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.

Loki & The Marvels - Nov 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Loki’ S2 finale instead – or not. How about we talk about ‘The Marvels’ movie in its’ place.

First, ‘The Marvels’ work. They work because the film is part of MCU’s current transition theme, and ‘The Marvels’ executes it on the level of AoS’ S4, which is to say, very well. ‘The Marvels’ movie has three main leads, (not counting Nick Fury), and all of them share the Marvel name. This is one of the reasons as to why MCU used all three of them together – to simplify the Marvel-ous situation, and to resolve several of the problems that had haunted this aspect of the MCU franchise.

Moreover, what did MCU do with them next? Carol Danvers, who was played by the problematic Ms. Brie Larson, (remember the commotion around the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film?), seems to have heroically sacrificed herself so that the Karee new home planet could have its’ own sun. She is off the board, at least for now.

Then, there is Ms. Photon, who is associated with S.W.O.R.D., which is not a part of MCU anymore, apparently, since there was neither hide nor hair of it since ‘WandaVision’, (WV), but that didn’t stop ‘The Marvels’: S.W.O.R.D. had a brief (re)-appearance, amounted to nothing, and now that Photon is in a parallel/alternate universe, odds are that S.W.O.R.D. will never appear in MCU ever again. (Not that the new S.A.B.E.R. was any more important to ‘The Marvels’, yeah). This way, a knot is quietly resolved in the ‘old’ MCU, and we get another shy introduction into the multiverse…

Speaking of the multiverse, what about Loki, ‘Loki’, and the TVA? This resolution was less satisfactory: Loki ended up taking over HWR’s old job, while Sylvie and agent MMM are running/not-running TVA. Pause.

In the ‘Loki’ S1 finale, Sylvie was in HWR’s old digs, doing his job, (maybe), while Loki was trying to get all of the TVA armed and armored against the new Kang, (and we got a Kang in the ‘Ant-Man 3’ movie, remember?). Well, ‘Loki’ S2 arrived, we had Sylvie back out in the wild again, we barely had any Kang in the person of Victor Timely, and the (ex)-judge RR became a mini-villain, who got sent into the Void. Agent MMM, Loki and Sylvie can attest that that is not as permanent as it might appear. Where is the multiverse, though?

Nowhere in sight, unlike ‘The Marvels’. Somehow, despite all of its’ talks about the ‘sacred timeline’ and what else have you, we never got to see any alternate timelines, aside from an occasional glimpse and all. Fair enough, but back to ‘The Marvels’?

Back at ‘The Marvels’, we got Carol Danvers safely taken off the board, (with enough wiggle room to bring her back, if needed), and Photon equally safely re-positioned in such, well, position, to introduce the multiverse, and the X-Men, into MCU if necessary. Finally, we have KK, the youngest Marvel, in a position to re-start the Avengers with Kate Bishop and a few others – but keep in mind that MCU’s Avengers are a mess since the ‘Endgame’ movie, so our heroines would need to re-start from almost a blank slate, and, in addition…

In addition, ‘The Marvels’ had no characters from the KK previous TV show at all, (aside from KK’s immediate family)? Obviously, no characters from overseas would appear, given how Pakistan has backed the Taliban in the real life to drive the U.S. from Afghanistan, but you would think that Bruno or some other Kamala’s classmates would make an appearance, however briefly – but they don’t, so the odds of the KK series having an S2 is unlikely. What else?

Ah yes, ‘The Marvels’ primary villain, Dar-Benn, whose motive was to… restore a Kree home planet, so that they would be able to live now that the Supreme Intelligence died, and their planet is dying. Hell, by dying herself, Dar-Benn was able to launch a process that caused Carol Danvers to complete the process and save the Kree. Hooray? Hooray. This makes Dar-Benn better – a better leader than Fury is, whose attempts to help the Skrulls failed epically on one hand, and on the other, no one is mentioning the events of SI either. There is no mention of Gravik, or Giyah, or Ms. Sonya, etc. Somehow, the Skrull separatists of SI transformed from MCU’s potential big bad into nothing – there’s no mention of them in the greater MCU anymore, just as there’s no sign of Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ anymore either. What else?

…Well, a ‘Mean Girl’ reboot is coming in 2024, and it might be a musical; ‘Cats-2019’ say hi from their distant past and remind people that musicals belong on stage, not on the big screen – but we digress from MCU.

