Daredevil S3 - Oct 23

The changes come and changes go, in real life they suck, but you can adapt and try something new, just because you do not want to go crazy or worse. On TV, on the other hand…well, ‘Iron Fist’ was cancelled, as we knew even before ‘Daredevil’ S3 was released, and now, it seems, ‘Luke Cage’ is as well.

Still, there are some differences between ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ – while theories about the former continue to abound, (most consider the fact that it wasn’t making enough money to be the key fact here), with ‘Luke Cage’ it is more straightforward – differences between Netflix, the crew, and co. It shows too – ‘Iron Fist’ ended with some sort of a resolution, at least; ‘Luke Cage’ – in mid-swing, (so to speak), just as the Deadly Nightshade or whoever was rising to challenge Luke in her turn. Ouch. What next?

‘Daredevil’ S3 has arrived last week, we got introduced to this version of Bullseye, and it was interesting. At least at some point the team of ‘Daredevil’ made Bullseye to be the antithesis of the titular hero – guess Matt really needed it. Of course, with ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ gone, ‘the Defenders’ appear to be even less unlikely than they did after ‘Jessica Jones’ S2, where no mention of them really appeared; well, now with the cancellations, they may be the next to follow. Anything else?

‘The Gifted’ may or may not air tonight, due to the World Game (or whatever) it is called – real life sucks, see above. The Americans, of course, and especially their current president are still one-step ahead from the rest of us, in regards to ‘the migrant caravan’ or whatever. In the U.K., on the other hand, no actual evidence of Russian temperance was found, meaning yeah, that all of those cries of ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ were a fabled lie. How will the U.K. get out of this revelation? Ask the wading birds, such as the avocets, in the swamp – they will tell you how!

(Yes, I watched the ‘Miss Peregrine’ movie online. Miss Avocet was not a bad character, but the avocet is a wading bird, built almost like a mini-heron or stork. Rather than short and plump, Miss Avocet should have been tall and skinny instead, but who cares? She was just an episodic character anyhow, and regardless of her appearance? She was still neurotic).

Anything else? Frankly, no. Real life still sucks, and while you can try to manage it, sometimes you just cannot. Of course, on TV, things are not always so rosy either, as ‘Daredevil’ S3, (featuring no mention of ‘Jessica Jones’, ‘Luke Cage’, or ‘Iron Fist’) can attest. Still, let us wish Matt and co. the best of luck and move on.

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

FH: Nuxia - Oct 14

Firstly, real life sucks. It sucks in different ways, and for those people who died during hurricane Michael it sucks worst of all, because of obvious reasons, but for the rest of us? We got all sorts of issues, each of our own, and they are not very pleasant, because change usually always hurts – someone. On one of the sides, at least…and very often they are unavoidable. You can try to figure out ways to soften the blow, but as often as not they do not work, especially if you do not want to make things worse and to break the criminal code of your country. On the other hand, maybe you do, on both counts – in which case, good luck to you, you are a greater and/or braver person than I am…

What next? Leaving my life/real life aside, (the mess with/in the Saudi Arabia is growing nastier by the day), we got, well, ‘Iron Fist’. The show got cancelled. The end. Moreover, no one really knows why. With P: NW a while back, at least, you got the entire ‘Impossible Pictures’ getting cancelled/annulled by BBC because reasons. Considering that ‘Impossible Pictures’ was good, this was a bad decision by BBC; certainly after the not-very-impressive ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ movie, they didn’t try anything new with dinosaurs any time lately…

Back to ‘Iron Fist’? We don’t know, again, as why Netflix ended the series; ‘Daredevil’ is coming back for S3 later this month, ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘Punisher’ seem to be returning too, ‘Luke Cage’ is up for grabs…

Maybe it is just the matter of money – there is just not enough of it to allow Netflix keep all of their Marvel shows…at least for now. Apparently, they made a statement that ‘the immortal Iron Fist never dies’ or something similar. What does that mean I have no idea.

On that note, let us get to FH. Earlier this week they released the Nuxia, one of the new characters. In real life, Nuxia is a genus of plants that grow in Africa, Middle East, and on some islands in the Indian Ocean, meaning that this word does not have anything in common with China or the rest of the Far East region of Asia…

Now, I must admit, I was genuinely surprised – I have never heard of these plants…and given the sparse information about them, I am guessing that this is because these are some of the more obscure plants, not much known to people outside of professional botany, such as myself. Ergo, let us not stay with Nuxia proper for now, and move onto her signature weapons – the hook swords.

