#also DC having a bunch of gay characters as a whole is pretty understandable when ya find out the co-creators are gay & married :>

[annimator]

It seems like the DC fandom’s upset at Lynda considering Episode 4 happened, and yeah, I was also initially pissed off at her because of what she said about Richard’s family

But to be fair….

(i accidentally got carried away with this post and it got pretty long lol, the rest is under the cut :p)

There’s a good chance that she’s isn’t homophobic, but rather ignorant about different types of family structures that aren’t her own since she spends most of her time as a parent raising her kids, and spends her free time watching a bunch of reality shows :p

Also her confessional prior to elimination is honestly funny as hell to me, cuz she really saw Logan & Anastasia talk and think “oh, i’ve seen this shit before. they’re probably gonna get into some kinda romance.”

Like ma’am, this is Disventure Camp, more than half of each seasons’ cast is part of the LGBTQ+ community and the two guys that host the show are bi & dating each other. And there’s like a very probable chance that Anastasia’s a lesbian (side note: a Marissa greeting recently dropped that revealed she is in fact as lesbian WOOOOOOOOO) and I can see the side plot where Logan realizes he’s bi from a mile away

Also speaking of, I saw a funny post on twt joking that Lynda would watch Trevek doing smth gay like kissing each other or passionately talking about each other in a romantic way, and she’d be like “oh they’re just friends lmao”. And she literally saw Trevor & Derek walk towards her team’s base in episode 1 HOLDING HANDS, and they keep doing a bunch subtle-ish romantic stuff in front of the contestants

[seven-oomen]

Love and Monsters Lore/Meta/Headcanons

Spoilers ahead!!!! I feel like I shouldn’t have to say it but obviously this will have spoilers for the movie.

Okay so strap in kiddos because I have spend my entire day rewatching the film, writing down all the little lines I could find and I think I’ve build a pretty decent understanding of its lore despite not having much information to fall back onto from other sources. (I don’t think it’s an easily accessible movie and there’s no wikis or whatever yet.)

Alright so here we go:

Part 1: The apocalypse

The apocalypse in this universe started 7 years before the story starts. An asteroid called Agatha 616 was headed for Earth. And in response Earth send up a bunch of chemical bombs to break up the asteroid.

It worked, a little too well. And those chemicals came back down on Earth and mutated all Cold-blooded animals. (Insects, fish, arachnids, reptiles, amphibians) From what we can tell, that’s all the chemicals affected. Warm blooded animals like Mammals and Birds  don’t seem to be affected. But the source material isn’t very definitive on this.

In the opening story Joel talks about how 95% of humanity basically got eaten to death by the mutated creatures. Even Clyde alludes to humanity being unaffected by referring to a line said by the governments/scientists at the time; “We’re the lucky ones, or so they said.”

To me that makes sense, insects in particular are so vast and so well adapted that if they ever got to the size of a truck, they would dominate pretty much all other species around them. That might also explain why we don’t see many mammals or birds around. I’ve been looking, haven’t found them just yet. Aside from Gertie the cow and Boy the dog.

One of the places were the apocalypse seems to have kicked off is in Fairfield, California. Clyde calls it ‘basically ground zero’ and is amazed that Joel (and Aimee by extension) even made it out of there. Although a part of that may be because I believe the whole “cast” is from the area between Sacramento California and San Fransicsco. I have my reasons for that, which I will explain in headcanons.

Another, based on a news clip in the beginning might be Washington DC and I think it slowly escalated from there, going Global in a matter of days. I think the highest concentration of humanity fell first (cities), which would make sense as more humans generally also means a lot of insects and other scavengers. Conflict would be high in these areas and a lot of people would die at once.

Joel also talks about how the military and the ‘big ones’ basically cancelled each other out and died out after another. Which again makes sense to me, you’d want the most dangerous creatures to be taken out first. A cockroach the size of a tank is definitely a priority. Although how one would kill a cockroach that size is also very questionable, considering what they can survive.

I think humanity held out for several months before they were forced into hiding by the mutated creatures and the news articles that seem to be around throughout the world and in the beginning seem to suggest that as well.

Part 2: Joel’s Journey

Now I am not an American and a lot of places have names that I know nothing about. So I had to Google it, rehear it and figure it out. But Joel’s journey takes him to Jenner Beach, we know based on a sign post that he passes Fulton and is headed off towards Sonoma Coast State Park. Based on those signs I have a made a trajectory of about 85 miles and approximately located Joel’s colony.

I’ve also circled Fairfield here to indicate where he started out. Now as I said, this is guess work based on what the movie gave me from the sign post.

Sonoma Coast state Park (30 miles), Fulton (6 Miles)

And from what the characters in the movie have been saying; Jenner Beach. So yeah, it’s guess work and I might be a couple of miles off, but I like to think this gives a good perspective.

7 days seems to sort of check out though, considering the terrain is rough and hilly/mountainy, you’d constantly have to hide, and you’d need to sleep/forage. But you’d be walking pretty slow still. I think you could make the journey in 5-6 days as well on foot.

Part 3: Clyde and Minnow’s Journey

Now these two are far more difficult to figure out because we don’t know much about them. Wikipedia indicates Clyde is a survival expert, so that’s the official title that I went with as well. He says he had a son named Elliott and that he was in a colony with Elliot, Minnow, and Minnow’s dad. Minnow also indicates that their colony was in a subway station. They were mostly headed North.

I think the most likely candidates for their ‘home base’ were Sacremento, but then why did they cross Joel’s path and didn’t head for Yosemite/ Mt. Whitney if they wanted to go to the mountains?

Or another likely candidate was Richmond. Which is what I went with. This is more headcanony though. Only because they mentioned going to the North as opposed to going East, towards Mt. Whitney. Maybe Sacremento and it’s valley are a no-go zone? That would sense, large open spaces are probably where larger creatures reside.

Part 4: Headcanons

Okay this last section is purely headcanon material and not at based on facts. So please don’t shoot me. (Yes, you may copy the headcanons if you like, I don’t mind.)

Clyde is a survival expert, hunter, and doomsday prepper in the city. He used to lead rich tourist/people onto expeditions into the wilderness of California.

His son Elliott was a State Ranger in one of the local wildlife parks/reservations. He was also very gay,

Clyde is a simple but open minded man who loved his son/family. He really didn’t care his son was gay and supported him.

They lived just outside of Richmond.

Their neighbors was an Indian Transman (as in his ancestors were from India). This was Minnow’s father.

Minnow was one when the Apocalypse hit. (This is somewhat canon actually.)

Her father carried her and gave birth to her, getting a hysterectomy a few months after.

Her father was also a great archer and used to teach people how to use a bow and arrow. He was also a great horseback rider.

When the apocalypse hit they tried to sit it out in Clyde’s shelter but due to circumstance were forced to leave and eventually ended up in a colony in Richmond. Which operated from a subway station. 

Elliott and Minnow’s father fell in love and paired up, raising Minnow together. Clyde became her grandfather figure.

They stayed there for about 4-5 years until an attack decimated the colony, including Minnow’s father and Elliott.

Clyde and Minnow have been surviving out on there own ever since and were slowly traveling up North until they found Joel in a Sandgobblers hole.

Part 5: Creatures

We know the following about the categories of creatures:

Insects: Have terrible peripheral vision

Lizards: Can’t climb for shit

Amphibians: Like to hide and lure in their prey

Sandgobblers: Bad asses, find prey by sound and vibration, their queen is bad news and has a fin.

You can tell if a creature is kind by looking into its eyes.

Bouldersnails are friendly, sensitive, but can crush your ass in a heartbeat.

-

And that’s what I have so far. Feel free to reblog and add to it if you’ve found more or want to enter a counter to some of the things I’ve found.

[popculturebuffet]

Hickman’s X-Men One Year In: Part 2: The Dawn of X

And we’re onto part 2. Since it took me a while to talk about Hickman’s Series outside of Giant-Size and the setup here, that’s in part one if your curious, I split this little retrospective into two parts, with this part here talking about the rest of the books. This isn’t to say they aren’t great, many of them are, it was just easier to do this as a two parter so with HIckman himself out of the way how did his hand picked batch of talented writers handle the lofty status quo he set up?Find out under the cut. Pax Krakoa baby. 

Mauraders Okay just to get this out of the way this is my second faviorite x-book running, after X-Men itself and it often equals it and far and away the best tile of the run and restored my faith in Gerry Duggan.  Duggan is not a bad writer and I blame the messy finish of his otherwise awesome guardians run with infnity wars on marvel trying to cram other characters into it and then a weird mash up idea that while cool, kept the guardians out of their own damn event and from confrting a now mad gamora, but that and deadpool made me forget the guy is a good writer and can do great things. Maruaders however won me back to him with intrest.  A unique concept, the x-men as pirates helping ferry goods to krakoan allied states and ferry trapped mutants from hostile ones, is fucking awesome. The only thing missing is nightcrawler and it’s clear hickman has other plans, though I still feel he shoudl’ve been on the boat as he has both the relation to kitty pryde and pirate pedgree that fit in perfectly.  Speaking of kitty after years of writers misusing her due to having a crush on her as a kid and shoving her into half baked romances with peter quill and her ex peter rasptuin, the latter failing so badly that marvel pulled the plug on their wedding because fans clearly didn’t want it, and battling my own reluctance ot see her front and center again, Duggan makes good use of her again: Kitty is given the unique hook of the portals not working for her and no one, even her old friend Doug after he gets back, being able to figure out WHY. Though I do hope Doug does show up here and explain it more, as him being kitty’s best friend once is rarely brought up since he got back and it’s silly it hasn’t been. But rather than take this on the chin Kitty strikes up a crew consisting of big sister Storm, first class graduate x-man, badass gay and kitty’s friend and ex iceman, bishop who reluctantly joins as her bishop more on that in a second and the best of them by a mile: Pyro. The original, finally brought back and given some intresting backstory: he was the first mutant brought back and felt good about it..t ill he realized that despite sacrificing himself to save a, if your familiar with the various cartoons this will be baffling but trust me, reformed senator kelly as Pyro himself was dying from the legacy virus, only to find out they did him first because they considered him expendable basically and naturally was upset over that, drunk a bunch of the liquor kitty smuggled in, for logan naturally, and passed out and then joined in on the rescue mission that formed the team because why not and stayed because it was a great offer.  Speaking of offers with a new purpose, Kitty accepted her old enemy Emma Frost’s offer to be red queen, which includes a seat on krakoa’s council and was basically emma’s way of saying fuck you to her old cohort who she was forced to bring back on to handle the seedier side of Krakoa’s dealings via his underworld connections, sebastian shaw. Emma is the fincical  backbone of krakoa, having the shipping connections to get the flowers in and out and now having kitty to handle the stuff she can’t and do some of the shipping, as well as again tell Sebastian, who naturally wants both gone and is pissy at Emma being so far ahead of him, wants gone. And while he’s seemingly succeded with kitty I not only have every expectation that while ressuection is failing to work on her she’ll be back, but that trying to murder one of the most beloved x-men whose consdiered family to among others three of krakoa’s captains, bishop after this series, four of their council, five if you include Doug whose best friends with both his left arm which is also a deadly space robot and the very place they live on. The only reason he’s not going to die 80 times in increasingily horrifying ways is because the five can’t take on that kind of workload and one murderous ass beating from half of krakoa and krakoa itself is close enough. 

