Snow White 2025 and D: BA - March 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and in this case, I mean that I have developed issues with my cell phone. At least the big dead rat is gone – hooray for small mercies. In other news, D: BA is back with two new episodes this week, so yuppie? Right?

Eh, the jury is still out here. In the episode 1x05 we re-met Yusuf Khan, who’s Kamala Khan’s father or elder brother, I don’t remember which one. Sigh. MM was swept under the rug when in RL Pakistan, (the homeland of the Khan family in MCU) helped the Taliban topple the pro-US government in Afghanistan, and the follow up ‘Marvels’ movie didn’t really go anywhere either. And in episode 1x06 Jack the Swordsman from ‘Hawkeye’ reappeared; in RL, the actor who played Hawkeye suffered a bad accident a while back, so it is unknown if Kate Bishop will return – so far there’s no sign of her in the ‘Thunderbolts’-related material, so there’s that.

Easter eggs aside, Disney/MCU is doing a good enough job of integrating the ‘Daredevil’-related characters into the overall MCU, (and Muse has appeared as one of the lesser-bads of the show, so extra kudos here), and overall this TV series is better than the 2025 Snow White film.

Listen, you know what a hack job is? Snow White 2025 is an example of this. When they were making it – and they took their time making it – Disney could’ve gone with a number of options; they narrowed them down to two: either a by the numbers re-make of the original 1937 film, or a more ‘upgraded’ version, where Snow White becomes either a Maid Marian or a Robin Hood character. Then, some higher-up in the Disney hierarchy had a bad brain, and the studio mashed both of these versions into one film.

Listen. In 2024, Sony has released its’ ‘Kraven’ film, and it was also a mash-up of two films, essentially: the first would have been about the childhood of Kraven, his brother, his (eventual) love interest and so on. The second would have been Kraven travelling the globe, killing various criminals, up to the Foreigner and the Rhino who by then had had enough of his own XP to give Kraven a proper challenge, (i.e. a lion fighting a rhino and realizing that he needs help winning this one, maybe?). Instead, we got a mash-up of both, and people believe that Sony’s Spider-Man related films are finished, most likely. Pause.

…‘Kraven’ is still a better film than Snow White 2025 is, because the former is a mash-up of two related films, and the latter is more disjointed: Sony at least tried to stitch its’ chimera up appropriately, and Disney didn’t. Instead, we got an almost unending barrage of bad PR from both RZ and GG, as well as the crap about the seven dwarves, the overall bad CGI and anything else that could, and did, go wrong. Given that the amount of money Disney invested into Snow White 2025 could have possibly bought the peace between RF and Ukraine – it was such a huge sum – this is just sad. However, this is real life for you, people. It just sucks.

This is it for now. See you all soon.

SI & FH - July 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is it for now. See you all soon!

She-Hulk, Retreat - Sep 29

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family to make it worse – especially for you. I am almost done with everything and everyone, and that thought is scary as fuck – I do not want to go, but I do not want to stay either…

On a more cheery note – the latest ‘She-Hulk’ episode, ‘The Retreat’, is out, and… how is this more cheery, exactly? Let us elaborate.

If last week our titular character tangled with Titania, this week the Abomination is back, and he is getting therapy? Therapy for super-villains (and others?) is a thing now? Then where it was in AoS – both Grant and Daisy could have used it, (even if for different reasons…

Why am I returning to AoS this time? ‘Cause ‘She-Hulk’ is showing us the Abomination going through his redemption, apparently… In the Marvel comics, the Abomination is a monstrous, twisted mirror of the Hulk, while the rest of the characters that’d appeared at the titular location are nowhere near as powerful, but here, in MCU, he’s one of the gang, and-

-And the show is about J.W., because she is the titular character instead – in this episode, she learns to let go and deal with rejection thanks to one therapy session. Of course she does. Did the showrunners and co. think that that would make their titular character slightly less Mary-Suish, maybe? If so, then congrats – they went down the other way and made her the ‘pathetic forerunner to a Mary-Sue’ cliché: J.W. genuinely does not do anything on the episode, she just is! This has rather happened already, in the episode 1x05, but there we had Molly Book and co. to carry the day, (metaphorically), here – not even that.

