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amandajoyce118 · 4 years ago

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Agents Of SHIELD S7E01 “The New Deal” Easter Eggs And References

In the season seven premiere, most of the team ends up in 1931 New York thanks to some time travel shenanigans. We love shenanigans, right? The is the last season premiere ever, and it’s bittersweet, but I’m diving right in.

As always, if you don’t remember this from the last few seasons of me writing up Easter eggs (posts are tagged aos easter eggs if you want to read old ones), this list assumes you have seen the episode. There will be spoilers.

Again, spoilers. Turn back now if you don’t want them. Okay? Good.

The Episode Title.

It’s a reference to FDR’s political work. I mean, Coulson even references it and says the episode title in the show. I kind of love when show’s do that? This show didn’t used to, but they did it a lot more the last two seasons, so maybe it’s a thing now.

The Title Card.

I feel like it’s unfair to call this an Easter egg, but if they didn’t put a 1931 timestamp on the top of the episode, the title card could have told you what era the team was in. Whoever was in charge of designing it did a great job making it look like a classic film title card.

Faceless People.

Okay, so the chronocoms erase the faces of the people they wish to resemble. This isn’t really a thing in the comics, but there is a character called “Faceless One.” He happens to be an alien who wants to conquer Earth as well, but is basically a big yellow ball with legs, so I doubt there’s any connection other than the cool effect.

Coulson’s Data Flood.

Okay, we get that literally everything Coulson says when he’s not talking to Daisy, Mack, and Jemma are quotes from previous seasons, right? Good. He even downloads the information on Ghost Rider, his own death, last season, etc.

Deke Has A Workstation.

Okay, not an Easter egg, but I think we need to take a moment and appreciate that Jemma built Deke a workstation and Fitz left him the tool we saw way back in season five. Why? Because Deke never feels like he belongs and he wants so badly to be close to his family, and now, we see that they thought of him while upgrading their ship. He has a place. And it’s right next to Jemma.

Elena Is Quarantined.

That’s because she was infected by the shrike in season six, not because the writers are psychic and knew there would be a massive epidemic going on when the show premiered. (Sorry, typed that before I realized Jemma was going to actually say it in show, so it’s staying in.)

Gemini And Koenig.

Gemini is actually a pretty popular name/codename in Marvel Comics, so it being used as, supposedly, the code name for the person in charge of the speakeasy made me laugh. It’s much more likely here that the bartender didn’t react wrong to the use of the word, that it’s used to weed out pretenders, hence the double barrel shotgun he affectionately calls the twins. I also like that it’s a tease for a Koenig appearing since we initially thought the Koenig siblings were twins and it turns out there are too many for us to count at this point (not really, I’m exaggerating, but great that grandpa or great-grandpa Koenig looks exactly like the modern day Koenigs. I mean, come on, they’re clones or something, right?).

“It’s not exactly your first time being separated by space and time.”

Okay, look, if you have to keep inserting meta humor into a show about how often you separate your main couple, maybe you should stop separating your main couple. (Yes, I know, Iain de Caestecker had another job he was working on in seasons six and seven, but seriously, it’s not funny. Your audience is tired of it.) I mean, to be frank, Fitz is one of my favorite characters in the show, but I didn’t really miss him in this episode? That might sound bad, but I don’t think they needed to comment on him being gone so much considering Jemma told them at the end of season six she didn’t - and couldn’t - know where he was.

Wilfred “Freddie” Malick.

Daisy explains who he is, but look, it’s the father of Gideon Malick, the same Gideon who became the leader of Hydra after a broken SHIELD (and the Avengers) decided to squash all of its heads, the same guy who got Ward interested in visiting an alien planet where he ended up as Hive. He’s, like, ancient school Hydra, not just old school Hydra. What doesn’t make sense here is that they’re saying the SSR forms in response to Hydra. Technically, the SSR forms, and then they learn about Hydra, unless I’m misremembering, which is totally possible.

The Substance.

So, I gotta wonder… what’s in the test tubes? The earliest we go in the MCU is Captain America, which is still a whole decade after the events of this episode. Prior to that, Hydra experimentation did create the Red Skull, but… still not sure what’s in the tubes. I don’t really have a frame of reference from the comics to speculate either since Hydra was into literally anything and everything.

New York.

Okay, so I’m curious if anyone knows where they filmed their 1931 New York scenes. I have questions. Because they use the same couple of blocks for all their outside scenes, which makes me think it’s a studio backlot (which would definitely help keep the script quiet) and they’re going to use a different part of the lot next week. A friend asked me if I thought it was the same as the one used for Captain America when he’s in Brooklyn in his first movie. Cap’s first movie’s Brooklyn scenes were filmed on a Universal Studios lot where they had New York building facades and street signs. If you’ve been to the theme park, you basically know what it looks like without the 30s/40s dressing. I think it’s the same lot, and I say this because I actually kept thinking that they used the set pieces Disney used for The Newsies movie in 1992 while watching the episode. Do you know where that was filmed? On the Universal Studios backlot’s New York street set up right after it was renovated in 1991. Huh.

So, Mark Kolpack basically answered this on twitter when discussing VFX. They filmed their New York street scenes on the Warner Bros. backlot, not the Universal one, so I guess the people in charge of designing the set pieces did a great job because they look pretty much the same.

This Picture.

This boxing poster was shared by Jed Whedon on instagram. Honestly, I didn’t spot it in the episode, but that could just be because I have a small television screen and I can’t read the signs unless I pause on a computer and zoom. I have bad eyes, guys. Sorry. Usually signage is something I spot on a second or third watch, but according to Whedon, this is set dressing in the episode somewhere. Probably on the street the characters walk down multiple times.

Let’s break down the names. Kitson is George Kitson, a story editor, writer, and production assistant on the show. He wrote this episode, and, actually, next week’s episode. The planet Kitson was also named for him. Titley is Craig Titley. He’s a producer and writer for the show, probably best known for writing “4,722 Hours” at this point. Brown is such a common name, but I’m going to guess it’s for Garry Brown who has directed a handful of episodes and is also a producer on the show. Bell is, I’m thinking, Jeffrey Bell, one of the producers and writers on the show. Tancharoen is for Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the showrunners, or you know, maybe her brother, who has directed several episodes (including this one!), or her father, who is in charge of transportation to sets. Gierhart is, I’m assuming, Billy Gierhart, who has directed a lot of episodes of the show, though I don’t think he’s directed any since 2017. (If you look at the matchups, it ends up being writer vs writer, producer vs producer, director vs director when you assume the Tancharoen is Kevin.) It says there are four main events though, and only three are listed?

Not sure if the October 15 date is intentional, but if it is, that’s the day “Eye Spy” aired in season one? Steve Roger’s mother dies on October 15, but in 1936. Not sure if that’s even canon since it’s in a promotional comic, not in anything on screen.

I’m sure there are more, and if you guys spot them and tell me, I’ll add them in. If I notice any on a rewatch, I’ll add them in as well. Who’s looking forward to the time traveling this season?

#agents of shield #aos easter eggs #aos spoilers #aos season 7 #i wrote a thing

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu

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You thought movies were the only place to get your daily dose of horror? Oh you fool! You absolute FOOL! There are plenty of bingeworthy and scary horror TV shows out there and Hulu just happens to be a great place to find them.

Hulu is home to recent hits like The Terror and Castle Rock but there are still more scares to be found for the horror enthusiast willing to dig deep. Gathered here are some of the best and scariest horror TV shows that Hulu has to offer.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the additions to the best horror TV shows on Hulu.

Updated for October 2020

The Terror

Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?”

The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.

Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for nine years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.

Castle Rock

Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock.

Castle Rock takes multiple characters, storylines, and concepts from the vast works of Stephen King and puts them all in King’s own Castle Rock, Maine. The first season featured inmates from Shawshank prison, extended family of Jack Torrance, and maybe even a touch of the shine. The show opened itself up for more storytelling possibilities in season 2, adopting an anthology format and bringing Annie Wilkes into the fold.

The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe.

Culture

The Words of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Are More Relevant Than Ever

By Chris Longo

The Twilight Zone Marathon: A History of a Holiday Tradition

By Arlen Schumer

Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.

The Strain

The most novel thing about FX’s vampire horror thriller The Strain is how it equates the ancient fear of vampirism with the more modern, global fear of pandemic. The Strain, produced by Guillermo del Toro Chuck Hogan and based on their novel series opens with a flight landing with all of its passengers mysteriously dead.

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

Movies

Lake Mungo: the Lingering Mystery Behind One of Australia’s Scariest Horror Films

By Rosie Fletcher

As CDC director Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) steps in to investigate, he discovers that there might be something more sinister…and ancient afoot than a simple virus. The Strain lasted for four mostly decent seasons on FX and if nothing else helped re-embrace the vampire as a monster and not some sort of noble antihero.

Stan Against Evil

To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.

Movies

Dana Gould Picks His 5 Favorite Monster Movies

By Dana Gould

Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

By Kayti Burt

John C. McGinley stars as the titular Stan, a disgraced former sheriff who opts to pick up the battle against evil after a close call. He teams up with new sheriff Evie Barret (Janet Varney) to defend the town (and sometimes world) from supernatural threats.

The X-Files

The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.

I Still Want to Believe: Revisiting The X-Files Pilot

By Chris Longo

The X-Files Revealed: The Paranormal Roots of the Pentagon’s UFO Program

By Alejandro Rojas

The X-Files follows FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigate the unusual cases that traditional law enforcement won’t touch. For 11 seasons (and a handful of movies), the show expertly balanced a massive series-long story along with what came to be called “monster of the week” self-contained tales.

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural

When it first premiered on YouTube back in 2016, Buzzfeed Unsolved became a huge hit by appealing to one of the Internet’s favorite subjects: true crime. Still Buzzfeed saw all of that success and realzied there was still another audience to serve. Thus Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural was born.

Games

20 Scariest Horror Games Ever Made

By Matthew Byrd

Helstrom Review (Spoiler-Free)

By Rosie Knight

In this spinoff hosts Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej examine some of the supernatural world’s biggest mysteries. With the right balance of skepticism and belief, Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural is a welcome entry into the paranormal investigation TV canon.

The Outer Limits

When The Twilight Zone premiered in 1959, it set off a brief little renaissance of anthology horror storytelling on television. The best of these contenders to the Zone‘s throne was probably the sci-fi centric The Outer Limits.

Movies

How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy

By Jack Beresford

Movies

Disney+ Halloween Movies for Kids: The Best Family Films to Watch This Spooky Season

By Alana Joli Abbott

Outer Limits aired from 1963 to 1965 on ABC. In that span it generated 49 spooky episodes, several of which made an impact on pop culture. Alan Moore infamously borrowed the plot of the episode “The Architects of Fear” for the ending of Watchmen. The Outer Limits received a Sci-Fi Channel revival in the ’90s and is currently poised for another bite at the apple.

Freakish

Freakish stars several high profile (at the time at least) social media stars as students at Kent High School. The kids are gathered together at school on Saturday for detention, Breakfast Club-style, when a nearby chemical plant explodes, turning the local population into mutated zombies. The group must band together to survive.

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

By David Crow and 2 others

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 3 others

Debuting in 2016, Freakish ran for two seasons on Hulu. The show embraces its teenage soapiness and isn’t necessarily the most heavyweight horror option. But it’s a quick, fun watch for any zombie horror fan nonetheless.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right.

Movies

A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

By David Crow and 3 others

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

By Alec Bojalad

The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.

Ghost Adventures

Since the turn of the millennium, television has not been lacking for shows involving paranormal investigations. But even within the crowded spooky market, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures stands out.

Ghost Adventures: Horror at Joe Exotic Zoo Two-Hour Special Premieres Oct. 29

By Tony Sokol

Culture

How Ghost Adventures: Quarantine Came Together

By Aaron Sagers

First premiering in 2008, Ghost Adventures follows paranormal researchers Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley as they travel the world looking for ghoulish occurrences to investigate. Over its 200-some episodes (not including specials), Ghost Adventures has proven itself to be the gold standard for people who just want to watch some dudes stumble around old properties in night vision.

