pre-Disney+ era Marvel TV shows didn’t last for more than two or three seasons, (AoS is the exception, period), but even so, ‘InHumans’ stood-out: they were that bad.

And yet… there did not appear to be something that was specifically damning that prevented them – in theory – from continuing from another season or two. (Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ ended after 3 seasons, for example). Instead, it was an entire assimilation of small flaws, including bad script and rushed acting that did Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ in. In different hands, under different management and circumstances, they could have been good, but because real life, they failed to launch instead. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is in the same boat, even though it is a single film and not a TV series instead.

On one hand, it had a lot going for it, actually, starting with the Iron Man being the titular character and a story plot that sounded good on paper. On the other, with such an illustrious name playing the main lead in a film that just couldn’t be anywhere near the level of the last two Avenger films, (let’s be honest – even in the best of circumstances ‘Doolittle-2020’ wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’), enough people would feel gipped, as if this was a step down or something – and they were probably right.

 …And top of those failed expectations and the subconscious feeling of being cheated out of something that is Avenger-level film, the film itself is flawed, let’s be polite. The plot felt rather like Stark’s new Welsh accent – completely unnecessary and a straight-out failure. Queen Victoria is poisoned, so Stark – er, Doolittle – is off to bring back the miracle cure? What is this – the Avengers, Victorian era? Well, maybe – we did also get Sony’s current version of Spider-Man voicing a dog, so it could have been a start. Instead, we got a failure with a bunch of grown-up jokes in a decisively pro-child film, (children under the age of 10 will enjoy ‘Doolittle-2020’ moreso than their parents, yes), the titular character farted by a dragon, (what is this – mockery of GoT? If so, then ‘Doolittle-2020’ is excessively late for this party), and, oh yes, a gorilla fighting a tiger, (sort of) among other things.

Off topic, if a gorilla fought a tiger for real, who would win? In AFO, when a gorilla faced-off with a leopard, it actually won, but a tiger is much bigger and heavier than a leopard is and carries a much heavier punch than a leopard does. In a feline clash, tiger will triumph over a leopard, as ‘Jungle Book-2016’ showed openly and clearly – even though it is fiction, it actually did a good job of being realistic, at least to a point. But a gorilla is completely different beast than a leopard is. A tiger is a professional hunter and killer, but if it fails to get a drop on the modern world’s biggest and strongest primate, period, then it can go either way – and, of course, ‘Doolittle-2020’ went in a completely different direction to begin with. What next?

Well, for me, Chee-Chee the gorilla brought back memories of the Soviet adaptation of Doolittle, (where Chee-Chee was actually a capuchin monkey instead). To wit, this adaptation consisted of one large poem where the Soviet Doolittle went to Africa to cure all the cute animal babies there, because they all were sick; and of another large poem, where the good doctor comes to Africa to rescue a couple of human children from the Soviet analogue of Rassouli; and also a couple of novellas for children where the good doctor crosses swords with the pirate leader time and again, until he defeats the villain for good. Not such a small assimilation, especially by children’s standards, after all.

…And then the Soviet cinematography produced a cartoon series, and a couple of movies, all about the good doctor confronting the wicked pirate and his crew, and frankly, one of them, ‘Soviet Doolittle-66’ is just as crazy, but much more coherent and enjoyable than the U.S. 2020 version. Not unlike the gender-flipped ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is just bad as in uninspiring and insipid, which brings us back to Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ TV series – they had the same problem and collapsed, though compared to them, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is better, (and it is certainly better than ‘Cats-2019’, cough), simply because the younger children will enjoy it with all the poop and fart jokes as well as periodic clothing, and, hey, the Iron Man is riding an ostrich in this universe, while a giraffe is talking to him in voice of Selena Gomez. Fun! Anything else?

