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thor ragnarok was a blessing

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The Case For Spider-Man: Homecoming (*SPOILERS*)

I’m six years old. I hear footsteps enter my room and beneath my bunk bed I see my father leave something on the desk. I waited till he left and then peered over the side. What I saw on that desk would resonate with me for the rest of my life. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. 

From the age of six my favourite superhero has always been Spider-Man. I remember that Halloween I wore a Spider-Man costume for a full week before and a full week after the costumed holiday. Like every person when they are young, you test if you have superpowers. I tried climbing walls and shooting webs out of my wrists. To little avail I was only able to learn how to make a wicked “THWP” sound. So.... there’s something for my efforts. 

We’ve been fortunate in the last fifteen years to have had so many interpretations of Spider-Man. From Cartoons, Comics, Video Games and of course, the movies. With the films we’ve been lucky enough to have six interpretations of the character. So, today i’d like to make the case for why Spider-Man: Homecoming is the best interpretation of Spider-Man/Peter Parker to date. 

That being said, By elevating this film I do not intend on dismissing or diminishing other phenomenal versions of this character. 

*SPOILERS AHEAD* 

Within the MCU, before we ever meet Peter Parker, We meet Spider-Man. So it’s only right that we start this nerdy dissertation talking about the aesthetic, his suit. 

Okay, yeah, it’s a cool suit. But we’ve had cool suits in the past. All three suits take inspiration from different artists and storylines within the Spider-Man lore. The first DIY suit is heavily inspired by the shortly ran mini series “Spider-Man: Noir” Where the story takes place during the Great Depression. 

The suit that we have come to know as Spider-Man in the MCU is heavily inspired by the iconic artist John Romita Sr. A dead give away to this is the eyes. If the name seems familiar it is because his son John Romita Jr. has had a lot of success as a comic book artist as well working on Wolverine, Spider-Man and mostly famously, being the artist that worked alongside Mark Millar in the Mini Series KICK-ASS. 

And the third and final suit for the film. I believe is a mixture of two suits that were amalgamated into one idea. This is just my own theory but I feel you can definitely see a resemblance. The Iron Spider-man and Spider-UK.

Now that we’ve settles that. The reason I want to talk about the suit is that Spider-Man: Homecoming is the first Spider-Man film that uses the suit for more than just aesthetic, it’s integral to the plot of the movie and the theme of the story. In previous films, we understand that he just gets the suit. Be it he buys a wetsuit online or he sows it himself. But am I really suppose to believe that an a (allegedly) fifteen year old kid knows how to sow a suit of that intricate detail? No, of course not, cause that would be nitpicking. Also, it doesn’t really have to do with the linear progression of the story, which is fine, it doesn’t take away from the movie, but it doesn’t give it any extra points neither. 

That isn’t the case with Homecoming. We know that Peter gets the suit from Tony Stark. A technological wonder far beyond Peter’s wildest dreams and a weapon he doesn’t fully understand. This is a great centrepiece for the theme of the story. Peter is smart and capable but naive with his idealism. It’s because of this that Peter is overtaken time and time again. 

Think to when he stopped the supposed car thief, It turned out to be a guy just trying to get back into his own car. Think to when he first encountered the bank robbers and they suddenly pulled out weapons that had alien tech! It’s this inexperience of Peter Parker that catches him flatfooted. But the kicker is that because he is smart and capable he doesn’t believe that he really has any inexperience and when the adults give him limitations he automatically rebels because he knows he can do more than they say he can. Which he proves!

The suit is a reflection of Peter Parker’s inaccessed potential. 

So during the second act when we get to see the full potential of the suit but with the same inexperience from Peter, he gets sloppy and uses the suit as a crutch and finally causes him to make a mistake that nearly takes the lives of other people. Thus Tony takes it away. 

“If you are nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it”. 

A perfect line that one, ties beautifully into Tony’s own growth from when we first meet him in the MCU and secondly, it’s a line that Peter will call upon later to finally access the full potential within himself. 

When you think of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who do you see? What does he look like? What does he sound like? For the casual viewer I expect them to think to Toby Maguire or even Andrew Garfield. But to all my fellow comic book fans and specifically Spider-Man fans, a different image comes to mind. 

The choice for Marvel to cast an actor who actually looks like a teenager goes a long way. To a lot of people, this doesn’t seem like much but again to the comic book fans it’s huge. 

But is a young actor enough? You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk? To portray Spider-Man, you need a balance between naivety and conviction. Which we get with Tom Holland. Toby was too emotional and I think we can all agree that it was tough to see Andrew Garfield as the “nerd” at his school. With Tom, we see him channel, The Ultimate Universe Spider-Man. 

