AAA ' Familiar' - Oct 17

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In addition, what about AAA? Oh, bother…

First, TT is Willy Kaplan rather than Billy Maximoff; apparently, the spirit of Billy has merged with Willy (William) and now the MCU Pokefusion is searching for Wanda’s other boy, i.e. Tommy. (Speed in the comics). Such a twist, such brilliant writing!.. But, seriously, the way that AAA has been connecting and attaching itself to WV, showing itself to be WV’s sequel now, rather than just a spinoff, is impressive – one of the more impressive bits on this week’s episode, ‘Familiar’. Not that the bar is very high, either, but still…

Aside from the tie-in to WV, ‘Familiar’ reveals that – drumroll, please – MCU’s Willy/Billy is not just homosexual, but also Jewish! Given that Judaism is treating its sexual minorities not as favorably as the modern Western society does, this is ambiguous, and might be one of the reasons as to why AAA isn’t being showcased by the news/media too much, unlike how WV had been.

Willy/Billy himself is ambiguous as a character, but this is not too new – in DC, the Penguin is sometimes shown to have Jewish roots; Kaley Cuoco’s ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon and the live-action ‘Gotham’ TV series had been some of the more prominent ones. The current ‘Penguin’ TV series does not go there too much, which is fine – it is a crime drama first, and everything else, including the DC comic elements, second.

In Marvel, meanwhile, we had the M.O.D.O.K. of Earth-1226, who was also Jewish, and who is a villain too, not unlike the Penguin, (but in a different style completely). As it was written before, (now this show ended, after a single season), does the global Jewish community really need to have ambiguous or outright evil, characters featuring their faith? Given the RL events in the Middle East right now, (October 2024), probably not.

…Mind you, what is happening in the Middle East right now has nothing to do with the post-Protestant neo-pagan Western society of our times; it is Eastern monotheism, pure and simple: the descendants of Abraham’s sons, the legitimate Isaac and the discarded Ismail are going to war once again, and the West… doesn’t really want to get involved; the U.S., whose own geopolitical interests are at stake there, probably has to do something, but the elections-2024 are prioritized, and so it doesn’t do anything. The other Western countries do not even try.

Is what Israel is doing in other countries, (such as Lebanon) right and proper? Possibly not, but they do not care; their government certainly does not. Can the other – Western – countries interfere? Quite so, but it would cost them, and the consequences would be unpredictable as well, and so they do not. Especially when there is money to be made off the RF/Ukrainian conflict instead.

Back to AAA, it also… serves as a mirror of the contemporary Western society, discussed above. The rest of Agatha’s new coven are gone, one-way or another, (Rio does not count, she got plot armor, most likely), but neither Willy/Billy nor Agatha herself care about it; they are going on their journey together regardless.

One might say that TT does not care about Alice and co. because he only wants to find Tommy. Jolly good; now re-watch the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ movie to see how well this mindset served Wanda herself in her quest to find her twins; now, to add insult to injury, AAA shows that at least one of her own twins has been on the same Earth and plane of reality as she was, and her entire mess with America Chavez wasn’t as necessary as it appeared to be. Yay.

Agatha, meanwhile, is reprising her role in WV – a witch-opportunist. She, apparently, had buried the rest of her new coven, and is now doing with Willy/Billy mostly the same thing that she tried to do with his mom in WV – stringing him along while waiting to backstab him as well. Character development for Aggie-poo? That is so funny!

Oh and we have to see Ralph Bohner again, albeit in a flashback. MCU is really trying to tie AAA to WV. In this, they are succeeding. What will they do with this success is another question.

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

'Joker 2' and AAA - Oct 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I watched the ‘Joker 2’ movie, and it might have given reality a run for its’ money – in a bad way. Compared to it, the AAA mini-series is merely hollow and pointless instead. Pause.

Taking a breath. The first ‘Arthur Fleck-Joker’ film was good. It was about a marginal member of the American/Western society who got his hands on a gun/handgun/firearm with bullets and suddenly his demands for respect couldn’t be dismissed out of hand, without consequences – the modern Protestant society hates that, and fears that, and so the Gotham society split into two by the appearance/manifestation of the Joker – the patricians (or the elites) hated and feared him, while the plebes (or the proletarians) made him their banner. This resulted in a social eruption in Gotham quite comparable to what happed in real life NYC during the 19^th century during the American civil war… and ‘Joker-2’ completely left it behind.

No, seriously, what the ‘Joker-2’ is about? ‘Joker-1’… see above, plus the titular character’s interactions with the Wayne family, which resulted in the tragedy that would enable Bruce Wayne, (just a child in the initial film) to become Batman and the Joker’s arch nemesis. More specifically, Batman and Joker are two halves of a whole, they work best when they’re dealing with each other, and when they don’t – say, the first Suicide Squad film – then it’s something else, and not for the better, either. The first Suicide Squad showed this, and so does the second JP Joker movie.

To make matters worse, it is a musical. Musicals – singing and dancing and what else have you – do not combine with live-action movies too well. Those who work are usually animated, as ‘Encanto’ was, or are just tolerable, like the ‘Mean Girls’ reboot. Most others, even such magnificent ones as the ‘In the Heights’ or the ‘West Side’ reboot, fail, and ‘Joker 2’ is certainly not ‘In the Heights’. Rather, it is a love story of Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga’s character, who is not Harley Queen; rather, she is Lee.

Yes, the two women share a name – Harleen Quinzell, but nothing else. There is a saying: ‘How you name a boat, that’s how it will float’. Names do matter, and since Lady Gaga’s character was not named Harley Quinn, she did not become Harley Quinn, and so JP’s Joker fell in love with an OFC.

Let us elaborate. JP’s Joker himself is something of an OMC, but the truth is that there is no canon Joker origin story; the closest we have is ‘The Killing Joke’ story, a one-time comic book story, but even that is not always accepted by the DC-verse as the one true origin. More precisely, no one – not even the Joker – cares about the Joker’s origin story; he just is and that is it. He can both be and not be Arthur Fleck at the same time, it will not matter.

Conversely, Harley Quinn is Dr. Harleen Quinzell, the female psychologist, who fell in love with the Joker and became a Gotham Rogue herself. Her origin story is well established and well used, and so for the ‘Joker-2’ scriptwriters to reject it out of hand, it smarts, and it shows that whoever Lady Gaga’s character is, she is not Harley Quinn. In addition, for most DC comic-book fans to watch a variant Joker flirt with an OFC (and little more happens in this film), it just is not kosher, and so they turned on the film, just as the critics did, (though perhaps for different reasons). The result is a flop… onto AAA?

…What about AAA? This week’s episode, (‘Hour/Power’) is yet another episode where another OC dies; we are introduced to Agatha’s mum; and in general are we supposed to care for those people? The witches, starting with Agatha, are turning upon each other, and are killing each other…big whoop. This is the modern post-Protestant/neo-Pagan society, concisely. The Teen is Billy Kaplan the Wiccan, Wanda’s gay son… people suspected it all along. The miniseries are only halfway done, so Agatha and Rio should survive for a while yet, everyone else is up for grabs… who cares? ‘Joker 2’ came out, and it makes the remake of TLM look almost palatable. Sad, given just how good the first movie was. Ah well, real life sucks, just ask the barred and the spotted owls – but that is another story.

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

Solar Eclipse/X-Men - April 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but the solar eclipse-2024 deserves a special mention, (and not just because X-Men ’97 are not all that either).

Where to begin? On Monday, April 8, 2024, the sky where my family lives – southern Ontario – was overcast. The people of science claimed that the skies will clear up because of the eclipse-2024 and all, but in reality the cloud cover just wasn’t breaking-up, not at all.

We went for a walk. The weather was quite cold, even if it was just early spring – the days before and after it were much warmer, in fact – and there were relatively few people outside. Still, we walked around, had our daily exercise, and returned home before three o’clock in the afternoon.

At 3:10 pm, it began to get dark, so we turned on the lights. By 3:15, it was as dark as it is in evening, about 20-30 minutes after the sunset. By 3:19-3:20, when the solar eclipse was complete, and it was as dark as… during an especially heavy local thunderstorm, when it come become almost as dark as night for a few minutes. Here, it was the same, as immediately it began to clear up, and by 3:25 or so, it was daylight as usual, or even more, as by 3:30 the sky actually began to clear-out from the clouds, and by 4:30 pm, it was clear completely. Mother Nature, (or God, or etc.) has trolled us.