Emma is easily one of the books best parts, being written back as she should: An anti hero who while quick with a cutting quip, truly cares for her charges, and mutantkind as a whole and has grown from the monster she started as or even the kind of person who’d use a therapy session from a desperate man having issues opening up emotionally after apocalypse used his body as a rental car to convince him to fuck her.  And yes that’s how things started with Scott and Emma and yes it’s really fucked up and yes the story treats it as such, though I still wish Scott would get actual therapy, but as Linkara recently pointed out in his House of M Review the Marvel and DC universes weirdly lack therapists for the most part and thus it was left on my mind the last two weeks.. and yes I know DC tried but when your final product at trying to serious tackle mental health is heroes in crisis.. I award you no points and god have mercy on your soul.  But while Emma and Kitty get the lions share of the focus the rest of the group is enjoyable, well done and intresting, if not given many arcs to themselves, but still have enough character moments to counterballance that. The standout of the rest of the crew is easily Pyro, taken from “why is he still dead despite being super popular and used in a heavy role in X2 that’s garnered fans of that version to this day and bafflement he became a foot note in the next movie and used in every adaptation” to fun side character with a skull on his face and a love of booze and setting things on fire. He’s finally given the respect he deserves sorta and while I hope more is delved into his ressurection angst, he’s a ton of fun and it again makes me wonder why it took 20+ years to bring him back, but i’m glad the right person did it. The rest of the crew are fun with Bishop being another standout.  That being said part of the reason there isn’t a lot of focus is simply because in additoin to our brave crew the book is juggling a LOT of characters.. the morlocks and calisto, both given a proper treatment after wya too long, jumbo carnation a minor character from morrisons run who was introduced in the same issue he died is emma’s designer, shinobi shaw and christian frost, the latter I question why a main relative of one of marvel’s a-list mutants who was one of marvel’s earlier gay characters hasn’t been used in a big way till now but no time like the present, Sebastian and the people he shares his big bad spot with Homines Verde aka those tweens who ran the hellfire club during jason aaron’s run because the man is nuts and who I only seemd to liked, brillinatly revamped as a racist replacemnt for the hellfire club and so far a clever threat. The book is just stuffed iwth good characters, beautiful art, and a great tone that combines spectacular humor with really good story and worldbuilding. It’s also a nice contrast to hickman’s stuff: don’t get me wrong I love hickman’s writing style but it’s nice to have something JUST as good.. but with a cheerier tone and less weariness to it, while still not lacking weight. I can’t wait to see where this goes.. it’s a pirates life for me. 

Excalibur:  Like most of the dawn of X-Line outside of fallen angels, more on that in a minute and even then that had an intresting new directoin for betsy braddock, I was pumped for this one. A team I loved: While I struggled to find a run I loved with Claremont’s run having Brian Braddock be a raging dick whose terrible to his girlfriend and gets away with cheating on her and Claremont not really bothering to explain Saturnyne or other characters and their history with Brian well to us yanks who never had the chance to read those tales.. though why stories by alan moore and chris claremont haven’t been republished properly or in epic collections is beyond me. Warren Ellis, who I now loathe for being a scheming weasel who treated women like garbage, had a decent run with plenty of warlock, in a weird phase where he thought he was doug, Moira and Wolfsbane stuff I loved.. but also had 30-40 something pete wisdom shacking up with 18 year old at most kitty pryde, with Pete at the time being basically Warren Ellis badass self insert character, and given recent revelations i’m pretty sure he damn well knew kitty was just 18 and even if he didn’t having his own fanfic character deflower her is just all kinds of EWWWWWW. He also had Colossus, fresh of being a villian for a while for understandable reasons, nearly beat pete into a coma in a jealous rage over the ex.. the ex he dated while she was still a minor, and left because HE , and editorial, was uncomfortable with it for damn obvious reasons. I can see why fans like to see her as bisexual and pair her with Illiayna.. I mean why the fuck not? They have better chemistry than most of he hetrosexual intrests and are paried because of that and not because the writer wanted to make out iwth kitty as a teenager and forgot “oh yeah she’s fictional and i’m 40!”  Christ thank god for Gerry Duggan.  But yeah moving on from that I was still pumped as a magical x-men book with Besty Braddock now captain freaking britan, and apocalypse on the roster. And rictor and jubille? nad rouge and gambit I guess.. I don’t knokw if they fit but whatever. Sign me up. The actual result is a mixed back. I do like Tini Howard’s work here to a point: Betsy gets good character stuff and theres actually good tension from the fact that the new captain britan is no longer primarily a british ctizen, and the book brought back a character I felt marvel needed to do more with: Jamie. if you don’t know, Jamie is betsy and brian’s, her brother and the former captain britian, older brother who went insane due to his powers and thus just goes around in his underwear convinced reality isn’t real and he can do what he wants and the tension with Jamie refusing to have anything to do with his brother for no good reason is really good. Rictor and Apocalypse are likewise good sensable additons: Rictor turns out to be a natural to being a druid which is a nice twist and makes sense given when he lost his powers the biggest issue with that was loosing touch with earth after having a connection to it be a vital part of him for years. Apocalypse as an ominus chess master slowly securing magic for mutantkind with some goal we’re about to get answers to is really investing and adds a layer to his character, that much like doctor doom he’s as much sorecer as he is scinetest and given the guy’s immortal, it dosen’t feel like it was pulled out of nowhere.  The problem is the other half of the cast.. dosen’t really work. I fucking love Jubilee, a faviroite of mine as an xman despite not being a huge 90′s x-men cartoon fan, just feels kinda shoe horned in. Her son becomes a dragon and she worries about him constantly, but her worrying about her son possibly not being a mutant on mutant land could be done in any other x-book, and fraknly I feel her personality would fit better with the maruaders, and it’d be intresting to see kitty and her on the same team since both really haven’t interacted. Here she just feels like “well tini wanted jubilee and no one else did soooo I made her son a dragon to justify getting her”. I feel more could be done and hope Tini has better plans for her. Rouge is one of my faviorte x-men and All New X Factor and Kelly Thompsons work with him and Rouge made me like Gambit again, and I DO love their marriage and it was a way better idea than the one Guggenhiem had planned.. but while the idea of Rouge being reborn is intresting and all, she still dosen’t really get to do much and like Jubilee just feels weirldy out of place while Remy has that plus he’s annoying, as while he’s the only one rightfully supscious of apocalypse he also won’t shut the fuck up about it for five minutes. Ig et where he’s coming from  but it dosen’t make him less annoying. These aren’t bad characters, but sof ar they just feel weirdly out of place in a magic based book and unlike Rictor tini hasn’t made any of htem but Rouge feel in place. 

That being said I could ignore that more.. but the villians are also week. So far at least, as the return of Satyurne has given the book it’s first good antagonist.. but what I feel drags the book down the most from it’s potential is the bad guys; Morgan Le Fay is the first antaognist, being mad at apocalypse’s intrusions and corrputing Brian.. but her motives are just so boring: She wants power and to rule, she hates mutants... while “hates mutants” is a qualifier for every other antagonist so far, she just feels bland.. Tini just dosen’t make her feel like a good antagonist and it’s a shame as mutant hater or not she’s something DIFFRENT from the throngs of mutant hating conspiracies, mostly from russia in the other books... she’s just so bland it dosen’t work. And after her is Cullen Bloodstone who as far as I can tell is written out of character.. haven’t read his book but I had both a friend confirm it and having read his marvel wiki entry, it just seems like an odd turn to have him be a racist asshole. But even with all my problems and underwhelm here.. I still WANT the book to get from okay to amazing, and feel it genuinely has the potetial. I’ve seen books sharply improve after a rough first arc, Duggan himself showed me that with his Guardians run. Sometimes it just takes time for something to truly blossom and I have a feeling even with my issues, with x of swords coming up howard’s going to flip it all on it’s head and leave me standing there gasping like a moron. I have hope for that. And if nothing else the book is at least UNIQUE. And not in a trainwreck way: by giving mutants a piece of the magic pie and having them tackle far weirder threats, it’s at least doing something new and it probably lands for other people if not me, and if nothing else it does brian 80 times better than the claremont run did. not a high bar but I do like the character and it’s nice to see him take such an intresting path, and the same goes for Betsy. Tini’s still got magic to do, and I have a feeling it’s going to take me by storm very soon. 

Fallen Angels: Now for the other half of the coin as it were. Some fans weren’t happy about Betsy getting her old body back, and yes Psylocke wasn’t orignally asian but a white british woman bodyswapped iwth a japanese assasian and yes that’s as ludicrious and unteitonally offensive as it sounds, because horrible implications of said Body Swap or not, Psylocke was one of the few asian superheros of note. So to compromise , Hickman and co decided to split the diffrence: Betsy would come back and get a rank up to captain britan, while Kwannon, said assasian, would take over as Psylocke. Hence Excalibur above and fallen angels here and I was excited about it. The Body Swap thing went on a decade too long and this way fans got the character they knew as Psylocke in another book while the face they recognized would finally get some fleshing out. I was excited about that and while probably the least excited about this book of the intitial 5, it did have an intresting lead, two characters I did like (Kid Cable I grant was only under hickman who turned him from that brat version of cable who killed the one I really love to a good character in his own right), and an intresting antagonist in a sentient machine.  In practice it was okay. The best I can say is that writer Brian Hill DOES do a great job taking a mostly minor x-character and really fleshing her out and making her engaging and Kwannon’s quest to save her daughter is really compelling.. but the premise of those who don’t fit with krakoa dosen’t work with the roster given. Laura Kinney is not only sticking with the x-23 name after dropping the wolverine mantle for no reason previously, something Hickman fixed as soon as he realized how fans felt for her apperance in the main book, while Cable feels nothing like the far more fun version from Hickman’s X-Men and later Duggan’s Cable. Add in Husk and Bling who do deserve to be on a team but feel out of place here, and it just.. is okay. The book has an intresting angagonist and a great lead, but just dosen’t work as a team book and would’ve been better off being JUST about kwannon herself, who is far and away the best part about the book and i’m glad she got fleshed out. Not TERRIBLE but nothing special and it’s a shame given the antagonist, whose name I can’t even remember at this point, is intresting and ties into mutantkind’s greatest enmies being man and machine accoridng to house and powers.. basically a decent concep twith a flawed execution. Maybe hill’ sbatman and hte outisders run is better. I need to get on that. That being said the premise and idea is so far being done well in Hellions which we’ll get to, even if I’m being cautious really getting into the book with Zeb Wells track record. But more on that in a bit. 

X-Force: Time to make noise, bad guys leave us no choice.. you know the rest. But yeah X-force. The concept here grabbed me, having X-Force rather than just be the black ops squad but be literal black ops for krakoa, was really great and fit the brave new world.. what worried me was the writer, Benjamin Percy. Now a lot of x-fans probably knew him from the much beloved “Wolverine: The Long Night” podcast, which i’ve heard is utterly fantastic as is it’s followup.. but I hadn’t heard it, and had only heard of Percy from DC comics where under his belt was an okay teen titans run and a not very good and politcally unsubtle green arrow book. And i’m not against politics in comics it just wasn’t done at all well there and the “oliver queen looses hif ourture due to a shadowy conspiracy thing” was already done better by jeff lemire. So yeah I was going to give this a chance but figured like those books it’d start strong and then peter out.  I. Was. Wronnnnggg. X-Force is easily one of the best of the dawn of x and uses said premise well. It started a bit roughly, mostly becasue the first arc idnd’t make clear x-force didn’t exist yet but was a great origin story: a squad of military commandos working for a shadowy consirtum who become x-force’s big bad, plunge onto Krakoa and massacre a bunch of mutantas and assinate charles xavier. He comes back, though it’s trickier for obvious reasons, but it’s clear from this, and from wolverine and kid omega’s sucessful investigation and finding domino, that this can’t go on and thus X-Forces is formed; The intellegence and black ops arm of Krakoa and the one arm of it’s goverment exempt from the ��dont’ kill humans rule”. What followed was nearly a years worth of fast paced adventures with good character stuff: Wolverine is in his element, kid omega, while I had my doubts due to quinten being way overused , turned out to be a perfect choice basically being a more compitent teenage sterling archer, cocky and loving this but also really good at his job, while Domino gets a great arc dealing with her trauma over her mutalation and having some of her power stolen by the shadowy masked dickheads while Colossus deals with his trauma over what went down when he rescued some Russian mutants, with the book slowly building up new threats and towards a showdown with Russia, something that’s also been built up by conflicts in Wolverine and Mauraders, which again makes the world of x feel more like an actual world instead a bunch of comics in one cast herd.  Jean Grey is good for intellegence, though by now seems to have noped out as she couldn’t take the toll, it’s not for everyone and most notably after 5 or 6 years of being treated worse and worse and written worse and worse and becoming a bigger and bigger piece of shit Beast is FINALLY put in the right spot: his darker turns aren’t ignored but he’s back to being an actually intellegent hero as X-force’s director, still a bit greasy but now for good reason and without a god complex or some such bullshit and with a tiny bit of his humor back. Not much else to say really, X-Force is well paced, enjoyable and gritty, getting the spirit of the team at it’s best down right while doing something fresh with it. 

