#So pretty. No wonder Johnny has a roster

[zappedbyzabka]

[kaialone]

All Fanny Win & Lose Quotes Translated (Guilty Gear Petit)

As the title says, this will be a translation of all* Win & Lose quotes involving Fanny from Guilty Petit and Guilty Gear Petit 2.

(*Except for the mirror match quote, if one exists, because it looks like you can’t get a proper mirror match in single player.)

I thought these would be interesting to know about, since they’re pretty much the only characterization Fanny gets outside of the Petit 1 & 2 story modes, plus getting to see a bit of how the other characters react to her.

EDIT: I have since also translated all of the Petit 1 & 2 story modes (yes, all of them)- check those out here.

--

Some more things to note before we get started:

Characters who appear in both Petit 1 and 2 have identical Win and Loss quotes in both games.

The final roster also includes four “GG” characters: GG Sol Badguy, GG May, GG Millia Rage, and GG Ky Kiske.

These four characters are essentially their base form counterparts, but with an alternate moveset inspired by the first Guilty Gear game. They are given different color schemes to differentiate them in gameplay, but they are effectively treated like they are the same characters, even though they have separate quotes and story modes.

The only exception is GG Ky Kiske, who is actually Robo-Ky!

Finally, in terms of status-quo, the characters are roughly plucked from around the Guilty Gear X era - for example Dizzy is part of the Jellyfish Pirates, but Zato-1 hasn’t fully passed away yet (but is still controlled by Eddie.)

Though the stories of these games are really more on the humorous side.

Now, onto the actual translations!

--

Fanny Win Quotes

(These are the quotes Fanny herself says when defeating these characters.)

Sol Badguy: せんせいは、かんじゃさんに リラックス してもらおうと おもっているからこそ あんなにユーモアにあふれているのです。 The doctor wants to help his patients relax, that's why he's so full of humor.

Ky Kiske: すみません、せのたかくてスマートで ウィットにとんだせかいさいこうのめいい、 ごぞんじないですか？ Excuse me? Do you happen to know about the tall, suave, witty, and overall greatest doctor in the entire world?

May: せんせいはえいせいてきにかんがえて、 あたまをそっていらっしゃるのです。 …たぶん。 The doctor shaves his head for hygienic purposes. …I think.

Millia Rage: ねんのため くすり だしておきますね。 I'm giving you some medicine, just in case.

Potemkin: わたしのオデコのほうが かたかったみたいです。 Looks like my forehead is harder.

Kuradoberi Jam: せんせいのようしですか？ あしがながくて くびもながい ひかりかがやいているかたですわ。 What does the doctor look like? He has long legs, and a long neck, and he's just a positively radiant person.

Mito Anji: せんせいもあなたのように ステキなめがねをしてらしたのよ。 The doctor was also wearing lovely glasses, just like you.

Johnny: ステキなけんさばきでしたわ、 でも せんせいにはかないませんわね。 That was some fine swordplay, but you still can't hold a candle to the doctor.

Faust: ああっ、せんせい… どこにいってしまわれたのでしょうか？ Oh, Doctor… Where could you have gone?

Chipp Zanuff: ぜひ けんけつをおねがいします。 きっと ちが おおすぎるのですわ。 Please consider donating blood. I'm sure you have too much of it.

Axl Low: ごめんなさい、わたしは「はくいのてんし」 わたしのあいは みなさんびょうどうですの。 I'm sorry, but I'm a "white angel"- I love everyone equally.

(Translator's Note: “はくいのてんし/hakui no tenshi”, meaning “white angel” is a non-official term sometimes used for nurses in Japanese, as far as I can tell. As far as I’ve heard, this term might’ve come from the legacy of Florence Nightingale, particularly the 1937 movie based around her life called “The White Angel”. Obviously likening nurses to angels is a thing in English too, but I still wanted to explain the details here.)

Zato-1 (Eddie): あなたぜひ せんせいのオペを うけるべきですわ！ You should absolutely get surgery from the doctor!

Testament: せいしんあんていざいを うっておきました。 もうだいじょうぶ！ I have given you sedatives. Everything will be fine now!

GG Sol Badguy: せんせいのすばらしさがわからないんですか？ おきのどくに。 Don't you know just how wonderful the doctor is? How unfortunate.

GG May: せんせいは「ハゲ」ではありません！ 「ボウズ」ですわ！！ The doctor is NOT bald! He just shaves!!

GG Millia Rage: あなたのこころのキズ、はやく せんせいに みてもらったほうがいいと おもいますわ。 I think you'd better let the doctor take a look at your broken heart as soon as possible.

GG Ky Kiske (Robo-Ky): あなた すぐにせんせいに みていただいたほうがいいわ！ せんせい！！きゅうかんです！！ You should go see the doctor right away! Doctor!! It's an emergency!!

--

Fanny Defeated Quotes

(These are the quotes these characters say to Fanny when they defeat her.)

Sol Badguy: かんごふってのは、みな、こうだったか？ Are all nurses like this?

Ky Kiske: かんごふ というのもまた からだをはる しごとなのですね。 I suppose being a nurse, too, is quite the physically demanding line of work.

May: ボクもずっと すきなひと さがしてたからわかるよ。そのきもち。 I'm always chasing after someone I like, too. So I get how you feel.

Millia Rage: さいきん えだげが ひどいのよね。 いいくすりしらない？ I've been having awful split ends lately. Do you know any remedy for that?

Potemkin: ずいぶん かわった たたかいだったな… That sure was a strange battle…

Kuradoberi Jam: ちょっと、やりすぎたアル…って ねてるアルか？ Whoops, I think I overdid it��� Wait- Are you asleep?

Mito Anji: 「まてば かいろのひよりあり」ってね がんばって さがしな "Good things come to those who wait", you know. So hang in there and keep on searching, alright?

(Translator's Note: What Anji says in the first line is a Japanese idiom that would literally translate to “waiting for fair weather at a sea route”, in case you’re curious. But it does essentially mean “Good things come to those who can wait.”)

Johnny: とう「ジェリーフィッシュかいぞくだん」では チャーミングなナース ぼしゅうちゅうだ むかしのおとこ わすれさせてやるぜ？ The Jellyfish Pirates are looking to hire a charming nurse right now, so what d'ya say? I'll make you forget all about that other guy.

Faust: 「いりょうのみちは いちにちしてならず。」 かんじゃへの あいのみに いきるべきです。 "The path of medicine isn't forged in a day." You should live only for your love towards your patients.

Chipp Zanuff: へんなねーちゃんだな？ おれはどこもけがしちゃいねーけどな。 What's with this chick? I wasn't even hurt anywhere.

Axl Low: 「はくいのてんし」はすきだけど もうちょっと おとなしいほうがすきだぜ？ I do like "white angels", but… I'd like it even better if you were a bit more gentle, eh?

Zato-1 (Eddie): モウオソイワ コイツトオレハキリハナセンヨ。 YOU ARE TOO LATE. HE AND I CANNOT BE SEPERATED.

Testament: わたしに いりょうなど ひつようない。 I have no need for medical care.

GG Sol Badguy: かんごふがくるとこじゃねぇぜ、ここは。 This is no place for a nurse.

GG May: さいきんのかんごふって ずいぶん つよいのね？ Nurses are pretty tough these days, huh?

GG Millia Rage: ボーっと���てるから…。 That's what you get for spacing out…

GG Ky Kiske (Robo-Ky): カカカンゴフ トトトトイウノモモモマタ カカカラダヲハル ㇱ、シゴトナノデスネネ。 I- I- I SUPPOSE BEING A- A- A- A- A NURSE, T-T-TOO, IS QUITE T-T-T-THE PHYSICALLY D-DEMANDING LINE OF WORK-K.

--

[thlayli-ra]

Okay, every time I watch RAW/Smackdown I start wondering who's a valet and who's a dominant out of the new(er) guys and who's paired up and who's single... Indulge my curiosity, pleeeease? 😄

This is pretty much my default setting LOL - I exclusively judge wrestlers based on how they fit in the valetverse, so will I indulge? Absolutely!!!

Raw Roster:

(Let's start with the easy ones)

Cody Rhodes (valet) is still married to Randy Orton (dominant) but they've since divorced from Ted DiBiase Jnr. (They also have a kid in the valetverse now)

CM Punk (valet) is still married to The Undertaker (dominant) and they have Frankie Calaway.

Seth Rollins (valet) is still married to Roman (dominant) and Jon Moxley (valet) but their marriage is a bit shaky after the events at Wrestlemania (which I will go into in future fics). No kids.

Drew McIntyre (dominant) is still married to Jinder Mahal (dominant) but he's... having a bit of a crisis just now involving a certain Second City Saint.

Sami Zayn (valet) recently remarried Kevin Owens (dominant)

Damian Priest (dominant) is married to Finn Balor (valet, beloved husband), Dominik Mysterio (valet, who's been sniffing around elsewhere recently) and JD McDonagh (valet, but is actually more Finn's boyfriend)

Chad Gable (valet) is married to Otis (dominant). For now...

Kofi Kingston (valet) and Xavier Woods (valet) are both married to Big E (dominant)

Gunther (dominant) is married to Ludwig Kaiser (valet), recently divorced from Giovanni Vinci (valet)

Rey Mysterio (dominant, had to think hard about this one. He ticks all the right boxes for a valet but the more I think about it, the more I see him as a really short dominant) is married to Joaquin Wilde (valet) and Cruz del Toro (valet). Recently betrayed by bestie Carlito (dominant, who Dirty Dom has been sniffing around).

Karrion Kross (dominant) is a tricky one for me because he needs a Scarlet imo - his harbinger of doom! But whether this role is filled with another wrestler on the roster or a 'gender-bender' version of Scarlet, I can't decide. I'd love to hear some suggestions?

Sheamus (dominant) is recently divorced from Ridge Holland (valet) and Pete Dunne (valet).

Everybody else on the Raw roster is single, as far as I can see (but then I only watch Raw sporadically when Punk is on) and is split like this;

Valets:

Akira Tozawa, Dragon Lee, Ilja Dragunov, Jey Uso, The Miz, Ricochet, R-Truth, Tyler Bate

Dominants:

Akam, Braun Strowman, Bron Breaker, Bronson Reed, Brutus Creed, Dijak, Ivar, Julius Creed, Odyssey Jones, Rezar,

Smackdown Roster:

LA Knight (valet) is still married to Bobby Lashley (dominant)

Baron Corbin (dominant) has divorced from Bo Dallas (valet, who has since vanished...???? Hmmm 🤔)

Angelo Dawkins (dominant) is married to Montez Ford (valet)

Santos Escobar (dominant) is married to Angel (valet) and Berto (valet)

Karl Anderson (valet) has long been married to Luke Gallows (dominant)

Johnny Gargano (valet) is married to Tomasso Ciampa (dominant)

Everybody else is single and is split like;

Valets:

AJ Styles, Apollo Crews, Ashante 'Thee" Adonis, Austin Theory, Carmelo Hayes, Cedric Alexander, Elton Prince, Grayson Waller, Kit Wilson, Logan Paul, Tonga Loa (so far, maayyy change my mind on that depending on what he does the next wee while)

Dominants;

Andrade, Shinsuke Nakamura, Solo Sikoa, Tama Tonga

Phew! Considered yourself indulged! 🤣

[overthinkingtaleblr]

I wonder - Did any of Jimmy's victims try to get back at Ghost, thinking that their killer had come back?

I don’t think there are any instances of this happening in the videos, though i don’t think that’s what’s you’re asking!

Personally, I think that a trait that could be why Casket is so scary is that he may not leave Any survivors, so in cases where there’s no way back from the dead, Ghost is pretty much safe. If respawns are a thing, then Ghost has a little more to be worried about, but considering they didn’t stay dead Toast could deter them. Maybe convince the victim that it was a dream, or not a big deal since there weren’t any lasting consequences. In worlds where Casket frequently chases people down and doesn’t kill them… There might be a physical difference between Jimmy and Johnny, enough so that he doesn’t have to leave the country within a month of Casket’s running around and stabbing. Maybe some people who survived via respawn think it’s a dream until they see Ghost again, and just. Shriek. Toast would probably be used to it after a few times… but the first time must’ve been horrific.

There is a character in my roster of ideas who hates Ghost for one of Casket’s murders, but it’s Johnny Roast thinking that Ghost killed Katrina. As long as he thinks that Ghost intentionally killed his sister and got away with it, Roast will be antagonistic toward Ghost and anything associated with him. To make matters more complicated, Ghost is blocking out all memory of Katrina, including killing her, so he has no idea what Roast’s problem is.

[fioras-resolve]

Today's Guilty Gear Strive notes

-Went 0-2 against an Axl, the thing is that even with Strive’s “small” roster, there’s enough characters that there’s always someone you don’t know how to fight. A friend of mine once said that zoners distinctly suck to fight against compared to other archetypes, because while for a rushdown or grappler the ways of beating them will always be generally the same, zoners’ counterplay is specific. 

-Just went 2-1 against a Ramlethal. It’s fucked that I used to play as her. Siwansi actually wants to main her, she related so hard to her story as a machine coming to accept that she has feelings too. But god, Jack-O is such a character. Easily the character of all time. I think most people who know enough about Guilty Gear know that Jack-O was heavily nerfed from Xrd. She was “basemented,” as one designer on League of Legends put it. When one character is so much of a fucking problem that she makes the game unfun for other players, that’s when it’s time to hit the nerf hammer. It’s time to hammer her so hard that she’s functionally unusable except by the most dedicated players. And like, this always sucks for the character and their players, but personally I still find myself liking Jack-O a lot. I like her mix, I like her play. She’s one of the hardest characters to learn and she only barely earns it.

