#80s marvel was peak marvel | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jackiequick · 10 months ago

Text

A Visit From An Old Friend — [ Marvel Fanfic]

Summary: What happens when an old friend comes to visit to recruit something bigger than himself? In other words, a small family reunion between friends, with a couple of ants crawling around.

Platonic Pairing: Hank Pym & Jason Underwood

Characters featured/mentioned: The Young Avengers, Janet Van Dyne, Liz Stark, Howard Stark, Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne and etc.

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ant-Man (2015)

Fic type: Short Blurb

Small warning: Some fluff and angst

----

The daylights were in full swing, the radio was high and bright as he drove down the road to a old house he used to call home. At the steps of the house stood a man he hasn't seen in the late 80s but never forgotten.

Above the steps stood the man with dark rich blonde curls spiked in a nicely manner, a blue colored shirt and black James Dean jeans wearing a pair of shades himself. He sipping on a cup of coffee with a half smile to boot.

He parked the car in the east side of the parkway as he existed the vehicle, flipping the keys in hand and removed his sunglasses with a smile.

As he took towards the step he heard the man said, "Hank."

"JJ." He replied, as he was handed a cup of warm coffee.

"What was the reason for this visit?"

"You got my email didn't you?"

"Yup."

"You missed seeing Hope."

"It was an 8 hour drive! You know how hard it was to get out of that house without Felton and Rei breathing down my neck?"

"This is why I stopped babysitting."

The blonde just playfully glared following the older one into his old home. Jason hasn't been in this house of his in more than a century, having took time to take care of his older one in Malibu. Yet, he never had the heart to throw away the keys, so instead he gave them to Hank. And by god, was he glad he did.

His old home was kept nice and cleaned, some mess here and there. A few dust particles in certain smaller areas but other than that it was fine. Keeping its cozy yet vintage style. Hank sat down on the grey couch that used to be a dark brown, sipping his second morning coffee taking in the moment of peace. Jason sat in the armchair beside him closing his eyes.

Neither man had to say a word to know that they missed the peace and quiet this house brought. No screaming children, calls from SHIELD, nor nagging neighbors trying to get you to babysit their dumb dog for the weekend. Just a moment of total silence from the world around them.

Yes, truth be told, after 1989 Hank was never seen again towards SHIELD's main offices due to his stupid fallout with Howard and the others. But he often kept in touch with people like him or Peggy, whenever possible. Mainly because Hope wanted to see her aunts and uncles, and after Janet's passing Hank couldn't deprive his daughter from not having any closer family or friends around.

Jason tended to be his go-to person whenever he needed a quick babysitter for Hope, whenever the blonde was in town and he happily said yes. He first thought Hank would want nothing to do with him after what Howard pulled on the man, but after a small debate on that very day both men realized they couldn't hold grudges against each other.

They already had too many grudges over their heads to even count, why add another? It would only lead to a bigger headache anyways.

So over the years, Hank and Jason would put aside a small time to check in on one another. Make sure the other man wasn't dead yet. It was a running joke on who would die first out of the two. But at this rate, knowing the people in their lives, they won't let them get bury in the ground so easily.

Yet.

He peaked an eye open as he rested his head and asked, "JJ? You got what I sent you?"

The others eyes were still closed as he hummed, "Yeah. I sent the small package and if I'm correct, it will be brought though word of mouth soon enough."

"Good. I hope this guys is worth it. If he's smart enough, he will do as I planned."

"Why Scott Lang anyway? I gave you a list of people you can choose from and you chose him..."

"Scott Lang broke into Vistacorp Headquarters to pay back the money VistaCorp had been stealing from their users, before he brought into prison. Heard of it?"

"Yeah, he pulled strong a stunt risking to pay back all that money they took. According to the file, he has a master degree in electrical engineering, which gave him the skills to hack into their grid."

Hank smirked, "That's why I need him. He has a special set of skills as a hacker and thief. I want to test him, see if he's able to play the game right."

"If he can break into the lock and steal the suit, then he was a right fit." Jason added with a grin, "..he also has a daughter Hank. You know better than anyone the length you would go to see your kid. Chances are, he ends up in jail again."

"He won't."

"Hank."

"I have a plan. Trust me on this one."

"And I'll be here to say 'I told you so' when it goes sideways."

The two crack a chuckle knowing it was bound to happen whether they liked it or not. But if the plan does end up going sideways, they always had other ways of doing things. Even if it meant going undercover to bait Scott Lang into the older man's plan. Both spent the rest of the day catching up, watching some tv and grabbing a bite to eat.

None of the Young Avengers knew that Jason was gone for a short couple of days. Well, some of them noticed as he has been receiving calls from a few thought the day. Mainly ones from Rei, Liane, Rochelle, Ji-Hoon, Lydia and even Wanda. Hank commented how he was still amazed he hasn't lost his head yet.

"Who said I haven't?" Jason joked with a small chuckle.

"Who's watching them?" He asked in returning smiling.

"Elizabeth, Nat and Bruce. I hope."

"Oh dear god. Now, I gotta know, who's the hardest to watch over?"

"Depends on the day. Rei is the easiest at most, Rochelle is rather shy and hangs out with her friends..but Liane.."

"Felton's what? Oh. You can't lie to me, and not say Rei Stark doesn't turn your gears one bit."

"Rei does make me question my life choices, but I love him to death. Felton, she is a handful and a total bitch at times. It's why I always hand her off to Hill to taken care of. I need my silence."

That caused Hank to snort and laugh. He knew the man was too polite to say anything to harsh per say, not knowing who's around to hear him but if possible he will let a rip.

"Now that's the Jason I know, call it how it is!" He shouted as he tossed a chip into his mouth, "Half of them ain't even your kids."

The blonde smirked nodding, knowing the grey man's words to be truth. There are good couple of them aren't his legally or even raised them from childhood, but a part of him does care. Even if he wants to shut up half the time.

Hell, even the ants joined in on the fun. They are 247 of them after all, the ants were bound to make their appearance in carrying items around and or, helping them with alerting any incoming news on the heist they were waiting to happen.

--------

------------

Later on, that very night they went to the basement as they turned on the lights to reveal a high tech level of security cameras, microphones and chairs laying around. It was linked up to whatever humanity possible can find, in this case, the ants.

They watched Scott break into his house, as Hank seemed impressed by his work giving Jason a couple of approved nods, as they kept rolling the tape. The handy work, the levels of patience and precision Scott Lang had was amazing. His quick thinking and ways he moved around the area at quick speed was something he could only imagine to do when he was back in the 40s. Hank used to think and move that fast in the late 80s. More or less.

Without a better matter of minutes he took the suit and ran. They spend the better part of the next day, watching Scott and see what he would do.

That he was expandable. And that he was. Jason chocked out a laugh at how freaked out he was as Hank talked into the coms. Sadly of course, the moment he returned the suit, he was caught red handed by the cops.

It was Hope's doing. She didn't know much about the man or the fact that he had a track record he was trying to maintain. Which led Hank to toss a pair of suits over to Jason, telling him it's time to lawyer up, as the man rolled his eyes at his friend.

Once they were in the prison, Scott Lang was brought into a room confused more the most part, not understanding who they were. He didn't know about the fact that he had a lawyer watching after him. They told him second chances don't always come easily, especially for men like him, next time he gets one, he should take a closer look onto what it is. And he's smart enough, he will listen to them.

Thankfully he did, as Hank ordered the ants to get Scott escape the jail cell and be brought home that night. However the man got dizzy and past out, resulting him to be knocked out cold in one the guest bedrooms of the house.

Hank's house, since he had more tech and landscape to work around than Jason did. As they waited for him to wake up, the blonde went out grab some more supplies and food. He was hungry.

When he returned home with the items needed, entering quietly through the front door he heard it. Hope was here. He should've known she would've made an appearance at some point.

"Please tell me you didn't call JJ." She said looking at her father with her arms crossed.

"I didn't call JJ." Her father responded with a sigh, trying to enjoy his tea.

"He is busy right now."

"I didn't call him."

She pointed to the brown leather jacket that was on the chair beside her. The one she gave the blonde years ago for a birthday present when she was in high school. Her father said he was borrowing it from the man's closet when he went to check on his home.

"You liar. Like always. Just say that you did." Hope remarked.

Hank groaned, "I emailed him."

"You tipped him. Dragging his ass here, for what? I can handle the mission myself!"

"No, you can't! He needed one-"

"You never listen to me!"

"Hope!"

She looked over her shoulder at face the voice who called out her name like an old memory. Only to find her uncle standing there with a stern look on his face, his usual cheeky grin was exchanged for a pair of lined smile and frustrated eyes that glared into her soul. He made her feel like a child again, getting in trouble for yelling at her father or running away from school grounds to play with her friends.

She looked down, feeling less than, muttering a soft 'sorry' in his direction as he simply nodded. He shook his head and sighed at his niece. He hated seeing them fight, he knew they had their reasons but she walked away a long time ago, just to prove a point to her father that she was worth it. And she already was.

"I didn't know..I uh, would've liked a heads up that you were coming..." She admitted for being silent for a moment.

He placed the bag of groceries on the table as he gave her a small half smile, "I know..but I knew you would've said otherwise and convince me to stay home."

"You don't have to be here. I can handle this."

"I know. But I'm here now, it's not like I'm going to waste a long drive just to be stuck at home listening to ABBA on the radio."

"Still. You should've-"

"Hope. Just don't. What's done is done. I came at my own risk and I won't be staying long, just to make sure a few things are in check."

"..I uh, I missed you."

"I did too."

She pulled her arms out to be taking in by his embrace. The warmth of his hugs always felt like a nice blanket as he wrapped her arms around him and kissed her forehead. She rested her head against his shoulder having another moment of silence to relax, sending a small glare to her father. She chuckled hearing her uncle brought her favorite ice cream from Basin Robins to help ease the tension, causing a tiny grunt from Hank. Her uncle smirked and told her to get Scott as she pulled away with a small smile.

When Hope walked out, he turned around to see his old friend sending daggers swords him. Jason just shrugged, "What?"

"You can't win her over with ice cream and hugs." He remarked.

"Yes I can. That's my job as the uncle. Make you look bad, so you want to work harder for her affection."

"That's not how it's supposed to work."

"That's exactly how it's supposed to work."