In 2000, Marvel did a major re-launch and re-imagening of their characters. Spider-Man was part of this relaunch and out of this series, I believe we got the best series of Spider-Man stories to date. 

This sentiment was proven when Tom Holland appeared on The Nerdist Podcast with Chris Hardwick where he admitted that he was a life long fan of Spider-Man but it was not until his casting of the role that he submerged himself in the lore of the character. It’s here where he focused primarily on, you guessed it, The Ultimate Spider-Man. 

If I can recommend any series of Spider-Man comics, This series would be at the top of my list. 

Something this film does that personally affected me was the Tug-O-War that Peter has to do between his regular life and his life as a Superhero. When I was younger, I too missed out on hanging out with friends and parties or things most teens should do because I was completely devoted to sports. Add on top of that, I was barely holding on in school because I didn’t think I was going to need it later because I was so convinced I was going to be a professional athlete. Oh how I paid for that. With this story, On three occasions we see this Tug-O-War affect Peter. Once at Liz’s party, the second time in DC and the third time at the dance. Peter is ripped away from his regular life by his responsibility. 

The next thing I want to talk about is the villain, The Vulture. Within the MCU, we’ve had our selection of villains both good and bad. But one thing Marvel has become notorious for is killing off their villains. Thankfully we don’t get that here. But on a another level, what were their motives again?

No seriously, what was Malekith’s grand plan? Domination? What about Yellowjacket? Power? There are common tropes that villains fall into with the Superhero genre. But. Not. With. Homecoming. 

Here we have a guy who had invested everything into a project only to have it ripped away from him and feeling the need to steal for the sake of his family. A blue collar villain that will do anything for the people he loves. We can all understand that right? I certainly can. 

Following this, we have The Shocker. I had a friend tell me that he believes that The Shocker was waisted in this film and not given enough to do. But quite frankly The Shocker is a glorified henchman. I demand that anyone reading this go and find a story where The Shocker is a convincing, menacing threat to Spider-Man and also not a henchman to some bigger bad. Even then, The Shocker actually almost beats Spider-Man in fair combat up until Ned (Ganke) intervenes just in time for Peter to stop him. 

And finally the tinkerer? Meh. He really doesn’t do anything in the film except well...Tinker. 

The final piece to this film that I believe separates it and rises above the rest of the Spider-Man films prior is The Twist. Before I give it away, I want to talk about the misdirection.

Whenever we have a scene where the people involved in the twist are on screen, there are clear and present stakes that affect the linear progression of the story. Within this movie, we are presented with three dramatic questions. 

1) Will Peter prove himself to Tony?

2) Will Peter get the confidence to ask out Liz to the homecoming dance?

3) Will Spider-Man defeat The Vulture?

When you see these three questions, you can conjure up your own beginning, middle, end that in any other film would still make a solid film with a satisfying ending. But with how these three stories move without giving anything away is amazing to me.

So when we do get the twist. The Twist being Adrian Toomes is Liz’s dad. The movie gains a new level of awareness that is executed perfectly. 

How is it that the best moment in a Superhero movie is a conversation between two people in a car? amazing. 

I’d also like to make note that I think Hannibal Buress probably has the best line in the MCU ever. 

I believe Spider-Man Homecoming is the best Spider-Man film to date because it gives you everything you want but just not how you expect it. You get a great actor casted to portray a character that feels both young and naive but also strong and courageous and you have a villain with a real tangible motive that proceeds with a surprising climax with a satisfying ending. 

I cannot wait for the what comes next for this new Spider-Man and what his place will be in the MCU.

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Shadowman/Rae Sremmurd #1

Art by: Renato Guedes

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Along Came Venom...My Theory for the Solo Venom Movie.

With the success of Spiderman: Homecoming you can definitely see Sony patting themselves on the back for a job well done while slightly dismissing all of the work Marvel put in to bring the character a new life on the big stage. This takes the form of a Solo Venom Movie. 

Now you may ask...Solo? Yes, a solo Venom Movie. 

But wait, isn’t Venom’s origin and reason of being integrally connected with Spiderman? Yep. 

And isn’t Spiderman in the MCU now, so Venom is in the MCU now too? Nope. 

Sony has decided to go along and create a solo Venom movie that exists outside of the Marvel cinematic universe and all sources suggest that it will be disconnected to anything related to the Spiderman we saw in Homecoming. 

Infuriating... I know, just when you think Sony is headed in the right direction they look you right in the eye, shit themselves and say “Wanna see what else sticks?”. 

But like all of you, I can’t help but wonder what a Solo Venom Movie would look like...So I decided to think up my own theory... 

I’m a dirty whore to franchise super hero movies... What can I say?

With that being said... Here we go! 

What if Venom is in reference to only the suit? From what we’ve heard so far. Tom Hardy is the only person cast for the film, but yet the movie is set to come out next year. 