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Monsterland

Since Netflix acquired the rights to Black Mirror back in 2015, the streaming world has been a veritable arms race of sci-fi and horror anthology series. Hulu has already tried its hand at horror anthology with the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, and Monsterland represents the latest effort.

Movies

The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

By Gavin Jasper

Games

How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Monsterland is based on the short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud. It consists of eight spooky, unconnected tales and features the acting talents of Kaitlyn Dever, Bill Camp, Kelly Marie Tran, and more. The twist here is that each episode focuses on an urban legend from a different city within the United States. And given how weird this country is, the series won’t be running out of of stories anytime soon.

The post Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lSIDzp

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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melyaliz · 5 years ago

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Canary 8

Canary Masterlist

Fandom: Marvel / MCU

Summary: All I had meant to do was make a friend smile, guess that’s not even ok anymore.

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Notes: This was going to be something different and then it turned into this. Like so different that I even had cover art that totally didn’t fit.

Loki and Canary wanted this I guess.

💛PLEASE: Like, Comment, and/or Reblog 💛

All Masterlists @melyalizarchive

Connect with me! AO3 / Instagram / Pinterest

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

“So this is it”

“This is it!?! This isn’t just it... this is the AVENGERS!”

“Yeah, ok it’s pretty great isn’t it?”

“More like pure amazing.”

“Well don’t act all fangirly, we do have a reputation around here.”

“Aye Aye captain.”

“And leave that captain stuff for the boy in blue.”

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

Ok so I’m not going to lie, I mean at this point I feel like we have all gotten close. We have seen some real shit together and well…

When I first met Steve Rogers I was smitten.

But like if we are all being really honest with ourselves… who isn’t?

Have you seen that man? Those abs? Those baby blue eyes?

That ass?

And let me tell you, all that stuff is EVEN MORE gorgeous up close and personal.

Plus he was just so nice to me when I first came. Back then, when I was so nervous and young. My powers had just become basically viral thanks to some kids who were quick on the draw with their phones. (But that’s a story for another day) My whole world had been shifted from the small-town girl to an Avenger. During those days I didn’t feel like I fit in here or there.

But Steve took the time to help me feel right at home. Making time ask me every day how I was settling in and taking the time to lean my interests and finding ways to bring them to the base.

He was also the one who pushed Wanda and I to hang out and now we are basically best friends.

Every morning I would look forward to our breakfasts together where we would talk about our past lives. How we were adjusting to the changes we had gone through and ways to cope. I would always feel my heart skip a beat when he would be waiting for me to train during the day.

Those first days were so awkward because every single touch would set my body on fire.

Then slowly, as the days stretched into months my flames started to dull into embers.

Somewhere along the line my infatuation with him slowly faded into adoration and then a friendship.

When that happens, though, I’m not quite sure. Feels recent but I can’t be for sure. It was as if one day Steve turned from the most beautiful man I had ever seen into just... a man.

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“So how is the music Sam has been forcing… I mean letting you borrow?” the Canary asked as she helped Steve unload the new equipment Tony had brought back. More fun trinkets for him to tinker with in his evil lair.

Which he, of course, had dumped on Steve to unload, claiming to be too busy at the moment.

“Good but there is something about those big bands that I miss.”

“Ohhh back in my day”

Steve laughed at her playful tone, “There is something about just a good song that makes you want to dance to it.”

“Were you a good dancer back in the day?”

Steve shrugged thinking back to the days when he could barely get a woman to look at him. When Bucky would basically force him on millions of dates with uninterested women. But as the night wore on, and the music would play he would always find that one wallflower who would be swayed by herself and take her across the floor.

“My mom taught me a few moves and Bucky and I use to go dancing all the time.”

“You know I took swing back in the day too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, some woman from our school decided to teach it over a summer as a way to keep wayward teens from getting into trouble.”

Steve burst out laughing at her tone, making it the perfect pitch to sound like some slightly uptight busy body. “You never told me that.”

Canary shrugged as the last box was put into place. It felt like a lifetime ago. Her mother giving her a dress and dance shoes. The other girls and boys standing in line trying to follow the movements. That was before her powers had shown up.

Before she was the canary.

“Well, may I have this dance?”

“There’s no music.”

“Well, I know a place that does.”

“Then you’re on.” then true inspiration struck, “Actually,” the wheels turning in her brain, a plan. A way to give back to the man who had given her so much when she had first come here, “Let’s say six in the gym.”

“Ok, can I ask why?”

She let out a sort giggle shaking her head as she skipped toward the door, “Nope!”

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

Sam grumbled the whole time. Tony didn’t even show up. But Vision was game and Wanda was always happy to help.

After all, Steve always did whatever he could to fit into our time, why couldn’t we try and fit into his?

Plus I needed a distraction from a certain green-eyed (not so) God.

And that look on Steve’s face when he walked in was a nice bonus. It was as if his whole body light up at the sight of the balloons, lights and the music blasting from the speakers with a little help from your’s truly.

“Spotify is a magical thing,” I told him taking his hand dragging him into the room. “They had a whole playlist of top 40’s songs.”

“Can I have this first dance?” Steve asked

“Of course”

An hour later and I was breathless swinging around the room. The music flying around matching the bright lights, sharp horns and deep drums with clean voices. My fingers buzzed with the sounds as flowed around me as I danced. The rest of the team enjoying themselves just as much.

I’m sure the liquor Tony brought helped. (Yeah, he ended up showing up a while after Steve. Not one to miss out on any fun.)

“Oh now I LOVE this one,” Steve said as another tune came on grabbing my hand swinging me around. Sam tipped his glass.

“This brother sure can sing”

It took all my willpower to make the music swallow my laughs as Steve moved me around the room. It helped he was so strong, being able to pick me up and spin me around, it almost felt like I was flying.

My feet hit the ground in time with the music pulling close and then spinning out.

And hitting something.

“Mind if I cut in?”

The music seemed to wash down around me, cold like ice water dripping with sing like poison. Those green eyes looked down at me like a snake about to strike a mouse.

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

They were so loud Loki wasn’t surprised they hadn’t woken up hell itself. Screaming and yelling while the music blasted from the gym. The sight that greeted him was no different.

The loud music filled the room as the team of dorks stood around drinking and talking. The Witch and robot were swaying comfortably while the soldier moved in time around the room with his partner.

Loki’s Canary.

A huge smile on the young woman’s face as she looked up at Mr. America. Eyes shining and bright as the music seemed to follow them. Spun around in rhythm as if she was controlling it, maybe she was.

He had never seen her this way.

She was glowing.

And it made his sick.

Standing in the doorway he waited, bided his time. Waiting for that opening, that moment when he could pounce on his prey.

The song swelled up and then came crashing down, the beautiful horns making their last trumpets as the chorus was sung. Spinning around them as Justice Man and his partner moved across the dance floor.

Loki was a snake in the grass, moving so smoothly and deliberately he went undetected until his sound mistress was colliding with his chest.

The look of shock she gave him was so beautiful he allowed himself a small smile. She (almost) always had a way of reacting just how he planned.

“Mind if I cut in.”

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

Of course, the song changed to a slow one.

Of flipping course.

Steve shot me a concerned look, making sure I was ok with the turn of events.

It was like all my walls came flying up so fast I almost didn’t see them happening. They knew they knew how uncomfortable I was and had come rushing to my defense.

“Don’t” Loki’s voice was gentle but firm. Razors cutting into me as his eyes roamed me.

“Don’t what?”

“You know what,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. The walls, how did he always know? His hands were cold angst my warm ones as he intertwined them lead me to the center of the room. It was a good thing my face was already flushed because being this close while Billie Holiday crooned about love was adding a layer to my already confusion emotions that I didn’t want to have to justify at the moment.

Couldn’t I just have one day of peace?

“I’m honestly surprised you know how to do the waltz” change the subject, focus on anything but his large hand on my back.

“I know many things” his voice was thick and deep, like chocolate. Bittersweet in my ears as he leaned in just a bit closer. “I am after all, much older than anyone else in this room.”

“I just can’t see you in a 40’s club.”

“I would never lower myself to be with mortals, but I do happen to be a collector of the arts.”

“Well, then what drew you to these mere mortals today?”

“Like I said, I’m a collector of the arts.” Maybe it was the tone in which he said it, of the way his tongue flicked out for a moment over his lower lip, or how his eyes seemed to wash over me but I suddenly felt very… naked.

And I was very aware of everyone around me.

“I’m not a piece of art.” my words were strong and blunt. No more games, no more veiled innuendos. I’m tired.

His eyes narrowed at my tone as I tugged at his hand. “What? You can spend hours dancing with boy bland there but when someone with real class…”

“I set this up for Steve thank you very much.”

I could feel the anger boiling around me, the music seemed to fade away into silence, just the two of us locked in a staring contest. “And I don’t appreciate you talking about him like that. He’s my friend.”

“Is he now? Is that all he is.”

How dare he… I could feel my face lighting up hot. Memoires of me crushing on Steve for weeks. Thinking about ways to be around him, just be in his beautiful presence. That past me was just so pathetic and even the thought that somehow Loki seemed to be able to see that sent me into a whole new furry. Fight or flight.

I mean he couldn’t really see it but… It felt like he could.

“This sort of dancing will never get you what you want.” he said leaning forward his face only inches from him, “the kind of dancing you need soft and slow, somewhere alone.”

I wanted to blast him across the room. I wanted to run. I wanted to… I wanted to…

“Why do you care?” my heart was racing so fast I could barely hear my own words as I spoke them. I could barely hear anything but that pounding of my heart in my ears.

Gently his hand reached up brushing away a few strands of my hair out of my face, letting them get tangled in his long fingers “Because you’re mine.”

My hand grabbed his pulling it away, “I’m no ones.”

-GET TAGGED!-

Tagging: @royslittleharper @the-shadow-of-atlantis @coffee-randomness @daisyboobear @nilthanious @jason-redhood @hello-i-lovespiderman-blr @ocelysium @pinkwitch21 @tomhncharliep

Loki: @wayward-hell

Canary: @baybay123455 @rizanendoza808 @dragonrosegardens @6-daughter-of-a-witch-6 @califorina-grown @2s0uls @oh-no-a-whovian @it-jinxed-us @pixiehex1985

#Loki #Loki fanfic #loki x reader #Loki x You #Loki x oc #Loki fanfiction #loki laufeyson #Marvel #Marvel x oc #Marvel x reader #Marvel fanfic #mcu x reader #MCU x oc #MCU fanfic #my writing #my story #canary

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thecomicsnexus · 6 years ago

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Superman vs. Captain Marvel - When Earths Collide!

ALL NEW COLLECTORS’ EDITION #C-58 MAY 1978 BY GERRY CONWAY, RICH BUCKLER, DICK GIORDANO AND ADRIENNE ROY

SYNOPSIS

Once upon a time in Mars, this guy... let’s call him Karmang, wanted to be immortal. And he achieved this by killing all martians. Don’t worry, this was before Martian Manhunter’s martians died. Way back in the past. But since then the ghosts of those martians have been nagging him. A bit annoyed that those pesky ghost won’t let him appreciate immortality, he figures out a way of bringing them back to life (or perhaps making them go away definitively). The plan consist in making two earths collide, let’s say... Earth-One and Earth-S... FOR NO REASON AT ALL. The process is not very simple... he has to place an engine in each earth and it will take two hours to make them collide... or start to collide. If the heroes touch the engines, this would break the magnetic fields of those planets and everyone would die. But because I imagine, it wasn’t his intention for the people to die before they can die by the collision itself. He brings up Black Adam from prison and... let me check... Quarrmer... also known as Sand Superman, from those Denny O’Neil issues. The villains will disguise as the opposite heroes to put Superman and Captain Marvel against each other. Sure there are more heroes in Earth-One apart from the Justice League that was supposed to be in space... but Superman seems to be the menace.

Black Adam (disguised as Captain Marvel), attacks Superman. He realizes pretty soon that he cannot do this by himself, so he uses his “super ventriloquism” to communicate with Supergirl through her white-ware. Supergirl, then probably realizes that she would never be able to distinguish her cousin voice from suffering schizophrenia, but most importantly, goes to help Superman in Metropolis. In this fight, Black Adam uses this... let’s call it ray of insanity, to make Superman extra irrational. Supergirl sees him go away, clearly not too far away, as the main fight will happen in that same place.