If ‘The Marvels’ work overall, ‘Loki’ S2 feels more like a reset that MCU tried to do subtly, but failed – something that MCU is infamous for. We have discussed this before, (especially in AoS), so let us focus here on the fact that the final resolution has a feeling of being final – Loki’s (this Loki’s) journey is at an end; he found friends and love…and lost them, for good, it looks like. Sad, but MCU has been known to pull twists like this, and if this is so, then good luck to ‘Loki’, (and Loki), and a happy send-off to their respective stories!

…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!

SI & Eric Flint

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI is no escape.

First, about real life: Eric Flint is dead. The man – the author – died in 2022, last year, and the world has become a poorer place without him. His 1630s series was a fun AH series of books, novels and story anthologies, even if they weren’t the most politically correct – i.e., in the last few novels, the new USE – United States of Europe – and their Swedish allies are fighting the ‘upgraded’ version of the Ottoman Empire. This could have been quite appropriate in the 1990s and especially early 2000s, when the U.S. has invaded, (for a lack of better word), Afghanistan and Middle East, but now, when U.S. has lost all of its’ earlier gains, (especially Afghanistan), not so much. What next?

SI offers little succor, save that it is over, and as people have noticed, the series’ finale redeeming feature is the abrupt change of tone in this particular episode. This is not neither new nor surprising: this has happened already in AoS, ‘Ms. Marvel’, and ‘She-Hulk’, as we have discussed previously, and indicates that regardless of whatever these shows have shown previously, in the future, this information will not be utilized, but be discarded instead, and moreover, MCU is starting anew with them.

…Aye, AoS was rather discarded completely as an alternative, and so far there’s no sign of ‘She-Hulk’, but MM the character is going to be important in the upcoming ‘Marvels’ movie – and so SI concluding shots are tied into it; the rest are just a rip-off of the Sokovian accords, which are done and gone and forgotten by MCU. Anything else?

About SI – not really: it was full of forgettable, surrogate characters, just as MM had been, and just as MM has, it is going to vanish into nowhere. About Eric Flint – I do not know, maybe his novel series will continue, maybe not. Real life sucks, eh?

This is it, then. Talk to you all later.

SI, 'Promises' - June 28

Obligatory disclaimer: the dead rat is actually gone. Wait, what?

Let me try again: real life sucks, but for a while there was a dead rat, located not far from where the dead skunk had been lying, but because the rat – a female one, judging by its’ size – was lying on private property, it was gone in a matter of days going for weeks, rather than weeks going for months, as the skunk had been. Pause.

Again, real life sucks, but when I tried to do something different and continue to watch Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series – the second episode, ‘Promises’. Again, so far SI feels like a prequel to something – there’s action going on, true, but mostly there’s exposition and talking; ‘Promises’ was driven less by action and more by dialogue, which is ironic, given how the writers are going on strike in Hollywood, and lately, (June 2023), quite a few actors, (even A-List actors) are threatening to do the same. This may be the reason as to why SI is being downplayed in the online news, especially since SI was using CGI artwork in its’ episodes – because otherwise my only idea is that USA, RF, UK, and several other countries will team up to take the Skrulls down. Put otherwise, this is a ‘Ms. Marvel’ situation – when an MCU (Disney+) TV series made such a tone-deaf semi-political SNAFU that everyone is doing his or her best to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Fun!

…On the other hand, what else is there to discuss? The evolution of the vulture birds? Thanks, but Mr. Keith L. has done it already, having written a very interesting and comprehensive book about them, (published and released back in 2022). In it, he discusses those overlooked and often neglected birds of prey, clarifying their relationships to each other, (which are more complex than how they look), as well as their evolution, ecologies, interactions with humans, and so on. Given that vultures are even less popular animals than the hyenas are, Mr. Keith L.’s achievement is quite something! Positively better and more interesting than SI is.

SI, on the other hand, is flat-out lackluster. Pardon me, but it is. My home city of Toronto has only turkey vultures out of all the scavenger birds, and only in summer, but even that is enough to see that SI may be joining ‘Ms. Marvel’ in MCU’s hall of fame as one of its’ aspects that is not so much as good or bad, but just lackluster – and we’re only two episodes in. Harsh, and yet I find myself almost wanting for some sort of a vulture to swoop in and to carry-off the streamable series into the land of the dead – but that is a different story…

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

SI, series premiere - June 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series instead.

The series’ premiere episode, ‘Resurrection’, is… no, it may be indicative of the series (mini-series), as a whole: it lacks heart.