They were shown in DW, S1, as one of the weapons of the Shaolin monk, (who is also featured in FH – or will be, soon enough, properly). As it was mentioned before, that episode – ‘Shaolin monk vs. Maori warrior’ – was one of the more bizarre/lopsided episodes: the hook swords were the only Shaolin weapon that were better/scored higher than their Maori counterparts did, and they were the one who won the day for the Shaolin monk via points – they scored higher than any other weapon on that episode, Shaolin or Maori. Why, how so – the field-test of the hook swords was not that impressive, honestly – remained unknown, though on that episode follow-up, none of the team Maori showed up. Again, we do not know what went behind the scenes of that episode, but something certainly did, though it did not affect DH at that time…

Back to FH? Why not. Nuxia uses her twin hook swords very efficiently, and ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ should be mentioned here too – we’re talking the original TV cartoon series, not the travesty of the movie that Mr. Night Shamalayan did: one of its’ recurring characters, Jet, also used twin hook swords very efficiently, making himself stand out of the crowd, (since he wasn’t a ‘bender’, by the way). So, I guess – go twin hook swords!

Anything else? No, not really. Nuxia does appear to be an interesting character, and FH is clearly upgrading and redesigning itself, doing its’ best to make itself even better, so good luck to them. Ergo, as for us – see you all soon! (Hopefully).

Captain Marvel I - Sep 18

So, to sum it up. The lousy week is over. In the future, there are many weeks like that one – my life sucks, as I am repeatedly reminded by it, but conversely, lives of many other people suck even worse; those caught in the path of the now-gone hurricane Florence, for example, or those who work for SeWi in the world of tennis – they aren’t enjoying themselves either, so everything, (and everyone?), is relative…

Onto more pleasant things? I can now give life the finger – for the moment, life is good, so there is that. There’s also the new ‘Captain Marvel’ video trailer, and-

And it is something else – purposefully so, but still. It appears to be focused on the life and times of the titular character, who – before she became a superhero – was an Air Force pilot; it was apparently her dream, metaphorically speaking. Or is it allegorically? Regardless, the trailer shows that she was a resilient, tough, determined girl and became an even more resilient, tough, determined woman by the time that the events of the movie will appear. Good for her, though the choppy delivery of that statement could have used some work.

In other news, there are brief glances of younger Fury and Coulson, of Kree and Skrull aliens appearing on screen. Sadly, they are there only for appearances – in this trailer – and do not really contribute to it at all. I hope that this state of things will change in the future, however. Anything else?

‘Venom’ the movie is coming on October 5, this year, so there is that. ‘Iron Fist’ S2 has come and gone, (metaphorically speaking), so bully for it. Carol Danvers rocked her trailer in any of her superhero suits, so it will be interesting to see her properly in her film. It will be good to see Nick and Phil too, though. A: IW film showed Fury and Hill to be those among the dusted, while AoS’ S5 had Phil finally retire, with May, due to a number of factors, especially – his failing health. It is possible that he and May will be back in AoS’ S6 (or any future seasons, that is still possible), but for Gregg who plays him, and for MCU, ‘Captain Marvel’ movie has priority…

…This would be a good time and place to discuss the ‘Me Too’ developments back in the real world, but the mood is not right. Yes, there is already officially admitted backlash to the movement, but talking about it feels rather like kicking an ailing horse now, so maybe we will talk about it – or something else – at another time instead.

…So, this is it for this time; see you all soon!

Iron Fist S2 - Sep 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. My upcoming week promises to be rather bad, so I actually cannot wait for next week’s Monday, because it will give me a reprieve. Go me. My life sucks. I hate it.

…Of course, on the other hand, there is the first-rate tennis player SeWi, who has it worse. To recap, she lost her match against her fellow tennis player N. Osaka, and apparently turned upon the game’s umpire when things did not go her way – and lost her temper. As a result, she is now fined almost 20 grand, (as I have heard), the tennis officials are backing the umpire, (so she now might need to apologize – or not), and there already are some rather crude and unpleasant caricatures of her, too, damaging her reputation further. Yeah, and she cannot blame her bad decision of D.C. and the president Donald either. Poor her. Really.

