Marvel & PJ take 2 - Jan 25

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the FH game and its’ new character instead.

First, however, here is an honorary mention of MCU’s previous Disney+ TV shows – the ‘She-Hulk’, in which the titular character became a ‘legal eagle’ version of a Mary-Sue. This is not particularly good or healthy for any character, even a Disney/MCU backed one, and so ‘She-Hulk’ is as good as cancelled, the word on the street is. Will ‘Miss Marvel’ be the next to good? This show’s titular character, Kamala Khan (KK) was redesigned in ‘The Marvels’ film, so the jury is still out. What next?

Right, the 1^st season of the PJO TV series is ending, (next week). It was ok, though it can be pointed out that unlike in the original novel, (‘The Lightning Thief’, cough), PJ and Annabeth are an interracial couple now, (with Grover being the obligatory non-human sidekick). This is not too new, admittedly – first there were Ron and Hermione in J-Ro’s ‘Cursed Child’ piece, and while it may have been something of a reason as to why that piece failed, it was not the most important one.

Second, there are Tom Holland’s PP and Zendaya’s MJ in MCU (/not in MCU?). Between this MJ, and the Black Cat from Tom Holland’s first Spider-Man film, so Disney/MCU was making inroads into this sort of scenario before the adaptation of ‘The Lightning Thief’.

(Keep in mind that Disney/MCU also was trying to making it in AoS, but it failed, and it might be part of the reason why AoS characters have vanished from MCU for good).

Otherwise, the 1^st season of PJO is a dutiful and solid faire, and it has went down with minimum fuss and commotion, with no one caring about the interracial couple at the heart of it, (myself included). What I want, (in a manner of speaking), to point out, is that the Greek satyrs weren’t really good-like; instead, they had horse-like ears and tails, while being otherwise human; the ‘great god Pan’ and his children were the half-human half-goat hybrids instead; in the Roman mythology, they were Faunus and the fauns, but we’re getting sidetracked from the FH.

Today on FH (Jan 25, 2024), we were introduced to a new Viking character – the Varangian. They are swinging a mean bardiche battle-axe, so is there anything to say?

Yes, the Varangians were the elite guards of the Byzantine Empire, (aka the second Roman Empire, though this statement is debatable). They were mercenaries, and they were good old Vikings, just under a different moniker. In the FH game, the Varangian… is an independent agent, on a collision course with their treacherous uncle, if you care about this sort of thing. Put otherwise, once again, FH pulled a ‘cool-sounding’ name out of a hat and tried to make it work. It did work, too, in a manner of speaking. Bully for them, I daresay. At least this time the moniker is appropriate for the character.

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

FH: Afeera - Jan 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else. The latest FH character – the Afeera. No, I do not know what meaning this term/label/name has in RL – from what I have seen, this is a fully Ubisoft invention – and it shows.

How so? Let me be straightforward here: the Afeera is generic. And it shows.

Let us start again. Throughout the game’s existence, the PC characters of FH had flavors – knights, Vikings, samurai, and so on. Lately, however, this state of affairs began to change with the appearance of the ‘Outlanders’; until now, there were only two of them: the Pirate, (think 17^th-18^th century here than anything more modern), and the Medjai. The latter was clearly inspired by the characters in the Mummy franchise, the non-Tom-Cruise one, that is.

…For their part, the Medjai were based on the Western depictions of Ancient Egypt, and while that is neither here nor there, what matters is that while the Pirate was more modern, (proportionally), than the rest of FH heroes, the Medjai was more ancient instead, even moreso than the Gladiator and the Centurion were. This could be gleamed from the appearances of the two characters alone. The Afeera on the other hand, is different.

Officially, this character hails from ‘the kingdom of Arabia’, which is self-explanatory, but otherwise, there are few details that make them specific; even their weapon – a heavy mace – is generic, there’s nothing about it that is associated with an ‘Arabia’ of any kind.

A brief aside: as a weapon, (there are various meanings behind this word), a mace is a club, that has a big iron head with spines, or flanges, or so on, and a tough, stout handle, also made from iron, or from wood, with which to swing the head. Unlike a Morningstar or a flail, there are no chains to connect the two pieces; they are connected directly to each other.

Also, a mace is a weapon that a) inflicts mass damage – a direct or a glancing blow can easily rupture organs and break bones if there’s enough force behind the strike, even if you have armor on you. And b), a mace is not a precision weapon; while you certainly need to train with it, it is a different training from training to fight with a sword: to kill with a sword, you need to land a blow/strike at just the right place, (and if you don’t, your opponent just might survive…at least long enough to kill you), while with a mace or a club – not so much. It is proportionally easy to kill a person with a mace (club), than with a sword; as such, at least during WWI there were trench clubs as weapons… where were we?

Ah, yes, alongside the sword and the spear the mace is a standard RPG weapon these days, whether it is a LARP or a tabletop game – you can be certain that one of the less monstrous foes will use a mace or a club against you. Put otherwise, there is nothing special about a mace, and while, yes, one can argue that there is nothing special about the other weapons in the FH game, well… Somehow, the FH staff managed to make swords, axes and the other weapons unique and individual in the past, each PC had something unique and unusual, even the Pirate and the Medjai have… the Afeera doesn’t. Ah well, this is how the cookie crumbles, and also, you can always count on your family to make everything worse – but that is another story.

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

Quarantine entry #53 - May 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and on this particular day, there is nothing going on in real life that is exceptionally noteworthy, the rant of a certain musician on Twitter aside. People are falling apart, as simple as that, and the fact that such captains of industry as the aforementioned Twitter, Google and Facebook are allowing their workers to work from their homes even in the post-lockdown world doesn’t help. Working from home means co-existing with your family 24/7, and this is what the lockdown has already exposed as overrated – you need to have some space from your family, some time off, and if that isn’t happening, then it isn’t happening, and you got an unavoidable meltdown instead. What else?

…People have been asking me as to why I have not been discussing Ubisoft’s latest ‘Assassin’s Creed’ installment – the one with the Vikings. My answer is plain: I do not do ‘Assassin’s Creed’ as a rule, and this version is essentially ‘Assassin’s Creed’ meeting the ‘Vikings’ of History channel, and in case you have forgotten, I wasn’t impressed with that TV series either. Frankly, I’m going to call a spade a spade and call out, saying that if it wasn’t for the lockdown, the ‘ACV’ wouldn’t receive as much publicity as it did, but this is the hand it was dealt instead, the end.

…As for ‘Stargirl’, the latest darling of the DC TV-verse, I’m not going to touch it right now either – I’m not a big fan of DC TV-verse, ‘Stargirl’ may be superhero drama meeting a teenage rom-com, or sit-com, or whatever – don’t care. This is not my TV show for now, the end. What is left?

…I feel like talking about lions, actually. Of course, we have talked about them repeatedly in the past, so let us do this now once more – I am feeling sufficiently nostalgic, here and now.

So: the lion is the king of the beasts. People claimed that it could stare into the sun without blinking. However, so can the other cats – the anatomy of their eyes permits that. ‘Tis just that the lion is so regal-looking, so majestic! It appears that a lion is never looking at anyone directly, but only at some point in the distance, as if it does not notice you. And its’ roar is something else – it isn’t roar, it’s thunder!

When it comes to strength, the lion does not attack only the African bush elephant, (namely, the fully-grown animals), the African rhinos, (ditto), and the polar bear, (because the latter is never found in the African wilderness). Anything else is fair game. The lion’s strength is such, that it can break a bull’s back with one paw strike. However, more often, the lioness will jump onto the prey’s back, grab the muzzle with its paws, and by jerking around, it either suffocates the beast or breaks its’ neck, whether it was a wildebeest, some other antelope, a zebra, or even the African buffalo.

…Yes, there are several subspecies, or even species, of the African buffalo, which is only a distant relative of the American buffalo, aka the bison that we have discussed in the past. However, right now, we are talking about the lions, which is the only species in the Panthera genus that hunts in packs, as the wild dogs do – aka in prides. All the rest of the ‘roaring cats’ are solitary hunters. Beyond them, we got the cheetah and maybe the cheetah’s South American cousin the jaguarundi, which also live in family prides, especially the cheetah. Too little is known about the jaguarundi to make a concrete statement.

Finally, the lions used to live beyond Africa – in Eurasia and even in North America, (which used to be connected to Eurasia via a land bridge in the past epochs). As you know, those beasts were called cave lions in Europe and American lions in North America. Whether they actually lived in caves, or were only depicted there by the Stone Age humans, is another story. These days, lions live only in Africa, and in the Gir Forest in India, Asia, and their status slash well-being is contradictory and worrisome. A sad end for the king of the beasts there!..

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Black Widow trailer 1 - Dec 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So we look onto the TV and what do we see there? The ‘Vikings’ season premiere! And-?

And I was wrong – it will not be the Turco-Mongols that the titular characters will be fighting, but the Russians. Oh, for fuck’s sake!

Let me elaborate. These days, the Russia that the West knows is associated with Moscow, or as the Slavic people acknowledge it, (sometimes) – the Moscow Rus. Reasonable enough, right? The problem – the first one – that during the Viking era – the Rus that existed in the world was the so-called Kiev Rus, it existed primarily on the territory of modern Ukraine and the Balkans, Eastern Europe, really – and Moscow was only its’ north-east periphery at best.