No, let us try again. ‘Secret Invasion’ is a remake-reboot, not unlike TLM-2023, only if TLM-2023 is obvious, then ‘Secret Invasion’ is a ‘subtle’ way of rebooting both S.H.I.E.L.D., (AoS), and S.W.O.R.D., (WV, remember?). After AoS, WV, and – the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series, SI is the third attempt for MCU to develop a secret agency something or other. AoS was a spy TV series that veered into new pastures at the end of S4 or around that time and it took the titular S.H.I.E.L.D. with it. That series ended with S.H.I.E.L.D. flourishing… an ending that came from a previous incarnation of the show, and which ended in a metaphorical cul-de-sac as they were replaced by S.W.O.R.D. in WV. Skrulls also played a minor role in that series, but play they did, and as we’ve seen in the trailer for ‘The Marvels’ film, they, and S.W.O.R.D., were supposed to play a role in MCU – and so the Skrulls do. 

S.W.O.R.D., on the other hand, got replaced by something called S.A.B.E.R. with nary an explanation, though in ‘Ms. Marvel’ we just had surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D., represented by the government, chasing Clan Destine, aka surrogate InHumans, with Kamala being caught in the middle. However, by the end of MM, we learn that none of the above applied to Kamala, who had her own destiny, and who got swapped with Carol ‘Captain Marvel’ Danvers at the end – an act that ties-in directly with ‘The Marvels’ as the trailer shows – but there the villains are to be the Kree, not the Skrulls. Pause.

Going back to the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, we learn that in MCU the Skrulls are good, while the Kree were bad. Therefore, now we got a splinter group of the Skrulls, who are bad after all, and Fury, Hill, and the good Skrulls need to stop them. Can we say ‘unnecessarily complex’? Whatever was going on in the heads of MCU’s creative team regarding them will remain unknown – it just too convoluted to be revealed.

However, the ‘plot development’, where the splinter Skrulls are beginning a conflict between USA and Russia is all too predictable: it is safe. Sure, MCU could have used China, North Korea or Iran, (to name a few), in place of RF, but RF is safe. Disney/MCU knows that it will not offend anyone by using RF as cat’s-paw for the main villains – the splinter Skrulls – and anything else is more risky.

Sure, USA is not too happy with China these days, for example, (just ask Biden the POTUS), but Disney/MCU is ready to commit to that train of thought and would rather be somewhere else. As it was written before, Disney loves to make money, but it hates to lose money even more, and controversies cost money, and so Disney prefers to end controversies before they begin. The result? Things like the almost featureless ‘Elemental’ that go down easy, go out easy, and are forgotten just as easily. You remember the Spider-society in Sony’s™ second Miles Morales film? On one hand, this organization is quite democratic - we got people of all shapes, colors, sexes, species, etc. On the other hand, this organization is quite inefficient, as Miles is able to avoid them… period. The Spider-society is less of an organization and more of a crowd that is not very efficient at executing tasks period. (The titular organization of AoS had a similar problem, but on a smaller scale). This is… not unlike the actual US society these days, which is quite democratic and politically correct, but not very good at executing various tasks; the fact that the RF’s ‘special military operation’ is floundering is their fall, not US’ achievement, and it shows. If RF ever gets its’ things together, (a tall order, true, but still), then Ukraine is in real trouble…

Leaving real world behind and going back to ‘Secret Invasion’… we got more of AoS, really. AoS had FitzSimmons to show the American unity with the U.K., and here we got Ms. /agent Sonya, who is a member of MI6 and Fury ally, (supposedly). In reality, the relationship between the two countries is more fractious, but Disney/MCU has nothing to do with reality, you know? Real life sucks as it is…

‘Secret Invasion’, on the other hand, is just lackluster – it isn’t as bad as ‘She-Hulk’ had been, but judging by the more than slightly subdued reaction from the media, everyone is aware that it isn’t ‘What if?’ or even ‘Sam & Bucky’. It is just a much-shorter clone of AoS, and people are treating SI as such. Pity, I would say, but there is nothing to pity – Disney/MCU should have just stuck with S.W.O.R.D. instead.

For now, then, this is it. 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!

She-Hulk, Law - August 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘She-Hulk’ instead. In the show’s second episode, ‘Superhuman Law’, the titular character continues to evolve…along the expected lines of a Mary-Sue: her family sucks, they are a different aspect of the patriarchy, (and their indoctrinated female lackeys, of course), and they are keeping our plucky heroine down, until she embraces her different, outlier, destiny of being a lawyer for the outsiders, such as Emil Blonsky/the Abomination. Fair enough, and J.W. got her girl Friday Nikki to help her along, so yay! And who needs Titania anyhow? …Anything else?

…Yeah, in the B-story B.B. the original Hulk is back in space, probably to re-enact MCU’s version of the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline. A different studio – Lionsgate or something similar – has already released an animated movie version of that story some time before, so MCU has to do something much more complex to avoid any copyright conflicts… but what is the point?