New Mutants (Ed Brisson) Last one, New Mutants is the odd duck of the dawn of x line in terms of how it was launched. Fallen Angels ended up being a mini series both due  to Hill being busy and it’s cast being needed elsewhere but will presmibly get a follow up later, but it’s not the ONLY mini series in the line with Fantastic four/x-men, the giant sized one shots and now Empyre: X-Men all debuting in wave 2. New Mutants however is the first book to change writers and said writer STARTED in the middle of hickman’s run, partly due to scheduling delays but even before that it was partly by design and those issues haven’t been collected yet, with hickman’s short run being collected first. So you have a run that builds off what Hickman started but with it’s own ideas that started insidei t and suprisingly it .. really works.  While I do think there are better books in the line Brisson’s new mutants is enjoyable, combining humor and character work. New Mutants focuses on the sextant, which was first brought up in hickman’s run, the series of habitats for younger mutants on krakoa that the new mutants look out for, and while the original new mutants are in space, Armor decides to try and bring some old friends in to join in paradise with the help of Glob Herman, that big pink guy with a visable skeleton and eyes, and Maxine and Manon, who in the tradition of layla miller were created for an event and not great htere but turned out amazing under the right writer.. who I think also wrote that event but whatever, a pair of empaths and telepaths who have trouble grasping the right ethics for using their powers.  The four go to get one of my faviorite x-men back: BEAK! I missed him even if he’s weirdly suddenly repowered. Beak and his wife Angel only haven’t joiend in with their kids because his dad’s sick, and things soon escalate when a bunch of criminals try holding them all hostage and it’s up to boom boom, bored since everyone left her alone, to save the day! After that we deal with Magik rangling them and the team’s new mission statment: not wanting ot mess up again like she did with beak, who did join them but not without loosing his dad and then his memory of his dad thanks to the twins misguided efforts, Armor still wants to try welcoming new mutants in with the vetrans help, and thus we have our puprose: focusing both on how these younger mutant 20 somethigns of various ages from early to late work together to make a better world nad help their own get back to this world. it’s intresting.. I’m not in love with it like mauraders or x-force, but it’s still pretty good and their first big foe so far, DoX, a blog that well.. doxes mutants that haven’t arrived yet, seems to be intresting. Not much to say just pretty good and and better at mixing comedy and character stuff, and getting the cast right. Ed Brisson had already proven himself on old man logan, but this cements him as one of the hottest new x-writers around and i’m glad he was given a book here. He’s also succeded in making me actually like Glob Herman so that’s a plus. 

Fantastic Four/X-Men The first title of wave 2 and easily one of the best, right up there with mauraders nad probably JUSST behind it and ONLY because i’ts a mini series, giving the X-Men their first real step into the rest of hte marvel universe. Sure the 4 had cameoed in the first issue and there’s been mentions of krakoa in other books and one off issues but mostly Krakoa really hadn’t impacted anything.. but that first issue also set things up with Scott’s conversation with Sue Richards

Yeah and in case those who haven’t been aware of what’s going on with the FF lately and either remember franklin as a 6-11 year old or wondered why the hell he was suddenly a teen when they read this crossover, it’s actually simple; At the end of secret wars the Richards family was put on a bus, also so marvel could shove the ff as a proper team out the door due to the whole fox rights thing, and when Dan Slott had brought them back.. and cleverly had more time pass for the richards than for the 616 proper, so he could age Franklin up to his late teens and Valeria up to her early ones, allowing the richards children to actually age since Franklin’s age always had to stay vauge due to marvel’s vage and wobbly time scale. This way they get both consitant ages and more agency.  But the return also came with a price as Franklin, who if you didn’t know is so powerful he can create whole universe and shape the sturcture of the universe, had his powers break saving his family, and thus since he came back, he’s onlyg got so much of them left in the tank before they run out entirely, and it’s been an issue for him in Slott’s run as he worries about being the normal human in a fantastic family and comes to a head here, though rather than Hickman himself, who as mentioned last time has a marvelous track record with the family or FF series writer dan slott Hickman choose a wild card for this, though had both Hickman and Slott’s permission to do whatever he wanted: Chip Zdarsky, a modern marvel for marvel who’d writtne the four in marvel two in one but for some reason didn’t get the main book and this book makes me hope whenever Dan Slott bows out he gets his turn and while this is his first x-men work, Zdarsky proves he’s just as good here as is in most of his work on Howard the Duck, Jughead and Star Lord.. a weird selection I know but all classics. 

With this power outage, Franklin is worried his dad is, at least subconciously, not really trying to help him and to make matters worse teh x-men show up to offer their help.. and Franklin his birthright. The arguments made by both sides are great and I will be covering the series in full soon but in a nutshell the four dont’ want to give up their son/nephew, Reed dosen’t trust Xavier and feels he wants to use his son’s powers while the x-men feel it’s franlin’s choice and he’s old enough to make it, he belongs with them and he’ll be safer there. It also works because Franklin understandably isn’t swayed by either as neither is reallyt alking to him more at him, especially his parents .. and only tries the gate when Kitty Pryde, the two  bonded back in the 80s and a young franklin stopped her from comitting suicide long story but really moving, is the only one to tell him it’s his choice. This dosen’t go quite well though since Reed Richards, father of the year, decided to make a device to mask his son’s mutant gene and no one, including his own family, is happy about htis.  Naturally Franklin, with Val’s help, runs away.. and then as if it couldn’t get worse DOOM shows up wanting to help so now it’s a three way dance between them for hte fate of franklin. The series has gorgeous art form the dodsons a really damn compelling story and great setup for further stories for both lines and feels like the best of both franchises. It’s the x-men’s first huge impact on the rest of the marvel universe,a nd it feels like it with the ending showing that and showing this might not be the last time both sides crossover. It’s everything you could want from a crossover and i’m only being so brief because I want to review it soon as a huge fan of both groups. Easily one of the best x-men stories of the line and one of the best stories for both groups period. 

Wolverine:  We’re onto the final two, and Percy’s second book and the first solo.. and it’s logan again! Makes sense though: Wolverine only just came back from the dead, and while both is daughter and alternate future self carried the woverline banner for him, the original hasn’t gotten his own ongoing in some time. And so far.. it’s pretty good> the first issues a bit messy due to it’s lenght, but overall the book is intresting and has Logan graple with being the best at waht he does and if he can be better or if he deserves paradise while also delivering a compelling solo mission teaming Wolverine up with a federal agent who resents mutants. it also does some good world building, explaning why Krakoan drugs have things like wait lists (they want to control production closely both to avoid having the flower taken away and for quality control), and expanding the russia subplot while using Dracula of all people as a major antagonist, which is clever especailly since this isn’t his first rodeo with the x-men. Just a fun book wiht loads of promise.

Hellions: NOt much to say here as it’s hard to judge after two issues, buti f nothing else this series brought back the delightfully batshit Nanny, who just with last weeks issue offered to nurse Greycrow (who had his name changed from scalphunter because of course marvel did why wouldn’t they) and falling down. It combines humor with an odd but well thought out cast and makes Alex Summers intresting without making everyone else assholes, a hard but earned feet. If it continues to be good.. I dunno, especially since i haven’t been impressed by any of zeb wells other works especially his new mutants run, good god that one’s am ess, but so far he’s winning me over with a clever concept and roster full of deep cuts.  Final Thoughts:  I won’t be covering Empyre: X_men, though I did enjoy it and i’l save that one for next time. For now this has been a hell of a year of x-men comics, with even the weaker books still having something intresting and none being outright terribule and only one had a bad grasp on some of it’s cast and for a line this big and expansive, that’s a gold medal achivment. After YEARS of stasis the x-men have finally risen again better, bolder and stranger than ever. IS every book A+ gold star etc etc, no, but what’s important.. is that it’s all DECENT. There’s enough standout books to make it work but as i’ve made clear what isn’t the best of the best is still good or decent. There’s nothing bad, no one phoning it in or not giving an effort, everyone is trying thier hardest and succeding on SOME level even if not completely and that.. that’s truly amazing and I look forward to more of it as this line continues. Pax Krakoa and hopefully i’ll see you again. 

[munchflix]

WATCHMEN - THE SUPER EXTENDED CUT

IMDB BLURB: In 1985 where former superheroes exist, the murder of a colleague sends active vigilante Rorschach into his own sprawling investigation, uncovering something that could completely change the course of history as we know it.

WARNINGS: Giant blue peen, large bepis. It's blue. Malin Ackerman can't act for shit. Attempted rape. Lots of murder. Some gore. Adult themes? Zack Snyder. Repulsive sex scene. It's not gross, it's just weird and uncomfortable. And unnecessarily long.

RATING: Who watches the Watchmen? Us...unfortunately.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: All reviews are done solely for humor and should not be taken seriously ever. If you cannot handle cursing, crude humor and probably some offensive things, pls do not read this. And please please don’t watch this fucking movie.

MUNCH: I want you to know, first thing, that I will never forgive you for making me watch this for a THIRD TIME. I first saw this in the theatre on my birthday and it was awful then. I spent three hours waiting for it to get better and it didn't and now you're making us watch the super extended version with 30 more minutes of shit I DON'T WANT TO SEE. I am old and I was a fan of the comic long before this detritus was filmed. I was actually excited for this shit. This movie, like a lot of the movies we review once a year, is bad. It's pretty, it's well filmed, it has a brilliant cast, and it sucks like a Dyson trying to fellate a rubber chicken.

BISCUITS: Okay...I'm gonna be upfront about this. We're gonna have to be here for each other during this review. We need to BELIEVE in ourselves, and to share our mental fortitude. That might be the only way we'll be strong enough to make it through. Even then, there's no guarantee we'll make it...but if we do, we'll emerge from the other side as changed women, now knowing the true power that the bond of friendship can hold. Or not. Actually, we'll probably just end up sad. But the point is, we need to be here for each other.

M: The Nixon makeup is so bad. All this budget and he looks like a half melted wax statue.

These are the Nixons, folks.

B: Jeffrey Dean Morgan in old age makeup? I'd still smash that. The DOOMSDAY CLOCK! That's a reference to the comic! Get it?! We're JUST like the comic!

M: That's part of what bugs me, there's so many moments just taken straight out of the comic and then the rest of it is just Zack Snyder mentally masturbating about how cool he is.