…Real life carefully point-out to me that the Donald decided to replace the Democrats fictional Russian interference – the Russian threat to the U.S. regime is quite real, but meddle in the election-2016 it did not – but equally fictional Ukrainian one. Democrats firmly rejected it, Republicans are just as firmly pro-Donald, so now what?

Nobody knows. At least since the year 2016 the West figured out by now that using fictional Russian threats to distract from real-life problems – the Epstein fallout, for example, or the Brexit – just makes it works and have stopped using them. Substituting them with just as fictional Ukrainian threats is worse, since Ukraine is trying to be the part of the Western culture for real, for what reasons, is another thing, but for real. They do not deserve this sort of a backstab… but they are getting it anyways.

And now we return to the ‘Vikings’, where the Vikings will be fighting the Russo-Ukrainians, even though…

…Even though in reality they were the ones to establish the state slash kingdom of Rus – the Russians themselves accept it. The first Russian dynasty were the Ruriks, whose founder, Rurik, alongside with his brother, Sinehus and Truvore, was a Variag/Varangian – a Viking. The Russian name ‘Oleg’, and its’ female counterpart, ‘Olga’, are Russified versions of the Norse ‘Helgi’ (male) and ‘Helga’ (female). Far from fighting with the Rus, the real-life Vikings colonized and began to civilize them. …Yes, they were still Vikings. …Yes, in real life their version of colonizing meant that for about half a year they would plunder – but increasingly systematically – their Slavic subjects – and the rest of the year was spent by their journeys back and forth, as well as by other interactions, with the Byzantine Empire. These days, the geographic West took the place of the Byzantines, but otherwise? The ethnically Russian spiritual heirs of Russia, Ukraine and probably Belarus too follow the same model: they plunder, however systematically, their subjects and live-off on their spoils in the West, literally a distance away from their subjects – and the West largely has no problem with that. The 90s could have been a literal new leaf in the Russian history as the pro-Western faction of its’ society assumed that it would – instead this period became known as ‘The Big Grab’ and ‘The Cut-Throat Nineties’: neither name is particularly positive either in English or in Russian… where were we?

Ah yes, for a show that is a part of a History channel, the ‘Vikings’ are a great big pile of pseudo-history crap, as it was pointed out in the past seasons. They also discard a potentially very positive propaganda piece by having them arrive on the Rus territory and bringing to the latter the light of the true Western civilization – instead, we got some sort of a ‘cold war’ that we know that they are going to win; in reality, of course, the Kiev Rus actually became superior to the Viking Scandinavia by the XI century and it was only after the Scandinavian Vikings converted to Christianity and became a part of the European culture properly did they begin to catch up. But until the Kiev Rus succumbed to the Turco-Mongol yoke, it and Scandinavia were very close to each other – politically, socially, dynastically and so on. To see the ‘Vikings’ go the way it went is just sad. What next?

Next is the new ‘Black Widow’ trailer that came out recently, (Dec 3, 2019). Supposedly, it will take place in Budapest, Hungary, because in the very first ‘Avengers’ film, (the one where Loki’s loaned alien army invaded NYC, remember it?), Nat and Clint mentioned some sort of a Budapest incident in their past. Maybe we will see it; yes, Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in MCU, has had his own #MeToo moment, but maybe we will still see him and Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury star against ScarJo’s Black Widow in her 2020 film. What next?

I cannot shake the feeling that this movie include plenty of time jumps, simply because it will take place in the past, as in the ‘present’, aka the ‘Endgame’ film, the Black Widow is dead and probably won’t be coming back. Since even the trailer already introduces us to Yelena Belova, who is one of the ‘other’ Black Widows of Marvel comics, the odds of her becoming the next Black Widow of MCU is quite high.

Next, the trailer introduces us to the Red Guardian, in his Alexi Shostakov avatar, (because there was many Red Guardian characters in the Marvel comics). In the Marvel comics, Shostakov is Ronin these days, but in MCU, it was Renner’s Hawkeye who got to be Ronin, while a much older Shostakov version is the Red Guardian. ‘Much older’ because in the comics he is actually Natasha’s ex-husband; here, he seems to be more of a funny crazy old drunken uncle figure to Nat and the girls. ‘The girls’, because it brings us to the final new character introduced in this trailer – Melina Vostokoff. In the comics, she became the Iron Maiden… who is a Black Widow villain, not an Iron Man one, connotations be damned. In Marvel’s Mangaverse, (Earth-2301, I have no life, sue me), this is the superhero name of Tony Stark’s twin sister, but so far there is no evidence of such character in MCU, so let’s assume that the Iron Maiden will be the superhero or supervillain alias of Vostokoff…or she can become the new Task Master. In Marvel comics, the Task Master is an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Tony Masters – aka a man. This is also how the Task Master has appeared in Marvel cartoons, but as people pointed out, it is always possible that MCU will do a gender bender on this character instead. What next?

Well, let us give a shout-out to the new ‘James Bond’ movie trailer that came out today, (Dec 4, 2019), and move onto ‘Kings of Pain’. Why? Because the double-oh trailer reveals that the titular character of this film will just be running around, hitting and gunning down people, while saving either the world or his own skin in the process. Fun! – but nothing to discuss, however; even ‘Kings of Pain’ have more context, so let’s talk about them instead. Seriously, double-oh movies are pure suspense/action/adventure flicks with some romance and porn thrown in, so let’s give credit to ‘Kings’ – whatever they are, this isn’t them.

…No, actually, let us talk about the ‘Kings’ credit in this week’s episode – how does it fall?

In the neutral field, we got the velvet ant portion of the episode: this week, the not so dynamic duo went to Africa because of the Nile monitor. (Think a much smaller version of the better-known Komodo dragon). Why Nile monitor? Because ‘Brave Wilderness’ had a Nile monitor episode, as well as a velvet ant episode and a hippopotamus one.

…Getting back to the velvet ant, listen: there are 400 species of these insects living in the U.S., so there was no need for the ‘Kings’ cast and crew go to Africa to catch a couple of them. However, the velvet ants, (who really are wasps, whose females are wingless), probably live in Africa, so it evens out.

Next – the bad: the hippopotamus encounter. It was completely unconvincing: the duo’s boat was shaken around in the dark supposedly by a hippo…that is it. The camera stayed mostly on the show’s leads, we never got a glimpse of the hippo, and everyone made it to shore safely.

Listen: the hippopotamus is one of Africa’s Big Five, i.e. it is one of Africa’s biggest animals. It is also one of Africa’s most dangerous and ornery animals. Why? Because the first modern humans appeared in Africa, and they stayed in Africa, and the modern African animals evolved in co-existence with humans and human civilizations, and they know that humans aren’t their friends, but are dangerous, and tend to attack them – to attack us – with the slightest provocation because this knowledge is almost instinctual by now. The hippos’ twist – we are talking about the common hippopotamus here, not its’ pygmy sibling – is that it is an amphibious animal: like its’ cousins whales, dolphins and porpoises its’ skin does not endure well the sun, but unlike whales, dolphins and porpoises hippos can move on land just fine. Indeed, they do not really swim – more like walk along the bottoms of rivers and lakes, surfacing for air. Did not prevent them from colonizing Madagascar in the past, yes, (they are extinct there now, though)… where were we?

Ah, yes – hippos have explosive tempers and know how to use it. They are not as fast on land as rhinos and elephants are, but they still can run, and they can trample, and their jaws with tusk-like teeth are huge and strong enough to tear apart canoes and smaller rowboats, as well as lions and Nile crocodiles, so if the cast and crew of ‘Kings’ have encountered a genuinely upset hippo, odds would be that this ‘river horse’ would not only took bites out of some boats and what else have you, it could’ve also followed them to dry land, (actually, at night hippos prefer dry land to water – they forage there) and had a rematch. Nothing of this sort happened, so excuse me for being sceptical.

However, what has happened in real life was the Nile monitor biting the show’s main leads. That certainly was not fake, so kudos to them for this. While nowhere as large enough as the Komodo dragon, let alone the probably extinct Australian Megalania, the Nile monitor is still a very large lizard, with powerful jaws, claws and slapping tail; I don’t know if the duo’s interactions with the lizard took place in Africa or on a set, the monitor did bite them, and for the record? The teeth of the monitor lizards are serrated and sharp, they rip their prey, not crush it as the crocodiles do. Pieces of meat often get caught in their teeth, where they rot, giving the monitors – even the Komodo dragon – a very potent and atypical venom: Komodo dragons kill water buffalos with it, and let us be fair: a water buffalo’s immune system is much more robust than a human’s. True, a Nile monitor is also much smaller than a Komodo dragon is, but it still got powerful jaws and a toxic bite, and it showed. Coyote Petersen on ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t even try to have the Nile monitor bite him. So yes, here ‘Kings of Pain’ certainly broke the mould and showed that they are capable of something real and not staged. This certainly puts them ahead of the ‘Vikings’ and their messed-up world history.

…Yes, it’s kind of dramatic and strange that the official History channel in Canada airs mostly reality shows that don’t really have anything to do with History; the ‘Vikings’ are historical fiction, but at least they’re historical. That is real life for you, though. It sucks. I hope that when the ‘Black Widow’ movie comes out in May 2020 it will be good and a welcome distraction from real life instead.