Soon enough, Scott and Hope joined them in the dinning room, as they talked trying to explain the situation to the confused brunette. Hope and Hank bricked as they did, as Jason tried to defuse the issue at hand introducing the trio. Scott listened along, trying to piece together everything they said, hearing how they were impressed with his work as well. He was offered some sugar, watching the ants push it around.

"H-how do you make them do that?" Scott asked pointing to the said ants, watching one climb onto Jason's finger with ease.

"Ants can lift objects 50 times their size. They can build farms. Corporate with each other." Hank explained.

"Right. But how do you make them do that?"

"I used electromagnetic waves to stimulate their factor's nerves center using a device. I speak to the Ants. I can go anywhere, see everything and hear everything."

"And still know absolutely nothing. I'm late for a meeting." Hope injects with a clear tone, pressing a kiss to her uncles cheek and a nod to her father.

"Be safe!" Jason calls out with a half smile, sipping his tea.

"Always am!"

With that she walks out. Scott raised an hand asking who the hell they are, what the hell is going on and if he could back to jail. Jason rolled his eyes telling both men to follow him.

They walked and talked heading down to the basement to reveal a small headquarters as Scott looked around in awe. Hank explained the suit and his role in this as Jason finished setting up a few things adding in a jab or two as he went along.

"Pym tech? SHIELD?" Scott said muttering under his breathe as he followed their voices.

"Darren Cross had heard rumors around the Pym Particles. Something that both companies tried to keep under lock and key, with only a few knowing it existed." Jason explained.

"And he became obsessed with recreating my formula." Hank continued to explain holding a vial of Pym particles, "But I wouldn't help. So he partially voted me out of my own company. Hope was chairmen of the board, so that helped. But she came back to me when she saw how close he was with his process. But without a suit, the brain isn't protected."

"Causing a fiery sensational effect that can make the brain unstable. And Cross hasn't realized that part yet. So with our luck, he'll die."

"Be nice, JJ. Cross isn't the most stable guy to begin with."

Scott listen then asked, "So what do you want from me?"

Both men exchange a look as Hank walked over to Scott Lang and told him he believed in second chances for everyone. A redemption. Saying that if he does that, he can start a new path and get some insight wiped off his records. Scott looked pleased declaring that he will go along with the plan of theirs. Within a couple of hours, they all got to work.

Scott began to start training how to use the suit, understanding the plan and communicating with the idea on how to get into the building. He got learn about the concept of the ants and their behavior in the process of the world. Hope and Jason offered to teach Scott some fighting techniques to help him later on. Hope smirked getting a good swing at Scott punching him hard enough he fell backwards, as Jason snorted at their dynamic play between the tackles to the ground.

———-

—————

It got to a certain point where Scott was given the opportunity to learn how to control the ants. Hank acted as director for him, telling him to focus having faith that he can do it. Scott tried but it didn’t work. Hope groan annoyed telling him how he needed to commit to communicating with them, he has to mean it. The father daughter duo, once again began to argue over the subject. Jason reminded them on how the focus should be on helping Scott with the trails.

“Really? That’s where our focus should be?” Hope said, taking the device used for the ants and held it close to her ear controlling to do more than just add sugar to the tea. She caused to room to darken as the ants blocked out the lights, Hank caught her before she can act by further. Her voice broke as she muttered a few words at her father and sighed before exiting the room.

Hank knew he couldn’t do it without her. Since day one she has requested to be put in the suit, do the trails and get the mission accomplished herself, but her father refused every request she made. Jason knew the reason why. Scott noticed the problem being a father himself and went out to talk to her, hoping to knock some sense into Hope and have her see behind the act.

The two were alone in the house, standing in awkward silence as the moment of Hope’s departure replayed in their heads. Hank walked around the first floor, fumbling with a small piece of dice he found in the living room as Jason watched from the window the car sitting in the driveway with the two figures talking inside.

He broke the silence with a scoff, biting in the inside of his cheek as he said, “You have to tell her.”

“No.” He muttered in response, knowing exactly what he meant by those words.

“If you want her on your side, you have to break the ice here. She knows Janet didn’t die cause of some accident involving a plane. I know it’s painful for you, Hank, but she deserves to know.”

“Like you told Stark about his parents death.”

That silence Jason quicker than expected. He remembered how Howard and Maria died, when he was at his lowest moments during the holiday season. He told Tony what he knew and what he only could’ve revealed of that painful memory, going as far as to show him the photographs he dug up a few days later from news reports. Hank might’ve had a falling out with Howard but he was at the damn funeral for a short period of time before returning home.

Hank knew he hit a nerve and continued, “You couldn’t even wrap your head around fact that you lost them. Worse, telling a child their mother died and they never had the chance to say goodbye. I lost Janet that day because of my misfortunes during the mission.”

“I know, I heard the story. I can only imagine how you felt when it happened, when she shrunk down to that size..” Jason added trying to find his voice again.

“Please, don’t remind me, Jason, she went sub-atomic...”

“And you tried to get her back by studying for weeks on an answer to get her back”

“I made a mistake letting her come with me..I was stupid enough to let that happen..you know how hard it is for me just to relive that experience again…Hope might hate me when she finds out..”

“I know, she might but she will forgive you…Hank..you and I have made a lot mistakes in the past 3 decades. We made decisions that we aren’t proud of..thinking we are protecting them from harm..”

“That’s the whole point! That’s our job, to keep them safe and not be heartbroken by the truth. You only gave Stark the benefit of the doubt about his parents death and how it affected the outcome, you said he hated the world for it..I can’t tell her..we have secrets for a reason..”

“Yeah well, Tony could care less about his father…How about you only tell her what you can? When the time comes where she asks for more, you go into more detail about what happened. You are driving her away now…I know you hate the looks she gives you. You said it yourself..”

There was an unspoken number of casualties among those accidents that occurred during the death of their loved ones. Only so much information, they kept closed to their chest to prevent others suffering in those moments. The amount of consequences to their loved ones being gone felt like a huge blow to the head and stuffed around in secret.

Hank knew that, especially with the fact that his very friend lost more than he can chew.

He felt sorry for bringing it up, but it just didn’t occur to him the words would impact that hard. Hell, the memories of his wife were still so fresh in his brain like it was yesterday.

Hank ran a couple of fingers cross his hair muttering, “Sorry for bringing that up. It’s just…”

“I know..I know. But you do need to let her know what happened that day.” Jason responded taking a breath to regain himself.

That was when Hope and Scott returned from the car, about to say something but was cut off by Hank’s statement. He had a hand against the fireplace beforehand turning around to face the two of them, to face his daughter with the truthful remarks she desires to know. He slowly but surely explained what he could to his daughter onto what happened to her mother as her voice broke mumbling a few questions.

He did in best to answer them. It hurt to talk about it, as it felt like he was reliving the same day all over again. She wanted to know more but her thoughts didn’t seem to allow her to think straight as she teared up even more. Hank just told her in the end he lost her mother, he didn’t mean to lose his daughter too.

Scott ruined the moment with a quippy response that caused Jason to roll his eyes, telling him to go make some tea. Afterwards the four of them got back to work on training Scott and working with the plans they had in motion.

———-

At some point, Jason went upstairs to get something to eat and suddenly got another set of calls. He sighed deeply knowing they must've been from Liane or Rei, he ignored knowing it was probably something they could've handle themselves. They had to learn how to get along and figure out solutions to things without an actual adult fixing it entirely for them.

With a deep sigh he answered, “Hello?”

“Jason! Aha we might got an issue at the compound—dude shut up!” Said the voice that clearly belonged to Liane.

“Okay, who burnt the toaster again? Wait why are you at The Compound anyway? Your supposed to be at The Tower..”

“The adults went out on a small scale meeting, so we were left alone. Long story short, we had an incident at The Tower and decided to visit The Compound for breakfast instead—Ughhh Rei be quiet! Rick calm it’s gonna be fine—I was saying, we came here and Sam made us breakfast…and then..”

“Then what? Liane spit it out or put Rei on the phone.”

“Then we saw an issue and Sam told us to stay inside.”

Just as Liane and Rei’s voices were heard, along with the other members in the background, Jason was called downstairs by Hank to check on something. And let’s just say, he wanted to punch the older man for his actions. From the panels on the screen, shots of Scott fighting The Falcon to get inside Avengers Compound. Hope half smiled, annoyed and confused by Scott’s actions.

It was honestly hilarious yet stressful.

He put the phone call on mute as he whispered, “Hank, what the hell?! You said that the item you were looking for was at an old building, not Avengers Compound!”

“I didn’t know that it was remodeled after all this time! You could’ve said something.” Hank remarked looking up at the blonde from his seat.

“You weren’t speaking of the specifics either! Oh god..Scott better get out of there.”

“He’ll be fine. Besides he’s fighting an Avenger, this can be taken as part of his training for the next assignment. What are you worried about?”

“Half of the other avengers are inside the building now and they’re a little terrified.”

Hope said an eyebrow confused onto what her uncle meant until she heard the voices over the phone and almost immediately laughed at the sound.

She couldn’t make out the voices very well but one caught her ears as she asked, “Is that Felton? Since when is she freaked out over something like this, isn’t she an Avenger?”

Jason just shrugged at this point and responded, “It’s a great mystery to all of this. And yes that was her. I can already picture Rei’s annoyed expressions. Whatever we do, we just have to get Scott out there and fast.”

“Or they might call the other heroes for assistance. Damn it.”

“Days like this, I wish my retirement plan was completely different.”

“You can always come stay with me instead. Wait, I’m still in the Will right?”

He winked at her meaning a clear ‘yes you are, honey.’ As they both returned their focus back onto the screen watching Hank navigate Scott across the field to fight Falcon, suddenly they lost visual contact with him as the ants couldn’t see what was happening inside. It went silent as the only sound came from the cell phone in Jason’s hand.

He raised the phone up his ear to respond, “Whatever happens stay instead. I’ll be there in a couple of hours to check up on—”

“About time you picked up the damn phone!” Yelled the voice that belonged to his first godson.

“Rei?! What happened to Liane?”

“I took it off her hands, she went to help calm Rick and the others down or whatever. I really don’t care. Do I have permission to take her down Felton and shut off the systems?”

“Permission granted—wait, hold off on shutting down the systems for a few minutes and then reboot The Compound.”

“Does that mean I’m in charge of everything?”

“Does it mean the house won’t be fire when I come over to check on you guys?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then you’re in charge. And please get a hold of an adult!”

The phone called ended with Rei’s voice being heard over the speaker as you can imagine the others not sounding too pleased about the news. Jason just smirked already picturing their faces as he watched the panels of Scott escaping and Falcon on the floor. Him and Hank fist bump at the process of the mission turning out decently well.