B: Let me tell you younguns - long before the days of Suicide Squad and Batman V. Superman, Zack Snyder created the first of many tragic mistakes in the saga of "DC and Warner Bros. Attempt to Movie". It was dark, overdramatic, and had little substance behind its superficially good visuals. But Warner Bros. were all like "OMG Zach, look at all this money. Can you fuck ALL our beloved properties like this???"

M: Nostaaaaaalgia.

B: Okay, Unforgettable - this song was in the comic, it was in the book. It was playing in a scene in the comic but it was when Dan and Laurie tried to have sex for the first time. I don't understand the rationale behind using a song from the comic but putting it in a completely different scene. Why did you make that change? I don't understand why you would do that.

M: Watchmen in a nutshell. JESUS CHRIST I forgot that the explosions come in about 30 times louder than everything else.

B: Why is the Comedian wearing a smiley face pin on his bathrobe? Because of the symbolism??? Nostalgia. This is from the coooooooooomic. This is the first instance of inappropriate soundtracking, which is alright the first time but gets annoying when you do it over and over.

M: I have no idea. Oh yeah..the movie. The Comedian is fighting a mysterious figure that we'll figure out who it is later. Unless you've read the comic. It's Veidt. Slow zoom on the pin with the blood spatter because it's SYMBOLISM. Also the Comedian got thrown out a window. There's also been half an hour of slow mo and we're only 5 minutes into the movie.

B: *burps loudly* Bob Dylan, because there was a reference to a Bob Dylan song in the comic. Slow shots of our great heroes, The Minutemen. Zacc Snyder, fuck you. These were the original super hero dudes who spawned the existence of all the other masked vigilantes in this universe.

M: Gerard Butler??? Who the fuck is Gerard Butler?? Hang on, I have to look this up. Oh...he's in the Tales of the Black Freighter, which is only in this super-long ultra-extended edition.

This gif makes it look like Gerard Butler is playing Sally Jupiter. This is not the case (unfortunately?).

B: Which we're watching because we hate ourselves. Historical landmarks to set up the time period. Also Silhouette was a lesbian. Dollar Bill got killed when his cape got stuck in a revolving door. NO CAPES! Mothman went nuts and got put in an asylum. The minutemen turned out fine. Also Silhouette is dead. And Gay.

M: Bury your gays. She was only alive for two minutes of credits.

B: To be fair, she didn’t really have a role in the book either. Also, Kennedy is killed. By the Comedian. Which I suppose was implied in the comic...very vaguely. This is way too much exposition. We can read about history, we don't need a recap of every single event since 1940. We aren't that dumb, Zakk. There's more politics in this intro than exposition but Watchmen was supposed to be political. I have big problems with Matthew Goode....goode? How is that pronounced? Look at all that BEEF tho. Arby’s, I got ya new commercial right here.

I’ll take the one on the far left with cheese, please.

M: Slow the fuck down, jesus. I can't type as fast as you thirst. I'm gonna make you type this if you don't slow down.

B: Glad I'm not wearing a retainer. You think Jeffrey Dean Morgan would pay for it? Also Night Owl's costume looks so shitty.

M: Seriously, slow down. I have issues with how contoured Manhattan is.

B: And then everything went bad for the vigilantes and they got banned. This is SO LOUD. Tell Zaque Snyder I get spooked easily. I don’t like loud noises, I’m like a wild animal.

M: Oh yeah so the Comedian is dead. Two detectives wonder how he died. So mysterious. It was Veidt. Don't blame me if you didn't read the comic, it's been out for 30 fucking years.

B: My other issue with this movie, it doesn't ADD anything to it's source material. If I wanted just Watchmen I'd just read the comic. I could read most or all of it in the time it takes to watch this movie. So...Rorschach is ranting.

M: That's all he really does in this movie tho is rant.

B: All the towns in the world and I had to end up in this one. The ballsack town. Comedian kept a picture of Sally by his bed but that's backwards...she kept a picture of HIM on her bedside.

M: Rorschach found Comedian's secret closet where he went to be gay. Or a superhero. Or both. So he knows he's the Comedian.

B: Well, one or two of them were gay...a bunch of guys who wear their underwear outside their pants and this is somehow surprising? More slow mo.

M: This movie could be an hour and half shorter without all the pointless slo mo. Hollis is being played by Stephen McHattie and I love him so much.

B: Patrick Wilson (you can tell it’s Patrick Wilson because he looks exactly like Patrick Wilson) is playing Night Owl and he is a very good boy. The best boy. Although he doesn't have much competition for goodest boy, most of the boys are pretty bad. Hollis Mason is played up to be more Drunk Grandpa than caring mentor figure. Raw footage of Rorschach looking like FUCKING BIGFOOT. Your local cryptid.

*X-Files theme plays*

M: That was 20 seconds of super important extra footage that we missed from the original 3 hour long movie. Okay so movie, right. Drieberg goes home to find his home has been broken into. It's Rorschach. Eating beans. HUMAN BEANS. With HUMAN BEAN JUICE. We saw you lumbering around like Bigfoot on the news. Rorschach's mask is cool tho. One point for you, Zackk Snyder.

B: Rorschach, because he's a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist is like " I think someone's killing masks" even tho only one mask person has died so far. Patrick Wilson is a good actor but his performance in this movie is so blech. I dunno if that was the direction he was given or...

M: Part two of things wrong with Watchmen. Lots of good actors giving boring performances. I love many of these actors but they're so dull.

B: Except Malin Ackerman. It was an experimental time, Chad! All of our Bro Moments. Our BROMENTS.

M: WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU, CHAD?!

B: Maybe Drieberg quit on account of the Keene act because it started being illegal to do the thing, but Rorschach didn't because he’s crazy. And he's doing more edgelord monologuing.

M: Holy crap the animation.

B: And now with NO CONTEXT we get launched into the Tales of the Black Freighter. It's an anime, apparently. (makes angry angry noises ) this makes me SO mad because the Black Freighter, though a story within a story, had an explanation for its presence. It's being read by someone within the bigger story. In the movie it almost looks like it was animated by Ralph Bakshi. Like the people who did Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Ralph Bakshi had a bad trip together.

This is what I see, every night in my dreams.

M:  I guess this is being narrated by Gerard Butler?? This is so out of place. It takes you completely out of the immersion of the movie to show you this movie. That was super jarring though.

B: The comic had a lot more leeway when it came to blending the stories together. Oh and now we get a shot of someone reading the comic to bring us back. Rorschach in the comic was described as being fascinatingly ugly. I think Jackie Earl Haley is too good looking.

M: And Veidt. I hate everything they did with this entire fucking character. I hate the way he looks, the way he talks, the way he acts, the way he Veidts. I fucking hate him so much. I hate what they did with his story and the whole Manhattan cancer thing. It's DUMB.

B: Why is Dan here? It was Rorschach who warned Adrian. And they're talking about nuclear war, very important to the crux of everything. This lighting is ugly. It makes Veidt look like a greasy boy.

M: He IS a greasy boy.

B: Meeting with Dreiberg left bad taste in mouth. Like cold beans.

M: Rorschach is expositioning everything we've already seen, dialogue straight out of the comic.

B: Rorschach breaks in to see Manhattan. Rorschach asks the real questions: Does Adrian Veidt is gay??

M: That is a HUGE ASS. Btw Manhattan is naked. He is super naked. You will never be allowed to forget that he is naked.

B: Malin Ackerman shows up...to “act”.... The mention temporal interference already, so you won't be surprised at the end of the movie. They really overemphasize Manhattan's eye things. He looks like a sad panda. I have issues with his CGI, he is really over contoured and he looks really...weird....Laurie...stop talking. PLease. Don't act, don't try to act.

Pictured: Sad Panda

M: Now he's taking Laurie on some fucking weird time trip that was supposed to happen three hours from now in the story. Manhattan is just sad in this movie. All his rage and his indifference are gone. He's just sad. He tells her the future and he's sad about it. And now, 99 Luftballoons so we don't forget it's the 80's.

B: This wasn't how this happened in the comic EITHER. Zacque Snyder and his love of throwing random songs into movies with no regard for how they might impact the mood.

M: So Lori is having dinner with Dreiberg just like Jon told her too. I'm giving up on spelling any names right as of right now.

B: They reminisce about their young days when they fought crime and dressed up like lunatics and all that stuff. Ah those days are behind us. We're in our 40's but in the movie we're like 25. Jon thinks there's gonna be nuclear war and also he can't fix my bad acting. They turned Laurie into such a sexy lamp in this movie. They strip everything away from her that made her interesting. I am laurie, I am GIRL. Who needs oxygen when you have another man's money.

You so. Fuckin. Precious. When you. Smile.

M: The Sound of Silence begins playing. We both laugh and denounce Zaeck Snyder and the horse he rode in on.

B: Should have been Take me to Church. I didn't realize how awful the soundtracking was in this movie the first time. They just throw in recognizable songs.

M: Comedian is getting buried. Rorschach is here and Manhattan and Dreiberg. And Simon and Garfunkle. It's not making this scene better. It's making it so much worse. Lori has been randomly teleported to her mothers with zero context. Her mother is Carla Gugino who deserves better than being in this fucking movie. They quote dialogue right from the comic. Did Zaquery Snyder write ANY dialogue for this movie? Her old age makeup is fucking awful and she is overacting this so hard.

B: And then we have the flashback to old days where the Comedian tries to rape her. The entire purpose of this flashback in one sentence. That's the plot point. From the comic. That we need to get into the movie somehow. I suppose they're going for show don't tell. At the moment i'm just focused on how it extends this torturous experience.

M: I have a lot of issues with this part. He beats her far more severely in the movie. They start the scene almost making it look like she did ask for it with all the slow undressing. It's so fucking unnecessary.

B: And then Hooded Justice comes in and this doesn't make sense in the movie when Comedian asks him if he gets off on this. But since they don't get into this in the movie...I think they're just trying to get us to go OH THE COMEDIAN IS A BAD GUY, HE'S SUCH A BAD GUY. We can get that. Why does everything in this movie take so long?

M: Everyone is having flashbacks to their time with Eddie. Manhattan is blowing up the entirety of the viet cong while the Comedian shoots people and Ride of the Valkyries is playing for no reason.

In awe at the size of this lad.

B: NEXT TIME YOU INVITE JON.

M: And then we get the Comedian is a horrible person but AGAIN because he's gonna shoot this woman he knocked up and Jon doesn't stop him. Jon is so fucking ripped that even fuzzed out in the background you can see every muscle.

B: They tell the story of how Eddie got his scar even though he doesn't...have it in the movie? Yeah I killed that woman I knocked up but you didn't stop me because you don't care and well...you're not wrong.

M: And now Veidt gets to have HIS flashback so we can be sure that the Comedian really was an asshole. The Comedian informs everyone that their plan is garb while Jon and Laurel Ann make goo goo eyes at each other which will become relevant an hour ago because they're obviously a couple NOW. He sets Ozymandias’ (Veidt's) map on fire to emphasize his point.

B: Ozymandias will remember that. Watchmen would make a great Telltale game. And Dan has his American Dream flashback where the Comedian is helping with crowd control and we don't care what's going on because the Comedian looks DAMN HOT. In slow mo.

M: Biscuit's thirst meter has increased tenfold.

B: What happened to the American Dream? You're looking at it. Just as beefy and greasy as I imagined it. He had a really nice arm vein going on in that scene. I have a gif of that for uh...research purposes. Very swole.

Pictured: The American Dream

M: I just realized that I don't really thirst after anyone in this movie. The comedian is hot because Jeffrey Dean Morgan but my thirst level is so low comparatively. The only main chick is Malin Ackerman and uh...no.

B: You're getting gayer the older you get.

M: I can't even deny that.