This is it for now though – see you all soon!

Kings of Pain - Nov 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, (Tuesday, Nov 12, 2019), I went across the entire Toronto for an afternoon doctor’s appointment… only it was not. Somehow, I became bumped to a late Friday morning (Nov 15, 2019), so I am going to do it all over again. I hate this shit. At least, family did not try to make it worse, one way or another. Hallelujah for small mercies is all I can say. Now onto the TV shows.

We are talking about the new live-action show, ‘Kings of Pain’, which has also premiered on Nov 12, 2019, on the History channel, (history-dot-ca on the Internet). We have already discussed a different show from this channel, ‘Forged in fire’, and that is really an AWE me/Man-at-Arms YouTube show meeting some sort of a cooking show, ‘Chopped’, maybe. People forge knives, hatchets, other weapons, using materials provided by the show hosts – some people like it, others don’t, but the show IS original in its’ approach, let’s be honest. ‘Kings of Pain’ – not so much.

Instead, ‘Kings of Pain’ are a clear rip-off of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ YouTube & TV show that stares Coyote Petersen and his cohorts. Just like the latter, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ are getting stung and bitten by various creatures; in the series’ premiere, this went towards the executioner wasp and the warrior wasp. (Admittedly, I am not sure about the goliath birdeater tarantula, but)…

The main difference is that Coyote dedicated an entire episode to each creature – yes, it was only 15 to 20 minutes long on average, but the truth is, the plot of such an episode is actually quite limited: Coyote would capture the insect, it would bite or sting him, he would suffer, the end. Not a lot to proceed on here, and a lot of it was occupied by Coyote’s theatrics – the man is an actor, and the fact that he does gets stung for real does not change it.

By contrast, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ do not do those theatrics as well at all – they get stung or bitten, they yell and flail, the end – and the next shot shows them calmly discussing it at a campfire. Plus, they constantly break the fourth wall by showing their camera crew, medical assistants, and so on – ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t do it on such a regular basis. Score another one for ‘Brave Wilderness’.

Am I biased? Well, yes, but the truth is that what ‘Kings of Pain’ are doing? ‘Brave Wilderness’ did it first. The latter show is not without its’ own flaws, and is aimed primarily at children as audience, but grownups can enjoy it too. ‘Kings of Pain’ are trying to aim at the grown-ups instead, but it still comes across as second best – in this week’s episode, (‘Nightmare in a Box’), the show’s hosts were shown to be stung and bitten by two different wasp species and the goliath bird-eating spider, yet somehow it was depicted as a less exciting and a more pompous, (in a pseudoscientific way), version of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ ‘Coyote getting stung’ story arc. That is life for you. Anything else?

In the promo for the upcoming ‘Vikings’ season, we get to see the titular characters face-off against… the Turco-Mongols, (or whatever they are called now). Sigh. In real life, the proper Scandinavian Viking culture vanished quite a while before the Turco-Mongols had reached the lands of Rus and Europe proper, so this ‘clash of East and West’ is historically anachronistic and is about as realistic as GoT’s Dothraki coming to Westeros as part of Dany’s forces – but the ‘Vikings’ historical inaccuracies were discussed at length in the past by much more knowledgeable people than me, so let us drop it. We know that the Vikings are going to win anyhow, simply because it is their show, and not the Turco-Mongols’. Ah well, this is TV for you – whether it sucks or not, it usually is not realistic.

…This is it for now. See you all soon.

FH: Zealot - July 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and your family often makes it worse. Oh, they are trying to make it better, probably, but they make it worse instead, even though it is completely unnecessary.

No, seriously, judge for yourself: in the U.S., Mr. Muller is finally testifying, (or is he testifying again?) and everyone is abuzz, (and is already making new plans in case the testimony doesn’t go the way that they want it to go); in the U.K., Boris Johnson is elected the new PM and plenty of people have ideas as to how this will go – either really bad or really good. He’s rather the Great Britain’s version of the Donald…but USA isn’t calling them out, not after their ‘original Donald’ opted to open his mouth and start a racist mess of things…until today, now that Mr. Muller is testifying in court, and everything previous is apparently put on hold.

RF, of course, is a breed apart from the West. The initially civilized elections in the Moscow municipal council became the 21^st century version of the pre-1905 Russian revolution; there were two Russian revolutions: the 1917 one, which succeeded, and the 1905 one, which failed…if taken by itself, since it was the precursor and something of a test run for the 1917 revolution, it was more successful.

Yet even the 1905 failed revolution forced everyone in the Russian Empire to realize that something was rotten in the state of Denmark…not that it was enough. Whatever it is that is currently going on in Moscow…we will see. RF always has some disaster or another occurring on its’ territory; there had been a fire at another children’s summer camp, and some sisters have killed their family, literally drowned them in blood, apparently…but we digress. Where were we?

Oh yes, FH has revealed its’ new Viking hero/anti-hero, the Hulda. Admittedly, it is hard to pin down just what has inspired her, but, firstly, she is holding a war hammer, and secondly? There is the imagery of Jormungandr. And Ragnarok.

There are several versions of how to say the name of the Norse World Serpent, so let us call it just the World Serpent from now on, and yes, in the Norse myths it was the arch-nemesis of Thor the Thunder God for reasons unknown. It is featured primarily in three myths. In the first, the original Loki, who was more of a fire giant-god than a frost one, met an ogress, or a witch, or some other dark entity named Angrboda, (but yes, there are different version of the name again), and together they had three children. One was Hela, (yes, the Hela from the Thor 3 movie), who was humanoid in shape, but was half and half otherwise – alive on one half and dead on the other… or half black and half white… or half red and half blue… the accounts vary.

The second was Fenrir or Fenris wolf, the biggest, baddest wolf of them all, one who needed an impossible chain to hold him, who bit off the arm of Tyr, another Norse god, who was the son of Odin and a brother of Thor… and who was going to swallow Odin whole during Ragnarok, while yet another son of Odin that wasn’t Thor was going to kill him.

And finally, there was the World Serpent, a sea snake so large that it encircled the world in the Norse cosmology, dwarfing everyone, god and mortal, dragon and giant… you get the picture. It lived on the bottom of the sea and never ventured onto land… supposedly. And then, one day – and here we come to the second story – the giant-god of the sea, Aegir, had a party for the Asgardians, but did not have a cauldron big enough to make mead for all of them. The only cauldron big enough for that belonged to a giant named Hymir, who was Tyr’s maternal grandfather and who was not on the best terms with the Asgardians.

An aside: Odin’s own grandma was a frost giant’s daughter; whereas the Greeks made some sort of a division – here are the Olympian gods, who are not Titans, and here are the Titans who are not the Olympian gods, though the latter are their descendants, but the two groups are separate, the Norse didn’t. Asgardians freely intermarried with frost and stone giants, though the fire giants, led by Surt or Surtr were not a part of it, and so it was really hard to make sense of their feud with the giants – it felt more like a great big family quarrel than some sort of a life-and-death struggle that went down in the Ragnarok proper – but we digress.

Anyhow, Thor and Tyr came to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, and Tyr’s grandfather took Thor fishing, and Thor caught the World Serpent on his hook – intentionally, most versions say. He began to pull it out of the water, when the line snapped, or Tyr’s grandfather intentionally cut it, because, hey, the World Serpent, and so Jormungandr escaped. Thor thrown Mjolnir at it, and the hammer that never missed scored a hit, but the World Serpent survived that experience – this time.

And finally, we have the big Ragnarok face-off, as Thor and his reptilian arch-nemesis went at it, well, hammer and tongs. Eventually, Thor would break the Serpent’s skull with his hammer, and die from its’ venomous breath – in the Norse myths, all dragons are venomous, just as the real-life snakes from which they are derived. Even the most infamous dragon of them all, Fafnir, (or Fafneir), was toxic – but we are not talking about him. The point is that unlike Hela, who was a deity of the Norse, (and so was Loki himself, of course), neither the World Serpent nor Fenrir were – they were monsters. By combining Thor’s war hammer with the World Serpent, the FH team combined the incompatible, and made something of a mess of symbolism, again.

…Yes, FH is a game. Yes, it appears to be more interested in symbols and symbolism and symbolic representations of the samurais, knights, Vikings – and the ancient Chinese, the Wu Ling team. However, Hulda somehow feels especially experimental and strange. Vortiger – we have discussed before – is Vortigern, a controversial – but not necessarily evil – character in the Arthurian legends; he is a Black Prior, which only confuses things further. Sakura is Hitokiri, which is an executioner. Marvel comics aside, in real life executioners were hated in Middle Ages, they wore their hoods to protect their anonymity so that they would not be further boycotted in real life, and they were certainly not fighters or warriors, especially in their depictions. And Hulda? She is a zealot.

No, she is not a minor villain from the Marvel comics, who fought Magneto and died for his trouble; nor is she a part of a different group of Marvel villains, who work for the dread Dormammu and might be really just variant Mindless Ones; FH defines her more as a ‘real life’ religious zealot, so let’s talk about that.

In real life, the zealot movement was established by Jews in the 1^st century A.D.; they sought to incite their fellow Jews to arms, to rebel against the Roman empire and to drive its’ forces out of the Holy Land. That didn’t happen, and actually the Holy Land vanished from the face of Earth until the post-WWII 20^th century…but what does it have to do with the Vikings?