Meanwhile, in Earth-S, Captain Marvel is trying to prevent some deaths by a poorly designed bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge... but from Earth-S, this one breaks very easily. Mary Marvel decides to help him, but then they part ways as Billy has a “date”.

In that date, he thinks he sees Superman in the distance, so he leaves and becomes Captain Marvel. Superman starts fighting him and uses the “ray of insanity” on him. Mary Marvel also looks at her brother acting like an idiot and decides to follow him to the Rock of Eternity and then Earth-One.

While Superman and Captain Marvel settle their old legal battles in the form of a fist fight, Supergirl and Mary Marvel meet and in a matter of seconds figure out they are being played (and leave the boys to fight).

They also realize, that in a multiverse full of characters, the ones that were behind this, were Black Adam and... Quarrmer. Yeah, Sand Superman that appear in a few comics eight years ago was more likely than a gallery fool of shapeshifters and magical beings. Also, Mary lets us now that she has the hots for the man of steel. That’s her “special” reason to stop this madness. Not because the heroes are destroying the country and leaving people in the middle of power outages... it’s because Superman looks dreamy.

Supergirl, after listening about Black Adam’s origin, decides to go to Egypt, just in case, and finds an undiscovered chamber... something you could consider... humankind’s heritage. She goes through the wall of it and starts fighting him there, he takes the Ibistick, but little can he do with it, Supergirl finishes him with a lightning strike (don’t ask).

Mary Marvel also finds Sand Superman, but he doesn’t want to fight, he tells her all about the engines and the crazy guy in Mars. Mary goes to Supergirl and they decide that they don’t have time to deal with the engines, they should go to Mars... you know, a planet. And find this castle that no one ever heard about.

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel starts losing power and realizing he is fighting for no reasons. The wizard tells him to continue, because they are in page 54 of 76 or more. And it wouldn’t be a good place to stop the fight. Superman also realizes he has been played, no one tells him to continue fighting, but he continues anyway.

Things happen and the two heroes stop fighting and find the engines. Superman, knowing that the planet could be destroyed if they touch it, decides to do his world-famous signature move of circling the earth. Captain Marvel decides that, instead of disarming the bomb, he will just break it. Problem solved.

The evil guy... Karmang, is defeated by Supergirl and Mary Marvel. And sent to limbo. With the nagging ghosts.

Everything is back to normal and Mary Marvel decides to ruin her moment of pride by jumping on Superman’s arm and kissing him (no ray of insanity involved). Supergirl, ashamed of that fool, decides to do the same with Billy. Which makes Mary mad, because he is a little boy. The girls cat fight like this was a story written by a man in the seventies, and then they all agree that they shouldn’t really kiss, because this story will not be talked about ever again.

In the distance, Karmang realizing he was defeated by idiots, cries in agony.

REVIEW

Oh my. Super-hero team-ups tend to have this formula of “fight first, crime solving later”. This one at least was titled with a “versus”, so the fight HAD to happen. But no one expected Mary and Kara to not fight and actually do all the heavy-lifting in this issue. The issue has this interludes where the plot is explained again, it makes me think this was planned as a four part mini-series. (Mini-series weren’t common at this point in time... in fact... they were almost non-existent).

The story does feel like a metaphor of the legal battle DC and Fawcett had. With the unexpected twist that Earth-S would die during the Crisis and the characters incorporated in the new Earth (another way of explaining how Captain Marvel ended at DC... and with a different name).

It’s funny how they avoid talking about the next legal problem they faced against Marvel... something I still cannot believe happened.

The story in this issue makes little sense. People talk great about this special, but truth is... it has very nice splash pages, and Rich Buckler does a great Neal Adams/Mike Grell fusion.

So... why read this? For the art and for the almost importance of it. As this isn’t really Superman and Captain Marvel’s first encounter (that happened in Justice League of America).

I give this issue a score of 7

#shazam #captain marvel #superman #supergirl #mary marvel #dc comics #1978 #bronze age #comics #review #black adam

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redrobin-detective · 6 years ago

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Prompt: Billy Batson earlier in career so he's an established hero in Fawcett but hasn't met most of the heroes yet working with someone for the first time in like a stake out situation or investigating something magical? (the last Billy one you wrote was so great ty!)

Thank you, I love writing Billy, he’s such a fun, dynamic character both sweet and salty all wrapped up in one precious bun!

Billy generally loved being Captain Marvel. He got all these cool magical powers and could go out and do some real, proper good for the people in his city. Secretly there was also something nice about being someone else for a little bit, no one gave a damn about homeless Billy Batson but Cap was big and friendly and loved by everyone. This part wasn’t exactly his favorite though.

He sighed heavily through his nose and tried to pay attention to what was going on across the street. There’d been a spike in child trafficking in Fawcett City, an international ring had recently set up shop a town over but had been making trips to Fawcett to grab kids. Normally Billy would go in and knock some skulls and be done with it, but this group was bigger than the usual creeps he fought. If he wanted to bring down the whole shebang, he needed to do some surveillance before he jumped in.

But it was so boring.

He tapped his fingers on the cold stone roof he was sitting on. He’s Cap right now, with a dark cloak being thrown over his costume to keep from standing out. Honestly, it’d probably be easier to keep an eye out as Billy but it’s below freezing tonight in Fawcett and Billy doesn’t have Cap’s immunity to the elements.

“Mind if I join you?” Billy whirled around in surprise at the voice coming just behind him. He was greeted by none other than the Scarlet Speedster, the Flash, holding out two steaming cups. “Thought if I was going to crash your stakeout I might as well come prepared.”

“You’re the Flash!” Billy exclaimed with excitement, barely remembering to keep his voice down. Central City wasn’t all that far from Fawcett so Billy often heard stories of the Flash. He was a simple, honest hero that Billy had always liked. He was friendlier than Batman and less terrifyingly powerful than Superman and he was standing in front of Billy right now. “I am a huge fan, have been for years, that fight last week where you pitted Mirror Master against Captain Cold was so awesome!”

“Thanks man, I hear you do good work too and I love how open you are with your advocacy. That’s the mark of a true hero, I’ve actually been wanting to meet up for a while though I wish it were under better circumstances.” Flash said, handing Captain his cup. “You didn’t strike me as a coffee person so I got you hot chocolate, hope that’s alright.”

“It’s perfect, I’ll pay you back,” Captain said, even though he had $9.67 to his name. He turned his gaze back to the warehouse. “You’re here about the trafficking?”

“Yeah,” Flash sighed, settling next to him. “They’ve been making their way through the entire midwest. I’ve taken down their operation in Central but the big bosses managed to get away. I figured they’d be here as they set up shop, so I thought I’d check it out.”

“Nah, I appreciate it, I’m not real good at this stakeout stuff,” Cap admittedly sheepishly as he took a sip from his cocoa. Mmm it was the good stuff, he hadn’t had this high quality of cocoa in uh probably never.

“Eh it takes some getting used to, punching bad guys is easy but this is really where heroes can make a difference,” Flash explained and Billy felt himself relaxing at the gentle but authoritative tone. If all adults were like this, the world wouldn’t be half as bad. “Still, it’s impressive to see you out here, shows you have what it takes.”

“For what?” Cap asked innocently, taking a sip of his drink.

“Well, you didn’t hear it from me but League membership recommendations are coming up and a certain magical hero is on the shortlist.” Flash teased, Billy spit out his cocoa.

“What, really!? But I’m just a k-” He coughed, cutting himself off before he accidentally revealed his age. “a-a clown, you know? I’m not nearly experienced or smart enough to be in the Justice League. I mean, that’s for the real heroes like Batman and Superman and well, you!”

“Hey,” Flash soothed, putting a hand on his shoulder and Billy would be geeking out if his brain wasn’t mush. “You may be new but you’re powerful and the League is just as much about teaching up and coming heroes as it is fighting bad guys. With us, you’ll have credentials, resources, training, anything you’ll need to do your job. You’re right, we only take the best but we’ve seen you out there and you got twice as much heart as most folks.”

“I-I don’t know,” Captain says, trying to tamp down the paranoid parts of Billy. Being in the League means being away from Fawcett, his home and responsibility. It also puts his secret on the line and the heroes might like Cap but no one has time for a street kid like Billy.

“It’s not set in stone yet,” Flash added. “If you really don’t feel ready, I can tell the big boys to pass on you this go around. But the fact that you’re taking this opportunity so seriously tells me you understand the risks and responsibility.”

“I’ll uh, I’ll think about it,” Captain says quietly before, thankfully, he sees some movement within the warehouse. “Hey I think those bosses of your have shown up.”

“Alright, you mind if I jump in?” Flash asked draining his coffee. “I’ve been itching to get these guys for weeks now, it’ll help me sleep better tonight if I punch a few pedophiles out.”

“O-oh you don’t need my permission, sir!” Captain stuttered.

“Course I do, this is your turf. Team-ups are fun but I can’t just waltz in and act like I own the place,” oh man, the Flash is totally his favorite now, sorry Superman. “Just think about what I said, I’ll stop by again before the nominations are out to see if you still feel unsure.”

“You’ll come back?” Cap asked with genuine surprise. No one came to Fawcett on their own, you either were born here or got stuck here.

“Yeah, we’re friends now, I’ll swing by when I have five free minutes and we’ll have another cup,” he said gesturing with his now empty cup which he then disposed of in a garbage can on the first floor.

“Yeah! Yeah I’d like that a lot,” Billy grinned, friends were a luxury he really couldn’t afford with his heroing but maybe having a few adult friends in the business would help him find his footing with these new powers. “Now let’s go kick some bad guy butt.”

#DC writing prompts #billy batson #have I mentioned I love writing Billy #should do it more often #he's so sweet and yet he thinks he's rotten due to his circumstances #but hes just a cinnamon roll a little charred but still sweet #also the Flash goes back to the League and is like 'we need this guy /yesterday/'#B does some digging and finds about Billy's Identity and is like 'omg small kchild bring him in so we can protect'

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seeksstaronmewni · 6 years ago

Text

Saving the Day before Bedtime in Style: The Powerpuff Girls Then vs. Now

THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE!

I remember growing up a little with The Powerpuff Girls, namely the pre-2002 episodes on CN and a promo for the show on my VHS of Animaniacs: Wakko’s Wish. That show is a part of my childhood. My sister had an Easy-Bake Powerpuff Girls “Cookie Makin’ Bake Set” and a Burger King 2002 figure of Bubbles. The length of the series’ run is now 20 years old, though the franchise as a whole is over 25 years old, if you count A Sticky Situation.

In the past, I watched little of PPG because I neither understood nor appreciated action at a very young age; the same went for Samurai Jack & Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003), though I did watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), which included a former PPG writer, Brian Larsen. Now, “Cartoon Cartoons” like @crackmccraigen‘s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Dexter’s Laboratory, Grim & Evil, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Ed Edd ‘n Eddy, Chowder... I grew up on those. I remember little about 2 Stupid Dogs (now officially available on MOD Disc DVD) and Captain Planet. I didn’t see the PPG marathon in 2009 with the final McCracken-produced episode so far, The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!! (my sister watched it, though). I began to return to PPG as I saw excerpts from the show on Netflix in late 2015, prior to the reboot. Tara Strong’s tweet of dismay, I think, was how I heard of the new PPG episodes.

The first time “Painbow” was encored (that is 2nd airing), during like 6 in the morning, I began to love Ms. Keane, their teacher, who’s voiced by Jennifer Hale (I knew her best for voicing Gladys, Billy’s Mom, in Grim & Evil / The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, whose voice is nearly identical to Keane’s). What I love about Keane is that she’s sweet, somewhat perky but usually mellow, and kind, in addition to her voice, big blue eyes, and hair style, that I find to be attractive, but ultimately she is very nurturing to her students, like a mommy. Ms. Keane is why, in 2016, I became really into The Powerpuff Girls... and, including regard for the former CN Studios team, hyped for the return of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack (season 5, which featured Craig Kellman and other familiar creatives). However, though The Powerpuff Girls is my personal favorite of Craig McCracken and I grew up somewhat more on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, I do feel that Wander Over Yonder is Craig’s greatest achievement as it excels at not only humor--both slapstick and... well... “modern”--but also some very important life lessons and ultimately the heart.