-Just went 2-1 against a Potemkin, I can kinda tell when my brain is cooked and I’m not gonna be able to play something for much longer. This is around that point with Strive right now.

-Playing the Arcade Mode now, this is fun! Arcade Mode in Strive works similar to Arcade Mode in most fighters I imagine, and also Classic Mode in Smash Ultimate. Each character has a storyline and some set fights they do, and the further you get into a character’s story without dying the harder it gets. BUT, if you get through it all without dying you get a secret best ending! Pretty cool! Jack-O’s story is about confronting her other self, Aria, and trying to understand her place in this world.

-It’s really interesting seeing just, the Way that difficulty escalates over time in this mode. It’s well known that single-player modes in fighting games are very easy to do badly or at least mediocre, and like, yeah I’d say this is on the mediocre end. P4A did it the best IMO. But like, the thing with this game is that over time your CPU opponent starts using more Techniques, like Wild Assault, Faultless Defense, you get the idea. It’s certainly good as a way of reminding the player “Hey, these techniques Exist,” but I kinda wonder how effective this is as actual Content.

-Like, okay, I lost a round once in that mode, so I get the Normal ending, where Aria and Jack-O defeat Nagoriyuki together, and this is pretty cool. But if I hadn’t died to that one Johnny I would have fought Nago alone and possibly gotten the True Ending. Which would have been cool. I’m gonna try again.

-Brisket -w-

-”How do you handle story in a PVP game?” The eternal question, to which there can never be one true answer, only a thousand entertainingly false ones.

-That’s enough of that for now.

[innismode]

Terrorism in the 21st century is all about the social media. It was by the wings of tweets, posts and likes that ISIL and its affiliates had been elevated to meteoric heights of brutal spectacle. And it was only natural that the tech community took umbrage on this gross misappropriation of their space and maleficent abuse of their implements. Thus did the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism came about, established in 2017 as a response to address the terrorist use of the internet, and their roster of supporters include industry giants such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, to name a few. 

One of the most interesting work they are currently working on is the hash database, a collection of AI facilitated “hash” identifiers that allows tech companies like social media providers to quickly identify violent extremist material among the deluge of content that pass through their platforms everyday. By sharing this information among the industry players, the voluminous extremist content that still make their way through multiple platforms can be taken down a peg or two. To date, they have more than 300,000 unique hashes that are put to work to keep the internet clean of extremist material and impressionable minds away from such influences.

But such efforts may not be free from some challenges. This is something I brought up when I went to the RightsCon Summit in Silicon Valley in 2014. I was actually there to give a terribly forgettable spiel on some equally forgettable attempt to counter the narratives of violent extremists, in a panel where nobody would have remembered I was there in the first place. But I was carrying a question from some friends in an NGO back home who were doing their own part in countering violent extremism who were experiencing a rather unique problem.

They were actually part of a humanitarian mission that regularly organized relief for victims of the Syrian civil war, but they sometimes came across individuals who were interested in going to the zones of conflict for all the wrong reasons. They decided to do something about it by putting up advisory videos on popular social media platforms to dissuade emotionally-charged young men and women from picking up arms, buying one-way plane tickets and going down that very dark road. I mean, it was great that these guys were doing this - they had tons of credibility owing to the fact that they regularly went down to the ground in conflict zones and can give it as it is, and they were going to speak out that joining violent extremist groups is not going to be what these wannabees think it would be, and would very well be best AVOIDED like the plague. Problem is that their videos were being taken down and their accounts were being suspended.

Now, they had their suspicions. They thought, whether rightly or wrongly, that their videos were being red flagged by the social media companies. Probably had something to do with the fact that, oh, they were talking about the Syrian Civil war and were talking about extremists and were talking about one-way tickets... well, you get the idea. Well, they were talking about this, but they were doing it to prevent people from joining with the terrorists. (TLDR: they thought their video speaking out against violent extremism was taken down because their videos were thought to be pro-violent extremism. I know, right?). Lord knows we need more of this efforts to engage people at the emotional and motivational level to prevent such radicalization, but even this fledgling effort was unceremoniously taken down and hit the proverbial brick wall.

So, as I was going to Silicon Valley to take part of this Summit where big name tech companies were going to touch about some of these issues, they were wondering whether I could ask representatives of a particular social media platform whether they could look into their problem, maybe consider releasing their accounts from suspension and allow their CVE material back online. Now, I met such a representative, whose company shall remain nameless, suffice to say it was a pretty big “F”-ing company, if you catch my drift. But of course I realized it was a fool’s errand. Of course to expect such a tech behemoth to look into the mishap the be-felled a two-bit CVE operation was like reaching for the stars. Of course the representative was charmingly polite and reassured that the matter would be looked into. Of course the social media accounts in question remained status quo the last time I heard about them. Of course.

But therein lies the conundrum. It is great that tech companies are taking the much needed steps to take down much of the violent extremism material that are churning out all these freedom-fighter wannabees. But the AI processes that handle such voluminous amounts of content on a daily basis may have difficulty identifying when such material are actually countering the propaganda of violent extremists. So, baby? Bathwater? That kindova thing. I believe equally important to taking down the material would be active efforts to speak out against extremism. To engage meaningfully with those that are already coming dangerously close to the fence and wondering when would be the best time to jump over. Because if we think that all the take-downs in the world is gonna prevent Johnny or Jemilah from seeing those darnedest videos if they REALLY want to, we’ve got another thing coming. Building what a good friend of mine likes to call “mental firewalls” to help impressionable individuals come to their own decisions not to support or participate in violent extremism is another important step in making sure that we win the long game. And it would help if the babies, no matter how small or ineffectual they might currently be, remain to fight another day when the bathwater has drained away.

[insanityclause]

When coronavirus closed the theaters on March 12, there were still 16 shows left to open in the Broadway season. Audiences will get to see some of them later, others probably not — but what of the more than 20 plays, musicals and miscellaneous offerings that had already faced the press? It seemed unfair not to celebrate them, so on Friday, just after it was announced that the Tony Awards will not go on as usual this year, we sat down (in cyberspace) to devise a Tonys of our own. Naturally, we made our own rules.

BEN BRANTLEY Well, Jesse, even in a season that’s 16 plays short, there’s still a fat if imbalanced roster of intriguing shows. Have we ever before had such a preponderance of jukebox musicals that might qualify for Best Musical? The good news is that some enterprising minds managed to inventively retool the genre you once described as the “cockroach” of Broadway.

JESSE GREEN The cockroach has evolved! “Jagged Little Pill,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Moulin Rouge!” and — since we’re playing by our own rules here — even “American Utopia,” the David Byrne show that was deemed ineligible for the real Tonys, are all jukeboxes, all worthy and all eligible for ours. Maybe not quite all worthy.

BRANTLEY Perhaps it’s appropriate then that the last show to open on Broadway was the most unorthodox of the “jukebox” shows. I use quotation marks here because that label seems too confining for “Girl From the North Country,” the Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson’s work that uses the songs of Bob Dylan to imagine life during the Great Depression in Duluth, Minn. The more I think about “Girl,” the more innovative and haunting it seems to me.

GREEN For me it took some time, and the show’s move from the Public Theater to Broadway, to appreciate how McPherson was deploying the music in this musical. The songs do not function the way songs normally do; they never address the situation at hand, and sometimes even contradict it. Yet in that gap, poetry grew.

BRANTLEY For me, “Girl” deals with the ineffable and unsayable through song in a way that makes it the most religious, or at least spiritual, show on Broadway. I have found this aspect of the show stays with me, as an oddly comforting reminder of the hunger for communion in this time of isolation. But moving on to matters closer to profane than sacred, what about another mold-breaker in a very different sense: “Moulin Rouge!,” based on the Baz Luhrmann movie about la vie bohème in gaslight-era Paris.

GREEN Here was a case where the gap between the story, such as it is, and the musical materials — found pop from Offenbach to Rihanna — did not produce poetry. For me it produced a headache.

BRANTLEY Ah, I had a swell time at “Moulin Rouge,” and I thought the far-reaching songbook became a kind of commentary on how such songs form the wallpaper of our minds. And then there was “Tina,” which was more business-as-usual bio-musical fare, although illuminated by a radiant, cliché-transcending performance by Adrienne Warren as Turner.

GREEN The creators of musicals really offered a sampler of ways to respond to the jukebox problem. “Jagged Little Pill,” built on the Alanis Morissette catalog, made the smart choice of abjuring biography and instead attaching her songs to a new plot (by Diablo Cody) that grew out of the same concerns and vocabulary. Or perhaps I should say “new plots,” because it is not shy with them. There are at least eight story lines.

BRANTLEY To be honest, this was the show that gave me a headache, because it was so insistently earnest in its topicality and, even when it was trying to be funny, humorless. So, of the new musicals (and we haven’t touched on “The Lightning Thief,” your personal favorite) what would you give the premature Tony to?

GREEN The one that wouldn’t be eligible: “American Utopia.” Joy and sadness bound to each other through David Byrne’s music and Annie-B Parson’s movement: What else do you want from a musical, even if it’s just a concert?

BRANTLEY I loved “American Utopia.” I think, though, I’d have to go with “Girl From the North Country,” but I wouldn’t have predicted that after seeing it in London two years ago. I find more in it every time I revisit it.

GREEN Despite all the Best Musical possibilities this truncated season, only one, “The Lightning Thief,” had a new score. Yet most of the offerings sounded new anyway, the result of terrific arrangements and orchestrations. I’m thinking especially of Justin Levine’s magpie-on-Ecstasy song collages for “Moulin Rouge!,” Tom Kitt’s theatricalization of post-grunge pop for “Jagged Little Pill” and Simon Hale’s excavation of the deeply layered Americana in Dylan’s catalog for “Girl.”

BRANTLEY Here, I’d have to say it’s a tie between “Girl” and “Moulin Rouge!,” each a remarkable accomplishment in a very different way. As for best revival, the undisputed winner is Ivo van Hove’s divisive revival of “West Side Story,” but that’s because it is, remarkably, the only musical revival so far.

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GREEN I liked “West Side Story” better than you did, Ben, perhaps because I wasn’t reviewing it. I lapped up the new things it wanted to show me (while also hunting for the old things it wanted to hide from me) and didn’t worry about the elements that laid an egg. (“Gee, Officer Krupke.”) Its evocation of innocence and hopelessness felt more like real life now than I’ve experienced in previous revivals.

BRANTLEY I concede the point intellectually. But the acid test for me with theater — and musicals in particular — is how much it makes you feel. And to borrow a lyric from “A Chorus Line,” for the most part “I felt nothing.”

GREEN I admit it was odd that there were no obvious breakout performances in “West Side Story” — which brings us to our first lightning round. Who wins our Tonys for leading actor and actress in a musical?

BRANTLEY Best Actress: Adrienne Warren, for “Tina” (though Karen Olivo in “Moulin Rouge!” is pretty fab, too). Best Actor: Jay O. Sanders in, perversely, a non-singing role in “Girl From the North Country.” You?

GREEN Same. I think we are having a socially distanced mindmeld. Will that also be the case with the nine new plays and four revivals that opened before March 12? With one exception, the revivals were not as thrilling as the full slate promised to be.

BRANTLEY For me, the winner is Jamie Lloyd’s spartan, merciless revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which brought harsh clarity to the work’s emotional ambiguity.

GREEN And ambiguity to the play’s harsh formality — its semi-backward construction. It was certainly the best “Betrayal” I’ve seen, yet I hold out some love for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which in retrospect turned out to be a farewell to Terrence McNally, its author, who died last week. I felt that Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald did it, and him, justice.

BRANTLEY It was certainly a reminder of his shrewdness and compassion. I was perhaps a little too conscious of the Acting, with a capital A. But it was a welcome addition to the season. For Best Play, we have a far more varied field, no? I suspect we’ll agree on the winner here, the season’s great iconoclast.

GREEN Yes, “Slave Play,” by Jeremy O. Harris, wins on sheer disruptive energy, even before considering its intelligence as playwriting, its knockout production (directed by Robert O’Hara) and its fearsome challenge to renegotiate race in America.

BRANTLEY But for all its shock value, what made it a wonderful play — as opposed to just a bracing exploration of dangerous ground — was its heart. By the end, you felt so completely the pain of its characters, all trying to navigate the perhaps insuperable hurdles of interracial relationships.

GREEN I think “The Inheritance” wanted to be that kind of play, too: a story of intimate relationships yet also a gay manifesto with the multipart heft of “Angels in America.” It got the heft, anyway; “Slave Play” ran 120 minutes; “The Inheritance,” 385.

BRANTLEY “The Inheritance” certainly gets points for ambition — and for the fluidity of Stephen Daldry’s production. And might I put in a word for the prickly comic abrasiveness of Tracy Letts’s “Linda Vista,” a lacerating anatomy of toxic masculinity disguised as brooding charm?

GREEN I liked what “Linda Vista” wanted to do but found it flabby. Perhaps straitened times demand slender plays. Certainly, the other new drama I greatly admired was whippetlike: Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” an existential mystery wrapped in a literary one, or vice versa. Among other things, it allowed Mary-Louise Parker, as a Yale writing instructor, to deliver a Tony-worthy performance. And now that “How I Learned to Drive,” the other play in which she was set to star this season, has been postponed, she doesn’t have to compete against herself. Is she our winner?