Nothing. FH’s zealot is a completely fictional creation; this character is supposed to cull the weak to reveal the strong in face of the upcoming Ragnarok, and as it was said earlier, the most notable thing about her is the fact that she, (or he, there’s a male version of this character too), seems to be wielding a war hammer.

…Yes, in real life, this is how you write it, to differentiate from Warhammer the game franchise. Unlike games and game-related fiction, the real life war hammer was not widely used; the closest I can remember was in DW S1, where Walter Wallace used it against Shake Zulu’s battle-axe, well – the Zulu Axe, in one of the least satisfying episodes of DW S1 – but again, we digress.

Let us wrap things up. Real life sucks, and your family may make things worse, accidentally or on purpose. In AoS, Lincoln apparently left behind a sister, and Daisy sends her some moneys for some reason or another – to assuage her own conscience, probably. (How big those sums and what is the state of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finances are one of those things that will be never addressed). And FH continues to haphazardly throw together symbols and images from various aspects of samurai, knight, Viking and ancient Chinese cultures, hoping that they stick.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

FH: Hitokiri - April 27

Let us talk, for a change, about FH, and its’ newest character – Hitokiri. Supposedly, this name/title means ‘executioner’, but even minimal research reveals that rather it means – if translated directly from Japanese – ‘manslayer’ or ‘mancutter’, because of the subtleties of Japanese language (and of Japanese to English translation). Okay. What is next?

So, the FH creative team designed Hitokiri to look like an executioner, or perhaps – THE Executioner from MCU; certainly, Hitokiri confers a similar feel to the MCU’s real life version from the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie; why did the FH creative team decide to make him a Samurai than anything else is another question: there’s nothing inherently Japanese, or even Oriental, about executioners. Yes, they were going for an anti-hero here, just as how they did with Vortiger/Black Prior for the knights, but if with Black Prior that made him/her almost into a specific person, (reminiscent of Apollyon, remember her?), with Hitokiri they went rather the other way and made him/her almost oblique and personality-less. Maybe that was supposed to be intended, but it is still weird.

Now, in regards to the weapon – what is it? It is an ono, a Japanese version of axe or hatchet. Unlike the Vikings’ Dane axe and battle-axe, FH’s ono has two sides; in reality, there had been only one. It was used as a weapon of war, but also for other purposes; in fact, it was only rarely that the Japanese used their axes for war. Usually, it were not the samurai proper who used them, but rather the sohei – warrior-monks, or the yamabushi, (mountain hermits). Does Hitokiri look like a Japanese warrior-monk? I honestly cannot say – in FH, appearances and themes usually did not go past the external aesthetics, for it is the sort of a game where everyone tries to kill everyone else, (or at least – everyone else who is not on their team), so anything past appearances is superfluous.

Getting back to weapons, let us get back to Black Prior. As we have discussed him, he was armed with a sword and a kite shield, and we talked primarily about the shield, letting the sword go, since it looked like a one-handed version of Warden’s sword. Apparently, some people claim that it is different. Warden’s sword is a longsword – a typical knightly sword with a straight double-edge blade and a cross-shaped hilt, built to be gripped and used by both hands, whereas Black Prior’s sword is a broadsword, also known as a basket-hilted sword, because its’ hilt was usually shaped like a basket of some sort. It was a military sword, unlike the rapier, which was used more often in civil duels instead, and was invented later than the longsword did, in the Late Modern period, as opposed to the Post-Classical one. Seriously, the precision of some people is overwhelming.

Back to Hitokiri? Honestly – no; so far, Ubisoft deemed that we should know only little about their backstory – a glorified executioner of some sort. Seriously, this is what FH is coming to? Its’ creativity team could use some work, I am thinking.

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

FH: Black Prior - Jan 24

…With ‘the Gifted’ taking a hiatus for the next week, (dumb idea, but theirs, so there), let us talk about FH once again instead. They are introducing a new character into their mix again, his name is Vortiger, and he is a Black Prior.

Let us start with the most obvious feature of all – his name. If it sounds familiar, it is because it is – it is a variant of Vortigern, who was the king of Britain – well, one of them – before king Arthur, and in the 2017 movie, he was a villain that His One and Future Majesty had to defeat to become, well, the One and Future King. That said, in reality, Vortigern had been just ‘a king’ that reigned before Arthur did; Hell, he reigned before Uther did, (i.e. Arthur’s father), and to be honest, ‘reality’ isn’t the best term to use here – the man was already obscure by the Medieval times, (when king Arthur’s legends began to take shape for real), and the most established version of him is that he was the British king, (or a British king, or a chieftain, whatever) that invited some of the first Saxons, (i.e. Viking invaders) to help him battle Picts and Scots – a very ironic action. Why?

On one hand is that the Saxons themselves took over Britain, (if king Arthur had been real, he would have battled them long and hard and often), and then they got conquered themselves, by their more derived continental cousins, the Normans. Does anyone remember DW, S3? The second episode of the season featured William the Conqueror, precisely the king who had conquered Great Britain, (hence the nickname Conqueror). The result was a culture clash – yet another one – depicted in such literary classics as Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ - you should really read it.

And on the other? Those Picts and Scots and co. that Vortigern had Saxons help him battle with, they were here before the Britons, or whatever the proper name of Vortigern’s people was. Vortigern and his people were initially conquerors themselves, just like the Vikings, (who became Saxons and Normans at different times in different planes), and then they were conquered themselves.

…That is it for the historical Vortigern, such as he is. There is even a theory that ‘Vortigern’ is not a proper name, unlike Arthur, say, or Henry, but more of a title, meaning something like ‘the high king’. However, this theory is not very popular or thorough, so let us not bother with it.

Then we come to FH Vortigern’s ‘label’ – he is a ‘black prior’. In real life, a prior is a generic term, or title, for any monastic superior, aka a high-ranking clergyman (in the Catholic Church)…well, one that ranks higher than an average cleric, anyhow. We’re talking monastic orders, here, not some sword-wielding yahoos – but as we’ve discussed on a regular basis in the past, FH often mislabels its’ characters, going for whatever name/label that sounds cool, regardless of what it actually does. In case of Vortigern, (and the entire new Black Prior class) it is swinging a sword, and – a kite shield. To paraquote Captain Obvious, it is a shield that is shaped like a kite… or a leaf… or an almond… or even a raindrop – usually rounded on top and curving down to a point, (rounded or otherwise) on the bottom. FH made it more angular and flying-kite-shaped, as opposed to raindrop-shaped in real life. They were made especially popular by the Norman cavalry in the 1000s – see William the Conqueror mentioned above. Their size and shape made them poor choice for infantry, but unlike the Saxons, the Normans preferred to fight on horse rather than on foot. By the mid-thirteenth century or so the kite shields got replaced by so-called heater shields instead, which were more compact and proportionally smaller and wider than the kite shields were, making them easier to use. The Crusaders, (especially in the First Crusade) introduced this sort of shield to the Muslims… and where does it leave FH?

Being more derived, actually. For a while Ubisoft struggled with making new memorable and interesting characters, and it even went for the ancient Chinese for a while, but now it seems to be coming back to its’ initial stock, which is mainly Medieval Europe. Yay! Yes, the character probably still has flaws, but Ubisoft did get better at ironing those kinks out, so playing a Black Prior, (whether male or female – Ubisoft has both by now) should be fun.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

FH: Shaolin, Tiandi, Jiang Jun - Oct 15

…Sometimes life gives you lemons even though you have no idea as to how to make lemonade. Sometimes it does give you lemonade instead, even though you were not expecting it, (or really needing it, truth be told). But – a silver lining on any cloud and so forth. Where were we?

Ah yes, FH has finally revealed all of its new characters. Let us look at them. We already discussed Nuxia yesterday; today we are beginning with the Shaolin monk – as opposed to a Hungarian short track speeder skater, whose last name is also Shaolin. Yeah, real life sometimes is simply bizarre. We have talked about him yesterday too, in regards to the hook swords – the gun staff was another one of his weapons, though it fell short of its’ Maori counterpart – a staff-slash-club. Seriously, there was no reason as to why Maori should not have won, and yet he lost the fight – but we talked about it yesterday too. The Shaolin monastery is also famous for its’ Kung Fu, but there was little of it in DW, and FH is all about the weapons, so it is doubtful that we will see any especial martial arts in the upcoming update. The Nuxia, of course, had some unusual moves, but then the hook swords are unusual, exotic weapons, so naturally her moves are unusual; the Shaolin’s are more straightforward…

Speaking of swords, next we got the Tiandi and his dao saber. Well, maybe it it’s the dao saber, but that’s what it looks like – the blade that was used by DW’s Ming Warriors, when they faced-off against the French Musketeers – and lost. Were the weapons mismatched? Not exactly; the Musketeers’ had more derived weapons, still not as good as the modern ones, but already more derived, reliable and better than the Ming Warriors’ were.