On the other hand, the people who went to Niagara Falls, either from the Canadian or the American sides, got to see the same sight, (in a matter of speaking); only they paid several thousand dollars for this, so our family isn’t complaining too much. Real life sucks, as this blog mentions regularly, but sometimes it also rips people off.

As for this week’s X-Men ’97 episode ‘Remember’… listen. Magneto is dead – apparently. Gambit is dead – apparently. Uncle Ben Parker says hi and promises that they will be back. Cyclops still likes Madeline better than Jean even though the ‘real’ Jean is back. Can we bring back the JG/Wolverine relationship back, then? No offence, but now that the initial excitement is slowly wearing down, it is becoming more evident that the X-Men ’97 aren’t delivering anything truly new, but the same old delivered in a new way – not through comics, (ink and paper), but through cartoons, (2-D style, rather than the 3-D). Hooray for those who really love the X-Men franchise, for everyone else – not as much. (Not to mention that character deaths in cartoons just are not the same as they are in live action).

Anything else? Aye, the JP’s Joker part 2 is coming to movie theatres in October 2024. Already it promises to be something different from the regular Joker and Harley story. We will have to wait and see just what it actually is.

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

Black Adam - Nov 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us briefly talk about ‘Black Adam’, before MCU’s ‘BP2’ steals the spotlight.

‘Black Adam’ works. It is not the most powerful or poignant installment in the DCEU series, it is not necessarily even ‘the most’, period, but it works. The villains are villains, (with the final Big Bad being an actual devil of all things), while the good guys… Pause.

The titular character is an anti-hero, right? Yeah, no, it does not work like that. When anti-heroes first entered the fray, the cultural landscape was still dominated by heroes and villains; an anti-hero was a sinner who had found redemption; the grey area was located between light and dark; people could dwell there, spiritually speaking, but sooner or later they would have to make a choice between the aforementioned light and dark… or else they were NPC characters who had no role in the piece of fiction at all. Now, though, this dichotomy is over, grey morality is a thing, and people like Black Adam are just heroes who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty… unlike the Justice Society league, for example.

Here is…not so much another pause, as an admittance of a sticky issue: why was Amanda Waller bossing Justice Society league around? In the DC canon, she runs only the Suicide Squad, (which was absent in ‘Black Adam’), nothing else. True, the status of the Justice Society itself is suspect – these days it is more apocrypha than canon in the DC comics at worst, and a second tier to the JL at best…but we still got the JL in the DCEU, right? Henry Cavill is returning from the witcher-verse, and Gal Gadot has never left, correct? Somehow, the JL never gets a mention in ‘Black Adam’, and while the entire film never feels like a reboot, somehow it does not feel like a part of the already-established DC-verse.

…Yes, I am quite aware that DCEU - and the rest – are being overhauled by their superiors in real life, (re: the Batgirl film), but that is not a problem of ‘Black Adam’ cast and crew: they set out to make a movie, (and not, say, a pet project of The Rock), and they delivered. What else?

‘Black Adam’ is an entertaining movie. Well, naturally – it is a comic-book film, is not supposed to be informative or educational. The good people are good, the bad are bad, and Black Adam and his Kahndaq are not about to bow to the U.S. any time soon, Superman or not. Can the latter defeat the titular character is another issue, but it was not explored in the movie canon – and then there is Shazam. More precisely, Black Adam is a Shazam villain, (or at least a nemesis), so you would think that DCEU’s Shazam would appear in the movie under one pretext or another, but no, nothing. Is there some problem with Shazam’s actor in real life, I know not. Moving on?

Hard to say. Lately the Internet is being bombarded with the ‘BP2’ movie info, but I am holding out – lately MCU was more disappointing than not. ‘Ms. Marvel’ was pointedly downplayed for RL reasons… and she was flat-out lackluster, while ‘She-Hulk’ was a Mary-Sue story, period, with Titania getting the short end of the stick, here. See, a Mary-Sue cannot stand female characters that are equal with her, (and the same goes for the male characters in a Marty-Stu story), and does her best to get rid of them, or at least – seriously diminish them. This is exactly what happens to Titania: at the end of the ‘She-Hulk’ S1, the ‘Hulk-King’ and the Abomination are arrested, and Titania just… vanishes – clearly, the titular character’s deal with K.E.V.I.N. included getting rid of her for good – or something. In any case, the end of ‘She-Hulk’ S1 is all about the titular character and her new and updated family – though with her cousin the Hulk introducing his own son, the situation may begin to change – but what does this have to do with ‘BP2’?

Nothing, sadly. All I wanted to point out is that MCU’s Namor has at least some things in common with MCU’s Killmonger, (now deceased… probably). MCU’s Namor has strong Mesoamerican overtones, and some of his promo images show him wearing a jaguar-head helmet/headpiece/headdress… you get the idea. Plus, there’s his moniker Kukulkan, who was, or is, a Mesoamerican serpent deity in RL – and on the other…paw we have MCU’s Killmonger, who went with the moniker of the ‘Golden Jaguar’ in the first BP film. There are no wild jaguars in the Old World, (which includes Africa); they are an American-only species – and now we get a Namor with strong Mesoamerican connotations. Again, nothing is new under the sun, we already had a half-Japanese Namor, (located on Earth-13410, one Namor Miyamoto), so why not a Mesoamerican one?.. At this point, I am more annoyed with the endless barrage of pro-BP2 promotions, but that is another story.

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

Moon Knight, 'Gods and Monsters' - May 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you all soon!

Moon Knight, 'Afterlife' - April 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MK. Only, it continues to travel down Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy, so here isn’t much to talk about either.

No, really, throughout the trilogy, (especially in the second and the third books), Carter and Sadie Kane regularly travel into the Egyptian Afterlife, to converse with their father, (who is also the avatar of Osiris), and for other goals as well – and here we get Oscar Isaac’s characters, who do exactly that.

The Kane siblings travel usually on a magical boat, clearly associated with the ‘authentic’ slash ‘original’ myths of ancient Egypt; and in this week’s MK episode, ‘Afterlife’, we got the same thing, save that apparently in MK’s case the magical boat is the hospital/mental asylum that Marc and Steven found themselves on/in…which doesn’t make much logical sense, but this is MCU, where logical sense doesn’t always exist…where are we?

Ah, yes, Tawaret. In this week’s episode, she is the one doing the judging of Marc and Steven, and finds them wanting. This isn’t too surprising – since the series’ premiere, MK was all about ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian myths, and especially the ancient Egyptian afterlife & the myths about the afterlife, but, again, I repeat – the ancient Egyptians’ judge of the afterlife was Anubis, or/and Osiris, not Tawaret, who is more associated with childbirth and fertility instead; Mr. Riordan played fast and loose with her role in the ‘Kane Chronicles’, but MK has him beat easily.

Again, not an issue, but for the statement that DCEU’s WW84 did not do Egypt and its’ culture much respect; compared to MCU’s MK, WW84’s treatment of Egypt was tasteful and restrained instead. Ouch! Anything else?

Yes, back in the real life, we saw a live raccoon in our local park; given that it was a sunny afternoon, this makes it unusual, as wild raccoons are more active and bold during night-time instead; we didn’t approach it, as though it is smaller than a coyote is, a wild raccoon is still formidable and powerful and must be treated with respect, but it was certainly an event that was more exciting – and important – to me in my life than anything than MK can throw at me at this point, all of MCU’s pageantry and spectacle aside. Ah well, real life sucks, but sometimes it does deliver a gem instead.

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

Moon Knight, 'Tomb' - April 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MK instead.

Sadly, here is not too much to talk about either, except… for the Egyptian mythology: in this week’s MK episode – ‘Tomb’ – we get to meet Tawaret at the very end of the ep. So what?