The point is that ‘She-Hulk’ is continuing the traditions, initiated the previous Phase 4+ installments, such as the Sam and Bucky show, or WV: the old heroes are leaving, new ones are arriving. Steve Rogers is out, Sam Wilson is in. Carol Danvers may be leaving, but Photon is entering, but…

…but I guess we’re re-saying once more: real life happened, and it sucks, and so the MM Disney+ series, instead of being feted as a breakthrough of the Pakistani-US relations, got downplayed to the max, and may even join AoS in being MCU’s apocrypha instead – but nothing like that is threatening the ‘She-Hulk’, no sir: there’re no contentious real-life racial issues or anything, just straightforward girl power, (with Wong and Blonsky being the titular character’s gay wingmen), and B.B. is heading back to the stars… What else?

I genuinely do not care anymore, in fact. MM was flat-out disappointing, with its’ substitute InHumans and S.H.I.E.L.D., (aka Clan Destine and DoDC, respectively), and ‘She-Hulk’ is just trite and predictable, in a genre sort of way. Oh, and this week’s episode had a hidden reference to Wolverine apparently too. This makes it all better, no doubt. MCU has mishandled the InHumans about as badly as it had S.H.I.E.L.D., so now they are introducing the mutants, (and also other beings, such as the Clan Destine), to do something about that. Well, good luck to them!

As for us… right now, this is it. See you all soon, instead!                                                                                                                       

FH: Medjai - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; sometimes it sucks so badly, that you cannot sleep at night, but just lie there and wonder – just what are you doing, and where are you going, and where, and when, are you going to stop and get out of the groove – and go on from there to where?.. On a more lighter side, the ‘For Honour’ (FH) game has introduced the new character – the Medjai.

…Oh yes, undoubtedly, the Medjai – or rather, the Medjay, were a real-life organization, actually: first, they were a tribal group from Nubia, (a region located alongside the Nile river), and later on – something of a police organization during the existence of Ancient Egypt – something that the second incarnation of the ‘Mummy’ franchise used quite a bit. Yay?

Well, maybe – the Anubis-based armor used by FH’s Medjai clearly comes from that franchise, (as opposed to the aborted Tom Cruise one, eh?), as does this warrior’s double-axe, (double battle-axe, maybe)? There’s nothing original about the new guy, put otherwise, and what’s more, whereas its’ predecessors were taken – at least – from the now-defunct ‘Deadliest Warrior’ (DW) franchise, the Medjai doesn’t even have that – this is fiction at its’ purest. Ouch!

Finally, we return to MM for one last time – somehow we forgot to comment that MCU’s version KK is a mutant instead. Fancy that! In the original comics, MM was an InHuman instead, so now we got a flat-out switcharoo! Yay! Just kidding, but this is also one of the factors as to why the MM finale was about as bad as AoS’ had been – it is just flat-out incompatible with the rest of the show, just as AoS’ had been. However, AoS’ problems aside, in MM, the finale has rubbed-out the rest of the season – pause.

Let me start again. Throughout the first season of her show, KK was introduced and developed not as a mutant, or an InHuman, or some other Gifted, but as her own person, an independent and competent young woman, who has her own thing, and who does her own thing too. Great! She was also shown to have both her own allies and enemies, which is also wonderful – and then came the final scene, and all of this was flat-out removed, as not only Kamala was revealed to be ‘something else’ instead – i.e. a mutant, regardless whether a regular or an irregular one – but she has also found herself in an entirely different, non-connected situation from what she’d experienced so far…

…Something similar has happened to the Scarlet Witch too, in fact. Throughout WV, she has grown and changed as a character, and at the series’ finale, she actually began to return to her superhero roots – and then came the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ film, and all of that got thrown out of the window, with Wanda being reduced to someone not unlike the Wicked Queen from Disney’s original ‘Snow White’ animated movie. There is a reason as to why people are accusing Disney/MCU of mistreating their female characters, and this is a part of it. I do not know what will happen to Kamala next, has she just switched places with Carol Danvers, or if the two of them have switched their minds instead, but I really hope that she will get a better hand than the one that Wanda has received…

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

Ms. Marvel, 'Seeing Red' - June 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks – just ask the Americans with their ‘Roe vs. Wade’ cancellation. I genuinely don’t know what they were thinking: if this is just the first step to cancel everything else, including interracial and same-sex marriage – it’s one thing, then we’ll have some sort of American Civil War take II, no problem. But if it is not, however – then it is just pointless aggravation of the American civilian society, one that the D.C. crowd probably does not need, not with all of the Jan 6 hysteria and all. What will come out of it, I do not know, though the fact that the American (Western?) mass media is beginning to downplay this, (sort of), may play some role…

The Ukrainians, of course, are hanged-out to dry, as the Americans still give them minimum aid while extracting maximum publicity out of this; and Finland & Sweden have joined NATO – and Putin does not appear to care about it very much. Erdogan, conversely, have acquired at least some political benefits for himself and his regime – but we are being sidetracked; let us talk about ‘Ms. Marvel’ instead.

