Ms. Marvel, S1 finale

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Ms. Marvel’ finale. Unfortunately, it is not an improvement over reality either; I am honestly confused if this is a season finale or a series finale, and I am admitting aloud: for the first time since involving myself with MCU, I do not care!

Can I elaborate? It is tricky to say: on its’ own, ‘Ms. Marvel’ wasn’t bad; it was just lackluster – more like the ‘InHumans’ than the AoS, if we used comparisons.

What was specifically out of what in ‘Ms. Marvel’? I would say that it tried too hard to be a superhero origin story, and a coming of age tale at the same time; the fact that it also tried to give itself an ‘ethnic’ flavor didn’t help either, as Disney/MCU is notoriously politically correct – and not always in a good way.

Where had it gone wrong in the opinion of most critics? Precisely there – in the original ‘Ms. Marvel’ comics, KK has to struggle with at least some racism, as she is a POC in the US. In the Disney+ series, this aspect was seriously downplayed, leaving quite a few viewers and fans wondering – then what is the point of making MM a POC? For Disney/MCU to put another (metaphorical) notch into their feel-good belt? FOX’s last X-Men films tried something along those lines, and it really backfired upon them; Disney/MCU seems to be going in a similar direction…

True, Disney/MCU doesn’t have to do this sort of a story – i.e. one where a POC defeats WASP opposition, but for the modern Western culture this is one of its’ basics, and when it isn’t followed, then the modern Western culture wonders as to what that POC is doing on screen and shouldn’t we be watching something else instead? It can also be argued that just as with women-based movies, (such as the ‘355’ or the ‘365’ – does anyone even remember it?), the Western audiences are no longer satisfied with watching POCs ‘merely’ succeed over their WASP opposition, but in that case people may no longer be satisfied with what Disney/MCU is offering them to begin with… yes, it can get real ugly for Disney+ and its’ universes very quickly – but we got carried away.

On a less ‘deep’ level, MM suffers from the fact that it is shallow – the lead actress may be carrying the show, but there’s little to carry as the show’s villains, the Clan Destine and the Damage Control, appear to be substitutes for the InHumans and S.H.I.E.L.D., but lacking their histories within MCU for the audiences. People just don’t perceive them as threats or care about them, and so MM falls flat once KK goes to confront them: she kicks their ass? So what?!

…And as for her love life – do not go there. Can you imagine a male lead with three female love interests? Wouldn’t go down too well, (unless the lead was James Bond, but still, it is squeaky), so why should the gender-flipped situation work? Oh, right, because these days the fanworks are full of Mary Sues, especially of the female variety, and, yes, this version of KK is a Mary Sue.

No, really, there is some justification for my proclamation: KK is a female lead, she gets the lion’s shares of the romance, and the rest of the female characters are much more peripheral. Since MM was written by professional writers rather than amateurs, MM is able to get away with it, (the brevity of the show helped too), but still there are strong elements of Mary Sue in KK too. What is left?

Ah, yes, the finale, where KK and Captain Danvers switch places in the universe: KK is elsewhere, and Captain Danvers is in KK’s bedroom. I have not cringed so hard, and not just because this situation is reminiscent of Disney’s humor at its’ worst, but because this situation was flat-out shoehorned into the show. Throughout MM, Captain Danvers was referenced quite a bit, because of the obvious reasons, but nothing else; KK was built into a superhero/vigilante who stood on her own two feet and did her own thing, getting free of Captain Danvers’ shadow – and then along comes the final scene, and everything is up-ended once more; seriously, what does Disney/MCU want with KK? She is a first Muslim superhero – fine, but there has to be more than that to her, right?