Mind you, as much as I believe that SeWi is in the wrong here, it must be admitted that the caricatures, (there were at least two different ones), were completely unnecessary, and probably made the already bad business worse. SeWi and her people are probably doing their best at damage control, and the caricatures are making their job harder. One may hate SeWi, (though why? She is not a politician, at least), but still, to go at her deliberately is not a good thing. Hate leads to the dark side, the Jedi said, and they should know: the SW/Disney merger was apparently completely in the dark, it remained in the dark regarding the SW fanbase, and now the merger became successful at alienating that fanbase: some of its’ members honestly do hate it, and will probably abandon it, a new cartoon series or not.

This brings us to another merger – that of Netflix/Marvel. More precisely, ‘Iron Fist’ S2 was aired. How did it go?

It worked. The Netflix/Marvel combo took criticisms of ‘Iron Fist’ S1 and did their best to fix them. So far, it seems that their strategy is to take an ever-increasing amount of ‘Iron Fist’ comic elements and introduce them to ‘Iron Fist’ in particular (and maybe to ‘The Defenders’ in general). Yay?

Very much so. This is, after all, what all of the Marvel shows are about – to give their audiences the Marvel experience that the various comics (and novels) cannot. Otherwise, what is the point? There are plenty of non-Marvel TV shows, (some are not even in related to DC or other comic universes either), so to counter them a Marvel show, (TV, online, etc.,) has to use, well, Marvel elements. Moreover, it worked. Go them.

Anything else? Not really. ‘Iron Fist’ S2 shows that the Netflix/Marvel shows are diversifying and are going beyond the NYC city limits, at least partially. ‘Iron Fist’, the comic and the online series, for better or for worse, is caught between USA and Asia, and it needs to balance between these two landmasses to succeed.

…One may ask, if ‘Luke Cage’ is not similarly caught between USA and Africa. It is not – ‘Luke Cage’ is solidly Afro-American, with the emphasis on American, and while he – and Misty Knight, and a few others – can always come to Africa, especially to Wakanda, on request of their good friend king T’Challa aka the Black Panther, their homeland is still USA. (Seriously, this is what happened in one ‘Black Panther’ comic series: at one point in time a group of super-villains, including – a version of the Fenris twins, tried to take over Wakanda by fermenting internal political unrest, so the Black Panther realized: this is bigger than me and my family, and so he got his posse, which included Ororo/Storm, Misty Knight, and – Luke Cage, aside from other characters, and defeated the villains…eventually).

…Yes indeed ‘The Gifted’ S2 is returning to TV on Tuesday, September 25^th. I must admit - this is good news, and the current trailer is already exciting; the lines are drawn: the Mutant Underground vs. the Hellfire Club and Lorna is, potentially, the wild card. Magneto was never a member of the Hellfire Club, the Cuckoos have lied to get Lorna in, and if she ever finds out, the results will be explosive: Magneto was powerful, but never subtle, and Lorna seems to have inherited that. She will not be happy to have been lied to, that is for sure.

On the other hand, ‘The Gifted’ S2 trailers seem to imply that the Hellfire Club will undergo some sort of an W&H (from AtS) moment, which involves an internal coup. If done right, it will be a game changer, but to do that, ‘the old guard’ who will be killed off should be established first, otherwise the coup’s impact will be diminished.

…Yes, this all takes place in different Marvel universes: ‘The Gifted’ takes place in a separate universe – Earth-TRN674, while ‘Iron Fist’ – on Earth-199999. I have no life, (but this week, and especially the weekend still suck). Of course, it would make a cool crossover, but we will have to wait for someone to write it, so for now, we have to watch ‘Iron Fist’, and wait for ‘The Gifted’ S2, and also – for ‘Daredevil’ S3, which is also in the works. Unlike ‘Iron Fist’, ‘Daredevil’ so far takes places only in NYC, so for now, ‘The Defenders’ focus will be shifting back to NYC, leaving the rest of the world for the Avengers or whoever.

Yes, it does not appear that Thanos’ cosmic snap has affected the Netflix corner of MCU, (and as it was hinted at ‘C&D’ S1 finale, ‘Rands’ & ‘Starks’ share the universe – and Roxxon, and ‘C&D’ are also a part of that universe. However, some kinks are still needed to be worked out – so good luck with that.

This is it for now, see you all soon.