He knew Hank was gonna have a talk with Scott on his actions and how he handled it, but Jason knew based on the files that Scott must’ve gotten the item needed for the job.

And he was right.

Hope was very impressed with what he did as her father sighed in relief at the assignment being completed. Scott Lang had skills and knowledge to be used on a battlefield one day, possibly even a hero. The four of them talked about upcoming events that were set in motion as Jason texted his nephew for updates on the situation from earlier as it seemed like things have calmed down over there.

He will need to drive over there to check up on them later.

As of now, all he knew is that the four of them were headed into a very dangerous environment within the incoming hours. Especially after Darren Cross’s appearance at the household, assuming he was just speaking with Hank Pym, as the others were silently standing in the kitchen.

The next couple of hours were gonna be a wild ride.

~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~

That’s what I got! Thanks for reading I hope you liked it. 📺

Let me know what you think in the comments below 👇

Tags: @gaminggirlsstuff @gcthvile @missstrawbs2001 @rooster-84 @djs8891 @haleripley @starkleila @cherrysft @mandylove1000 @yetanotherwells @topgun-imagines @buckysteveloki-me @sherloquestea @nakiaswg @carellmcu @ximehs @savemewattpad and etc

#agent carter oc #marvel oc #marvel cinematic universe #ant man #hank pym #the young avengers #scott lang #marvel fanfiction #marvel blurb #hope van dyne #original male character #mcu fanfiction #mcu fancast #agents of shield #marvel x oc #janet van dyne #glen powell

25 notes · View notes

blueikeproductions · 3 months ago

Text

So prior to the release tomorrow, a sneak peak of “S3” spotlighting Prowl who instantly chummy with the other Autobots, but instantly cruel to Megatron who looks hurt and embarrassed.

It’s both caused those who’ve seen it to be excited as “Racist IDW Prowl” returning, and harkens to many older cartoons like Teen Titans having the stock “racism episode”.

“It’s worse than we thought, Poindexter, we’re stuck in a cartoon with morals.”

-rubs temples-

Ok. So once again EarthSpark’s writers seem to misunderstand racism allegories. Or perhaps Transformers as a whole does.

It’s complicated.

So stuff in the 80’s cartoon would imply the Decepticons are a separate species in their own right, sort of like classic D&D when monsters like orcs were the defacto evil species.

The cartoon would further reveal the Decepticons being their own race was true, as they descended from “military hardware” built by the Quintessons. It’s a bit muddled how much the Decepticons contributed to the great revolt that saw the Quints chased off Cybertron, as the cartoon chooses to explore it in the POV of the Autobots’ ancestors.

The Marvel comics would flirt with this a bit, with the Furman penned Gene Key arc of the ReGen One continuation revealing the Autobots and Decepticons do possess genetic differences that Scorponok wishes to exploit.

So the racism allegory should fit in ES, right?

Well no.

Outside of the Beast era, which also implies the Maximals, Predacons, and (in a roundabout way) the Vehicons are all distinct species and TFA implying a similar concept, this idea of the Transformers’ factions also functioning as different biologically distinct species tends to be ignored most of the time. (…Except for the Mini-Cons and Terrans…)

Veteran fans in particular have expressed annoyance at this species concept, preferring the Autobots and Decepticons to instead be more politically driven.

And so that’s been the defining characteristic largely going forward, that the Autobots and Decepticons are more like aggressive political parties that can’t agree on anything, but still leaning towards the older concepts of the Autobots wanting peaceful protest and change, while the Decepticons want to blow it all up, the devil with anything in their way.

IDW2 in particular saw the Decepticons start off as a political movement called the “Ascenticons” who wanted to rise up from Nominus Prime’s Energon rationing that was put into place after the devastating War of the Threefold Spark that saw the kibosh put on the Spacebridge program. Megatron didn’t very much care for that, despite being a young soldier in that war, and wanted the Transformers to escape those shackles and run colonization unchecked throughout the galaxy, as it was their right.

The terrorist group, Rise, were also managed by Megatron in secret, trying to nudge things in his favor, with the Ascenticons and Rise formally coming together as the Decepticons to stage a coup d'état.

EarthSpark makes it clear the Transformers weren’t created by the Quints, so they’re not Goods or Hardware here. It’s not particularly clear if there even IS a generic difference here. It feels like the intention in ES was the more modern political-ideological differences, but then S2 implies there might be a racial difference with the “Cons will be Cons”. So not even the show can make up its mind on what exactly the Autobots and Decepticons are in-universe.

Prowl’s dismissal of Megatron kind of reminds me of Rattrap & Dinobot’s exchange of barbs in Beast Wars, and in a way, that should be more what this relationship is like for Prowl and Megs.

The difference so far is Megs seems more legitimately hurt by it, and isn’t fighting back verbally like Dinobot would. And after TFONE, it’s rather foreign that Megs would take Prowl’s skrud like that.

Depending on where this goes, it feels like the writers are trying to channel the alien that called Starfire a “trog” or Malfoy calling Hermione a “mud blood”, but it kinda comes off instead as Prowl going “Ew what’s that Republican jerk doing here?” Prowl is honestly justified at being disgusted at Megatron even being here, as let’s remember, Megatron still started the war that decimated Cybertron. It doesn’t really matter he suddenly feels bad about it, that’s countless lives lost on Cybertron alone because of his actions. So the Autobots and Maltos being so chummy with Gruncle Megatron is still kinda unnerving. Again it’s like they want him to be Vegeta, but without Vegeta’s abrasive Saiyan Pride dictating things.

The problem remains that EarthSpark’s staff are largely Decepticon sympathizers, and similar to IDW, the problem is magnified more by the Autobots rightfully annoyed at Megatron getting away… So much so that Getaway’s own coup in getting rid of Megatron and his sympathizers was technically justified…

Until Roberts realized Getaway was correct, that didn’t fly with the trajectory, and had to instead write him as a psychopath with delusions of being a Prime, among other things…

-sighs-

T’be honest this is one of those times I wish Roberts got his way early on and we got Blitzwing and Powerglide as the couple and Quickswitch in Megatron’s role because this would’ve saved us so many headaches in the long run.

#blueike productions #blueike #transformers #transformers earthspark

16 notes · View notes

dynared · 8 months ago

Text

The GI Joe ARAH Kickstarter is live and in six minutes beat its $50,000 goal by nearly six orders of magnitude, currently sitting at $300k.

It bears repeating that this comic was at one point the most popular comic Marvel was making, with nearly double the issues of Transformers (more if you count the spinoff Special Missions) and was outselling peak 80s X-Men, when the book was arguably at the height of its creative power.

#gi joe #gi joe a real american hero #g.i. joe #marvel #skybound #comic book #cobra commander

30 notes · View notes

wanderingmind867 · 5 months ago

Text

I think 1985 was the year when comics completely almost lose themselves to me. Based on reading marvel (and reading about DC) I know that this date has to be the date comics lose interest to me. I'll explain: comics from the 60s to the mid 70s seem okay. 1960 to 1974 or 1975 are the peak years, in my opinion. But then things start to go downhill in the late 70s. Frank Miller ruins Daredevil with his edginess, Chris Claremont kills Jean Grey and messes with the X-Men, The Hulk loses his love interest in Jarella, Denny O'Neill ruins Batman by making him darker again, Gerry Conway kills off Gwen Stacy (for no good reason!) etc. I know the Gerry Conway one was a bit earlier than the mid to late 70s, but it was still a bad decision.

Anyways, things only get worse from here (at least for my sensibilities). If i thought the mid to late 70s were bad, the 80s become a bit of a train wreck. Jim Starlin kills Captain Mar-Vell and Jason Todd, The Hulk has the Professor Hulk saga (something I don't really like), John Byrne messes with the Fantastic Four and Superman, Walt Simonson makes Thor ditch Don Blake (which I hate). Really, Jim Shooter messes with Marvel and sadly oversees a lot of bad stuff (I don't know if that's all his fault, but I get a negative impression of him as editor).

But I have time for one last paragraph, so let's talk more about 80s DC. Alan Moore gets brought in, and he brings his horrible pessimism and darkness over to DC. As someone who's already prone to sadness, I don't need depression in my fiction. But even besides Alan Moore, DC had issues. Like the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was meant to uncomplicate things (but may have complicated things more). Then DC gets Frank Miller, Jim Starlin and John Byrne, and it all goes downhill. I'm really just repeating slander against certain people, but I guess it's just that I'm always opinionated about these sorts of things.

6 notes · View notes

plutonicbees · 14 days ago

Note

Ok, I’m summoned. Amalgam was such a fun wild era for comics, cats and dogs living together. The way some mashups were literally perfect and interesting and some were just the authors admitting on record that, yeah, they are basically the same guy, and then they were like, ok what do we do with the Riddler? It’s such a time capsule. Lobo the Duck only making sense if you understand the weird context of 80s comics. How some of the constituent characters don’t even show up in modern comics anymore. It’s also just, very funny. Tim and Jubilee sorta dating in DC/Marvel all access and then Steven Universe fusing into Sparrow. The way the Amalgam character for Marvel Hawkeye is just, Also named Hawkeye. Bruce Wayne showing up in like, 3 different amalgamations. Phil Coulson and Nick Fury being entirely unchanged for some reason.

I Miss some of them, they were cool. (Spider-Boy my beloved. I also just Genuinely like Bat-Thing, neat character.) If Marvel and DC didn’t want to play nice they should’ve sat down and split them up like beanie babies on the floor in divorce court.

yes yes yes!!! to everything!!

tim and jubilee are so so silly to me. jubilee being like "I fuck heavy with this guy's fashion sense, is this romance?" and tim. um. cheating on his gf with her 😭😭 but as a lover of both characters I think sparrow as their amalgam is so silly (i only wish the character design was more than jubilee in a robin costume)

the dated-ness of the comics is what makes it so special, really. it's just fun and goofy nerdiness. lobo the duck is peak. I think dark claw is also so funny bc he sounds like a warrior cats oc and his costume is fantastically overdramatic.

and spider-boyyyy 🥺🥺🥺 I love him dearly. definitely my favorite in terms of character and design. I have all his trading cards on my wall! (plus one of sparrow, one of mercury). I'll admit that when I was reading superman comics and came across the name pete ross, my first thought was spider-boy (to be fair- I was a marvel nerd first, and the bridge of amalgam came before my superman obsession)

oh I really do wish he could be claimed as a spider totem/spider-verse character... in my dreamiest of dreams he would've had an across the spider-verse cameo. alas, there's another spider-boy in town these days. much fun to think about though :)

#for a long while now I've also really enjoyed playing around with the idea potential amalgam characters as well as redesigns.#young justice & young avengers especially #(kate bishop & cissie king jones #tommy shepherd & thad thawne #cassie sandsmark & cassie lang!)#would die to see a nightwing/nightcrawler amalgam i think they'd be so cool...#amalgam comics #spider boy #marvel comics #dc comics

3 notes · View notes

larkwithme · 5 months ago

Text

Baby's first ask game! (I've been here for five years idk what I was doing that whole time)

(Thanks @onioneyez, I am also suffering through the ao3 outage :) )

(UPDATE: IT JUST FIXED ITSELF!!)