…And then there is the fact that that scene was also reminiscent of the AoS’ series finale – one that had nothing in common with the rest of the series’ S7. Rather, it was more reminiscent of where the show’s characters were at the end of S3 – the beginning of S4, save that now the cast seemed to include Kora, (whose story arc made no sense), agent Piper, (a character that seemed to have no real purpose, and was just a plug), and the LMD of agent Davis, (an act of dubious morality even by MCU’s standards for reasons that were discussed else when). Here, again, the brevity of MM works in its’ favor, as its’ disastrous epilogue is much more restrained and contained than AoS’ had been. Yay? – I do not know and I honestly do not care. Anything else?

 Sadly, no. ‘Ms. Marvel’ had been one of the most lackluster Marvel shows that I have ever seen, which is something of an anti-record. Ah well, real life sucks, remember? In any case – see you all soon!

Thor 4 - July 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Ms. Marvel, 'Seeing Red' - June 29

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ms. Marvel, 'Destinied' - June 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Lightyear - June 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about our main man known as Buzz Lightyear. The 2022 film, known simply as ‘Lightyear’, seemingly throws everything else that we knew about BL out of the window… only it does not. In the cartoon series ‘Buzz Lightyear of the Star Command’ (or something along those lines), there were a couple of episodes with an evil, Zurg-like Buzz… who came from an alternate universe. He appeared on the show irregularly, but was still defeated, but he was still Buzz. Therefore, what is the point?

The point is that ‘Lightyear’ is set in an alternate universe, that is what! Until now, the ‘Toy Story’ franchise’s installments, (a heterogeneous bunch in their own right), were set in one universe – let us call it ‘Universe A’. But ‘Lightyear’ and all of its’ associations, are taking place in a different universe – ‘Universe B’, one where sexual minorities and important characters, played by POCs appeared in the early 1990s, unlike, say, our universe, where they, (and especially the former), didn’t. Therefore, all that we knew about BL from the previous ‘Toy Story’ installments is not really relevant anymore – it is a different Buzz, with a different crew, in a different world. ‘To infinity and beyond’, indeed – to infinite multiverses! Anything else?

Aye, I met an opossum earlier this week. Real life might suck, but sometimes it does deliver. Pause.

Let us try again. Until I met it, I thought that an opossum was just a variant rat, especially since I have seen the latter, both in pet shops and in the wild. Same for mice. However…

Let us start with mice. They are the smallest out of this bunch – I could easily hold a mouse on one finger. The rats I saw were two or three times bigger than a mouse – the size of my head, (the males were usually bigger than the females), and I would need one, or both, of my hands, to hold one, (we are talking about pet rats here – wild rats, especially Norway rats, should be avoided). And the opossum was two or three times bigger than a Norway rat – it was the size of an average house cat or a small dog, and the one I met was distinctly unfriendly, so no physical contact with this one either.

The second point are the teeth. Mice and rats are rodents; you put a mouse and a rat alongside a squirrel, a chipmunk, a marmot, and, say, a beaver, and they will all have baseline similarities to each other, especially in the teeth: huge incisors, no canines, and some premolar and molar teeth. The ‘professional’ carnivores and herbivores have different dental formulas, but you still can, usually, figure out which tooth is which. The opossum doesn’t really have this differentiation; from what I could see: all of the teeth in its’ jaws looked mostly the same, not unlike the teeth on a saw, (sorry for the lame pun). Obviously, an opossum is a competent biter and chewer in its’ own right, and I had no intention of having it bite me – it looked quite formidable for a creature the size of a small dog – but I’m guessing that it was a very different biter and chewer from a rodent. Then again, the opossum is no rodent, but a marsupial – it is proportionally closer to the kangaroo and the koala than to rodents or to us. Though keep it mind that among the marsupials, the opossum family – most of which live in the American tropics, and only one species – the common opossum – lives in North America instead; the point is that the American opossums are treated separately from the rest of the (Australian) marsupials, but let us move on…

The final topic is the tail – in the earlier days people assumed that the common opossum’s tail was prehensile, like a spider monkey’s but to me, it certainly didn’t look like it; it did look a bit like a rat’s, or a mouse’s, tail – long and hairless, but it also looked fairly thick: maybe the opossum uses it to store fat for the winter or something, The point is that the opossum has authentically surprised me, and I have certainly enjoyed observing it. Real life does suck, but sometimes – not so much.