BRANTLEY I am going to declare a tie between her and Laura Linney, who gave a very subtle, and emotionally transparent, performance as the title character of “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” adapted by Rona Munro from Elizabeth Strout’s novel.

GREEN I buy that. But let’s not forget Joaquina Kalukango in “Slave Play,” Eileen Atkins in “The Height of the Storm,” Zawe Ashton in “Betrayal” and Jane Alexander in “Grand Horizons.” It was a very strong semi-season for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

BRANTLEY And for Best Actor?

GREEN The real Tonys decreed that Paul Alexander Nolan was eligible for his “supporting” role in “Slave Play,” but in my Tonys he’s a strong candidate for “leading.” Still, I’ll go with Tom Hiddleston, in “Betrayal.” Or at least he wins in my newly invented category of Best Use of the Lack of a Tissue. His facial leakage was Vesuvian.

BRANTLEY He was superb — and a reminder of the cathartic value of the tears of others in theater. Of course, there’s so much to cry about now in terms of opportunities lost this season. But I’m not writing an elegy for, or even a definitive summary of, this season yet. It will be fascinating to see how it reincarnates itself, won’t it?

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The Problem with the Avengers

 I’ve been reading a lot of Avengers comics recently scattered throughout their history and whilst they often have enough superhero action to kill some time, rarely have I ever found myself that engaged by the stories. In truth I’ve felt that way about virtually every Avengers story I’ve ever read.

In contrast whenever my reading lists took me to a random X-Men or Fantastic Four comic book I found they made for simply better reading.

This got me thinking about how traditionally and even now with the enhanced status the Avengers have in the comic series still seems to generate less enthusiasm than a lot of it’s competition with the really major superhero teams out there.

I think the fundamental problem is that, unlike those other teams, the Avengers is sorely lacking in identity.

I define the major Marvel/DC superhero teams as the ones that have been around near consistently for at least 30ish years and have have bled into multiple forms of other mass media.

So we’re talking the Fantastic 4, the Justice League (regardless of whether it’s called the Super Friends, the JLA, etc), the X-Men (and it’s associated spin-offs, e.g. X-Force, X-Factor, New Mutants) and the Titans/Teen Titans and the Avengers.

Unlike the Avengers, each of those teams has one or more simple ideas and hooks that have, more often than not, defined them and given them a basic but concrete premise to fall back on that the audience can easily connect to.

The Justice League are the All-stars of the DC universe, the team with the truly iconic characters in it’s line up and/or the guys who are at least mainstays of the DC universe in some fashion and well known to comic book readers. They are also at times allegorical to Greco-Roman Gods, e.g. Superman = Zeus, Batman = Hades, Green Lantern = Apollo, etc.

The X-Men are allegories for persecuted minorities and those who face bigotry in some fashion, as well as at times being allegories for adolescence.

The Fantastic Four are a nuclear family of scientists and explorers.

The Teen Titans are the junior heroes, the next generation, a junior Justice League if you will and more often than not the sidekicks to the older iconic heroes.

The Titans are the above but all grown up, independent, a non-nuclear family and in essence the next generation on the cusp of becoming the what their mentors were.

Now the Avengers at face value also have an easily understood hook too. They’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes right? They, like the Justice League, are the All-stars of the Marvel universe right? Sometimes they’re talked of as being loosely equivalents to the Knights of the Roundtable.

The problem is that in practice...this is mostly lip-service.

For sure IN-UNIVERSE most people look up to the Avengers or hold them in similar esteem that the DC citizens hold the Justice League.

But as far as the real life audience is concerned for most of the Avengers history they really weren’t the All-stars of the Marvel universe and that comparison to Arthurian legend is really more talked about outside the comics more than it ever was genuine text or subtext in the pages themselves.

Lets put the Avengers into historical context. When the team debuted in 1963, consisting of Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp, all of those characters were less than 2 years old.

And its a matter of historical record that they were neither the highest selling nor the most popular superhero books Marvel was putting out, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were.

Furthermore the Hulk’s solo title had earlier that year been cancelled and whilst the other Avengers were continuing to regularly appear every month it was in anthology titles where they were simply the main, but not solo, stars. Those titles weren’t even NAMED after those heroes. You had Tales of Suspense for Iron Man, Journey into Mystery for Thor and Tales to Astonish for Ant-Man and Wasp.

Were these guys REALLY Marvel’s mightiest heroes?*

No they really weren’t.

To be frank it seems more like Stan Lee et al were trying to make bank off of the innate appeal of crossing characters over and doing so by grouping together the less successful and less popular characters.

You could make a similar argument for the Justice League of course, except when they debuted most of their members had been around considerably longer and they had Wonder Woman as a mainstay with Superman and Batman at times dropping in too, their presence only increasing across the decades. Nowdays many fans feel its just not the Justice League without the Trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

Back to the Avengers, these characters were the revered all-stars of Marvel in name only, with the Hulk even leaving shortly afterwards, replaced by the probably more famous Captain America...who also didn’t have his own book at the time. Cap actually didn’t regularly appear in any title until around a year after his Avengers debut when he began starring alongside Iron Man.

Cap might’ve been a long established hero but even he wasn’t high profile enough to get his OWN solo-series. In fact when he finally did what really happened was he became the solo star of Tales of Suspense (renamed to Captain America) and IRON MAN got his first true solo-series**

To make the matter clearer when the Avengers went through their first major shakeup (less than TWO YEARS after the series began) the cast consisted of Cap (who was still sharing with Iron Man at this point), Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

The Avengers had now been reduced to one character who shared a title with another one and three former villains who’d NEVER had solo-stories before, who weren’t even appearing regularly anywhere outside of the Avengers title.

Creatively this wasn’t all that bad. After all one of the pitfalls of team books like Avengers or Justice League is that often the series is constrained by events happening in the characters’ solo books or the other way around. Like the, F4 Cap’s kooky quartet could grow and develop in the Avengers and the only place you could see that potential growth was IN the Avengers comic itself; Johnny and Ben’s bland and bad solo yarns in Strange Tales notwithstanding.

However Cap kooky quartet was yet more evidence of how the ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ was a cool slogan for the team and nothing more. They were a million miles away from being the Marvel All-stars they were treated or promoted as.

They were just ANOTHER Marvel team, more or less a home for miscellaneous Marvel heroes who were:

a)      Relatively Earthbound

b)      Not overly weird like Dr Strange

c)       Flashier than dude’s without costumes like Nick Fury

d)      Not already on teams

e)      Not independently popular/interesting like Spider-Man

 After all there is a reason so much of Iron Man and Cap’s histories are wrapped up with the Avengers titles and why most adaptations of the characters work in wider Marvel Universe elements. Its because those characters supporting casts and rogue galleries were not strong enough on their own to support their solo titles most of the time, so they essentially became Avengers satellite books.

 This miscellaneous aspect to the Avengers though gave rise to another interpretation of the team, that in fact part and parcel of the point of them was that ANY Marvel hero could join their ranks. In essence that the Avengers could be a grand crossroads of the Marvel universe where any and all characters could pop up.

 Its a nice sentiment but holds little water when you consider how the Avengers in-universe were typically treated as the premiere superhero team and how in practice many characters remained consistently out of their ranks. Even if we do swallow this line of thinking that simply means that the Avengers in being a team where anyone can join simply has no identity at all.

 The X-Men during Claremont’s iconic run had a similar sort of idea of constantly changing up the roster except that book had the fundamental mutant metaphor to hold the shifting characters together no matter what.

 When your team identity is that the identity can be anything your team hasn’t GOT an identity.

 And this problem with the Avengers (a lack of identity wrapped around a false claim of being the Marvel All-star line up) went on and on and on for DECADES!

 It got to the point where the X-Men, who in the Silver age FAILED compared to the Avengers, made good on their second chance and gradually grew in popularity until they clearly eclipsed every other Marvel team and by the 1990s eclipsed every other superhero team and book on the stands, exempting at times Spider-Man or Batman. In that decade anything with an X would sell whilst anything with an Avengers A was B-grade at best.

 Whilst the Avengers claimed to be Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Marvels A-list heroes, Spider-Man and the X-Men actually WERE.

 In 2004 when Bendis created the New Avengers with the explicit intention of re-orientating the team to finally truly be the Marvel A-list squad it had always claimed to be it had 2 big problems.

 The first was that after 40 years and 500 issues the perception of the Avengers within the comic book community had become pretty entrenched. The second was that Bendis only slightly made good on this promise of reinvention.

 By which I mean he added Spider-Man and Wolverine (basically the Superman and Batman of Marvel as far as their popularity went) to the Avengers as mainstays and then kept Iron Man, Cap and added in B-listers Luke Cage and Jessica Drew and not even a B-lister the Sentry.

 To be clear I am not trying to insult Luke or Jessica but most people in 2004 didn’t know who they were and most who did didn’t care about him. they were added to raise their profile which is the exact opposite of what the book was claiming to do.

 Even now with both characters holding more prestige than they did back then, if you were making a truly All-star Marvel superhero team Luke Cage and Jessica Drew probably wouldn’t be on the squad considering neither has a movie.

 Whilst it’s true Bendis made New Avengers an unqualified success if you or I wrote a comic book with the two biggest Marvel characters in it hot on the heels of beloved and acclaimed movie appearances for both (which were sequels no less) of course it will sell like hot cakes.

 But that sales success has absolutely not lasted.

 Because again, the Avengers have no true identity as a superhero team, not even with the raised profile of the more traditional Avengers members afforded by their film appearances. At this point the failure of Iron Man’s popularity in wider pop culture to translate into much of an increase in comic sales is a bad joke. The fact is the comic book reading community still regards Iron Man as of lesser status than someone like Batman or Spider-Man or Wolverine and similarly the Avengers status as a team is still being hurt by the decades during which they were all sizzle and little steak.

 Ironically this effect has been mitigated in adaptations. In cartoons (like Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes) a fresh modern take on the Marvel universe was presented wherein the Avengers characters were among the first  and seemingly only heroes to inhabit that world (as far as the audience initially believed) essentially rendering them Earth’s Mightiest Heroes by default and free of the F4 or Spider-Man as a measuring stick could truly come off as All-stars. It also helped that the team membership was more consistent and a greater focus was placed upon their interpersonal relationships with one another, rendering them either a family or a kind of private little community of superheroes. Plus the show was as much an adaptation of the wider Marvel universe as it was Avengers stories, meaning often they could give focus episodes over to individual members to flesh them out.

 To n extent the same thing happened in the MCU although because the MUC established solo movies for most of the Avengers first it in essence raised the prestige of each character thus justifying their claim to the film Avengers being all-star players. Plus there was a certain glamour and energy afforded the first film from being a never before done experiment in crossing over so many properties, this then fuelling consequent movies like Infinity War.

 What’s ironic about all this is that the false interpretation of the Avengers being the Knights of the Roundtable is actually a way more fertile concept to build the Avengers team identity around and a more compelling hook to sell to the wider audience.

 You could retain the idea that, in-universe, they are the Marvel All-star line up, but in the true substance of the series loosely build the stories and characters more around moderinzed takes upon Arthurian legend and ideals of heroism. Much as the Justice League have at times served as loose allegories for the Greco-Roman Pantheon.

If you look at the original team of Avengers, plus Captain America and Hawkeye, they already fit into loose concepts of Medieval era knights anyway.

Cap is a soldier, in other words a modern day knight, who is the absolute ideal warrior (Lancelot) complete with a form of chainmail armour and a weapon distinctly from Ye Olden Days.

Iron Man has frequently been referred to as a modern day knight in shining armour because he literally wears armour.

Thor is a Viking whom, I’m not sure were exactly around during when Arthurian legend is supposed to happen but like...close enough.

Hulk is perhaps equivalent to a troll, a creature from Medieval fairy tales.

Hawkeye is of course an archer and a clear Robin Hood allegory (Robin Hood is also Medieval).

And you could say Ant-Man and Wasp are akin to pixies. And even if you think not Hank when Giant Man is obviously a fairy tale giant.

I’m not saying every character needs to be as exact as those, but it’s just something for the team to concretely hang their hat on rather than continuing to insist they are the best Marvel characters all in one team when they usually don’t even have Marvel’s most popular character with them!

[aacomicscorner]

Clark Kent and Ben Grimm as the Jumping off Point of their Respective Universes

So I’ve been thinking a lot about where the morality of Superhero comics have gone in the past 80 years since Action Comics 1, and I think something that’s very interesting about that is how you can see both the DC and Marvel universes having a similar progression, with Marvel simply going through the early stages much faster, and DC somewhat following behind somewhat dragging its feet, somewhat jumping in out of nowhere. But both of them start off with a similar concept: A guy who will always do the right thing. 

 Now ultimately, Clark Kent didn’t really start out perfect, I know that. But the interpretation of him that we all know now is the version of Superman that does things the right way every time. He doesn’t like that he can’t punch Lex Luthor out, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. (You can’t ignore that part of his image comes from being made more like Captain Marvel to compete with him, especially since he was eventually written by Otto Binder.) He’s one of the few Heroes who survived the Comics Code, and those were actually some of the stories where the Big Blue Boyscout is more of a dick. However, for a very long time, the most popular hero in the world is a guy who likes helping people with a smile on his face, and while he has complicated feelings about his place in the world and what his powers mean from a surprisingly early point, there is no truly Morally gray or Black action that defines our boy when he’s in character. 