Last song: I'm All Right by Madeleine Peyroux! Got its album on CD a few weeks ago (and just recovered my CD player from storage) so I've been playing it ooover and oooover

Favorite color: Whatever I'm wearing the most of that day! Today is all blue day so I'm going to see a nice deep blue or maybe faded denim color.

Currently reading: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell!!! My favorite book of all time ever, I needed something familiar and I've read this little guy maybe eight times so... yup. So pretty so sad the characters inspire me on the most basic human level UGH

Currently watching: I *just* started my yearly Fleabag s2 rewatch as of an hour ago so that will consume me for a week or so. Then I will finish X-Men 97 and then who knows what.

Last movie: Querelle! Very strange, very 80s gay. Extremely sexy lighting, everything glittered and glowed it was crazy beautiful.

Sweet, spicy, savory?: SAVORY <3 very salty with lots of allium and a medium-small amount of spice

relationship status: Flying solo for theee forseeable future

current obsession: X-Men!! My childhood obsession returns. I thought I was just going to watch a movie or two to prep for Deadpool and Wolverine, but it turned into a whole thing. Even got a subscription to the Marvel comic service, reading lots of Wolverine stuff, buncha random comics. I also have recently acquired a kitchen of my very own, so I've been cooking like crazy and I'm desperate to get some more ingredients and start making new recipes!! I need new recipes!!

Tea or coffee? Tea at home, a flavored latte (decaf) when I'm out. Golden milk is peak though. Really craving this honeycomb latte I had once but I hate spending more than 5 bucks on a drink mmm

last thing I googled: "din tai fung disney" went to a nice restaurant for my mom's birthday dinner, so naturally we discussed other restaurants (and my mom's a disney fan). Disney's too expensive as is so I will not be visiting that little establishment but goddd I want dim sum... preferably not at din tai fung prices...

If y'all want, no pressure :) @soupen-creature @goat-goth @allthatglitters-isgay

5 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 2 years ago

Text

Into the Spider-Verse: Spider-Ham (Marvel Tails #1 and Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15) (Comissioned by WeirdKev15)

Hello all you happy webheads and welcome back to Into the Spider-Verse, my look at the origins of every webslinger from the landmark film in the build up to Across the Spider-Verse. And it's bittersweet to be this close to the end of the web here: i'm proud of myself for this project and kev for having cooked it up as it allowed me to really dig into my love of spider-man, and comics in general, with new ideas and even possible new retrospectives wholesale coming out of this.

But before we can end this ride, we still have one Spidey to cover, who after our previous spider-persons adventures with crackers and milk, their predecesors literal oppisite sex clone, mob goons without fear, rock n roll pop art halluciongens in your giant spider mecha, and giant spiders stripping you naked, one man comes along to say..

Yes it's time for the debut of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham a

And i'm sure many of you, both those familiar with the comics and those who just watched the movie, are asking the same question: why. The answer is simple. Way way back in the 1980's, Marvel had a new animated arm, Marvel Productions, which was a massive deal, producing both GI Joe and Transformers, which both started as comics first to promote the upcoming toylines, as well as Dungeons and Dragons, My LIttle Pony Tales, Muppet Babies, Jem and the Holograms, Kid N Play and the Biker Mice From Mars. There were also of course marvel cartoons like Spider-Man(the 80s one), Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk, the more popular Incredible Hulk and the infamous and destined to be covered Pryde of the X-Men Pilot.

So naturally Marvel wanted more ips to feed into the almighty merchandising machine, because shockingly, companies have ALWAYS wanted every dollar they can get out of making more and more adaptations as long s they can afford it. So two writers set to work to spitball this: They were Tom DeFalco, a longtime spider-man editor who would go on to write the guidebook I had as a kid that really got me into the comics and taught me a lot about his rogues gallery and more importantly would write the book himself briefly, being the one to crystalize Mary Jane's tragic Backstory and her knowing Peter Parker is spider-man all along. WIth him was the wonderful Larry Hama, at the time writing GI JOe for marvel.. and at the time of this writing STILL writing his continuation of that continuity for IDW as he should. Hama deserves all the credit for setting the foundations of the GI Joe universe most adaptations follows and for writing one hell of a comic in the process, and not one to rest on his laurels would later have the defining run on Wolverine's solo book.

So as you can imagine when these two legends get together.. they created a simple but enduringly weird joke that has lasted decades. It's a concept that just works: Spider-Man.. but he's a funny animal. Weirdly though Marvel Animation passed on it, not wanting anything to do with it despite the fact that in a time when Garfield was at the peak of his powers and they'd be making muppet babies, funny animals were a VERY easy sell. Seriously why Marvel Animation was so stupid is a riddle for the ages but Marvel liked printing money, so they put Porker in a one shot, Marvel Tails, parodying the marvel reprint mag marvel Tales. That said DeFalco didn't expect much from it and was suprised months later when the higher ups asked for another issue. He explained it was a one shot.. and then they asked when the next issue was and he got the memo. While DeFalco wrote the one shot that launched the character he freely admits he's not the one who made him a star. That honor goes to Steve Skeates. Skeates had been a mainstay in the industry, paticuarlly having a run on Aquaman i've been trying to read for some time that really launched the character to new heights before Superfriends would shove him back to the depths for a while. He was burnt out on the industry and freely admits he wouldn't of done the book for Larry Hama if it was any other book, but felt the format allowed him to do a throwback to the kinds of books he liked writing while still throwing in plenty of comedy to keep it fresh. The result was pretty great, with Skeates wisely having Porker's various foes not be the obvious joke of being the animals they resemble, for instance the Vulture being a possum in a buzzard suit instead of a vulture.

And we'll be seeing that contrast between Porker's humble one shot joke beginings and evolved more nuanced parody as unlike most of the characters featured... Porker didn't get his origin story for a while. While most of the spider-persons got there's in their very first appearance or arc, Porker's origin didn't come about till late in his solo books run. So today we'll be looking at both his first appearance in Marvel Tails, and his origin story in Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 under the cut!

Spider-Ham begins his career in a typical spider-man setting: stopping a typical gang of thugs with ease and some quips. But it's not long before we get into one of the weird things about this story, something that just dosen't really work with it: Captain Americat. Cap is pictured here as Peter's steadfast partner and a reporter at his paper and none of this works. Now this is an AU, it COULD work and the idea of steve and peter being closer partners and steve mentoring him is great, just as the idea of Tony mentoring him was a brilliant one the movies captalized on. But here it's just treated as a normal thing without really being used for a joke that this is so unusual. A large part of this is something that's easy to forget as it hasn't been true about the character since the early 2000's. Spidey.. used to be a bit of a loner when it came to the rest of the Marvel Universe. Granted he was the kind of loaner who had an entire ongoing dedicated to him teaming up with other heroes and a tv show where he had two super college roomies he'd fight crime with, but when it came to consistant teamups his only real super friends were the fantastic four and in a few years Daredevil. Spider-Woman existed, but Jessica was largely her own thing by design, with only the name in common and wouldn't really become an ally or even friend of peter's till they were in the avengers together. Peter would have team ups but he really wasn't super close with the rest of the marvel universe. This changed in the early 2000's as his joining the new avengers gave him a lot of new allies in the marvel universe: He'd be on the new avengers until Brian Micheal Bendis left the book, he joined HIckman's avengers for the first arc, with Doc Ock taking his place, and joined the Mighty Avengers and Mark Waid's avengers afterwords, only in the last few years taking a break from the group entirely, ironically as his MCU counterpart became heavily associated with them himself. Not only that the dawn of the spider-verse and miles migrating to become the 616's second spider-man, meant peter soon had a spider-family.

Even now in his current tirefire of a solo i've been purposfully avoiding but suspect i'l lhave to confront some day, he has Ms Marvel, soon to be thrown in the fridge, Norman Osborn, long story, and his current girlfriend the black cat. Peter's no longer the solo operator he once was.. but back then it's very weird fo ra parody of the character to just.. casually hang out with Captain America regularly and this angle was wisely dropped.

This isn't the only weird thing in this issue either. For some reason rather than pulling from peter's many rogues, the issue has him face the Masked Marauder, some punk ripping off a super high tech arcade. It comes off more like a Scooby Doo Mystery complete with various red herings and the actual culprit showing up early on. He's not even the main threat as the everlovin hulk is also shoved into this issue. His origin is a little neat, with Bruce Bunny being an arcade game maker who gets shoved into a cabinet.

The result though just isn't that funny. Ther'es a good joke about steve stashing his shield in his coat

But otherwise i'ts just kinda.. there and didn't leave the best first impression back when I first read it. It's nicely drawn, but dosen't have much actually to say or any really satire of the character. It's clear they had the name but no idea what to do with it. THe backup is pretty funny though, the weird Goose Rider, take a while guess, who just.. spends it riding around, thinking about grabbing a burger, and dealing iwth shouty civlians and some random doofus called chainsaw. This satire.. actually works as from what I can tell Ghost Rider's early rogues gallery before his reinvention in the 90's wasn't all that impressive with few exceptions. It's more what I wanted. Thankfully when Peter got his title shot, things perked up and by the time we get to his origin... we get something delightful.