How? Usually they’d already have a full cast and crew. So what’s up here? 

That being said... There are rumours of Carnage appearing in the movie as well. This leads me to believe that we’ll get a climactic fight between Venom and Carnage, if the rumours are true. 

Which is not uncommon between these two characters, often the two versions of the symbiote would feud over who truly deserves the power it holds. Leading to many awesome symbiote-on-symbiote fight sequences in both comics and cartoons. 

With the latest trend in superhero movies being to push the rating limits with an R-rating. Sony is following suit with the Venom movie. 

My guess is that they want to go for something visceral, bloody, dark. But will they go dark thematically? God I hope so. 

The thing that makes venom a great villain to peter is because it’s a great metaphor for poisonous relationships. Venom is that controlling, manipulative, psycho ex-boyfriend/girlfriend that we all remember from our younger years. You know you gotta get away from this person, but you don’t know what you’ll be once they’re gone. Can you survive without them? This is a question posed when you explore the themes with Venom. 

With Spider-Man, Peter was able to realize how dependant he was becoming on the symbiote for everything and that it was slowly destroying his entire life. Realizing this, Peter was able to cut free from the symbiote. 

Despite the weaknesses of Spider-Man 3. This was actually a good turning point for the character in this story. 

If our hero of this movie is Eddie Brock, Will they do the same thing here to create a character arc for our hero? I think it’d interesting. 

With that being said...

 What would the genre be? Sony has said they wants the film to have an R-Rating. This where I think if Sony plays it right, they could actually do a great job with it. What if the Solo Venom movie was a horror film where the tile villian was the symbiote itself in different forms? Taking the versions of Venom, Carnage and etc. Without trying to be nitpicky... but IN THE COMICS (lift nerd glasses and snort simultaneously as I say that). The Symbiote can take on many forms, this would be PERFECT for a horror movie. 

Man oh man. if that is the case, then I’m back on board for it. My mind wonders to what they could possibly do... What if the Solo Venom Movie paid homage to movies like The Thing? Or any of Cronenberg Body horror films. Like The Fly? 

Another thing that could also make the movie really cool I believe would be the era in which the movie takes place. What if the movie wasn’t set in present day? But rather back in the 80′s? Where almost every character had defined characteristics and we’d suspend our disbelief because “hey, it’s the 80′s”. This could be very interesting. Where you see Eddy Brock as the quintessential 80′s asshole. But once he realizes the dangers of the Symbiote Suit, he is able to turn around his douche-baggery ways and as a result destroy the Symbiote. 

So on that note. What do you guys think about a Solo Venom Movie? Let me know your thoughts!!!

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Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Stinkers...(Spoilers***)

So I got a chance to see Valerian last and there are a couple things to take away from it: (SPOILERS***) A) A big budget will never count more than a solid story. B) Two "edgy", "cool" (wooden) actors can't convince me of their love story no matter how many times they say it. c) Clarity will save your life. I was SO looking forward to this movie. Luc Besson is known for creating movies that go on and take a life of it own after theatrical release as cult movies. (Fifth Element, Lucy, Leon: The Professional). So when I saw all the reviews about this movie I was going in thinking "what do they know of LUC BESSON'S GENIUS?!?!?! GAH!". But sitting through it alongside my casual viewer friend Zouhair Benkadmir, there was really no saving that movie. These were some of my thoughts leaving the theatre: What was the villain's plan again? Why did he kill his OWN people if what he wanted was to protect his own federation from a terrible mistake he made 30 years in the past? (3+4=fish?? Hullo? What?) Where did the pearls go? They hop on their ship and take off. Kay... cool. But to where home slice? Your planet is gone, completely eviscerated! You wondering fools. Also, the MUL CONVERTER... a.k.a. animal who's shit is literally the most valuable commodity in the UNIVERSE. There's actually a scene where you see it's eyes roll to the back of it's head while it shits out pearls. (Thanks Luc.) Valerian and Laureline... are ya'll together or not? The movie leaves you on a note that suggests yeah, they'll do fine. But earlier on in the film, We see that Valerian has a "playlist" (actually a list of all the women he's ever slept with) longer than the years it took to make this movie. And Laureline is repulsed by the fact that he's kept this information stored. His final line to Laureline is that he "only wants her on his playlist". HE LITERALLY THROWS THE ONE THING THIS GIRL HATES AND SOMEHOW STILL GETS HER.... again... WHAT?! On a positive note, Rihanna was fantastic. Plus the cinematography was incredible. There are some action set pieces here that genuinely feel Iconic with a capital I. But it all falls flat when at the core of the story it's muddled, confusing. None of what we see feels like high stakes... Just things happening. Coming back to the first take away. No budget will ever, EVER outweigh a solid story. 

EVER