‘The Kane Chronicles’ by Mr. Rick Riordan, that is still what’s up. In the second book of that trilogy, Carter and Sadie Kane – the titular characters – get to go to the Egyptian underworld, (because of Osiris, cough), where they meet Tawaret, aside from the other characters, (including the moon god, Khonshu). Here, in ‘Tomb’, Marc and Steven seem to be trapped in some sort of a limbo, depicted as a mental asylum, but that… is nothing new in the world of comics, DC’s Batman got trapped in this sort of thing quite regularly, for example, and they meet Tawaret.

To add injury to insult, Carter and Sadie encounter Tawaret who works in a retirement home for aged Egyptian gods, i.e. an alternate medical facility to the mental asylum that the Moon Knight, (Moon Knights?), has found himself/themselves in. I.e., Mr. Riordan associated Tawaret with a medical profession, and ‘Moon Knight’ seems to be running with it. Given how MK’s cast and crew reamed Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins in regards to their treatment of Egypt in WW84, this dependence on Mr. Riordan’s works seems strange, almost hypocritical. Anything else?

Aye, ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ movie. I have seen it, and found it to be disappointing. Why?

Let us start with ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. Unlike ‘The Mandalorian’ series, ‘Boba Fett’ was less of a success because whereas ‘The Mandalorian’ series moved the entire SW universe onwards, ‘Boba Fett’ did not. Well, technically, it did, as the SW universe has the entire linear time concept, but you have to admit that ‘The Mandalorian’ also developed and expanded the SW universe in content, whereas ‘Boba Fett’ did not.

But the same can be said about ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ – it didn’t really introduce anything new into the wizarding world; the story did move forwards at a livelier pace than the ‘Boba Fett’ series did, but whereas MK has Tawaret, ‘The Secrets’ had a qilin.

A qilin is a mythical Far Eastern animal that is supposed to appear before a birth or a death of a great sage or a ruler, but to the Western audience/readers, especially the baseline members, a qilin is a Far Eastern analogue of a unicorn instead. Consequently, the use/participation of the qilin in ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ and the election that was the climax of the movie, transformed the election from, well, an election, as conceived by the Western audience into something more among the lines of ‘and the hand of God chose the rightful king and cast the pretender into Gehenna’ – this sort of thing. Given how the elections are a big deal in RL – maybe even an even bigger deal given the RF’s assault on the Ukraine – the way that ‘The Secrets’ handled the elections’ concept is outright insulting!

In addition, since we are going back to real life, people have already talked about the nearly complete absence of Tina Goldstein’s character from the movie. The team behind ‘The Secrets’ did not even try to explain it – they could have made Tina pregnant, or ill, or something, but no – and therefore, people are believing that she’s avoiding J.-Ro because of the latter’s transphobic statements. Fair enough, though it is weird – J.-Ro had no problems with Dumbledore being gay so that she could court the sexual minorities for her novels, or Hermione being a person of color so that the real life people of color would like her works before, so why the abrupt change of tune? Ah well, it is her life, her choice, and nothing else. Is that it?

Yes, pretty much – MK continues to be largely divorced from the rest of MCU, the occasional nudge-nudge wink-wink Easter egg aside, the Donald seems to be preparing for the 2024 election after all, and if he does win it, then the rest of the West will stop looking at the U.S. as their spiritual leader for sure, and – that is it.

See you all soon!

Moon Knight, Type - April 13

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the third episode of ‘Moon Knight’ – ‘Friendly Type’. Sadly, MK continues to not quite deliver, and-

-And nothing, sadly. First, Oscar Isaacs continues to imitate Tom Hardy’s characters – he has Steven, he has Marc, and he can even do Khonshu – though Khonshu got petrified by the finale of this week’s episode.

Second, MK continues to imitate the original Indiana Jones movie trilogy and the like – we got a European adventurer in the exotic foreign country with its’ treacherous natives and mysterious undercurrents – the Dany plotline in the original ASOIAF novels has demonstrated the same theme, and fairly recently too; Hell, the entire face-off in the arena where MK on foot fought an opponent on horse is certainly reminiscent of a certain showdown in one of the ASOIAF novels…

Third, the Rick Riordan factor. In his universe, the modern Greco-Roman world is USA, (with Canada being Hyperborea, seriously!), while Egypt is associated with the U.K. instead. Ergo, now, in ‘Moon Knight’, we got the U.K., (especially England), and Egypt, delivered with barely more maturity than the novels in the ‘Kane Trilogy’ series did! Yes, Disney owns both Riordanverse and MCU, but still, this is not the sort of crosspollination that I have expected in ‘Moon Knight’.

Fourth, I am guessing that this change of focus – from USA, (and especially NYC), to the rest of the world, (especially U.K. & Egypt) might have brought the sudden downfall in the reviews and responses regarding ‘Moon Knight’ – the American public and its’ elite aren’t very fond of pro-U.K. movies as people might think; remember the ‘King’s Man’ film? It was done with all of the main American cultural tropes, but it was Great Britain, rather than the U.S., that was in the focus of the film. The result was mixed reviews, with some of them being quite scathing too – you do not try to out-U.S. the U.S. and not pay the price!

That said, the geography in MCU is atrocious; whereas DCEU went fully imaginary, with its’ world having mostly imaginary cities such as Metropolis, Gotham, National City, Starling City and so on, MCU tries to have some real-life places as well, especially NYC…and little more. Their geography feels a lot more restrained, especially in the 90s and the early 2000s, though now it has improved – some, but not much.

Finally, all of the subtle nods to ‘the greater MCU’. It is not very impressive, about the level of the ‘Eternals’ film. The latter has been one of the least successful MCU films up to date – precisely because of that detachment, and it seems that MK suffers from the same problem, (and the same goes for the Sony films). Ah well, we have discussed this problem before, and now it is too late for MCU to change anything in MK…and they probably did not want to from the start…

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

Morbius - April 5

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and that is especially true with the extended family angle. Still, I did give as well as I got, so I should not complain too much, therefore let us move onto ‘Morbius’. What can be said about that film?

It is an origin story, and it is done by Sony, rather than by Disney/MCU, hence its’ lackluster appearance and delivery. The original ‘Venom’ film had the same problem, but it had Tom Hardy and his antics as the titular duo to counteract this; ‘Morbius’, instead, has Jared Leto, who is a good actor, sure, but, apparently, this is not enough.

One may argue that it is unfair to compare ‘Morbius’ to something like ‘Shang-Chi’, which is also an origin story but is done much more glamorously and colorfully and so on, but the problem is that the same has plagued ‘Venom’ – the original film, and ‘Carnage’ wasn’t that much better. Let us elaborate.

In MCU, origin stories tend to introduce other elements and Easter eggs quickly on; Phase 1 may have had its’ problems, but by the time the first ‘Avengers’ film arrived they got past it…by making a bigger, better show than what ‘Sony’ is doing with its’ Marvel characters so far. The first ‘Venom’ film had a script that was rather confusing, in a threadbare sort of way, and ‘Carnage’ was really a reboot of the first film, one that simplified its’ characters, especially Eddie, Venom and Ann, and not in a better way, I would say. What was consistent in that aspect of the SUMC-franchise were aliens; ‘Venom’ and co. were dealing with them and only with them. Hence why AoS was so good in the MCU franchise in that they dealt not just with Hydra, but with other threats; pity that it had outlasted its’ promise and ended in a whimper rather than a bang, no matter how much the cast and the crew tried to pretend otherwise. By contrast, ‘Morbius’ has started with a whimper – it is a variant vampire movie with some ‘Batman’-like aesthetics that don’t really mesh.

…Speaking of DC and ‘Batman’, the Caped Crusader had tangled with vampires, primarily Dracula, who comes and goes to both DC and Marvel at will, but he usually does not become infested with the virus of vampirism himself, and he usually is not associated with vampires at all. Hence, ‘Batman’-like imagery in ‘Morbius’ isn’t very appropriate and it doesn’t work too well either.

The vampire angle itself… it is one of the reasons as to why I remembered AoS – just as AoS had worked the Hydra threat into the ground, so has the cinematography in general done with the vampire threat; Dracula, at least, has panache and authenticity on his side, a certain gravitas, if you will. Michael Morbius – not so much.

