What If, 'Dead Avengers' - August 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks, so let us talk about something else here – the third episode of ‘What if?’ maybe?

Well, yes, but also no, seeing how the first trailer for the upcoming ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ movie has dropped yesterday, and we will be talking about it too. Then, Where to begin?

We begin with the admittance that SM: NWH film will be having a strong moralizing plotline as well as anything else: in the comics, Spider-Man’s identity as Peter Parker was revealed from time to time to the general populace, but it would disappear eventually – because Spidey would make an especially dumb deal with Mephisto, or something else that. Here, in the trailer, we seem to have Peter do something similar with Doctor Strange…until he began to have second thoughts, and the good doctor screwed-up the spell most magnificently. Now what?

Well, the trailer only reveals that Peter is going to be end-up dealing with many villains in a single movie – maybe it is even an MCU version of the Sinister Six; who knows? That particular villain team has a rather flexible roster, so why not what we have seen in the trailer after all? However, where is the moralizing element?

Why, it is right there: Peter’s in the pickle because he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He does not want to be revealed as the infamous Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but he wants his friends to know it regardless; he is trying to sit on two chairs at once, and even with his fantastic sense of balance and other spider-skills, that will not work. Not for long, anyways, and as the trailer shows, the Sinister Six are coming to end this – and him after all.

Moreover, Dr. Strange is right there with him, since he cast the spell even though Wong warned him not to. Yes, Wong was just doing his part, seeing how he was actually going to challenge the Abomination to 10 rounds of good old-fashioned fisticuffs, but still, Dr. Strange is an adult here, he should know better – and he does. He certainly treats Peter in the trailer in a similar manner as to how the Ancient One, (Tilda Swinton version), has treated him in his first film, so there is that.

…Yes, continuity here is wonky; ‘here’ I mean between the previous film, (the one featuring Mysterio, duh), and this one, but that is to be expected: on one hand, there are the RL issues, such as the fight between Disney/MCU and Sony after the second Spider-Man movie ended, and on the other? So far MCU’s entire Phase 4 had been about deconstruction: the Avengers have disassembled after the events in ‘Endgame’ and they have experienced many different personal changes – just ask Wanda. Ergo, there is no surprise that Peter’s experiences and adventures after his aborted European tour have taken-off in an entirely new direction – and this brings us to ‘What if?’, which is all about storylines taken off in new directions. In this week’s episode, for example, Stark, Thor, Banner/Hulk and Hawkeye died, killed by a Yellowjacket version of Hank Pym, because his daughter Hope used to be an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in this universe and had died on one mission, so he is now having his revenge. Groovy, right? …And also, just as out of the left field as T’Challa being the Star-Lord is. The series’ premiere – Peggy Carter becoming the world’s first super-soldier - was actually tame by the series’ standards, apparently. What is left?

…Not unlike the ‘proper’ episodes of ‘What if?’ the third Tom Holland Spider-Man film is about a ‘typical’ MCU hero – namely, the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man – who finds himself in a new, ‘atypical’ situation that wasn’t covered by his past experiences. He is existing – or is going to be existing, rather – in a brand-new scenario, in a different part of a Marvel multiverse, with Dr. Strange going along for the ride in a Doc and Marty McFly scenario, from the ‘Back to the Future’ franchise. Yes, I know that the current ‘Rick and Morty’ cartoons are a more recent example, but frankly, if I can use a more likable and sane example, then that is the one I am going to use. Where were we?

…By destroying ‘the sacred timeline’, Loki and Sylvie found themselves not just in a mess – in a several messes. One mess is the emergence of a new Kang, one that is more competent and coherent than the old, late, He Who Remains. Now Loki and Sylvie are going to defeat him, a task that will be even harder than the victory over the He-Who – but that is up to them. What is not up to them, apparently, are all of those alternate timelines, like the three that we’ve seen already on ‘What If?’, that would’ve been erased by the TVA pre-‘Loki’, but now are getting a chance to flourish – hurrah. The T’Challa one was a positive example; the Hank Pym going mass murderer is a negative one. Where will the MCU take us all tomorrow (next week)? That is only for them to know.