Any weirdness? Perhaps the fact that the face-off took place on a mountain pass of some sort that the Musketeers were storming, and the Ming were doing their best to hold them off; spoiler alert – they failed. The Musketeers won; their rapier triumphed over the saber, but it should be kept in mind that they also had a parrying dagger with them. Here is where DW would bend its’ own rules some – sometimes one team had ‘an extra’ weapon over the other team. The hosts didn’t really offer much justification, and even if they did, still having the Americans have 4 weapons, while the French had only 3, (the S3 premiere), for example, looked rather dishonest. The Americans love to win, but they prefer if it is done fairly…or at least not by obvious cheating, as it happened on DW. Then again, DW got its’ comeuppance – it is still cancelled these days, and there is no talk of it being rebooted. Pity, for it was a good show despite its’ flaws…but FH is filling its’ gap in the game world, at least.

Finally, we got the Jiang Jun. Apparently that is a literal name, not a title or whatever; it is the name of some mythical Chinese warrior or hero. His weapon is the guandao, which is the ancient Chinese version of the naginata used by team Samurai already – or the western glaive. The glaive’s main difference from a lance is that it was not used from horseback, but more on foot, against cavalry. It has a bigger tip than the lance does, and in case of both the naginata and the guandao, it is curved, more like a saber than a lance, rapier or spear, which are straight, and can stab instead.

This brings us to another Ubisoft game that was launched this year – their latest Assassin adventure. Apparently, Ubisoft hasn’t severed all of its’ ties with AWE Me YouTube series, as it had commissioned them to make the broken spear of king Leonidas, (featured in the 300 Spartans movie), and a khopis. The spear is a spear, save that its’ haft is broken, so it can be used as a sword or a rapier of some sort, while the khopis is a Greek adaptation of the traditional ancient Egyptian khopesh, which was a sickle-shaped blade, and according to some sources, the sharp edge was the inner, not the outer one, meaning that perhaps the khopesh was more like some sort of a military sickle than a saber.

The saber is mentioned here because the khopis was exactly that – a saber of the Antiquity. In DW’s S2, it was one of the weapons of Alexander the Great, put against Attila the Hun’s Sword of Mars, aka a longsword. Just think the Samurais’ nodachi (or katana), put against the Knights’, well, longsword. The difference is still there…and Alexander lost to Attila, but that face-off was one of the worst in DW from the technical point of view, (and that is unusual – usually DW had the technical side of things done completely right), so we will not go into it this time…

And this is it for now – see you all soon!

Reverie, 'Nice Guy' - June 14

On one hand, ‘Reverie’s’ new episode – ‘Nice Guy’ – was aired last night, and let us be honest: the series is growing more complex, but you can still see the AoS’ influence in its roots. ‘Reverie’ is doing its best to get away from them through rapid character growth and plot development, and it does a better job than Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ had. ‘InHumans’ hadn’t been a bad show, just insipid, and had bad PR problems from the start, even during the production stage, as did the current ‘Solo’ movie. ‘Reverie’ does not appear to have so many problems, but so far, it is a new show, untested, not overly popular, and – overly dramatic.

Plus, Sarah Shahi, who plays the main lead as Mara, is developing her own aura of weirdness – in the last episode, (‘Jane Bond’), the titular character, (the woman who was looking for her father and became a spy in the reverie), almost never appeared in the same shot, say – face to face – with Sarah. In this week’s episode, it was the wife of the titular character, Nate the ‘Nice Guy’, who also almost never appeared in the same shot as Sarah. What gives? Does Ms. Shahi not get along with the other women on the set, (something that might have also been true for AoS’ Daisy/Skye – Chloe Bennett), or is it some sort of ‘Reverie’s production gag? We will probably never know.

Also, Ms. Nate, the wife of the titular character, is supposed to be pregnant. She does not look pregnant at all. Yes, this is nitpicking, but Hollywood these days has suits for just such roles – couldn’t ‘Reverie’ get one? Just what kind of a budget are they working with?

…That is actually an interesting question: ‘Reverie’ does have special effects, but in a fairly dosed, controlled amount and so far, it seems to be not relying on them very much. On one hand, this is good; AoS showed that excessive CGI and special effects could be a bad thing, but on the other, given that ‘Reverie’ is not just a mystery drama, but a sci-fi one as well, this approach can backfire still. Again, we will just have to wait and see.

What we have already seen, instead, are the new characters of FH, and we were wrong – they are neither Saracens nor pirates, but rather ancient Chinese warriors, ancient being the time period here, rather than anything else. Do they work? So far, we only got the basics, but yes, they work as well as any of the already established FH characters.

…And who are they, the new characters? Undoubtedly, FH and Ubisoft™ will tell us more in the days for come, but even now, we know quite a few things from all the released material. There is the swordsman, the man with the falchion/saber. He is reminiscent of an assassin from the ‘Assassin’s Creed series, (also from Ubisoft™), done in an eastern/oriental style rather than the traditional one, and it works. Of course, the Assassin series also work, but they are a somewhat different game series from FH, so let us not compare the two – it’s like apples and oranges.

Second, is the monk with the quarterstaff. He is the Shaolin monk, so yes, he is a direct relative of the Shaolin monk from DW S1, and that deserves a mention of its own, for while the Shaolin monk did defeat his opponent, the Maori warrior, this victory was lopsided and weird, in a bad manner: the Shaolin won because his tiger-hook swords were superior to the Maori’s spear; this was the only Shaolin weapon that had the advantage, and it was a big one! Maybe even too big – in tests, the swords were not that overwhelming compared to the spear. As a result, when DW did the episode follow-up, as it always did, none from team Maori were there; it is unknown just what went behind the scenes during the making of this episode, but something certainly did.

Back to FH? The third member of team China uses these swords – she is probably the team’s assassin – and the last character uses a spear that is more like Nobushi’s naginata, rather than Valkyrie’s spear – a longer weapon that needs two arms to wield with a tip more designed for slicing than stabbing – so for now let’s call it a glaive to differentiate from the other weapons with reach.

This brings us to the rest of the differences. All of team China’s members have no masks, but open faces – something that only a few other characters have – Highlander and Shaman of the Vikings, and the Aramusha of the Samurai. This already sets the Chinese warriors apart from the rest, and as for the rest… FH has released, or is going to release, a new scenario – breaching the castle – and Warden of the Knights, at least, got a new look, one that’s rather reminiscent of Tolkien’s Sauron. What gives? Then again, FH is as much about the looks as it is about the content, so there must be some logical reason behind their decisions…

Well, that is it for the moment; see you all soon again!

For Honor: new characters - June 9

Warnings, spoilers ahead. Turn back, or go forth – we begin.

Firstly. FH has made a new declaration/promo – we see some Knights, (and maybe Vikings), in some Middle East land, complete with palm trees, and one of the Knights is about to be hit in the face with – a falchion. Not a nodachi, which is a sabre-like blade itself, but a genuine falchion, and the hand that holds it, seems to be dressed in some sort of Middle East fashion too. Neat!

…Or maybe it is a pirate – you know, XVII century pirate, armed with a cutlass. In DW, the pirate was the knight’s opponent, and the knight was armed with the weapons used by the team Knight of FH – the sword, the Morningstar, (in FH, it is called the flail instead), the halberd, (the poleaxe in FH, but the principle is the same). Ergo, it is possible that we are going to get pirates out of the PotC franchise, but that would mean official firearms – black powder weapons, but so far, FH did not have even those, so most people think that FH is introducing Saracens, or maybe Mamluks, next instead.

That makes more sense than PotC-like pirates do. Not only we are talking no firearms, (no more so than the Knights, who are out of the Crusade/pre-Crusade era than from a later time), but it would take care of the South neatly too. The Knights are the West, (Europe, that is), Vikings are the North, (just ask Thor from MCU), and the Samurais are the East, (duh). This leaves the South, and whom can you choose?

Africans, (not Afro-Americans, BTW)? In DW, in S2, the Zande warrior defeated the Aztec jaguar knight, even though the Jaguar knight had the deadliest weapon in that episode – the maquahuitl. Bet that you cannot say that word three times fast, but it was a greatclub, studded with razor-sharp flakes of obsidian, and it could decapitate a horse, yet the Zande warrior prevailed still – his other weapons carried him through, especially the kpinga, (one wonders what the Black Panther would think of that), points-wise. As it was written before, DW had a problem with its numbers/experts in some of its’ episodes, but in this one? Everything was fair, the experts were detached and reasonable, and the Zande warrior won. Only… he had no armor, and in S1, when Shaka Zulu went against William Wallace, he lost.

True, Shaka Zulu lost because he used a spit of poison against William Wallace’s spiked buckler and dagger combo, but the lack of armor did not help either, (DW S1 had been weird like this). FH has its characters all armored… the Gladiator has no armor, but as we’ve discussed it in the past, a gladiator was no knight, he was a pit fighter from the Roman Republic & Empire, which was located in southern Europe… right. Southern Europe is still Europe, and strictly speaking, south is either Africa, and the using of its’ native people by Westerners can become a PR nightmare very quickly, or the Mesoamerica, which brings us back to the Aztec jaguar knight – it was this guy and his friends. They were armored, but their armor was padded cotton mostly, so it just is not up to the standards of the armors used in FH, and they are important – just look at all the weekly FH updates and their pretty colors, would you?..

Nope, neither Africans nor Mesoamericans really function in the FH world, so we are probably stuck with Saracens, Mamluks, or whatever FH will call them. Maybe they will be Pirates instead, but it is too much of a stretch, actually. Anything else?

