X-Men/Deadpool 3 - April 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the X-Men ’97 instead. Um. This is akin to using capitalism to distract from feudalism, or reverse, or something along those lines anyhow. Shall we try again?

As we have been talking increasingly in those previous weeks, X-Men ’97 are fan service; the scriptwriters and co. behind them are outright adapting the older comic storylines for the episode plots. For the entire season’s plot too, for that matter. AoS had its’ own share of flaws, but at least it tried to be original, for the first 2-3 seasons of its’ run anyhow. X-Men ’97 does not. Rather, it has plenty of fan appeal; in this week’s episode, ‘Bright Eyes’, we saw a Steve Rogers/Captain America; last week, it was Ronan the Accuser. Therefore, where is Uatu? Shouldn’t he be watching – never mind. He is probably watching the live-action adventures of Wolverine and Deadpool instead.

Now that trailer is something else. Not unlike the X-Men ’97, it is a classic – it is shaping up to be a tale of redemption and resurrection; Deadpool flat-out proclaims himself Jesus, aka the Savior, and he’s saving Wolverine. Well, a Wolverine, but the fact that HJ is playing the character also clears up some things, doesn’t it?

Let us roll back a bit. To date, humanity has invented only two versions of religion: polytheism and monotheism. The two models are simply different, and it does not matter which is better or worse, but what matters is that salvation and damnation, temptation and redemption, and all the other ‘tion’ words matter only in monotheism; in polytheism, not so much. By talking about salvation, Deadpool, and ‘Deadpool 3’ flat-out tries at least to tap into monotheism, which in US means Christianity, at least the Protestant version of it. Pause.

The problem is that these days the U.S. does not acknowledge itself as a Christian country, not how it did before, before the 1990’s, at least. The entire wink-wink nudge-nudge approach does not work too good either – for example, Ms. Meg Cabot’s novels have plenty of Christian/Protestant moral values, (and they are not half-bad from the technical point of view), but because she never openly admits this, her novels fall flat, and instead of being mouthpieces for those values they… do not. They may be making Ms. Cabot plenty of money as people are buying and selling them, but not much else, and the same will go down for the ‘Deadpool 3’ film as well – it will make Disney/MCU/anyone else a lot of money, it will help establish the mutants in MCU somehow most likely, but the Christian imagery, motifs, and what else have you will just dissipate, and that is it. Still better than X-Men ’97, who don’t even have that. The ‘Deadpool 3’ film is clearly having a lot of effort behind it, effort and money, and so it will deliver, much more so than the ‘Madame Web’ movie had, for example. (The latter had potential, in fact, but it was squandered).

Therefore, to sum up, whereas X-Men ’97 is purely entertainment and fan service, ‘Deadpool 3’ is setting itself up as something more – much more than that. Will it be able to achieve this is another question, we just have to wait and see.

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

X-Men 'Lifedeath 2' - April 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; it is raining all day long, so onto the X-Men ’97 episode of the week? In this case, we get to see more adventures with Storm/Ororo Munroe, as she, well, adventures. I could elaborate in some detail, but – spoilers?

Ok, not so much, as this week’s episode flavor is space and Kree, bringing back such favorites as Deathbird and the Gladiator. Listen. X-Men ’97 are playing on the audience’s nostalgia and they are playing it hard. If you like it, it is your thing; otherwise, why are you watching the show?

Again, unlike the live-action/MCU shows, X-Men ’97 is not trying to be realistic, and without the live-action’s constraints, it is not. Rather, we got some very outlandish designs, such as the last week’s variant Sentinels and this week’s aliens. X-Men ’97 is doing its’ best to be outlandish and outrageous – and it is succeeding there. No, seriously, it does, as people are certainly enjoying the titular characters battle various bizarre foes – such as the angry mobs of F.O.H., the crazy sentinel robots, and this week there are alien villains, (in a manner of speaking). Moreover, by outright adapting X-Men comic storylines, the show is… playing it safe and certain, as well as avoiding any controversies that could arise with outright new materials, such as the SW movies 7-9, (the sequel trilogy).

…Maybe the latter is not the best example, but it works: the Sequel trilogy was supposed to expand and to add new lore and dimensions to the SW-world. It failed (for various reasons) and since then… Disney was trying to play it safe; because it loves to make money, and hates to lose money, among other reasons. Controversy ruins everything is Disney’s opinion in all of its’ franchises and branches these days, and it shows.