…And in real life, of course, Disney/MCU might have shot themselves in the foot with their new approach, of course. Having a ‘sacred timeline’ meant that there was at least some standard by which to measure the new timelines as well as an anchor point to which to return to. But now that the ‘sacred timeline’ is gone, everything and everyone is up for grabs, which means that no one and nothing is safe, just as this week’s episode of ‘What If?’ has demonstrated.

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

The Chair - August 23

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about… ‘The Chair’ for a change; the change here is that it is not a Marvel show, and so I doubt that it will take us long to talk about it either.

Is ‘The Chair’ any good? Frankly, to me, it was reminiscent of the ‘Over the Moon’ movie, and not just because Ms. Sandra Oh was featured in both productions: in ‘The Chair’, she is the main character, and in ‘Over the Moon’, she is the stepmother (to be) of the main character instead. No, the similarity here is that both works are well-done, solid, fun to watch, and – instantly forgettable.

No, this isn’t Ms. Oh’s fault; in ‘Over the Moon’, her role is episodic, more or less, while in ‘The Chair’… in ‘The Chair’ her character is depicted, (by her), not unlike her character in ‘Killing Eve’ – a harried Asian or Asian-American woman; I cannot help but feel that that is Ms. Oh’s default character setting, or at least – her best one; when she deviates from it – say, in ‘The Chair’, it just isn’t the same.

…To elaborate, ‘The Chair’ is not bad, it just cannot decide if it wants to be a comedy, a drama, or something else entirely. Yes, it tackles serious issues…that it undercuts with various comedic moments – from example, Ms. Oh’s character falling off her chair, (visual pun intended, no doubt). Ha-ha, hilarious, and it rather undercuts the show’s main message of racial, sexual, and age equality.

It is also reminiscent of the upcoming ‘Cinderella’ movie, the Camilla Cabello movie, one where Cinderella’s dream is not to marry the prince, but to open her own dress shop, for a start. Personally, I think that it has the potential to be a truly good movie, but the humor – seen already in the trailer, for example – is clearly extra here; for example, a mouse turned human claims that he cannot keep his balance without his tail, ha-ha. How funny and completely unconnected to the movie’s main message…but where were we?

…Pretty much where ‘The Chair’ has went: it could have been a serious drama dealing with some serious issues… or it could have been a comedy show, maybe even a rom-com… or it could have been something like ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’, which is a rather touching romantic interracial ‘comedy’ show…notably naïve, but it works… but ‘The Chair’ is none of that; rather, it is a well-delivered mess that is well-loved by the critics. Well, the critics have also loved ‘The Suicide Squad’-2021, and we can see for ourselves that that isn’t enough for the audiences to love it; the same, and more, can be said for the ‘Over the Moon’ Netflix film, which was also panned – a lot – by the critics and the like – and which has also disappeared without a trace into Lethe, the river of Oblivion. ‘The Chair’, it seems, is destined for the same fate; the fact that Netflix tends not to release various clips of its’ shows, movies, and the like doesn’t help either – the promoters often don’t have a lot of material to work with, and people these days are still rather frugal with their monies and may not invest it, as well as their time, into a relative unknown such as ‘The Chair’. That is that.

…And that is also the end of our discussion for ‘The Chair’…at least for its’ 1^st season. This is it for now; see you all soon!

What If, 'T'Challa the Star-Lord' - Aug 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and the U.S.’, (but also NATO’s), actions in the RL Afghanistan showed it to everyone, loud and clear, on August 16, 2021…onwards. I really want to talk about it, but, conversely, many other people have already talked, and are talking, and will be talking about this for a long time from now on, so let us talk about something else – the second episode of ‘What If?’

What happens here, of course, is that Disney/Marvel/MCU are trying to erase J. Gunn’s live-action GotG franchise and replace it with a better one, one that is animated. I am guessing that whatever beef they had with ScarJo in regards to the ‘Black Widow’ movie pales in face of their feud with J. Gunn! What next?

Well, the Western world will need to figure out what to do now that the Taliban, as well as their Pakistan backers and superiors have won a major score – oh, we are talking about ‘What If?’ No…well, yes, but here is where ‘The Suicide Squad’ deserves a special mention.