Well, the second ‘To all the boys…’ movie is coming out on Netflix on Feb 12, 2020. Why before 2020’s Valentine Day – who knows; who cares, too – while the first film had its’ flaws, clearly, the entire franchise has proven to be tough, enduring and popular enough to bring forth a second movie. (Jenny Han wrote a trilogy about LJ’s adventures, so there is at least one more movie in store for LJ and her love life). By comparison, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ franchise apparently hadn’t – so far there’s no news about a second movie in this franchise; maybe because it tried to be a pro-American propaganda piece among other things back when it aired and ‘Boys-1’ didn’t? Who knows, but ‘Boys-1’ was a very good romantic movie, surprisingly so, given all the flaws of both it and the original novel…but it was not insipid. It delivered. It gave enjoyment to the views. It made real life slightly more endurable than it is on its’ own. I am actually looking forwards to ‘Boys-2’ coming to Netflix next month. Yay.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

SW: TROS - Jan 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Our family’s holidays were the pits, and my family are bleeps that I hate with all my life and soul. I myself am no prise, but regardless I hate them, I hate them, I hate them forever!.. Gollum, ‘The Hobbit’. What next?

SW9, that is what. As far as escapes from real life go, this one was only marginally better than ‘Cats 2019’, but that is because nothing is as bad as ‘Cats 2019’ were. SW9 is… bad. It is not too bad, but neither it is that great. It’s ‘fan service’, according to the official statement that explains as to why SW9 proved to be so bad. Here is my response: that is a lie. What do fans want? For Rey to have a relationship with anyone, (with whom exactly is another question), but what do they get? Rey pulling an Elsa from ‘Frozen 2’ and ending up single and free as a bird instead. Did the fans want this? Judging by their reaction – no. So, how is this ‘fan service’? The honest answer – it is not. So, what is it, instead?

Let us start with the beginning: from the SW7 onwards, the SW sequel trilogy was a mess, especially from the plotline P.O.V. As for relationships… do not start – the SW7 movie had ‘shipped’ Rey with Finn, (not Ben or Poe), so hard! So, why didn’t it work, and instead Finn was ‘shipped’ with Rose in SW8? …It is anyone’s guess, but the fact that Hollywood and the rest of America’s elite has plenty of issues with interracial relationships, probably played a role. In SW9, we get briefly introduced to a character named Jannah, who is former Stormtrooper who is aiding the Resistance against the First Order. Now, why does it sound familiar? We look at Finn, who decisively ignores Jannah in favor of his Rose. Good for him. In the canon, Jannah was shown interacting with Lando Calrissian, maybe because she is supposed to be his long-lost daughter, but Lando’s own role got diminished severely in SW9, as did Rose’s own, BTW. …Yes, on one level it can be explained by the fact that Rose’s actress, Kelly Marie Tran, received her own amount of hate, as did Rey’s actress, Daisy Ridley, after the SW 8 film, so it’s probable that she didn’t want to appear in SW9 one, but the fact is that many characters, not just her and Lando, got diminished in the SW9 movie, which implies that the SW9 film is a bad, unsatisfying one, not just to the viewers, but to its’ crew and cast too. Why? Moreover, what next?

Firstly, the conclusion – the entire main cast of SW films four through six is dead, and it is now a blank slate, with or without Ben Solo. Fair enough, but considering that the problems of the franchise began precisely because of this – after the merger, Disney/SW promptly dismissed all of the old info, declaring them to be ‘Star Wars: Legend’ instead, and it promptly began to fracture SW’s original fan base – and not because of U.S.A’s current racial or gender problems. The old SW fan guard got angry, didn’t back down or mince words, and by the time of the SW8 and ‘Solo’ films things were quite bad, especially by Disney’s standards. They tried to alter this situation by flooding the comic market with the SW comics, but apparently it was not enough, especially on its’ own. ‘The Mandalorian’, of course, is a different thing entirely – emphasis on ‘different’: it does not appear to connect with the SW sequel trilogy at all!.. Anything else?

