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!

Hit-Monkey - Nov 17

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, (though lately it seems to be evening out, admittedly), so let us talk about Marvel’s Hit-Monkey series that had come out today, (Nov 17, 2021). What can be said about it?

It is actually a tough one to describe. On one hand, the combined Marvel team seems to be more withdrawn about it than it did about its’ M.O.D.O.K. cartoon, though it must be pointed out that the two cartoon series are very different on practically every level; M.O.D.O.K. was all about the universe, if not the multiverse, while Hit-Monkey is more restrained, with strong overtones not just of Deadpool, but also of the Kill Bill franchise, (which is owned neither by MCU nor by Disney, thank God). More precisely, whereas M.O.D.O.K. tried to encompass everything but the kitchen sink, ignoring the fact that most of it just unnecessarily cluttered the main story line – the titular character’s attempts to balance out his job and his family life, cough – Hit-Monkey doesn’t do that; it is actually about the titular character avenging his monkey tribe, while meeting all sorts of new people – such as Fat Cobra and Lady Bullseye – in the process of doing this. …Yes, it is an overly simplified synopsis, but it still works; while MCU seems to be getting into the multiverse aspect of itself, Hit-Monkey, well, does not – it got plenty of drama as it is. Of course, WV and TFAAWS did as well, not to mention the ‘Black Widow’ movie, (and I have my doubts about the upcoming ‘Hawkeye’ series too), but, again, this might be a part of the MCU Phase 4 plan.

Let us elaborate. The first three phases were about ‘the sacred timeline’, to use a quote from ‘Loki’, (the show, not its’ titular character). That is good, but in the same show, we saw Sylvie killing off He-Who-Remains, who was one of the Kangs, and so ‘the sacred timeline’ is now just ‘one face in the crowd’ instead. ‘Loki’ also had another Kang taking over the TVA now that HWR is gone, (for the foreseeable future), and so the TVA aren’t about to interfere once Spider-Man, (the Tom Holland version) and Dr. Strange cast the spell that we saw in the trailers – one that was supposed to change the reality…but because Peter Parker began to lose his nerve at the last minute, everything has went wrong, and the latest trailer showed us, among other things, the multiverse of madness beginning to manifest, and Dr. Strange being caught in the middle of it as well. Now what?

Well, firstly, this movie is going to be about Spider-Man, as he tries to save a lot of people at once, while Dr. Strange – well, this version of Dr. Strange, as opposed to the one that we’ve met in the episode 1x04 of ‘What If?’ – is trying to actually repair the damage by returning everything to the status-quo, i.e. how it was before the spell was cast; as the latest trailer shows, the good doctor apparently fails. Back to Spider-Man?

Well, aside from MJ doing the swan done as done by Gwen Stacy in the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movie series, (Earth-120703, if anyone cares), there’s the fact that maybe not all of the villains will go after Spider-Man at once; Dr. Octopus in particular seems to have a change of heart, (while Electro appears to have been re-designed instead). It will be interesting to see as to how Peter will deal with all of this, (to say nothing of MJ, you know?).

This, in turn, brings us to the ‘Venom’ films as well as the upcoming ‘Morbius’ movie – by now, the fans are wondering, just what is going on with them? The trailer for ‘Morbius’ in particular seems to be incorporating elements from all three Spider-Man franchises – and it does. Odds are that after the dust of ‘No Way Home’ settles, the world of this Spider-Man and his cohorts will be transferred from MCU to the ‘Sony Universe of Marvel Characters’, which is an entirely different situation and a universe as well. There, Peter Parker, (in whichever incarnation of his), and his friends, (the ones that will survive, anyhow), will try to make their new lives, with no way of returning home, (since the relationship between Sony and Disney/MCU isn’t all that friendly still), while Dr. Strange will have his own hands full, (as depicted in his own upcoming ‘multiverse of madness’ movie, remember?). Moreover, this sort of a situation will fit well into the MCU’s Phase 4 theme of transitions; even the upcoming ‘Hawkeye’ series fit into this theme, as the titular…title will pass from Clint to Kate. Is there anything else?