Now, many PPG fans were upset with the new episodes for many reasons that were, in my opinion, nostalgically incorrect. Personally, like many fans, I mostly prefer the former art styles of the series (specifically the 2002 movie and episodes, as well as the following designs by art director Paul Stec and character designers Carey Yost & Stef Choi) but I also highly admire @cheyennecurtisart for adding more defining details to our favorite crime-fighting and now ex-kindergarten students (and also for designing my other favorite woman, Star Butterfly, whose title show @crackmccraigen, creator of The Powerpuff Girls, wanted to produce for CN). The main reason for the hate is apparently that the new actresses replaced the former ones for the title characters. They are fairly good voices, but I still prefer the former, namely Tara Strong as Bubbles (No offense, Kristin Li, but, to me, it feels impossible to turn down Tara’s acting). Natalie Palamides as Buttercup is probably the closest-resembling to the original voices, but she still stands out differently; likewise Ms. Keane’s voice, though akin to the voice direction of Jennifer Hale by Craig McCracken and later Colette Sunderman, also has an accent that stands out, while Tom Kane is generally true to the nature of Utonium’s voice. Of course, once the casting and/or voice direction changes, maybe Cavadini, Daily and Strong will return. Also, E.G. Daily said in an interview that Cavadini, Daily & Strong originally did record for, I believe, Escape from Monster Island, until someone else replaced them; if bonus features exist on future season releases of the Jennings-Boyle PPG episodes, then an original dialogue recording track for the episode should totally be on it.

WHAT LOOKS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE POWERPUFF GIRLS?

Another reason for dislike from PPG fans is all about the art direction. Although @eusong Lee worked with Craig Kellman on Storybots and current art director Roman Laney designed and painted backgrounds for Craig McCracken’s Wander Over Yonder, their art direction resembles that of a more streamline, smooth, round, futuristic, not-so-cartoony look contrasting with the simplistic, storybook-like art direction of Craig Kellman, the cartoony but simple art direction of @donshank, and the defining and Hanna-Babera like art direction of Mike Moon, Paul Stec and Sue Mondt. The buildings in the Jennings-Boyle episodes are more straight, detailed and lineless, whereas the former designs were more extreme and exaggerated with building shapes.

Comparing the designs above of Andy Bialk & Stef Choi (whose designs were of many shapes and sizes; former monsters had sometimes simple but also very wild designs)...

...with those of Alan Stewart & Steve Lambe and Dean Heezen & Carlos Nunez reveals great contrast. The character design of current Townies, like the backgrounds, are more round-edged and of more simplistic, specific shapes and sizes. The monsters are different too; props are more realistic and explosions usually look simpler and more streamlined, round-edged, etc. Also, character & prop outlines aren’t really thick, which many CN/H-B cartoons are know for having. As the current designs from Memory Lane of Pain show, the Mayor and Robin Schneider are seen, along with an elderly woman who looks similar to the usual one in former episodes and a kid who somewhat resembles Mitch; next to those 2, there’s also a big guy whose model appears... shrunk for some reason.

Now, some Season 8-9 designs look a little more familiar, like the disguise character of an alien in Never Been Blissed, Locan Logan. He looks fairly akin to the works of Craig McCracken. Could the alien be disguising himself as Mac (from Foster’s) at an older age?

Not belittling @cheyennecurtisart‘s contributions, character designs developed for The Powerpuff Girls Movie are some of the finest ever done for the series, lead by Carey Yost; these designs were eventually implemented into the series, supervised by @andybialk and Chris Reccardi and designed by Stef Choi. Ultimately, though, @cheyennecurtisart and Carey Yost plus Andy Bialk (2002-2004 only for the latter two), did my favorites.

As you can see here, Man Up 2: Still Man-ing was the one of the few current episodes where the Mayor’s mouth is visible... but it wasn’t the first time. Paul Rudish storyboarded the Mayor with his mouth for transition in Boogie Frights; some official models of him (as well as a comic book cover) show the mouth as well. It’s unorthodox, but honestly I’m not hating on the new creatives for that. In most of the episodes excluding Man Up 2, it’s probably a mistake, since in those episodes he also does the mustache lip-sync thing he tends to do.

On the bright side regarding nostalgically correct art direction, the Pokey Oaks flashback in The Wrinklegruff Gals (art direction by Eusong Lee) was very true to that of Paul Stec (I’d think that Ms. Keane’s in the first shot, but these shots are 1.78:1 and not “letterbox” widescreen like the DVD covers of most CN shows in the last decade claim them to be in). They included students Mitch Mitchelson, Elmer Sglue, Robin Schneider, Harry Pitt, Suzie Jenkins, and Clara (the African girl in purple dress, called by Ms. Keane in ’Twas the Fight Before Christmas; in other episodes Jennifer Hale voiced her and the other dark-skinned girl in a pink dress). The new art creatives were so good at that, that I wondered if they’d contribute to season 5 of Samurai Jack. Speaking of that, the series finale of Samurai Jack, EPISODE CI (as did EPISODE II and Comic Issue 19), referenced The City of Townsville with the city of dogs that Jack saved! I also recently noticed a background from The Powerpuff Girls Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, cleverly called “Powerpuff Mall” (tweeted here), and the episode “Universal Remonster” features a PPG with a mohawk on a Spring Break Cancun shirt!

Also, there’s the reference to Abracadaver in Memory Lane of Pain, where Blossom realizes how different she looked then and a re-orchestration of the PPG’s theme plays in the background, as in the new intro itself. The shot in reference is a digitally traced, cleaned-up version of a shot with models by Andy Bialk & Chris Battle.

Relatively, former character designer @chrisbattleart designed for the PPGs in the Teen Titans GO! episode “TTG vs PPG” which were true to the improved designs of @cheyennecurtisart...

...though they sometimes resemble the pre-2002 models, which he reflected in the last Craig McCracken-produced episode, The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!! As with both specials, the PPGs have thick outlines & black-colored mouths and are in model-rigged or “puppet-ed” animation.

Also relatively, Wander Over Yonder, which referenced both PPGs & Samurai Jack, featured @lambebeardo, who storyboarded the PPG-referencing episode The Boy Wander, who did some character design on season 8 PPG episodes.

The new theme song implements the general PPG theme within, as I said before, but there’s more nostalgia than that: the extended version of the current intro/theme song, “Who’s Got the Power?”, opens up like the original intro, with the original Tom Kenny narration, score and certain sounds. “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl, but Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction...” Yes, except that Utonium didn’t break the bottle of CHEMICAL X by throwing his fist in success, though; Mojo rammed him into it. That is an error of continuity, which some episodes have, namely The Power of Four (regarding a rival of Utonium, Netronium, creating the perfect little boy)... though there is one thing that that episode did right...

TV PUPPET PALS PUPPETS! These character originally appeared in a few episodes like Mommy Fearest, and were created by either Genndy Tartakovsky and/or @crackmccraigen for The Justice Friends, whose pilot was about TV Puppet Pals. Once again, some nostalgia is preserved; thanks to Prop Designer Nathan Alexander Rico (and/or the act’s character designers/storyboard artists)!

In case no one noticed: I refer to the current seasons of The Powerpuff Girls, produced and directed by Nick Jennings & Bob Boyle, as the 7th, 8th, and 9th seasons, since, to me, it’s still the same show; despite different art direction and other styles. The other reason is that some episodes did call back to former events, like I said about Memory Lane of Pain.

Another thing that seems to be lacking in The Powerpuff Girls is the visually cartoony stuff. Memory Lane of Pain is the only episode to use a “pow” cloud as the Rubber Bandit streaks out of a shot. This was common in earlier episodes, often accented visually with words like “POW”, “ZIP”, etc. In most current episodes, characters run out of a shot more realistically.

WHAT’S WITH THE ANIMATION?

Additionally, most of the animation direction, though still with Robert Alvarez, Randy Myers and Richard Collado, is pervasively slow-paced, compared to the pre-2016 episodes, namely those of seasons 5-6 and, of course, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, on which Genndy Tartakovsky was the main animation director. Unlike most current CN Studios programs, however, Samurai Jack season 5 did its “sheet timing” very well, particularly in EPISODE XCVIII and its scene of Ashi owning a whole army of orcs (Sheet Timing by Rob Renzetti & Robert Alvarez; storyboarded & written by Bryan Andrews & Genndy Tartakovsky).

As with that and most CN Studios programs, both Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff Girls have animation that is checked by CN’s Sandy & Julie Benenati. Speaking of creatives still involved, there’re at least 25 people still working on The Powerpuff Girls just as they did decades ago... including @joltumblingart, a former BG/Prop designer! At least us nostalgia-craving fans can appreciate that! (By the way, if you crave classic CN Studios projects, you can watch the ENTIRE series of Samurai Jack here!)

WHAT OF THE NEW GIRLS AND GUYS ON THE SHOW?

Now, I can say that some of the new creatives could serve The Powerpuff Girls well:

Character designer @cheyennecurtisart did designs for Star vs. the Forces of Evil; the show’s art direction (namely season 1/Joshua & Justin Parpan, but also including Israel Sanchez, who all worked on Wander Over Yonder) is similar to the works of @crackmccraigen and closer to the Mike Moon / Paul Stec styles I prefer, specifically elements of background/location design and character design. Some designs of Princess Bluebelle in the Emmy-winning episode Once Upon a Townsville seem to resemble the looks of Star Butterfly. Also, SvTFOE location designer Larry Murphy did background design for PPG episodes “Save Mojo” and “Substitute Creature”. A number of creatives from SvTFOE should work on current PPGs too, regarding art direction/design/storyboarding action, in addition to former creatives involved with Samurai Jack (including season 5) and Paul Rudish’s Mickey Mouse, including clean-up artist king Robert Lacko. Relatively, SvTFOE location designer @peteremmerich served as the art director on Netflix’s Harvey Street Kids, whose background design is very much like the PPG locations under Paul Stec’s art direction.

Character designer @lambebeardo did storyboards for Disney’s Wander Over Yonder, created and executively produced by @crackmccraigen, as mentioned before, including “The Boy Wander”, which ends ala “The Day is Saved!” segment. There’re 2 specific creatives for a season 7 (or, in reboot terms, season 1) PPG episode...

Power Up Puff features storyboard artist Roque Ballesteros, who storyboards for Star Wars: Forces of Destiny and did animation/layout on CN’s Enter Mode 5 at Ghostbot. One could compare that to Bryan Andrews who did storyboards for Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003-2005) at Cartoon Network Studios, where Power Up Puff was produced; Brian Larsen, who worked with Bryan Andrews, also did storyboards for PPG and Samurai Jack, as well as (the non-Cartoon Network Studios) Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2019)...

...and then there’s animation director Shaun Cashman, who did animation/sheet timing for another CN Studios original, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Sym-Bionic Titan. Cashman also supervised the timing on Disney’s Star vs. the Forces of Evil and produced Grim & Evil AKA The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy for CN. I think that there’s some good animation timing in Power Up Puff, which’s rare due to the way CN Studios and SMIP do the animation these days.

One episode I intend to note here is Save the Date, which’s about Ms. Keane, as was Keen on Keane. A few aspects on design are covered below. One is about the title cards as shown above (which uses props/characters to reflect the episode’s subject/theme) and below.

These cards swipe to the right, rather than having the PPGs beam by and then reveal the storyboard artist/writer and art director. Originally the text was still, until after the movie and they’d zoom in slowly, not italicized and even glowing the tiniest bit. Also, some of the writers aren’t storyboarding, and the art director’s listed on the credits.