Only not, as this week’s episode – ‘Seeing Red’ – is… wait. Let me try again. As people have pointed out to me since my last entry, Clan Destine aren’t InHumans, but are rather human-djinn hybrids with their own story, and Damage Control has its’ own missive as well. Fair enough, but my actual point was that story-wise, Destine is standing-in for the InHumans, and Damage Control – for either S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D., take your pick, please. Here, in ‘Red’, we got more gifted people in-fighting, between Clan Destine, and the Red Daggers, (and Damage Control doing their wild card thing too, I suppose, in the bigger picture), and there’s mention of monsters, and world-changing plots, and government agencies, and-

-and we all have had it before, in AoS. I’m surprised to admit it, but I am rather tired of getting back to AoS in almost every single review of MM – but the truth is that AoS has had its’ initial plots recycled in every later season – and MM has the same problem; in addition-

In addition, lately I got a feeling that Disney/MCU is actually trying to downplay MM – first so that it would not compete with O-B-1, and now – with the upcoming ‘Thor’ film. That may be so, but there’s also the feeling that Disney/MCU is try to actually keep MM under the radar, because it isn’t sure just as to how well it does resonate with USA’s Islam community, (and especially the Pakistanis). The Red Daggers, especially, have a rather assassin-like feeling to them – and that RPG prestige class was based on RL Middle East characters – but we digress.

Here is thing. Disney/MCU is all about the money – it loves to make money, it hates to lose money, and it has figured out that a controversy is one of the best ways to lose money, and so it does its’ best to avoid controversy, as its’ settlement with ScarJo regarding the ‘Black Widow-2021’ shows: it probably could’ve won legally, but in PR terms this would’ve been a (controversial) disaster, and so Disney/MCU opted to settle out of court and give-in first.

So, how does that fit onto ‘Ms. Marvel’? Well, like it or not, but it is controversial – sort of – simply by existing: it is a show about an Islamic community that lives in the U.S., and given that U.S.’ relationship with the Islamic world has never been easy, and after the end of the Afghan cycle, (2001-2021), even more so – therefore, it isn’t too surprising that Disney/MCU has opted to downplay MM rather than vice versa: you never know as to who will get offended!.. Anything else?

No, not really – if Disney/MCU itself is trying to downplay MM, then who am I to upplay it instead? Therefore, let us end this for now – but I must warn you: real life being what it is, (see the opening paragraph), I will not be able to review MM episode 1x05 for RL reasons next week. Ah well, see you all soon all the same! Until then – cheers!

Ms. Marvel, 'Destinied' - June 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: we got one heatwave coming after another, with intermediary thunderstorms to make life more interesting, apparently. Hence, let us talk about ‘Destined’, the episode 1x03 of ‘Ms. Marvel’.

What can be said about it? That finally, after reaching the half-mark of the ‘Ms. Marvel’ S1, we got some excitement here. First, Kamala’s brother got married, and we got a beautiful depiction of an ethnic Islamic marriage…before the Damage Control goons gatecrashed it. This time, though, they seem to be going after Kareem and his mother, who are associated, or simply are, the Clandestine, or the djinn. Pause.

So, in real life, the djinn are a part of Islamic – or proto-Islamic – mythology; their role isn’t too different from the various demons and such in the Christian mythos; they were blamed for everything bad and unknown and mysterious, their shapes were often poorly defined – there are even some version of the djinn who are more akin to the doppelgangers/evil twins of the modern Western mythology; and the Quran mentions them, but not necessarily in a good way, either. Also, you can call them genies or jinn instead, and they often weren’t as nice as they were in Disney’s ‘Aladdin’; in the ‘original’, ‘1001 nights’ ‘Aladdin’ the jinn or the djinn were really powerful entities, able to destroy cities and armies, and built palaces, and to take them across the world…basically, compared to mortals, the djinn are almost all-powerful, but the forces of the Lord, (or Allah), can route them, if necessary.