For now the SW universe is calming down; instead we got Robert Downey Jr. returning to the silver screens this month, (January 2020) as the titular character in the ‘Dr. Doolittle 2020’ movie. So far, it is a mess, the final trailer shows a gorilla fighting a tiger and later on – the Iron Man and his new animal Avengers – some sort of a dragon, straight from an RPG (think Smaug from the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy earlier this century). So far, the next most memorable thing after the Iron Man himself is Selena Gomez, who will be voicing Betsy the giraffe, (CGI, not real life). Considering that Ms. Gomez herself was down in the dumps lately, this is a step up for her nevertheless. Real life sucks, remember? Even for Disney & SW, it seems – SW9 tried to be a soft reboot ala ‘Frozen 2’, (remember, we discussed it in November 2019?), but it failed. The two franchises are just too different, and the similar approaches to them were different as well.

Ergo, for now this is it. Maybe real life will perk up further down in 2020, but I am not so sure. Until then – see you soon!

Ocean's 8 and co. - Nov 28

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is why I went forth and watched what else but ‘Ocean’s 8’. Why? Because I already re-watched ‘Charlie’s Angels 2000’ once, and don’t want to do it again – somehow, whenever I watched CA2000 it feels exhausted as shite, as if an experienced hooker tried to be an innocent virgin instead; the movie did it very convincingly, but it was still only an act; CA2003 was… a template that Elizabeth Banks built her own CA2019 movie; no one has called her out on it officially, but it can be noted that she very quickly turned tail and stopped bitching after the initial salvo. So, where does ‘Ocean’s 8’ fit into this?

Very much right there next to CA2019. Just as CA2019 has borrowed heavily from its’ 2003 predecessor, so O8 was very much a rip-off of the original O11 film, though out of the two, O8 was more derived than CA2019, because of the gender flip. There is no gender flip in CA2019 because of reasons, but that just makes its’ similarity to O8 more evident. Both films featured strong female characters who were superior to their male counterparts, with the latter relegated to more supporting roles, if any; both had various action sequences, though O8 was more high-brow and less fisticuffs’ than CA2019; both had their female leads dress in very revealing, sexy clothing, because you know what? Their audiences might be ‘woke’, but not that woke apparently; and both movies are so slick that they entered through one ear and exited through another without making much an impact on the audience’s hearts and minds; there are fan works about the characters of the CA2019-verse, but you know? There usually are fan works; you will need to be especially stodgy and stiff, such as the ‘Ad Astra’ film, to not have any. CA2019 is not anything like ‘Ad Astra’; it is a derived variant reboot of CA2003 film, and even though most of their target audience had not seen this movie, it tells.

Reboots are among the less successful films to begin with – CA2019, O8, the latest Terminator film, any recent ‘King Arthur’ movies, the latest Robin Hood movie, and so on. Regardless if they are woke or not, if their leads are male or female, they usually fail, justly or unjustly, because the latest Terminator film was quite good, and Gabriel Luna was a very impressive villain.

…Does this steer us away from the movies and onto TV series and comics? (Luna’s version of the Ghost Rider appeared in both). Yeah, probably. Maybe. Some of the current ‘Avengers’ comics do a better job of helping to escape reality… only not. In those comics, our titular heroes got replaced as America’s number-one superhero team by the latest incarnation of Squadron Supreme, which seems to embody Trump’s current foreign policies, and who are revealed as false puppets of the false Phil Coulson, who is probably the Red Skull (the comics’ version) or some similar villain.

…Yeah, I must admit that I kind of enjoy this story arc – I never stopped disliking Phil Coulson as a character since AoS’ S2 for reasons that I talked about regularly in the past… so here I want to point out that this strategy – Trojan horse of false S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or in this case, false Avengers, has been used on TV before – and not just in MCU, but also in an Avengers’ cartoon series, where the Red Skull had imitated some U.S. senator and tried to poison the Avengers; in particular, he turned the Hulk into an evil version of the Red Hulk, and did other mischief before captain America exposed him. Yay, but it also means that again, Marvel is reworking its’ old material, however masterfully, rather than making something genuinely new… under the guise of old and tested, as Disney is doing with the ‘Frozen’ franchise, (maybe with ‘Moana’ as well). Next?