This is it for now, see you all soon!

Ms. Marvel, Crushed - June 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JWD - June 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the JWD film instead.

Without getting too deep into spoilers, it works. The movie works. It entertains its’ viewers well enough, and the movie critics hate it. Why?

Because there is no deeper meaning in it, not really, no bigger picture, especially by MCU’s standards. JWD sought to be the endgame for the latest JP/JW incarnation, to show the viewers a world where humans and non-avian dinosaurs coexist, and I would say that it had succeeded at doing so, too. The problem, of course, is so what?

No, let me reiterate the above statement: by 2022, the viewers have become quite sated on dinosaur-related films and such; the recently released ‘Prehistoric Planet’ may’ve stabbed JWD in the back by setting the bar much higher than JWD aspired to – it seems to be an entertaining movie rather than anything else… and it is a self-contained universe as well.

These days, the multiverse seems to be the key to success, as Ms. Yeoh’s ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ movie shows loud and clear, and JWD does not deliver on that level – in JWD, the story is wrapped, there’s no mid-credits or post-credits scene, no anything else. Fair enough, and the rest of the movie is not too evolved either.

Instead, JWD seems to try to milk the nostalgia for the old JP series and with some success at least; whereas J-Ro’s Newt Scamander films tried to add some new material – at least - into the Wizarding ‘Verse… with mixed success, but still it tried. JWD did not try at all; instead, it just went by the numbers and did what it did before with its’ movies, starting with JP3 – and can you blame them? Their source material is two sci-fi novels, written by the late Mr. Crichton, and nothing more; the fact that the franchise managed to make 6 movies rather than just one or two is remarkable enough!.. Anything else?

…JWD aside, people have already talked to me about me glossing over the Damage Control people in the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series premiere. Fair enough, but again, let us turn back to AoS. I know, I know, but for me, AoS did introduce Damage Control into MCU – literally: Damage Control first appeared in the AoS’ S3 episode, when Daisy teamed-up with Mack to save the latter’s brother Reuben, who fell-in with the Watchdogs, (MCU’s take on the KKK, aiming towards the InHumans rather than POCs), and Mack and Daisy had to rescue him – and Damage Control had to clean up the mess at the end of the episode. AoS being what it is, neither Reuben Mackenzie nor Damage Control re-appeared ever again in the series, (though Reuben’s role was taken over by MCU’s Flint – maybe), and Damage Control has surfaced-up here, in ‘Ms. Marvel’ – and so far it appears to be S.H.I.E.L.D. at its’ worst.

Listen again, AoS is the one MCU property that got out of hand and/or out of control, and no one was sad to see it go, not even the cast; there’s no indication that MCU will be rebooting S.H.I.E.L.D. any time soon; unfortunately, AoS is very popular with its’ fans, and since it has ran for 6 slash 7 seasons in a row, it has become quite well-known and well-established as well. So what?

Therefore, for a while now MCU is in a quandary – they had intended to use S.H.I.E.L.D., but because of real-life issues, they are unable to. Consequently, they tried to use something else – S.W.O.R.D. in WV, but WV has had its’ own problems, most notable – the imbalance between Wanda and Vision: WV was supposed to be a TV series about both of them, but instead it turned out to be mainly about Wanda instead, who would go on to become the antagonist in the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film – and that particular movie had no sign of S.W.O.R.D., of the new Vision, or of captain Photon, even though they played important roles in WV. Still, since the upcoming 2023 ‘The Marvels’ film is supposed to feature all of them – Kamala, Carol and Ms. Rambeau – the odds of the Damage Control introducing/re-introducing S.W.O.R.D. into MCU are very good. We will just have to wait and see as to what happens next.

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