Lastly, of course, every single episode is directed just by Nick Jennings and Bob Boyle, aside from a supervising director. Can’t someone from Samurai Jack, Wander Over Yonder, Star vs. the Forces of Evil direct instead? Often, an animation director like Robert Alvarez or Randy Myers would direct The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Grim & Evil, etc. For that matter, someone on the show should get, like, Genndy Tartakovsky (currently at Sony Pictures Animation) to direct. High-octane action and slapstick are a big part of his direction.

Since the Season 7 episode People Pleaser, @deanheezen is the main character designer, in place of @cheyennecurtisart; @carlosluisnunez still contributes, but usually Dean Heezen or Gordon Hammond (and sometimes Steve Lambe and Alan Lambe) are the only designers for an episode. From the episode Save the Date onward, Ms. Keane has only one bang, when she usually has 2, though there is one shot in Keen on Keane where she has one bang, (in various shots of the episode, she has 3 bangs).

In Save the Date, Ms. Keane’s fashion is different from hers in Keen on Keane, which was modified in Octi-Gone. Also, Keane didn’t walk well in high heels in Save the Date, unlike Keen on Keane.

Pertaining to certain fashion, like Keen on Keane, more of Ms. Keane’s body shape is exercised, namely on her legs. Unlike Keen on Keane Ms. Keane’s calves aren’t as obvious if [one of] her legs are straight. Usually, her legs appear shorter as well... kind of stubby, which I think is cute. In some shots in Save the Date, Ms. Keane’s hands are sharper-looking, as were the designs by Carey Yost and Stef Choi.

Relative to both animation and design, compare Ms. Keane fighting the giant, radioactive ant in Save the Date with the aforementioned sequences in Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII:

Now, in these 2 shots, you can see more detail to the design/form of the legs in action. If Carey Yost did the designs of Ms. Keane like those they did in Keen on Keane, the look and form to Keane’s legs in action would appear maybe somewhat stylized, but far more realistic.

In the fight in Save the Date, there’re a few pieces of fast-paced animation, but only a few as, like I said before, animation in CN shows these days are usually slow-paced. In Samurai Jack, of course, there’s much balance between both fast and slow-paced animation which helps convey more realistic (and intense) action. Robert Alvarez was an animation director with Sherri Wheeler (supervising) & Randy Myers for Save the Date and did sheet timing with Rob Renzetti for Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII.

Now, like Samurai Jack, Ms. Keane here shows good form in an action pose. The lines in the PPG shot are similar to the shot of a falling catapulted rock in Samurai Jack EPISODE III, too.

Relative to Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII, the Dexter’s Laboratory episode Dexter Dodgeball has a very nice sequence of well-timed, balanced traditional animation including much fast-paced animation; Dexter’s hair animates somewhat as well. In addition to being filmed and animated with cels, the timing/animation direction gives to moments of this scene movie-level quality of traditional animation. “Additional Animation Direction” is claimed to be done by Robert Alvarez, @crackmccraigen and Rob Renzetti.

Ms. Keane’s homes vary in the series: Dave Dunnet designed 74A in Keen on Keane and another house in ‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas, while Santino Lascano & Clark Snyder revealed a much bigger home for her in Save the Date.

Speaking of location, current episodes have new places like The Snooty Rose and Penguin Pete’s...

...but what about Pete’s-a Pizza, Malph’s and La Donut King Donut?

One interesting thing to note about Save the Date is a matter of size (this’s also the first time in the entire series that sweet Ms. Keane cries). Of course, she’s not the only one with concerns of size.

The PPGs themselves were made to be giant by Mojo Jojo, too, in What’s the Big Idea?, one of the last McCracken-produced episodes (and starring @donshank as a protest leader. He’s the Townie in that fallen building).

The other thing notable about this episode... “WHAT ABOUT THE GIANT ANT” in Bubblevision? Of course, that was a different ant that looked more realistic and just gnawed on stuff at random, but I like that more. The giant radioactive ant in Save the Date was only pushed back by the heat ray of the PPGs, but in Bubblevision the giant ant totally burned up.

One thing I don’t like about the credits--aside from lacking BiS’s popular hit, The Super Secret City of Soundsville Song, which’s the PPGs’ End Title [Theme] Song--is that they don’t specify the voice of the episode’s lesser characters (such as “Todd”, who kind of sounds like Tom Kenny... just a hint of Commander Peepers in his voice). Of course, Samurai Jack season 5 sometimes did this too. Typically, they don’t credit sound designers or foley artists/recordists, either; at least The Powerpuff Girls Movie gave credit to Joel Valentine and his team for Sound Creation and Design and foley.

Now, there’re approaches to character design in current episode that I do enjoy. In this shot from Buttercup vs. Math, Blossom recoils from intense emotion with a very funny yet simple face.

Prior to that, of course, the former emotions are also very wild and creative...

...but that doesn’t mean that Andy Bialk, Carey Yost & @chrisbattleart didn’t do that either (though rarely), as this shot from A Very Special Blossom proves. Art Director @donshank and Models guy Carey Yost, like many great CN Studios creatives, were formerly involved with Spumco, particularly on The Ren & Stimpy Show, which could account for this wild, somewhat detailed design.

Unlike most of Craig McCracken’s former works, except for Wander Over Yonder, character reactions in design weren’t usually as exaggerated as they are in the new PPG episodes. Such design extremes tend not to apply to Ms. Keane as she’s rather mellow and more realistic with emotional reactions, and usually not in grave danger or needful otherwise, compared to another woman designed by Cheyenne Curtis, Star Butterfly, who tends to be highly poignant with emotion (in most ways I love her more than Ms. Keane because Star’s been through a lot, needful and emotional).

In very rare cases, though, like these shots in Keen on Keane and Speed Demon, Ms. Keane shows catchlights in a closeup, which may contribute to either intensely poignant emotion and/or close-up detail (including lighting). Her look in Keen on Keane (Carey Yost) does suggest a needful emotion, but not too exaggerated.

As I said before, I don’t care for the current art direction as much, except for @cheyennecurtisart‘s part; eventually Dean Heezen took over until Gordon Hammond started doing all of the character design, which aren’t really much different. Some others don’t like the designs currently with The Powerpuff Girls, including one artist who decided to re-design and re-animate the promoted scene from Man Up. The designs of the PPGs look very much like the SSN 1-4 models, and the rest vary; some resemble Andy Bialk/Stef Choi or Stephanie Ramirez. The backgrounds are very detailed but similar to the original art direction.

Tom Kenny’s famous, lovable narration that began and ended all pre-2016 episodes has been absent in most current PPG episodes (except for a few, like Painbow, Little Octi Lost, and Fashion Forward). Even worse is a talking snowman voiced by Maurice LaMarche narrating instead--and on-screen--which is one of the major crimes to The Powerpuff Girls in their second Christmas episode, You’re a Good Man, Mojo Jojo. “I BEGIN AND END EACH EPISODE OF POWERPUFF GIRLS, ME, THE NARRATOR!” he claimed at the end of Los Dos Mojos. Next to Scaramouche, Spongebob and Commander Peepers, his narration on The Powerpuff Girls is one of his finest and most memorable roles.

Also missing are more familiar and specific Townies like the Chief of Police, the Pokey Oaks students (excluding the flashback scene), Floyd & Llyod... Also, since Chuck McCann died, I wonder who’d voice the Amoeba Boys now. Perhaps former creative Lou Romano could, since he was their original voice in the pilot/Craig’s student film A Sticky Situation. Some creatives and production staff on the show made cameos, namely @donshank (voiced first by Tom Kenny and then Shank himself), who, himself, served as a supportive character in What’s The Big Idea? leading a protestant group against the PPGs. This Easter egg is rare in cartoons these days (though a recent Teen Titans Go! episode put @chrisbattleart and other creatives in a city crowd), but the episode Electric Buttercup implemented creatives like @cheyennecurtisart, Nick Jennings & Bob Boyle, Kyle Neswald, and others in “THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF SHAME”.

In general, the approach to sound design on the show is a bit quieter but uses more Disney sound effects and other typical Hacienda Post sound design, as well as aural gags thematically associated with noting a certain subject (e.g. a cash register opening and ringing accents a thematic element pertaining to the Monopoly-esq game in Rainy Day, as money is a relative/thematic element). Although Hacienda Post (namely the team) has always been involved with the series since 1998, the original “Sound Creation and Design”, debuting on the episode Crime 101, was by Joel Valentine (Samurai Jack, Big City Greens, Wander Over Yonder), one of my favorite sound designers, who was only credited on The Powerpuff Girls Movie; episode credits would mention only Twenty-First Century Entertainment, Inc. for “Sound Editing”, though they obviously did sound design and foley too. Whether or Joel or all Hacienda, foley members are usually uncredited on the show, yet they bring our favorite Townies to aural life. Joel used his funny little castanet sound to accent many emotions, and the “SINGLE MAGIC WAND HIT” among other sfx to accent the PPGs beaming away. The classic H-B/Universal explosion often accented big feet, impacts and explosions, as well as the original title reveal in the intro; Joel would use some more tweaked variants of that sound too, and, next to Skywalker Sound, Joel is the only one whose consistent use of that sound excuses the general cheesy nature of that sound. Of course, in my opinion “ROCKET LAND SPEEDER: START AND AWAY”, which often accented the PPGs flying (usually for relatively fast/increasing speeds), seemed particularly exaggerated, but Hacienda Post seems to avoid overusing that.

Also, the music style often is more pervasive compared to former episodes, and Mike Reagan did some very nice cartoon-y music, like in the beginning of Rainy Day, though the style feels different from that of Thomas Chase & Steve Rucker in episodes like Pet Feud. The stylized sound of horn sections and strong techno beats in the score by James L. Venable (AKA “DJ Avalanche”) are very cool but aren’t so common in the current episodes, though respectively the action doesn’t live up as well as former episodes, like Live and Let Dynamo.

Near the end of this post, I note that I found great value in The Ren & Stimpy Show as many creatives on it/at Spumco worked on The Powerpuff Girls, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Samurai Jack, Spongebob Squarepants, The Iron Giant, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and many other great animation, including a gem of a Cartoon Network “Minisode”, Buy One, Get One Free*. My love for the work of John Kricfalusi/Spumco boosted with [adult swim]’s airing of the Yogi Bear/Ranger Smith episode “Boo Boo Runs Wild” on August 13th, 2016 A.D.

To conclude: The Powerpuff Girls is an iconic show that deserves to still have some design that feels signature to it, over 25 years after the pilot, @crackmccraigen‘s CalArts student film A Sticky Situation (originally with a mildly profane name for the trio, though Paul Rudish came up with their official name). In my honest opinion, there’re 5 original people whom I wish and pray would contribute to The Powerpuff Girls again: Carey Yost (with or without @chrisbattleart), Tara Strong, Dave Dunnet (with or without @shinypinkbottle), and at least Joel Valentine. Honestly, regarding Star vs. the Forces of Evil, I hope and pray that Joel Valentine, Genndy Tartakovsky’s band of excellent writers/storyboard artists, and even @crackmccraigen could/would contribute to that franchise’s future media. Additionally, the new creatives in season 5 of Samurai Jack, like Dustin d’Arnault, David Krentz, @stephendestefano and Amanda Qian Li, should contribute to these shows too. Again, I also suggest that the former voice of The Amoeba Boys, Lou Romano (in A Sticky Situation), should replace the late Chuck McCann. While Craig’s first words to me suggest that he may not return, more or less, to PPGs, still at least members of his team deserve to, and who wouldn’t want to come back? Meanwhile, at least Craig’s working on new stuff to be announced, including Kid Cosmic for Netflix.

I leave you with not only a petition image to suggest ways to bring nostalgia back to our favorite kindergarten crime-fighters, but also IMDb lists of appropriate creatives for future media of PPG, future media of Dexter’s Laboratory, and even future media of Samurai Jack (pre-Season 5 events to fill a more or less “50-year” story gap). Spread the petition (and/or IMDb lists), and perhaps our childhood days will be saved--thanks to fans like you! GO, POWERPUFF! [z, z, z-z-z-zuuu...] *cue H-B swirling star* (also a Tumblr post)

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ratherhavetheblues · 5 years ago

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INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘SAWDUST AND TINSEL’ “We’re both stuck, Anne–stuck like hell”

Back in 2011, when (at Wonders in the Dark) I foolishly assumed that Ingmar Bergman was one of a small horde of filmmakers (including, Billy Wilder) after something very new, I was years away from comprehending what he had in store. Over the past year or so, I’ve wakened up a bit, to appreciate the momentousness of the range of his concerns, a range, despite good-will, leaving no impact where it really matters.