I feel like before I get into the Ben Grimm introduction there are a few things I should say for clarity. 1. I was named after Ben Grimm, so I have a lot of affection for him and that’ll color this little essay more than I want it to I’m sure. 2. Some people might feel that Captain America is a good fit for this idea, but I disagree. Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely Comics, and he didn’t save his company or change the way that comics were being written in the way the Fantastic Four did. 3. Marvel Comics was different from DC from the moment the Fantastic Four were first published, and that starts off the development I’m getting at. 

The Fantastic Four are at their core an ensemble. They are three interesting, dynamic characters and Johnny Storm, who are a family before they’re a team. The Justice League had worked together for years, but they were still a bunch of Golden Age or Silver Age dudes (and one gal at any given time, maybe two here or there) who all acted like slightly different versions of either Superman or Batman. The Fantastic Four start off with four characters very distinct from each other, and one of them distinct from the rest of comics. 

While Sue Storm became a great character, unfortunately she got the poor treatment most women got in early comics as a woman who’s trait that made her most different was that she was simply not a man. That changes, and not long after she’s introduced there are some small moments where she feels like her own character, but its not for a long time that a writer makes her someone other than a mother figure or Reed’s girlfriend/wife. Reed is interesting early on, and he develops much quicker, but at the start he reads somewhat like the other genius superheros available at DC. 

Ben Grimm was something completely new. For the first time outside of a horror story, a superpower was a curse. The nicest guy in the entire world, the guy who would do the right thing and always help the people he cares about, gets turned into an ugly rock monster. What’s more, in comics to that point the thing (no pun intended) that didn’t look human, was super strong, and spoke like a bad mobster impression? Always the bad guy. Ben Grimm “Talks like dis,” but is a sweetheart who wants people to be safe. How unfair is it that a selfish kid like Johnny gets to have a power that lets him protect himself, shoot fire balls, and fly in a way similar to his company’s grandpa’s company early star? That’s the point. 

Superman can do anything, and he chooses to do the right thing. The world has cursed the Thing, people are afraid of him, and he chooses to do the right thing. Both stories and both characters have a lot of nuance added on by writers joining the narrative over the years but are ultimately that simple. When Superman has the chance to kill Darkseid? He won’t. When Ben has to choose between being human again or helping save the day? That handsome Yancy street mug will have to wait. And just like Superman before him, everyone loves Ben Grimm. 

Ben is a favorite of readers and writers at Marvel for years. He’s similar to Superman in the end result sure, but while Clark is your friendly smiling guy, Ben Grimm’s grumbling all the way. Yeah, he’ll save the world, but then something gets worse. What a revoltin’ development. Its new, its something that hadn’t been seen and people could relate to the guy who it felt like never got a break. So from there, the Fantastic Four are THE BOOK before another one comes along. When Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, or the Avengers as a whole show up? Sorry kids, the Fantastic Four you aint. They’ll handle Galactus, you can handle Count Nefaria. What drops the FF and Ben with readers, is a character pretty similar to him in concept but boldly original in the same way as Ben was when he showed up. Spider-Man.

Ben Grimm is my second favorite Superhero, Spidey’s my first. This isn’t the place to get into it, but just like Ben he has every bad thing that can happen to him happen, and after letting a crook run past him in his origin story, he tries to do what’s right no matter how hard it makes his life from that point on. What sets us on our path with him is when Gwen Stacey dies. Comics can be serious now, superhero comics can be emotional. Most importantly, comics can get dark. 

Gwen Stacy died in 1973 and it sparked a lot of darker storylines in comics trying to follow the leader in some cases, and in others stories that were now free from scrutiny. It’s no real coincidence that Wolverine debuted in 1974. He joined the X-Men in 1975, and hated authority, loved drinking and smoking, and was a violent animal compared to Marvel’s tame roster. I love Wolverine, in fact as a disclaimer, I love every character mentioned so far in this essay. What Wolverine did however, I don’t love so much. 

The careful planning and work that went into Wolverine did not go into the characters that tried to ape his style. Chris Claremont and John Bryne, and later Frank Miller all handled him with care. Your Punishers and your Ghost Riders and your Deadpools don’t have that when they’re introduced. (Punisher was introduced before Wolvie but only as a Spider-Man villain.) There’s suddenly way more guns in comics, or rather way more guns being used by “good guys”. The Anti-Hero is the new Hero. Things get so bad across the X-Men and really almost everywhere else that characters like Lobo pop up, or you have Gail Simone reinventing Deadpool so that someone can make fun of theses characters. Lobo is a parody of the badass tough guy vigilante so over the top it stops being a parody than becomes one again. Deadpool’s a character reinvented to make fun of himself. 

However, all this aside, the other big shift is the graphic novel. Graphic novels were taken as a great opportunity for comics to be taken seriously by the people writing them. Most of the ones in the eighties are like that, very serious, very dark, and luckily very good. Watchmen is spectacular, The Dark Knight Returns is a very good Batman story despite being a bad Superman story, and God Loves Man Kills is a half optimistic half heart breaking story for the X-Men. Readers and critics agree dark is good for comics. 

The Superman of the 40s doesn’t look normal standing next to Azreal or Jason Todd as Red Hood. Ben Grimm seems like an oddity next to Cable and Shatterstar. The good guys are seen as boring by a lot of people, and while we’re lucky that Superman hasn’t fallen to the side, it seemed like Ben Grimm was in danger of just that until a few months ago. Luckily, a lot of newer characters like Moon Girl and Ms Marvel are much brighter, and the DC Rebirth reboot has given us a lot more smiles on the page for Supes, Wonder Woman, Batman, and pretty much every hero really. The right thing might be the right story people want to read again, and that means that for comics’ big two, their moral centers might just get the credit they deserve again. And that’s a hell of a thing. 

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

https://ift.tt/3ubtHRU

It’s taken 24 years, but we’re finally getting a new live-action Mortal Kombat movie. The R-rated reboot is set to come out in April, but outside of some casting news, a few recent stills, and a very brief appearance in a HBO Max ad, and some character posters, Warner Bros. has kept a lid on the movie.

Fortunately, we finally have a trailer to dissect, and it’s quite the ride. Action-packed, dark as hell, and seemingly very faithful to the original games, the Simon McQuoid-directed movie seems on the right track..

Give the trailer a look below:

Watch Sub-Zero literally (cold)snap Jax’s arms off in the first official trailer for Mortal Kombat. pic.twitter.com/x8cnrptYgT

— IGN (@IGN) February 18, 2021

There are quite a few story hints, easter eggs, and nods to the games in this short trailer. Before we share our findings and try to figure out what it might all mean, we need to start with the big question…

WHO IS COLE YOUNG?

Lewis Tan plays Cole Young, who appears to be the protagonist of this movie. At the very least, he appears to be our POV character, as opposed to Liu Kang or Sonya. So what does this trailer tell us about him? Cole apparently has a birthmark shaped like the Mortal Kombat dragon logo. He also has a younger sister named Emily (Matilda Kimber).

But really, who is he?

There’s always the chance that Cole is really just a new character, but it’s just as likely that he’s a familiar Mortal Kombat character. Kind of like how Agents of SHIELD had the character Skye around for a season and a half before revealing her to be the existing comic character Quake.

One of the popular theories is that he’s Johnny Cage. Since this movie is most heavily inspired by the first game, Johnny Cage’s absence in this movie is notable. He’s the only guy on the first game’s roster that the movie seems to be ignoring. With Cole Young, the movie could be forgoing the comedic aspects of Cage’s quest and getting rid of the nonsensical “gain public notoriety by winning a super secret tournament that nobody’s ever heard of” storyline, which seems like a smart move.

Besides, Cole’s tattoo seems to suggest that he’s a “chosen one,” and the most recent games have doubled down on Cage being special, too. Turns out his ancestors were Mediterranean warriors bred and trained to kill gods.

The other big possibility is that Cole is actually Kuai Liang, the younger brother of Sub-Zero, who is featured heavily in this trailer. In Mortal Kombat lore, there are two Sub-Zeros, the villain Bi-Han and the hero Kuai Liang. After Bi-Han dies in the first game, Kuai Liang takes his place.

Revealing that Cole is in fact Sub-Zero’s good guy brother and can perform all of his awesome ice attacks would be a fun third act reveal.

Plus it would explain why he appears to be haunted by Scorpion’s demonic visage.

Then again, maybe Cole is someone lame like Taven. It would almost make sense if he were Rain. Almost.

SUB-ZERO

Joe Taslim is Bi-Han, the first Sub-Zero. The trailer puts a ton of emphasis on him despite Sub-Zero being more of a henchman villain when he isn’t being depicted as an antihero. What’s great about this movie is that it’s using bits from the modern games for inspirations. Instead of just throwing ice balls and making frozen puddles, this Sub-Zero is able to weaponize his surroundings. Just look at the way he’s able to create a wall of frozen ice and throw Scorpion through it, or the way he freezes Scorpion’s blood and turns it into a dagger.

There’s an interesting shot in the trailer of Sub-Zero walking out of a dark, smoky portal. At first I thought this was supposed to be Smoke, but it’s very possible that it’s Bi-Han’s post-death form, Noob Saibot.

SCORPION

Hiroyuki Sanada is Hanzo Hasashi, the ninja warrior fated to die and return as the specter Scorpion. Prior to becoming an undead warrior, we do get to see him wiping out a bunch of idiot invaders with his trademark kunai.

We see more of him later, wearing an outfit closely resembling his Mortal Kombat 11 look, complete with an aura of Hellfire. More importantly, it appears we’ll finally get that cinematic Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero fight we’ve been wanting for decades.

“Slaves under my control,” my ass.

LIU KANG

Ludi Lin is Liu Kang, the hero of Mortal Kombat. At some point, the people behind the games realized that Liu Kang had become a pretty bland protagonist and shunted him to the sidelines. Even the recent Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge made a big deal about him being the chosen one, but also kept him in Scorpion’s shadow.

That leaves us wondering how much he’ll get to do in this movie. He was fine in the original film, but if Cole Young is the main character, what does that mean for Liu? Who is going to watch who save the world?

Regardless, we get to see Liu show off his fire powers. This includes summoning a giant, flaming dragon. Definitely a step up from the awful CGI of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

KANO

Josh Lawson is Kano, playing up Trevor Goddard’s previous take on the character as much as humanly possible. Kano has his cybernetic eye, including the laser, but it’s less overt, hidden by a bit of skin grafting.

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Kano’s appearance overall is interesting. Based on what we see in the trailer, it seems very likely that he’s an ally who betrays the rest of the heroes. He travels around with them, but we also see Sonya take him down and Kung Lao deflect the eye laser, so the timeline of events is unclear.

He also gets to take out what appears to be Reptile with his classic heart rip Fatality.

JAX

Mehcad Brooks is Jackson “Jax” Briggs, who unfortunately ran into Sub-Zero during a mission years before the events of the movie. Jax got his arms shattered in that fight, but he tends to lose his arms quite often so no biggie.

As expected, he gets cool metal arms as replacements. He’s shown later in the trailer preparing for his head-clap Fatality against some goon in armor. I give you fifty/fifty odds it’s an established character that nobody likes like Hotaru or Dairou.

SONYA BLADE

Jessica McNamee is Sonya Blade, and while she’s seen guiding Cole a bit early on, she doesn’t appear to do too much else in the trailer. We do see her very briefly fight with Mileena in the final moments in the trailer. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cut, she appears to blow off a huge chunk of Mileena’s midsection using her laser gauntlets. Nasty.

KUNG LAO

Finally, Kung Lao makes his movie debut and is played by Max Huang. All he does in the trailer is identify himself and deflect Kano’s laser with his hat, and that’s about it.

In the games, Kung Lao is the descendant and reincarnation of the Great Kung Lao who defended Earthrealm in Mortal Kombat until being killed by Goro. He’s Liu Kang’s best friend, but is also jealous that Liu is the hero when the glory really should go to the original hero’s descendant.

GORO

Goro only appears for a second, leaping at an unknown opponent wearing what appears to be gold armor for a shirt. Goro was the initial selling point of Mortal Kombat as the returning champion and penultimate boss. Hopefully, this shot pertains to a real fight in the movie and not, say, a flashback to a tournament from centuries earlier.

MILEENA

Sisi Stringer appears as Mileena, Shao Kahn’s beloved daughter figure, personal assassin, and the deranged clone of Kitana. What’s interesting about her appearance in the trailer is that there’s been no mention of Kitana nor Baraka in this movie. Mileena is a spinoff/hybrid of the two, so seeing her appear on her own is surprising.

Her design is pretty reined in here. Gone is the character’s usual giant piranha mouth.

RAIDEN

Tadanobu Asano is Raiden, who doesn’t do anything other than stand around and look cool. At least we see him staring down Shang Tsung, suggesting that his role isn’t to compete in the tournament,but to mentor the heroes and keep Shang from abusing his authority.

SHANG TSUNG

Chin Han is Shang Tsung, who doesn’t have much going on here either, but we do get confirmation that Sub-Zero and Mileena work for him.

SHAO KAHN

Much like the first Mortal Kombat game, Shao Kahn, the emperor of Outworld, seems to be off the table in this movie. He’ll likely be mentioned or referenced at some point, but it’ll likely be in the form of the statue we see in the trailer.

The statue very closely resembles his Mortal Kombat 11 look. In fact, it’s like he walked straight out of the game…or off the side of your cool uncle’s van.