In addition, we got MCU’s Wrecker, from MCU’s Wrecking Crew, in the same place, also going for therapy. Does it mean that MCU’s Wrecking Crew is done and gone? In Marvel Comics, the Wrecking Crew was competent and powerful enough to fight the Avengers regularly enough; here, it is a joke, just as everything and everyone that becomes associated with MCU’s ‘She-Hulk’. El Aquila can’t be taken seriously because he is a swashbuckler? So’s the Swordsman, technically, but MCU’s ‘Hawkeye’ (the series) has given him some respect at least.

Actually, maybe ‘Hawkeye’ warrants some more mention here. The first MCU property that went into outright comedy territory had been… WV, actually, but that show quickly began to evolve past that in its’ fourth episode. ‘Hawkeye’, on the other hand, never took itself too seriously… almost. Once Yelena popped-up, then things began to sombre up, but the new Black Widow did only come and go… Pause.

Yeah, that ‘Secret Wars’ trailer – it starred Nick Fury and Maria Hill… and only them, really. You would think that some of the AoS characters, good or bad, would appear, but apparently not – clearly, Disney is done with that show.

…Yeah, I remember that ‘Hawkeye’ was also the show that brought back S.H.I.E.L.D. as Ms. Barton’s watch – but after the initial fandom’s excitement – clearly, they aren’t done with AoS, it all died down very fast, meaning that Disney/MCU have no intention of pulling SW – to wit, the latest installments in the SW franchise deal in the period set in the original trilogy, and not going into ‘the future’ anymore; they’re flat-out pretending that the sequel trilogy doesn’t exist, and also wait for the fandom to forget all about it, before going into the future once more. Barton’s watch might have been their attempt at doing the same thing with AoS, only it failed, so no more S.H.I.E.L.D in the MCU for real.

…Actually, the same might be said about S.W.O.R.D. as well – it’d been set-up in WV, true, but earlier in 2022 we had ‘Ms. Marvel’ and there was no sign of it either; instead, we had Damage Control, who did the same thing that S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.W.O.R.D. did, and there were no Skrulls either; given how the ‘Captain Marvel’ film was almost all about the Skrulls, this is just weird – but how does that connect to ‘She-Hulk’?

It does not, not really. There were some post-credit pics of J.W. working with folders that have the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle logo on it, but nothing else. That is good, because everything and everyone associated with ‘She-Hulk’ becomes downgraded.

…Therefore, for now, let us wrap it up. MCU is having problems, and it had them for a while, probably because of RL issues. Did I mention that real life sucks and blows? Then I am repeating this, and I will see you all soon instead!

Avengers comics - July 20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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, 'Christmas' - Dec 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is it for now; see you all soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Just Like That - Dec 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I am still unsure about the reviews of the last two ‘Hawkeye’ episodes, (let alone anything else, cough), so while I have the chance, let us talk about something different, (genre speaking). Let us talk, however briefly, about ‘And Just Like That’.

This particular mini-series – so far, there’s only 1 season, with 8 episodes, and two of them were aired already – is a reboot of the much earlier ‘Sex and the city’, and that is already a problem. Why? Well, let us rewind a few years back, in real life, to the ‘Gilmore Girls’ reboot, called ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in Life’, or something like that. Not unlike SATC, this seemed to be a solid hit, since the GG series had had a secure fan following back in the heyday, but instead…

…But instead, it was discovered that the entire GG franchise has not aged well, and that keeping in mind that its’ characters/actors kept their actual ages out of focus. They had plenty of problems – such as the fact that Rory seems to have become an entitled brat, her mom, Lorelei, isn’t too far from an average Karen, and that the entire four-part revival is a mix of ASP’s original epilogue, (never aired), and the conclusion of the original series’ S7, and the two main components didn’t mix well… The result is that the GG fandom has sunk back into slumber, having been briefly woken in a manner of a hibernating bear, and not unlike a prematurely awoken hibernating bear, the result was more negative than positive, but what about AJLT?