…As for the real-life connections of Marvel comics… this happened in the past too, for example, when Copperhead used the word ‘hombres’ in an indirect dig at Trump. ‘Indirect’ is the key word here, because…

Well, let us look at the ‘Avengers’ again. In this incarnation, everyone is getting into a team – the Avengers, their Russian counterparts, the Squadron Supreme, Namor of Atlantis and his people, Dracula and his, and so forth. In the previous plot arcs, it was Avengers vs. the Russian counterparts…until it was revealed that Dracula played them all, so now Major Ursa is reaching out to the Black Panther and his Agents of Wakanda because reasons, the fake Coulson and his best friend Mephisto, (Marvel’s Mephistopheles, whose name got abbreviated because… copyright infringement, maybe?), talk about ‘red’ as opposed to ‘red, blue and white’. Hence my suspicion that it’s the Red Skull who’s behind the fake Squadron Supreme…and then there’s also the Red Widow, a new member of the Russian not-Avengers; maybe it will be revealed that it’s a latest version of Hydra who is trying to keep Russia (well, the Russian Federation) and the U.S. at loggerheads. Does it remind you of something?

…What it does not remind you of is real life, wherein on one hand we have president Putin, who, apparently, is genuinely interested in bringing the American way of life and democracy down for purely ideological reasons with not a whit of common sense and right now? He is unstoppable, both within and without his country, because on the other hand we got the Donald, whose take on ‘making America great again’ seems to be smelling strongly of isolationism. In real life, America had had bouts of isolationism before; the most notorious is the 1920s-30s, where at first everything in America was great and wonderful and constantly improving and glorious – the Roaring Twenties. 

And then it all fell apart and collapsed into the Great Depression – the Depressing Thirties. These days, the Western mass media does not really talk about those decades anymore and would rather have the American masses forget about it. Why? Because the man who pulled the American society out of the Great Depression is the same man who got them to win in WWII – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the greatest U.S. presidents. The twist here is that he used decidedly semi-socialist methods and means to achieve that success, by dismantling the U.S. Capitalistic utopia of that time, something that Bernie Sanders, and AOC and her squad, and some other people, are trying to implement… and they are being opposed by the current generation of political American utopists, most of whom are also in the Democratic party, whereas the Republicans-

-the Republicans are keeping it together. While the Democrats are fighting between each other like a horde of angry bears that are stuck in a single cavern, the Republicans remain solid. Oh sure, they have their own problems, starting with the Donald who is marching to his own drum and ignoring everyone else, but they intend to stay in power for as long as they can, and God-damn everyone else – and this brings us back to Russia.

Alternatively, if you would like it, this brings us to the Roman Republic – the very first one. In the older history books it was proclaimed a democracy, but in reality? Before long, it became a reign of oligarchy very much in the same sense that the modern Russian Federation is. In the ancient times, the Roman Oligarchical Republic became a Roman Empire and it was nowhere as bad, especially at first, as George Lucas depicted this process in the original SW trilogy; in the modern times, the fate that will befall the oligarchical political style of the modern Russian Federation is still undefined, but keep in mind that history showed that went the temper of the Russian plebeians (aka the proletariat) ends, it does so explosively; and the U.S.?

…And in the U.S. we got the Republican oligarchs facing-off the Democrats who are divided between utopists and pragmatists, (with the latter having a strong socialist tinge, true), while there’s a swarm of third parties and other people who want a chance to steer the ship of the American state. The results are unpredictable, and possibly a part of the reason as to why Ms. Nancy Pelosi did initiate the impeachment process was to prevent the Democrats from splitting into several factions that wouldn’t, or don’t, get along with each other: if that had happened, that would’ve been the true end of the American society as we know it, that started with the 13 colonies that faced-off with Great Britain and led to the modern American culture & society. Therefore, instead, we got the impeachment that is going nowhere fast, but at least the Democrats have stopped their infighting instead. Sometimes the only choice is between a pair of evils, and hopefully Ms. Pelosi chose the right/the lesser one after all.