A constellation of conundrums of intent began to dawn upon me; and putting in place their dynamic has been quite a ride. But the elusiveness of the innovation has proven to be only slightly recognizable. Therefore, it’s time again to return to Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), which provides remarkable immediacy to those staying the course.

Whereas oracular figures—in Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Winter Light(1963) and The Magician (1958)—would afford the thrill of seeing fit to trip up facile enforcement, the balance of power in the narratives remains so weighted against extreme change that understanding would almost absolutely trickle away. Similarly, the mea culpa, in Fanny and Alexander (1982), being brought to bear in terms of “the little world” (and its nagging spoiler, “the big world”), tends to be submerged by the Niagara of sturdy foibles. Then there is the perhaps too vague volcano of acrobatics and juggling, stemming from, The Seventh Seal (1957), and flashing over many subsequent entanglements the dark potency of which being lost on most viewers. The recherche dialogue between Eva and her muse, in Autumn Sonata (1978)—though a crucial clearing—becomes a victim of that protagonist’s hysterical self-importance. The action of silence (most salient in Persona [1966] but also on the move in, The Silence[1963] and Cries and Whispers [1972]), tends to be upstaged by the strong suit of survival. A mystical consummation, like that seen in, Wild Strawberries (1957), tends to maintain the status quo even more rigorously. Therefore, our second attention to this visceral production must be intent upon illuminating, as never before, the sensual structures and energies of players who live or die upon a cosmic scale.

One major expository response to that singular involvement is to spotlight two minor figures to lead the charge—the two stars of the show being brought to light as auxiliary weight for the previous marvels of poetic intensity. There is, of course, a saga, in this case pertaining to a slipping itinerant circus impresario and his slipping love life; but that’s not where the magic and the lift-off inheres. Careers and romantic complications are a dime a dozen; and they don’t tend to generate game-breakers.

Near the outset, a long-term carnie regales the rather recent owner, Albert, about an event of some rarity which happened 7 years before, involving a husband and wife team of clowns, still in the company. The troupe was set to entertain at a place along the seaboard, where an artillery regiment was engaged in training maneuvers. The flashback covering this crucial action has been given a medium of saturated sunlight in which to carry us on an even longer way from the mundane than killing fields and wandering sensationalism. “Tell the story if you want,” the boss allows (sitting on the driver’s bench of one of his caravans plodding along, early in the morning, drinking beer with the storyteller, and soon falling asleep, missing [as always] a remarkable revelation). “It was a hot summer day… The officers lay on the grass, hot and sweating, drinking out of boredom… Then along came Alma, an imposing woman… Carried herself like a queen, if a bit past her prime.” We see her, alone, on a ridge near the sea, bearing down upon the mere military, and carrying a basket for what might come along. Her dress of straight lines implies a mood not for curving away from her sterling desires. In fact, she is a vision of the goddess or medium, Aphrodite, she of coherent passion. As she approaches the fighting force, their cannonade becomes an imaginary orgy. Then, by way of an officer with cat whiskers in close-up yelling something where there is not a sound, except the cannon blasts, the recent workaday becomes even stranger. Cut to the brain-trust playing cards on the flat rocks. Advantage in the air. Cut to more of those silent mouthings, which disappear with a wave of sharp white space, soon displaying a division by way of the black uniforms. Alma merrily walks right over the improv poker table, spins around and produces an ironic smile and bow to her subjects. (The troopers on the ragged ground are not alert to their being overrun by a sworn enemy, as well as a congenial visitation to a lesser world. A soldier ridicules her, and she ridicules back.) Alma then begins to pull up her dress and challenge the power clique to live up to her powers. (In a cut, her advantageous mis-en-scene has been momentarily rescinded, to convey the human, often failing, interplay with the works of primary creativity.) The innuendo of coitus is taken up by the troopers and their shooting. Back on the topspin, Alma takes off her dress and tosses away her sun hat for the sake of a sunniness very seldom reached. (Such steps of hers like that will be repeated, somewhat, by that sleeping slug, unprepared for a crisis of cosmic proportions.)

Another stretch of fiery sky graces the beach; but disgrace looms, even during her ascendance to the ways of Aphrodite. Breaking the stalemate of mob ridicule and her wielding a secret weapon, an officer orders a cadet to go to her husband whereby more mundane resources would tip the scale and force a retreat. The apparition’s beloved clown and alcoholic, with infrequent rallies, lacks her ambition; and therewith we are to keep an eye on her miseries nearly buried by the ordinary two protagonists. And that Frost (where to start with that?—with Death, in the wings) rallies handsomely, though unevenly, that day. Never without his deathly white, cosmetic coloration (in glaring light he nearly disappears), his first appearance doesn’t seem much of anything. Brought out of the tent to meet the cadet, he mutters, “I once had the opportunity to perform for his Majesty…” [Frost being an exponent of trivial nostalgia in lieu of demanding traction]. (This is a gambit soon to re-emerge, in The Magician. As we work along here, we are impressed by how prepared this sojourn traces back to this film.) Only half-comprehending the dilemma, Frost misses the mark (as Albert will repeatedly miss the mark in the second part of that war-couplet which moves apace with great distinction): “The captain pays homage to me…” The cadet, who had conveyed that, “The captain sends his greetings,” sharpens up the message, to, “Your Alma is swimming naked with the regiment!” This causes his more realistic colleagues to laugh maliciously. A woman angrily confronts that drifter with, “Show you’re a real man! We’ll help you give her hell!” Someone else adds, “We’ll help you tar that saucy hide of hers!” With this, Frost pushes the sort of well-wishers away and rushes to the shore in a frenzy. Adding to his presence, are the pantaloons he always wears, trussed up in such a way that his physical proportions resemble an ostrich or a prehistoric bird. Frost being, in his eccentric and erratic way, also a primordial force, of questionable efficacy. With this crisis in the making, at a strategic point, we have our opportunity to regard this drama being very unlike others in its priorities. These presumed, by convention, also rans, are actually nearly the whole story. Their coming a cropper of the military devolves from the widespread war intrinsically bearing down upon creatures like our two clowns—too strange to readily stomach its stand in canniness; and too frail to mount a viable stand of uncanniness, going somewhere very few of humankind want to touch. Though cast as a problematic item of the preponderant in choices—a “circus and romantic saga”—in fact the action is devoted to a striking disclosure, beyond theatre and almost musical in its dynamic. The putative protagonists, Albert, and Anne, “lovers,” are the true also ran. They are trammeled with being not nearly crazy enough to be creatively balanced. And, therewith, the motif of the “little world” and the “big world” (explicit in Fanny and Alexander) hits the bricks to make of this entire Bergman filmic campaign, not a setting in relief of domestic exigencies but how the hell one might carve out a rhythm of sanity on a grotesque planet. As such, the entire (independent) corpus of Bergman’s endeavor must be seen as wall-to-wall war movies.

Frost, with the whole carnie nation delighting in his plight and racing close to his heels, encounters the mob of jeering heroes as he beholds Alma splashing offshore with an amphibian group. His shock, in close-up, is accompanied by a moment of all-out silence and stillness—as if the precinct of primal destruction clamps down for a moment. The white-out of the sun once again endows the chaos with pristine dignity. (Each of such stations emanating singular resources as to the massively ignored and dangerously beloved ways of life.) Then Frost calls out to her (no sound, no subtitles; but the cheesy, calliope circus theme). What was a regal bid to really live now begins to collapse. Jeering (now with the added non-strangers) recommences. Taking off his outer gear and struggling over jagged rocks provides another spew of black laughter. He does reach her, and those groping her drift away. In the capacity of a small but memorable rally, to consign to filmic archives, there is a close-up of him holding her and, as they behold the sea and the sky, they constitute an army of two. As that was transpiring, the cadet gathers up their clothes and hides them in a cravass. A girl from the circus laughs about that. Frost brings Alma to shore by having her on his back. The visual atmosphere is a slate sea and dark grey sky; and Frost, losing the energy to savor this austere beauty, begins to succumb to unsteadiness in negotiating the rocks while carrying her. Another silence obtrudes, as the couple resemble dying beasts. (The protagonists will prove to be all too human—predictable and presumptuous, leaving us more alerted to the fringes than the center.) The underestimated “clowns” are seen at a distance. The crowd closes in. Alma becomes stiff in his arms, her body like a cardboard sign. A deep drum roll sounds. The captain orders the heroes back to training. Frosts feet, shown in close-up, become very unsteady. That blazing outburst stages another fanfare to kindred spirits. A close-up finds them strangely glamorous at a watershed. Frost falls, and nearly faints. Another blinding brightness, another drum roll. They’re seen at a distance, on a ridge. (After such effort, this being a premonition of surrender, four years hence, in The Seventh Seal.) A feathery cloud formation becomes a confirmation that much had been well done. Then he falls, seen from afar. One more effort to proceed, and he’s flat on his face. He tries to crawl. (We’ll see Albert in a somewhat formally similar sequence, but with very little concern on the part of the cosmos.) Alma, no longer Aphrodite, fears for Frost’s life. Carnies and the cadet carry him home to the circus tent. Alma angrily (and silenced) reproves the wayward. She begins to cry out (silently covered).

Back to the seat at the caravan emanating this strange event, with Albert, as always, missing in action. He and the driver jounce, due to the bad roads; they look like rather identical puppets. The driver concludes, “Alma began to shriek that we’d done her old man in. We got angry and told her it was her own fault. But we picked him up and carried him back anyway…”

The last sight of the two who rocked Sweden for a few hours, was Frost being carried by several men of the art of the body, as if he were a white caribou. His head is thrown back and the pan shot moves backwards, as if he’s the subject of a hunt already dead. Seven years beyond this oddity/ odyssey, the driver has rounded out his harangue with, “That’s a woman and love for you!” It is, of course, nothing of the sort, the eyewitness not having a clue of what had really taken place. Here’s the moment to introduce the virtually sterile protagonists, now running the show, very badly—by way of their phony business names: “Alberti” (as in, “Alberti Cirkus”); and, “a fiery Spanish rider astride an Andalusian thoroughbred,” being hopefully antidotes to mask their lack of lyricism, their lack of poetry, their lack of courage. The day we first see them together, they’re entering the town where Albert dragged his wife and two children (from a modest retail business) into showbiz as being, at last, his supposed reality. This venue, in contrast with the puppets and cold and fatigue on the first occasion, musters cinematography of beauty, in the form of a close-up of a wagon wheel moving over a bridge showing its reflection in the water, and an imposing windmill. A rooster crows. A dog barks a welcome. Forward motion in the air. But who’s up for what it takes?

The mid-20th century “fairground,” a scene of desolation itself, becomes the scene of the staff, many having seen far better days from far better management, announcing to the boss their displeasure in not having been paid for quite a while, with an outbreak of fleas in all the caravans, and lacking viable costumes. (During the hubbub Alma is aghast in hearing that one of her colleagues wants to have her pet bear [and vignette for her work] killed and eaten.) In response, we receive some idea of the details of Albert’s being unfit for bringing off viable imaginative work. He muses that in America there is a healthy market for circus activity. “In America, circus folk ride through town, while bands play and the elephants trumpet. Everyone puts on their biggest smile and people line the streets cheering. A booming voice announces the show for that evening…” The goofiness of that razzmatazz premise transplanting to rural Sweden, is part and parcel of the goofy business plan in Jacque Tati’s film, Jour de Fete (1949), where a French farm town mailman attempts to wow the citizenry with big-market, American systematics.