REPTILE

There are a couple of shots of what appears to be Reptile. Instead of going with the ninja version of the character, the movie depicts him as the two-legged lizard creature from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Not only does he get his heart torn out by Kano, but he’s also turning invisible at one point. Better than the CGI mess from the ’90s at least.

TOURNAMENT LORE

The movie seems to be connecting the wacky birthmark with the existence of the Mortal Kombat tournament, which is odd. What is cool is this painting, which appears to depict the Great Kung Lao after kicking Shang Tsung’s magical ass in the tournament finals.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

They should totally make a live-action TV show about that era, and kill off all the good guys in the final episode before getting cancelled. That would be cool.

Mortal Kombat is out on April 16 on HBO Max.

The post Mortal Kombat Trailer Breakdown and Analysis appeared first on Den of Geek.

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

[wrestlingisfake]

Takeover: New Orleans preview

Andrade Almas vs. Aleister Black - Almas is defending the NXT championship.  There’s not too much of a storyline here: Almas has been on a roll for the past six months, but Black has been destroying people for over a year so he’s like “Eh, think I’ll go beat the champ now.”

Almas’s run at the top has been pretty cool mostly because I still can’t believe he actually turned his career around and got to the NXT main event level, so I keep expecting him to lose and then he just...wins.  I thought “there’s no way this chump’s gonna beat Drew McIntyre,” and then he did.  I thought “there’s no way this guy’s gonna get in the way of Johnny Gargano’s moment,” and then he did.  Now I’m like “C’mon, Black is going to murder this dude, there’s no way Almas can win,” but I’ve got that doubt, y’know?  I’ve still got to predict Black to win the title, but I’m not as confident as I expected to be...

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler - This is a rematch from Takeover: Philadelphia, where Moon just barely squeaked out a win to retain the NXT women’s title after Baszler annihilated her for ten minutes.  Obviously Ember has to prove that wasn’t a fluke, because Baszler’s not going to let that first match stop her.

I think Baszler is going to win the title sooner or later and Goldberg the competition for six months to a year.  The other women in NXT can do okay in those conditions, but Ember has already been through this with Asuka and doesn’t need to stick around for it again.  So I’m thinking now is the time to call up Moon, which means it’s also the right time for Shayna to pick up the belt.

Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa - Back in February Ciampa interfered to cost Gargano a match where his NXT career was on the line.  Gargano has made Ciampa’s life hell ever since, so Ciampa asked general manager William Regal to deal with it.  This match is Regal’s solution.  If Gargano wins, he gets his job back.  If not, Gargano stays fired...which seems to just maintain the status quo, so I’m not sure what Ciampa can hope to gain here.

This is being billed as an “unsanctioned match,” which sort of doesn’t make sense because the NXT general manager ordered it and attached stipulations, which sure as hell sounds “sanctioned” to me.  The implication is that WWE/NXT absolves themselves of any legal responsibility for what happens, although they’re still going to play both guys’ entrance music and send a referee out to decide who wins.  The main idea is that you’re not going to see any count-outs or disqualifications.

Gargano and Ciampa were a beloved tag team in NXT, which persevered through tension like their emotional battle in the Cruiserweight Classic and several bitter losses in tag title matches.  By the time Ciampa snapped and attacked Gargano, however, Ciampa needed knee surgery.  So Gargano carried on as a singles act, trying to move on but clearly haunted by the betrayal.  Gargano was chasing the NXT title and nearly at the top of the roster when Ciampa returned to renew the feud.  Now, finally, we get to see them beat the fuck out of each other.  I can’t wait.

Strictly speaking, Gargano doesn’t have to win.  He could stay banished from NXT, but get called up to Raw or Smackdown, and Ciampa could eventually follow him to continue the feud.  But I’m pretty sure NXT is getting at least one more match out of this program, and to do that Johnny has to get his job back.

EC3 vs. Adam Cole vs. Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Killian Dain vs. Lars Sullivan - This is a ladder match for the newly-created NXT North American championship.  The title belt will be hung above the ring, and ladders will be provided for the wrestlers to legally use in the match; whoever climbs up and retrieves the belt will be the winner and first champion.

This would be a pretty impressive array of talent even before the addition of new arrivals Ricochet (from New Japan, PWG, and Lucha Underground) and EC3 (from TNA/Impact).  Presumably whoever wins is going to have his hands full defending the title against the other five through the rest of the year.

This is the only multi-man ladder match WWE has booked for the weekend, and it’s a good bet that NXT is going to try to outperform your typical Money in the Bank style clusterfuck.  Everyone in this thing has something to prove.  It’s real tough to pick a winner, but I’m leaning towards EC3, Cole, or Ricochet...maybe with a slight edge to EC3.

Kyle O’Reilly & Adam Cole vs. Akam & Rezar vs. Pete Dunne & Roderick Strong - This was originally supposed to be the NXT tag team champions, O’Reilly and Bobby Fish, defending the title against the winners of the 2018 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament, but Fish suffered a knee injury and O’Reilly and Cole interfered in the tournament finals.  So now Cole has to sub for Fish in a match against both of the finalist teams in a three-way, with the tag title and the tournament trophy on the line. 

This match will have “triple threat” tag team rules.  Ostensibly that means each team will be in a corner, with only two people legally in the ring at any time; anyone can tag anyone else to enter the match as long as the two legal men are not from the same team.  However since a triple threat match can’t end by disqualification or count-out, there’s not much of a way to enforce these rules, so these kinds of matches tend to break down into wild brawls.  Regardless, the first man to score a fall on any opponent will win the match for his team.

NXT’s tag team trainwrecks have been a consistent highlight of the Takeover shows.  The format has particularly been good for Akam and Rezar, who get to be big huge dudes catching and squashing all the little dudes in crazy power spots.  I’m always thinking each Takeover will be the swan song for the Authors of Pain, because I don’t know what else they can learn in developmental and there’s so much they could do crushing guys on Raw or Smackdown.  Hopefully if they don’t get called up, they can just frigging win the titles, because doing neither is starting to get frustrating.

Adam Cole is in a tough spot here, working two different trainwreck matches on the same night, when expectations are as high as they can be.  Usually when a guy wrestles in two title matches on the same show, you can count on him to win one and lose one.  Then again, Fish’s absence means the Undisputed Era stable has to regroup anyway, so maybe Cole will go 0-2 to set up a storyline where they need to plan their next move.

Dunne and Strong had very little to do with one another until a few weeks ago, when Strong unsuccessfully challenged Dunne for the WWE UK championship.  Originally they weren’t even scheduled to be in the Dusty Classic, but Tyler Bate and Trent Seven pulled out unexpectedly.  Strong is a white-meat babyface and Dunne is a particularly dickish heel, so I can’t be the only one wondering if Dunne is going to walk out on him here to set up a singles feud.  If nothing else, NXT would be idiots not to tease such a spot.

There are too many moving parts in this match to pick a winner, so I’ll just go with the Authors of Pain, because I think they’re funky fresh.

[andymull]

WWE NXT Takeover New Orleans - Preview & Predictions

Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas (c) vs Aleister Black: NXT Championship Match

The big title match tonight where the main question I have is about if Almas is getting called up after Wrestlemania?? I can smell a new champion in Black which makes me even more confident if there’s a chance of a call up.

Black won a #1 contenders match to be here and has been built well, apart from having him in a suit maybe. Whereas I have been alittle down on Almas since he won the title as he really doesn't feel to have done much since, and him still being fairly poor at English just adds to that (same as most foreign speakers on the roster).

I think its pretty safe to be confident in a new champion here with Black going on a fun run, while at the same time Almas going to Smackdown with Vega makes a ton of sense at this point too - BLACK

Ember Moon (c) vs Shayna Baszler: NXT Women’s Championship Match

This match is another where it feels right for a title change, having Baszler lose in any way again will be where it starts to hurt her overall package, and she shouldn't. And dont get me started on how Moon’s had to be saved in nearly every beat-down by Baszler and looked weak because of it.

Id have Baszler move on to a feud with Sane to follow up on the Mae Young Classic and a follow up match on NXT with them being 1-1 against each other. Not sure about Moon’s next feud as Lacey has Cross, Dakota’s a face and so is Candice, the Iconic Duo should be getting called up, Borne’s not ready or is Conti so hopefully its Bianca Belair. Belair is one of my favourite prospects on the roster and has developed tons since her debut and shows no sign of slowing down, so working with Moon would do wonders, not sure the heel side of the roster here is at the level currently for Moon though sadly - BASZLER

Johnny Gargano vs Tommaso Ciampa: Unsanctioned Match - If Gargano Wins He’s Reinstated, If He Loses He’s Banished Forever

Massive feud here, does Johnny win and return or lose and be banished to 205 Live?? In a way I think it would be interesting if he lost and this feud gets halted until both are on one of the main shows to be picked up in months or years time, doesn't help NXT though really does it? 

Gargano should win with Ciampa going wild, but, needs to have an even more brutal beating from Ciampa to finish so he can leave with a smile on his face saying that if Gargano has to stay then he can do this every week to him and its all his own fault - GARGANO

EC3 vs Adam Cole vs Velveteen Dream vs Ricochet vs Lars Sullivan vs Killian Dain: NXT North American Championship Ladder Match

Now this should be a fun ladder match, full of guys that bring different aspects to it, from fast guys who can fly to big guys who cause the big bumps and chaos. 

The favourites for this are EC3 and Ricochet with Dream coming in third, I dont think Dain or Sullivan are ready just yet (close though) and Cole will be busy in the tag division for alittle while.

If it comes down to EC3 or Ricochet id personally like them to go with the face and let him have a nice long first title run having great matches weekly to put the new title over. It would give EC3 a nice debut and add to his gimmick but im not sure about him with the title long term -  RICOCHET

Authors Of Pain vs The Undisputed Era (c) vs Pete Dunne + Roderick Strong: NXT Tag Team Championship Triple Threat Match 

Slightly gutted as I predicted as soon as I saw the tournament brackets that there would be a draw in the finals, but between AOP and Sanity, hey I didnt know about Dunne/Strong when they were first announced :( 

I dont see the AOP winning the titles as I see them getting the call up very soon, so its really between the other two teams. And its really difficult to call with both teams being good in different ways, and to be honest I see this feud carrying on for the next month so the winners arent the biggest factor really until War Machine debut and they need to be setup. 

For me it comes down to one thing, there are already multiple title changes on the show and I think they will have one set of title stay where they are, these belts - UNDISPUTED ERA

As normal, this should be a really good NXT show, Id also expect one or maybe two names to be shown sitting in the front row, no names for who I think but you better be ready to bask in his glory.

Thankfully NXT is pretty stacked with talent and they will need to be as mentioned before I see a number of call ups over the next few weeks, with these names being the ones at the front of their list if possible:

McIntyre

Iconic Duo

Almas

AOP

Sanity (Not that close to the front of the list)

Hope everyone enjoys the show and it gets people talking 

Bye for now

Andy

[justanotherprowrestlingblog]

NXT Takeover:Philadelphia and Royal Rumble 2018 Review

Well it looks like i’m back..and i’ll be back for more review (or other stuff when i feel like i need to write about something) So let’s not waste time and see how Takeover:Philadelphia and the Rumble went

NXT Takeover Philadelphia:

NXT Tag Team Championship: Authors of Pain vs Undisputed Era:

Personally I would have never opened the show with this bout, because I wasn't expecting anything from it and because it wasn't the right match to start things off. They could have swapped this with Ohno-Dream and have a better opener. Sluggish and slow match even tho some spots were good, AOP keep getting better and better while Fish and O'Reilly probably are the best tag team in WWE right now with the Usos. Weird finish because I though Undisputed Era would go over but not like this and with like this I mean in a clean way. Main roster is closing in for Paul Ellering's Boys and SAnitY is waiting for the two Brits.[**1/2] Kassius Ohno vs The Velveteen Dream:

Another really solid Match for Velveteen dream who is someone still a bit green on the ring, while ohno is a 19 year old veteran who could make a good match even with a ladder. Velveteen dream is probably the best character right now at NXT and it's really working well because you can notice how much they are investing in Him and in his character. The match and a few botches here and there but honestly they didn't ruin the match at all. Good win for the former Tough Enough Participant who is destined to do great things on NXT.[***]                             NXT Women's Championship: Ember Moon vs Shayna Baszler:

Easily the worst match of the night. Slow, sluggish, not well booked and the result wasn't the one I was looking for, because I thought they wanted to have Shayna destroy and conquer anyone on NXT after the good performance for the MYC but she lost with a schoolboy and Ember kept the title. I like how they want to build Ember as a character but at the same time I still think she won't keep the title for a Long time(Kairi is waiting) [**]

Extreme Rules: Adam Cole vs Aleister Black:

I had a good hype for this match because i thought it could possibily steal the show but it only kinda did. Not a fan of the first minutes of it but it picked up the rythm and both guys went in hard and showed us a couple of really good spots, like the doubles knees on the announcers table or the death valley driver on the back of the chair. O'reilly and Fish Interference was predictable while i wasn't expecting Sanity to Help Black during the match. Black got the win and now he's probably the new #1 contender for the NXT Title at the WrestleMania weekend Takeover, unless they have other plans for the main event. Easily the second best match of the night [***1/2]

NXT Championship: Johnny Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas:

