She-Hulk, The People - Sep 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thor 4 - July 12

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and ‘Ms. Marvel’ is barely better; the 1x05 episode has tried to rectify the show’s lackluster situation, but only some, and if you care about this, you should go and read Salman Rushdie’s novels, such as ‘Midnight’s Children’ (1981) and ‘Shame’ (1983), since they deal with the India-Pakistan partition in fiction to a much more professional degree than MM does – therefore, let’s talk about the ‘Thor 4’ movie instead.

No, seriously, what is the deal behind MM? Is it supposed to be undercut in favor of ‘Obi-Wan’ TV series and ‘Thor 4’ movie? The answer is simple: it got messed-up.

Let us start with the biggest issue of the film, (in my opinion, admittedly): lady Sif. She appeared in the first one - or two – ‘Thor’ movies, as well as in a couple of AoS’ episodes, (the first two seasons), and after which, she vanished… until she reappeared – in a manner of speaking – in ‘Loki’ S1. This isn’t too surprising, as Jaimie Alexander, who played her, with busy in ‘Blindspot’ until that show ended in 2020, so now the crew of MCU are carefully trying to reintroduce her MCU character after years of absence – with lackluster results, and this brings us to ‘Thor 4’.

At the end of the ‘Endgame’ film, Thor the character left with the surviving GotG characters – and ‘Thor 4’ sees them part way: remake number 1. Then Thor the character meets – well, re-meets, lady Sif, who warns him the Gorr the God-Butcher is coming thus setting-off the rest of the film.

What is my main gripe about the ‘Thor 4’ movie, again? That Sif’s character is completely unnecessary for it – hear me out. The bulk of the film is about Thor and Dr. Jane Foster, (aka the Mighty Thor, but we will just call her Dr. Jane Foster to avoid repetition), and about their relationship. Put otherwise, just as the ‘What if?’ episode 1x04 was felt influencing the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film, so does the ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 influences the fourth ‘Thor’ movie.

What was the ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 about? It was a comic relief episode, with Thor the character going down to Midgard, and throwing down a party that got so badly out of hand, that Captain Marvel, (the Carol Danvers one), had to step in and end it; I’m oversimplifying it here, but still…

…No, ‘Thor 4’ isn’t as comically goofy as ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 was, but there’s still a distinctly college frat party fill to it, including the entire romance angle. Again, we got Thor and Jane here; we also got Korg and the Valkyrie, so why do we do need Sif?

…Yes, I am oversimplifying things here probably again, but again, we got Thor. We got Jane, who was his primary love interest in the previous ‘Thor’ movies. We got the Valkyrie, with whom Thor began to have some sort of a relationship in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ film. We also got Korg, who was seen in the trailers helping around the New Asgard or wherever. What for do we need Sif for? To help the Valkyrie in the New Asgard – asexually? Korg could have done this just as well! (And given how Sif did not appear in any of the teasers and trailers, I am guessing that the MCU crew felt the same way).

As for Jane’s fate… I do not know. There were one Thor too many in the MCU throughout the film, and since TW declared, that he’ll make a ‘Thor 5’ film only if CH would be in it, the heads of MCU said – ok, the old fan favorite it is, then, and killed Jane off instead, albeit in a most heroic way. That is the only explanation I can come up with, because otherwise? The original Thor’s survival goes against Phase 4’s zeitgeist – transference.

Remember? Phase 4 was, and is, all about ‘out with the old, in with the new’, with the survivors of ‘Endgame’ going out, and the new blood coming in. Wanda Maximoff’s death in ‘Dr. Strange 2’… is not too final, actually, because multiverse – now that TVA is out of commission at the end of ‘Loki’ S1, we can have an infinite number of Wanda variants coming into the mainline MCU-

…Wait. Wasn’t Wanda proclaimed of being a ‘nexus being’ in one of WV episodes? Yes, but WV meshes with ‘Dr. Strange 2’ only partially, so all bets are off.

Back to ‘Thor 4’… The same thing can be said about Jane/the Mighty Thor, actually – now that TVA is down, a variant of her can appear from the multiverse whenever it will be convenient for MCU – end of story. What next?