…But wait! Hasn’t it tried to sneakily show as to how the world of SW passed from the one seen in the movie 6 to the one seen in the movie 7? Yes, and once the audiences began to realize it; the hate was back, and since then… Disney/SW is sticking to ‘the Bad Batch’ cartoon; once it runs out, it is anyone’s guess as to where it will go, (especially since ‘The Mandalorian’ seems to have ended for now). Anything else?

No, not really. X-Men ’97 are expanding their initial universe, but they are doing through visual pageantry and the like, so for now, this is it, as there is nothing specifically new to discuss. See you all soon instead!

Solar Eclipse/X-Men - April 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but the solar eclipse-2024 deserves a special mention, (and not just because X-Men ’97 are not all that either).

Where to begin? On Monday, April 8, 2024, the sky where my family lives – southern Ontario – was overcast. The people of science claimed that the skies will clear up because of the eclipse-2024 and all, but in reality the cloud cover just wasn’t breaking-up, not at all.

We went for a walk. The weather was quite cold, even if it was just early spring – the days before and after it were much warmer, in fact – and there were relatively few people outside. Still, we walked around, had our daily exercise, and returned home before three o’clock in the afternoon.

At 3:10 pm, it began to get dark, so we turned on the lights. By 3:15, it was as dark as it is in evening, about 20-30 minutes after the sunset. By 3:19-3:20, when the solar eclipse was complete, and it was as dark as… during an especially heavy local thunderstorm, when it come become almost as dark as night for a few minutes. Here, it was the same, as immediately it began to clear up, and by 3:25 or so, it was daylight as usual, or even more, as by 3:30 the sky actually began to clear-out from the clouds, and by 4:30 pm, it was clear completely. Mother Nature, (or God, or etc.) has trolled us.

On the other hand, the people who went to Niagara Falls, either from the Canadian or the American sides, got to see the same sight, (in a matter of speaking); only they paid several thousand dollars for this, so our family isn’t complaining too much. Real life sucks, as this blog mentions regularly, but sometimes it also rips people off.

As for this week’s X-Men ’97 episode ‘Remember’… listen. Magneto is dead – apparently. Gambit is dead – apparently. Uncle Ben Parker says hi and promises that they will be back. Cyclops still likes Madeline better than Jean even though the ‘real’ Jean is back. Can we bring back the JG/Wolverine relationship back, then? No offence, but now that the initial excitement is slowly wearing down, it is becoming more evident that the X-Men ’97 aren’t delivering anything truly new, but the same old delivered in a new way – not through comics, (ink and paper), but through cartoons, (2-D style, rather than the 3-D). Hooray for those who really love the X-Men franchise, for everyone else – not as much. (Not to mention that character deaths in cartoons just are not the same as they are in live action).

Anything else? Aye, the JP’s Joker part 2 is coming to movie theatres in October 2024. Already it promises to be something different from the regular Joker and Harley story. We will have to wait and see just what it actually is.

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

X-Men ’97 "Lifedeath1" - April 3

Obligatory disclaimer – real life sucks, lately our entire family life feels like a bloody house of cards, (in a bad way), so let us talk about this week’s episode of X-Men ’97 instead.

Regrettably, it is a weaker one. On one side, we have a reboot of the ‘Mojoverse’ episode from the original X-Men series: back then, Mojo kidnapped six of the adult X-Men, (not Jubilee), and forced them to act out live video games, with their lives hanging in the balance, until they burst free (with some local help) and went back home. (Mojo was not a regular character/villain in this TV-verse). Here, we have basically the same thing, but just with Jubilee/Roberto, and a computer-graphic-version of Jubilee instead…

…My problem with Jubilee and Roberto is that their relationship is… not so much forced, as rushed: in various other previous Marvel incarnations, (live-action, comics, cartoons), Roberto was often competent at worst and formidable at best. Here, however, he seems to be nothing more than Jubilee’s love interest… not that Jubilee herself is doing much better.

The problem with a big cast is that not all of the main characters get the same amount of exposition, especially if they are all on screen at the same time. Some shows try to fix it by alternating characters: i.e. one episode features – mostly – characters a, b, and e, while on another it is c and d, and on the third – it is d, e, and f – the sort of thing. The X-Men cartoon, on the other hand, tended to show most of them en masse – Cyclops and Jean, Gambit and Rogue, Wolverine and Storm, (the) Beast and professor X shared their onscreen adventures episode after episode… Jubilee was mostly pushed out… she all but disappeared, (technically speaking), in the later seasons, because she was not contributing anything to the plot, not really… Now, however, she is back, and it is again not clear as to what she is contributing to the overall plot specifically, and ditto for Morph – in the original series he was more of an episodic character, a former teammate, an unwilling enemy, an ally to the X-Men, but not part of the team. Now, however, he is back, possibly depicting sexual minorities in the show…and also allowing the showrunners to depict the various mutant characters without actually bringing him into the show just yet.