The new version of the 2016 film is a good movie although it has its flaws, just as the 2016 version had its’ virtues. For example, in 2016, Waller was assembling a team that was supposed to be custom-made, to be precisely tailored to deal with various threats…on behalf of the American government, (cough). Yes, it didn’t go smoothly, not quite to plan, but in the end? The titular characters actually delivered…pretty much as Waller and her cohorts had expected them to be, and maybe even surpassing the expectations, (not that there was too much height to clear). Here, in the 2021 version, the Wall not so much assembled as collected a literally motley crew of bits and pieces that don’t even fit together, and make MCU’s AoS crew seem cohesive – and has the gall to be surprised when the mission literally dissolves into shite.

…No, I am not talking about the massacre on the beach but about how the team Bloodsport did its’ job in the completely opposite direction from where the Wall…assumed that it would go, apparently? Seriously, she collected some of the worst people in the DC-verse and sent them off with minimal oversight – Colonel Rick Flagg and whatever means of keeping an eye on both teams, (drones? Satellite cameras?). The result was that Flagg died and the news about the American government’s involvement with Jotunheim and Starro leaked out all the same – something that Waller wanted to avoid. Peacekeeper was nullified, Blackguard died, and her FBI underlings turned on her, (guess they heard what she did to their predecessors in the first movie). I have no idea as to what agent Waller will do next, but that is not why the movie failed. Rather, it failed because the American audiences had their fill of movie theaters for the moment, plus all of the baggage that was carried over from the first Suicide Squad movie, one that HBO/WB/DC/whoever never managed to quite divorce from the new one…

Back to ‘What If?’ Yeah, sort of. In the first GotG film, we had a ragtag group of characters, literally, who went forth and saved the galaxy. In the second film, they progressed, becoming more competent and more comfortable together. Moreover, in the ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ movies, they did their best to stop Thanos, and stop him they did…with losses along the way, but that was unavoidable.

And now we got the second ‘What If?’ episode that has none of that, but instead we got T’Challa succeeding at practically everything that Peter Quill had struggled with. Maybe that is justifiable, but as we have seen in MCU, both in CA: CW and the first ‘Black Panther’ film, T’Challa has had his own problems so clearly, in his ‘What If?’ episode, (Earth-TRN877), this might be some very alternative T’Challa, (though he and Yondu both were fought to a standstill, cough, by this dimension’s Collector)… Anything else?

The tendency to play it safe as it was depicted in the series’ premiere is running here true too – all of the characters are familiar to us, its’ their roles that change. In the series’ premiere, this was downplayed, sort of, but now and here, in the episode 1x02, it is played-out to the max, in an almost vaudeville-like manner. So, what next?

Sadly, I have no idea, or at least – no concrete idea. I have some theories, but nothing that I want to air for the moment. Therefore, for now, this is it – see you all soon instead.

What If, 'Captain Carter' - August 11

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the series’ premiere of Marvel’s ‘What if?’ Yay?!

…Actually, I got nothing. Nothing new, that is. As we have talked earlier, ‘What if?’ is a rehash of MCU and MCU alone – no X-Men, no Defenders, no outriders, put otherwise. The series’ premiere is a reboot of the CA: TFA film, with a gender role gap – it is not Steve Rogers’ who the titular hero is no, but Peggy Carter, (already known as the star of the ‘Agent Carter’ (AC) series). Surprise?

Well no, not really. The first three phased of MCU had been a carefully choreographed affair, and now that Disney/MCU is writing – essentially – a fanfic version of itself in a cartoon layout, (as opposed to live-action), so far there won’t be too many surprises, and this first episode is the most straightforward of them all: Captain Carter, The First Avenger. Some people were surprised by this plot twist, others were not, but for the moment, Disney/MCU & co. can afford to shoulder the slings and arrows of the hard-wrought fortune (or whatever was that Shakespeare wrote down in our universe), and pull out such pieces as the ‘What if?’ series’ premiere – after all, they aren’t risking anything; WASP women are probably the most powerful social minority after their male counterparts, according to the progressive scale, so Disney/MCU is playing it safe. Again.

The technical side of the situation… yeah, it’s less than perfect, but, again, when it comes to technical issues, that is another situation altogether: technical issues can be resolved, or sidestepped, easily enough, as the remake of Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ showed in regards to the blue Will Smith. Here, it is more of a voice acting issue, and I will not comment on it – that would be a low blow. And what is a high blow?