Aside from Sif’s completely unnecessary reappearance, Jane being killed-off for good now, and Thor moving on with a new companion, (in a manner that is too reminiscent of Dr. Strange and America Chavez to be truly successful), there’s also the issue of Valhalla: in MCU it seems to be some sort of an Asgardian afterlife, while in RL it was an actual part of Asgard; MCU is tweaking RL Norse mythology once again… but if you want a more accurate version of the Norse mythical world, go and read Mr. Riordan’s ‘Magnus Chase’ series: this work might’ve been truncated, when compared to his other pieces, but it still depicts the Norse mythology and its’ nine worlds more accurately than MCU does.

…And, of course, MCU has used Mr. Riordan’s works before – remember the MK S1? Yeah, MCU has used Mr. Riordan’s novels there a lot – but we have talked about that before. Anything else?

Actually – no, not particularly. ‘Thor 4’ is a fun movie to watch once or twice, but nothing more, and the character of Sif doesn’t add (or subtract, admittedly), from that fact; with these parting words we part way; see you all soon!

 

What if, 'Thor' - Sep 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life, sometimes, can be… weird: earlier this week I have encountered a real life rat in the broad daylight, and it was a big one: about the size of a small groundhog, (aka a woodchuck), and just as massive. Some sources of mine claim that it was a male rat, (a Norway rat, for classification’s sake), since the females of the species are smaller and slimmer than the males are, but that is redundant; the point is that I saw a real live rat, in broad daylight, and that isn’t something that has happened to me before, not ever, and probably won’t happen to me again either, (not in a long while, anyhow), and this sort of thing makes life rather tolerable to live, at least some of the times… Where were we?

My rat-related rant aside, this week’s episode of ‘What if?’ was the comedy episode; in it, we got to meet Thor who did not grow up alongside Loki, as the latter was returned to Laufey in this particular universe. Fair enough, an AU is an AU, and it does not have to be relatable to the main timeline either, but where does it leave us?

…Well, with variant Ultrons up the proverbial wazoos, if you want to be literal, but also – in the finishing stretch; let me elaborate. So far, ‘What if?’ was a rather restrained show for a cartoon: it took a single premise and ran with it – sometimes wildly, sometimes not so much, but always within the framework laid down by the mainline Disney/MCU, meaning that this season of ‘What if?’ is about the Avengers and no one else, though, admittedly, this ‘limited’ cast was big enough for the episodes – so far – each to have a different set of main characters; secondary characters are a different story, but they’re secondary for a reason… what else?

…A crossover episode, or rather episodes, as the odds of ‘What if?’ S1 ending on a double-episode finale are good, plus it would give the showrunners of ‘What if?’ to show the audiences how the MCU multiverse can handle this sort of an emergency without the TVA, (cough, ‘Loki’, cough), fixing it prematurely, but now we may have multidimensional Avengers assembling, so yay, here we go! What is left?

Nothing, I must admit. ‘What if?’ has begun on a mixed note: a tame job that pretends to be wild, and it remains as such; there are no Agents, (because AoS evolved into a hot mess), no InHumans, (because that show was insipidly bad so now its’ core concept was probably reworked in the ‘Eternals’ movie, cough), no Defends or X-Men or Fantastic Four because of copyright issues, no outsiders period. Fair enough and so far ‘What if?’ does deliver what it has intended to deliver – an entertaining pageant and a spectacle. That is not bad, but by now, seven episodes into the S1 – we are almost at a season’s finale, people! – the aforementioned people are getting rather tired of ‘What if?’, especially with such new gems as ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘Hit-Monkey’ are appearing on the horizon, to say nothing of the Eternals and what not. People are getting tired of ‘What if?’ for the moment, the show is losing steam, and I, for one, was, and am, and will be, more interested in the wild/feral Norway rat that I’ve encountered earlier this week than about the show, (at the moment), but that’s just me. I have been known to be weird after all.

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

Testament of Loki - Dec 13

To continue the topic about 2018’s novels, let us…not make a stink like a mink, (cough, I thought this was funny), but talk about… ‘The Testament of Loki’, for a change. Written by Joanne Harris, this…actually has nothing to do with Disney, MCU, or Riordan, at least not too much.

