What If, 'Zombies' - Sep 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MCU once again. This time, we are back with the ‘What if?’ series, and now we got zombies.

Pause. To be more specific, zombies have a long and established career slash history in the Marvel world by now; there’s a separate comic world inhabited by the zombiefied Marvel heroes and villains, but, again, this is a separate world from the mainstream comic one – and the same can be said about the MCU take on it. Uatu the Watcher shows us different worlds from the main MCU one, and this one just happens to be infected with zombies. Fun.

Again, pre-‘Loki’, the TVA would’ve appeared in such a world and tried to fix it, at least, lest things get as bad as they did in this week’s episode when the world got nearly overrun by zombies – or maybe it actually did.

To elaborate, again, the zombies in Marvel™ are much more than just shuffling mindless corpses: at the very least, they have bestial cunning as well as reflexes, and at worst, they’re as intelligent as they were in life – and much more ruthless, usually. …In D&D, there is a monster called a ghoul or a ghast, which is based on a monster from the Arabic mythology, a ghoul or a ghul, which is something intermediate between a basic zombie and a basic vampire: it has intelligence, just as the latter does, and is much quicker and tougher than a zombie is, but otherwise? It looks more like an animated corpse, or a zombie, than a vampire, who often comes across as suave and sophisticated… at least at first. Once the fangs are out, it is all different, but still… Where were we?

Right, this week’s episode of ‘What if?’. It obviously draws upon the previous Marvel Zombies’ incarnations, though it also tries to be original by making its’ cast go all over the places and phases; there’s a non-evil (supposedly) Sharon Carter in the mix, for example, but, again, all of this mix and match comes from the Avengers’ corner of the Marvel universe; there’s no sign of mutants or of the Defenders, off the top of one’s head. There are no agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. either; Coulson’s appearance in the episode 1x03 was more of a cameo than of anything more specific; what next?

A shout-out back to ‘Shang-Chi’ in regards to mix and match in regards to the racial question: Disney/MCU appears to try to have their cake and to eat it too: in AoS, they played around with interracial relationships, (Coulson and May as the most obvious example), but somehow nothing corporeal came out of it; the best was WASP and WASP, (think the FitzSimmons), and POC and POC, (Mack and Yo-Yo). In the ‘Defenders’ franchise, there were almost no interracial relationships: WASP Jessica was with the WASP Murdoch, while Mack – who was a POC – was with a different one: progressive indeed! Is this early 21^st century or the 20^th? …Of course, the ‘Defenders’ franchise also had the ‘Iron Fist’, whose main relationship was an interracial one, but it was done very clumsily, and out of the entire Defenders’ crew, the ‘Iron Fist’ went down first – but we digressed.

…On the other hand, ‘Zombies’ does work hard to keep us focused; for an episode that is all about zombies and excitement, it feels like the biggest letdown yet: it may be an ‘Apocalypse’-based episode, but somehow the tone is all over the place, and the shout-out to ‘WandaVision’ didn’t help either, though an evil zombie Wanda was a good villain. That said, I left feeling the episode not shaken or awed, but almost bored, since it is obvious by now how the story will end: the good guys always win, even if a horde of Thanos’ zombies will arrive from space as a final twist. Sigh. When Ward was revealed as a Hydra agent back in AoS’ S1, that was a twist. This was something else, and nowhere as good, leaving the audience wish either for the blank despair of 1x04, or for the cautious optimism of 1x03. 1x05 constantly careens between the two, and leaves the audience with dissatisfaction instead. Sad, but that is real life for you. It sucks.

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

 

Shang-Chi - Sep 7

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of 10 Rings’ movie instead. Where does it stand, exactly?

Why, at Marvel™, of course, sharing team Marvel’s™ standard brand of excellence! …Unfortunately, given that we are at Marvel’s Phase 4 by now, that is not enough, on its’ own – but let us elaborate.

Until ‘Shang-Chi’ rolled in, so far, all of Marvel’s Phase 4 was all about transition: Wanda and Vision have drifted apart, (putting it lightly), Bucky and Sam have become a duo, Loki has become a duo with Sylvie, and has become a proper hero rather than a selfish berk, and the title of Black Widow passed from Natasha to Yelena. Anything else? Oh yes, PP and Dr. SS, (different one from the ‘What If?’ episode 1x04, I believe), are about to embark on a magical journey of self-discovery, or at least PP does; I am not so sure about the good doctor… So, where does it leave Shang-Chi?