Again, it all comes down to the treatment of the character – I first met ‘the living vampire’ during the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon series, (which was a Spider-Man centered MCU, cough). The show had Peter’s origin story done canonically – he was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man – and then in S2 his blood and DNA began to mutate, and he began to search for a cure. Enter Morbius, who was Peter’s fellow student in the university, who discovered Peter’s blood sample and began to experiment with it, trying to figure out as to how Peter was able to mutate it, cough. Enter the lab’s vampire bat, (one of  - did I mention that Dr. Connors, aka the Lizard, was running the class in that universe?), who also got irradiated by the lab’s technology, and then it bit Morbius, turning him into ‘a living vampire’, just as a spider turned Peter into Spider-Man. You have to admit, this does sound more glamorous than what Sony did with Morbius in the movie. So what?

So, the problem with ‘Morbius’ is that there’s no Spider-Man in it; whereas Venom did evolve to be an independent character with their own thing, (did you follow ‘the King in Black’ story arch, in particular?), so they can carry their own movie, and even several, but with Morbius this isn’t the case – ‘the living vampire’ has rather faded into obscurity by now, so people aren’t too impressed or excited by his arrival on the big screen, and the trailers didn’t make things any better, unfortunately. People went into theaters – or got to see ‘Morbius’ otherwise – with low expectations already, and the show gave them just that – a variant vampire movie with very little Marvel content, even less so than ‘Venom’ did – and ‘Venom’ does have more oomph in Marvel than ‘Morbius’ does. (See above). So, what is left?

Unfortunately, nothing. Sony’s ‘Morbius’ movie delivered what it promised to do – to introduce Morbius, the living vampire into the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters and that what it did to do. Sadly, the delivery portion of the plan was underperforming, but that may not matter in the end – Sony is not licked yet, according to some news. Ah well, good luck to Sony, then!

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

TBOBF - Jan 16

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family to make it worse, so let us briefly talk about Boba Fett instead. We are already 2 or 3 weeks into 2022, so it is time for me to make my first blog entry of the year anyhow…

…Well, here is the tricky part – there is not much to talk about in regards to ‘The Book of Boba Fett’: like almost anything that is associated with Disney, the technical side of things is done perfectly, but otherwise…

But otherwise, if you look at the Disney/SW situation, then you will notice something else: it is stuck. It is stuck within the framework of the first two trilogies, done without Disney’s involvement and investment in Lucasfilm™, and while ‘The Mandalorian’ tested those borders, ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ – not so much, at least not in the first three episodes; ‘The Book of Boba Fett is taking place sometime around the original trilogy…ok, sometime after the SW6 film, but so far it is ignoring the greater galaxy far away and is centered around a certain town on Tattooine instead. In ‘The Mandalorian’, we travelled all over the place, but then… first, Gina Carano made a daft and a politically inapt statement, she was fired, her SW character Cara Dune was scrapped, the end. Where did this leave us?

…With the titular character handling over Grogu the Yoda Baby over to Luke Skywalker, leaving fans wondering, just what has happened to the tyke between ‘The Mandalorian’ S2 finale and the SW7-9 films that he either sat out Luke Skywalker getting his ass handed over to him practically by everyone else, or else Grogu was in the posse that joined the Dark Side and handed Luke Skywalker his ass. Neither possibility is good, so for the moment Grogu and the rest of the remaining ‘Mandalorian’ cast are benched, and we got ‘The Book of Boba Fett’, which is detached – in a large part - from the rest of the SW universe. The fan community is not too impressed, and so ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ is not flourishing as much as it could have been. Anything else?

Yes, the AoS, for I would not be talking about Disney’s latest SW misadventure without it. Yes, DC seems to have come up with its’ own take on the show’s initial premise in the ‘Peacemaker’ series, which is actually the redemption arc Grant Ward should’ve had; the titular character is his variant, the rest of the crew are the variant AoS, save for the Vigilante, who is essentially a Deadpool variant instead. Marvel’s loss is DC’s gain – if Deadpool was a regular on the AoS show, it would have been much more popular and successful than how it was. Instead, we got Ms. Ming-Na Wen making a smooth and a casual reply to the question – is AoS coming back? – that amounts to her saying nothing and promising nothing, which is much more diplomatic than anything that Chloe Bennett would’ve said, but I digress.

First, Ms. Ming-Na is a talented actress, who knows that who pays for the music dances the girl, and does not go against Disney/MCU’s grain, as Chloe Bennett seems to have had. Second, AoS is over for good. Whatever it was supposed to be initially, in the end it was a clunky Frankenstein’s monster of a show, which had cannibalized the other cancelled MCU shows, such as ‘InHumans’, ‘Ghost Rider’, and even the cancelled third season of AC, but we’ve discussed it in the past.

Third, Disney/MCU has re-started that issue themselves in ‘Hawkeye’ – yes, we’ve talked about this before, but again, I’ll note that given how the audience’s/the fans’ reaction to the suggestion that Laura was the ‘true’ Mockingbird all along was ambiguous, Disney/MCU quickly squashed the discussions on this topic, and used the latest ‘Spider-Man’ movie to cover-up its’ tracks. However,

…However, there are traces of AoS in ‘No Way Home’ as well; the way that team Spider-Man deals with the extradimensional villains isn’t too different from the Tahiti method that AoS used on Cal, so clearly, the way that AoS had re-used its’ recycled ideas has spread to the rest of MCU by now. Oh dear, we will have to wait and see as to what will come out of it.

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

Hawkeye, 'Partners' - Dec 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but I was able to squeeze out some time to write down this, so let us go straight into escapism.

First – ‘Hawkeye’ episode 1x04, ‘Partners’. So far, there is no sign of the Kingpin, though since Charlie Cox’s Daredevil is returning to MCU, hope is kindling. Whether or not this reboot will be connected to ‘Hawkeye’ is another story.

Let me elaborate. MCU tries to be a complex, combined universe; it is trying to gain an advantage over team DC, when the latter had created its own world out of ‘Arrow’, ‘Flash’, ‘LoT’ and ‘Supergirl’. However, whereas DC tried to restrict itself to just those four TV series, (‘Black Lightning’, ‘Batwoman’, and so on were more distant), MCU is trying to make a much more tangled web, given how all of those Marvel TV shows are coming to Disney+ in the future.

…However, as Netflix’s take on the ‘Defenders’ franchise showed, to make a shared universe is harder than how it looks; the TV shows that made this franchise up were quite different from each other, and not necessarily in the good way, so there’s no sign that Disney/MCU will have it better: so far, the various Marvel TV shows were treated separately from each other – but yes, Yelena Belova, I’m looking at you.

Yes, Natasha Romanoff’s baby sister has appeared in ‘Hawkeye’ at last, as she took the titular character – I mean, Barton – on for size, but Barton was able to stand his ground and even send her packing, but given that she’s Natasha’s replacement, (even before ScarJo had her feud with Disney/MCU, cough), this certainly isn’t the last time that we’ve seen her. What next?

Well, the other Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, was also able to stand up to Maya Lopez/Echo and even get the best of her. Given that in ‘Echoes’ Barton was unable to defeat Maya, this is certainly important. But-?

But here is the thing. The action aspect of ‘Hawkeye’ is great and so far, it is the motor of the series; whenever there is a lull in the action, the show has problems: the discussion that the titular characters had with Ms. Bishop and William was painful to watch, for example. It did serve a purpose, as Ms. Bishop then made some sort of a mysterious phone call… and what do we know about her, and her deceased first husband, anyhow? Nothing in MCU, but in the comics Kate’s mother did work with that version of Madame Masque; MCU had its’ Madame Masque in the character of Agnes Cully, but that was in the past, a different villain can assume that name easily. (Not to mention that Agent Carter and her cohorts defeated Agnes). Where were we?

Ah yes, the mysterious phone call. So far, the fans have enjoyed wondering just how Kingpin was going to fit – to re-fit, pardon me – into MCU. Much was talked about how Echo was his stepdaughter in the comics, and in MCU, she had a mysterious, unseen, ‘Uncle’. Sadly, it is never confirmed that that man was Fisk, not to mention that ‘Hawkeye’ already had an uncle – William’s uncle Armand, who died off camera in unknown circumstances, while William himself owns a company that launders money from the Tracksuit Mafia, which is led by Maya and Kazi. Oh dear, I fear that we are going to have another red herring on our hands…unless Ms. Bishop is calling Fisk for real. Now what?