What is this novel? It is a sequel to an earlier ‘The Gospel of Loki’ novel. That one was yet another retelling of the Norse myths, just one done from the point of view of Loki, from the beginning to Ragnarok. That is it, really, as far as fantasy novels go, this is as basic as you can get; whereas the Greco-Roman myths never had a proper conclusion, they have sort of faded away by the time of Christ, the Norse myths actually did: the Ragnarok would come, the old world and practically everyone will die – good, bad and ugly – and there will be some sort of a new age, a new world, and everything and everyone will be new. The end, and has vague echoing similarity with both monotheism – Judaism, Christianity, even Islam – and dualism, such as Zoroastrianism. Jolly good, but then we get ‘The Testament of Loki’, and this is where the novels change.

On one hand, ‘Testament’ is a YA novel, not unlike those of Riordan or J-Ro. In the first half of ‘Testament’, Loki escapes the afterlife via a video game of all things, takes over a body of a teenage girl and eventually helps her come to grips with her identity, fix her life, find her backbone, etc. – a not too different story from the other YA novels, even the LJ trilogy that became briefly popular during the summer of 2018 due to the movie made from the first novel. Now, of course, those books can be found in various stores, offered at a discount, but this is how the glory of the world passes.

And on the other hand, ‘Testament’ in the second half is Loki hopping all over dimensions, doing his best to stay ahead from Odin, Gullveig-Heid, Mimir, and even Thor – and he succeeds as he gets to be reborn as a new person at the novel’s end. Here, the tone of ‘Testament’ shifts from a typical YA to something more along the lines of Neil Geiman, with some Lovecraft thrown in, purposefully or not. In the second half, ‘Testament’ becomes one crazy ride of a novel, (on Sleipnir, no less!), and the only thing spoiling it is Loki’s…no, not so much narcissism, as his complete lack of understanding when he should fall silent and not make it all about him.

…Yeah, good luck with that – whether it’s Marvel or not, Loki always makes it about him; in A: IW movie, he dies, supposedly. Cough. He already ‘died’ in various films, including the ‘Thor: Dark World’ movie, so good luck with that as well. Loki has to keep on moving, even if it is just his mouth, because otherwise? He just might stop existing and explode/die/etc. However, in ‘Testament’, this attitude of the Trickster becomes exhausting, and people may stop rooting for him and just wait for the novel to end, which it does, as Loki had tricked everyone, outmaneuvered everyone, and gets to be reborn as a new person in a new world, where he gets a much expected break from activity, because even he as a baby cannot move around much, (well, not at first). Somehow, despite his, and his author’s, best intentions, the readers are not rooting from him as much as they did in the beginning of ‘Testament’ anymore. Ms. Harris, who had created this version of Loki, might have succeeded a bit too well in making him into an anti-hero, and as such, he is hard to root for in the novel’s end.

Oh, and the YA human characters of ‘Testament’? Yes, they get largely abandoned/dismissed by the second part of the novel, which decreases the novel’s impact on one hand, and on the other makes ‘Testament’ almost into two novels – one that is Loki’s adventure among the modern YA Americans, and the other which is Loki doing Odin’s bidding and rebuilding the old world, building a new one from scratch, etc. Yes, this is not unlike Ms. Cervantes ‘Storm Runner’ novel, which is also really two novels stitched into one, and we have discussed Ms. Cervantes’ ‘Storm Runner’ and their relationship with Mr. Riordan and his PJ-verse the last time. Now let’s just admit that ‘Storm Runner’, (and ‘Aru Shah’) is supposed to expand the PJ-verse and bring new literary life into it; whether they succeeded is another story – ‘Aru Shah’ feels completely unrelated to PJ-verse, while ‘Storm Runner’ feels like a weird imitation of the original, and it is not even so very flattering. ‘Testament’, on the other hand-

…On the other hand, Ms. Harris was never a part of Mr. Riordan’s PJ-verse; ‘Gospel’ was a simple retelling of the Norse myths, while ‘Testament’ is a more experimental piece, (which is mostly successful, too). ‘Gospel’ was an alternative to PJ-verse’s ‘Magnus’ subsection, and while it was never as successful as PJ-verse novels, it still worked. So has ‘Testament’ – because it cruised the coattails of its’ predecessor and because it dips its’ toe enough into the YA waters to swim in the wake of passing of HP novels, and PJ-verse novels, and similar novels; what will happen when Ms. Harris decides to write a sequel to ‘Testament’ is another story.