There is no high blow – Marvel’s ‘What if?’ is beginning with a low bar, one where there aren’t any surprises, something that was shown to the audience in all of the teaser trailers that gave us enough material about the first three episodes at least; plus, there’s the show’s S1 poster that shows us enough material to foresee as to what will happen in that season – and knowledge is half of the intrigue!

Pause. In discussion the ‘Captain Carter’ episode, we have no other path to go but around, in circles, for for the moment, there is nowhere else to go – the journey is only beginning, and we have no idea as to where it will take us. Right now, we have enjoyed watching the first episode, but nothing more; maybe that is what Disney/MCU wants, so who knows?

…For the moment, however, this is it. See you all soon.

Loki, S1 finale - July 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now what about ‘Loki’ S1 finale?

It works. It is clichéd, predictable, and what else have you, but it is delivered well enough, and yes, the final villain…

The final villain, He Who Remains, (or what else have you), is an original character; for once, MCU stopped giving pre-existing names to original characters, as they did in AoS and in ‘Runaways’, (especially the first two seasons); now, they are actually creating their own characters, and-

…And yes, the actor for this role has been a star of the ‘Lovecraft Country’, or whatever the show had been called, is playing – did play – the good ol’ He-Who. I confess that I was never a big fan of LC; Mr. Lovecraft himself had been a controversial person both in life and in death, while his literary creations are something else…and LC played fast and loose with them; for example, shaggoths of the Lovecraft mythos are not variant hellhounds, but are something much more formidable, regardless of what the show would have you believe.

The racial angle of LC…that was something else. There are people on the Internet, especially on YouTube, that accuse Disney, MCU, and etc. of being ‘woke’; LC had been much more so, and not in a good way. When done right, as in Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ films, progressive values can work, and without people even realizing that they’re there; when done wrong, as in the ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’ film, they can backfire spectacularly, and LC, it can be noted, was cancelled, with or without regrets. Cough. Where were we?

Ah yes, the S1 finale episode, FATA. Fata-morgana or the mirage. Sylvie loves Loki – the titular one – but sends him back to TVA…only it is a different TVA or something, so he has to start anew…or maybe it is the same TVA just with something different: when one messes with time and space, some things are just liable to be changed, for better or for worse, yes. What next?

A shout-out to the now finished TV series called ‘Primeval’, done by Impossible Pictures, which themselves were reabsorbed into BBC. Now that is a pity, but what I want to point out here, is that they too – I’m talking once more about ‘Primeval’ here – had a reality change between S1 and S2, a relatively small one, from Claudia to Jenny, but still. It did play a role. Here, in the ‘Loki’ S1 finale, we have something similar with Mobius and B-15. Interesting.

Oh, and judge RR, who is actually a Rebecca something that starts with a T, is not a villain, but has just left TVA for her own journey. How wonderful. A journey can be either a blessing or a curse, as the Flying Dutchman has demonstrated, (the actual legend, not the PoC element), and so did the Wandering Jew, (which is an even older story, and one that is probably not very appropriate for our times, nor is it very politically correct at all). My point here is that Loki – the titular Loki – might end up running all over the multiverse for a very long time, before he can reunite with Sylvie – or else he might lose her, and himself, for good. Only time will tell.

Moreover, yes, the multiverse is here at last. Officially too – huzzah, hooray! Disney & Marvel plan to celebrate it with ‘What If?’, it looks like, but we have already discussed this upcoming show before, and anything else would be nothing else but speculation. The S1 of ‘Loki’ in itself was a mixed bag, and not entirely all good, but it worked long enough for the season to reach its’ conclusion, (not that it had long to go, with just 6 episodes, and this is what it did.

…And yes, I am aware that the official reaction to that fact had been rather lackluster, at least for today, but that is a discussion for another time. For now, though, this is it, see you all soon!

Black Widow - July 12

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Black Widow’ film, which was released last Friday, (July 9, 2021), after about a year’s worth of delay.

The ‘Black Widow’ movie works. The characters are relatable, the plot is understandable, and the visuals are really good. Admittedly, the movie never goes ‘full woke’, but it still works; it is also politically detached, but fewer people are complaining about that.