Speak of the new characters? In the other half of the episode, we also get to meet the Adversary; he was an occasional foe/antagonist of the mutants in the comics; he often clashed… with Forge and his team. Here, their relationships is less clear-cut, and Storm appears to maybe be caught in the middle.

This brings us to the following feature of X-Men ‘97: the scriptwriters just took several old comic plotline and are trying to adapt them to the silver screen. Sometimes it works out, (such as the first two episodes of the new season), sometimes, (as in the last week’s and this week’s episodes), it does not – not really. AoS, it can be noted, did something similar, especially in the later seasons – it recycled and rebooted its’ original plotlines in order to keep itself going… and now it is gone, and MCU is pretending that it never existed at all – no S.H.I.E.L.D., but also – no S.W.O.R.D., and the state of S.A.B.R.E. is also in flux – but this has nothing to do with the X-Men franchise. Instead, just as AoS recycled its’ old ideas, the X-Men ’97 is recycling Marvel’s old X-Men ideas, from comics than from other media, but regardless… The original X-Men cartoon was somehow better than this…

Is there anything else? No, not really. The new Godzilla/Kong movie is out, and it is a good one, but it deserves a discussion of its’ own, so for now, this is it. See you all soon instead!

X-Men 97 'Fire' - March 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about this week’s episode of X-Men 97 instead. Again, this episode works. Why?

Because unlike MCU, X-Men 97 do not try to relate to RL issues. Yes, mutants can easily stand for any RL minorities, and their struggles can be perceived as struggles of RL minorities, but that is optional. In the season’s 2-part starter, for example, this happened; this week’s episode, ‘Fire made flesh’, conversely, it did not. If in the previous two episodes, the titular characters fought against not just against their regular foes – the Sentinel robots and the F.O.H. goons – but also against newer faces, Carl Denti/X-cutioner and Dr. Valerie Cooper, here it is back to the tested and true foe, Nathaniel Essex/Mr. Sinister and his proxy, Madeline Pryor, aka the evil Jean Grey clone, aka the Goblin Queen.

…For me, anything or anyone associated with goblins should belong in the Spider-Man corner of the franchise, and, moreover, the moniker ‘Goblin Queen’ belongs, or belonged, to several different Marvel characters, not just Ms. MP, so no Spider-Man crossover here and now, no. Conversely, another new character introduced in this episode is Nathan Summers, Scott and not-Jean’s son, better known as mutant named Cable.

Now, Cable is a time-traveller himself, not unlike Bishop, and so his timeline is confusing on a basic level. (In addition, that is before we even try to figure his less canon appearances, such as the second live-action ‘Deadpool’ film, into the mix). Nor does he show any powers reminiscent of either Cyclops or Jean Grey, so usually he isn’t associated with them either. Ok, he is, but not on a family level – more like a general ally or a frenemy. (All mutant relationships are confusing). To have his backstory appear on the show in such a manner is certainly unexpected.

Finally, we got Forge. For me, Forge is mostly associated with the X-Men Evolution show, (also known as Earth-11052, apparently). There, he is depicted somewhat differently from his more canon appearances, with a different backstory; he is an ally of the X-Men of that universe, while here his relationship with them is more ambiguous. Therefore, to have him interact with Storm here the way that he did is also interesting – but that is what any X-Men franchise does: it stirs up interest in its’ audience, in a soap opera way.

No, seriously, at the end of the day, a part of any Marvel (or DC, etc.) franchise’s DNA is soap opera, and for X-Men, a franchise with a large default cast, this is doubly so. When your core team amounts to half-a-dozen characters at least, (and usually eight or more instead), then you don’t often need outsiders to stir up the pot – but the X-Men usually face other teams; in fact, my introduction to Mr. Sinister in this universe had him trap the X-men in Savage Land with their powers blocked, while his minions did their best to capture them. Wolverine, (with the help of Ka-Zur, I believe), saved the day regardless. Go team Wolverine, then. In this week’s episode, however, he isn’t as big a presence; however, since we see him haunting Morph in the episodes’ intro it means that the Goblin Queen setback probably won’t set him back too much. Moreover, since only Cyclops can truly hurt him with his optic blasts (so far), it means that he’ll probably be back with a new plan, so that’ll be interesting to see. (Mr. Sinister’s MO is about evolution, but he is a different villain from the High Evolutionary, BTW). Anything else?