As you can tell both by the cover used for this review and from the title, this one's a parody of spider-man no more. Even if you haven't read the story (I've only read the iconic issue iwth the cover), you've doubtlessly seen it's cover, and the various homages to both that and the shot of peter throwing his costume in the trash and walking away, both by spider-heroes and the rest of the marvel. It helps that Sam Rami choose it as the backbone of Spider-Man 2 and ended up making an even BETTER version of the story in the process. Even Miles had his own version of it after his mom died and he blamed himself for it since the second ultimate venom was the reason she died. If you've read more recent comics and seen Rio alive and well that's because Miles befriended the Molocule Man, a very shy man with the power to control molocules... which shockingly for comics has been treated every bit as horrifyingly powerful as it should since his introduction, with MM's only real wekaness being his crippling neurosis. So when the universe died and was put back, Molocule brought her back as a thank you present. I had a point here.. ah yes.. I love the Molocule Man and feel he's a highly underated character. Oh that with the severe stress and sacrifice of being a spider-man, it's not a huge leap to have that moment of doubt. And it's an even shorter leap to take that moment and parody it and Peter's angst for all it's worth. We open with J Jonah Jackal hooking himself up to an idea machine while his three young wards, the junior newsboys watch. They are Jermiah Jackal, JJJ's snooty nephew, Bunson Bunny, our resident nerd who talks in big snetences and Upton Adam Stray, a combination of a black sterotype and

If your getting some deja vu from a rich magnate having three young sidekicks who both acompany him and try to steer away his worse instincts, one of whom is jonah's literal nephew.. GOOD. It means you have good taste and also get the bit. Spider-Ham has a bit of the old Scrooge McDuck stories in it's dna, simply adding spider-man and his rogues to the mix, and really JJJ is such a perfect fit for scrooge and Peter for Donald, that I can't blame both writers for dipping into this formula when it fits spider-man shockingly well now he's a pig.

This issue is written by steven Mellor, who took over the title later in his run, but like Skeates does a really fun job with it.

With Jonah having peter come to the clubhouse to view an idea he came up with that involves the kids

Peter deals with typical spider-man things. That is trying to get a date with his ex Betty Bat. It goes about usual for peter

Also as you might have noticed, hilariously, Peter Porker looks a LOT like John Mulaney, despite having been created only one year after John was born. I mean he's also a talking pig but the hair is distractingly like his future voice actors and I love it.

Baby P decides to handle this like a mature, rational young swine

Before bemoaning that he's still single.. what I like is that Mellor both really gets how Peter Parker Mopey Rants work, and milks it with everyone starring not sure what to do as peter ineternally rants and the janitor eventually asking him to leave as he's getting his tears on the floor. Peter then reflects back to his origin, the reason we're here. And even for a talking pig.. peter's origin is hilaroiusly bizzare. It's my kind of weird shenanigans. Okay so in this version Peter.. was a spider, which is clever enough.. but May was a mad scientest who befriended peter and showed him her new invention: a fission powered hairdryer. It made her radoactive, it wasn't good.. and well... I can't say what happens next and have most of you belivie it actually happened so here's photographic evdience.

This.. this is comedy gold, and clever as all hell. Just deciding to have may be radioactive nad bite peter. It's as nuts as it is brilliant and I love it. So we get the standard origin moments of Peter testing out his powers.. and we also get a nice gag out of him bending a pipe in the original amazing fantasy #15

Peter returns to find may basically the dodering old lady sterotype she was in earlier spider-man comics, and decides to look after her and not tell her the truth, as well as put his powers to use. Peter's genius in this version is also from the bite and thus Spider-Ham is born

After running into flash thompsons counterpart, who sadly isn't named flash beagle, we get jonah's meeting where he's dressed himself and the boys up in superhero outfits and ...

To become Black Beagle and his beagle brigadeers. Peter is dragged along for this and this.. is easily the weakest part of the issue. While the idea of Jonah becoming a hero himself is great and has been used well, here it's just kinda there and is mostly a setup for them to befriend "Andy Warthog" and see a bunch of celebrity pastiches. It's a boring page or two

Thankfully it picks up with a delightful parody of one of my faviorite spider-man rogue as the Hobgobbler crashes the party! God bless this pun. He kidnaps one of the celebrties and we get a ncie character moment. Despite how silly this character and his origin are... it's still neat to see the core of spider-man.. is still present.

No matter the universe, no matter who wears the mask... they can't turn down responsiblity. Try as he might.. Peter just can't let someone else get hurt if he can help it and that's what makes spider-man the hero we love so much: that drive to help people no matter what it takes. It's what makes a spider-person what they are wethere they be man, woman, ham or nb.

So Peter naturally wins, in a nicely drawn fight, cooks the turkey and drive sJonah home. He WANTS to just get some deserved sleep but Aunt May has other plans.. thankfully said plans give our hero his much deserved happy ending. Action is already his reward.

As you can probably figure, this issue is a massive improvment and it's clear even with two diffrent writers, the full ongoing got the concept better and more importantly had more fun with it. The result.. is fucking great. Also the puns. Dear lord the puns. And that's not getting into the backup which has the scavengers fight kangaroo the conquerer. Who damn well better be among the council of kangs. At any rate this issue was greatr and even with the brief slowdown, is a great issue, not only getting me reintrested in this run, but also showing off just what you can do with a parody: have it be both heartfelt and clearly get what it's making fun of while still being great.

Next Time: The web ends as we look at the movie itself. Anyone can wear the mask but is one Miles Morales up to the task? Can he fill peter's shoes? Well yeah, I mean there's even a sequel, but it's still one hell of a ride.

#spider-man #peter porker #spider-ham #mary jane waterbuffalo #john mulaney #into the spider-verse #across the spider-verse

39 notes · View notes

nitpickrider · 1 year ago

Text

And so, with that, we conclude Captain America Vol 1. (1968-1996) I'll give a short sum up for anyone who doesn't want to jump below the cut. This volume is a classic. A 30 year epic that prospered under the hands of some of the best in the business and under the mind of one creative genius in particular who shaped and defined our understanding of one of the greatest characters in the Marvel canon. From the heaving ruckus of the Marvel 60s to the stumbling aftermath of the 90s Dark Age, Captain America shared some of the greatest moments, stories and emotions that you could ever pick off a rack. I thought I appreciated Cap before. I know much, MUCH better now. If you're interested in my thoughts on breaking the book down into eras, or want a sneak peak at the next Marvel book on the list. Peek below.

ERA 1, THE SIXTIES: What can even be SAID about Marvel in the 60s? A constant flooding river of new ideas tossed thick and fast one right after the other in a verbose style that we joke on because we love it. This was a foundational stepping stone of the modern comic book and Captain America is no exception. Weird science, kirby dots, story straining with a countercultural need to be about something, to turn into something people had never seen before and yet still with a casual familiarity that mad the bullpen feel like a gaggle of college yucksters making it up as they went along. Often imitated, never duplicated, Captain America in the 60s had about 5 too many Sleeper storylines but an energy that kept me hopping along gladly.

ERA 2, THE FALCON:

Words can hardly describe the breath of fresh air that Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon represented. Cap in the 60s could on run on that early Marvel energy for so long before the Bronze Age crept in and it needed something new, something modern, something that gave the stories some meat to sink into. Sam Wilson was that and more, a new perspective to every story that kept Captain America honest in how his symbol was viewed and accepted from the ground up by marginalized communities, not to mention someone who could bounce ideas and banter off Steve in every sense. There's a reason they become one of, if not THE enduring duo of equals in Marvel's canon. Captain America and The Falcon will always have a special resonance to anyone who knows them and this run getting it right the first time is why. Plus, cute birb.

ERA 3, THE BROOKLYN ERA:

With the 80s came a new style, a new grit and reality that came with New York's growth or degeneration depending on how you look at it. Urban sprawl and smog became a constant backdrop and ideas of street crime and urban decay become frightening realities for the residents. So Captain America was forced to confront and integrate himself into that new reality. He got an apartment, he got a job, he got a girlfriend, he lived in a tenement with people who lived and worked and toiled the same way he did. It's the closest he's ever come to being a Spider-Man style street level hero, fighting the ills of a world that feels real and tactile all around him.

ERA 4, EARLY GRUENWALD:

Now we get to the core of this volume, a single writer and creative that would steer the ship of defining Captain America to the largest extent since his original creators. Mark Gruenwald. A writer who had every idea of how one examined, deconstructed, reconstructed and puzzled with the inherent questions and contradictions inherent in the Sentinel of Liberty. Never does the comic go any length of time without making Cap question who he is and what his purpose is. It's an era that feels like nothing so much as building momentum, creating an engine to tell stories about a fascinating man and the fascinating people around him, never one to shy away from beloved secondary heroes like Nomad, D-Man and Steve's supporting cast like Bernie Rosenthal or Arnie Roth.

ERA 5, THE JOHN WALKER ERA:

Gruenwald's masterstroke, making Captain America look a modern, cynical world in the eye and ask "who am I, what is my purpose, and what does my symbol mean in a world where freedom and America are not synonymous terms." Not content to JUST look at that through Steve's eyes, the character of John Walker (Later USAgent) is a dark reflection of Steve that asks him what the consequences would be if his patriotism become jingoism by even one degree over the line. Forcing Steve to define for himself what kind of American ideal he is fighting to protect and what he's willing to sacrifice to back it up when the American Dream and the American Reality couldn't be further apart.

ERA 6, LATER GRUENWALD: Established with a world class storyline under its belt and nothing left to do but hit the gas and see where it goes, the later Gruenwald era is an expression of the joyous fun that can be taken from a comic that takes itself dramatically but not too seriously. New villains, new twists and pulling old favorites out of mothballs it's a comic that can go anywhere and do anything under an established writer who knows the character like the back of his hand. The Bloodstone Hunt, Capwolf, Superia. The kind of consistently good storytelling you can only get from a comic that has comfortably gotten into a once in a lifetime kind of groove.

ERA 7, THE @#$%^& 90S:

Like any comic that runs long enough in certain period of time, any good groove is going to run head first into the 90s and end up breaking its nose. I won't lie or sugarcoat it in the name of preserving the book's legacy. The armor storyline and everything surrounding it is ROUGH. The art is ugly, the power armor is dumb and the entire series seems content to wallow in a sense of its own cleverness for examining Cap physically in ways Gruenwald topped 100x over by taking the character apart mentally and emotionally. I WILL say however, that if you honestly meet this era's emotions on their level, if you're able to get past its flaws, you find that that Gruenwald spark is still right where it was. The new additions, Free Spirit and Jack Flag show promise in the mold of Cap's partners of old and the issue where Cap confronts his own mortality is truly poignant.