B: Moloch! He's a former supervillian of sorts and Rorschach is chasing him down because uh...I don't know. He just shows up and is like Hey fuck you buddy.

M: I still want an explanation for why Moloch alone has pointed ears. Nobody else in the entire movie has that kind of deformity.

B: And he's like The Comedian just showed up in my house! He was drunk and crying! We've all been there. We've all broken into our former nemesis's house drunk and crying. Maybe that's just me...

M: Except that's what really happened....

B: And the Comedian is like - I did some fucked up shit but this is worse! The shit this unnamed bad guy is doing worse! And he says that Moloch and Manhattan’s old girlfriend are on some mysterious list!

M: It's Veidt. Rorschach tries to nail Moloch for taking a medication made from apricot pits. Which are POISONOUS BTW, DO NOT EAT THEM. Rorschach spends fucking ten more minutes slow mo fucking monologuing about shit we already know and JUST SAW. There's so much extra shit in this movie that does not need to be here. He sounds like fucking Wolverine. Is that Hollis?

B: I can't even tell because this movie is SO DARK. We get a feeble attempt to connect newspaper man and the animated comic.

M: At least it's less jarring. Comic man drools excessively for no reason. They're even leaving bits of THIS story out and making it even weirder and more disparate than it needs to be. Fucking why.

The nightmares, they never stop.

M: Okay Jesus they went from that straight to Loorie and Jon trying to have sexxors and this is so wrong and out of place. And then Jon is six people.

B: god. jon. stop. what are u doing? I took a theatre class in high school and all those kids were better actors than Malin Ackerman. Which is bad because Laurie is an integral character in Watchmen. This happened way earlier and this is why she ran away to Dan in the comic, but it's fine. It's fine. Whatever. I don't care. She gets mad but not really because acting.

M: Jon underacts but that's his entire thing. This is so disjointed. Jon is teleporting reactors to Karnak while they argue. This will be relevant later.

B: Three bepis, no FOUR! Too much bepis for my needs. Or not enough...

M: Jesus Christ.

B: And NOW laurie shows up at dan's place. We needed to drag this out because we were REALLY stretching to get this movie to feature length, y’know?? We were really scraping at the bottom of the Watchmen barrel for content. There's just not enough material to get a good long juicy film out of it.

M: Can we just skip this whole part? I'll summarize. Laurie and Dan spend half an hour whining at each other because Laurie and Jon had a fight and they kinda wanna bang but that will take three hours to get to as well for no good goddamn reason. Meanwhile Jon is putting on a suit to do a tv interview.

B: There's a lot of scenes of Dan and Laurie but there's no chemistry at all between them and there's no buildup to their actual relationship. Even Dan is so nothing in this movie and I liked him. And there's an article from the comic because this is JUST LIKE THE COMIC.

M: Why are they...oh they're going to Hollis...but this isn't how it happened. They literally make this longer for no reason.

B: I know it would be really hard to cut anything from Watchmen, because pretty much everything is significant - there's no material that can really be removed that wouldn’t be missed in the final product. BUUUT they just added a whole ton of meaningless shit to this damn movie! At the expense of scenes we actually wanted! Dr Manhattan has his tv interview. This is not gonna go well. Everyone is like wtf are you talking about Jon. Dan and Lori beat up a bunch of thugs because uh...they're living for thrills?

M: Some reporter dude stands up and starts shit with Manhattan. He accuses him of giving everyone cancer. I'm sorry I caused all that cancer. You'd think Jon would KNOW whether or not he caused cancer...he was a fucking physicist.

B: Jon doesn't know whether or not he's radioactive. Spoiler alert: he ain't. He's just had his intrinsic fields removed - really simple procedure, like taking out the appendix.

M: *cronches pizza rolls*

B: A lot less screen time for Janey Slater in the movie, too. She's like "PRETTY PATTIES TURNED MY FACE PURPLE!!!" and then Doc Manhattan teleports everyone out of the studio because he's very emotional rn. That makes...one person in this movie with intense emotions.

M: You're right there...nobody in this movie really shows much in the way of emotion. Everyone's just sorta like "well, the world's going to shit - huh." I REALLY don't like the way they incorporated Tales of the Black Freighter into this movie.

B: Idec what's happening in this stupid anime. Man wants to get home before the freighter. Builds raft out of bloated corpses. Freaky eyes. It's supposed to parallel various elements of the 'real world' storylines but it's so jarring that drawing those connections becomes nigh on impossible. In the comic, panels from TotBF were often right alongside panels from the main story, but you couldn't really do something like that in a movie. They also still don't really do anything with the newspaper corner bits.

M: Did they actually show Dr. Manhattan leaving Earth?

B: No. Not yet.

M: So they just throw us into this scenario?

B: Yep. Dr. Manhattan got ANGERY and was like "y'know what? I'm going to Mars to deliver some exposition!! Way later than this happened in the comic, but who gives a flying fuck??" And we sorta get the explanation of the way Jon perceives time - but again, much less effective than it was in the comic. Everything in this movie is so DARK. 'Dark and gritty' doesn't usually refer to the visuals of a story.

M: Jon got stuck in an experimental machine where they were doing SCIENCE. He got disintegrated.

B: Just look at the SYMBOLISM...I mean, uh, the time. Jon's narration sounds like ASMR. He eventually manages to reassemble himself, but now he's blue....and nAkEd.

M: This giant naked blue dude shows up and Janey is just like "Jon?? Is that you??"

B: Jon is super-powerful, so the govt lords him as a weapon and uses him to help end the Vietnam war, and a lot of references to nuclear power.

M: I know his symbol is supposed to be a hydrogen atom, but it kinda looks like the power button on an Xbox.

Particle man, particle man...

B: This movie feels significantly gorier than the comic...which is not necessary. Janey is worried about how powerful Jon is - or she just wants him to put some fuckin' pants on.

M: Speaking of things that take you out of the movie - Jon's ENTIRE backstory in one flashback. Worked in the comic, not in the movie.

B: Jon macks on a 16 year old girl and is like - why is this a problem? My girlfriend is getting old, I gotta get a new one. Also I'm tired of earth. Going to mars.

M: We literally zoom out from Jon's ass crack.

B: There is no reason to put a physical or cgi camera that close to anyone's ass crack.

M: Jon has fucked off and now they're interrogating Laurie about where he went. She randomly assaults one of them because she can? Why are we having this slo mo smoking moment? And now another flashback to the Comedian... oh right, we have to have Laurie's version of why this guy was a douchebag.

B: Eddie's like, you think I'd fuck my daughter? And Sally is like - yah you might.

M: The gubmint is freaking out because their giant blue naked nuclear weapon has gone to Mars. I hate the Nixon makeup so much. He looks so fake. They wasted their budget on Manhattan's cock. I can't believe we still have 2 hours of this shit left.

B: (separate tangent about her cat) I'd rather focus on my cat than this movie. Why is this scene happening? Why is it significant? Is it supposed to increase the tension with the whole nuclear war thing??

M: I don't know. Why is it going on for so long? They figured out he's on mars because there's a blue spot? Uh...Laurie is beating up a guy and chaining him to a radiator? What....What did that have to do with ANYTHING? The gubmint is now attacking Veidt for trying to create free energy...?

B: This scene is just for Ozymandias to explain his backstory...I guess??

M: I honestly have no idea what's going on.

B: It's supposed to parallel the scene in the comic where he talks about Alexander the Great and stuff...

M: This happened at the END of the comic tho.

B: But here it's just...confusing. The choices they made just generally leave you feeling confused. Not like the comic did. It's ‘Vight’. I'm right.

Adrian Veidt is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago.

M: Oh and now the scene where a hitman shows up disguised as a pizza guy so we can slow mo more totally excessive gore.

B: There was plenty of violence in the comic but...you can be dark and edgy without being this damn gory. Dan and Laurie have yet another meaningless conversation at a table and now Dan is suddenly on board with Rorshach's paranoia??

M: And Dan invites her to come over but in the comic she literally ran to him immediately after Jon left. Jesus now Rorshach is fucking monologuing again. They're fucking with the order of events again and it's pissing me off.

B: They don't seem to do it with any rhyme or reason. You have to make changes to adapt to a medium but there's zero apparent reason for the changes in chronology...

M: Rorschach breaks into Moloch's house so he can get caught again. Why the fuck would Moloch know about any of this??

B: But Moloch is dead. It was a SET UP.

M: I'm losing all plot cohesiveness because of all this nonsense. I can't remember what actually happened. Ten minutes of Rorshach slow mo fighting his way out but he's gonna get caught because Veidt organized all this but they don't tell you that in the movie because of reasons.

B: We're not explaining a lot of the plot because it's happening so slowly. They caught Rorschach. They takin' im to prison.

M: Rorschach don't care. He got shit to do. And now maybe back to the animation...? Yes.

B: They do like 1/16th of this shit with the newstand corner. They should have just not at all done it. They just seem like framing to put the Black Freighter in there.

M: Except they don't do it every time, and that makes it worse. And they made weird ass changes to this story too. It's supposed to parallel what's happening in the main story but it's making NO SENSE.

B: This also adds nothing to the story and it breaks the immersion.

M: It mostly seems like an excuse to be gross. And now for Rorschach's mental health evaluation.

B: He's psycho bonkers crazy. Part of the concept of Watchmen is that everyone has issues. The complex psychology.

Look inside your local garbage and you may find a friend and boy.

M: Aw who cares about that. Let's shoot off some more fingers! We get his entire backstory in very very short flashbacks. He's still nuts.

B: This was over the course of quite a while in the comic.

M: Yeah but suddenly we're pressed for time in the seven hour long movie so we gotta condense his entire story into a ten minute scene. Which makes this feel rushed, which is fucking weird considering how drawn out every fucking thing in this movie is.

B: The comic felt like a bunch of stories being told at once but all tying in together at a certain point. Convergent stories The movie feels like a bunch of different stories that happen and then they're over. They're not tying anything together. (Biscuits starts singing Linkin Park because this part is so fucking dark)

M: So he's telling this story about how he killed a guy for kidnapping a girl and Biscuits is looking up the name of that song because she can't remember what it's called and still singing.

B: It's called Shadow of the Day...it’s like the one Linkin Park song I know

M: Okay. And Rorschach is gonna....kill this guy with a hatchet???

B: That is NOT how that happened. He tied him up and set that house on fire. But now he's gonna hit that guy in the head 20 times. And now he's Rorschach. There is no Laura, only Zuul.

M: ...Dana!!

B: Oh...Dana....is that from...

M: Ghostbusters!

B: I didn't wanna say it and have you be like - No it's from the Exorcist!

M: That would have been pretty funny in the exorcist. There is no Pazuzu, only Zuul.

B: Rorschach delivers the iconic line - I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me. The angrier he gets the more gravelly his voice gets. Meanwhile back at the ranch...Lori looks at Dan's shit.

M: You gotta be more specific. In this movie it might be actual shit. She's looking at this ship.

B: He's got some cool etchings, and a stamp collection. She sets things on fire. In the comic she thought it was the cigarette lighter. That's not how you put out a fire.

Laurie is an expert firefighter.

M: She doesn't have any brains.

B: She's an animatronic being controlled offscreen. Everything is so bland in this movie. We really aren't given any reasons to connect with Dan and Laurie.

M: This scene isn't helping either. It's boring and we don't care what's happening because we don't fucking care about Dan and Looooooorie. I can't think of a couple with less chemistry than these two.

B: Do you know what this means??

M: Yes.

B: We're getting close to the sex scene. It's like a case study in how not to do a sex scene in a movie. It's like the most awkward horrible thing that can be done. These scenes were in the comic, but not like this.