Why, it is the same problem, as GG – the material didn’t age well, nostalgia alone isn’t enough to placate or to satisfy all of the critics or the audience members, and so instead of having an easy journey, team AJLT is dealing with an increasingly dissatisfied and fracturing fan base, which may – or may not – pull the entire franchise down under instead. This has happened before, just look at the SW Sequel trilogy or at AoS, but unlike them, AJLT does not have Disney’s gold parachute to keep on going; instead…

…Instead it has an albatross of its’ own, one that GG did not have – the fight, (such as it is), between SJP and Ms. Cattrail. Everyone is downplaying it, but the fight did happen, and as such, SATC’s character Samantha is not in AJLT at all; since she was one out of the big four, her absence is really glaring, and the way it was handled on screen? It was just pitiful, Ms. Cattrail’s fans are outraged, (and they are not in the wrong), and so are her character’s. What was that about a fracturing fan base that we were talking about?

And then came the death of Mr. Big, (played by Mr. Noth) – and it hit… team Peloton right in the balls. I have been half-following Peloton through the years – first it was their ‘Peloton family’ ad misadventure, one where a husband gave his wife a gift – a Peloton cycle, (or something like that) – and she was happy. Supposedly. Instead, the actress fungled the role, (sort of), and everyone began to compare the ad to a ‘Black Mirror’ episode and things like that; the company’s stock tumbled.

In swooped Ryan Reynolds, who gave ‘the Peloton wife’ a new role – one that promoted his own personal brand of booze, and the woman made a fortune. Nothing like that happened to her male counterpart, but hey, that is the modern values; you either roll with them, as RR does, and you prosper, or you don’t, as Chloe Bennet hasn’t, and you don’t prosper.

…No, this is not about AoS, not entirely. Earlier this year, Ms. Bennet made it clear, that she was not a part of the Live-Action Powerpuff girl remake, nor was she going to return as Daisy Johnson/Quake in the upcoming Marvel ‘Secret Invasion’ franchise, and Disney/MCU were looking for someone else to play the latter character. Considering that Chloe Bennett was THE actress to play Daisy, this is strange and weird, in a sad and disappointing sort of way. My only theory is that Chloe didn’t go with the flow; while working at Disney/MCU, which is increasingly about representing the various social, racial, sexual and other minorities in the American society, Chloe Bennett… well, identified herself as Bennett, rather than as Wong, (seriously, look at her Wiki page), and didn’t look, or behave, very Asian-American – and we got the message that Disney/MCU were looking for a female Asian-American to play Daisy Johnson/Quake… ouch!

Of course, AoS has also the honor of being Disney/MCU’s subtlest failure: among other things, it was supposed to introduce several new heroes to MCU, including Deathlok and Mockingbird, with the latter being important as being Hawkeye’s ex. There were rumors of Mockingbird, (in MCU, she’s Bobbi Morse), coming to Hawkeye…I mean, ‘Hawkeye’, but those rumors were quickly squashed: apparently, AoS and all that is associated with it can stand buried and gone, (or as Britney Spears has told Diane Sawyer, ‘she can kiss my white ass’). What is left?

Ah yes, AJLT and the Peloton. After the Peloton family misadventure… and another misadventure – apparently, another Peloton ad made some children believe that the Peloton exercise bikes were indoor jungle gyms or something; some children, not surprisingly, got hurt and the company suffered; well, this time, after Peloton got associated with AJLT in a big bad way, Peloton was ready: they contacted RR, and he quickly made them a new ad, one were a very much alive Mr. Big is enjoying himself with his Peloton instructor, (played by a RL Peloton personality), and that’s it, really. Peloton had had enough with being the butt of the business world, and is striking back; AJLT is not likely to suffer from this fallout, but the fact that they have killed-off another major character may. Even GG didn’t go that far – Richard Gilmore died because his actor died for real – but then again, AJLT is just getting started, maybe it’ll be able to shake-off its’ lackluster – to put it mildly – beginning and shine for real. I am not rooting for it, though – the original series were fun enough, but the movies not so much and the cast was proportionally younger and more vibrant back then as well due to the obvious reasons…

Well, this is it for now; 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!

Hawkeye, 'Echoes' - Dec 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so after this week’s, my blog entries will be more irregular than before, so you’ve been warned, and apologized for, in advance. Now onto the episode 1x03 of ‘Hawkeye’?