Kind of shoehorned into the same mould, technically speaking. Throughout the bigger part of the film, Shang-Chi travelled both literally and spiritually, both through the external world and inside of his own mind, trying to figure out as to who he really was, until he succeeded, (at least, by the movie’s conclusion). That’s not bad, but the problem is that the movie itself wasn’t a transition per se, as the ‘Black Widow’ film was, (and even that had problems…aside from ScarJo fighting Disney/MCU afterwards, cough), but rather it’s an introductory movie, not unlike the initial ‘Black Panther’ film, (another one is coming out soon enough). The ‘Black Panther’ movie had introduced Africa, (and Afro-Americans), to MCU. Now, ‘Shang-Chi’ is doing the same thing with Far East Asia, (and also its’ native people). Again, not a bad idea, but…

…But even ‘Black Panther’ had problems with its’ message, as we’ve discussed it way back when. ‘Shang-Chi’ has the same problem, and if you’ll say that its’ cast and crew went extra distance to avoid the clichés, I’ll respond that they’re inevitable, because Shang-Chi himself was a cliché – an Asian, or an Asian-American martial artist, who is trying to become ‘A Good Guy™’ person and escape his father’s shadow. The issue of Fu Manchu was mentioned repeatedly as ‘Shang-Chi’ was coming to the silver screens, so let’s not chew on it too much, but, again, Fu Manchu’s villainy worked because he was a cliché, by the Western standards anyhow – an alien, a foreigner, who isn’t, mmm, Caucasian, but who is intelligent, and rich, and formidable all the same. ‘Shang-Chi’ the movie tries to avoid that cliché by taking place – in a large part – outside of a real world altogether, but rather in the magical place of To-La…or inside Shang-Chi’s mind…or on a different plane of existence altogether…you get the drift. Not such a bad idea, but unfortunately a large part of Disney/MCU’s strength is its’ realism; the latter often tried to reference real life events and people, (especially in the first phases), and once ‘Shang-Chi’ moved away from that state of affairs, it floundered. ‘Black Panther’ didn’t go in that direction, BTW – indeed, the movie was about Wakanda ending its’ isolation, and instead becoming a part of the greater MCU world, ‘thanks’ to Killmonger and his actions – there’s nothing like that in ‘Shang-Chi’; rather, Wu Xenxu’s crime organization remains a world apart from the rest of MCU, and so’s the village of To La. ‘Black Panther’ destroyed, (well, started the process of), isolation; ‘Shang-Chi’ did none of that.

This brings us to the second big difference between ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Shang-Chi’ – the matter of ethnicity, or of race. ‘Black Panther’ was all about Africa; ‘Shang-Chi’ – about Asia, or more precisely, it is all about the Far East. Yes, it is a Western term, but since we are still living in a predominantly Western world, that is the term we are going to use. Therefore, what about it?

This is the latest attempt of the Western cinematography to break into the Far Eastern cinemas and etc. There were ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, ‘Mulan-2020’, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ to name a few, and now there is also ‘Shang-Chi’. The West does not care about the African mass media market and culture so much, in part, because the latter are so underdeveloped when compared to the U.S., but it cares about the Far Eastern version because of communism and the Far Eastern culture in general – neither of these factors are too friendly towards the West. ‘Mulan-2020’ in particular have brought those differences to the fore, and the West, embodies by Disney, folded first. Disney/MCU (+SW, etc.), may pretend to be fair, progressive, politically correct and so on, but the bottom line is all about the dollar. Given how much of the latter ‘Shang-Chi’ has brought to Disney/MCU, it obvious works, though maybe the heroic Black Widow ScarJo will do something about that with her lawsuit. Anything else?

…Just that even the ‘Black Panther’ film had some token characters of a different color, cough, that were actually important to the film; ‘Shang-Chi’ – not so much. As a result, the movie again suffers, becoming less of a movie and more of a propaganda piece…whose message is a lie, on top of everything else, and everyone is aware of it, more or less cognizantly. U.S. in general seems to have problems in this department; it seems to rely too heavily on its’ media to shape its’ own story, and it does not work. It didn’t work back in the elections-2016, and it doesn’t work now: no ‘FBI: International’ or ‘NCIS: Hawaii’ TV series will hide the fact that the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan with its’ tail between its’ legs, no so much an eagle or a lion, but rather whipped toy dog, but we digress.

No, no really. When ‘Black Panther’ was made and released, the U.S. still considered itself to be on top of the world, and most of the world played along, (cough, RF’s conquering of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, cough). Now, ‘Shang-Chi’ is playing in the world where the former statement is clearly false, and the rest of the world has to admit it. (Alternatively, it was the one doing the forced admitting). How will this affect ‘Shang-Chi’ and the rest of MCU? I have no idea, but out of the two movies, I have still enjoyed ‘Black Panther’ better.

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

What If, 'Dr. Strange' - Sep 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: the U.S. and the rest of the West are officially done with Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken over it just as officially. Hooray. Biden had no intention of continuing this ‘forever war’ – fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that during the last 20 years, USA completely failed to build a proper Western country in Afghanistan, so let’s talk about this week’s episode of ‘What if?’ instead.