M: They're not gonna bang right now anyway because Dan can't get it up because uh...Adrian isn't doing gymnastics in the background and Unforgettable isn't playing.

B: Patrick Wilson's titty.

M: Did we really need to...

B: It's okay. Patrick Wilson is reasonably attractive. I would give those titties a six. Maybe a seven. Compared to having to see Malin Ackerman's tits, I would give them an 11. They're better than Manhattan's tits, which are cgen and disgustingly hyperdetailed.

M: BACK TO RORSCHACH. Who is being threatened by a little person named Big Figure because that's fucking funny. I guess. But it's also canon. And now Dan's dreaming but there's no actual meaning here because they do it wrong.

B: It really would have been better to put that in there after Dan and Laurie stop trying to bang instead of going to Rorschach?

M: And then IMMEDIATELY back to the animated parts with NO warning.

B: That was the worst editing I've ever seen. Sharks are eating the corpse boat.

M: I'm so confused. How did that shark get back up into the boat thing....

B: Who the fuck cares anymore.

M: Back to reality?? Snoop Dogg threatens the comic reading man because uh...

B: Snap back to reality...OH there goes gravity...something about spaghetti. And now back to Dan who is staring naked at his suit. There's too many behinds in this movie.

M: Are you gonna rate it?

B: I like plenty of naked behinds in other contexts.

M: I'm not even gonna ask.

B: Dreiberg is pretty ripped for being supposedly flabby and old. Laurrrrrie decides they should go fight crime.

Unfortunately, Malin Akerman.

M: Night Owl's costume is so bad. Like Ozymandias’ costume and...most of the costumes.

B: Laurie's costume is mostly see through because she can't fight crime if she's not sexy. We don't get any explanation of Dan's bird love in the movie. He's a good bird boy. That's a tongue twister.

M: They're saving people from a fire. I kinda want to go take a nap.

B: Why is he shooting into the burning building???

M: I don't know! Oh it's a water tower.

B: I thought he was just shooting up a burning building.

M: I'm sorry but she would be DEAD from that backdraft. There is no way. So now they gotta drop people off so they can bang in the owlship. Which I don't wanna see. SKIP.

B: This isn't how this happened in the comic at all.

M: Back to Rorschach again. They don't do the whole language pun thing which was so fucking cool in the comic. Big Figure. Small world. Why is all Rorschach's shit cut out??? Don't tell me they didn't have time. They see one dead guy and they know Rorschach is alive?

B: Professional dead guy appraiser.

M: Oh yeah there's a whole prison riot going on but we don't know why in the movie because they don't explain it.

B: Now Dan and Lari are gonna beat up some guys but it's so fucking dark it's like I'm watching Fan4stic. More slow mo.

M: They had to cut Rorschach's story to make time for all the slow mo.

B: I hate Night Owl's outfit. Leri's doesn't look anything like the comic either. I punched that guy! I'm a strong independent woman!

M: Rorschach goes to kill Big Figure in the bathroom which also fucks up what happened in the comic. Luri calls Rorschach an idiot and they start bitch fighting but Dan is like come on we gotta go. We have an hour left. We have to start building each other up.

B: (sings Livin' on a prayer )

M: NOT HOW THIS HAPPENED EITHER. Jon shows up after they get back and kidnaps Liri to mars where there's no air because he's a dick like that.

B: Diet bepis.

M: Laurie somehow knows she's on Mars because there's a giant glass sculpture there. Like on Mars. You know. Back to Snoop and his gang who randomly decide to take out Night Owl but pick the wrong one and beat up Hollis. Poor Hollis.

Yep, definitely Mars.

B: Obviously the editors don't care about the timeline either. Liri's mother is on the phone with Hollis talking about what happened the night before but I thought this was the same night? Who genuinely cares?

M: This movie is rated almost 5 stars on Amazon. You go Hollis, punch at least one of em!

B: The gang beats up Hollis and kills him because it's JUST LIKE THE COMIC. Hollis has flashbacks while he's getting killed. And killed by his own award. But we don't get the scene where he GOT the award. It's fine. I'm not mad.

M: Back to fucking Rorschach and Dan and Laurie and I'm tired of typing that sentence. Rorschach suddenly is sure it's the pyramid people doing all the bad but he has no fucking evidence? Dan lays the smack down and the bromance can continue.

Just like back in college...

B: We're just two dudes in a rad bromance....They're going to an underworld bar because they're looking for seedy dudes.

M: How would these dudes even know about the pyramid thing?

B: That's just how Rorschach do. Follow the money. Rorschach writes a lot of youtube conspiracy videos.

M: Dan finds out some dude helped kill Hollis.

B: Also back on Mars...ugh..his dick is moving back and forth and I know that’s realistic but ugh...It’s different when it’s just a still panel in a comic and not...this...you're made of molecular nothingness, can't you just suck it up into your body or something?

M: Back on Mars Jon goes on his seven hour long predestination trip while his dick wiggles.

B: Jon I have feelings, pls believe me.

M: You can't fucking...you can't...you can't fucking take all this dialogue and re-arrange it and make it work. It doesn't work, now it just seems empty and nobody cares. Lauree was having a total breakdown because Jon wanted HER to make him save the entire earth and now just stand there looking bored.

B: Dan and Ror have broken into Veidt's office searching for answers. Dan is an expert hacker. Creator's name was Jeff Jeff, born on the eighth of Jeff, 19-Jeffity-Jeff. So I put in 'Jeff'.

M: Do they even mention in the movie that Adrian Veidt is supposed to be like, the 'smartest man in the world'? Actually, we don't really learn anything about Veidt in this movie...What do we really know about him? He's rich? He makes plans? Possibly homosexual?

B: *Hacker voice* I'm in. Boys Folder, iconic. Veidt doesn't really keep his most secret government and corporate secrets very...well-hidden. Next to his boys, yanno.

M: Adrian had a team of like three people in the comic. His suit...

B: It has nip- It has NIPPLES!!!

M: *chokes to death laughing* I've never heard anyone so angry about nipples in my whole life.

A toast, to my suit’s nipples.

B: Did Batman and Robin teach the human race nothing???!!? Nipples on superhero costumes = a bad idea. Veidt has killed all his scientists. AND NOW - My Bubastis rant. Whhyyyyy is Bubastis in this fucking movie??????? She just shows up in this scence with NO EXPLANATION. Just, "oh hey...Ozymandias has a giant mutant lynx." and why would she even EXIST in this continuity - he doesn't need the eugenics program in this version of the story. Was he just like "I want a mutant cat, please make me one."

M: How do we still have 50 minutes of movie left??? Oh, I guess...Tales of the Black Freighter. This is still going on. Crazy guy has reached land and kills some people, believing his hometown has been taken over....who really cares. Was there really anyone clamoring for them to put this into the movie?

B: *basically says nothing for this entire bit*

M: *basically says nothing for this entire bit*

B: NO TRANSITIONS, YEAH!

M: Now we're back to have the least impassioned discussion about saving the world ever. "Jon, no, everyone will die...." That's not how this happened - that's not how ANY of this happened. Y'know what, Jon, ya big naked blue freak...

B: Laurie sounds like a teenager who's mad that her parents won't buy her a car.

M: "Do that thing you do..." This is making me irrationally angry, and I've seen this TWICE.

B: This part makes me SO mad. Irrationally mad. They fuck this up so much. We do not get any context to explain how much Laurie hated the Comedian, and why him being her father is such a big deal.

M: Also, in the comic, it was a big deal that Laurie had this realization of her own volition. It came naturally as she tried to fight back her past memories (which were not at all like this), instead of just being magically brought out by Jon.

B: They completely squander Laurie's biggest moment of emotional development, in turn squandering Jon's turning point in deciding to save the world

M: I liked the whole snowglobe bit in the comic...I thought that was like really powerful, but in this she just...throws a temper tantrum.

B: Ugly cry face. At least...I think she's crying. Might just have smelled some expired doppelganger. Jon's speech about life is also...rushed. And they leave out my favorite line. “Come, dry your eyes, for you are life - rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg.”

Acting, I think...

M: Laurie looks like she doesn't understand a single thing Jon's saying to her right now. "Jon...you're talking science again, and I don't understand it."

B: I've already complained about the inappropriate scoring. It hasn't gotten any better.

M: So Dan and Ror are heading to Antartica at record fucking speed. Rorschach tries to tell Dan how to drive the fucking ship Dan designed and built. All Along the Watchtower is playing at record loudness for no reason. Somehow they made it to Antartica in five minutes.

B: They're heeeeeere.

M: If Veidt knew they were coming why wouldn't he just open the door instead of letting them fry it with lasers? Veidt is sitting there pretending that he doesn't notice them creeping in to kill him. Suddenly we are shown that Veidt is somehow some superhuman fighter and gymnast which wasn't included in the movie at all.

B: Come on and SLAM. Hello there, sailors.

M: And now for some exposition while a vigorous swordfight is going on. Not really. Veidt is still going on and on about how smart he is and how he organized all this shit.

B: As with any mystery, it ends with the villian explaining how he did everything.

M: In the comic he literally says he's not a comic villian and wouldn't do that, but you know.

B: I could have sworn there was an alien in here....like there was something vaguely about an alien?? This is alien invader erasure and I will not tolerate it. That would break the suspension of disbelief, I guess. If Veidt wanted to make an alien and use that to unite the world.

M: Yeah that would be bonkers, especially in a world where giant naked blue men with god powers exist.

B: He is smart enough not to monologue BEFORE he pulled off his evil plan.

M: And now we see earth exploding or whatever because of Veidt and uh...suddenly we're back at the fucking animated comic.

B: The whole idea of him uniting the world against Manhattan just doesn't click for me. The alien was supposed to be neutral, to be anomalous. It also doesn't make sense that he would drive Jon to leave earth.

M: Way to pull us the fuck out of the super important ending. Slow zoom back out to the kid reading the comic who complains that it makes no sense. I feel you kid.

B: They're trying to pull everything together here with the clock and the therapist guy and everything but it was all crushed by the alien invader but now it's just Dr Manhattan's..energy force?? But they'll be able to recognize that it was Manhattans? Didn't they know that Veidt was trying to use his energy too??

M: Yes.

B: Oh it's bad. Oh no.

Bubastis’ one moment in the movie...

M: Jon and Lurie return to earth post uh..time bomb or whatever. Jon realizes the energy signature is here. He is not muddled or confused or anything though like he is in the book, so he just immediately goes to Antartica to kick Veidt's ass but then immediately goes through the intrinsic field subtractor like a fucking moron. Why would this even effect Jon? Why would the smartest man alive not figure out that it wouldn't work?

B: Laurie says things....she shoots Veidt but he catches the bullet because he's uh..just that radical. Stuff is happening.

M: For not being a comic book villian Veidt is super fucking acting like a goddamn comic book villian. Jon shows up all super huge now and he's kinda mad at Veidt. But not that mad. Veidt uses his magical remote control to show melty face Nixon demanding peace.

B: And this works because...why not?

M: Because the fucking movie has to end SOMETIME. In the comic there were hundreds of screens showing everything but you know...America. Veidt is like - this is our victory Jon and Jon SHOULD be like - you used me to blow people up dude. Fuck you.

B: Uh uh, can't do that, you'll screw up the peace! Rorschach is like fuck no, I ain't keeping this a secret.

M: I'd side with Rorschach with this tbh, Veidt is a fucking madman. He's like the fucking Governor from the Walking Dead. Ror goes out to try and tell the world but Jon kills him.

B: But of course he wouldn't do that, he told the world 35 minutes ago!

M: He literally did. Rorschach explodes and Dan gets all sad. That was my favorite Rorschach! Now Patrick Wilson's ugly cry face.

