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!

AAA 'Miles/Trials' - Sep 26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

She-Hulk, The People - Sep 1

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us continue talking about our jade-colored legal eagle instead.

Sadly, this week’s episode, ‘The People vs. Emil Blonsky’ is not exactly a break-mold episode that is needed by now; instead, we get an introductory episode.

However, whom does ‘The People’ (re)-introduce? First – Emil Blonsky/the Abomination, who seems to be one some path of redemption, (with Wong along for the ride, apparently). ‘The People’ show that he has also evolved, just as the original Hulk has, and is keeping his coherence whenever he digivolves, so no more mitigating circumstances; on the flip side, he is released, provided that he doesn’t go full supervillain once more. Pause. Yeah, looks as if the MCU Thunderbolts – still in the making – just got a new name onto their potential roster.

Second, we got the Wrecking Crew, and so far, they are quite underwhelming – just four mysterious people with Asgardian equipment, (cough). Given how Jen spent even less time with them than she did with Titania in the series’ premiere, I am not holding my breath out for them – Hell, Titania’s return would be more exciting after their debut.

Finally, we got the shape-shifting Light Elves, the better cousins of the Dark Elves (from the 2^nd Thor film), or at least the cousins with the better PR. Getting into the entire MTS situation down below, I am left wondering about the shape-shifting gig – isn’t it the Skrulls’ thing instead? Actually, we have not heard of the Skrulls since the WV ended – and the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film has seriously re-made that story, (and not necessarily for the better). I’ve heard rumors that team Disney is having some serious legal issues with the team Marvel comics, so I honestly wonder if this has any relations to this slight re-working that we’re getting in MCU lately?..

In addition, as for MTS herself… what kind of fee did she get for her appearances in the ‘Legal Eagle’ – I mean, ‘She-Hulk’? In addition, does this make her a legitimate part of MCU now, and Marvel comics can use her as a character, if she is paid? People want to know!

On a more serious topic, the entire celebrity cameo shtick had been used before in romantic comedies, (such as ‘The Nanny’), so does it mean that ‘She-Hulk’ is going full ‘Ally McBeal’ now? In that case, um, could we do a plot twist where this aspect of MCU is revealed a rebooted Westview with Wanda doing her old tricks in a new setting? Now that has potential, I have to say!

…Sadly, however, this is all I want to say about ‘She-Hulk’ at this point. See you all soon, instead!

Ned Leeds is hungover (fiction) - Aug 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, May did-“

“Ah, that’s ok then-“

“…I really hate you sometimes-“

“Did the three-headed rat bite you-?”

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

“…What?” Ned just blinked.

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

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

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

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

“Who?” Ned blinked

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

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

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

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

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

End

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!

DW, 'Lawrence vs. Teddy' revisited - May 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so today I have re-watched the ‘Lawrence of Arabia vs. Teddy Roosevelt’ DW episode. And-? And nothing.

Should I elaborate? More precisely – can I elaborate? When I have watched it on TV for the first time ever, I was struck by the similarities between this fight and the fight between Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington in the DW S3 premiere… and in hindsight, this is not too surprising: the S3 premiere was supposed to have the U.S. defeat the French, while ‘Lawrence vs. Teddy’ had the U.S. beat the British instead. It worked too, but…

…But at the end of the day, the fights were clumsily done, (when compared to the first two seasons of DW), leaving the viewers feeling cheated; there were other factors that contributed to DW’s demise, and we’ve discussed them back in the day; and now all that is left are clips and recordings of the old series, hardly a worthwhile repast for a person who’s down on his luck, and may be hearing the ‘call of the void’ whenever he goes out onto the balcony to chase the pigeons (feral-domestic rock doves or whatever), but still, it is better than nothing…

…Better than FH, at least. Yes, it is not quite right to compare FH to DW, as the latter was a TV series, while the former is an online game, and the former is still going strong, while DW was cancelled, but as we have discussed in the past, FH has noticeably relied on DW for content…which has grown to be little more than a list of moves, emotes, and the like. The last character that was added to the roster was the pirate, a character that was taken directly from the DW S1, as we’ve talked, and since then there apparently was nothing new – apparently, the imagination of the creative team behind FH is running dry. Anything else?