…Well, there isn’t much to go on about here and now; this week’s episode main entry was Echo slash Maya Lopez; in the Marvel comics, she was the adopted daughter of Wilson Fisk slash Kingpin, but since the latter’s defeat in Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’ series, the man was a no show in MCU, so here she was given a different backstory instead, one that is Wilson Fisk free. Pity, since Kingpin’s reappearance in MCU would have been interesting, but not really surprising, as MCU really prefers things neat and avoids anything uncomfortable, especially in RL.

For example, take a look at the AoS: in the initial seasons, especially the second and the third, the titular characters had to battle two threats – Hydra, and later on the InHumans and their ‘pureblood’ alien superiors. Initially, the show dealt with them ‘separately’ – one mini-story arc would deal with Hydra, the next with the InHumans, and so on. Eventually, of course, the two plotlines blurred into one – and this is what is happening on ‘Hawkeye’: we got two plotlines blurring into one: Maya Lopez and her Tracksuit Mafia, and William the Swordsman, or whatever his moniker is.

Pause. While we’re on the subject of Marvel, I have to admit that I disagree with the decision to combine the ‘M.O.D.O.K.’ and ‘Hit-Monkey’ cartoon series into one universe – aka Earth-1226; as I said before, the two shows are different enough for this decision to be wrong, and moreover, what do they have in common aside from the basic and the obvious? That Hulu made both of them? Then should not Hulu’s ‘Runaways’ series be added as well? I daresay that these three Marvel shows are different enough to be similar, so there is that-

Sorry. We were talking about ‘Hawkeye’ instead. Sadly, aside from Maya/Echo’s official entry into MCU, (she’s getting her own TV series… for the moment), there’s nothing new to talk about – this episode was action-packed, otherwise: Kate and Clint escaped from Maya-Echo and her tracksuit bros…they ran into William the Swordsman, who’s about to fight with Hawkeye…the end. Where were we?

Ah yes, the issue of MCU’s comfort. AoS has been swept under the rug because it has evolved slash devolved into an unwieldy monstrosity that did not fit into MCU at all in the end, while ‘Daredevil’ and co. fared the same fate because Marvel was ‘sharing’ them with Netflix, and Disney/Marvel/MCU does not like to share. Yes, Phase 4 is introducing the multiverse, more or less, but it certainly took its’ time, and its’ heaviest hitter – the upcoming Spider-Man movie, ‘No Way Home’ – is being made because the Spider-Man franchise is passing from Disney/Marvel/MCU onto Sony, and this way some sort of a compromise was made, in a form of a grand movie: this way, Disney/Marvel/MCU, gets (still gets) a piece of Spidey, and so does Sony and its’ Sony Universe of Marvel Characters, (plus a nice send-of gift in regards to its’ Spidey franchise). ‘Hawkeye’ doesn’t get that; in fact, we have Clint and Kate running around NYC and no sign of Marvel’s Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, even though he is THE hero when it comes Marvel’s NYC, you know? Disney/MCU hates lawsuits; it hates losing money, (it loves to make money), but it hates lawsuits even more, and so it would rather share than sue… usually, but regularly. So what?

So now we got a ‘standard’, ‘paint-by-numbers’, ‘Hawkeye’ mini-series, since by now the rumors are that it’ll end after 6 episodes are swirling. Well, fair enough. Clint Barton/Hawkeye was the most underwhelming of all the Avengers; the most underappreciated, but also the most underwhelming, and rightly so. This episode reminded why that is so; there is style and flash, but little substance, and this combo carries only so far. So, onto the JW: D prologue?

Eh, by now the internet has recognized and admitted that not only a T-Rex vs. Giganotosaurus face-off in RL would’ve been impossible, but the entire dino mockumentary portion of the prologue was a pastiche: we got Cretaceous ceratopsians and ankylosaurs, we got Jurassic brachiosaurs, we got an Oviraptor-type dinosaur that is stealing eggs – an incorrect and outdated stereotype – and both Jurassic & Cretaceous pterosaurs to list only the obvious. The JP/JW franchise may be more realistic in its’ depictions of dinosaurs, but little else.