Couple of other points. One is that ‘Solo’ shows that Disney has maneuvered the SW universe, (at least its’ movies) into an area not unlike the one inhabited by such TV shows as ‘Roseanne’, ‘Gilmore Girls’, even ‘Fuller House’ and ‘Girl Meets World’ – they tried to coast into new glory on the back of the old, and it backfired on them; ‘Fuller House’ seems to have gotten over it somewhat, ‘Girl Meets World’ has ended on a higher note, ‘Roseanne’ – let us just not go there, and ‘Gilmore Girls’… not so much. ASP, who invented them in the first place, may not be a supporter of the Donald, but she clearly had ideas of how GG should end, and it showed in their four-part reboot, which did not quite mesh with the series’ initial finale, and it hurt the GG franchise. Not as much as Roseanne’s twit (or whatever) hurt the ‘Roseanne’ franchise, but it still rankled to a point where no next sequel is in plan for them. Will SW end up like this? We have discussed this already and will have to see what happens after ‘Solo’…

And secondly, in ‘Cloak & Dagger’ we’ve got the detective Brigid O’Reilly, and it matters not that she’s yet another stereotype, (even ‘Blindspot’ got over them in S3, regardless of its own problems), but she seems to be destined to become a vigilante from ‘Cloak & Dagger’ comic series named Mayhem. Considering that for now Marvel™ is downplaying the comic side of the ‘Cloak &Dagger’ equation, this statement might be somewhat premature to tell, we will have to wait and see what the future episodes of this series will bring us…

This is it for now…see you all soon!

PS: And ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ movie will be discussed some other time.

Rampage II - Feb 14

And so, I got a look at the second ‘Rampage’ movie trailer. And?

And it is still a crazy mess, with a giant gorilla, and equally giant crocodile/alligator/monitor lizard, and a giant wolf makes it an even three. But now, there is also a newer development that had become obvious only now: this is a kaiju movie rip-off!

…Or an imitation clone, fair enough, but still. In the last few years, the ‘shared kaiju universe’, (or whatever it is properly called), is centered around both King Kong and Godzilla, as well, as their upcoming conflicts, both with each other and King Ghidorah, another giant monster, (a giant three-headed variant dragon from space). Ergo, now we have ‘Rampage’, which has a giant gorilla to substitute for KK, a giant reptile to substitute for Godzilla, (and the second trailer shows that this duo will fight), and a giant wolf because… he was in the original video game? (I believe that the wolf’s name in the game was Ralph, so it is a ‘he’). Not the best reason to star in a movie, but there were worse ones, so there’s that. Anything else?

The thing is that as far as movies go, ‘Rampage’ seems to be simply lazy. When the aborted ‘Dark Universe’ spawned the new version of the ‘Mummy’ movie it did precisely that – yet another reboot of the franchise, at least in part because the trilogy about Nick, Evie and their family became clearly exhausted by the time of the third movie, (dealing with a crazy-evil resurrected ancient Chinese emperor for a change), so something new had to be done – and it was done, and the last ‘Mummy’ movie version also featured a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, so it did try to be different; it just wasn’t very good at it, it seems – but it tried to be original, (to a point, because by now the ‘Mummy’ is a classic for an obvious reason – everyone knows what it is about), and if it didn’t work, it still tried. 

‘Rampage’ on the other hand, currently seems to be shaping into a ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie – before the actual ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie gets aired. …Oh wait, this movie was made and aired in the 1960s, so this version of the kaiju universe is just another reboot. What a surprise! Not.

On a more serious note, the ‘Mummy’ reboot was exactly that – a mix of the time-tested and original and it has failed. It happens. By contrast, ‘Rampage’ is an imitation of a ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ kaiju movie in the trappings of a 1980s/90s game, which consisted of monsters smashing buildings… period. Not very highbrow, and even an imitation of a kaiju movie is a step upwards here, though not by much, and ‘the Rock’ has stolen the trailers, both of them, so far.

He does get around – he was in the ‘Baywatch’ reboot, (not exactly a success either), and he will be in ‘Rampage’, and he was in the ‘Jumanji’ reboot…which, not unlike the ‘Mummy’, was a franchise reboot, trying to package an old story in a new, different package. Here, the franchise succeeded; the new ‘Jumanji’ is not really like the original movie, aside from some basic similarities, of course, so there is that. Yay for it…and it did not try to imitate the original movie either, so there is a lesson to be learned… other than that ‘the Rock’ can make anything look good, especially in a trailer. Is that it?

Yes, although there is a new ‘Warhammer’ game coming forth – ‘Vermintide 2’. We already saw one of the new PCs of the game – the ‘Kerillian’. This is an elf warrior, whose options include a stereotypical elven archer, (and a very good one), an assassin-type rogue, armed with twin swords, reminiscent of FH’s Shaman and a spear-wielding fighter, who is more like FH’s Valkyrie instead. Go FH team Viking, then! The ‘Black Panther’ movie is coming forth this week too, and AWE Me YouTube channel released a new video of ‘Men-At-Arms’, as they made a spear from that franchise. Actually, it too is similar to FH’s Valkyrie’s spear – a weapon that is designed for stabbing, rather than slicing. Go FH team Viking times too! In addition, of course, the conclusion to ‘Fifty Shades’ movie trilogy will be released this week… and odds are not in its’ favor.

…Well, this is it for now; see you all later!

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Past Life' - Feb 3

AoS has taken a break for this February, what with the winter Olympics, and the ‘Black Panther’ movie and all. Where did they leave us?

The agents have returned to the present, the Kree seem to be all dead – though we never learned just how many of them there were, exactly – and the last of humans seem to be making a brand/great new world in the same old place…wait, what?

Here is the thing. MCU has been building this AoS episode, ‘Past Life’, to be something special – and then it shot itself in the foot instead. It actually began earlier in the week, when MCU’s news revealed that Dove Cameron will be appearing on the show as a new character – Ruby Hale, daughter of General Hale – who has a big fan girl crush on Daisy/Quake. This means that regardless of what the MCU clip of ‘Past Episode’ tried to play at, it was already shot in the foot – the Marvel fans knew that Chloe Bennett’s character, Daisy/Quake, is staying on the show, thus neutralizing the clip’s ominous atmosphere. Weird and depressing, but that is life. It does not have to be, not for MCU and AoS, but it is.

Fast forward to the ‘Past Life’ episode proper, and we have few things to think over. One is that Coulson chose one of the worse ways of bringing Daisy back to the present – by force. Basically, he took away her choices by ICIng her into unconsciousness and bringing her back into the present literally. Yes, ‘Past Life’ also did its best to show the impromptu family – Phil, Mel, and Daisy…but because Coulson and May’s relationship was all over the map in the show, the scene did not have quite the emotional impact it was going for, plus by now the audience knows that Daisy will forgive Coulson in the wrong run, though it would be nice if she made Coulson apologize, even if just for a tiny little scene.

While Coulson and May rescued Daisy by completely overriding, if not disregarding, her opinions as a person (and etc.), Yo-Yo had an adventure of her own: she found her alternate self. Few episodes ago, the audience learned as to what has happened to the agents in the original timeline; Yo-Yo, in particular, went to fight the Kree, (with one of their stabbing spears), and was never seen again. Now we learn as to what has happened to her: the Kree overpowered her, kept her prisoner, and tortured/forced her to tell them things from the past – and this was done several times already.

To elaborate. What the agents are caught is not exactly a time loop, more like a time horseshoe, with Robin in the centre. Thanks to Robin and Enoch, (and how did team Enoch have a workable Kree Monolith ready to apprehend Coulson and his team except for Fitz?), the agents get to travel to the future twice – once with the Monolith back, twice as ordinary people – by going directly through the time stream, facing the future as it becomes the present, and later on – the past. …I am sure that the FitzSimmons could have explained it zillion times better and clearer, but they are not here. They are fiction. Real life sucks.

…Getting back from the philosophies, what about the action? As Yo-Yo the Younger was leaving Yo-Yo the Elder, she ran into Kasius and a couple of his minions, and…was overpowered? On the show, what we saw was this. Mack went into the arena, where he was confronted by the Kree, and saw Kasius killing Yo-Yo – the Elder, as judging by the clothes. Then Kasius drank the berserker bug juice and went to fight Mack, beating the daylight out of him long enough for Jemma to come to the rescue by sticking one of those deafness-causing devices into Kasius’ ear, which disoriented Kasius long enough for Mack to get to his axe-gun and stab Kasius to the death.

That is right. Kasius was stabbed to death with an axe.

Here is the bizarre bit. The axe part of Mack’s weapon is reminiscent of a weapon like the berdiche used by Ivan the Terrible’s people in DW S3, a great-axe in game terms, or if you want to think in FH terms – the Dane-axe used by the Viking Raider. It really is not built for stabbing, Mack should have gone for the good old decapitation instead – or instead of an axe, he crossbred his gun with a bloody halberd – or as FH calls it, the poleaxe, (used by the Lawbringer of the Knights). Unlike the berdiche, the halberd has an axe-blade in the front, a spike on top, and a hook in the middle – a more versatile weapon of the two. It was the only weapon, (not talking about firearms, here), that DW had in all of its’ 3 seasons – the halberd was that good.