On the spot to at least seem to be a businessman, he proposes one of those effervescent, Jimmy Durante circus parades for the permafrost customers, only to be busted, the horses impounded on the grounds of failing to secure a permit. Albert’s other excellent idea—on stronger grounds, in view of the Swedish government lavishing tons of cash for the arts (the theatre building in this tank-town having been designed upon the model of the royal palace)—was to borrow some of the costumes of the rich store, in order to put on a memorable spectacle. But there is a significant more, bearing down upon this disarray, whereby Albert was to pay a visit to his former spouse and (formerly unhappy) former circus partner (now the successful lone tobacconist of the present scene). Sleepy Alberti’s career of running the show into near collapse has inadvertently alerted Anne, the non-Spaniard, at this window of opportunity, that he’ll be returning to retail and she’ll be needing to make very different plans than she had bargained for.

Albert and Anne constitute, however, not mere perverse dullards and fools, but rather facile, effete revolutionaries lacking the nerve to prepare for what their excitement involves. Each releases a mission statement in face of discouraging mainstream forces. Albert’s ex declares, “I’m happy now. It was always a time of frenzy and fear.” He counters with, “It’s always the same, summer and winter. For me, it’s emptiness.” Encountering rather feminine and arrogant Frans (an actor she meets during negotiations for the costumes; and perhaps her best bet if Albert bolts), she maintains that an earthy matier like the circus is the place to be. “I’ll bet you apply cosmetics. You have beautiful hands… You’re a weakling… You can’t [as he did] treat me like that or speak of my husband that way…” Frans pushes back, “If we were alone, I’d crush you. I’d crush your resistance like a piece of dirty paper.” She quickly attacks, “What play does that come from? Save it for your pale, flat-chested actresses…” Stirring declarations; but hollow. Anne does go in for “dirty paper.” And Albert proposes returning to the good old days. His wife had prefaced the little reunion with, “All I can offer is pancakes.”

The theatre personnel arrive late. And Frans, having been roundly insulted by Anne en route to a pancake tryst, feels entitled to trip up an inelegant entertainment. Although this very intense incident could be imagined to be (as with the battle on the shore could seem) a simple display of dispatching, by the powers that be, foolish, obsolete eccentricity—road kill—the membrane on tap copiously speaks otherwise, to the horror of so many who don’t care enough, and where that leaves those who do show audacity of sensibility reaching an astounding threshold. That the figures being tracked do not handle their audacity well, is beside the point of this reflection per se. Sawdust and Tinsel offers to us a conveyance inviting the viewer to behold emotion so raw that normal dimensions become shattered and thereby become an intimate challenge. By the time the caravan comes to the little town playing it safe, we notice Alma and Frost having abandoned the realm of Aphrodite in favor of variations of Aphrodite-Lite, the specialty of Albert and Anne. Frost and Albert clearly spend a lot of time getting drunk. Alma has her low-key bear; Anne has her Tarot cards. By the end of the saga, Albert is heard to lament, “We’re both stuck, Anne—stuck like hell…”

Whereas the insulting regiment, at the (double) beginning, never gets to be heard, Frans, showing off to a pretty actress in the troupe (where affluent, educated elites would have honed a range of useful skills), and with Anne astride her horse circling the sawdust stage, he calls out, “Feel alright after our adventure, Sweetheart?” This elicits from Albert, the ringmaster’s, whipping off of the show-offs straw hat. In one of those grand, dramatic ironies Bergman excels in, Albert’s shock and fury at that moment had landed him in depths of pain whereby he had put in his place the smooth cynic. Frans, not expecting lightning from such a source, experiences, almost uniquely, disarray. As he puts his hat on, the girl he brung laughs in his face. The supercilious small-town sensation had, remarkably, retreated. Were Albert truly conversant with squelching vain nobodies, his evening might have included modest rewards from which to invent circus theatre to surpass the sclerosis of the local artistes. But Albert, on a high and afraid of heights, repeats the fun—flashing his whip as if the smattering of Americana Conestoga covered wagons in the convoy endows automatic magic—and Frans, feeding on hate, smashes the pretender to a pulp.

Much about this bloody gore reminds us of Alma’s sunny day at the beach. Frans’ fighting skills (the Artistic Director of the big/ little theatre mired in lostness organizes the bad feelings in terms of a duel, which is to say, a stupid way to die and a stupid way to live) are a reprise of the artillery display which punctuated the ridicule of Alma. Albert’s baby-peal crying in pain, from a dirty trick directed at his balls, is a reprise of the fake crying of a clown in the first scene of the show, where Frost is now merely ordinary, wielding a ladder (going nowhere—not even funny) and squabbling with the crybaby. The townsfolks (including the ex), recalling the civilian population witnessing Alma’s abortive ascent, present a variation of the universal amusement—most enjoying the massacre, while a few being sickened by it. On the other hand—as with the conscripts to the nation—the theatre employees show 100% satisfaction, in their prissy way. Distributed about this maelstrom, we have Anne thrown from her horse, due to a guy in the last row throwing a missile hitting the thoroughbred; Alma’s gig with her bear totally washed out by the late-comers from civilization wandering across the ring (and, to worsen her latter days lot, yelling to hapless Albert, “That’s it, Albert!”); and the ringmaster both humiliated and on a roll of visceral courage, hopelessly misplaced.

At the end of the fight, Frost becomes a voice of the status quo: “Ladies and gentlemen, the show is over. Thank you for coming this evening…” Albert’s nightmare finds him in the role of an abused bear, in a bearpit. On gaining what he’d call consciousness, he grabs his pistol and shoots Alma’s bear. You could say, that was the last bit of integrity this company would see. But, for what it’s worth, the tug of creativity is hard to entirely kill.

The circus caravan is on the move later that night. Frost and Albert are walking along in crepuscular light and crepuscular mood. Albert maintains a depressive glare, never looking, nor, once again, listening to the outer limits of life itself. Frost, an artist to Albert’s merchandising, speaks up, with, “Yesterday afternoon I had a dream while I slept off the booze. I dreamt that Alma came to me and said, ‘Poor Frost, you look tired and sad. Wouldn’t you like to rest a while?’ Yes, I said. ‘I’ll make you small [smallness virulently in effect already] as a little unborn child. You can climb into my womb and sleep in peace.’ So I did as she said, and crept into her womb, and I slept there so soundly and peacefully, rocked to sleep as if in a cradle. Then I got smaller, until, at last, I was just a tiny seed, and then I was gone.” Frost had not gone much further than hysteria in that initial struggle. But his dream carried him to the frontiers of creativity, which is to say, a fresh start upon getting real, the precinct Alma inhabited when an instance of Aphrodite (which failed to find traction). Alma, from the cozy confines of their caravan bed, interrupts, “Stop trudging along out there! Come inside and sleep!” Frost, the alcoholic Everyman, explains to the bemusing navigator, “You see? She can’t sleep without me beside her!”

Here we come to an unexpected minefield. Do the fidelities, at this stage of the careers of the once-briefly brave, still reach the point of magic? Or do those gentle moves conceal a crime? The dream of starting again seems to tell us, “Yes.” Bergman, being one very, very tough dude, is not one to settle for sort of. Does his investigation (and that of a host of other investigators) leave room for leveraging the daily juggle where the daily acrobatics have startled? Sort of. But the film wants us to consider hostile armies that aren’t going away.

After Frost, the unfocused family man, goes to bed, Albert comes to a halt, and Anne (not needing to go to bed) has her moment of truth, which is something else from a moment of vision. (Along a trajectory of job-shopping with Frans in his dressing room and beyond, in the light of Albert bidding for a less American Dream, she doubles back, in memory, to catch Frans rehearsing a drama that could only avail as a purgative. “I am but a poor jester in this farce of dark shadows. Her deceitful heart, her frailty, even her taunting indifference, turn my world upside down every day and every hour…Art that Count Badrincourt of Chamballe, or the most miserable of wretches? Farewell, O world…May my tears water my poor grave…” The intruder that is Anne is positioned behind a damaged backdrop, and we see only part of her face breaking through the musty garbage in knowing to be something better. [Far from Aphrodite; but a physical key still in play].) There they are (Anne and Albert), in the dull light, now apprehensive. (While Albert was carried out of his sawdust bailiwick—a position repeating Frost’s unconsciousness after breaking down in aid of Alma—Anne was busy gauging Frans’ cheek. A few years later, in Hour of the Wolf [1968], a woman at a party gauges the cheek of an effete rebel, whose confused bid to manage there being no heaven costs his life.) Each manages a wan smile. And they walk along that pregnant roadway and its links coming close to the dance of death, about to be fully unveiled in The Seventh Seal. Our guide’s dramatic genius presents a disaster without recourse, while, on a wider front, things could improve.

#ingmar bergman

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comic-movieheroesranked · 7 years ago

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Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2007) Part One

Seven movies were released during 2007 that make it on our list! Marvel’s debut of Ghost Rider started us off, followed by the incredible action film, 300! Up next was TMNT, the list’s first animated movie as well as the return of Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Alien vs Predator: Requiem! Also debuting is the horror film 30 Days of Night. Here’s #61 through 41!

Cameo Appreciation: Stan Lee (Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

Stan Lee graces us with his presence in both Spider-Man 3 and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. In Spider-Man, Stan Lee shows up to casually give Peter Parker advice and in Fantastic Four, Lee actually recreates his scene in the comic where he tries and fails to get into Sue and Richard's wedding.

Cameo Appreciation: Uncle Ben, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Flash Thompson (Spider-Man 3)

Three characters from the previous films of the trilogy return. Norman Osborn shows up as another hallucination to further drive his son insane and Flash Thompson shows up to attend said son's funeral. Uncle Ben shows up when we learn how he truly died at the hands of the Sandman, which ends up being a total accident.

61. Wilson Bulosan, Carter Davies, Isaac Bulosan, and Helen Munson (30 Days of Night)

"They don't feel any bullets."

Unlike most of the citizens in Barrow that were murdered by the vampires, these four were a little more prominent plot-wise before they met their demise. Wilson and Isaac were a father/son duo that managed to hide out with the main group until Isaac, who's memory isn't the best, took off into the night. It's left uncertain what happened to him but its most likely he shared the same fate as Wilson, who was killed looking for him. Carter stayed with the group for awhile until he ended up turning in a vampire himself and volunteered to have himself killed. Helen, Eben's grandma, was the saddest death in the whole movie for me. I literally gasped when I realized she was dying through the walkie talkie.

60. Carrie, Drew, Darcy, Dale, and Tim (Alien vs Predator: Requiem)

"If you can find them in 30 minutes or less asshole."

These five characters obviously showed personality but were more obviously created to die. Drew is Ricky's strict boss at the pizza shop who gets snatched by aliens right after joining the group to the hospital. Darcy, who lost her son and husband at the beginning of the movie, mostly just watches Molly until she leaves with Morales to blow up in the center of town. Tim is Kelly's husband and it's obvious Molly was closer to him but he's the one that gets killed by an alien when it invades their home. Carrie is a pregnant waitress and is the first person we see the hybrid implant baby aliens into. Dale is Jesse's ex-boyfriend that likes to bully Ricky with his friends. He dies at the gun shop when the alien's acid blood destroys his face.

59. Daxos (300)

"I see I was wrong to expect Sparta's commitment to at least match our own."

Daxos lead the Greek men who volunteered to join the Spartans in their fight against the Persians. Not all of them were warriors so it was no surprise that when things got rough, they abandoned ship.

58. Galactus (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

*destroys planets*

Galactus doesn't really have a big role in this film. We see him destroy a planet in the beginning so we know he's capable of ending all life on Earth, but the Fantastic Four focus their time trying to stop the Silver Surfer before Galactus even arrives. When he does show up, the Silver Surfer manages to destroy him once and for all.

57. Theron (300)

"This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. I am not you King."

I feel like Theron wasn't even hiding the fact that he hated Leonidas which is why the King and Queen thought so little of him. It isn't a shocker that he's working for the Persians but it does suck that he took advantage and raped Gorgo before then trying to make it seem like she was trying to commit adultery to the council. He died like a little bitch, which is all I could ask for.

56. The Stranger (30 Days of Night)

"They didn't take me!"

First strike is this asshole killed a bunch of beautiful dogs that did nothing to anyone! Second is he was rude to the Lucy as she tried to take his order, which is a personal pet peeve of mine, and three is he basically helped hand over the entire town to a bunch of vampires with the hopes of becoming one. So yes, I was very happy when they didn't turn him and just killed him instead.