…And none of this applies to the djinn ‘depicted’ in ‘Ms. Marvel’, aka Kareem and his mother, whose relationship with Kamala has become more ambiguous by now. Rather, the ‘djinn’, or the Clandestine of MCU seem to be surrogate InHumans, and I got nothing new to comment about that here, because of predictability. In Marvel Comics, Kamala ‘Ms. Marvel’ Khan was an InHuman, and was regularly associated with them, even though she never was a part of Black Bolt and Medusa’s court, and she has her own storyline; separate from the InHumans’ main one – usually. There are always crossovers, you know!..

In MCU, there are InHumans, actually, but because their TV series was insipid, nowadays MCU pretends that they never existed, a fact further enhanced by the fact that AoS was a clusterfuck, and has already been largely replaced by S.W.O.R.D., as well as by Damage Control. Hence, we got surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D. chasing surrogate InHumans, because despite all of the proclamations that MCU’s ‘Ms. Marvel’ is original, in reality it is just a rehashed version of the comics, because Disney has problems with original – just look at the ‘Lightyear’ movie: while it isn’t bad, neither it is truly great.

…And the same can be said about the ‘Obi-Wan’ series; I was not going to talk about it, but, since it has finished, I might as well – the show’s predictable: Obi-Wan got his shite together and kicked Vader’s ass, while Reba’s storyline was also neatly wrapped-up. Sadly, while Obi-Wan has won a clear and a decisive moral victory, he did not kill Vader; since Vader has become Palpatine’s chief enforcer by now, (though yes, technically, he is Palpatine’s apprentice – but does anyone believe that?), his death would’ve caused a major butterfly effect… so ‘Obi-Wan’ the TV series doesn’t kill Vader, and everything from now on till the events in ‘The New Hope’ will be (mostly) canon. Did I mention that Disney has a problem with originality? Well, it does, and in case of ‘Ms. Marvel’, it is also in denial, both regarding originality and the quality of ‘Ms. Marvel’ it is rather trite and unoriginal, but it is also beautifully depicted, complete with the ethnic angle: hooray for that!

…Otherwise, however, this is it for now. ‘Ms. Marvel’ S1 is halfway done; we will just have to wait and see as to what will happen next. See you all soon!

 

Ms. Marvel, Crushed - June 15

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else entirely – this week’s episode of Ms. Marvel. Named ‘Crush’, it is about Kamala’s crush on Kareem, whose mom may or may not be a supervillain – isn’t the MCU fun?

Well yes, yes it is, save that so far, little else is going down in ‘Crush’ – MCU is going with a slow burn here, possibly to avoid competition with ‘Obi-Wan’, whose penultimate episode has also aired on this day. There are similarities between the two shows: in ‘Obi-Wan’, women are clearly in charge, save for the titular character and Darth Vader; the show could’ve went with just the original female characters, but they tried already something similar in the SW sequel trilogy, and that didn’t go down too went, so now they’re trying a subtler approach – and there already are mixed reviews towards the show. Fun!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, is trying… something similar, actually. Both the titular character, her mom and grandma dominate the show, at least to a point. Since Islam is actually a quite patriarchal religion, there is… a female character, (not related to the Khan family, but still a family friend), who is planning to challenge, or is challenging already, some sort of a mosque board for more gender variety – or something along those lines. Now what?

So far, there is no obvious indication as to how this plotline will go in the future episodes: Disney/MCU obviously has no intention of alienating the Islamic community…but neither does it want to be retrograde and upset the progressive community…so yeah, Disney/MCU is going to handle this politically correct, politely, and perfectly poised – the 3P, you can call them.

On the other hand, we still got the Damage Control duo, as they canvass the area, trying to find that elusive masked vigilante. (This takes place in a world with Sokovia accords, remember?) So far, they do not appear to have much success, but then again, they appear to be mostly annoyances right now… which is appropriate, since now? Kamala is not much of a hero, either.

Oh, of course, she is well intentioned, and she is already doing ‘the right thing’©, but, sadly, the scope is rather underwhelming – period. Again, this isn’t surprising, she isn’t a hero yet, she is only learning, but this does leave her behind on all the excitement and the drama, when compared to ‘Obi-Wan’, where the latter tries to be a telenovela built along the lines of the ‘Rogue 1’ film… or the ‘original’ ‘SW: Legends’ novels… Everything old is new again, put otherwise.

‘Ms. Marvel’, however, does not do that, but tries to be original – to a point. The problem is that while Hulu’s ‘Runaways’ – remember them? – actually did go mostly original, at least in the first two seasons or so – ‘Ms. Marvel’ does not. In fact, it tries to multitask, as it tries to entertain with Kamala and friends’ teenage antics, as well as to promote the Islam-American community, (at least the Pakistani aspect of it), in the best possible light. I.e., ‘Ms. Marvel’ the show fluctuates between reality and fiction, without settling on either, and consequently it risks ending-up flat-footed instead.