….The Kree melee weapon of choice, incidentally, resembles a glaive or even a naginata – a slicing spear, used by the Nobushi of Samurai in FH…but we digress.

And so, Mack won with Jemma’s help – and Yo-Yo immediately ran in to her hero. Again, racial stereotyping, though not very extreme or noticeable. What should be noted is, firstly, this was Mack’s moment to shine, and he did not. In yet another earlier episode, Gryll, (later killed by Flint), made a big point of calling Mack ‘a beast’, and Yo-Yo made an equally big point of telling Mack that he wasn’t. Here, in ‘Past Life’, AoS actually had a perfect opportunity of having Mack struggle with those two views of himself and reconcile this inner controversy of his, and triumph, at least morally, by being a better person than Kasius was – and that never happened. Instead, we had a completely unnecessary fight…and some shifty behavior from Yo-Yo. (Yo-Yos?) Seriously, she is a better fighter than Jemma is, (no offence to Jemma), maybe even than Mack, but…she did not help. Why?

Yes, there were Kree with Kasius, but Mack gunned them down rather easily – AoS never got to flesh out the Kree fully during the time that the agents were in that dystopian future, so there was no reason as to why Yo-Yo could not help, but she did not. Another plot hole? Or a sign of another plot twist to come?

And finally – just what will happen to the humanity now that the Kree are dead and the agents have left back for their own time? Yes, they won their freedom, and are now free to live…exactly how they did before, on a desolate planet, in a lighthouse, with xenomorphs that not even the Kree could properly and fully control…yeah. Not the fairy tale ending you expected to have, (and why did Tess and Flint end up together? So that AoS could have a ‘proper’ interracial relationship, no matter how token, at last? Cloak & Dagger are so impressed!) Frankly, you could’ve had a final 5^th season with the agents staying in the future and becoming a part of a new hope, (yes, there were some SW associations, the way that Deke and Enoch perished was reminiscent of the ‘Rogue One’ movie, for example), but instead…we’re going to get something else.

And why this season may be the last? Because Coulson is dying, apparently, and now that he has a limited time left to live, he got to wrap some things up, yeah? And Daisy may yet end up the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. – a new S.H.I.E.L.D. since the old one is gone for good.

…Unless, of course, what Coulson is actually dying off is old age, and he still got several decades left in him instead – he just has not figured it out yet. Either way, ‘Past Life’ was good, but it could have been great, if not for some RL factors. See you all soon, then!

Runaways: Destiny - Nov 30

The third episode of ‘Runaways’ got aired (on TV and otherwise), and what can be said about it?

Deviations from the comics abound, and if this is how things will keep going, then we can safely speak about a separate universe from the ‘Runaways’ comic-verse. The TV/web-TV series continues to loosely follow the main comic plotline, but are continuing to create something that is more original than otherwise.

Again, is that bad? As it was already commented in the review of the first two episodes, by now MCU has developed and implemented several strategies when it comes to canon vs. original content in its’ TV shows. AoS is original, period: it does introduce canon characters, (as do the MCU movies proper) but in new, original ways; the show’s plotline in the end is its own. This is a good thing, but AoS does not have too good a grip on it, and so its’ numbers have fallen – the viewers, the ratings, etc. This is AoS’ fault; AC had something similar during its run, but it managed to do so more coherently than AoS did…but it was the one show that got cancelled. Go figure.

Conversely, ‘Gifted’, (as well as ‘Legion’, probably) has some canonical characters (at least), but it is set in a completely original, different setting…basically, the same thing that AoS, (and AC – even more so) did, just in ways that still keep the audience enthralled; fast pace of the series, and the intense conflict that is the main plot-driving device helps. ‘Runaways’ doesn’t have it, period.

No, ‘Runaways’ aren’t a ‘teenage soap opera’ according to some reviews, at least. That will probably be more of ‘Cloak & Dagger’ thing – that show comes to Hulu in 2018, next year. It will feature two teenage superheroes, the titular Cloak and Dagger – an Afro-American young man who has a cloak of shadows and an Anglo-American woman who generates daggers of light. Together, they fight crime…and even in canon, there was some soap opera/drama elements to their tale; what will Hulu do to their story remains to be seen. But ‘Runaways’? They are a soap operate, just not a teenage one – a family one: the parents have as much drama as their children do, if not more.

Now this probably reminds one of ‘Riverdale’ the TV series, only ‘Riverdale’ is based on ‘Archies’ comic series, and unlike Marvel™ or DC™ ‘Archies’ never had any specific canon; their comics were, or are, mostly one-shots that weren’t really connected to each other, plot-wise. These days, this situation has changed, to some extent, but still, ‘Archies’ don’t keep all of their eggs in one basket; i.e., ‘Riverdale’ is only a part of their franchise, and a distinct one – but we got sidelined.

Unlike the other shows mentioned so far, ‘Runaways’ it trying to be both – remain true to the original plotline of the comics, and be original. The result is unusual – a mixture of sorts, but is it ‘the best of both worlds’?

…It is always possible to sit on both chairs for a while, but only for a while. Then we enter the FH territory, with its’ Shaman, who is armed not so much with a hatchet and a dagger, but rather with a hatchet, (or a hand-axe), and a kukri. The latter is something intermediate between a proper dagger and a short sword, a weapon that can not just stab, but also slice – it was featured in the penultimate DW episode, as a Gurkha weapon, when the latter went against the French Foreign Legion (FFL). WWII settings aside, that was a good DW episode, but the point is that the kukri is decisively not a Viking weapon, so how does it fit into the FH universe?

…And the same can be said about the Centurion and the Gladiator of the FH’s Knights’ faction, as it was discussed earlier: FH has clearly strained into the outer margins of its initial idea – knights vs. Vikings vs. samurai. They now have to go back to what they had, or abandon the old entirely, and go for the new. Since so far their main updates are various suits and armor designs, (for example, the Vikings now have an owl motif named the ‘night raptor’ or something similar), they will probably do neither, but end up worse, (respectively) than AoS has had by the end of S4 – and ‘Runaways’ are going down the same route as FH has had: sooner or later they will have to turn back to the old plot, or go somewhere entirely new, (but then they won’t be ‘Runaways’ anymore, technically speaking), or continue to straddle the line, eventually failing on both sides – but many seasons can pass before this actually happens, and in the meanwhile? We will be watching.

Well, that is it for today; see you next time!

For Honor: Aramusha and Knight - Nov 9

FH has finally released its latest heroes, the Aramusha and the Shaman, fully. What can be said about them?

As we have talked about them the last time, the ‘Aramusha’ means a fierce warrior, which is a fairly basic description, when you think about it: which warrior, especially in FH, isn’t fierce? Today, however, we heard the full promo – and now we know that for FH the Aramusha is a ronin, aka a masterless samurai.

To elaborate, in RL history samurais were knights of ancient and Medieval Japan, serving a noble lord – in theory. In practice, most of them ended up unemployed for a part of their lives at least, and were named ronin – masterless. Such masterless or unemployed samurai wandered the lands of Japan, ready to work for anyone for money or food and board, doing anything…but usually something military, because the samurai were the professional military class of the feudal Japan, just as the knights were of the feudal Europe.

So far so good, but if the European kings, emperors, lords and popes usually sent their knights, (especially the poorer ones) to fight abroad, especially in the Crusades in the Middle East and in similar undertakings in eastern Europe, keeping them under control, and their numbers down, their Japanese counterparts…didn’t, and as a result feudal Japan had plenty of professional warriors in its lands that were ready, eager and/or desperate to join in any civil mischief/uprising and make it worse/more intense, because professional warriors, remember? Consequently, feudal Japan was much more tempestuous and unpredictable than feudal Europe was…for a time. Then it all changed…and it can be noted that the European system of dealing with unruly and sometimes landless knights didn’t always work – from the Middle East came the Templars – yes, those Templars, which caused a lot of trouble in western Europe…and might’ve become the Illuminati…but we’re going conspiracy theory here, which isn’t good or healthy.

And in eastern Europe? The knights failed there too, though perhaps not as spectacularly, and vanished without a trace from history again. At least the samurai left a spiritual legacy to their descendants, which has caused no end of trouble for the Sino-American relationships in WWII and beyond – the two countries do not always get along, no matter what both of them would say…

However, this is RL. What about FH?

In FH, the question here is why the ronin is called an Aramusha instead? A rose by any other name and all that – but before get into it, let us talk about the Shaman also.

…As it was said before, the Shaman may be a part of the Viking faction, but in FH, s/he is also a Native North American stereotype, and the weapons do not disavow this motion either. The Aramusha is armed with two katanas – the Japanese version of the longsword that requires just one arm to wield, unlike the nodachi or the claymore, for comparison, which require two. This puts the Aramusha right next the Orochi, who, admittedly, uses only one katana, a fact that is so convincing to players, undoubtedly.

…And on the other hand, we got the Shaman, who is armed with a dagger and a hatchet/hand-ax, more similar, especially in size, to the ones used by the Berserker than the Dane-ax used by the Raider. This is not the worst idea the game designers could have come-up with, but-

Why a Shaman? A Shaman is a religious person, a priestess or a priest, in a non-European tradition, (especially of Native Americans and Asians). So how exactly did the Shaman in question become a ‘Viking assassin class’? Leaving aside the fact that contemporary Native Americans tend to view this sort of their depiction with dissatisfaction and are able to protect their legal rights quite well, where exactly, in what imaginary depths, did a ‘Viking assassin’ become associated with a Shaman?