55. General Hager (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

"So far, the only one I've regretted trusting here is you, Richard."

I don't know what this guy's problem is, but he made life way more difficult for the team. He really thought that his army could stop the Silver Surfer after the Fantastic Four failed? He really thought bringing in Dr. Doom was a great idea. Him dying at the hands of Dr. Doom is the biggest 'I told you so' you can get with this guy and what's even better is no one is surprised to find his body when they do.

54. Billy Kitka, Denise, and Lucy Ikos (30 Days of Night)

"They'll just think it was some horrible accident."

These three townspeople had a bit more focus than the rest. Denise and Lucy were the only two to survive, along with Jake and Stella, in the main group. They also helped put up a fight when Eben took on Arvin. Billy is the other sheriff that ends up killing his family so that they don't end up being slaughtered by the vampires. When the group takes on Arvin, it's Billy who pushes him into the grater, losing his hand and starting to change into a vampire. Eben kills him before he does and then uses his blood to turn into a vampire.

53. Jesse, Molly, Morales (Alien vs Predator: Requiem)

"There's a monster outside!"

Molly is actually one of the survivors but honestly, she only lives because her mom is a badass. Morales is the sheriff of the town and good friends with Dallas. It's clear he's trying to do whatever he can to save everyone, but his trust in the law is what causes his downfall. Jesse is the love interest of Ricky who travels with the group to find the helicopter at the hospital. She ends up accidentally getting killed by the Predator when he's fighting a pair of aliens.

52. Eddie Brock/Venom (Spider-Man 3)

"I like being bad. It makes me happy."

Wow, I never thought I'd hate anyone in this trilogy as much as Harry, but then they introduced Eddie Brock. He's selfish, overly dramatic, and is quick to play victim and blame others when he deals with the consequences of his own actions. He's even petty enough to pray for the death of Peter at church. Like, who does that? With all his hate towards Peter it only makes sense that he gets infected with the symbiote and becomes Venom. He teams up with Sandman to take Peter out in this big flashy way, but ultimately fails once Peter figures out Venom's weakness and throws a goblin grenade to destroy it. What does Brock do? He jumps after the grenade...as if his human hands could've stopped it. Obviously his death was for the best.

51. Jake Oleson (30 Days of Night)

"No one's touching him."

Eben's little brother and one of the youngest people who stayed around Barrow during the attack. He witnesses his grandma die in front of him and he eventually takes out a vampire himself, although the vampire is just a little girl. When Eben isn't around, Jake takes charge in leading the group to safety and is one of the town's few survivors once the month is over.

50. Captain Raye (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

"Not interested."

This girl has a lot of nerve criticizing Johnny when she works for a general who is a complete idiot. She acts like she isn't interested when Johnny tries to make the moves on her but at the end of the movie she ends up being his date at Richard and Sue's wedding.

49. Gressil, Wallow, and Abigor (Ghost Rider)

"He's not so tough."

These three are fallen angels that can now become three different elements: Ground (Gressil), Water (Wallow), and Air (Abigor). One by one they face Ghost Rider and one by one they're killed by him. He burns Gressil and Abigor with his chain, althouh he has to get creative with Abigor, and evaporates Wallow with his flames. None of them really stood a chance and died pretty quickly.

48. Ephialtes (300)

"Yield, Leonidas! Think of your men, I beg you!"

A deformed Spartan that wants nothing more than to serve Sparta as a soldier. Due to his deformity, however, Leonidas denies him this request as he'd end up putting his men in danger. Ephialtes ends up betraying the Spartans by working with Xerxes. I, like Leonidas, also hope he ends up living forever so that he can never die in battle like a true Spartan warrior.

47. Astinos (300)

"You still here?"

Astinos is the pretty and youthful son of the Captain. He can hold his own during battle, even taking out a freaking rhinoceros before it comes barreling down on the Spartans. He's one of the first main Spartans to die, getting decapitated by a Persian when he wasn't paying attention.

46. Alicia Masters (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

"We're different and we're still happy!"

Alicia really fits into the team's dynamic really well. Her relationship with Ben is going great, the two can't get enough of each other and she's bonded with the other members as well. From helping settle Sue's wedding day nerves, to calling out Johnny about wanting a serious relationship, Alicia really did look like she's been with the team for years.

45. J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, and Miss Brant (Spider-Man 3)

"Where's my photographer?"

With the wrap of this particular trilogy I decided to add Robbie and Miss Brant along with Jonah Jameson. They're the only two that seem to not bend to Jonah's will, with Robbie pciking fights with him on what stroy gets published and Miss Brant reminding him to take his medicine. As for J. himself, he still hates Spider-Man but also still features him whenever he can. He also gets hustled by a little girl, which is fun to watch.

44. General Mono, General Serpiente, General Aguila, and General Gato (TMNT)

"We are immortal and made of stone."

The four generals that served Max Winters three thousand years ago when he was a powerful warlord. They were also the price he had to pay for immortality and turned into stone for those three thousand years. So while he got to live and later discover that immortality was a curse, they were just stone. So I kinda get why they turned on him, no one wants to just die as soon as they break free from their curse. Still, the turtles defeat them and send them into the portal leading to the other dimension.

43. Barton Blaze (Ghost Rider)

"When you do things without thinking you ain't making a choice, the choice is making you."

You know Johnny's dad likes to lecture him a lot about dumb decisions despite the fact that he continues to smoke cigarettes even though he's dying of lung cancer. He really hates the idea of Johnny and Roxie being together so young and doesn't get the chance to change his mind after Mephisto kills him during his circus act.

42. Ricky (Alien vs Predator: Requiem)

"Fire him."

I liked Ricky. He wasn't really an outcast he was just picked on by Dale and his friends because of his obvious connection with Jesse. When the aliens attack, Ricky follows his brother in hopes of survival. He gets upset when Jesse dies and tries to attack the Predator, which ends up getting him impaled by the Hybrid. Still he manages to escape with his brother, Kelly, and Molly.

41. Iris, Arvin, and the Little Girl Vampire (30 Days of Night)

"I'm done playing with this one."

Out of all the vampires rolling with Marlow, these three were the main ones popping up. The Little Girl Vampire was only in one scene but she really disturbed the group with her young appearance before they killed her. Iris was Marlow's second in command and was always by his side as they stalked their prey throughout the town. She meets her end when Eben manages to turn on Helen's ultraviolet lights on her, burning her so badly that Marlow gives her a sympathy kill. Arvin was one of the most vicious vamps, ruthlessly killing a lot of the townspeople before following Billy to the main group's hideout. Eben and the group struggle to take him on until Billy shoves him in a giant grinder.

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apprcnticesuprcmc · 8 years ago

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damn im so worked up about the way tommy and billy mirror each other tho--

( theyre just always talking about each other. tommy literally will not shut up about him in vol 2. it gives me life )

like, everyone thinks of billy as the warper and fine he is, but so is tommy?? its canon that they both possess this incredible ability to warp the very fabric of reality to their wishes, but it just manifests differently in the two of them. here is a really great meta about tommy warping time.

( tommy breaking into everyone’s house like it’s nbd. could you imagine living in this area and life is p nice, but occasionally this one family arrives and stars a whole bunch of drama and then just??? leaves??? like they dont even live there but they keep showing up every couple of years?? who are they??? )

we also know that, given the proper training and attention on their mystic abilities, both twins are not only capable of using them, but are even both totally legitimate candidates for the future Sorcerer Supreme. If Billy wasn’t implied to eventually take on the mantle, it is likely that Tommy would have ended up being Strange’s next choice.

( note: i kind of hate this story it was so over-complicated and dumb - also it’s outside current 616 canon - but it had some interesting pieces about the dynamic of the brothers, so it’s going to be included )

you think it's a coincidence that he was there for the delivery?? nO-- nothing is a coincidence in these boys’ lives. everything about them is so foretold that they got written out of existence and the universe was like ‘‘wait no--’‘ (i mean mostly it was the scarlet witch doing that, but listen there was some p complicated bullshit that went into their reemergence that cant happen on a whim )

( pls appreciate tommy in this panel he is not having a good day-- )

They literally were created with the combined opposites of tons of things, too. The hate of the villagers at their conception and the love of their parents. the scientific nature of their father and their mother’s magic. hell, in the beginning of the comic, the two were going on this walk and discussing the different sides of ton of shit like poetry/facts, the vastly different families they had. there was even a biblical adam/eve type reference in there--

( Ah yes. I love when my mentor yells at me over the astral plan while im trying to conceive a baby with my husband. she gives such great tips )

so, even before they were born, they were surrounded by the duality, but what about in their actual lives? the obvious one every one wants to talk about is the physical/mystical aspects of their powers and that’s cool but listen there is so much more okay i just--

( **vision voice** boys stop fighting or im gonna tell your mother )

take their emotional states for instance! Billy and Tommy are on completely opposite spectrum of the emotional scale, with Tommy being so emotionally stunted that he straight up will say he doesn’t have feelings and Billy being so emotionally involved that it is the primary force behind his abilities ( he destroyed mother with the power of love if that’s not a testament to this idk what is ). If you look at the civil war ii comic with Kate, you’ll notice how billy not only showed up to give emotional support to his friend, he did so in the middle of a crisis. tommy on the other hand? tommy wouldn’t even show his face. he doesn’t really have the jilted lover thing marvelboy is carrying, so there’s no reason he doesn’t tag along unless it has nothing to do with kate and everything to do with the emotional weight of the situation. ( trust me im still pissed he wasn’t in it, even if i can give it an explanation, but that’s just because my speedster son doesn’t seem to be in anything these days ;;n;; )

( the moral of the story is that there is never a bad time to make out with your boyfriend )

or their differences on right and wrong!! billy lives by the strict, captain america-brand morals of good guys and bad guys. He had a hard time reconciling that the scarlet witch had made a mistake because she was his favorite hero and heroes don’t do things wrong. it had to be the work of an outside force. it’s clear that his morals are very strict - Even in comparison to the Avengers! He’s always here to give people second chances, he never is supposed to kill and he can’t back down if he is faced with something that isn’t right, even at his own personal cost. Tommy, on the other hand, views being a good guy as much more grey. The people that he tends to connect with are more ambiguous in nature, like wolverine and magneto. Heroes to him are not about never doing anything wrong or questionable, but more about intention and justification. the line between heroes and villains is much more blurred for him. its kind of interesting to also note how this effects their individual responses to failure, with billy responding by giving up and tommy by trying harder.

( cap’s just in the background like 😱 )

there are also smaller contrasts, too! like the fact that billy’s hair is black and tommy’s is white. they have similarities, of course - Like the fact they both have pretty unrealistic expectations of themselves or that they’re both pretty rebellious little punks - but these things don’t necessarily take away from the very important dynamic they share. they are two pieces of the same soul and incredibly necessary to the other in a way that most people could probably never hope to understand. And not just that, they have their fingers in the threads of the universe. they are the very personification of the concept of equal, but opposite. I would love to see more expansion on this in a future comic some time??? pls give me an entire series just about these boys teaming up?? if you don’t think I would put down a ton of money on something like that you are sorely mistaken--

( why is it that every time vision is seen in the same panels as both his sons he immediately fucks everything up?? who decided this?? )

anyways, i got carried away, but the moral of the story is that wiccan and speed are two sides of the same coin and if i dont get some twin interaction soon im going to go straight to marvel and write them some, myself--

#✨ ║ ;; ᴛᴇxᴛ ( ᵖᵒˢᵗ )#✨ ║ ;; ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ-- ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ ɪs ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇss ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʜᴀᴏs ( ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ᵇᶦᶫᶫʸ )#✨ ║ ;; ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀxɪᴍᴏғғ ʟᴇɢᴀᴄʏ ( ᶜʰᵃʳᵃᶜᵗᵉʳ )#✨ ║ ;; ᴘʀɪsᴏɴ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ( ᶜʰᵃʳᵃᶜᵗᵉʳ )#// i just love them so much #;; ᴛᴇxᴛ ( ᵖᵒˢᵗ )

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