Let's start that you HAVE to watch this match, because if you don't, probably you're not a real wrestling fan (unless you don't have time to watch it and probably you've got something better to do). Personally this is what i want from any match that goes last in a wrestling event card. It was really perfect: it had a good storyline, good wrestling, good timing and it wasn't predictable at all, because at times i thought both could won the match. Gargano is probably one of the best worker in the business and Almas is litteraly very underrated by the fans and i'm so glad they gave him the NXT Title. I also loved how they involved Candice LeRae, Johnny's wife, in the match so he could help his husband to preveil Zelina (really love her character) from interfereinging in the match. Almas picks up the win with a perfect Hanging Hammerlock DDT from the top rope. I was expecting Ciampa to interfere in the match but his return happened at the end of the match, and even tho it makes a lot of sense for him to ruin his ex partner moment, i personally didn't like how he returned, only because they could have done so much more and make it better, but still i can't wait for the ex D.I.Y Showdown, while Almas will probably face Black soon for the title. Five Star and MOTY Candidate.[*****]

Takeover Event: It Wasn't the best TakeOver event i ever saw, but it wasn't the worst, because we had a solid match between Dream and Ohno, a good extreme rules and a perfect main event. The Tag Team Match and the women's title match felt very average but not as bad as some matches we see on the main roster. The Next Takeover could be huge with some potential match and the new addictions of Ricochet, War Machine and my man EC3. [7]

Royal Rumble:

WWE Championship Handicap match: AJ Styles vs Sami Zayn&Kevin Owens:

They decided to open the show with the WWE Title Match, which in my honest opinion, wasn't a good choice, because while watching it i felt that it wasn't the right match to hype the crowd after a pretty boring 2 hours pre-show(which i won't cover because i honestly don't have much to say about it). The Match was fine but i didn't liked how it was booked, because the finish clearly made Zayn and Owens look really stupid, but to be honest it's not the first time they make heels look very stupid (it won't be the first time i say this in the review). Styles got the W with a Roll-up to end a match who started really flat and started getting better in the last minutes but the finish killed the momentum of the match. [***]

2 out of 3 Falls SD Live Tag Team Championship: Usos vs Shelton Benjamin&Chad Gable:

This match or the Raw Tag Team Title Match could have been the opener and it would have been a better choice based on the kind of match these two team put on. The match was really fun untill the first finish, which personally felt really weird because usually in this kind of matches, heels get the first fall, the babyface get the second one and the decider goes either  to one of them based on the storyline they are telling. In this case, Gable and Benjamin tried to be smart but instead they looked really stupid because Benjamin ate the decisive pin after a roll up, who killed a really solid match so far. Personally i would have given Gable&Benjamin the titles but i guess the SD Creative has other plans for the belts and i smell the beginning of a new chapter of the Usos vs Harper&Rowan rivalry.[***1/4]

Men's Royal Rumble:

Who would have thought that they would place the Men's Rumble in the middle of the card? Honestly it wasn't a smart choice, even tho i understand why it wasn't the main event, but at least it could have been after the other tag team match or even before the women's one. It wasn't perfect but it was for sure very fun, especially in the last part. The NXT Guys, Shane Helms and Rey Mysterio were all unxpected surprise and i'm really happy for Mysterio, even tho i'm not his biggest fan. The finish was awesome, not just because the right wrestler won, but because they kept teasing us and made us believe both could get the win and the wrestlemania main event. Nakamura win is the right choice for because because a SD Live Superstar needed to win the Rumble and this is the best way to get a Nakamura-Styles match for the WWE Title at WrestleMania. Also Guys like Roman or Cena don't need the Rumble to get the main event of WrestleMania, because they can earn it in other ways. Not a WONDERFUL (read that in Broken Matt Hardy voice) Rumble, but possibily the best one since the time Undertaker won, which if i remember correctly, was at the 2007 edition of the Royal Rumble.[****]

Raw Tag Team Championship: The Bar vs Seth Rollins & Jason Jordan

Easily the worst match on the main card, not because it sucked, but because it was very flat and they didn't much to deliver a great match, possibly because they worked the rumble before the match, which is a bit stupid if you ask me. The Bar got their titles back and i hope this won't end up with Rollins facing Jordan at WrestleMania. Please WWE, don't waste Rollins in this kind of match. I also wonder who will be the next tag team champs, because i don't think Sheamus e Cesaro won't have a long title reign. [**]

Universal Championship 3 way: Brock Lesnar vs Kane vs Braun Strowman:

It was the match it should have been: short but intense and chaotic. I wasn't expecting a five star rated match but not even a minus five star one. Braun looked like a beast, Brock won and Kane ate the pin as expected. Nothing more to add.[**1/2]

Women's Royal Rumble:

As it was the first one, WWE decided to honour their former stars so they picked more legends instead of more NXT girls for the match. For some of us, it was a good idea, for some of us it was a bad idea. I'm staying in the middle here, because part of me liked to see all those great girls i used to watch wrestle while i was younger, but at the same time i kinda wanted to see in the rumble wrestlers like the Iconic Duo or Nikki Cross. Personally they should have found a good mix between NXT and legends, but i won't complain too much. Instead i will complain on the last four, because personally i felt it was better to have Sasha eliminate Bayley and then let her challenge asuka for the win instead having the former Kana wrestle the Bella Twins. The right girl won but then Ronda Rousey came out...now, i like and always will like Ronda, loved her in UFC even tho her last fights were pretty terrible and her UFC career ended really on a bad note, but her debut seemed like WWE wanted her to steal the spotylight from Asuka and the other girls, the one who made history competing in the first ever Women's Royal Rumble. It felt like “Hey we can't compete with the SuperBowl Buzz so let's send out Ronda to steal some buzz and media coverage” I'm still interested to see how Ronda will do in the squared circle and who will face her at Mania. Going back to match analysis, the match was fine, not as good as the men's rumble but i enjoyed it. I'd say entertaining in some aspects (even more than the men's one), but booking wise there are a few thing they could have done better (like Dana Brooke eliminating Kairi Sane from the Rumble. That made no sense) [***1/2]

The event: good start for the WWE's 2018 PPV year. A Good Rumble PPV who didn't have a MOTY candidate like Takeover:Philly, but it was overall a really good and entertaining PPV who delivered, gifted us some really historic moments and for once it didn't felt like a normal mediocre WWE PPV, like a lot last year's PPVs that felt like a little better Raw or SDLive episode. Good start for the Road to WrestleMania *points at the Mania sign*[7.25]

[brandoncarlo]

I really dislike this trend towards purely offensive defensemen. it’s just. i always see people rave about these amazing young d men and then when they’re added to an NHL roster all of the sudden the team has a defense problem. Yeah defensive defensemen take longer to develop and they don’t put up the same points but isn’t like, stopping the other team worth it? sure the ottawa senators are boring but they made it to the eastern conference finals. remember the big bad bruins in 2011? they had scoring problems but they also had Zdeno Chara in his prime paired with Dennis Seidenberg in his prime, two defensive defenseman. and it didn’t stop there; Johnny Boychuk, Adam McQuaid, Andrew Ference were all defensive defensemen. 

You can argue that Andrew Ference was bad at the end of his career and Adam McQuaid sucks. But You can’t argue that they were both integral parts to one of the best bruins teams in the cap era. and like sure, Torey Krug can score goals and he’s fast but he’s shit defensively and i’m literally getting so bitter towards him because i see him just pass the puck to the other team every game, or make a bad play in a dangerous zone, or let up on the puck. Like no wonder Adam McQuaid is one of the worst players on the team, the amount of time he’s spent paired with Torey he’s running around the ice trying to defend the whole thing! 

But the bruins aren’t een really the problem here. They’re developing Carlo to be a primarily defensive defensemen and giving him support and freedom and putting his development, and the development of the other young defensemen in front of the current success of the team. which is correct. but it’s more issues with other teams. other analysts, who go, this defensemen scored 10 billion goals !! and then go, how can we be this bad we have a high defensive prospect in the lineup. Like becuase he’s no defensive! he’s a defensemen but he’s not defensive! You know why Jake Gardiner drives people crazy despite being one of the best defensemen on the leafs? because he wasn’t even a defensemen until university! People like players like Jake or Karlsson (who are great defensemen, karlsson being one of the best) because they play like forwards. 

So it’s like we’re seeing games where it’s 5 offensive players versus 3 offensive players and 2 defensive players which, okay, there is some strategy to that because how is 2 v 5 gonna go? but also, what happens when the puck is in your teams defensive zone ever? you get numbers like the ones Freddie has. Freddie who has had bad games, but has been pretty good anyway, has terrible stats. 

Like at what point are we going to start valuing purely defensive defensemen again and people are going to act like they srtuck gold. “See this kid, he back checks! and supports his goalie! and doesn’t give the puck away! That’s brilliant.” 

anyway the point of this is i’m mad at torey krug for being bad defensively and media that covers the leafs for acting like a forward who can back skate is going to help them keep the puck out of their net.

[junker-town]

‘Little Giants’ deserved a sequel. So we made one

Warner Brothers production / Illustration by Tyson Whiting

What would a sequel to the 1994 “Little Giants” movie have looked like? SB Nation’s Sam Eggleston thinks he knows.

Let’s rewind our VHS tapes to October 1995, when Little Giants first hit the big screen. It wasn’t particularly well-reviewed, nor was it a blockbuster hit. What it was, and what it became, was a cult classic.

In today’s entertainment climate, that would have nearly guaranteed a sequel would be born from the $19.3M it made at the box office ($32.5M in today’s dollars).

But what would the sequel be?

At the end of the first film, the Little Giants win their head-to-head single game and become the lone pee-wee team in Urbania, Ohio, with players from both teams comprising the roster and former rival coaches Kevin and Danny O’Shea splitting duties at the helm of the program. The town’s water tower is changed to reflect the contributions of both O’Shea brothers.

We fade to black and the credits begin to roll.

In the sequel, dubbed Little Giants Go For 2, we open up with the Giants having just defeated another opponent from a nearby town. The team, in a show of sportsmanship, is shaking hands with the other team at the 50-yard line, the scoreboard lit up in the background to show a 20-point win.

“Why do you have to be such a Neanderthal all the time?”

Kevin and Danny are cheering with the kids in the locker room afterward, well-placed endorsement items like Gatorade and Doritos here and there.

”We’re going to the state playoffs and our first game is a week from today,” Kevin says. “There are three games ahead of us before the state championship game, and we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re going to have to lay some wood and crack some heads if we’re going to get through Port Clinton in the first round.”

”And we’re going to have to have fun, too,” Danny pipes in. Kevin rolls his eyes. Right then, the commissioner of the pee-wee league comes into the locker room, holding the regional trophy the team just won. The kids cheer and rush the poor man, who is taken to the ground when Marcus trips and tumbles into him. The trophy flies into the air and gasps abound until Hot Hands Hanon leaps up and snags it.

”Spike thinks that was a great catch,” says the former villain as he takes the trophy. He claps Hanon on the back, sending him sprawling to the ground.

”Ugh,” Becky O’Shea says from behind Spike. “Why do you have to be such a Neanderthal all the time?”

Spike scrunches up his face, clearly trying to avoid an outburst.

”Spike … is … not … A NEANDERTHAL!” he screams out. “Besides, Spike would rather be that than a stupid girl!”

”This stupid girl has kicked your butt before and can do it again!”

Junior Floyd steps between them.

”Stop it!” he says. “We just won a game because the two of you are the best football players in Ohio. We’re better when we’re a team and not trying to fight each other.”

Becky glares at Spike for a moment and then puts her hand out for a shake.

”Fine,” she says. “I’m sorry for calling you a Neanderthal.”

Spike stares at her hand for a moment and then turns and walks away without a word.

Warner Brothers production / Illustration by Tyson Whiting

We return to Urbania where we see Danny working at the service station. He is talking to the town’s mayor as he pumps gas. The discussion is about the upcoming game against Port Clinton, a game the mayor has heard the Little Giants will probably win hands down.

As the mayor pulls away, another car comes into the station lot, the bell ringing as it pulls up to the pumps. It’s Danny’s love interest, Patty. She is all smiles as she gets out of the car, a lunchbox in her hand.

”You forgot this,” she said as Danny approaches.

”Did I?” he teases. “Maybe I just left it so I’d get to see you a little extra today.”

The two are about to share a kiss when a full-size Hummer H1 comes roaring into the station, surprising them. The Hummer is a gaudy green and gold with a hood ornament in the shape of a wedge of cheese.

Danny steps up to the tinted driver’s window, which rolls down slowly. Inside is a man wearing Tommy Hilfiger with a pair of Oakley sunglasses.

”You O’Shea?” the man asks, chewing a wad of gum. Next to him in the passenger’s seat is basically a miniature clone of him.

”I am,” Danny responds, looking more than a bit confused. “And you are?”

”Freddy Hayes,” he says, cracking a jerk-type smile. “Coach Freddy Hayes.”

Danny looks at the boy in the passenger’s seat. He, too, is wearing Oakleys and chewing gum.

”That’s great,” Danny says, polite as always. “Any relation to Woody?”

”Yeah,” the guy says. “Well, probably. Like distant cousins on my dad’s side. Maybe.”

Danny glances back at Patty, who just shrugs. The question clearly irritates Hayes, who reaches out and pokes Danny in the chest with his index finger.

”I know you’re the coach of those stupid Little Giants,” he says, scoffing. “Well, I coach the Packers over at Port Clinton. And you know what? I’m going to make sure you and your brother get the beating you deserve.

”Boo-yah!”

Without giving Danny a chance to respond, Hayes slams on the gas and tears out into the street, forcing a car to swerve to avoid hitting him. Tires squeal as the big Hummer tears away.

”What the hell was that?” Danny wonders aloud.