Let us elaborate. No, ‘Black Widow’ does not go into the subjugation of women by men fully, though girl power is clearly the motto of the movie; male characters are shoved to the sidelines, or are outright evil, as they are in case of general Dreykov.

Again, let me elaborate: ‘Dreykov’, however you want to spell it, is not a Russian surname; Romanova, Belova, Shostakoff, Vostokoff are, however mangled by their adaptation to English. More importantly, while at least some part of the ‘Black Widow’ takes place in Russia, (because ‘Black Widow’, no duh), there’s little of that ‘Russian ethnic flavor’ that you could’ve expected this movie to have; aside from the occasional accent, (done for fun as much as for authenticity), and some throwaway location titles, the action of the ‘Black Widow’ could’ve taken place almost anywhere else, and in fact in part it does – in Budapest, which is a Hungarian city, not a Russian one. That is an important difference, you know!

…Am I griping? Perhaps. The fact is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie is also generic, by MCU standards; there’s the entire gender issue – some of the movie critics are complaining that Disney/MCU didn’t take it far enough, but the thing is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie isn’t controversial, there isn’t anything really controversial about it, that’s a big part of its’ appeal, (that, and the pleasant visual aesthetics), but it is also its’ main flaw – some of the people are upset about everything and anything – real life sucks, remember? – though many more of them would rather watch the ‘Black Widow’ – or any other movie, really – just to escape reality, for however little a time period. I know that I did. What next?

A brief mention of Marvel’s ‘What If?’ series, which arrive on August 2021. Even in the trailers, this series is already a spectacle, but if you dig just a bit deeper, you will recover the same lack of controversy that marks the ‘Black Widow’. There are plenty of Marvel characters that will be appearing in the ‘What If?’ episodes, but none of them belong to AoS, (aside from Brock Rumlow, but he was not a part of AoS at all). Clearly, Marvel is done with S.H.I.E.L.D. …that puts the ‘Black Widow’ in an odd position. Just like WV, ‘Sam & Bucky’, and ‘Loki’, ‘Black Widow’ is a transition story, one where the titular…well, title, passes from Nat onto Yelena, but to complete the circle, Yelena has to become an assassin for… S.H.I.E.L.D. Or an agent, technically speaking, but there is no S.H.I.E.L.D. in MCU anymore. AoS was supposed to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. back to glory after the events in ‘The Winter Soldier’ film, but due to a bunch of RL factors, that never happened.

…Ok, within the game terms it did, but in RL? Once AoS ended, Disney/MCU put S.H.I.E.L.D. under the rug and does not appear to be bringing it back anytime soon; rather, it is S.W.O.R.D. that is trying to fill-in the gap, but judging by how it didn’t appear beyond WV, MCU hasn’t quite worked-out all of its’ kinks with that plotline yet either.

…It would be nice to talk about the flaws of WV, and how that show flourished despite them, but I won’t; getting back to ‘Black Widow’, we got another shot of contessa Val…this time recruiting Yelena…or rather, she has already done that, and is sending her after Hawkeye in the mid-credits series. The story has come full circle, again. Natasha got involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. over Barton the Hawkeye, and Yelena might get involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the (new) Avengers over Hawkeye…either Barton or Kate Bishop, who will star in the upcoming ‘Hawkeye’ series. How will the absence of S.H.I.E.L.D. affect these series, (after all, Barton was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. just as Natasha was), remains to be seen.

And getting back to ‘What If?’, now that we’re talking about the various MCU series once more, the other thing that is noticeable about the (admittedly current) character roster is that there’re no Defenders, or X-Men, or anyone else that wasn’t a part of MCU, (up to Phase 4, anyways). By now Disney & MCU own them, of course, but apparently it isn’t a full ownership or something, and so the duo in question would rather keep them in a drawer somewhere rather than on… small screens and start yet another ruckus – the old one with Sony isn’t all that forgotten, it seems; the world of ‘Venom’ and cohorts stands apart from MCU, as do some other series, for example ‘Helstrom’.

…Here is a shout-out to MCU’s Ghost Rider, whose show died before it was born. Played by Gabriel Luna in AoS, it was supposed to be his first hurrah; instead, MCU’s Ghost Rider joined its’ Deathlok in being a one-hit wonder; at least Grant Ward lasted for three whole seasons… where were we?