ERA 8, CURTAIN CALL:

Outside of the helm of Gruenwald for the first time in more than 10 years, it's easy to see that the series can't last too much longer in its current form. These issues are all about setting up something new, forcing Cap out of the comfortable spot he's made for himself and confronting an oncoming millennium with the sobering realization that this continuous stream must come to an end to plant something new. Returns of old concepts but with a millennial sheen that gives a hope for the future, it truly feels like the passing of the torch from the old guard to a new one that would take on the Event Comics era and the modern Marvel landscape one way or the other.

CONCLUSION, A LIVING LEGEND:

Captain America is a classic character. We all know it however as a fixture of the universe's main superhero team it's often hard to really frame him in your mind as a character in his own right with his own, independent stories to tell and a timeline that's rich and begging to be mined outside of The Avengers. Gruenwald forged a new path for Cap, dozens of other creators from 3 decades of Marvel comics reaching in to lend a hand to the tapestry of one of the true legends of comics. A story that twists, turned and sometimes stumbled but never the less kept itself to one, truly unalterable standard. Legendary. For those of you interesting in what Marvel book comes along next...Follow me on a journey to the Hyborean Age.

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel universe #marvel heroes #superhero #comics #captain america #steve rogers

12 notes · View notes

joker1315 · 6 months ago

Text

All the movies and tv shows you can find on this blog

Use the following link and insert the tag you want to see:

#: 300 - 10 things i hate about you - 12 years a slave - 1899

a: a cure for wellness - a knights tale - after the rain - alice in wonderland - the alienist - all of us strangers - anchoress - andor - angels and demons - around the world in 80 days - assassins creed - august osage county - australia - the avengers - awake

b: bad influence - barbie - the battle for rome - birdland - black mirror - black panther - the blacklist - blackout - blackpool - blood - blood diamond - blow - the book of boba fett - boston legal - the boys - the brave - bright young things - broadchurch - brotherhood

c: captain america - casanova - case histories - cellular - centurion - charlie and the chocolate factory - chocolat - chumscrubber - the cloverfield paradox - clue - colonia - coriolanus - the counselor - covenant - crimson peak - critical care - the curse of the midas box

d: the damned united - dangerous lady - dark - the dark knight - the dark knight rises - dark shadows - dates - the davinci code - dead man - deadpool - the deal - the death of stalin - detective pikachu - die tür - dig - doctor strange - doctor who - dolly partons heartstrings - donnie brasco - dracula - dream lover - druk

e: ed wood - en kongelig affære - en kort en lang - exile - the expanse

f: the face of an angel - the falcon and the winter soldier - the fall - fantastic beasts - fantastic four - far from the madding crowd - fear and loathing in las vegas - the fifth estate - filth - finding neverland - fish tank - fleabag - the fountain - four rooms - fright night - from hell

g: gallowglass - der ganz grosse traum - good - good omens - the good thief - gotham - gothika - the great dictator - the great race - guardians of the galaxy

h: halt and catch fire - hamlet - hannibal - harry potter - heart - heartlands - high rise - his dark materials - the hobbit - the hollow crown - home again - how to train your dragon

i: i saw the light - the imitation game - the impossible - indiana jones - inglourious basterds - inkheart - iron man

j: jagten - james bond - jessica jones - the judge - jurassic park

k: kate and leopold - the kings speech - kingsman - kiss kiss bang bang - kong%3A skull island - ku'damm 59

l: l. a. without a map - the ladykillers - laws of attraction - the legend of 1900 - legion - the libertine - life on mars - little favour - loki - london - lord of the rings - love actually - lucifer

m: macbeth - macgyver - mamma mia - the mandalorian - marvel - master and commander - masters of sex - miranda - moon knight - mortdecai - moulin rouge - move on - mrs. doubtfire - much ado about nothing - much ado about nothing (1993) - mulan - the muppets most wanted

n: the necessary death of charlie countryman - the night manager - the nightmare before christmas - nine-1%2F2-minutes - not another teen movie - nu

o: the oa - once upon a time - only lovers left alive - oppenheimer - oscar wilde - oslo - ostfriesenblut - ostfriesenkiller

p: paddington 2 - parades end - passengers - patrick melrose - the patriot - peaky blinders - the pelayos - peter pan - pirates of the caribbean - polar - the power of the dog - the practice - preacher - present laughter - the prestige - prey - pride - priest - prodigal son - prometheus - pulp fiction - puncture - the pursuit of love - pushing daisies

r: rab c. nesbitt - ratatouille - rejseholdet - reprisal - reservoir dogs - resident alien - richard II - the right stuff - robin hood - rocketman - rocky horror picture show - rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead - rush - rush (series)

s: the salvation - the sandman - der schuh des manitu - secret window - secretary - shadow and bone - shame - sherlock - sherlock holmes - the silence of the lambs - the singing detective - single father - sleepy hollow - slow west - small island - the snowman - soldiers girl - the special relationship - spiderman - the stag - staged - star trek - star wars - stargate universe - the stickup - storage 24 - submergence - sucker punch - supernatural - supernova - sweeney todd

t: tatort - tatort berlin - tatort saarbrücken - the thick of it - third star - thor - to the ends of the earth - tolkien - torchwood - the tourist - the town - transcendence - triple frontier - tron - true lies - twilight - twin peaks

u: uncle frank - underworld - unthinkable

v: velvet goldmine - vildspor

w: wandavision - war horse - watchmen - welcome to the punch - whats eating gilbert grape - whats your number - wimbledon - windtalkers - the witcher - the wonderful story of henry sugar - the words - wreckers

x: x men - the x-files

y: yellow submarine

#movies #films #tv shows #tv series

3 notes · View notes

drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 1 year ago

Text

Breaking down the comics: Taking the hit (Issue #26)

Moon Knight Issue #26: Hit it! / The Cabbie Killer

Two in one! What a wonderful time to be alive!

Also this cover really gives me modern comic feels and I have no idea why. I feel like I've seen a variant of this cover before or perhaps another comic did a similar theme. Hmmm.

We start with an editor's note from Denny O'Neil! That's either a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to a newer comic that is experiencing its first big few years and establishing characters and villains.

It reads:

Falling on our noses?

In tai chi chaun, a gentle and wonderful combination of martial arts and exercise, there is a concept called "exploring the limits." This means testing how close you can let an opponent come before he hits you and how far you can extend yourself towards him before you lose your balance and fall on your nose. What you learn is where your body is, its boundaries, and the distance it can be extended and yet retain wholeness and identity.

In Moon Knight we're exploring the limits.

We're asking: What kind of adventures can our hero have and still be his own unique self. (Can we do fantasy? Science fiction? Humor?) How long should stories be? (One per issue? Two? Three? Or should a story extend over a number of issues?) How many liberties can we take with the traditional comic book format? (Our black-and-white covers are a solid success. but we're not sure about our other experiments --putting the title on the inside cover, next issue ads on the back cover, text features, cover galleries and whatever we come up with next.)

Lots of questions. Very few answers.

But that's okay. In fact, that's fine. That's what makes working on Moon Knight just about the most exciting job in comics. I've always liked journeys and everyone likes surpirses and Moon Knight is both. The magazine--and character--are fluid, not fully defined and we're busy exploring the limits.

Of course, we may fall on our noses. You'll let us know if we do.

-Denny O'Neil.

Okay! So this is a big thing for early comics! Many of you are only familiar with newer age comics and have graced Golden Age comics with a peak or two. But we’re sitting firm in the early 80s and Moon Knight is indeed a character that is unlike any other that was sitting firm in Marvel’s top tier. Born from a supernatural/horror type portion of Marvel that saw the birth of Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, and others of the likes, Moon Knight bordered on classic Super-hero and supernatural horror.

The note about Tai Chi and extension is actually really beautiful and a perfect metaphor for Moon Knight. I’ll have to remember that one!

Now, to have a clear call to arms in where to take Moon Knight means that they have had this conversation in the writing room. They don’t know what to do with the comic. They have classic stories and ideas, but they don’t want to start repeating themselves this early int he game, but they also don’t want to jump the shark.

It also means that this particular comic that we are about to read might be an experiment on where to take the comic. So let’s see what the story of the week is!

We open with some utterly outstanding art. I mean, this stuff is GOLD. We got TWO spreads people!

The first page describes the colors of sound. The beat of jazz and how it affects the senses.

"First there is black. Then tehre is light, and all the colors of Jazz. And there is sound in these colos. A wailing trumpet drips cool violet, threaded with smoke. Heavy blue lumbers from the bass... While the clarinet tempts and tantalizes in hot pink counterpoint. But the drum... The drum beats Blood Red."

We move from jazz to images of various uses of the phrase "Hit it!" Hit it to be starting the jazz band swinging. To fix a malfunctioing TV, to encourage a baseball player to hit the ball out of hte park to a child's drawing....

"Double meanings sometimes multiply."

An abusive father and a crying child.

"But even as a trumpet screams through the night...The drum still beats Blood Red.”

"Hit it, Moon Knight. The night is here, the moon is full, and caught between one and the other dark deeds will prowl. Hit it, Moon Knight. Hit it.

Cats in windows, cries from the alley, shadows mixing, and mysteries cloaked for the kill. Hit it, Moon Knight, Hit it.

Fear in lurking, money itching to change hands, twitching and always, always blood to be spilled.

It's hot, Moon Knight, and it's dark and it's now--Don't be late, Moon Knight, Not for your time to howl...

It might be in rage or it might be in pain...But never fear, Moon Knight, it's always the same.

Just hit it, Moon Knight... Hit it!"

Sometimes I think Moench just shows off. And then Sienkiewicz just FLEXES.

We see Moon Knight on patrol. He passes by a building and we hear some men talking.

One complains about the graveyard shift to Joe.

But Joe isn't paying attention. He's having a flashback.

He's reading the newspaper. Specifically the Obituaries. We see a children's drawing of the angry father. Joe throws the paper and runs away.

He runs to a jazz club where the crowd flows out onto the sidewalk.

Joe runs into the crowd and comes across a man in the way.

Moon Knight notices the commotion and heads on over.

"Just down the street the colors are wilder --Neon shrieks without mercy...And the beat is younger, faster, harder... Pounding, driving, relentlessly slamming... Everybody is doing it these days, getting great satisfaction..."

They move past the jazz club to a rock house.

Along the way we see people beaten, bloodied, and terribly wounded.

"By hitting...hitting...hitting it!"

Joe makes it to his destination at last: The funeral parlor.

"I'm coming old man! Coming to pay my respects!"

The blood red drum beats and he bursts into the parlor.