There was another TV show that tried something similar, and it was AoS, (the first 2-3 seasons). This show actually introduced a Russian – or a quasi-Russian villain; there was actually a mini-story arc, set in Russia, which caused Hunter and Morse to be taken ‘out of commission’ – they were supposed to get their own TV show, but instead they were taken outright out of MCU. Ouch!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, does not have excessive characters, (as AoS did during the first half of S3), but it did have a reference to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the series’ premiere, apparently. Can’t say that I’m too surprised, as S.H.I.E.L.D. is still supposed to be a part of MCU, it’s just that due to real life issues Disney/MCU can no longer fit it, (at least for now), so now we got Damage Control running around, (and not amounting to anything yet). It will be interesting to see as to what exactly MCU will do with this development, and how does S.W.O.R.D. will fit in, (remember, Photon took over S.W.O.R.D. at the end of WV?). Indeed, Photon and S.W.O.R.D. should be appearing soon enough, since Kamala, Carol, and Photon are supposed to all appear in the 2023 MCU movie ‘The Marvels’, right? Because if Photon will be removed – and she is the Afro-American character here – this will be a PR disaster and Disney/MCU hates that…

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

Ms. Marvel, series premiere - June 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so here is a shout-out to Mr. Nicklaus Brendborg: this learned worthy, while writing – and publishing – his treatise on old age, aging, and immortality, talked about – well, mentioned, really – the naked mole rat. That is fair enough, but he implied that the ‘ordinary’ rats and mice used in labs are its’ relatives. Yeah, no – the terms ‘rat’ and ‘mouse’ are very broad; the term ‘mouse’, for example, includes not only the various rodents, but also the so-called marsupial mice – distant cousins of the kangaroos and the koala, and close cousins of the quolls, the numbat, and the extinct Thylacine. By contrast, the term ‘rat’ includes several genera, including, obviously, the naked mole rat, as well as several of its relatives from the parvorder (or infraorder) Phiomorpha, but the ‘true’ rats aren’t closely related to them; this parvorder actually includes the Old World porcupines, (not the ones found in North America, but the ones found in Africa, Asia, and sometimes even in southern Europe); proportionally, the naked mole rat is a much further relative to the lab rats (derived from the black and Norway rat stocks, mainly), and lab mice, (variant house mouse, primarily), than we are to the apes. For Mr. Brendborg, a man of science and philosophy, to make such a mistake slash generalization is just rude and wrong – so let us end this rant for now, and turn onto ‘Ms. Marvel’, the series’ premiere.

So, what have we here? Last time, when we have talked about the ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ series, we talked about how Disney was playing it safe with SW now, producing new content that is only fan-approved. Whether that is a good long-term strategy is another matter, but this is what Disney does with SW. And what about MCU?

First, in ‘Ms. Marvel’, Disney is playing it safe, again. The series’ opener, ‘Generation Why’, is an introductory chapter through and through; in it we meet Kamala Khan, a modern young woman with a strong personality and personal values, whose relationship with the rest of her family is loving, of course, but there’re some pesky personal issues that initiate the rise of a conflict between them – a generational gap or whatever the modern term is… Wait a second…

…In ‘Encanto’, we have Mirabel Madrigal, who is a teen/young adult, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up.

…In ‘Turning Red’, we have Mei-Mei, who is a teen, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up.

…And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, (the TV 2022 series), we have Kamala Khan, who is a teen, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up – wait, what?

…Without a doubt, there are some differences between our three protagonists; i.e., Mirabel is the only one without powers in a power-ful family, (pun intended, sorry), while in Kamala’s case it is more of a reverse, (so far), and Mei-Mei and her mother both have powers to turn into giant red pandas now. Conversely, though…

In ‘Encanto’, the Madrigals are depicted – each of them is depicted – in a unique and a standout way, to a point where Julietta and Pepa’s families don’t appear to be very closely related at all, from a physical P.O.V.

In ‘Turning Red’, the citizens of Toronto – for example, Mei-Mei and her friends – are depicted in all of their multicultural glory, where each and every one of them is unique, in a standout way.