Not much; MK is almost out, but we got ‘Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’ coming up on May 6, and the Internet is already abuzz with the discussions of the movie, so maybe it’ll be able to liven things up – but given that the RF-Ukraine’s military conflict is turning RL is even more stupidly monstrous and violent, I wouldn’t bet on it; oh, and the Donald still isn’t down & out, and may return to the U.S. politics for the 2024 elections. Fun! Did I mention that real life sucks? – Because lately it feels like a real understatement. Still, we have our moments; lately, we got out this 3.5 D&D Dungeon magazine #136, and are playing one of the game scenarios presented there; reluctantly, I have to admit, that the old scenarios are sometimes to be the more fun ones than the new ones are; maybe there’s a point in it somewhere…

Moreover, as for ‘Lawrence vs. Teddy?’ Yeah, I still got nothing. I have enjoyed it – in a manner of speaking – back when DW was fresh and new, (ok, relatively fresh and new, but still), watching the show was fun, but now – not so much. Guess everything fades with time and you need to move-on into the future… Yay, I guess… Still, real life sucks in my opinion…

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

What If, 'Dr. Strange' - Sep 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: the U.S. and the rest of the West are officially done with Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken over it just as officially. Hooray. Biden had no intention of continuing this ‘forever war’ – fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that during the last 20 years, USA completely failed to build a proper Western country in Afghanistan, so let’s talk about this week’s episode of ‘What if?’ instead.

Sadly, this week’s episode seems to be offering more of the same; in the last week’s episode, five out of six initial Avengers died, but the rest of the world moved on; this week, however, Dr. Strange destroyed everyone and everything in his grief instead, and-

Let us try to talk about this one character across. First, in AoS, Grant Douglas Ward lost John Garrett, and more importantly, Kara Palamas, just as Dr. Strange lost Christine Palmer in this week’s ‘What if?’ episode. Unlike Dr. Strange, Ward went to extract his revenge – well, first he went completely insane, in a sad, but dangerous way – by killing…well, mostly Ms. Price, Coulson’s girlfriend of the month, and also exposing Melinda’s (ex?) husband Andrew as an InHuman called Lash…but that is another story. The point is that as far as Ward was concerned, Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. owed him a karmic debt, and he resolved it by flipping it over, by dying – and joining Palamas in the Underworld – and by tipping S.H.I.E.L.D.’s karmic cup over, and leaving them dealing with Hive, who almost executed Grant’s revenge on a far bigger scale than Grant ever could. Dr. Strange, on the other hand, did not work the system as Grant did, he did not join Palmer in the afterlife as Ward did with Kara, but rather he tried to resurrect her, which went against the flow of existence in this particular universe – but this brings us to Wanda.

In WV, Wanda did not accept Vision’s death all that well, and by using her powers, she took over a town in New Jersey (of all states), and through the power of her mind, (augmented and empowered in part by the Mind Stone of Thanos’, cough), she rewrote that corner of MCU, brought back Vision, and did plenty of other things – but they were obviously only temporary, and so Wanda had to let go of her past and move on – or else she would’ve gone insane, (or even died), and Vision would still be lost to her; at least, at the WV’s finale, Wanda is moving on… in some direction, and she might yet be able to recover their twins, and moreover – there’s a new Vision in the MCU, so who knows? Maybe the two of them will be able to work it out. Of course, the fact that the new Vision looks like a hybrid between GoT’s Night King and KKK’s mascot doesn’t help things, but that’s on Disney/MCU’s conscience, so where are we?

Yes, that unlike Wanda, this Steven did not release his grief, but rather let it use him to destroy his universe – MCU’s grief metaphor in reverse. I am impressed, really, but the fact that this universe’s Ancient One states that Christine’s Palmer’s death was destined to be rather rubs me wrong: it’s reminiscent of predeterminism – that some things are just meant to be, and no one can do anything about it… and that just goes against Protestantism and the rest of all things Western, you know?

Let us try again. In AoS, S.H.I.E.L.D. stood for democracy, just as Hydra stood for tyranny, so whereas in Hydra compliance was rewarded, in S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative and taking charge of one’s own life and future were – and they were shown to be superior to Hydra’s blind obedience. So far so good, but then the second half of S2 introduced the InHumans, whose life motto was ‘what will be, will be’ instead. It isn’t exactly Hydra’s ‘compliance will be rewarded’ motto, but there were enough similarities, superficial or not, for S.H.I.E.L.D. to become confused, and to start treating the InHumans incorrectly, (Skye’s inexperience in these matters didn’t help any), and the result was the bloodbath on the Iliad, (a S.H.I.E.L.D. battleship of the Navy sort), and things became even worse from then on, until the S3 finale – Ward almost didn’t make things worse, but when he did… see above. The point here is that Lincoln paid the ultimate price in AoS’ S3, but he did it because of predeterminism, among other things, and because of it, he never became fully at home in S.H.I.E.L.D.- pause.