There is commotion inside O’Shea Chevrolet.

”Freddy Hayes?!?” Kevin O’Shea yells from inside the dealership. The scene jumps inside as Danny nods his head.

”Yeah. Do you know him?”

”Know him?” Kevin repeats, pacing around his office. “You could say that. The year I won the Heisman, I pretty much punched the ticket with four touchdowns in the Alamo Bowl. On the last play of the game, we were down by four, and Coach called a wheel route off the play-action. As I turn up field, our quarterback Beau Rondeau hit me with a beaut of a pass. I secure the ball, start sprinting down the sideline and here comes the defense’s best player, Freddy Hayes.

”Well, Freight Train Freddy makes the mistake of going for my knees. As soon as I saw his shoulder drop, I jumped and hurdled right over him.” Kevin mimes the move energetically.

Danny’s eyes grow wide.

”I remember that,” he says. “He flew right off the field and slammed into those poor cheerleaders. And you scored, untouched.”

”And they replayed it on SportsCenter over and over,” Kevin says, a smile on his face. “Dan Patrick must have played that clip 10 times in a row.”

The O’Shea brothers look at each other and in perfect sync quote Patrick.

”The WHIFFFFFFF!”

Danny sits down in the chair across from Kevin’s desk. “So what the heck does he want with you now?”

Kevin stands up, rotating the wedding ring on his finger as he looks out the window into the car lot.

”I think it’s obvious,” he says. “Don’t you?”

Danny remains silent.

”He wants revenge, Danny. He wants to embarrass us like we embarrassed him.”

”Wait — ‘we’ didn’t embarrass anyone. You did!”

Kevin chuckles as he walks up to his little brother. He pats him on the shoulder.

”There’s no ‘you’ in team, Danny. He wants all the Little Giants to suffer.”

The Little Giants are all sitting in an old garage, pizza and soda and other goodies scattered around. Junior Floyd is sitting on a beat-up couch with Becky “Icebox” O’Shea. They are holding hands. Nearby, there are a few of the old Cowboys players chatting with Rudy Zolteck and the rest of the Little Giants are scattered around.

Spike is lifting weights while little Jake Berman watches in amazement. “His arms are the size of my head!” Berman announces before wiping his nose.

”That’s because Spike never misses his weight training,” Spike says. “That’s because Spike knows the value of a good diet and a strong workout.”

Zolteck turns to look at Spike. He’s holding a bag of Reese’s Pieces.

”Do you like seafood?” He asks Spike.

”Yeah, it’s a great source of protein,” Spike says.

”Here’s some see food for you!” Zolteck says, opening his mouth to reveal the chewed up and colorful oranges and yellows mixed with peanut butter brown in his mouth.

”Ugh!” Spike says, dropping the weights to the ground with a thud. “Why do they even let you in here?”

Zolteck shrugs his shoulders and throws more candy into his mouth. At the same time, the door to the garage opens and Kevin and Danny enter.

”All right, take a seat and shut your mouths,” Kevin says as he walks up to a television and VCR. He pops a tape in and the static on the screen turns to a football game.

”Whoa,” says Junior. “Those guys are big.”

”Really, really big,” says Tad Simpson.

”Bigger than Spike,” Johnny Vennaro says.

Spike growls as he stares at the television under a furrowed brow.

The scene on the film shows play after play of a team wearing green and gold crushing their opponents. Offensive lines look like wet paper bags and defenders tear through them, sacking the quarterback and picking up tackles for losses. Interceptions abound. On offense, they cruise through their opponents like they are running past tackling dummies.

”Who are they?” Vennaro asks, his eyes wide with fear.

”That, kids, is the team from Port Clinton,” Kevin says. “The Packers.”

Three Little Giants players are walking down the driveway, away from the garage.

”Where are you going?” Danny calls out after them.

”To update my life insurance!” Zolteck answers over his shoulder.

”Yeah, I need to call my grammy,” Tad says.

”I’m just getting the heck out of here!” Berman cries out, speeding up his walk.

Danny steps out of the garage and jogs after them. He catches them before they are out of the driveway.

”C’mon, guys,” he says. “They’re just pee-wee football players. Just like you.”

”Like us?’ Zolteck says in disbelief. “They’re all bigger than anyone on our team! I think some of them had beards! And tattoos!”

“They’re all bigger than anyone on our team! I think some of them had beards! And tattoos!”

Danny corrals the boys and turns them back towards the garage. The boys look reluctant, but they fall into step and allow themselves to be escorted back inside where the other players are waiting.

Kevin is at a chalkboard with Nubie standing next to him, his playbook in hand.

”We ready?” Kevin asks, looking slightly annoyed.

Danny nods as the three absconding players find places to sit next to their teammates.

Kevin begins drawing on the chalkboard, glancing down at Nubie’s playbook.

”The best way to defeat size,” he says as the Xs and Os develop on the slate, “is with speed.”

Warner Brothers production / Illustration by Tyson Whiting

It’s game day, and we get a view of a beautiful football field surrounded on both sides by bleachers. Fans are packed into them, each side waving signs and wearing the colors of their team.

As the Little Giants come onto the field and tear through a paper sign, one side of the stadium erupts in cheers.

”Nice turnout,” says Danny to Kevin as they come out behind their team.

”People can’t resist a good football game, Danny,” Kevin says. “Let’s give them a game to remember.”

On the other side of the field, a golf cart pulling a trailer drives up in front of the entrance of the home team. On the trailer is a brick wall with “Packers” spray painted on it in green and gold. All the Little Giants are standing there, eyes locked on the strange display across the field.

Suddenly, the wall shakes. And then again. And again. And again. And then it topples and crumbles to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust into the air. Fans on the Little Giants’ side of the field gasp as figures begin to emerge from the dust.

A trio of Packers players, including the younger Hayes, steps into view. They are holding sledgehammers. Without a word, Hayes lifts his hammer and points it straight at the Little Giants. He holds it there for a few moments before letting it drop onto the green grass turf.

”Packers! Packers! Packers! Packers!” the crowd on that side of the field begins to chant. The players come marching over the rubble of the fallen bricks, three abreast, and flow onto the field.

Fans in the Little Giants’ stands look at one another nervously and remain silent.

Danny and Kevin glance back at the stunned crowd, then to their players, and then call them to the sidelines.

”Blood and guts. If they hit us hard enough, they’ll get to see both.”

”We can’t let their size intimidate us,” Danny says. “You’ve beaten teams with bigger players than you before. And with some of these plays that Nubie has designed, you’re going to have the element of surprise.”

”Yeah, I’d be surprised if we don’t die during the kickoff,” groans Tommy Moore.

Danny frowns and then gestures onto the field.

”Get out there and show them what you’re made of,” he says.

”Blood and guts,” Zolteck says. “If they hit us hard enough, they’ll get to see both.”

The Little Giants trudge onto the field, and things instantly start to go bad. The Packers take the opening kickoff all the way back for a touchdown, and then kick an onside and recover it.

Kevin looks across the field to where Freddy Hayes is standing with his arms crossed, his attention locked on the O’Shea brothers and not at all on the game. Kevin looks away just in time to see a deep pass from the younger Hayes, who is the Packers quarterback, to a receiver who easily leaps over Hot Hands to make the catch and jaunt into the end zone after shedding a tackle. The scoreboard reads 14-0 with just 30 seconds off the clock.

The Little Giants recover the ensuing onside kick and Junior jogs onto the field with Icebox and Spike already waiting in the huddle.

”Power-I 32 Fullback Lead,” he says. “On two.”

The team lines up with Icebox at fullback and Spike at tailback. As Junior calls “Down!” all the Giants linemen go into three-point stances.

”Set!” Junior barks, beginning his cadence. “Hit!”

The entire Packers defensive line fires forward, slamming into the Little Giants. Players fly backwards, slamming into the ground. The center, one of the former Cowboys, is thrown into Junior, who stumbles backwards into Icebox and the duo then crash into Spike, knocking them all to the ground.

Yellow flags fly all over the field and the referee turns towards the pressbox and signals an offsides on the Packers.

”That’s all you’re going to call?” Kevin yells out. “How about unnecessary roughness? That was nothing but a bunch of cheap shots!”

The referee ignores the O’Shea brothers as the Little Giants once again approach the line of scrimmage.

Zolteck puts his hand down in his three-point and looks across the line at the massive defensive tackle he is tasked with blocking.

”Can we just agree that football is a game about sportsmanship and caring for your fellow player?” he asks.

”Can we just agree that football is a game about sportsmanship and caring for your fellow player?”

”I’m going to knock you into next week, and then I’m going to sack your quarterback,” the Packers defender growls. “And then I’m going to steal all your candy.”

As the ball is snapped, Zolteck is run over. Junior turns to hand the ball to Spike, but Becky’s lead block is blown up and she is knocked aside. Spike and Junior are tackled at the same time by the Packer.

”Spike wants to know where you learned to block!” Spike screams at Becky as they all get off the ground.

”The same place you learned to use pronouns!” Icebox barks back.

The chaos continues and we get towards the end of the second quarter and the Giants are forced to punt and then go on defense. There, on the first play, Spike misses a tackle and inadvertently trips Becky in the process. The two get facemask-to-facemask and growl at each other as the horn sounds to end the first half.

As the Little Giants tramp into the locker room, the scoreboard behind them reads 24-3.

As Danny comes in, the scene is one of battered and bruised players. Zolteck is laying under a table, a bag of ice on his face. Spike is taping up bloody knuckles. Junior is helping Marcus fix a pair of broken shoulderpads.

”Things are looking tough out there,” Danny says. “Our backs are against the wall. But we’ve got two quarters left, and that’s a lot of football.”

”That’s a lot of football,” Berman repeats, but in a groan of despair.

Kevin is making his way towards the locker room when Coach Hayes steps out in front of him.

”There’s Mr. Heisman,” Hayes says, pointing. “Oh, man, this is so exciting! Can I get your autograph.”

”Hello, Freddy,” Kevin says, tensing up. “What do you want?”

Hayes takes off his Oakley sunglasses and walks right up to Kevin.

”What do I want?” Hayes says, chewing his gum harder and harder with each passing second. “Well, for starters, I want you to admit that you’re not worthy of the Heisman Trophy.”

”For starters …,” Kevin repeats, slowly.

”That’s right,” Hayes snarls. “Because when you’re done with that, I want you to dress in a clown costume and go out to midfield and do a funny dance.”

Kevin looks confused. He opens his mouth to say something, then changes his mind and closes it again. He can’t help himself but to open his mouth again, a question clearly at the tip of his tongue. He sighs and closes his mouth again.

”You know, because you’re a clown,” Hayes says, a sneer forming across his lips.

”Oddly enough, I did get what you were trying to say,” Kevin says. “Listen, I’ve got a team to coach, so I’m going to go do that.”

Hayes throws his head back and laughs.

”A team?” he says. “You don’t have a team. I heard all about it. Your stupid little brother beat you and you lost your team. If it weren’t for that loser, you wouldn’t even be coaching right now.”

Kevin nods his head, clearly agitated. He looks down the hall and through a crack in the door he can see his brother passionately trying to rally the troops.

”You know what? You’re right,” Kevin says. He steps up right into Hayes. “I wouldn’t be a coach if it weren’t for my loser little brother. I wouldn’t even have a job right now if it weren’t for him.

”And I’ll tell you something else. Not only did my little brother beat me, he’s going to beat you, too. Get ready for one big WHIFFFFFF, Hayes.

”And you know what? You should probably stop with the excessive gum chewing. You’re not Mike Ditka.”

“You don’t have a team. I heard all about it. Your stupid little brother beat you and you lost your team. If it weren’t for that loser, you wouldn’t even be coaching right now.”

Kevin pushes past Hayes, who is practically stammering. Without looking back, Kevin steps into the locker room and looks at Becky and Spike, who’ve been snapping at each other all day. Danny quiets down, sensing his brother has something to say to the team.

”Becky, you’re my niece and I love you,” Kevin says. “And Spike, you’re probably the best football player I’ve ever seen at your age. You two are amazing at this sport. You’re the leaders of this team. But right now, you’re tearing it apart because you just can’t get past one little moment in one football game.

”Football is a game. It’s not something that should control your life. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be played with friends. My brother taught me that. Unless the two of you can get past that one play and that one game, you’re never going to be able to lead this team to victory.”

Icebox looks angry at first. She glances over and sees Spike, his knuckles bloody from trying so hard. She looks down at her leg and the scrape across her shin. She takes a deep breath and then stands up, offering her hand to Spike.

”You wanna win a football game?” she asks.

Spike looks at her for several long and silent moments. He smiles and grabs her hand.

”Let’s do this.”

A smug Coach Hayes stands across the field from the O’Shea brothers as his team lines up for the kickoff to open the second half. With a 24-3 lead, he’s confident his team is on their way to a rout.

Kevin is glaring back at first, and then hears Danny clapping and cheering in support of the Little Giants as they trot onto the field for the return. Kevin looks at his brother, out at the kids, and then starts clapping too.

”Let’s play some football, Giants!” he yells out.

Hot Hands lines up to receive the kick with Spike and Icebox ahead of him. The Packers boot the ball deep, nearly into the end zone, and Hot Hands makes the catch at the 2-yard line and sprints forward. A group of Packers break through the initial line of blocks and are sprinting toward the kick returner when suddenly Becky and Spike converge in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, and lead block right into the Packers. Bodies tumble away as the duo opens up a lane and Hot Hands leans into his sprint, pulling away from any would-be tacklers and into the open field for a long score to cut into the lead, 24-10.