Well, this is it for now. Everyone, enjoy your first day of the official winter in the Northern Hemisphere. I will see you all… eventually.

Hawkeye, series premiere - Nov 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘Hawkeye’ instead.

…Ok, this is actually not such a good idea, since the show itself has quite some issues going on for itself, with most prominent being the supposedly clever double entendre, (or whatever it is called), as the show’s title is the legitimate moniker for both Clint and Kate, and now the duo have to cooperate with each other, (technically speaking), in order to- but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Let us begin again. The problem of ‘Hawkeye’ is that both Clint and Kate each have their own issues, and they do not like to share. Kate wants to find herself, and hates her up and coming stepfather; Clint wants to spend time with his family, but cannot – because of the tracksuit mafia. And-?

And it has been a running gag for a while now that Clint is the least of all the Avengers; the ‘Endgame’ film and the penultimate episode of the ‘What If?’ s1 tried to change this perception, but not enough, and right now, his opponents are a group of criminals, organized or not, completely mundane, not very competent, and not very intimidating – clearly members of the shallow end of the MCU pool. The fact that Clint has not whipped them yet is not a mark in his favor either.

On the other hand we got Kate, who wants to be like the Avengers – perhaps even an Avenger herself – and, possibly, to avenge her late true father, who died during the battle of NYC in 2012. Sadly, because she is a young and unexperienced vigilante, so far she is underperforming herself, and the fact that her nemesis – so far – is her stepfather is also underwhelming; good thing that Kate’s attitude, charm, and charisma compensate for that lack in spades.

…Of course, the same can be said of Barton, albeit to a lesser extent, but the fact is that by the TV series’ standards, ‘Hawkeye’ delivers a much more balanced and equal act than ‘WandaVision’ did. No offence to the team WV, but in that TV show, Wanda had the lion’s share of the plot development, while Vision developed an identity crisis instead, and by now, there’s no Wanda & Vision, since the show’s Vision was either a construct that Wanda made from her memories with magic… or a completely different synthezoid who has no relationship with Wanda whatsoever, and had actually almost killed her at one point… Where were we?

Right, the transitions. MCU’s Phase 4 is all about them; for example, in the already-mentioned ‘WandaVision’, the titular characters transitioned from a couple into complete strangers, starting their entire relationship – professional, familial, and otherwise – anew. In ‘Black Widow’, the titular title passed from Natasha to Yelena. And in ‘Hawkeye’, the plan is something similar – the titular title will pass from Clint to Kate, especially since the latter is willing and almost ready already. So, what else?

Aside from the issues of underwhelming and duality, (not quite necessary)… no, not quite. The issue of duality is quite necessary, it permeates the first two episodes of ‘Hawkeye’ at least: on one hand, we have Kate, her issues with her new stepfamily, and also the stepfamily’s own issues, (just who did kill Armand III?). On the other, we got the tracksuit mafia, who, clearly, are not a part of that process, but instead seem to be working for, or with, Maya Lopez instead.

The latter was only introduced in the episode’s 1x02 finale, but she’s an important character in the Marvel comics already, and since she wears the title of Ronin, (cough), in one of Marvel’s video games, the odds of her being a rival to Kate’s claim of being the next Hawkeye, are good enough.

Of course, though both ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘Ronin’ were Clint Barton’s alter-egos, they’re also quite different from each other, so maybe Maya and Kate will learn to get along – but for now Kate and Clint should survive the tracksuit mafia and etc. Given how Hawkeye was underplayed among the Avengers that is not very encouraging, actually. What else?

Well, there is also the ‘Encanto’ film that also came out this week. It is the latest Disney movie, and it is underwhelming; less ‘CATS-2019’ and more ‘Doolittle-2020’ done right. As it is the rule with the Disney animated films, there is no villain per se, (as there are in MCU or SW movies), rather the film’s main character (and her family, to a lesser extent), and so the result is… a musical. Yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, I am looking at you. ‘In the heights’, the movie version, was simply overwhelming, with such qualities as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ not applicable to it; that was an epic movie, and ‘Encanto’ attempts to do a liter version of it. The result are overwhelming musical numbers set in an underwhelming, by the numbers, Disney animated movie. With a lack of an antagonist, and with a less extended message than the one in ‘Frozen 2’, ‘Encanto’ leans into more flash than substance easily; it does have a message – about family and family values – but it tends to get buried under all the glitz and glammer of Disney’s animation instead. Anything else?