Of course, this in itself is an open question; Patricia Briggs’ novels – Mercedes Thompson and co. – are even more successful and popular than Ms. Harris’ books are, (about Loki and otherwise), but lately Ms. Briggs seems to have gone onto a downswing: lately there are no new novels by her, which is strange, since the last ones were some of the best. Of course, maybe she just does not want to write books anymore, for whatever reasons – in real life she owns a ranch, (or something along those lines), and doesn’t need income from books; she possibly writes (wrote) MT and co. novels for entertainment, and if she doesn’t want to write, she won’t. The end for MT and her universe. Anything else?

…Yes, there is a rumor that a new MT novel is coming in May 2019, but we will have to wait and see if anything comes out of it. For the moment, MT novels are on a hiatus…but we got plenty of other novels, including ‘The Testament of Loki’, to fill in the gap in the meanwhile.

This is it for this time. See you all soon!

A: IW - May 1

Where to begin?

Firstly, because real life is sometimes sucky, sometimes crazy, and sometimes – stupid, I made a mistake regarding Thanos, Loki and co. the last time we talked. Thanos did kill Loki in public, perhaps to make a point within the MCU, perhaps to make a point without, but kill Loki he did, blatantly and in public too. Poor Loki, but – the point still stands. MCU, in general, has experienced the biggest loss of characters ever, and while they can be brought back, actors – from the real life’s side of things – are something else. ‘Thor’ franchise is especially notorious of that, as Sif, Jane Foster, Dr. Selvig, to a lesser extent Odin, the Warriors 3, and now – Heimdall too – have all vanished from the MCU, leaving ‘Thor’ with, well, just Thor, and maybe not even that. It is certainly a potent way of changing the landscape of a cinematic universe, but will the actors be willing to come back, ever? Given the case of Hawkeye, maybe not.

No, seriously, Hawkeye appears very rarely in MCU, if ever. He appeared in the first ‘Avengers’ movie, in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ movie, and in ‘CA: CW’ film…and this is it, I believe. If he’d actually died back in ‘Ultron’ it would make more sense and less disrespectful/dismissive to the MCU fans, but here is what we have; in A: IW1, we get no Hawkeye, again. Ditto for the Ant-Man, of course, but he and the Wasp are coming forth with their own film now, fighting the Ghost, and this is important, because the Quantum Zone is mentioned in that trailer, and this may be where all the missing people have ended up at…or not. Maybe Thanos succeeded completely and everyone died instead. Either way, we will get more clarification about this in the future Marvel movies…hopefully.

Speaking of trailers… the ‘Venom’ trailer has appeared in April 2018 too, and it is going to be an origin movie on one hand, and does not have any Venom-Spidey interactions on the other, which is strange, since Venom is one of Spider-Man’s worst rivals. Yet, if Spider-Man is stuck in the Quantum Zone, then he cannot interact with Venom, (let us presume so, anyhow), so no Spider-Man in this Venom movie, anyhow. Bully for him!

Anything else? Again, it is unknown just how AoS and its S5 plot fits into the greater MCU, in the current case – into the Infinity War plotline. Right now, General Talbot has become a Graviton-like figure and is going to save the world by killing the alien ninjas, because this is who the current aliens are – ninjas of some sort, and not even Kree, because none of them are blue…and some people still wonder as to why AoS’ numbers are so low. AoS just does not fit into MCU anymore, not since the second half of its second season, most likely, and where does it leave them?

Well, so far it seems that the S5 finale is the season’s finale, not the series’, so there’s probably some sort of a S6 somewhere in the works…eventually. Considering that Coulson (and his actor) are appearing in the upcoming ‘Captain Marvel’ movie too, that theoretical season will be Coulson-light, because of split priorities, you know?

…Anything else? No, not at this time. For the moment, real life has stabilized itself, so let us enjoy it. Until the next time – see you then.

Black Panther the movie - Feb 16

‘Black Panther’ movie has arrived in the movie theaters at last. Let us talk about it, and if there are people who are still concerned about spoilers – and there probably still are – let them be warned: we will proceed.