Well, aside from the fact that Clint Barton tried to dissolve his relationship with Kate Bishop – ha-ha, he thinks that it is up to him – we got a new look at a new dinosaur from the upcoming JWD movie, and it is the therezinosaurus. In RL, it was the biggest of plant-eating theropods, (i.e. the dinosaurs that were usually carnivores instead), and it looked…well, people know how it looked/looks – just look in the deviant-art website, for example; it looked either like a cross between a giant ground sloth and a goose, or like a prosauropod dinosaur instead.

Here is the thing: as far as the dinosaurs go, there is the ornithischians, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus and the Triceratops, and the saurischians, or the lizard-hipped dinosaurs. The dinosaur carnivores – Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Archaeopteryx and so on – belonged to that group, but so did such herbivores as the Apatosaurus: the sauropods, and their prosauropod cousins.

 For a good long while scientists assumed that the sauropods such as the Apatosaurus have evolved from the prosauropods, but now the two dino types are considered to be sister groups instead. What does that entail for paleontology I do not know, but what I do know that some of the prosauropods moved on two legs rather than four, and their forelimbs had rather impressive claws – such as the Plateosaurus, one of the last, and the biggest, of prosauropods. It was still an herbivore, just as the other prosauropod and sauropod dinosaurs were, but so was Therezinosaurus and its’ relatives, which physically were similar to Plateosaurus and the like. I.e., yes, Therezinosaurus and co. were the dinosaur analogues of the giant panda, carnivores, which switched to a purely plant-eating way of life, but the thing is that the lizard-hipped dinosaurs have evolved something similar way back in the Triassic, (Therezinosaurus and the rest lived during the late Cretaceous instead), so it isn’t too unexpected, actually. Nature tends to recycle its’ ideas, and while Therezinosaurus was unusual, there was precedent for this type of dinosaur and dinosaur body plan as well.

As for the Therezinosaurus’ role in the upcoming JWD movie… I really cannot tell. So far, we only know that it might have chased Claire into a swamp… or it may be just a promo poster instead. It is hard to tell, and since this is a cloned Therezinosaurus, and not a member of the prologue, it may not really matter.

…Yes, this may be crude, but at the end of the day? The prologue of JWD was yet another attempt at authenticity in fiction, just as the fact that the actress who plays Maya Lopez in ‘Hawkeye’ is disabled in RL. No offence, but RL and silver screen are not directly connected, and though I have enjoyed Maya’s interactions, cough, with the titular characters, that is because her actress is naturally talented, not because of disabilities, RL or otherwise. The silver screen and RL are not equal to each other, and neither are they in direct symbiosis to each other, as the elections of 2016 showed everybody. Not that the elections-2020 were much better, but that is another story.

For now, though, this is it. See all of you – eventually!

What If, 'T'Challa the Star-Lord' - Aug 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and the U.S.’, (but also NATO’s), actions in the RL Afghanistan showed it to everyone, loud and clear, on August 16, 2021…onwards. I really want to talk about it, but, conversely, many other people have already talked, and are talking, and will be talking about this for a long time from now on, so let us talk about something else – the second episode of ‘What If?’

What happens here, of course, is that Disney/Marvel/MCU are trying to erase J. Gunn’s live-action GotG franchise and replace it with a better one, one that is animated. I am guessing that whatever beef they had with ScarJo in regards to the ‘Black Widow’ movie pales in face of their feud with J. Gunn! What next?

Well, the Western world will need to figure out what to do now that the Taliban, as well as their Pakistan backers and superiors have won a major score – oh, we are talking about ‘What If?’ No…well, yes, but here is where ‘The Suicide Squad’ deserves a special mention.

The new version of the 2016 film is a good movie although it has its flaws, just as the 2016 version had its’ virtues. For example, in 2016, Waller was assembling a team that was supposed to be custom-made, to be precisely tailored to deal with various threats…on behalf of the American government, (cough). Yes, it didn’t go smoothly, not quite to plan, but in the end? The titular characters actually delivered…pretty much as Waller and her cohorts had expected them to be, and maybe even surpassing the expectations, (not that there was too much height to clear). Here, in the 2021 version, the Wall not so much assembled as collected a literally motley crew of bits and pieces that don’t even fit together, and make MCU’s AoS crew seem cohesive – and has the gall to be surprised when the mission literally dissolves into shite.

…No, I am not talking about the massacre on the beach but about how the team Bloodsport did its’ job in the completely opposite direction from where the Wall…assumed that it would go, apparently? Seriously, she collected some of the worst people in the DC-verse and sent them off with minimal oversight – Colonel Rick Flagg and whatever means of keeping an eye on both teams, (drones? Satellite cameras?). The result was that Flagg died and the news about the American government’s involvement with Jotunheim and Starro leaked out all the same – something that Waller wanted to avoid. Peacekeeper was nullified, Blackguard died, and her FBI underlings turned on her, (guess they heard what she did to their predecessors in the first movie). I have no idea as to what agent Waller will do next, but that is not why the movie failed. Rather, it failed because the American audiences had their fill of movie theaters for the moment, plus all of the baggage that was carried over from the first Suicide Squad movie, one that HBO/WB/DC/whoever never managed to quite divorce from the new one…

Back to ‘What If?’ Yeah, sort of. In the first GotG film, we had a ragtag group of characters, literally, who went forth and saved the galaxy. In the second film, they progressed, becoming more competent and more comfortable together. Moreover, in the ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ movies, they did their best to stop Thanos, and stop him they did…with losses along the way, but that was unavoidable.

And now we got the second ‘What If?’ episode that has none of that, but instead we got T’Challa succeeding at practically everything that Peter Quill had struggled with. Maybe that is justifiable, but as we have seen in MCU, both in CA: CW and the first ‘Black Panther’ film, T’Challa has had his own problems so clearly, in his ‘What If?’ episode, (Earth-TRN877), this might be some very alternative T’Challa, (though he and Yondu both were fought to a standstill, cough, by this dimension’s Collector)… Anything else?

The tendency to play it safe as it was depicted in the series’ premiere is running here true too – all of the characters are familiar to us, its’ their roles that change. In the series’ premiere, this was downplayed, sort of, but now and here, in the episode 1x02, it is played-out to the max, in an almost vaudeville-like manner. So, what next?

Sadly, I have no idea, or at least – no concrete idea. I have some theories, but nothing that I want to air for the moment. Therefore, for now, this is it – see you all soon instead.

Peloton and Co. - May 7

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask the Peloton™ team: they have only just recovered from their previous ad snafu, one that smelled of either sexism or of the Dark Mirror™ TV series, and now they got another scandal: apparently, children are getting into accidents over their treadmill equipment, and are getting hurt, maybe even seriously.

Listen, I don’t like Peloton™ as much as the next lazy guy, but even I have to admit that an indoor gym equipment isn’t necessarily child friendly, and as such, children – especially young ones – should be kept away from it, or at least – kept under supervision. This time, Peloton™ isn’t exactly at fault here, you know?

…On the other hand, we live in a world where endangered condors are trashing people’s homes, so all bets are off, actually. Let us try to talk about a less bizarre topic, i.e. the bad batch, the titular characters.

…No, I have no intention to talk about the series’ premiere in detail, let us just point out that the group’s villain, Crosshairs is…

No, let us try again. The Bad Batch themselves are a variant clone of the AoS’ team Bus from the get-go, just as the core characters of the ‘Blindspot’ TV series had been. Omega, of course, is the new Skye, while Crosshairs is Grant Ward, save that he is actually mind-controlled by some chip here, and thus has an out, (sort of): he was really made to do it and his mind isn’t entirely his own. It’s a thin excuse, but Ward didn’t have even this; actually, he never had anything, he hadn’t been fully damned nor fully redeemed, but we’re not talking about him; we’re talking about Crosshairs, who is also modelled after a Marvel comics’ character, a minor villain named William Cross, who is a master sniper and planner, who has slightly cybernetic modifications, but who wasn’t in S.H.I.E.L.D., but rather in CIA, before he went bad. He is also bad at hand-to-hand combat, and everything, (except for S.H.I.E.L.D. and CIA, primarily), applies to Crosshairs: the clone might be a Grant Ward variant mentally, but physically, he is more of a variant William Cross instead. The cross-pollination between Disney’s various franchises is proceeding apiece quite nicely.