Yes, the first 5 and a half minutes of the ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ movie. Whereas Disney has apparently removed most of the concept of ‘conflict’ from its’ animated movies, this film has not, however this conflict is changed – rather than humans, (or other sentient beings), so far we got dinosaur vs. dinosaur, (though dinosaur vs. human conflict is close second). Indeed, given what we have seen in all of the previous films of the franchise, there will be some conflict between humans regardless, so it will be interesting to watch…but that is a story for another time.

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

What if, 'Killmonger' - Sep 15

Disclaimer: real life sucks, so let’s talk about one of its’ aspects first, instead, before returning to MCU. Where are we?

Ah yes, the YouTube. On this occasion, I watched a video called ‘Black Mamba vs. Viper’, where the victory was awarded to the black mamba, and I have to say that I disagree with it.

What is wrong with this match? For a start, the term ‘viper’ is an umbrella term: it covers the ‘true’ vipers, (such as the adder of Europe and the gaboon viper of Africa), the pit vipers, and also their immediate relatives – but that is unimportant, actually.

What is important is that the black mamba is an elaphid snake: its’ fangs are short and fixed, immobile – and its venom is a neurotoxin, it attacks the nervous system first. The fangs of the vipers – all of them – are much longer and fold when the snake closes its’ mouth – and their venom is a hemotoxin, it attacks the blood vessels first. Again, that is not important, but…

…But what is important is that snakes are scaly, rather than furry or feathery, unlike how birds and mammals are. As a result, when two snakes fight each other, they need to pierce scales, rather than fur or feathers, and scales can be tougher to pierce. The king cobra, which hunts and eats other snakes – hey, it is a living – is a cousin of the black mamba, (though do not ask me how close – apparently, the king cobra is not a ‘true’ cobra, whatever that implies beyond scientific classification), meaning that its’ fangs are relatively short and fixed and its’ venom is a neurotoxin… see above. However, it isn’t just much bigger and stronger than a black mamba – the king cobra is the biggest modern venomous snake, period, according to the official science – but it also has extra thick scales, in case its’ prey tries to counterattack with its’ own venomous bite… Put otherwise, the king cobra is a snake-hunting specialist and the black mamba isn’t, and when fighting a viper – any viper – it has to deal with an opponent whose scales might be thicker and tougher than its’ own, and whose fangs are certainly longer and sharper than the black mamba’s own… I am not saying that the black mamba cannot win this fight; I am just saying that the odds are stacked against it, that is all. Now onto the MCU?

Well yes, though given how Erik Killmonger – or N’Jadoka – has behaved in this week’s episode – we are not done with snakes. See, the way that the teaser trailer for this week’s episode was set up made us – well, me, for one – think that he might become a hero in this AU. Conversely, he became a villain, a manipulator and a blackguard, has killed quite a few people, some of whom were, or could’ve been, quite important to MCU, and have become king of Wakanda at the end, (though the episode ends with some optimism, more reminiscent of the ep 1x03 than the ep 1x04, for comparison). I am going with Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Let me elaborate. When it comes to ‘Black Panther’ the franchise and its’ corner of the Marvel universe(s), the themes of kings, kingdoms and kingships come up regularly, for all of the obvious reasons. The previous example was the 1x02 episode of ‘What if?’ which featured T’Challa as the Star-Lord, yes, but also as some sort of an outlaw king, a ‘white’ king, a fair and a just king and so on. Killmonger, conversely, is T’Challa’s direct opposite, something that this week’s episode of ‘What if?’ showed loud and clear, and that’s not a problem, but…

…But having already talked about the ‘Black Panther’ film recently in regards to the ‘Shang-Chi’ film, I got to re-digging some of my old files about the former film, and among them I found some articles that pointed out specifically that Killmonger was the villain of the movie, pure and simple, and not some conflicted anti-hero, cough. Now, this week – Sep 15, 2021 – we got a ‘What if?’ Killmonger episode, which confirms that no matter what the world, Killmonger is always a villain, and Tony Stark – for a different example – is not.