Yes, the reference to Dante’s ‘Inferno’. People, Dante wrote an entire ‘Divine Comedy’, an entire trilogy devoted to the Christian afterlife. The Riordan-verse novel, ‘Sun and Star’, also draws upon the ‘Inferno’ third of it, but, again, Dante’s work is not just about Hell, but about the Purgatory and Heaven too. People should not ignore those works so much; I really should talk about those works too, but for now – this is it.

See you all soon, instead!

X-Men 97 - season premiere

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; between my family, the cold I caught, and the confusing weather outside, I’m really feeling down in the dumps, so let’s not talk about reality, (especially since it doesn’t get better once I move past the personal), and talk about the release of the X-Men-97 series.

It works. It works, first, because it is not so much as a reboot or a remake of the original X-Men, but rather, a flat-on sequel to the series. Instead of inventing something actually new, the Disney/Marvel creative team behind this just took the old stories and promptly continued where they ended – Xavier is in space with his alien girlfriend (a princess/queen of the Shi’ar), the rest of the X-Men and Magneto down on Earth, trying to fit the mutants into the human society. No crossovers, no multiverse, no nothing, but mutants. Oh, and Sentinel robots too.

The latter make good opponents for the mutants, (and many other Marvel entities too, if you think about it): they’re big, strong, tough, powerful, emotionless, and completely artificial, so when they go down, no one cares, and it is a big score in the X-Men collective cap. One of the exceptions to this rule is Master Mold, (who appeared in the two-part premiere, but seriously diminished, so he does not matter right now), and Nimrod, (who does not appear in the premiere at all, and so he does not count right now either). Instead, it is their maker, Gyrich, who is one of the main foes of the X-Men, and he is unsympathetic, (even if not unreasonable).

Here is the thing. The scriptwriters did their best to equalize the world of X-Men (of these X-Men, the world of Marvel is very branching) with our world, the RL world… or at least the version of the RL world that the modern U.S. (and the rest of the West) are living in. Other countries – from Russia to North Korea, from Israel to, even, Ukraine – have their own opinions on them, but in general they are not inclined to share them in public, or to openly confront the U.S. – at least not yet.

…Oh, right, Iran. This country, or, at least, its’ proxies are doing precisely this – they’re confronting the U.S. in the Middle East, and may be fighting it to a standstill. After all, between Ukraine/RF, Israel/HAMAS, and its’ own internal issues (to name a few causes), even the U.S. is stretched thin enough as to not win anytime soon, and there is one more thing.

The lack of commitment. From the mess with the Donald’s arrest/impeachment, to the whatever that is going on between the U.S. and Ukraine, the current U.S. government, (2020-?) seems to lack the will to follow to the end. They always stop at the worst possible moment, or just do not start at all. For a while, (as an example), Ms. Halley could’ve been an alternative to the Donald… if the Democrats have helped her, helped build her up as an alternative to the Donald… but they didn’t, and now the elections 2024 will be Joe vs. Donald – the latest round. Did they actually want this? It seems like they do – but are they certain that Joe will be the last on the ground standing?..

Back to the X-Men 97? I.e., what do they get to do with this? Oh, they are the latest shift in the Disney/Marvel strategy to make money: the live-action MCU-verse is failing, so it is back to the drawn cartoons. They are not the only ones – Sony’s live-action movies, (including ‘Madame Web’), are failing (unless they are Tom Hardy’s ‘Venom’, of course), while their animated Miles Morales films have succeeded – and succeeded quite formidably, too. Clearly, there is more to Spider-verse than how it appears at first, and there is something to the Multiverse too, to do it correctly, (yes, MCU’s ‘Loki’, I am looking at you – from a prince of semi-darkness to hot mess! Ouch!)

X-Men 97, by contrast, do not do multiverse or any other characters from the other corners of the Marvel franchise: we got the X-Men, we got their basic archfoes the Friends of Humanity, (aka Marvel’s KKK), we got personal drama, (unlike baseline Spider-Man, baseline X-Men have a big core cast, so they don’t need outsiders all that much), and we got nostalgia played correctly, so yay X-Men, then! We even got a few references to Spider-Man and Venom, so extra kudos, right? …Right or wrong, X-Men 97 have started strongly and should continue to go strong; the fact that they have connected only partially to RL helps too…

This is it for now, however. See you all soon!