This brings us to DC, and its’ ‘Justice Society: WWII’ film. Listen. The DC franchise is in the middle of a latest reboot, which began with the ‘Superman: Man of Tomorrow’ animated movie. This specific person plays an important role in this film too, even though in the promo videos it was more about the Flash and Wonder Woman instead, but so what? DC is trying to reinvent itself…cosmetically, while remaining same old same old on the inside: JS: WWII is a variant of the first Gal Gadot Wonder Woman movie, though there’s a nice homage to ‘Flash’ the 2014-onwards TV series too. You are free to watch it, but it is forgettable. Anything else?

Ah yes, the first season of ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ is available to watch now. I have tried to follow the original comic series, and found them to be confused – just what exactly did they want to be? They tried to be original, but they did no better than Hasbro’s ‘G.I. Joe’ franchise, which struggles to be something more than another S.H.I.E.L.D. vs Hydra variant in an increasingly Marvel vs. DC comic world, and in this world, Marvel is increasingly driven and motivated by Disney, (cough), while DC is trying to figure out what it wants other than bigger sales of its’ own merchandise. Nice.

…Into this fray entered the ‘Jupiter’ comics, which tried to leave a mark, tried to be original, but somehow have largely vanished without a trace, until now, when they’ve resurfaced with a complete reboot from the original plotline, and-?

And nothing. Not unlike the abovementioned DC film, people will either enjoy the ‘Jupiter’ series, or not. There is nothing memorable or outstanding that gives them an advantage over the rest of their respective crowds, and so it is time to move on and to talk about something else.

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

TFATWS, OWOP - April 26

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; a python ate a woman in her rice field, and our family barely got over being vaccinated against the COVID. Onto the show?

Firstly, I was half-right about the show being renamed: Sam Wilson is now the new official Captain America, but Bucky Barnes is still the Winter Soldier rather than the White Wolf. Have to admit, I do not know why, but then again, ‘the White Wolf’ does sound rather Nordic and Aryan, so there is that.

…Of course there is the racial politics at play again – as Sam himself proclaims, he is the Black man, dressed in Stars and Stripes, so in your face… just who, exactly? By losing the 2020 election, the Donald has caused a lot of venom in CAAWS to disappear, because Disney/MCU themselves are trying to downplay it now, because the Biden administration is supposedly different. How exactly is anyone’s guess, but it is different. It has to be. Where were we?

Right, the season’s finale. Not unlike how WV has ended, it is a somewhat lopsided episode; Sam Wilson, as the new true Captain America, got the lion’s share of development here, (in WV, it was Wanda), while everyone else – not so much. To be more precise, both Batroc and Karli are dead, Zemo is in prison, the rest of the Flag-Smashers are dead, and J.W. seems to be redeeming himself instead. Pause.

Let us try again. Last week, we talked as how to J.W. became a tragic anti-hero, not unlike Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, (the titular character of the play). Here, Disney/MCU did a reboot, as J.W. and everyone else in the CAAWS fandom did an about-face and went in a very new direction from where the last week’s episode ended. On one hand, this is justifiable, and Sharon Carter’s revelation as the Power Broker is quite expected, but…

…Well, whatever she is in the Marvel comics, in MCU Sharon had had barely any presence – she had some brief appearances in the previous CA films, (especially the CA: CW film), but she had barely any character development there, if any. Hence, once she was revealed the actual villain of the series (so far), there was little if any shock value, and most people are more interested in the good contessa Val instead.

“Don’t call me that!”

To elaborate on this character, the good contessa comes across almost like a female Coulson, and since during her comic book history, she had been Nick Fury’s love interest and ally, as well as his enemy, this may mean that she may be helping Nick, (Talos and Soren), to re-build the Avengers, and she may be a Skrull herself, because why not? If Sharon/Power Broker may be a Skrull, (but somehow, unlike WV, CAAWS doesn’t really mention Skrulls or anyone like that at all, so this is unlikely), then why not her ladyship? Where were we, again?

Well, following the zeitgeist, her ladyship seems to have mended fences with Mrs. W, suggesting that for a while the latter will be a part of the U.S. Agent’s life yet. Of course, that is no guarantee that she will not die as MCU’s Battlestar did in the episode 1x04, but them’s the risks. That said, also, the U.S. Agent’s new suit is notably black, just as Sam’s is notably white, so I guess that we now got a white knight against a black one, cough.

This brings us to Zemo, who seems to be becoming MCU’s answer to Batman/Dark Knight instead – he even got a kick-ass butler, who seems to be on par with DC’s Alfred Pennyworth, eh? In addition, he is a rich man, with a secret I.D., a serious yen towards vigilantism and some sort of a code of conduct – meet MCU’s up and coming founder of the Thunderbolts! What is left?

Nothing much. Karli died, but her sacrifice was not in vain, as Sam uses it to fuel his righteous rage to get the GRC moving in the right direction. Sharon is poised to be the next Big Bag in the MCU, Batroc died and not became MCU’s answer to the Box Ghost – there is a God, it seems – and Sam and Bucky are moving on with their lives; Bucky seems to be flirting with Sam’s sister, but until it is official – and Hollywood, including Disney & MCU are very bad with interracial couples, just look at AoS – this may not mean anything. Is there anything else?

Next on MCU’s roster is the ‘M.O.D.O.C.’, which seems to be MCU’s answer to ‘Adult Swim’ in general and ‘Robot Chicken’ in particular. I do not know if I will be watching it, but that is a story for another time all the same.

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

TFATWS, 'The Star-Spangled Man' - March 29

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Ergo, let us look at what is going on in MCU, and here things are not much better either – DC has struck! (Warning – spoilers ahead. If you care – do not read, if you do not – do).

Let me elaborate: whereas WV has dominated the American news, (especially the entertainment section, now that the Donald is no longer the POTUS and cannot compete with them fairly), TFATWS, on the other wing, has to compete with the Snyder cut of the Justice League, (which is apparently much more coherent and collected and composed differently from the Whedon version), as well as from the upcoming remake of the ‘Suicide Squad’.

…Personally, I reckon that the original ‘Squad’ movie worked, but this isn’t about workable movies, it’s about remaking its’ brand: DC has already remade the animated versions of Superman and Batman (plus the Martian Manhunter and several other characters, big and small), now it is time of the animated Wonder Woman, the Justice Society, the Flash and etc.… as well as of their live-action counterparts, (cough, ‘Superman and Lois’, cough). Team DC/Warner Brothers/HBO/etc. are not strong enough, or just unwilling, or whatever, to challenge the Disney/MCU juggernaut directly…but they are fighting it regardless. They are also putting a dump on the elder Whedon-man, but fuck him – after the mess that he had turned the AoS into, I am in no hurry to defend him – the man made his bed, let him lie in it, and the rest of his clan as well.

That said, the mutation of AoS, the unexpected and unwanted one, into a seven-season giant, had caused some ripples in the greater MCU as well. WV has demonstrated a complete lack of S.H.I.E.L.D. on one hand, (seriously, the current version of S.W.O.R.D. is just S.H.I.E.L.D. in a different package, cough), while on the other…

Apparently, one of the removed scenes had been Ralph teaming up with Monica, Darcy and Jimmy to capture a demon that Agatha’s rabbit Senor Scratchy transformed into. This event would have allowed Ralph to properly integrate into MCU and become something more than just a dick joke, (pun intended). However, it seems that a certain RL actor wasn’t very interested in this, and so his character got increasingly downgraded from the episode 1x06 onwards – as ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ showed, the integration of FX into Disney/MCU didn’t occur too painlessly, and some bad feelings still linger on… Where are we?

…Right, while the WV – especially the last two episodes – suffered from some revision, (in a bad way, not unlike what AoS had in the second half of S2), TFATWS… does not appear to be, at least not at the moment. Instead, what we have are two teams – one is the titular characters, and the other is the new guys – J.W. aka the ‘new captain America’ and his main man Battlestar.

Yes, the racial dynamics is inverted in the new team, but I have no idea what does that mean. Yes, TFATWS is big on depicting racial dynamics within the U.S. – last week, it was Sam and Sarah’s big misadventure in the bank – apparently, with Tony Stark gone, the Avengers’ financial security is gone with him – and this time it is the cops’ harassing Sam because they think that he has harassed the Buck… and they’re white too.