There he finds the coffin of his father.

A priest tries to speak to him.

Joe beats the man down.

Joe is ready to fight. To fight anyone that tries to stop him. That stands between him and his father. Him and his past.

"Did you come to hit me too? Well, come on then--Hit me! Hit me till your arms fall off! You might as well...

He did it often enough! He hit me till I couldn't sleep at night--Any night!

And then he hit me some more! And then he ran away--Left my mother alone! Finally he wouldn't hit me anymore! Finally he wouldn't even give me that!"

Narration: "Blood red... The beat never ends... Pain, catharsis, rage--They shriek through nights lost to time..."

Narration: "Turn away, Moon Knight--You were wrong--It's not your time to howl. There are others with stronger voice, greater cause..."

The priest interrupts demanding that Moon Knight stop him.

Moon Knight: "No... There's been enough hitting tonight... I won't add to it."

While Moon Knight talks to the priest, Joe stands up and punches Moon Knight.

Here we remember that Marc Spector was a boxer. His violence settling from the school yard to the ring until his father turned him out. Marc moved from the ring to the battle field to the mercenary role. Marc runs hot with rage and fire. Who is he here? The raging child fighting back or the monster with nowhere else to put his fire than into those around him?

A Rabbi once told him to stop. A Rabbi that tried to lead him down a path of passive peace when the world around him was violence and pain. A father that could not stand the sight of his son fighting back.

Now we see a priest telling him to fight and him standing up and saying there is enough violence in the world that perhaps just this once there can be peace.

And when violence falls on him, he does not take the passive path. He can’t. Everything Marc is and has been is refusing to look the other way while he is hurt.

Narration: The crowning madness... Long live the king. And so, Moon Knight, the night was yours after all... And once started, the drum beats blood red...Forever."

He is angry with himself. Angry at his loss of control. Angry that he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stop the violence. He couldn’t stop his own rage. His own need to hit back. To hit it.

What an opener. This one has me feeling a lot here. The direction of past trauma on those around us. The need to get resolution only to have it taken away from us. How it leads to more pain. More hurt. More trauma.

Does this remind anyone of anything?

Yeah. I went there.

PART TWO: Cabbie Killer!

This story is written by Denny O'Neil with artist Keith Pollard and editor Ralph Macchio.

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh no, Jake!”

We open on Jake sitting in his cab late at night.

"This is Lockley. I'm headin' for the garage after I drop my fare."

In the buses waits a man with a bazooka.

Narration: It is quiet in Brooklyn, this cool autumn evening, as Jake Lockley ends a day of driving around New York City--Quiet for exactly four more seconds...Then, two events occur simultaneously. Lockley stamps on the breake to avoid "STUPID DOG" --and the car parked a few feet away erupts in eye stinging flame...

Jake's fare asks if it was an accident or a bomb.

Jake sits stunned. "Neither. Just before the fireworks, I glimpsed a muzzle flash from the bushes. Weird as it seems, somebody shot off an old fashioned Bazooka! The thing that bugs me is, it looked like we were the target.... You got any enemies, mister?"

Jake's fare decides it's probably safer to walk and departs the cab. Probably for the best.

We cut to an hour or so later on a pier somewhere. We see a man in fancy military garb talking to another guy.

He explains that because of the dog, he missed his target and the target got away. He explains that he will try again with success next time.

The other guy tells him he doesn't give second chances and to 'take a hike'.

Military guy isn't happy.

"You have hired me to destroy a taxi cab and so I shall--whether you like it or not. I gave my word--And Commodore Donny Planet always keeps his word. Understood?"

Let me just say: WHAT A NAME.

Oh no. I didn't think it was this issue. I suppose I take solace in knowing now that it isn’t Bill that gave us Speeden. It always seems wrong to see old Moon Knight drawn by someone else. They just don’t get the face right.

But they sure do get the dialogue right. And the name. Steven. Because we all know who the vain one of the group is. Someone has to take care of the body and we all know it isn’t going to be Marc or Jake.

Ladies and Gents and all of the others, I give you Speedo Steven.

The pool scene wasn’t even needed. He literally came home after being shot at by a bazooka, changed into Steven, took a dip into a pool, then ran off to Brooklyn as Moon Knight. There was absolutely ZERO need for Steven to get into the smallest speedo he could find and take a swim. He even demanded that Marlene and Frenchie….wait. He demanded that Marlene meet him by the pool. She showed up in a bikini, expecting lovely pool time. Frenchie just showed up! In full attire. He was just there for the show. He takes it where he can get it, I suppose.

Moon Knight, now flying over the city, spots something burning. On closer look, he finds a cab on fire.

It seems the Bazooka man found a cab to hit.

Saddened by the loss of a cab, he is at least relieved to know that Jake Lockley is not the primary target.

Moon Knight tells Frenchie to take them to the Queens Cemetery.

"For months, I've known that a lot of our local criminal types play poker there every Friday night...They figure they won't be disturbed. Maybe one of them will have some answers for us."

Once there, he directs Frenchie to grab his cab and park it near the north gate.

I just gotta say... I have always loved the idea that all the bad guys get together to play poker and complain about their foes. Takes me back to the Batman Animated Series "Almost got him" episode.

I also gotta say that no one draws Moon Knight's face right in classic outfit with little emotive eyes like Bill. This one is just...lacking. They also over buffed him out in muscles.

Just a small criticism.

I do appreciate that Frenchie does still have his moon hat though. I love that stupid hat.

Moon Knight takes out the guards and interrupts the poker party.

One of the guys at the party knows something and spills it.

"One of my boys was runnin' from the law...Ducked into a garage and hid a certain tape cassette the cops want in a cab. He told us that much before he died from a slug in the chest. Problem was he didn't say which cab or where in the cab he hid it."

Turns out three cabs were in the garage that night. They hired Commando man to track the three cabs down.

The boss man at the table laughs that Moon Knight isn't going anywhere and calls over a hired goon with a gun.

Crawley!

Now Crawley is a sort of undercover informant for Moon Knight and all the baddies at the poker table trust him.

So Moon Knight has a problem. He can't fight Crawley like he was a regular thug. But if Crawley doesn't shoot him then they will know he's working for Moon Knight and lose all trust.

Crawley takes a wide shot and Moon Knight uses the chance and kicks Crawley in the face.

The choices he makes sometimes...

Crawley is knocked out and the thugs all scatter. He takes a moment to make sure Crawley is alright then runs after the main guy.

The boss spots a nearby parked cab and jumps in.

Moon Knight calmly sits at the wheel.

He informs the boss that this is one of the cabs from the garage and that he suspects the Bazooka man is waiting at the garage for a shot.

"You've got a choice: Either tell me where to find your assassin or we cruise 'round and 'round till HE finds US! Might take all night, but I'm in no hurry."

The boss is more than ready to give up the goods and tells Moon Knight where Commodore Donny Planet is.

He finds the Commodore in a boat. They fight and Moon Knight finds the Commodore to be freakishly strong.

Moon Knight strikes at normally vulnerable spots only to get tossed around like nothing.

It's near invulnerable vs. Moon Knight's ability to take the most brutal beating and keep going.

Moon Knight switches tactics and tosses some Judo in, keeping the large man off balance.

He knocks the man off the boat into a fishing net.

"The safe thing-The smart thing- would be to just let him drown." He contemplates for but a moment. "No."

He jumps in and saves the large brute then leaves him for the cops.

And that’s the end of the cabbie killer.

I must say, this one ended on a let down. I feel that if Moench had written it, we’d have ended on Jake finding the tape in his cab or something to indicate that he was the mark all along. Maybe that’s just me.

Especially after the first half with “HIT IT”. That one was really amazing. Fantastic art, a very heavy subject, and only took a few pages to cover it. Even though it didn’t end with a distinct note, it still felt like an end. A story that needed to be told that still somehow painted a picture of Moon Knight despite it being a one off that didn’t give any sort of moral or definitive point. The man still was angry over a past pain that will never be resolved. He’ll end up in prison because of all the people he hurt, and his mental health will never be addressed.

And that editorial at the start! What a piece! Learning to reach only as far as our body can go and learning not to get hit. I'm going to be thinking about that one for a while. Wow.

But that’s the story of Moon Knight, isn’t it? A story of underlining pain and trauma that affects his everyday life but that is never resolved, addressed, or healed. How it radiates out to affect everyone around him and the way he struggles to make the right choice and do the right thing…even though everything around him forces him back into that corner that forces him to fight for his life over and over again.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight Comics #Analyzing the comics #Marc Spector #Jake Lockley #Steven Grant #Why do I only post this at midnight where no one is ever going to read this?#Is it because I took suffer from a terrible sleep condition? Probably #This one left me emotional for so many reasons #I could wax on about Marc Spector's pain for ages #You have no idea #HE MAKES ME FEEL THINGS #Mostly sad things #Marc no #Not me sitting here at midnight crying about Marc Spector

11 notes · View notes

bestestdecadents · 11 months ago

Text

80s babies were the last generation to not have the internet as a kid but were able to surf the web as a teen. That led to a childhood of hobbies & social interaction and easy access to...😏" entertainment " just in time to distract us as we reached our peak, but that's for another post.

Some of the trends for collectors were sports cards, pogs, and even marvel cards. The sports cards were really big in the mid-90s. We'd get the latest beckets every month to see which cards may have fluctuated in value. There was lots of trading going on, too.

Here is some of my collection. I was big on Jordan cards and 8 ball pogs. Just an FYI: don't put valuable cards in plastic sleeves. These cards are fudged up now, but this is how I left them since back then.

#90s #collectibles #nostalgia #sports cards #pogs

4 notes · View notes

nickgerlich · 10 months ago

Text

And Ye Shall Marvel

Show me an effective digital campaign, and I will show you one that has high levels of user engagement. It’s one thing to pull all the levers and be everywhere, but it is quite another when you invite people into the campaign to reach for a little more.

And that is exactly what Coca-Cola is doing with their new Marvel joint promotion. It brings two powerhouse brands together to coincide with the late-July release of yet another Marvel movie. The promo includes special cans and bottles bearing Marvel super hero images, along with scannable QR codes. Once scanned, users are whisked away to AR content to supplement and support the messaging provided on the packaging.

There’s somewhat conflicting information online about exactly how many characters will appear, and where they will appear. It looks like Coca-Cola Classic and Coke Zero will share center stage, although I did read one story implying there could be more. Also, the number of characters ranges from “more than 30” to as high as 38.