Where do we stand with ‘Black Panther’? In Africa, and many people are already discussing the Afrocentrism, the Afrofuturism, and the similar aspects of the movie, and how they are making the ‘Black Panther’ film great. A dissonance is the voice of those critics who’re unhappy that the film was never filmed in Africa proper, but that is understandable – real life imposes its’ own restrictions even on the movie magics, and-

And here is the crux about the African issue: when the Europeans began to conquer Africa and, well, enslave its people, one of the other, less advertised, effects of this action was the eventual erosion of the initial ethnical African cultures and their subsequent replacements with the European ones, especially Protestant – just read the novels of, say, Chinua Achebe, to see how it went down in real life. Thus, whatever else can, or should be, said about the relations between Europeans, Africans, Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans, the fact was that the African cultures were affected much more so than their European/USA Protestant counterparts, period, and this includes the current ‘Black Panther’ film – yes, it involves much more people of color as part of its cast (and crew?), but it is still an American movie, not an African one; its’ approach is a part of the ‘restitution’, of a karmic debt, of sorts, that USA still feels towards Africa and its’ native people – and that issue is a very thorny one back in the American society. Some people still claim that the pilgrims and the other European pioneers were the ones who made America great in the first place, and everyone else – i.e., P.O.Cs – are secondary…at best. And there others who claim everything in the previous statement…in reverse. Both groups – as well as others – have enough members who are very adroit at grabbing (and/or possessing) firearms, then gunning down everyone else who disagrees with them…, and that is not an exclusively American problem, but…

But we are talking about the ‘Black Panther’ movie specifically. It is an American movie, done about a fictional African country, (back in 2016, one of Wakanda’s neighbouring countries was Canaan, which isn’t even in Africa, more like in Middle East, just look over your Old Testament geography, here). As such, anything Africa-related to it, isn’t ‘genuine’ African, more like yet another attempt of USA to ‘restitute’ its’ historical (etc.) debt to ‘the Black Continent’, and all that follows. Thus, claiming that the ‘Black Panther’ has Afrocentrism, or Afrofuturism, or anything Afro-related is…posery, and isn’t very honest; this isn’t exactly Africa-anything, more like good old Uncle Sam congratulating himself on his virtues…as if the Donald doing exactly that in the presidential seat wasn’t enough of that.

Beyond the African (and/or Africa-related) elements, what else is there? …A typical Marvel movie, that’s what – high-quality CGI, high-quality acting, high-quality plot…but the same as usual: all heroes prevail, all villains die, and Disney’s ‘Lion King’ looming in the shadows. As if the CIA agent Bilbo Baggins was not bad enough. …Okay, agent Ross – he’s the replacement of Coulson, now that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been taken out of the equation again, and agent Coulson was probably still in the future at that point of time in MCU, (re: AoS S5).

AoS here is mentioned because of villains. Klaue is dead now, the end. This version of MCU Man-Ape got PC-edited the most, and has been downplayed because of racial stereotypes which is just what the world doesn’t need more of, especially in this day and age. And Killmonger is dead, as he’d been repeatedly in the comics, (for example in 2016), which is a rule of thumb of villains in MCU; the only notable exception, (Thanos doesn’t count – he stayed largely behind the scenes until the upcoming ‘Infinity War’ movies, and Red Skull is down for the count for all purposes too), is Loki.

Let us take an aside for ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ as well. It was a reset of Thor’s corner of MCU, as everyone that we have met in the first two ‘Thor’ movies are gone; either they are dead, or are simply gone, as Jane Foster and Sif are. Aside from Thor and Loki, there’s no one left, everyone else – like the Valkyrie – are brand new. This makes Loki’s standing in Thor’s life somewhat unusual: he is a blackguard, but a predictable one. Thor knows by now how far he can trust his brother, and when he cannot, and he treats Loki accordingly. Thus, the only variable left in the Loki-Thor relationship, (sibling relationship, you perverts!) is what will Loki do about it, especially now that Thanos has come for the Infinity Stones personally, and as we know, he has bossed Loki once, and he can do it again. Where does it leave the Trickster God?

…He can stand with Thanos and fall with him, however eventually. Or he can stand with the Avengers and get a share of their triumph and be redeemed, at least in part, (just as how Bucky Barnes seems to be going – the entire White Wolf cameo at the credits’ end, remember?). Or he can decide to screw all of this and just escape and go and live his own life, be his own person at last. He can do anything; he just has to survive the Infinity War…and to admit, especially to himself, that now and here, (and maybe forever), Thor is the bigger, better man, even if Loki does not want to be a hero. Asgard is gone, (thanks to Hela and Surtr), but its’ people remain, and they are following Thor, not Loki. Does Loki care about that? Does Loki care about anyone else other than himself? The first ‘Thor’ movie showed that he does not, but he has convinced himself of it being otherwise, so now he has to decide if he abandons the lie or makes it into a truth? Loki will not be king in the Marvel movies, most likely, but it does not mean that he has to be a villain either.