I live in Canada, and the first time I saw an Afro-American person being arrested was in the U.S., (in the city of Buffalo, which is in the New York state, FYI), but the cops who arrested him were also Afro-Americans, and the detained man didn’t appear to be suffering too badly, so yes, here I am calling out Disney, MCU, and the rest of Hollywood on their racial BS because that is what it is, and given just how messed up the U.S. still is after the Donald’s 4-year tenure, does it really need Disney/MCU stirring the pot? Probably not, but TFATWS still has another 4 episodes left in it, so this is what’ll get – a modern social commentary set in a superhero universe, where super-soldiers whale at each other on top of moving trucks and what else have you. Bravo! How very woke of you, Disney & MCU! MAGA, MAGA!

But that aside, what did ‘The Star-Spangled Man’ have? It set up J.W. as the new ‘wrong’ captain America, it showed that the Flag-Smashers are not as evil as they appear to be, (maybe), and that there is another power group/player to the game, one that may or may not be Helmut Zemo, who is returning to TFATWS proper in the next episode. Not a wealth of information to go on, but then again, TFATWS is all about racial inequality, mental trauma, (PTSD), and action, as far as MCU incarnations go. That is fair enough, but not enough to go on.

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

Batman: Soul of the Dragon - Jan 13

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yes, it is a direct responsa to the mess that the U.S. is currently in, but it is also a response to my family’s latest visit to our house – we all have barely survived the two weeks of holidays staying in the same house, (ok, apartment building), cooped-up together – it was that bad. I do not want to dwell on it, however, so let me just reassure my followers by proclaiming that I am not dead yet, and move on.

…The entire U.S. situation is not something that I want to discuss – not yet. By opening his big mouth, the Donald revealed himself to be an idiot of the highest caliber and quality, one that apparently hates the U.S. with a passion that not even Putin come close to, and one who should’ve been removed from the Capitol, the White House, etc., etc., a long time ago. Instead, we got a hot mess between the Republicans and the Democrats once again, and the Donald keeps on wheeling and flying over the U.S. unhindered. Seriously, do the American politicians consider other American people to be worthy of mattering? Alternatively, do they ignore them completely? Yes, some corporations have cut-off their funding either to the Donald or to the both of the abovementioned political parties – and this does not brighten the picture in the D.C. either, but still…

…At any rate, I have tried to distract myself by watching the new DC movie, ‘Batman: Soul of the Dragon’, and… I have regretted it. One of the worst wastes of my life and time ever!

Here is the thing. WW84 is a wonderful movie, (pun intended), just dealing with the modern political issues in atypical ways, as I have written last year about it. Hence all the rage from the independent movie critics and connoisseurs, (or whatever they are supposed to be). Those that are more dependent, like the IGN, of course, sing accolades to WW84 instead – but IGN have sang accolades to the ‘Dragon-Bat’ film as well. What is the problem here?

It is banal. WW84 has plenty of content, something that none of its’ critics deny. Not everyone is liking WW84’s political content, and not everyone is recognizing it for what it is, but it is present; WW84 has put itself onto a higher rung of the ladder of the movies’ worth, and right now, WB and HBO believe that it is a winning horse, (and rightly so) – WW84 is trying to do something else than just to entertain – it is trying to educate about the social and gender norms, (aside from anything else). ‘Dragon-Bat’ does not do anything like that. Instead, it is a straightforward fic, er, flick, about Batman teaming up with several other DC characters to bring down the Kobra cult. Pause.

Here is the thing. It is not a bad concept on its’ own, and ‘Dragon-Bat’ isn’t entirely a bad movie, it is only forgettable: none of the characters really have much of defining characteristics outside of martial arts – and everyone in the ‘Dragon-Bat’ has martial arts. The ‘dragon’ part seems to be coming from Richard Dragon, one of the movie’s main characters, and who got the worst part of the deal – lady Shiva has appeared in all sort of DC franchises and so has the Bronze Tiger/Ben Turner; I, in particular, remember his incarnation in the ‘Batman: The Brave and The Bold’ cartoons, and I got to say – I liked this version better. There he had backstory and traits that made him different from the rest of the BB characters – yes, it is obvious, but it needs to be said. Here, in ‘Dragon-Bat’, he is not, and neither is Richard Dragon, who seems to be little more than Batman’s/Bruce Wayne’s pale shadow instead, (somewhat how Homer’s Menelaus was a shadow of Odysseus in both ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’). After all, unlike lady Shiva and Ben Turner, he doesn’t have much of a presence outside of the DC comics… anything else?

Sadly, no. ‘Dragon-Bat’ doesn’t focus much on its characters; they appear to be almost interchangeable, and none of them appear to be too interested in each other beyond what the game – I mean, the movie – demands of them. ‘Dragon-Bat’ feels like a badly filmed RPG, in other terms. Lady Shiva, for example, is one of the more interesting female characters in DC – and here she is just a crime lord in the local Chinatown. Pardon me, a top crime lord or something. Fancy that. Do the other characters care? Not really. Is it all that important within the greater movie? Also not really. Ouch.

And the same can be addressed towards the Dark Knight himself, though he is a special case, actually. Yes, he is the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader and so on, but he is more of a masked detective than a dragon slayer instead – somehow, here he feels redundant – even IGN admitted that in this movie his role could’ve been taken over by Richard Dragon or by anyone else, with the plot of the movie being none the worse. Only… the ‘names’ of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and so on have selling power that the ‘names’ of Richard Dragon or Ben Turner or even lady Shiva lack. Batman is here to make ‘soul of the Dragon’ sell, first and foremost, and everything else is redundant. Ouch!

But then again, everything about ‘Dragon-Bat’ is redundant and forgettable: yes, it is fun to watch once, but nothing else: you watch it once and probably will not watch it again. WW84, on the other hand? Has staying power and will be staying in discussions for the next little while, even as the ‘Dragon-Bat’ will not be. However, that is real life for you. It sucks.

This is it for now – see you all soon.

WW84 - Dec 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: I still am not dead. To elaborate further: the ‘WW84’ film is good.

Let us start from the beginning: what is this film about? It is about the further adventures of the titular heroine, this time – in the middle 1980s. So far so good, though did Ms. Patty Jenkins had to tack on the Donald as well?.. however, we digress.

Let us try again. The main difference between this year’s film and the 2017’s one is that the first WW movie was a part of the ‘greater DCEU’, let us call it that, it tied on directly into the effects of the JL movie, and on the flip side it was strongly reminiscent of Marvel’s first ‘Captain America’ film, though with a less pulp fiction film. I don’t know as to who thought that pulp fiction Nazis on screen was a good idea; they and their association with Hydra backfired on MCU in a big, unpredictable way, but that isn’t the point right now – the point is in that WW84, there are no WWI or WWII associations, there are some signs of an escalating, cough, Cold War, but none of the main characters of this film are associated too deeply with that RL aspect. Now what?

First, a shout-out to Pedro Pascal for his depiction of Maxwell Lord; the man has nothing in common with ‘the Mandalorian’, even though one and the same person is playing them both. Pedro Pasqual is clearly a man of many skills, whereas Ming-Na Wen, who has also reappeared in ‘the Mandalorian’ S2 finale as Boba Fett’s new sidekick, is more of a hot sauce – as the ad says, Grandma Disney puts Wen into everything. MCU? – AoS; Disney? – ‘Mulan-2020’ (and ‘Mulan-1990s, cough); SW – now ‘the Mandalorian’; yet so far Wen either plays a tough, powerful woman warrior, or she is just a cameo, a spectre of her normally powerful image.

…Yet even such a spectre is more powerful than Chloe Bennett is; the younger woman seems to be a one-hit wonder, now that AoS’ and its’ Quake are gone, and Quake/Daisy Johnson herself seems to be largely not in demand by Disney/Marvel now that AoS is finished; but how did Chloe wax poetic after the series’ finale!.. Where were we?