And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, we are about to meet the citizens of New Jersey, all of whom are depicted in a way that promotes America’s multicultural glory, with its’ characters depicted in a unique, standout way, each and every one of them…

Again, there are differences – ‘Turning Red’ and ‘Ms. Marvel’ don’t display the same high level of individualism as ‘Encanto’ has, but their levels are high enough…and then we come to the religious issues. ‘Encanto’ takes place in Colombia, (late 19^th century-first half of 20^th century, most likely), so the odds are that it is a Catholic, rather than a Protestant or Orthodox, community, though that is only a minor element in the movie. ‘Turning Red’… yeah, this one is a bit fudgey, but there are religious-cultural elements as well. And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, we learned from the trailers and the teasers, that Islam will be playing a BIG role in the TV series. Ergo-?

Ergo, while being something of a variation on the theme of a politically correct progressive young woman main character, ‘Ms. Marvel’ is also a propaganda piece, (unlike ‘Encanto’ & ‘Turning Red’, presumably): it aims to show ‘the life and times’ of a Muslim family in the U.S., how it lives, (as a unit), and how it functions, (as a unit), how it is both same and different from the WASP American families, and so on. So-?

So nothing. This week’s episode – ‘Generation Why’ – was pretty much just that: an introduction to yet another politically correct progressive young woman character, and another introduction to a politically correct and properly presented Islamic-American family. People, who like this sort of thing, will like ‘Ms. Marvel’; those who do not, will call it ‘Woke’, and will not. Such ‘soft power’ may be better than the ‘hard power’ that Putin’s Russia is trying to execute in Ukraine, but it has its’ own flaws – but that is a discussion for a different time. Is this it?

…Wait! There is more! There is the Avengers-con! And the magical bracelet from one of Kamala’s grandparents! (A person has two parents, but four grandparents – and we are talking a standard nuclear family here, anything more derived, and we get much more confusing numbers). And Bruno! But we do not talk about Bruno- wait, sorry, wrong Bruno. In ‘Encanto’, Bruno is a seer, (with a strong moon symbolism, but we will not get into it here). In ‘Ms. Marvel’, Bruno is just a teen/young man, who got friendzoned by Kamala so hard, that even the crappy Avenger-con feels sorry for him. No, seriously, there is a feeling that Disney/MCU is poking fun at itself – first there was the Avengers musical in ‘Hawkeye’, which was nothing more than window dressing in that series, and an unnecessary one at that, and now we get the Avengers-con, which was the weakest part of the episode, and as for the ‘magical bracelet’… well, we already talked about it: between AoS and ‘InHumans’, the InHumans became especially toxic and anathema to Disney/MCU, so Kamala will get to be something else other than an InHuman. Good for her!

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

She-Hulk trailer 1 - May 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the trailer for the upcoming ‘She-Hulk’ series; even as a trailer, there is already controversy surrounding it, as some people have called it ‘woke crap’. To this, sirs and madams, I can reply with this repartee: and what is so woke about it?

What does the trailer actually depict? The titular character, of course, albeit in her depiction as a metahuman lawyer, rather than a vigilante or anything like that. This was a period in the She-Hulk’s comic life, though the last time I saw her, her character was redesigned, and she was working with the Avengers’ in her cousin’s place, while Bruce Banner did his own thing, with his own crew, as the Immortal Hulk, or something to this extent. Consequently, in the trailer, we see the She-Hulk mostly in her lawyer incarnation, we see her interacting mostly with Bruce in his green state and with her bestie, (an unnamed white female lawyer), and some shots of the Abomination as well.

What else does the trailer tell us? Why, nothing – it shows, not tells, just as the ‘Ms. Marvel’ trailer did. Only, in case of Kamala, we also learned that Disney/MCU has redesigned her character; in the comics, Kamala is an InHuman – her powers come from inside, from her DNA. In MCU, Kamala is not an InHuman – her powers will come from some cosmic bracelet instead. This is not surprising – between AoS’ InHumans being all over the places, and the ‘InHumans’ 2017 TV series being simply insipid, Disney/MCU doesn’t want to bring back the InHumans at all, (which makes bad news for Chloe Bennett’s Daisy/Quake character, but I’m done caring about her by now), so naturally Kamala is getting a redesign… just in time to meet her S1 archnemeses… who appear to be bland corporate types. Right. Where were we?

Right, the trailer for ‘Ms. Marvel’ was rather insipid in its’ own right, and the trailer for ‘She-Hulk’ is the same. Both trailers show the titular characters doing things, such as acquiring their powers, but nothing to little else. This is frustrating to the viewers to say the least, and so, naturally, they begin to accuse the two shows of being ‘woke crap’ – but there is nothing ‘woke’ about either ‘Ms. Marvel’ or ‘She-Hulk’ – the two trailers are just crappy, and that is that. Whether or not the same can be said about the actual shows remains for the future, when they will come out onto the streaming services…

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