…Yes, this is a dig at the fact that there are plenty of people who are still sore at Tony, or at captain Rogers, in regards to MCU’s take on the Civil War plotline. There are also enough people who are still sore at Ward at the role he played in MCU’s AoS, especially the S1, when the effect was the strongest. Well, to put it bluntly, Killmonger was much more successful and ruthless than Ward ever was, period, so take that, critics!.. And also accept predeterminism, I guess.

No, seriously, the un- or intended other side of this week’s ‘What if?’ episode is that nature beats nurture, so to speak. Again, to use that particular contrast, but by befriended Stark, Killmonger got himself the opportunities that - anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D., ok, fine – would have dreamed about, (cough, the FitzSimmons, cough). And how does Killmonger repay Stark for all of those opportunities? With monstrous ingratitude, to put it lightly. Whereas T’Challa tries to think of everybody, and tries to make the world a better place for everyone, Killmonger cares only about himself, and the world can go screw itself for all that he cares. Fair enough, though the ‘Black Panther’ movie had that message rather muddled, and that version of Killmonger is dead anyhow, right?..

Is there anything left? Ah yes, the Hawkeye trailer that came out yesterday, (Sep 14, 2021). So far, it does a good job of capturing the Hawkeye spirit – I am talking about both Barton and Bishop – one that is serious, formidable, yet also a goofball on occasion, with some humor at least. (The Hawkeye version from the Ultimates comics lacked humor completely).  Here, we see the Avengers’ underdog finally getting his time to shine, and I’m not talking about ‘Rogers: the musical’ either. The bon mot here is that MCU is finally moving forwards from Thanos’ snap/Blip and its’ aftereffects for good… at least until Kang the Conqueror comes forth… conquering. Given that the current Avengers’ status is either ‘in transit’ or ‘undetermined’ I honestly hope that Kang will take his sweet time getting to MCU… and he probably will, as the ‘Loki’ S1 finale revealed that he has an entire multiverse for taking…and he already took over the TVA – but we digress. The point is that unlike the ‘Shang-Chi’ film, the ‘Hawkeye’ series fit well with the rest of the MCU Phase 4 – it is a transition story as Barton passes the moniker of Hawkeye from himself onto Kate Bishop.

As for everything else… oh brother. Apparently, the main villains of ‘Hawkeye’ – so far – are the tracksuit mafia, some sort of a Russian mafia variant. Oh, good Lord – now is so the time to annoy the Russians further. Not. As the U.S. has demonstrated to the rest of the world, it isn’t the shining nation on the hill that it claimed to be, and while RF’s president Putin is a staunchly anti-American man, it is just as true that for years – maybe even a couple of decades – the U.S. could’ve forced the RF to replace him with anyone else, really, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky but not necessarily, who would’ve kept the RF pro-American. Instead, the U.S. seemed to be perfectly content with Putin until 2014, when it all ended, and now they are trying to put the genie back into the bottle, only not. Biden agreed that Putin is a murderer – and then he promptly had official talks with him later the same year, (2021). Seriously, people make up your mind – either Putin is a killer and his regime is a direct affront to the American democracy, in which case any friendly discussion with him is impossible, or he isn’t, and his regime isn’t, and in that case, calling him a ‘killer’ or anything is just rude and wrong and pointless.

…As a matter of fact, MCU – and by MCU, I mean AoS – tried to do something about Russia before the ‘Black Widow’ film did. To wit, seasons 3 through 5 featured a yahoo called Anton Ivanov, who was a pitiful imitation of Ward, and who never amounted to anything because AoS just couldn’t figure out what to do with him – the man died forgotten and unlamented for, a Watchdog Alpha or not – and now MCU is returning once more to mother Russia in the characters of the Russian mafia. Sigh. Odds of them being as generic as Dreykov was in the ‘Black Widow’ movie ae quite high, hence why I am going to finish my rant for the moment, but I am not impressed, though that, of course, is irrelevant…

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