…Well, the Whedon family heavily invested & involved with AoS, and had published their own article once AoS was finished, but nothing was mentioned of the Mr. Whedon-father, who is under a MeToo cloud currently – and now Ms. Gadot, aka Diana Prince of the latest WW-movies, mentions Mr. Whedon-father in a less than flattering light. Fair enough and – girl power! Go, Diana! Go, Wonder Woman! Or not.

Oh no, the girl power in Diana is there, and if you need a sexist pig to base your villain upon, then the RL Donald is your man. The trick here is how Ms. Jenkins had handled her Maxwell Lord; ‘her’, because there are at least two other versions of Maxwell Lord who were played by RL actors rather than being cartoon animations, and one of them appeared back in ‘Supergirl-2015’ – a rather different person from the Maxwell Lord of WW84, so why hadn’t Ms. Jenkins used this actor?

Because she needed a Donald look-a-like, with one major twist – her Maxwell Lord actually redeemed himself at the end, because of his son, but regardless. In RL, of course, Barron Trump was off the metaphorical menu, though this was probably due to the actions of Melania, who was usually ‘ignored’ by the anti-Trump media because of reasons, but nevertheless, this version of Maxwell Lord proved to be a different version from the Donald, making their resemblance to each other imperfect, and Lord’s misogyny, (relatively speaking, but still) – ditto.

…And on the other hand we have the Cheetah, who was not redeemed, however likable she used to be in most of the movie. If Maxwell was a misogynist of WW84, then Dr. Minerva/Cheetah was an equally toxic TERF, (not unlike J.K. Rowling in real life), a stereotype that is much less popular in the mainstream culture, political and otherwise, than someone as the Donald is. By depicting the Cheetah this way, may be one of the reasons as to why WW84 reviews were mixed, as some of the reviewers do not like this portrayal of hers, and the others – of the Donald… I mean, Maxwell Lord. Fair enough.

That said, for most of the movie, Barbara-Ann Minerva isn’t the Cheetah, but more of a dark mirror to Wonder Woman, a selfish version of Diana rather than an outright evil one. Of course, by wishing for Steve, Diana herself proved to be selfish…at least by the movie’s standards…or maybe the crystal’s…since it was created by a ‘god of mischief and lies’…cough. Gee, I wonder who can that be; you know that Marvel hadn’t created him, but rather taken the actual RL Norse mythology and adapted it to its’ own purpose…but because their association with Loki is that tight these days, that DC decided to hide behind anonymity, because of course that works!..

Back to the Cheetah proper, as it was said before, for most of the movie, she is not an evil person, more of a selfish one, an anti-Wonder Woman…sort of. Then she decided to change her wish – just as Diana gave up her own wish, that of Steve being with her, (and in exchange, she was growing weaker, more ordinary – the movie could’ve had fun, by having Minerva turn into Wonder Woman, just as Diana was turning into an ordinary woman, and someone who resembled the original Minerva, maybe?.. but that would be fetish fuel or something, so no.

Instead we got Minerva turning from a dark Wonder Woman into an extra from CATS-2019, (and that was a toxic trash fire even before COVID-19 struck), because, supposedly, Minerva wanted to be an ‘apex predator’, or an ‘alpha predator’, or whatever.

…The problem here is that a cheetah is a predator, but is much closer to the bottom of the metaphorical pyramid; there are videos on YouTube that show RL cheetahs being chased away from their kills by…flocks of vultures. We’re talking RL vultures here, professional scavengers, not hunters themselves, not at all – and when professional scavengers can get the best of you, because you’re tired and exhausted to the bone, and they aren’t, and there’s many of them, and only one of you – then you know that you’re neither alpha nor apex anything. In RL, cheetahs are pwned by practically every other carnivore of the African savannahs where they live, and they know it. They are speeding specialists and as such, they are really fragile and physically weak, (though I still would not advise any human to tangle with them for all sort of reasons), so the Barbara Ann Minerva version of the Cheetah is more like the Leopard or the Jaguar instead.

…There is also the Priscilla Rich version of the Cheetah; unlike Barbara-Ann, this one is no metahuman, but more like an evil version of the Catwoman instead, what with a suit…and a load of cash, ‘cause her family name is Rich, got it? Still, she has not appeared in DCEU so far, so no more shall be said about that. Anything else?

Well, Steve-O and his amazing body snatching/look-around switcheroo story line feels rather influenced by the 90s’ X: WP/H: TLJ TV series’, cough, ancient Greece, cough. In them, some of the villains – especially a blonde named Callisto – had escaped from the Underworld on one point and took over Xena’s body, so Xena had to take over Callisto’s…or something. In RL, Lucy Lawless, who played Xena, had a broken leg or some similar injury, so Hudson Leick, (who normally played Calypso) had to step in and take over…so an elaborate body swap had to be involved, somehow.

…Yes, Lucy Lawless had appeared in MCU’s AoS, but that role – an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Isabelle Heartly – was not one of LL’s best, not even in the top ten. A chakram-wielding character did reappear in S5 – one that had been played by Dove Cameron instead – but that character, Ruby Hale, had been underwhelming as well…but we have talked about this before. What about WW84 instead?

This movie works. It has its’ flaws, of course, but it works. It fun and entertaining, and while it tried to be woke, it also tried to be fair – something that’ll backfire on it; already has begun to, as the reviews have started to tickle in. Ah well, Gal Gadot is still herself, and Patty Jenkins will be directing the new SW movie, whatever it will be – but that is another story.

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

Quarantine entry #118 - July 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Therefore, I looked at the ‘Wonder woman 77 meets Bionic woman’ comic, and-?

Well, here is the thing. For a while, I followed the ‘Batman 66’ comics, which were based on the sixties’ TV version of Batman. They are not bad comics, and I have enjoyed following them, (they have ended for now, from what I understand), and this brings us to WW77. This is a comic series based on the seventies’ version of Wonder Woman. Fair enough, but somehow they never got to be as popular as their Batman counterparts did. As to why is that, I have no idea – WW is as good a DC superhero as Batman is – and this brings us to the abovementioned comic. Ergo-?

Ergo it just does not work. Somehow, they made the meeting of the two female superheroes look kind of boring and mundane – almost like ‘Charlie’s Angels’, (the initial original movie), but with superpowers. And robots.

The robots. Throughout the series, they’re called ‘fembots’ – apparently, in the original TV/comic series, they were only women, but now they’re men, so even the crossover comic itself asks – shouldn’t they be ‘man-bots’ instead? And…the name never changes for some paper-weak excuse: obviously, the name cannot be changed because of copyright issues, but…

…But this is actually the problem with the WWBW comic here – it is trying to be ‘woke’ too hard, while also trying to be authentic to the spirit of both of its components – WW & BW – also too hard. The result is weak sauce – maybe not ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ weak, but close enough.

Let us try to elaborate. Let us look at the villains – there are 3 to 4 various WW & BW villains, all associated with robotics, cybernetics, bionics, etc. That sounds like a good combo, but somehow this evil team never amounts to much; sure, a motley crew of the abovementioned robots and mercenaries let by a Nazi/ex-Nazi captain from WW’s past invades the Amazons’ island, but both of those groups are featureless as far as characters go, and serve nothing more than cannon fodder. If this were ST, they would all be wearing red shirts.

…Oh, wait, the robots do wear red shirts; actually, their closing is red (or some other monochrome coloration), done in the worst 70s throwback ever: their getup serves no purpose just to provide some authentic 70s’ vibe. Set in a world of Amazons and humanoid robots. Right. Authenticity, what are you doing here? Are you on a trip? Cough.

…The clothing issues aside, why are the villains invading the Amazon Island? Why, to steal some special metal that will make their robots extra strong!.. Doesn’t sound like the worst idea, true, but somehow the team WWBW makes it sound mundane and tripe, and have ever the info that WW’s homeland has some special metal ever surfaced in the DC verse? I can’t remember, but this is no reason to declare this development to be a one-time wonder, right? Where were we?

Ah yes, the wokeness. Somehow, the Batman 66 comics were never so ‘woke’ as this one, which might be the reason why the WWBW comic never acquired any sequels; the WW77 comic line itself went for a volume or two, but now it is also gone, (just as the Batman 66 comics are). Maybe team DC decided to overhaul its’ extended universe again, and any future collaborations between WW and BW got lost in the shuffle. Who knows?

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