Iron Fist & etc. - Aug 29

…Saw the latest trailer/clip from ‘Iron Fist’ – this one is focusing on the show’s second season’s fight scenes. Apparently, they are going to be quite different from what happened in S1. Well, cannot blame a show for trying to improve itself – whether it will succeed is another question. Given all the excitement that is coming down lately, it has to, because-

Because it already had flak before the series’ premiere that the titular character is not an Asian-American actor, but Ser Loras Tyrell, the Flower Knight, who decisively is not. An Asian-American anyone, that is. That said, it really wasn’t the problem for S1 ‘Iron Fist’ – other issues were, but the whitewashing of the titular character didn’t help either, so here we are, at a moment in time when the USA media is doing its’ best to cash in on the Asian-American factor of its’ international sector. There’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ – did wonderfully back home, less wonderfully abroad, but they still made money, as Huffington Post pointed out, (or a similar website did), so they are in the gravy, at least in the short term. In the end, it all comes down to the money, so the titular characters of the novel trilogy and movie, (and the movie is likely to have a sequel), are/were onto something, after all.

The same goes for the LJ Netflix movie – proportionally, it has as much restructuring as KK’s movie – i.e. ‘Asians’ – did. As it was said before, the titular heroine is not biracial as she was in the novels, (and let us be fair, this is a big deal), she is wholly Asian, her father is not her father, but is her stepfather, and etc. As far as novels-to-movies adaptations go, this is mild staff; when Rick Riordan’s novels began to be turned into movies they suffered a much worse treatment, to the point where the author himself publicly denounced them, apparently starting some sort of a chain reaction: to this day, only the first two novels of his, (and he had written over a dozen about Percy and Annabeth, the Kane twins, Magnus Chase and his friends and so on), became movies and no talk has been raised about any repeat experience. Some of the novels were adapted into comics, but so far only the Kane chronicles were adapted completely; clearly, Riordan’s works have a reputation of some sort by now, so there is that. What next?

FH and its’ new heroes, that is what. It was discussed earlier that it was somewhat weird that the new heroes of the game also came from the Far East/Orient, just as the Samurai did, making it something of a repetition, but it is still very – convenient for FH that their new heroes are Oriental, thus giving team Ubisoft an extra edge to cashing-in on their fans – and team Ubisoft is firing on all cylinders here. They are fixing the technical issues and they are improving their story-telling aspect too: now FH has an arcade mode, which is something of a Choose Your Own Adventure sort of thing, complete with varying quests and levels of difficulty, something new and exciting. Go them! They are playing their cards close now, their level of cooperation with such YouTube channels as GameSpot, IGN and AWE Me has vanished, but maybe this is justified: in the past such alliances didn’t give Ubisoft much of an advantage, so they went in a different direction, and it seems to be working better, so good luck to Ubisoft, one guesses.

And now we are back at ‘Iron Fist’, who, as a show with – at least partially – Asian-American cast should be in a right place for some extra PR and benefits, as Ubisoft’s FH game is. Only it has not aired yet, (and it already has a weird reputation), so its situation is more ambiguous. Bugger. Still, it could be worse; it could have been like the ‘Dragonballs: Evolution’ movie or the 2017’s Power Rangers’ movie reboot. Both failed so miserably, that they are largely gone by now, so there is that.

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

Iron Fist S2 - Aug 17

…Back to the topic of Marvel, the 2^nd season of ‘Iron Fist’ is appearing early in September 2018. Yay!

…The problem that ‘Iron Fist’ featured was that it was generic – it was about a single Caucasian male superhero. If he was, you know, Oriental, that would be okay, as ‘Luke Cage’ demonstrates: its’ titular character a single Afro-American male superhero, and that makes it different from ‘Daredevil’. ‘Iron Fist’ doesn’t have that, which gives it an extra need to differentiate it from the older, more established and successful, ‘Daredevil’.

Why is the titular character of ‘Iron Fist’ not Asian-American but instead is Westeros’ Flower Knight? There was never much of a satisfactory answer, but that is okay – there was never much of a pressure to change the actors either, so let us admit that the racial issue is there, but it is not as important as people like to pretend, and move on.

The actual problem that ‘Iron Fist’ may be facing is the lack of originality – according to the rumors, he is facing a bloke named ‘Steel Serpent’ in his second season. So far so good, but this Davos person appears to be mostly an ‘Iron Fist’/’Danny Rand’ turned evil – kind of how Jessica Jones’ mom in her S2 was just like the titular heroine herself – only evil. Come to think of it, weren’t the villains in ‘Luke Cage’ S2 also both sympathetic and evil? Yes, and there was something of a parallel ‘team-up’ – Luke and Misty on one hand, Mariah and Bushmaster on the other? Yes, and we’re probably reading in it too much, but if ‘The Defenders’ are trying to keep themselves original, (with ‘Daredevil’ aside, his situation is different), there’s nothing odd about it either.