I loved that Rorschach like a Rorschach...

B: Jon decides to leave and Laurie is like but why and he's like - well I can't go back to earth NOW.

M: I don't understand why Dan is trying to kick Veidt's ass now. He already agreed to let the mass murder slide. Veidt seems unconcerned.

B: We don't get the whole nothing ever ends quote either, which was a big deal in the comic.

M: They fucked the ending hard though. Like with a chainsaw.

B: They fucked the whole movie hard. With like 17 giant dicks. This shit is way fucked.

M: So I guess Dan and Lbrbbrie go back home? And visit her mom cos you know.

B: And all the reconciliation Lrry had to do in the comic is reduced to one pathetic encounter with her mother. And it means NOTHING because we only get one little scene where Loree is SAD. The whole movie is this way. It's just a bunch of stuff that HAPPENS.

M: I don't give a shit about any of these characters. There's a lot of Lyrie and Dan kissy facing and talking about stuff that doesn't matter now.

B: Nothing ever ends but that's not..at all the way it was supposed to be done...at all.

M: WHY ISN'T THIS OVER, GOD. Straight outta the fucking comic we get the last bit where the greasy kid pulls Rorschach's fucking notebook out of the crank file to publish it so 30 years later they could write the mess that is Doomsday Clock.

B: Not EVEN gonna get into that. That's a whole other screaming fit. But that’s a comic, not a movie.

M: *AGGRESSIVE HEADBANGING TO DESOLATION ROW*

B: *AGGRESSIVE HEADBANGING TO DESOLATION ROW*

M: I don't have any closing thoughts. I'm tired of typing. I hate this movie. I hate what they do to every fucking Alan Moore venture. He deserves better. Write less deep shit Alan and they might actually do you right one day.

B: I find the existence of this movie to be a highly overrated phenomenon. I do, however, fucking love the My Chemical Romance cover of Desolation Row.

Munch and Biscuits out, yo.

[thefoxesboxes]

A Gathering of Guys

Time to get back into the saddle on these reviews! This one has been a long time coming, something I honestly meant to review many months ago. But, between teaching English and travelling around the world, this writing fox has had a significant decrease in available brainpower. Did watching this movie for a second time help? Will it have passed the vulpine standards check? Look under the cut to find out as we discuss the “First R-Rated CGI Cartoon”, Sausage Party.

To begin, I will preface two things. First, I love animation. The creativity and freedom that can be made from almost any kind of animated movie has always been an easy way to make me happy. Look at movies like Zootopia, Spirited Away, and even Aladdin. These movies are each dramatically different in tone, style, and overall thematics. But they’re all some of my favorite movies. Even if I think CGI is overdone in the modern animation market, it still doesn’t detract from my love of watching something creative and fresh.

I also don’t mind movies that are using raunchy or vulgar humor. A movie like Deadpool can make me laugh pretty hard at the stupid jokes and over the top violence that it employs. A movie like this should use the language and themes to push the style of the movie. Is it a violent story with a murderous mercenary hell bent on revenge? Yeah, dark and violent, but add in the fun. These things can break up the movie into a more manageable tone than most people would like. Look at the difference in things like DC and Marvel, or new Ghostbusters and old Ghostbusters. That’s a coming review, by the way.

So the big point is that this movie is awful. It’s a raunchy and joke filled movie, but it’s never creative. It’s like someone took the movie FoodFight and pushed up the production quality and age rating. The movie is graphic, violent, and full of warnings for mature content and imagery. The whole movie tries very, very hard to make sure you know that this is mature and grown up.

Maturity, in this sense, means something that says the word ‘fuck’ approximately 1.85 times a minute, often in heavy bursts. Maturity is something that makes incredibly sophomoric and heavy handed assertions about the nature of religion and real life interactions between thousand year old cultures. Mature is when you have the movies plotline come to a screeching halt to constantly point out how edgy you are over and over again. Mature, in this sense, is being a 15 year old on Reddit screaming about how you took the red pill and don’t believe in things like religion, man.

There is nothing really mature here. At all.

“Just the tips” What the fuck is a tip? Your finger? Why does a hotdog have a glove but the lady doesn’t? Save it. It’ll keep.

But let’s talk detail. First, the movie has a song. It’s not a bad song, at least for how it’s written and sung. It’s really mostly just kind of tuneless and shifts a lot into ways that obviously want to invoke religious worship songs, but doesn’t do that very well. The song does a great job of setting the tone of this movie, which is “Religious people are dumb, ya here?”. It’s not really something I want to get into, but it slides nicely into the hotdog bun of hatred I have for this movie.

The writing.

As mentioned, the writing is self-congratulatory about the idea of being R-rated when it doesn’t know what that should mean. It decided to go out of its way to be a cartoon about hotdogs and sex before seemingly having any direction, as the world itself and characters are all over the place. Do they make any particular point using food that couldn’t be done with a different material? Nope. Do they make timely or classical references throughout the movie? Well, Meatloaf plays a singing Meatloaf. They make a “To Sir with Love” reference, which intrudes on one of my absolutely favorite films ever. Saving Private Ryan? Not exactly timeless.

But the writing reflects worst on characters and dialogue. While the voice acting is, mostly, fine it’s really just the characters are a bunch of assholes. Remember that scene in Star Wars where Han Solo doesn’t believe in the Force and Luke lectures him despite having learned about it that afternoon? That happens about atheism. Our beef tube hero who’s name I really don’t care to remember (it’s Frank) learns that the Gods are evil people who eat them! Oh no! So he immediately starts bashing everyone for believing in the Gods that he believed in until literally an hour ago. He makes no good points, he seems ridiculously hypocritical, and he’s just kind of a douche.

A running theme in this movie, the main villain is a literal douche. A douche who gets a tear and loses his douchey fluids, so he needs to replenish them to restore his superpowers. This begins with him forcefully and graphically violating a damaged juice container in a way obviously reminiscent of forceful oral sex. This scene was the first one that was simply disgusting, including him commenting that he’s “Juicin’ up” to reference steroids. A rape scene, classy as hell. This only continues as this literal douche walks about to murder the main heroes will constantly repeating the same joke over and over again. His plans involved him being able to teleport, his reason for revenge was almost understandable, but being a rapist murderer really made me not care about this villain.

Also. This joke. Five fucking times.

Other than the Frankfurter Hero and Douchey Villain, we have side characters. Jewish Bagel, Mexican Lesbian Taco, overly voluptuous hotdog bun, Muslim/Middle Eastern lavash, gay Twinkee, black grits, and Firewater. These stereotypes are the closest thing to characters that exist in this film and they mostly exist pretty much solely within those roles. They exist to either be stereotypes, be annoying, or try to poke mature points at the concept of geographically interconnected regions and classically dependent cultures having feuds with each other. But let’s talk about that in terms of the world.

These foods exist for, what, a week? They exist in the same aisles, for the same goals, and often have to interact with each other for their entire existence. Their existences, mind you, which are created for explicit purpose. Why do they have different viewpoints of the Gods, to the point where it is this disseminated? Is it to make a point about the rapid distribution of altering ideals among short lived humanity? I don’t know, it just seems to be extremely crass ways to point out that these things exist and are stupid. Again a running theme.

The last major theme I want to mention is consistency. A world needs to be made in a way that follows an internal logic. Yes, magic should be explained, a world should be detailed, and even comedy should follow some form and function. If there is no law dictated within the world, then there’s no reason for me to really pay attention to what you’re doing. It’s all just whitenoise for the pretense of having jokes.

This movie fails worldbuilding with a capital F and a giant minus. The food is alive, so are douches and some other inanimate objects! But things like shoes and ladles are not, why? Why isn’t the knife alive? When we open up a thing of off brand Mentos, each of those little mints is alive. Is this things ass full of living organisms that will proceed to exist in total isolation until released?  If I make a sandwich, is it a composite of painfully attached different creatures to each other? They did show that composite foods exist as a single entity, so does that mean that pushing cheese and wheat germ together creates a new living entity? The entire idea doesn’t make sense when you show that some things would require the painful things to exist. Pizza, sandwiches, all of it. How does it work? The movie doesn’t tell you.

This line here indicates that the peanut butter, married to jelly, is only alive as it is the container. But why isn’t the bag the hotdogs were in alive, or the box? There’s no sense to be had in this madness. Just extremely dry hotdogs.

Not that the external world is any better. Remember in Toy Story where the toys could move and had to very specifically hide that fact? Yeah, this movie says fuck it. Some of the foods move and we see people view it as a hot dog rolling around. But then the hot dog gets up, dodges, ducks, dips, dives, and dodges. They even stab a hot dog standing up in the middle of the air, or they can run across the street. Do people see them or not? It’s pointed out that they need to be literally high on bath salts to see the  food moving, but then can the food interact with the world when not on bath salts? How come the food never moves and people don’t notice it? Why do I even watch anything attached to Seth Rogan? Why did you ruin my night, Seth?

This isn’t even getting into the ending. The movie ended two separate times at the end, once when the orgy of murder happened, and once when the orgy that murdered the movie happened. There’s a full orgy, it takes actually 5 minutes to get through. Does it add to the plot? Nope. Does it push anything? Nah, it’s also the scaled down version from the honestly horrifying original script Seth Rogan spent years drafting up. Fuck him so much.

There’s also a murder orgy where the food kills everyone. Apparently we can’t beat hotdogs. Who knew? A guy gets turned into a testicle puppet by the douche, carries a giant revolver that apparently has 8 bullets in it. They make Terminator and Wizard of Oz references. A merry time was had by apparently a lot of people that aren’t me.

Also, the food smoke weed that is… Apparently not alive? Why is the marijuana not alive? Fuck it. Probably some stupid point.

The main point is this. The movie contains many flaws and

Fuck this movie. Fuck you Seth Rogan for your grinning assholery. Fuck the critics who think this movie is an insightful and raunchy godsend so they can openly enjoy cartoons. Fuck the idea that this movie grossed tons of money and will probably get some kinda sequel or spinoff. Fuck the media that believes that maturity is the juvenile banter of an idiot who cannot stop dragging his political diatribes into a different subject. And fuck this movie for killing any chance Kubo and the Two Strings had of being a financial success.

Summary? This movie is crass, brash, vulgar and tasteless. It’s also somehow not brave enough to say anything that has any real merit or in a way that’s unique. It’s a movie obsessed with its own egotistical idea of being the ‘first’ but has no idea of how to make that something worth seeing. This movie is just a waste of time. It’s a mix of immature and well past it’s expiration date.

[sophygurl]

WisCon 42 panel Black Lightning

Black Lightning panel description: 

The CW, host of DCTV shows Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow, is now the network to go to for the television adaptation of the classic comic Black Lightning! The show focuses on a black family—the father, a retired superhero and current high school principal, dons his supersuit once more to protect his daughters. It seems at least one of the daughters are developing powers of theirs own. One of the daughters is a lesbian, adding more intersecting identities that are rarely see on TV. This show seems to be a smart, funny, political, action-packed family drama - with super powers. Let's celebrate, discuss, and critique this exciting new show!

Moderator Inda Lauryn with panelists Jennifer Cross, JP Fairfield, Alex Jennings, and Krys. 

Reminder that these panel notes are only my own recollections and the things I managed to write down - my notes are incomplete and likely faulty in places. Corrections and additions are always welcome. Especially please do correct me if I get names or pronouns wrong!

Also I name panelists as that’s publicly available information but not audience members unless requested by that person to have their named added.

[Ugh this was my first panel of the morning and my handwriting is extra-bad. I’ll be skipping chunks in which I can’t make out what I meant to write!]