Here is the thing – imagination, especially when it comes to mass media – online games, TV series, movies, etc., can be tricky. Just look at the ‘Dark Universe’ – it was supposed to be some sort of a response to MCU & DCEU, but with movie monsters, (including Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman). Sadly, after the first movie, (yet another ‘Mummy’ reboot), this idea half-stalled and recently has fallen apart completely. There will be other monster movies, (a ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ reboot is in the works), but they will not be a part of a shared universe, that is shelved, for now. Minus one for imagination, here.

Or take the upcoming SW8 film. The previous, SW7, was already rather lackluster by SW standards, ‘Rogue 1’ was the better film out of the two, but the point is, SW8 will be introducing yet another ‘new’ character, Rose Tico, as a possible love interest for Finn.

Here is the thing – Rose is Asian, Finn is Afro-American, whereas Rey and Kylo Ren are WASPS – and the last two are supposed to be/become a couple. Unfortunately, as far as many people are concerned, Kylo and Rey showed zero romantic interest in each other, (though plenty of the other sort), while Rey and Finn had plenty of romantic interest between each other. The problem is, Rey is the female lead, while Finn is a sidekick, plus there is the entire racial issue.

To clarify: the racial issue exists in Hollywood, whose inhabitants ruminate on it long and hard, about as much as politicians from D.C. do. In real life, there is no issue, aside from what some morons make about it. One of them may have become the current president of the U.S., but so far, there is no indication that even that character is actually racist, because if he was, the press would have ferreted it out by now – but no, he is just an overly horrid person, it seems. However, SW has nothing with RL, (duh!), so there are issues; there is already an Afro-American actor playing a role of importance, (does anyone remember Lando Calrissian, anyone?), so let us give him an Asian-American love interest as well.

The problem here is not just racial, it is the cliché – in movies and on TV WASPs tend to get paired-up with other WASPs, and POCs – also with each other. When there is an exception to the rule, such as on ‘Remedy’ as an example, they do not always last, (the couple on ‘Remedy’ broke up by the end of S2, and the show itself got cancelled not long after). Basically, when it comes to relationships, Hollywood and co. (‘Remedy’ was a Canadian show, actually), are clichéd and unimaginative – kind of how the FH creative team was with the Shaman. With the Aramusha, they might have gotten ‘too clever’ instead, and unnecessarily so: when push comes to shove, ‘Ronin’ can be as good as a label as ‘Orochi’ is, for example.

Moreover, as for the weapons… The Aramusha has the same katana(s) as the Orochi does – this is the first time FH repeated a weapon; it might be a landmark but not a good one – and the Shaman’s weapons are a part of the character’s image problem, which was discussed earlier…

So, there you have it: a ronin by unnecessarily different name, a Native American/Asian mystic that has even less ties to Vikings than a Centurion and a Gladiator have to the Knights, and a possible creativity problem in FH in general. See you all next time!

For Honor: Order and Havoc - Nov 2

It came to pass, that FH is going to have yet another update/season – its’ fourth so far. Yay?

Well, its’ problems haven’t gone away – but I’m not talking about the technical issues or about the matters with its’ story line: I want to talk some about the latest two new characters that will be appearing in the FH universe – the Aramusha and the Shaman.

First, the Aramusha. It is a part of team Samurai, and…I have no idea of what it means. No, actually, I do – it means ‘fierce warrior’ in Japanese, and is a more generic term than a ‘kensai’ or a ‘shinobi’ would be. Ergo, this means that the Aramusha is designed (was designed?) with a more generic, basic standard in mind than the Highlander or the Gladiator were; it is a much more generic and fundamental stereotype, and that makes it had to like him, because of that. Again, how you will be able to play him is another matter, but so far, the Aramusha does come across less exciting than the Highlander was, for example.

And as for the Shaman…look. A shaman is a religious figure, not exactly a priest, or rather – yes, s/he is a holy person, but specifically in a non-European tradition, which includes the Vikings – the European traditions, I mean. A Viking Shaman…it can work, but not necessarily, and as J. R.’s foray into Native American culture in order to further fuel her new works – aka Newt Scamander and the pre-Harry Potter era – showed that Native North Americans, at least, are on alert when it comes to their interests, however remotely, and as such, if FH isn’t careful, it can be accused of being racist, or racially insensitive, or something similar that it doesn’t need, either. And moreover…

Moreover, this shows that FH continues to have issues with creativity. Its’ storytelling mode was one of its’ weakest points from the start, and ever since this issue did not get better, but probably worse. Even the Centurion, ‘back when’, showed signs that the FH creative teams had issues in expressing as to what the game sought to achieve initially; now we have yet another character in the Vikings, which, historically, had nothing to do with the Vikings, and another character in the Samurais that is so generic, that it is the same problem as the one with the Vikings & the Shaman, just from the opposite side…

End rant for now, more on this when more details on the Aramusha and the Shaman will become known… Until next time!

For Honor - Gladiator & Highlander

It happened that Ubisoft and co. have finally released the promo videos for Gladiator and Highlander, and etc. Yay! But what can be said about them?

The Gladiator, as I might have mentioned in the past, is armed with a trident and a small shield – I believe that it is a buckler, rather than a net. This makes FH’s Gladiator their own creation, (sort of), rather than a take-away copy of one of RL gladiators, such as the Retiarius, (armed with a trident and a net), or the Murmillo, (armed with a shield and a short, stabbing sword). And? It is no big deal.

Let me elaborate. Ever since ‘For Honor’ became available, I had a strong suspicion that it’d been influenced, no matter how bigly or smally, by ‘Deadliest Warrior’, both the TV series and the video game that it tried to sell as part of its’ franchise. The former was discussed repeatedly in the past; the latter was one of those one-on-one combat games, where people could play a pirate, a knight, a Roman centurion, a Spartan warrior, etc., fighting each other: this was it. Even ‘For Honor’, for all of its flaws, was more advanced, from the start.

Now, the Gladiator, (and we are talking about DW the TV show here, not the game), was one of the very first two characters introduced by DW. He fought the Apache in the opening episode of the series, and lost. That is not surprising; the Gladiator’s weapons were more ceremonial, while the Apache’s were more practical, but what matters to us here was that DW too had ignored all of those little RL distinctions of the gladiatorial combat, and rather made ‘their’ Gladiator out of everything, and the kitchen sink besides. No style, no strategy, and he still lost. This does, and did, raise questions about the integrity of DW’s rating system…but I discussed this before, and it is not the point. The point is that FH’s Gladiator is built along the same lines as DW’s was, and it works. Hell, in their promo ‘For Honor’ admitted that ‘their’ Gladiators were newcomers to the battlefield, and that it was up to the players to decide just how well the Gladiators will perform.

And the trident itself? Yes, it is more of a ritualistic weapon than a practical one, but ‘For Honor’ is an online game, so such discussions are moot. Except that ‘For Honor’ itself brings it up with Highlander’s claymore sword.

In RL, the claymore was one of the two-handed swords that were invented in Europe; in fantasy terms, GoT’s Ned Stark’s sword Ice was a claymore, or a two-handed sword, or a greatsword – pick your term or make your own, okay? Yes, it makes sense for Highlander’s claymore to be bigger, more massive and more powerful than the Warden’s longsword, because this was how it was in RL, (most of the GoT’s swords, again, can be used by one hand, as opposed to Ice, which was actually re-smithed into two swords in the original novels, but this is another discussion completely, let’s talk GoT another time). Again, since ‘For Honor’ is an online game it is kind of pointless to explain that the claymore is the biggest and baddest sword in the game, because it is all imaginary, (by online games’ standards, anyhow). What are we discussing here, after all? Damage to the hit points of the other PCs?

As for the Highlander himself, I cannot shake away the feeling that he was based, (however partially) on DW’s version of Sir Wallace, also known as Braveheart, when Mel Gibson had played him. (The AWE Me YouTube channel has made a replica claymore from that movie as well, BTW). In DW, Wallace faced against Shaka Zulu, and won…because DW’s cast and crew included – in Zulu’s warchest – a ‘spit of poison’, just as they did with the ninja, (both were DW S1 episodes). Naturally, poison won Zulu no points, and Sir Wallace won by default, if you want to be technical – but yes, his claymore was still cool.

And yes, once again, FH’s crew admit – in the promo video (for the Highlander, here), that the Highlander was not exactly a part of the ‘original’ team Viking; he and his fellows were drawn-in by the war (the original war from S1, maybe?), and now are making their mark on the world….and that, perhaps, brings up to the next topic: there’s bad blood.

There is bad blood between Ubisoft and the players, and there is bad blood between the players themselves. They are divided, and this cannot be good for ‘For Honor’, especially since Ubisoft does not exactly need it, it has other irons in the fire, you know? So far, ‘For Honor’ may not be as wonderful as ‘Injustice 2’ is, for example, but it is still a good game to play. Let us try not to ruin it for ourselves and everyone else.

This is it for this time; see you in the future, soon!