The entire stadium erupts in cheers and jeers. The Little Giants rally around their teammate, celebrating the 98-yard touchdown.

”We need to get that ball back,” says Junior to Marcus. “Can you onside it?”

”I can barely kick it straight,” Marcus says.

The Little Giants look worried, but then Nubie steps into the group. “Actually,” he says, “kicking straight is exactly what we need.”

Warner Brothers production / Illustration by Tyson Whiting

We cut to the two teams lining up for the kickoff, with Coach Hayes livid on the sidelines. He’s yelling at his Packers players, accusing them of being soft.

”You better start playing like men, or you’re going to run tomorrow at practice from sunup until sundown!”

The Packers players look upset and begin to glare at the Little Giants across from them.

”Get your hands up and be ready to dive on that football!” Hayes screams out again. His own son is at the front of the pack of players, his hands ready and his eye fixed securely on the ball as Marcus begins his approach for the kick.

The ball fires off the tee like a bullet, straight at the young Hayes. His first instinct, to come forward expecting an onside dribbling across the open field, is the wrong one as the line drive hits him in the shoulder and bounces back towards the rushing Little Giants. Players from both teams dive for it and end up in a dogpile. The refs start pulling players off here and there until we get to the bottom — and Spike has it.

As the Little Giants go to the huddle, Coach Hayes is screaming at his son on the field. The Packers are looking at him as he throws a clipboard.

”Is that how I taught you to play football?” he screams. “Is that how you’re going to represent me on this field?”

Kevin and Danny are frowning on the opposite sideline.

”C’mon, man, it’s just a game!” Danny yells across at the other coach.

”Shut up, loser!” Hayes screams back. There are murmurs from the crowd.

”You better start playing like men, or you’re going to run tomorrow at practice from sunup until sundown!”

The Little Giants break the huddle and come up to the line of scrimmage in a shotgun formation with Spike and Becky as split backs. Junior stomps his foot on the ground and Johnny goes into motion and heads toward the trio in the backfield.

”Hit!”

The snap hits Junior in the hands and he spins around as Spike and Becky converge on him just as Johnny reaches them. The four players then burst apart, heading in different directions, all holding their arms as though they have the ball.

A Packers player hits Junior and brings him to the ground and another grabs Johnny around the hips and tackles him. Neither have the ball.

As Icebox scoots around the end, ball wrapped in her arms, a Packers linebacker meets her, gets hit and misses the tackle. She cuts in front of a defensive back, spins off another tackle and then is brought down 20 yards later.

Hayes reaches down and takes Becky’s hand, pulling her to her feet.

”Nice run,” the Packer says.

”Thanks. Plan on a few more coming,” she says and then jogs back to the huddle.

On the next play, the Little Giants move the ball within five yards of the goal before coming out in a Power-I formation.

”SHIFT!” Junior calls out and suddenly everyone seems to be in motion. Linemen break away and start jogging toward the sideline to their left, joined by Spike and Johnny. Hot Hands splits out to the right. The only players left in their original positions are the center, the quarterback, and the fullback. The Packers look utterly confused.

”Swinging gate! Swinging gate!” Coach Hayes begins screaming from the end of the coaches’ box. “Shift with them!”

Packers players begin scrambling and nearly all of them bolt towards the largest concentration of players near the sideline.

In the confusion, the Little Giants get set and Junior calls out.

”Hit!”

On the snap, Hot Hands races into the end zone, drawing his corner with him. The center drives forward, pushing a defensive lineman backward while Becky sprints ahead of Junior and plows into the linebacker. Junior jukes another linebacker and walks in for the score.

”Are you kidding me?” the Packers coach is screaming. “Are. You. Kidding. Me?!?!”

With the extra point sailing through the uprights, the Little Giants now trail the Packers, 24-17.

”But I want you to know that however this game ends, I’m proud of you Little Giants. And I hope you’ve been having fun.”

The game rages on through the remainder of the third quarter and into the fourth when the Packers are facing fourth-and-3 with just over two minutes remaining.

On the snap, Hayes turns and hands the ball to a running back, who sprints towards the right side tackle. Suddenly Icebox breaks through the line, filling the hole and coming in for the tackle. The Packers runner plants his foot in the ground and reverses field, but as he does, he’s met by Spike blitzing from the opposite side and is crushed with a huge hit.

As the referee signals a first down for the Little Giants, Becky helps Spike off the ground.

”Nice hit,” she says.

”Thanks for pushing him back towards Spike,” he responds.

From the sidelines, Kevin calls a timeout and gathers up the players.

”We’ve got to get down the field and score, and we have less than two minutes to do it,” he says. “That’s a lot to ask against a team like this.

”But I want you to know that however this game ends, I’m proud of you Little Giants. And I hope you’ve been having fun. I know Danny and I have.”

The team is then greeted by Nubie as he steps into the huddle. He looks around at the players and then opens up his playbook.

”It’s time,” he says, “for the Siege of Stirling Castle.”

The Little Giants are lined up on the field in a spread formation. Junior is in the shotgun with Johnny by his side. To his left out wide stands Hot Hands, while Icebox and Spike are out to his right.

”Down!” Junior calls out, and the offensive line drops their hands to the ground in unison. “Set!”

Junior stomps his foot and Johnny goes into motion to his right, towards the sidelines.

”Hit!”

Junior takes the snap and steps back, then looks to his left as Hot Hands slants towards the middle of the field. Suddenly Hayes bursts through the line on a blitz and Junior scrambles to escape. He is looking downfield for an open receiver when he sees Becky break toward the sidelines on an out route, and he fires the ball just as he’s hit by Hayes.

The throw looks to be off target and heads out of bounds, but Becky leaps for it anyway. She snags the ball in the air and before she lands, she flings it back onto the field to Spike, who had delayed his route so he would be at full speed behind her when she caught the ball.

The Packers players, stunned, are completely unprepared as he sprints past them, breaking away from the defense and into the end zone for the score.

Cheers erupt throughout both sides of the stands and the Little Giants are all celebrating. Both Junior and Becky run up to Spike.

”That was amazing!” Junior screams. “I can’t believe that worked!”

”Just like Nubie drew it up!” Becky says.

The trio turn and look at the scoreboard, which reads 24-23.

”Should we kick it and tie it, or go for two?” Danny asks, looking at his brother. Kevin is looking across the field at Coach Hayes, who is screaming at his players. Packers heads are hanging, and the verbal berating isn’t helping matters.

Kevin takes a deep breath and then looks at his brother.

”I think we go for the win,” he says. “It’s risky, but it’s football.”

The Little Giants line up in the Power-I as the Packers stack the line. Junior looks over the top of the center at Hayes, who is creeping up, his eyes locked on the quarterback.

”Icebox, right?” Hayes asks.

Junior just looks at him and smiles.

”Down. Set.”

The atmosphere is tense. Fans on both sides are standing. There is a silence hanging over everything.

”Hit!”

The center snaps the ball back, through Junior’s legs and directly to Spike, who charges forward. Junior and Becky run a fake dive to the right, drawing Hayes and another linebacker with them. By the time they realize it’s Spike with the ball, it’s too late as he leaps up and into the fray, stretching the ball out over the line for the score.

”AND IT’S GOOOOOOD! Giants win! Giants win!” The announcer’s voice echoes in the stadium but is immediately overtaken by the roar from the crowd. The Little Giants are celebrating when the younger Hayes walks up to them.

”That was one heck of a football game,” he says, shaking the hands of Junior, Icebox, and Spike. “I can’t wait for the rematch next season.”

”We’ll be there,” Becky says. “You can count on it.”

”AND IT’S GOOOOOOD! Giants win! Giants win!”

At midfield, Kevin and Freddy Hayes meet. Kevin holds out his hand.

”Nice game, Freddy,” he says.

Hayes looks at the outstretched hand and then back at Kevin.

”It’s time to forget the past,” Kevin says, looking down the field at Hayes’ son, “and start to think about the future.

”You’ve got a special boy there, and he’s a solid football player. Give him the love of the game, just like you and I had when we played. There are far more great moments than bad ones.”

Hayes watches his son shake hands with the Little Giants. He takes a deep breath, reaches up and pulls off his Oakleys, and then looks Kevin right in the eyes.

”You got lucky when you hurdled me,” he says.

Kevin smiles.

”I did.”

Hayes looks down the field again as the Packers begin to gather together in the end zone. The Little Giants are gathering with Danny on the opposite end of the field.

”Great game, Coach,” Hayes says, taking Kevin’s hand and shaking it. “See you next year.”

As Kevin approaches his team, some of the players rush over and grab him, dragging him next to Danny as the rest of the team surrounds them both. Smiles all around.

”This one was for you two,” Becky says, hugging her dad and then her uncle. “Thank you for being our coaches.”

As she steps back, Junior lifts his helmet in the air, followed by the rest of the players.

”Little Giants on three!” he yells.

Kevin and Danny look at one another and then shake hands as the players scream out the count down.

”One! Two! Three!

”LITTLE GIANTS!”

We fade to black, and the credits begin to roll.

[hellyeahheroes]

Big Rumors

4chan has been causing some noise with big rumors of big changes coming to DC. I’ve decided to take a look at what they’re saying and share my opinion.

1)      Dark Days is the mysterious “Metal” event Scott Snyder has been teasing he’ll do with Greg Capulo. It will bring characters from alternate Universes to Prime DC Earth, some of which will try to take it over. Some of them will stick around after the event and be featured in books from September, when every title will get a one-shot setting up new status quo after one year time skip. – Pretty standard, I could buy this one.

2)      One of the characters that stick around will be Superboy Prime, whom Clark will try to redeem on the pages of Superman. – Risky move since it’s Prime but I could totally see Superman try to redeem him.

3)      We will see the return of JSA with Power Girl, Jay Garrick, Red Tornado, Alan Scott and Johnny Thunder, in a new book by Dan Abnett – Will those be Earth-2 characters back to the Prime Earth or Pre-Flashpoint versions?

4)      Another character from another Universe to stick around will be Mar’I Grayson, daughter of Dick and Kory. Nightwing will have to search for her in his own book. – I could see it. If this and 14 will be true, I want them to cross over.

5)      Another will be Bart Allen, who will be featured as Impulse alongside Jesse Quick, Max Mercury and older Wally West in Speed Force by Brett Booth and writing and art – Hell yes Bart is back. And since people wanted a team of speedsters – yeah, I can see this too.

6)      Red Robin will escape from Mr. Oz’ captivity and free several other inmates, leading them as the new Outsiders – They kept Tim quite a bit away, he really could return. Hope Conner and few other forgotten characters will be on this team.

7)      Cyborg will be canceled but replaced with a team-up book (mini?) between him and Shazam, by John Semper. Hal Jordan and Green Lantern Corps will be relaunched as Green Lantern Corps with Hal still leading, but Kyle dying in Dark Days and John and Soranik going to Cullen Bunn’s to Yellow Lanterns.  Don’t worry, Green Lanterns will still be going and keep its creative team, but will go monthly. – Don’t know about the others but I could see Green Lanterns turning monthly. I’ll be mad if they’ll kill Kyle.

8)      Other canceled titles are Superwoman and Blue Beetle with Jaime joining Teen Titans. Red Hood and the Outlaws as well, with Artemis and Bizarro returning to Wonder Woman and Action Comics and Jason getting a solo series by Lobdell. – Totally could see Blue Beetle canceled and Jaime joining Teen Titans and we already have rumors about Superwoman ending. But I thought people liked new Outlaws.

9)      Due to poor sales both Batgirl and Batgirl & the Birds of Prey will be canceled, Barbara will make heroic sacrifice putting her back into a wheelchair. The books will be relaunched as Birds of Prey, where Oracle, Huntress and Black Canary are joined by Lady Blackhawk and Batgirls by Genevieve Valentine, where Barbara trains Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown as her successors. – And this one I cannot buy. DC was so adamant to keep Barbara as Batgirl I find it now hard to believe they would give in and make her Oracle again. And Babs training Steph and Cass written by Genevieve Valentine sounds too good to be true.

10)   Which of course means Cass is leaving Detective Comics. So is Clayface and the post-Dark Days roster will keep Batman, Batwoman, Batwing, and Azrael and add Duke Thomas, Harper Row and Anarky. – Happy to see Luke and Duke in one team since I wanted that and Harper and Kate could result in them showing up on another ball in tuxedos to pick up ladies, so I both could see this happen and would welcome them as additions to the team.

11)   Other new books announced are Legion by James Tynion, Checkmate by Tom King and World’s Fines by Tim Seeley, where every issue features a team-up between different members of Batfamily and Superfamily. – Team up book? Please let it be real, I always liked those.

12)   Batman leading the JLA will be revealed to be Martian Manhunter in disguise. – For what purpose?

13)   More miniseries including 12-parts mini about Crime Syndicate of Earth 3, Justice Incarnate by Peter Thomasi and a completely new Batman Beyond starring Damian who grew up without knowing Bruce and a GCPD cop Sarah Grayson, Dick’s daughter, as his love interest. – Does that mean current Batman Beyond will be canceled?

14)   Slade Wilson will go missing with Rose taking the codename Deathstroke as she tries to find him. – Okay, on the one hand, Deathstroke editor recently teased a bold new direction (still by Priest) but on the other, it was something I once cooked up and proposed on this blog, even got in an argument whenever it would be a good decision with @rosewilsontheravager . It could be something they put for people like me to go nuts....