As for ‘Daredevil’… look. Not only is his comic base much more solid than the rest of ‘the Defenders’, there were also a couple of ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Electra’ movies in not so recent past. They weren’t very good, especially the ‘Electra’ one, but they did occur, so the crew of ‘Daredevil’ does have more material on which to work with, and it is tested, so they some ideas at least as to where to go with it, and what to do, and what not to do, etc. Thus, they do have an advantage over the rest of the team Defenders, and it shows.

But again, this does not matter to ‘Iron Fist’, not entirely. The current trailer shows that Misty Knight from ‘Luke Cage’ will appear in the series, (just as Colleen and Rand themselves did in ‘Luke Cage’ S2), so the semi-crossovers and the improvement of ‘the Defenders’-verse is still strong, but it is not a wonder-cure either. ‘Iron Fist’ was probably the weakest of ‘the Defenders’ show and it has to work especially hard to catch up to them…and so far there’s no indication that it is doing so. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce to the gander”… maybe, but with TV shows, and online shows, and so forth it may be different, but we will have to wait until September 2018 to see.

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

Cloak & Dagger, 'Ghost Stories' - July 20

…With only episodes left in S1, ‘Cloak & Dagger’ are stepping up their game and most of their cast is back – only father Delgado is absent. And the Voodoo priestess. And her niece, but – with master Jip lurking in the wings, it probably is only a matter of time until they reappear, because ‘Cloak & Dagger’ might be going into the more supernatural side of Marvel, due to the fact that in this universe the titular characters’ powers’ origin is more mystical – in the original comics they became, well, Cloak and Dagger by being experimented upon by a mad scientist type – kind of how it went down with Luke Cage, for example too – and here, on TV, we have a bunch of underwater scenes, and some black-and-white oily powers, and who knows what else – very different. Go, Ty & Dy!

Speaking of Luke Cage, or rather – ‘Luke Cage’ S2, Danny Rand, or rather – Iron Fist, will be airing his S2 soonish as well. So far, we know that this time the villain is someone called the Steel Serpent, but-

But there are at least two canon characters who are named that, so…it’s going to be rather how ‘Luke Cage’ S2 went, with one its’ main villains being the Bushmaster, (are ‘Luke Cage’ crew and co. will be putting the titular hero against snake-themed villains from now on?), the only thing is that it was the ‘other’ Bushmaster, in comics this name is usually used for one Quincy McIvor, while John McIvor is more of a runner-up. With ‘Iron Fist’, though, the situation is reversed – the Steel Serpent who is going to appear is the regular, a bloke named Davos, while the runner-up – the master of the death touch – will appear at a different time, if ever. We will have to wait and see just how MCU’s version of Davos is different from the comics’ version…

Back to ‘Cloak & Dagger’? This episode – ‘Ghost Stories’ – marked a milestone for the characters. On one hand, they have succeeded: Ty the Cloak got the Corrupt Cop put away, while Dy the Dagger confronted the chief of Roxxon over her dad’s death. On the other, they failed: Dy discovered that her late father wasn’t as good as she assumed in her idealism; in particular, he’d seen nothing wrong in some good old fashioned domestic abuse with her mom on the receiving end of it…so she’s going to take Roxxon’s hush money, and-

And nothing. So far Dy is back to hiding her cash in remote places, saving it for later. Mind you, saving money for later is a good thing, but in that case, Dy should have figured out a scheme to legitimize this cash in put in the bank under percentage or bonds or whatever, because just hiding the money does not work, the last time her mom discovered it and spent it all on a drug binge. Wonder what will happen to this cache of Dy’s cash?

Onto Ty? His main big scene will happen next week, and this week’s episode ended when Detective Mayhem comes home and discovers that her obligatory love interest – another cop, who appeared about once per scene every few episodes or so – is dead and stuffed in the fridge, with everything else in it pulled out beforehand to make space for him. This is ‘Godfather’ done in an obsessive-compulsive way; maybe it is master Jip finally making his own move?

Otherwise…no, this is it. ‘Ghost Stories’ was another good episode, masterfully done and with plenty of action and drama that was so lacking in the first few S1 episodes. Sadly, the numbers for the show still remain low, and with AoS’ remaining Disney/MCU’s obligatory supplement canon TV show, while the Netflix crowd is still more successful than ‘C&D’ are, the future of ‘C&D’ is still up in the air.

…Well, this is it for ‘Ghost Stories’; see you all next time!