And does the mention of evils bring us back to Marvel and Mephisto? Kind of sort of, because the Avengers’ last completed plot arc has Robbie Reyes face-off with Johnny Blaze in a Ghost Rider showdown, which takes the Avengers in a different direction entirely – it belonged to a time period where it seemed that Gabriel Luna’s Robbie Reyes would become a part of MCU for good – instead he followed the paths of Hunter and Morse for example and is fully out of it, at least for now. Consequently, now the Avengers’ comic puts them into space, a very different medium from Hell – but this is neither time nor place to discuss it; for now, let’s just admit that when it comes to real-life political savvy, Marvel’s comics isn’t any better than CA or O-franchise movies, and leave it at that.

…This is it for now; see you all soon!

Ghost Rider cancelled - Sep 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. With it out of the way, let’s go forth into the alternate universe of media, and-

Yeah, things are not much better there: Marvel’s ‘Ghost Rider’ TV series got cancelled. This is not too different from Marvel’s ‘Most Wanted’ TV series, which also got cancelled, and ditto for Marvel’s ‘InHumans’, (though the latter did get to feature a single 8-episode season), but still – it sucks. Gabriel Luna did a very good job as the Ghost Rider back in AoS, though yes, given that it was AoS, odds are that the Ghost Rider’s plot line got tangled, rebooted, restructured and so on several times before the character appeared on TV. It was not a bad plot line, Robbie and Daisy (Chloe Bennett, in case anyone has forgotten), had a moment together at the end of S4, and this was it. In the second half of AoS’ S5 the titular characters had to deal with a ‘fear dimension’ – Ghost Rider no show, we got Deathlok instead. (Just what kind of a contract Disney/MCU/AoS has had with its actor? Deathlok was very important in S1, but from S2 onwards he appeared more and more rarely on the show; he had not appeared in AoS’ S6 at all, and there is no indication that he will appear in S7). AoS’ S6 had some distinct references to Ghost Rider regarding the entire Izel storyline, but no Ghost Rider per se. True, I have not figured out the references back in S6, this one’s on me, but still – no ‘true’ Ghost Rider, and this brings us to the cancelled show.

Sadly, we do not know much about it; it was supposed to be a separate TV show from AoS, with Robbie (and his brother Gabe, maybe?) living their life alongside the U.S.-Mexican border, doing their thing, whatever it is, and – that’s it. That is all the information that has become known, really. It is not enough to make speculations about, but apparently it was enough for the show to break-up in the preliminary stage over creative differences, the end. Sad.

And on the other hand, this has made someone in the Marvel comics feel rather stupid, I reckon. Lately, the current ‘Avengers’ incarnation, it has become increasingly ‘all about Robbie’, as he gets to race the other main Ghost Rider of Marvel, Johnny Blaze, in Hell, (while the rest of the Avengers are dealing Frank Castle, the Cosmic Rider). The first 12 issues of ‘Avengers’ or so were mostly about the Avengers, with Robbie being the new kid on the block, (and being in early stages of a relationship with Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, yay). However, from the ‘vampire civil war’ arc this series became increasingly about Robbie, until we currently have him racing Johnny Blaze in Hell on one hand, and on the other, we got the beginnings of a ‘Strikeforce’ comic arc, which is centered around Blade instead. Not that I got anything against Blade – the man is going to return to the movie screens…but this is not fully the point.

What is the point? It unfolds as follows. To wit, Marvel Comics do not really know what to do with the Avengers as a cohesive unit of comic characters anymore. They were initially going for some sort of a Stone Age Avengers’ adventures, but that got replaced first by the Ghost Rider, as Robbie Reyes’ TV series were going to be his big moment in the spotlight, but now that that isn’t happening, the focus is shifting instead to Blade and the Hellstrom siblings, who are still on to being parts in the new MCU. More powers to them, I suppose, but still, poor Robbie. He is out of the AoS, (even though the upcoming S7 is the end for them as well, but still), and now he is not going to get his own TV show either. Ah well, I guess now that Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse from Marvel’s ‘Most Wanted’ are going to get some company…

…This is it for now – see you all soon!