Getting back to ‘What if?’, Dr. Strange gets into trouble and destroys everyone and everything because he actually refuses to bow down into inevitable, and tries everything he can to change his and Charlotte’s destinies, and as a result, the world ends. Maybe he should have moved on, true, but the way this episode have handled it? It is too reminiscent as to what has happened in RL Afghanistan, where instead of building a proper Western society, of meritocracy, of self-advancement, and self-worth, and what else have you, the Americans failed, and Afghanistan remained an Eastern country, where people are prepared to bow to inevitable and to die for their beliefs – whether it’s Islam, or democracy, or whatever – but not to kill for them. There’s a difference…and besides, a good deal of Afghanis would rather run away anyways and live a better life elsewhere, away from Afghanistan – what were the Americans and the Europeans doing over there, anyhow? Clearly not building a different nation with a new system of values as the Soviets tried in the 20^th century, or even subduing them in servitude, as the Brits did in the 19^th. But hey – Disney/MCU is trying to be educational here and now about the nature of grief, (seriously the laurels of ‘Inside Out’ success just cannot be let go here?), funded by the taxpayers’ dime, while inadvertently promoting the values of predeterminism here. How patriotic and clever! Do they want to replicate the ‘success’ of AoS in the ‘What if?’ If so, full speed to them to go ahead! Not.

…Well, this is it for now anyhow. ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings’ is officially coming out this Friday, so we’ll talk about it either this week or the next. See you all soon!

S.H.I.E.L.D., Devils - Nov 29

AoS is back. Yay!

…As it does happen with this show, it did deliver on the latest episode – it introduced Hell (Dr. Strange’s Dark Dimension?); it pushed Coulson and May closer together (the two had an one-on, one-off relationship since S2); it gave much more backstory to Robbie Reyes/the Ghost Rider; it introduced senator Nadir’s InHuman brother; and etc. And?

And nothing. AoS was/is one of those shows that when its’ episodes work, they really work, and when they do not work, they really do not work. Here, in case of ‘Devils’, we got the former, but! It is a case of too little, too late: the next episode, 4x08, is the mid-season finale, meaning that the odds are that the entire S4 will be just 16, rather than 22 episodes long, are very good. ‘Course, there’s always a chance of the second half of S4 being 14 episodes long, but given the still-low ratings, I am not betting on it – we will just have to wait until 2017 to see.

As it was written before, AoS had problems, and starting from S2’s finale, AoS was unable to handle and resolve them, at least until the S3 finale. S4 is doing its’ best to have a clean break, but it has not quite succeeded in accomplishing this earlier, as I have suggested earlier. Moreover, with fewer episodes in S4 it has less space, and possibly less money, to accomplish this break as well.

Where does it live AoS with its’ S4 (and beyond)? Possibly in the same boat as the book ‘PRIMATES of the world’ by Jean-Jacques Petter and Francois Desbordes – it is a wonderful and initially impressive book, featuring numerous (nearly 300) species of lemurs, monkeys and apes on 72 colored plates, and is very aesthetically pleasing. But!

…But there is all that is too it, really. It does contain information about the primates, scientific rather than fictional, but it is generalized, unsorted, and is delivered at a compressed and rapid pace: minimum written information, maximum of illustrations and depictions. This approach is homogenous too, which makes things worse.

To be more precise, there are other guidebooks that have drawn illustrations rather than photographs; Luke Hunter’s guide to the carnivorous mammals of the world is one of them. Again, it uses drawings rather than photos, but the textual content of Mr. Hunter’s book is very different from that of Mr. Petter: it is heterogeneous – the textual entries are clearly of very differing lengths, as it should be. Both the snow leopard and the brown hyena, (for example), are predators and are related more closely to each other than to the grizzly bear, but they are just as different from each other as they are from the grizzly. Ergo – the entries of different lengths.

With ‘Primates’ it is different; the text is generalized as much as possible, and the format shows more creativity than common sense; I mean, you can put down the primates’ family tree in not a straightforward, back-to-front format, but rather a radial, left to right manner, but it doesn’t work as well. Or, you can sort the primates out primarily by continents rather than by infraorders, suborders and families, but it doesn’t work as well either – there is a reason why the Catarrhini are usually called the Old World monkeys and apes – they are found in both Africa and Asia; the Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae) superfamily have subfamilies whose members are found both in Asia and Africa; while the apes’ family contain several genuses that are found in Africa and Asia as well. Mr. Petter did the best he could, but even so, he had to distribute his ‘flavor text’ about the Old World monkeys, the great apes (orangutans, gorillas and chimps), even about the Lorisoidea primates (aka the non-Madagascan lemurs) between African and Asian groups; it works, but not as well if he and Mr. Desbordes had sorted the entries evolutionary style – the lemurs, the tarsiers, (the link between the lemurs and the higher primates), the monkeys and the apes. Straightforward and simple. Mr. Hunter actually did this with the carnivores – one biological family after another, from cats to weasels. Mr. Petter and Desbordes just did not do it – well, history will judge them, if their contemporaries will not.