That’s a lot of opportunities for engagement!

It’s also a page from an old playbook in the beverage industry, minus the QR and AR aspects. Starting back in the 80s, beverage makers started releasing sets of cans to coincide with a cross-promotion of another brand, or to promote something for which the beverage company had an exclusive affiliation, like the Olympics. As a long-time collector of beverage industry memorabilia, I can attest to how intense things can get trying to find every one of the items in a set. Because an incomplete set is just that: Incomplete. No bueno.

The current promotion will be in more than 50 countries, and already eBay is filled with cans from across the globe. Collectors alone will probably ensure the success of the campaign, but once you factor in the casual consumer just scanning the can they happened to get at the local c-store, this has the potential to be massive in impact. Maybe.

The movie doesn’t come out for another 3 1/2 months, and already supermarket shelves are filled with the initial shipments of Classic and Zero. The cardboard 12-pack packaging reinforces the campaign, and stands out nicely on shelves. Visual appeal is high.

The campaign comes at an important time for Coca-Cola, as well as all soft drink manufacturers, because consumption is down. Per capita consumption peaked around 2000, with about 50 gallons apiece. It has dropped steadily ever since, and now sits at just under 43 gallons per person. Stir in the Ozempic craze, and it is possible that food and beverage makers selling less-than-healthy products may continue to see sales declines.

But that decline started long before silver bullet products like Ozempic were ever available, meaning that changes in consumer behavior have been ongoing. I honestly could not tell you the last time I actually sipped a soft drink, although I still buy—and drain—cans I need for my collection. Can the current promotion reverse this downward spiral? That’s a tough call, because the trend line is clear. Coca-Cola needs it. Oh, and Disney, who owns Marvel, could also use a big boost at the box office. Misery loves company perhaps?

There’s another interesting aspect at play here as well. Quick! Show me a product that used a QR code before COVID. I’ll wait. I might be waiting a while, though, because I bet you can’t think of one. But show me a product available today whose packaging doesn’t contain a QR code, and I bet you would be equally hard-pressed. They became ubiquitous during the pandemic, and marketers and consumers alike finally realized their value.

I use the word “finally” because QR codes have actually been in existence since 1994, although they did not get a bump until about 2010. It’s just that there were still too few people with smartphones then to be able to scan them, and they landed with a thud. Worse yet, you had to download a QR-reader app. At least phone manufacturers finally figured out they could build that into their native camera app, and they could be used in myriad applications.

I saw them in China in 2019 as a payment gateway in restaurants. How many of you have paid your tab with a QR code here in the States? It is starting to gain traction, and I love it, if only because I do not have to surrender my card to a total stranger, who disappears with it for five to ten minutes.

As for marketing engagement, they are the best we’ve got these days. Not too many years ago the best we could do was invite people to visit a website. That took too many steps, though. A scannable code makes it easy, and I suspect that both parties to this promo are going to be exclaiming “Marvelous” before it is all over. One can hope.

Dr “Who’s Your Super Hero?” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #QR #AR #Coca-Cola #Marvel

2 notes · View notes

destinyc1020 · 10 months ago

Note

Oh, please, it's not as if Finn's Ghostbusters movies are better than recent Marvel movies. The fact that Marvel and Disney agreed to slow down production, delaying or cancelling most of their projects show that they understand that they couldn't keep doing business as usual. Feige was overextended plus there are cycles in which the public gets tired of certain genres. Then a few years later, interest peaks again. And Spidey remains the most popular superhero globally (based on merchandise sales). The only Marvel movie that will be released this year is Deadpool 3 and I expect it to do very well

That said, Spidey has the problem of the split custody and of Sony developing really bad movies in the live action Spidey universe recently like Morbius and Madame Web. I would understand if Tom decides not to sign up immediately to the next installment if what's offered to him is a mess. The most power he has in dealing with these multi billion $ companies is to be willing to walk away. Then they may offer something better for him in a few years. Frankly I think it's highly likely that he may film Uncharted 2 before SM4 because Wahlberg already said that he was sent a script. The first movie also set up the grounds for the sequel. It's not controlled by 2 separate studios with wildly different agendas and we know Tom has a producer credit on them

Lol, well, the Ghostbusters franchise has usually done pretty well actually with audiences.

They may not be critic darlings, but for the most part (aside from some of the films), the audience members have typically enjoyed the films in this franchise going all the way back to the 80s. 🤷🏾‍♀️

But anyway, I definitely think it was a good idea for Marvel to scale back. I honestly think they were getting a little oversaturated. 👀

Sometimes, it's good to take a break for a few years, let your fans miss you and your films, and then come back with a strong bang again. Jmho.

I know Madame Web sucked (I saw that with my own eyes), but was Morbius really THAT bad? 👀 I'm almost afraid to ask lol 🫣

Anyway, the Spiderman films will be fine.... Like you said, it's one of the most popular comic book characters.

I don't think Tom should walk away, but if he did, I'm pretty sure it would be for a good reason.

I personally think Marvel and Sony would just hire a new actor for the role honestly if it ever came to that. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Sony for sure isn't going to put things on hold for another few years just coz Tom walks away. Hollywood is not loyal to any actor lol 😆 They'll just hire someone else.... for cheaper.

If the rumors are true however, it "seems" like they might already be filming SM4 starting in the fall of this year, so I'm not sure Tom would be filming "Uncharted 2" before he films spidey. That is, if we're to believe the recent rumors. 🤔

5 notes · View notes

c-schroed · 1 year ago

Text

Podcasts I Adore - Within the Wires, Season Five: Voicemail

What would the subversive artists think, Nan, if they knew you were coming to watch their show. All of these cynical idealists with their disgruntled disquiet, their painted bodies and disruptive language and grotesque dance? They would probably say “Who’s the cop?” And I would tell them “Hands off. She’s mine.” And they would not change the subject to prop stations and costume repair, because they fear arrest the way they fear a tattoo. It’ll be painful yes, but a proud mark of a proud artist. Their souls are made of leaves. Their souls grow and sway and change and die and rot and renew. Being prematurely plucked away is part of the profession. At least the fear of it is. Although I don’t think any of them have ever known anyone who was. It’s all “this one time in the 80s” or “my friend’s husband’s co-worker’s something was.” Artists getting disappeared by the boogeyman. It probably doesn’t happen, but what if it does? I don’t know, Nan. You’re not just some tool of the system. You’re different. That’s what we usually say, right? “Not this one. They’re different!” We can’t know that. But we can’t know anything. I’m just going off intuition. I’m relying on my gut. And my gut says “I’m drunk, Indra. Figure it out yourself.” And I did. I figured out you’re different. I figured it out based on your lips, because they’re pink and soft and they smiled at the right spots in the show. That’s the data on my bar graph. That’s my internal memo. Attn: Indra. Regarding: Hot cop, second row. Kiss that spy before the night’s over. And I did.

Sorry for the long quote. Originally I just wanted to start this review with

Hey. You didn’t answer. Hey. Nan, I wanted you to answer. Answer me, Nan. Nan. Naaaaan. like your name, you know. Short and simple but low and sweet.

But then I went through the transcripts in the gorgeous-as-always WtW Wiki, to find the exact wording, and I remembered that each episode is full of favourite quotes. Because season five is my absolute favourite. It's the peak Within the Wires experience, if you ask me. And I'll most happily elaborate why.

Of course, season five continues Within the Wires modus operandi of telling its story via found audio tapes from an alternate history. This time, we listen to the tapes of an old answering machine. However, this season comes with two narrative twists: Firstly, we have two protagonists, whose connection will unfurl in the course of the season, and secondly (and more importantly), this time the story is told in reverse order.

We start with an answering machine message from Indra to Nan, her former lover, five years after they broke up. Indra is at ease, she has a wife now and a teacher job she loves. But we will encounter other faces of her, too. Cold resignation, outright anger, drunken lovestruckness. Because someone seems to go through old answering machine tapes, in reverse order. Maybe to find Indra's first message? Maybe out of sheer nostalgia? We will not find out, because as usual in Within the Wires, we do not get much more than Indra's perspective.

Except that this year we will also hear a few short messages from a person named Gwen Nettles, agent of the Internal Investigation Division, the infamous secret police of Within the Wires' alternate history. And Gwen of course is somehow connected to Indra and Nan, as we will find out. But Gwen's messages are always short and mainly add some information that will make most sense in hindsight. In fact, one of her messages even made me fucking sob in tears of joy on an open street when I listened to it again after finishing the season's final episode. Because the timelines are just so marvellously connected. But back to Indra.

So once more, we're more or less stuck with one point of view. And by the messages that our protagonist leaves on mostly the phone of her lover, we witness an almost classically star-crossed love story. The ambitious actress of a subversive theatre company and a government employee fall in love. It can't go well for too long, we know that. And thanks to the story being told in reverse, it's not a secret waiting for us. Instead, it's a fascinating take on this kind of story. It has its dramatic moments (like Indra lashing out at Nan's answering machine in episode three), but thankfully it starts and ends just lovely. Hopeful and warm, with lots of little pleasant surprises.

And that is mostly thanks to the most darling protagonist a podcast rom-com can ever wish for. Amiera Darwish voices her Indra charming and mostly lighthearted, but always with enough depth to not make her seem stereotypical. Norma Butikofer, on the other hand, voices Gwen Nettles as good counterpoint to the main protagonist: Calm, professional, but also not devoid of emotions and needs. In my eyes, season five is even more character-driven than the other seasons, and its two voice actors do an absolutely marvellous job in making that work.

And when we turn our attention to the music and score of this season, we even find one more twist: In seasons one to four, the music was diegetic; it could either have been added to the audio by the protagonist (seasons one, two, and four) or it played in the background (season three). In season five, however, the music is not part of the found audio, it's just added by the producers for atmosphere. And don't get me wrong, it does a lovely little job in giving even more of a rom-com feeling, but it's also a bit of a pity to say goodbye to the more elegant ways of adding music in the seasons before.

But even with that little bit of a slightly bitter pille, to me season five is perfect. It excels at telling us a story of tragic love, and thanks to its rather unique narrative structure manages to have two positive and hopeful endings. That both brought me close to crying tears of joy. 10 out of 10 points, thanks for the ride!

< My review of season four

My review of the Within the Wires novel >

#within the wires #wtw #within the wires season 5 #podcast #podcast review #podcast recommendation #science fiction #alternate history #romance #romantic comedy #schroed's thoughts

3 notes · View notes