Sadly, this week’s episode seems to be offering more of the same; in the last week’s episode, five out of six initial Avengers died, but the rest of the world moved on; this week, however, Dr. Strange destroyed everyone and everything in his grief instead, and-

Let us try to talk about this one character across. First, in AoS, Grant Douglas Ward lost John Garrett, and more importantly, Kara Palamas, just as Dr. Strange lost Christine Palmer in this week’s ‘What if?’ episode. Unlike Dr. Strange, Ward went to extract his revenge – well, first he went completely insane, in a sad, but dangerous way – by killing…well, mostly Ms. Price, Coulson’s girlfriend of the month, and also exposing Melinda’s (ex?) husband Andrew as an InHuman called Lash…but that is another story. The point is that as far as Ward was concerned, Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. owed him a karmic debt, and he resolved it by flipping it over, by dying – and joining Palamas in the Underworld – and by tipping S.H.I.E.L.D.’s karmic cup over, and leaving them dealing with Hive, who almost executed Grant’s revenge on a far bigger scale than Grant ever could. Dr. Strange, on the other hand, did not work the system as Grant did, he did not join Palmer in the afterlife as Ward did with Kara, but rather he tried to resurrect her, which went against the flow of existence in this particular universe – but this brings us to Wanda.

In WV, Wanda did not accept Vision’s death all that well, and by using her powers, she took over a town in New Jersey (of all states), and through the power of her mind, (augmented and empowered in part by the Mind Stone of Thanos’, cough), she rewrote that corner of MCU, brought back Vision, and did plenty of other things – but they were obviously only temporary, and so Wanda had to let go of her past and move on – or else she would’ve gone insane, (or even died), and Vision would still be lost to her; at least, at the WV’s finale, Wanda is moving on… in some direction, and she might yet be able to recover their twins, and moreover – there’s a new Vision in the MCU, so who knows? Maybe the two of them will be able to work it out. Of course, the fact that the new Vision looks like a hybrid between GoT’s Night King and KKK’s mascot doesn’t help things, but that’s on Disney/MCU’s conscience, so where are we?

Yes, that unlike Wanda, this Steven did not release his grief, but rather let it use him to destroy his universe – MCU’s grief metaphor in reverse. I am impressed, really, but the fact that this universe’s Ancient One states that Christine’s Palmer’s death was destined to be rather rubs me wrong: it’s reminiscent of predeterminism – that some things are just meant to be, and no one can do anything about it… and that just goes against Protestantism and the rest of all things Western, you know?

Let us try again. In AoS, S.H.I.E.L.D. stood for democracy, just as Hydra stood for tyranny, so whereas in Hydra compliance was rewarded, in S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative and taking charge of one’s own life and future were – and they were shown to be superior to Hydra’s blind obedience. So far so good, but then the second half of S2 introduced the InHumans, whose life motto was ‘what will be, will be’ instead. It isn’t exactly Hydra’s ‘compliance will be rewarded’ motto, but there were enough similarities, superficial or not, for S.H.I.E.L.D. to become confused, and to start treating the InHumans incorrectly, (Skye’s inexperience in these matters didn’t help any), and the result was the bloodbath on the Iliad, (a S.H.I.E.L.D. battleship of the Navy sort), and things became even worse from then on, until the S3 finale – Ward almost didn’t make things worse, but when he did… see above. The point here is that Lincoln paid the ultimate price in AoS’ S3, but he did it because of predeterminism, among other things, and because of it, he never became fully at home in S.H.I.E.L.D.- pause.

Getting back to ‘What if?’, Dr. Strange gets into trouble and destroys everyone and everything because he actually refuses to bow down into inevitable, and tries everything he can to change his and Charlotte’s destinies, and as a result, the world ends. Maybe he should have moved on, true, but the way this episode have handled it? It is too reminiscent as to what has happened in RL Afghanistan, where instead of building a proper Western society, of meritocracy, of self-advancement, and self-worth, and what else have you, the Americans failed, and Afghanistan remained an Eastern country, where people are prepared to bow to inevitable and to die for their beliefs – whether it’s Islam, or democracy, or whatever – but not to kill for them. There’s a difference…and besides, a good deal of Afghanis would rather run away anyways and live a better life elsewhere, away from Afghanistan – what were the Americans and the Europeans doing over there, anyhow? Clearly not building a different nation with a new system of values as the Soviets tried in the 20^th century, or even subduing them in servitude, as the Brits did in the 19^th. But hey – Disney/MCU is trying to be educational here and now about the nature of grief, (seriously the laurels of ‘Inside Out’ success just cannot be let go here?), funded by the taxpayers’ dime, while inadvertently promoting the values of predeterminism here. How patriotic and clever! Do they want to replicate the ‘success’ of AoS in the ‘What if?’ If so, full speed to them to go ahead! Not.

…Well, this is it for now anyhow. ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings’ is officially coming out this Friday, so we’ll talk about it either this week or the next. See you all soon!

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.