How does this relate to AoS? Well, as I tried to explain, ‘PRIMATES’ tried to create an aesthetically pleasant and scientific guidebook, (well, a quasi-guidebook, maybe) and failed. ‘PRIMATES’ is not much more than a picture book instead. AoS has tried to become an accessory/supplement to MCU – and failed. It tried to tackle ‘real-life’ issues in the second half of S3 (racial, international, etc.) and it did not work. S4 has new elements, but it also has a lack of any real-life issues, though it tries to do so with the InHumans as ‘the other’ in this season, but it does not really work. Of course, Marvel itself had thought that presenting Captain America (Steve Rogers) in comics as Hydra would be some sort of a clever anti-Trump statement, but it didn’t work, and just caused further friction among its’ fans.

In other words, AoS is back to being just entertainment – and for a while, (S3, S2 too), it was not even very good entertainment, and now that it has been sent to ten o’clock in the evening, things aren’t looking good for it. Yes, starting from S3 AoS tried to be good (as a TV show), but apparently it was not enough. In real life, bad guys sometimes win, and good shows are cancelled. ‘Course, being caught between the Netflix’s ‘Defenders’, who are coming up nicely, and CW’s DC ‘Arrowverse’ AoS is the underdog and it shows, especially in the ratings.

However, what about ‘Dr. Strange’? Can the latest MCU movie not help AoS and etc.?

‘Dr. Strange’ itself is primarily an entertainment movie, not unlike Disney’s ‘Moana’ that appeared in theatres not so long ago, only without ‘Moana’s’ depth. Okay, that was uncalled for, ‘Dr. Strange’ and ‘Moana’ have the same amount of depths – these days Disney owns Marvel as well. ‘Dr. Strange’ is a Disney movie with the main character become a hero, and a typical hero at that. At least CA: CW utilized the talents of its’ cast rather than special effects to carry it forth – and it worked. ‘Dr. Strange’…did not, and while it also worked, CA: CW is still the better movie by right.

Therefore: AoS is in trouble off screen, regardless of what it does on screen and things will not get better anytime soon, it especially with the midseason hiatus coming forth – this sort of thing is always bad for the ratings. Pity. 

Dr. Strange - Nov 4

Let us now talk about ‘Dr. Strange’ the movie. What can be said about it?

It is an origin movie. It does not talk about just Dr. Strange’s origins, but also about Mordu’s and Wong’s, in the terms of MCU. The Ancient One…yes, you can talk about whitewashing here, but after Mordu and Wong, it does not really work, (at least not in my opinion, yeah). If you want, you can say that it is an introductory movie, as opposed to ‘Captain America: Civil War’ film, where everyone knows each other, and pieces are largely fusing together to form a greater whole, rather than appearing unexpectedly, out of the blue. Alternatively, if you want, CA: CW has closed the lid on the stage 2 of MCU, while ‘Dr. Strange’ has opened stage 3.

Consequently, the plot of ‘Dr. Strange’ is more straightforward than, say, that of CA: CW. The character do not know each other at first, they are strangers to each other, not just to the audience. This is one of the movie’s main elements, and it works.

(For the record, Kaecillius, the movie’s main villain – Dormammu doesn’t count, he is more of a Galactus-type entity, and beyond good and evil, really – isn’t an OC either; in the canon, he is one of Mordu’s minions, but here Mordu isn’t evil, or at least – not yet evil; more like misguided or has a philosophy crisis; he isn’t chaotically evil as Kaecillius is, but he is just too lawful and righteous. It happens.)

Another element, of course, are the special effects. They are overwhelming and help disguise the fact that the movie’s plotline is simple and straightforward. Neither of that is bad, but, hey, special effects! Kung-Fu fighting! Magic! Surreal cityscapes! You name it! The movie got it! Including Dormammu, which is currently little more than a magical talking head! A deadly magical talking head, but still. Is anyone reminded of the titular wizard from the wonderful wizard of Oz movie? I was.

And yet, that aside, ‘Dr. Strange’ is supposed to entertain – which it does. (It IS a movie based on a comic, after all). Character-wise, Steven Strange is like Tony Stark, (the Iron Man, duh), with Christine playing the role of Pepper (sort of?). His journey from a rather arrogant arse to a selfless hero, the Sorcerer Supreme, who was willing to die, repeatedly, to save Earth from Dormammu is presented really well. Three cheers for Benedict Cumberbatch! And Wong can make a great Dr. Watson, too.

Anything else? Not really. As a movie, ‘Dr. Strange’ was a journey from point A to point B, focusing on the titular character. Everyone else, even Mordu and Wong, were secondary characters, though hopefully, Strange and Mordu will be able to become friends once more, rather than enemies, as they actually were in the comics, but still. Otherwise, it is a movie aimed exclusively at entertaining, with few connections to the real world, (thought there IS realism, of course), which is a good thing for MCU, since between the Hydra matter, the moral debates generated by the AoS TV show and even the entire Steve vs. Tony conflict, MCU doesn’t need any more controversies anytime soon. So – behold ‘Dr. Strange’, the new Marvel movie, which is quite entertaining, but – nothing else.