…With a very good movie in the character of ‘Black Widow’, (or whatever). It may not be controversial, (even the Taskmaster does not really push the envelope, not yet, anyhow), but it is still fun to watch and easy to enjoy – and that is really what Disney, (MCU or otherwise), is aiming for.

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

Loki, 'Journey into Mystery' - July 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, just ask the poor people in Florida, whose condominium has collapsed, to say nothing of the entire COVID-19 hoopla that is still continuing, and is in its’ 3^rd year by now; before long, I suspect, people will start fighting each other en masse for being pro or contra vaccination, to say nothing of anything going on above the personal level. What next?

Well, ‘Loki’ s1, (or the entire series, actually), has come to its penultimate episode, and just as I have written last week, (or thereabouts), it seems to be continuing the fine tradition of AoS in treating character deaths’… in an inconsistent manner. Agent Mobius is apparently fine and dandy, even though he and Loki have appeared to have parted ways for good on one hand, while the ‘Classical Loki’ is definitely dead, having been eaten by Alioth, which is yet another example of ‘MCU utilizing obscure Marvel trivia to great success’, I’m certain.

Listen – I enjoyed watching the ‘Classical Loki’ prance on screen, I really did, but you have to admit, that as a character who appeared only in last week’s episode’s post-credit scene and who hadn’t lasted for a full week’s episode, I’m just wasn’t invested into him as much as I had into agent M, who’s been with the audience from the show’s start. Not unlike AoS, ‘Loki’ is playing favorites in the question who lives and who dies, and that rather rankles.

On the other hand, Loki and Sylvie have reunited…wait. The duo has been apart for less than one episode…but then again, they were together for about two episodes and a bit, so, again, it is somewhat hard to take their relationship seriously… wait again. Sylvie might be her own character and not a variant Loki? You do not say!

…Before we try to generate some excitement about those two, a brief word about the ‘alligator Loki’, and it is: ‘What?’ Even the professional commenters on the MCU shows (and beyond) were stumped by it, and the closest they could come up with was ‘There was a frog Thor in the comics, why not an alligator Loki?’

Because common sense, I suppose – as a Norse god, Loki does not get associated with crocs or gators very often, (not to mention that the entire Thor/Frog combo was something of a gag originally, I suspect). The pagan god who is associated with crocodiles is the Egyptian god Sobek, who is a part of the Marvel canon, actually, but who hasn’t appeared in MCU so far…this might be his surrogate or something. (Also, was I the only one, who found MCU's Alioth to be depicted rather similarly to the cosmic serpent Apep from the 'Gods of Egypt' film from the early 2010s? I hope that this wasn't intential, because that film was bad, think of Rick Riordan's 'The Kane Chronicles' trilogy written for adults, and quite badly too - but I digress).

Listen again: the show’s title is ‘Loki’, and the show is about Loki, after all – the one that had appeared in MCU movies and etc. from the start. The ‘kid Loki’ is his past. The ‘classical Loki’ had been his future but now Loki is making a new one, with Sylvie, (at least for now). The ‘boastful Loki’ is the opposite of the titular one, hence why they are the most different – physically – from each other. The ‘alligator Loki’ is the outsider, thrown in here for variety, the ‘president Loki’ is the evil – ok, eviller – twin of the titular character, and hence why he must be defeated. I am certain that the psychologists can define all of this ‘headology’ much more professionally than I can, and so they probably will, after the show is over, in various YouTube videos, but that is their call. Is there anything left for us in the ‘Journey into Mystery’?

No, not really. For all of its’ window dressing, ‘Loki’ is a very simple, baseline show, actually – it’s a ‘hero’s journey’ cliché, in which a young man ventures forth, and finds everything that he needs to become a man, including love and a family. Yes, Sylvie can argue that the same can be said about a woman – fair enough. She and Loki have found each other and so Sylvie’s quest against the space god-lizards have progressed much quicker than it had before, so there! …Anything else?

Well, the ‘Black Widow’ film will be officially available tomorrow, so we will discuss it then, or maybe even next week. Marvel’s ‘What If?’ TV series will arrive only in August, so, again, we will have to discuss that then. The last week’s episode of ‘Loki’ was padding, because of the S1’s plot simplicity: if the god of chaos got only a 5-episode S1, it would simply be sad.

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