…And this brings us to Killmonger and the rest of Marvel’s villains; the only thing that is really separating Killmonger from the rest of them, (aside from Loki), is that Killmonger had actually had a chance to repent and redeem himself…which he discarded, so the end result is all the same. One dead villain. Back in the 90s, the Herc (H: TLJ) and Xena (X: WP) TV series had this sort of thing: on occasion the titular characters would battle someone who was less outright evil and more misguided or misdirected or something. Then they would be offered, usually in the last part of the episode, to stop and think about their actions, to repent and turn around. If they didn’t…Hercules and Xena would still kill them, but at least they were offered a chance to stop being villains and maybe even become good guys, (at least to a point). MCU…does not do that. The bad people do not get a chance to repent, (Loki just was not cornered and gunned down yet)…only in AoS, they did.

In the second part of S2 it seemed quite likely, that Ward and Kara will redeem themselves with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. and either rejoin them or leave the show via T.A.H.I.T.I. Instead, canon happened and they both died. AoS has played this out very badly; even now there are people who hate Ward, (and to a lesser extent Kara), as well those who hate May, (and to a lesser extent Coulson), and Hunter & Morse are not very popular too. (Hunter’s return in AoS S5 so far was very perfunctory, and his interview on the Marvel News website – ditto). This on top of both real life issues with AoS & MCU, and all the other fan conflicts, (regarding Hydra, as well as Cap vs. Tony CA: CW conflict)… AoS has suffered and has never recovered, not even now, in S5, but we are talking about the ‘Black Panther’ movie now, and Eric Killmonger.

…A lot of people are talking about how Killmonger has broken the villain mould. He has not. His final battle with T’Challa the titular Black Panther was two men dressed in almost identical clothes with almost identical weapons – if this wasn’t a ‘dark mirror’, then what is?

…But wait! Killmonger was confronting T’Challa in regards to how people of color are being treated outside Wakanda! How – American of him. Oh wait, he actually grew up in the West and is socially aware! …Remind us, why is he the villain, again?

...In real life, there'd been plenty of times when USA has tried to intervene in African countries directly as well as via UN. None of those attempts succeeded. One of them was Liberia, a real-life African country that was created by Anglo-Americans for the freed ex-slaves – they were to go back to their homeland and build their own country there. It’s unknown if it is was supposed to be a utopia, but initially it was anything but democratic: the former Afro-Americans set themselves up as the new country’s elite, and the Native Africans as their serfs/slaves/servants/whatever. Native Africans and Afro-Americans are two very different people, (people such as Jules Verne have recognized it way back in the past), so to claim that an American/Afro-American movie is African-anything is wrong.

Okay, it is actually yet another American/Afro-American perception of what an African utopia is supposed to be - that's the 'African' part here, probably. In reality Wakanda would probably be not very different from Liberia or any other country; yes, it had a wall to keep everyone else out…let us ask the Donald and his cabinet as well as his critics just how effective this sort of a contraption is. It’s about as effective as the American attempts to build an interracial utopia within itself since the 1970s – it has failed, odds are that it will continue to fail here and now, and if in 2020 Oprah will decide to run for the presidency of the US the resulting fall-out will make the fall-out from Clinton’s defeat look mild because the interracial relations of USA both within and without are far from idyllic or utopic. ‘Black Panther’ is yet another attempt to do something about it, this time utilizing MCU’s excellent, (but apparently limited), movies. The result – a standard USA MCU movie, (i.e. very excellent, much better than DCEU’s counterparts), about an Afrofuturistic, (or whatever the right term is), utopia that got everyone, (or at least 'the right people') in the US singing accolades about it so much that since the beginning of this week ‘Black Panther’ became a ‘trigger-happy’, or ‘hot trigger’, or whatever: people are already beginning to be pissed-off by the monolith of praise and are doing something about it without even judging the movie for themselves… This is not good or conductive; whatever people in Disney, MCU and beyond wanted to achieve via this film, it just might backfire instead…

This is it for now; see you all soon!