Sun and Star - March 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Rick Riordan’s latest (last?) PJ novel, ‘Sun and Star’. In this particular novel, Nico and Will go to Tartarus to free… Iapetus/Bob the titan from Nyx, the embodiment of night. Fair enough, but… it is not entirely consistent with the series’ previous installments. In particular, when we last saw Iapetus/Bob, he was not just by himself, (and with Little Bob the calico/sabre-toothed cat), but also with a giant named Damascen, (or something similar). In this novel, the latter is absent.

Moreover, who else is absent? Jason Grace, that is who. Aye, he died in ‘The Trials of Apollo’ series, but that is not the point – most of action of ‘Sun and Star’ takes place in the Greco-Roman Underworld, after all. Jason could have appeared as a cameo, long or brief, nothing more, and that would have been the end, issue solved. Instead, he’s also a complete no-show, and what the readers are left is, are Nico’s ruminations as to how he’s dead, and Bianca’s dead, and Leo’s dead, and Nyx is making cacodemons out of Nico’s grief, and-

Wait a second. Leo did not die.

No, he had not, but Nico thought that he did, and for Nyx, that was good enough – she made a cacodemon out of that piece of grief all the same. However, never fear, gentle reader, but behold and lo – Nico will overcome Nyx’s negativity and make his cacodemons truly his!

Why? Besides the obvious, one of the themes in ‘Sun and Star’ is out with the old, in with the new, out with the stability, in with the change, nothing has to be eternal, everything and everyone can change. Again, not the worst message, but it comes out of the left field, just as the fact that Mr. Riordan had co-written the novel with another writer, something that he never did before, a fact that left at least some people wondering, just how much of Mr. Riordan is in ‘Sun and Star’?

Seriously, since ‘Magnus Chase’ and ‘Trials of Apollo’, Mr. Riordan’s writing regarding his universe was all over the place – if he began those two series by being all for progress and sexual minorities, by the time he wrote the final book of ‘Magnus Chase’, and the 3^rd-4^th books of ‘Apollo’, he was much more traditional and restrained in those areas; and in the final book of ‘Apollo’, he… was still restrained. In fact, some time after this, he wrote a short novella set in ancient Ireland, whose protagonist would eventually come to the U.S. in the future novel (still hadn’t happened), and who talked as to how since English came to Ireland, the original Irish language died as a poisoned tree did. Harsh, not at all like Mr. Riordan’s regular characters and their attitudes, and it makes one wonder if Mr. Riordan wasn’t having some RL experiences to affect his latest character’s attitude. What next?

Shel. She’s Piper’s new girlfriend. This can certainly work, but… is she also a demigod? Oh, both she and Piper are Native Americans, but Piper is also a demigoddess, a daughter of Aphrodite/Venus, and a hero of New Rome and of Olympus. Does Shel know about this? Considering that Nico and Will contacted both of them via Iris’ messages, (a rainbow), clearly Shel does. There are analogues of Muggles in Mr. Riordan’s world who know of the supernatural – the mortal parents of Percy and Annabeth, for example – so Shel could be one of them too, but we still do not know about her; for all we know, she’s a golem instead, made and gifted by Piper’s divine parent as a sex-toy to get over Jason that much faster. What is her backstory? Disney and Mr. Riordan, we would like to know!

…We already discussed the TV adaptation of ‘The Lightning Thief’ (into a TV series), and besides, ‘Sun and Star’ don’t have much in common with it – Percy and Annabeth make a brief cameo in the first chapters of the novel, but that is it. Instead, we got Dante’s ‘Inferno’ looming in the background as an inspiration for ‘Sun and Star’.

Sigh. Dante’s ‘Inferno’ is just one part of a trilogy of great literary works, but, sadly, somehow it is the best-known out of the three by far. Why is that so, one does not know, but that is the facts. In addition, discussing ‘the Divine Trilogy’ requires a separate discussion, and now is not the time; there is no time, because real life sucks. However, it can be said that when Mr. Riordan had Percy and Annabeth stuck in Tartarus in the fourth novel of the second quintet, Dante’s influence was much less. Guess that is his co-author’s doing, again. (Or not, because people, even authors, can change with time). Anything else?

No, not really. ‘Sun and Star’ isn’t a bad novel, but it doesn’t feel like a good one either; the two authors wrote in tandem quite professionally, but the end result is a one-shot, and not just because the novel is a standalone one; the relationship of Will and Nico is thrust in the face very, very prominently, and it can become overwhelming and obnoxious quickly enough if you’re in a wrong mood; that is the problem of the Democrats’ U.S. overall – but that is another story.

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