Ah yes, getting back to Hit-Monkey, this particular Hulu series doesn’t fit MCU’s phase 4 at all, and we’re not talking about the depiction styles either. Then again, ever since the Helstrom series, Hulu’s Marvel shows and series tended not to be part of MCU at all, so Hit-Monkey’s ‘nonconformism’ is not too surprising either, to be honest. It is still fun to watch though, but that opinion is subjective…

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

More on 'M.O.D.O.C.' - May 26

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us get back talking about M.O.D.O.C. No, not the titular character, but rather the actual show, (though about the titular character too – sort of). As I was going over the characters’ trivia, I realized that yes, the character of ‘Angar’ appeared in one episode of AoS, and that the character of ‘Tenpins’ appeared – sort of – in one episode of Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’, but more importantly was that Patton Oswald, the man behind the M.O.D.O.C., (sorry), was also the man behind the various Koenigs that’d appeared in AoS over the years. Pause.

This got me thinking; I looked over the entire Marvel ‘Robot Chicken’ take, and realized that M.O.D.O.C. really was more than just Marvel’s take on ‘Robot Chicken’.

First, it is Disney/MCU’s challenge to Sony, whose ‘Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse’ introduced the concept of the multiverse in the Marvel-based movies and co. Yes, the upcoming ‘No Way Home’ and ‘Multiverse of Madness’ films, starring MCU’s Spiderman and Dr. Strange are also intent on dealing with the multiverse theory, (and then there’s mini-series of Loki’s adventures, aye?), but the ‘Robot Chicken’… I mean M.O.D.O.C., came first, testing the waters to see as to how Marvel’s fans will respond to the multiverse/alternate timelines theory. Given that M.OD.O.C.’s reviews are mainly positive, this looks like a win for Disney & Marvel. Good for them!

Secondly, it is Disney/MCU’s way of testing the waters regarding mutants and co.; Mr. Sinister of the X-Men franchise briefly appeared in one of M.O.D.O.C.’s episodes, and there were other X-Men references in the series’ episodes too. Basically, Disney & Marvel are not putting the X-Men and the other mutants away now that they bought FOX out in real life, but they are doing it slowly; Ralph from ‘WandaVision’ was especially a disappointment given that he had turned out to be literal dick joke instead.

Finally, M.O.D.O.C. tried to address some of the themes that were supposed to be discussed in AoS, (yes, we are going there again) – in particular the matter of family. In AoS, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were supposed to be more than just coworkers – they were supposed to be a family, as opposed to Hydra and its’ agents, that were anything but. Sadly, because AoS just couldn’t handle real life issues period, this approach went nowhere, or at least it was notably diminished; and as for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s victory over Hydra? It did happen, sort of, but in a very messy way, so by now MCU isn’t talking about either Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D.; instead, we got S.W.O.R.D., (in ‘WandaVision’), and this is it. Huzzah!

Back to M.O.D.O.C.? This show’s titular character also had issues with family – as he had figured out, they were slowing him down from achieving his dream of a global utopia, (or something along those lines), because they were bringing out the best in him, and since we’re talking supervillain material here…yeah, that’s bad news. Therefore, by the S1 end, M.O.D.O.C. seems to have gotten rid of his wife and children and achieved his dream instead. Since this is only the first season of the show out of several, (one hopes), odds of him regretting his choice and turning it all around, (this show featured plenty of time travel already, you know), and even finding some sort of redemption in the future, are still fairly good. Where does it leave us?

…At M.O.D.O.C. son’s, (aka Lou) bar mitzvah, maybe? Now there was a piece of tone deafness. First, the mother of the family – Jodi – does not really look Jewish, and that is important, because in Jewish religion, if the mother is not Jewish, then neither is the child, not for all of the official priests and rabbis. This attitude has caused the Jews plenty of trouble, which brings us to the other point - HAMAS. Them fighting the Israelis again, for the first time in a while, marked the May of 2021 and while the Israelis claim that they won, officially it is more of a tie instead. So what?

You mean aside from the fact that M.O.D.O.C. has apparently given the global community the first Jewish super-villain? The latest Israeli-HAMAS fighting only given more kindling to the fire, but fortunately for the Israelis, in the current world order, their fighting with the HAMAS just isn’t that important: the U.S. is busy dealing with both RF and China while trying to win the EU back regardless of the damage that the Donald’s reign wrought over the U.S.-EU relations, and everyone else just doesn’t care. The U.S.S.R. was notably anti-Israel, but the RF doesn’t even pretend to be the U.S.S.R. anymore, so here M.O.D.O.C. got a lucky break, but do we have to associate Judaism with a comic-book super-villain, eh? …Anything else?

Well, there is the new ‘Eternals’ trailer that dropped down on May 25, 2021, but that is another story, so for now, this is it. See you all soon!