Inda started the panelist intros off with the question of what DC comic character they’d like to see on TV.

JP answered with Nubia, Wonder Woman’s sister. Krys said Static. Jennifer replied with Monica Rambeau. Alex said Static might in fact end up on Black Lightning but gave his answer as Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern, but if Hal was black. Inda answered saying she’d like a proper Vixen live action show. 

Alex talked about how Black Lightning is standing up well so far against the comics, which he has been a fan of for awhile. He says BL is the linchpin for the black sector of DC comics. The daughters become part of the Titans for awhile, etc.

One thing Alex does not want to see on the show is Jefferson acting as a villain for an extended period of time as being undercover with the Outsiders.

Jennifer really liked the depiction of Freeland in the show as it’s own character, and showing black life in their own cities.

Alex explained that in the comics, it’s a black neighborhood in Metropolis. 

Inda said that technically, right now, BL is separate from the rest of the DCTV universe. Jennifer said there was that line about Black Canary, though. JP said they’ve waffled about it. She wants it to be part of the overall universe (even though Black Lightning is better written than the other shows), to deal with the intersectional issues of all these white vigilantes and how they fit in with police oppression of black neighborhoods. 

Jennifer said that Arrow had a storyline about police oppression but they All Live Mattered it. She added - let’s just keep the rich white man away. 

JP said BL could teach them how to be superheroes though, since they’re all a bunch of screw-ups. They’d have to pay him though! 

Krys said that Supergirl never addresses race.

Alex said the most recent Supergirl episode kind of dealt with it, but Flash never addresses it even though two of the main characters are black.

I asked from the audience - what if only James Olsen got to interact with the BL world (thinking maybe it’d help him to have some actual black people to talk to about these things?), and JP answered - oh they’d have to finally give him something to do?

JP wants Jefferson to “taser punch” Ollie.

Inda asked the panelists what they would change about the show.

JP wants more representation of black families, and not just one kind. She likes that they’re giving them room to grow and that the two daughters have different world views. She doesn’t like some of Jefferson’s respectability politics, however. 

Alex agrees and hopes the show will address that. He said the comic origins of BL are frankly hard to read - for example he puts on an afro wig when he dresses as BL.

Jennifer said the reason - not an excuse - that Jefferson has those respectability politics is that he is trying to help the kids in his community learn to code switch so that they can leave if they want to. 

Krys talked about the history with Jefferson and his powers and how that explains a lot of his worldview. She doesn’t like it, but she understands where he’s coming from.

JP added - but he low-key looks down on his own community.

Jennifer said that was addressed somewhat when Khalil comes back. She doesn’t like Khalil, but appreciated that he said what he did to Jefferson. 

There was an audience question about queerness - I didn’t get down the exact question.

Inda said they were going there - she was going to talk about the women on the show next, so let’s start with Anissa.

JP said all the women have different goals and needs in their life and they can disagree with each other and still support one another. Also with Anissa - her family is okay with her and her being gay is a non-issue for them, which is nice.

Jennifer said she likes to think it was intentional that it’s not addressed within the show - the family’s reaction to Anissa coming out could have been different, but the show starting with them accepting her destroys the stereotype about black people being inherently homophobic. She also likes that Anissa is openly gay, but that’s not the focus of who she is as a character.

Krys likes how involved Anissa is in the community and how that’s an important part of her character.

Inda wanted more of Grace once we met her, but is hoping there will be more of her in the next season.

JP liked that the minute Khalil got creepy, Jennifer got away from him. It didn’t turn into one of those “oh but I love him!” stories.

Inda said she did teenager well because she wanted to smack her around a bit.

Jennifer’s issue with Grace was that because she’s not black, there is a component of black queer love missing on her TV. Anissa leaving a black woman for Grace hurt a little bit because of the issue of black women being seen as the least desirable. 

Inda said she loved Lady Eve as a villain and hated the way she died, but at least she kept a sense of being human through to the end. JP said they should have kept her as the Big Bad for the whole season. Alex said - she’ll get better. (lol - this then became a repeated a line about any character that had died)

Jennifer talked about Tobias as being the literal embodiment of internalized anti-blackness. She loves a good villain who gets his own hands dirty, and loved that they chose an actor with albinism. 

Inda liked Tobias and that they gave him a good villain backstory. One of the best villains on DCTV.

Alex said he likes that Tobias is played by a pretty decent rapper. He likes the proper gravitas that he brings to the role, as well. He does wish that instead of intimidating his underlings, he’d have explained his worldview about how the world needs them - especially with respectability politics on the other side of things. He also loved the tattooed guy.

Inda brought up the music on the show. JP loved the music. Krys loved the mix of older songs and newer ones to match specific scenes, themes, and events.

Jennifer liked the aspect of multi-generational music and how it captured the themes. She gave a lot of examples that I was apparently too tired to write down beyond “lots of examples” - sorry about that. She also talked about how she wants the show to use it’s platform to feature more new artists like it did in the pilot. 

Inda liked when the show used music humorously. An audience member brought up the scene with Stairway to Heaven and how weird and confusing it was - lots of laughing about it. 

JP still wanted Lady Eve as the main villain and wanted to see her fight Tobias. 

Jennifer said to get rid of Syonide - she serves no purpose. “Why are you here? Are you our Becky translator?” 

JP liked that there were two dimensional white characters - it was the opposite of mainly white shows having two dimensional black characters and felt appropriate. 

Alex said some of the minor villains are “wack” - Khalil as painkiller for example. He hated him in the comics and his name makes no sense. (lol)

There was a whole discussion about black character’s hair and how quickly they change from one style to the other getting into costume and how ridiculous it is. Jennifer did love Anissa’s battle hair, though.

Jennifer also talked about loving the father-daughter relationships. She and Krys both had similar stories as Jennifer’s roller rink fight. 

Inda is thankful they already changed Anissa’s super suit. Then said that the show has been renewed for another season, and asked the panelists what they’d like to see next.

JP said Anissa and Jen kicking ass together. Krys said Jennifer getting a suit and training and generally coming into her powers. 

Jennifer said she’d like to see how these characters do time management? Anissa, especially, does a lot - how is she doing it all? Jefferson, too. This is an issue she was with superhero universes in general. (uh-huh)

Alex wants to see Jakeem Thunder introduced into the show as it would also introduce the universe to aspects of magic. 

Inda would like a little less addressing of police brutality in the future. More hero/villain stuff - but she does like that Freeland is a microcosm.

JP added that police brutality is not usually the focus of black lives - it’s just something that happens while going about their lives.

Krys wants more followup with the kids and the green lightning and Jefferson possibly being a mentor to them.

Jennifer wants more family stuff. Also Tobias showing some remorse - he got over his sister’s death really fast. She also feels they rushed Khalil’s origin story. As someone who is unapologetically Team Killmonger, she wants more complexity in her villains. 

JP said the story really missed out on the treatment of Tobias and his relationship with his sister. They established their relationship to the point of her even searching for their father so he could kill him. 

Alex interjected with “you don’t think Tobias will bring her back?!” An audience member said they should bring her back to save the actress from the Tyler Perry show she moved on to. Panelists all agree with this assessment. 

Someone from the audience asked about the role of the afterlife, as well as the Vice Principal character.

JP discussed how they brought back LaLa, so maybe they will explore that a little more. As far as the VP - she never trusted her. At first she thought she was after his job, then after him, then turns out she’s an agent. There were all of these different angles of trying to get closer to him, but the fact that she doesn’t want to believe Jefferson is BL indicates some of those feelings might have been real.

Jennifer said she doesn’t want to go on a rant about those mismatched wigs but... that character is shady but also conflicted. As “Big Bad Chad” pointed out, she was spending a lot of time with Jefferson. Is she compromised? Yea, she is. Jennifer would prefer the character not come back unless they give her something else to do, however. 

As far as the afterlife, Jennifer liked that the show is using subtle notes of black folklore and what people she knows have been raised with. She added “sorry white people, but this show knows it is not for you.” 

Alex said the afterlife stuff only makes sense if spirits are real with the tattoo guy. Maybe the guy Tobias paid to bring him back didn’t tell him that part, and that there is magic involved. 

Krys noted that the spiritual stuff in the show seemed personalized to each character.

An audience member asked about the sister’s different approaches to their powers. 

Inda said that Jennifer just freaked out and didn’t want them, but did use them to save her father’s life. She saw how it could be a good thing, and now she is on a journey of acceptance.

JP added that she’s not all into her powers, but sees the benefits of them - she’s like a battery for her father!

Jennifer talked about Anissa accepting her powers right away because she’s always been about wanting to help her community and so she immediately saw her powers in that light. Jennifer didn’t initially want them - but when it came to her family, she stepped up. She might struggle with having powers, but when she has to use them, she’ll do it.

JP asked Alex if in the comics, it turns out Jennifer is the most powerful in the family. He said yes - and also that they can use their powers together in interesting ways.

An audience member brought up an article about black heroes and that the powers they have tend to be elemental - earth, wind, fire.

Alex said this is true even in other media, such as Captain Planet. It happens a lot, even now. He would like to see more tech-based powers.

Jennifer said but we are on planet earth, and she loved Storm and how she could literally turn the earth against people. She would like to move away from the Magical Negro trope but also likes the idea of having earth-based powers at their disposal. 

More talk about issues of hair and fighting. Jennifer said you really don’t want loose hair when fighting. But the hairstyle Anissa chooses is an ode to Ashanti warrior women. It’s not practical, however. 

Inda talked about the suspension of disbelief as far as people not being able to recognize them with just masks over their eyes. An audience member said that they explained this at least with BL that it hurts to look directly at him. Inda said that was only in a conversation between the daughters, so it’s possible it has to do with their own powers and isn’t a function of BL’s powers alone.

Jennifer said she would like more investigation into green light and the vaccine and the organization behind it all.

JP said - let’s talk about Gambi and his guilt about being a part of the whole thing. 

Jennifer said she is tired of this trope of the the white guy who somehow didn’t know that this covert agency he was a part of was going to do some dirty shit. It’s almost better if he’s just guilty because he knew what he was getting into but wants to do better now. She lost interest in Gambi when Lady Eve died.

JP didn’t want Jefferson to forgive him so easily. Maybe he did it because they had to work together but she wants him to still be mad about what happened.

Inda mentioned the impulse for shows to give us white redemption.

Jennifer added that it might be more of a white-passing issue than white because of his actual last name being Esposito. 

Inda liked having a white character in that role because “we don’t question white people in our spaces” so he could have easily moved in those communities doing what he did. 

[And that’s all I got. Lovely, lively panel with gobs of info and just lots of fun!]

[johnnythirteenguns]

just seen justice league (this isnt spoiler free at all)

also went to thor: ragnarok for the third time to wash the taste out.

so i went to go see it for miller, momoa, and mera in that order. i was super impressed with mera. i thought they were gonna go the like easy way and give her an Accent like the amazons, but they didnt. even though her cadence was different like idk man i know very little about dc but i picked up a one-shot earlier this year where mera neatly beats the fuck out of the justice league on her own and she’s a semi-jerk who kind of hates surface dwellers and you know what for the thirty seconds we had her onscreen i believed it and she was powerful and felt like a character with backstory and i COMPLETELY didnt hear what aquaman was saying i just heard her side of the conversation

man ben affleck really doesnt wanna be here huh anyway we should recast him at the earliest convenience

also why was batman 90% CGI like fine i get it no one can be a gymnast in a 50 lb rubber suit but like every single one of his moves that required any bending had to have been cgi

speaking of which the cgi isnt like bad in and of itself it’s just typical like it’s the cgi youre used to seeing. it doesnt blend seamlessly into anything and the characters dont blend seamlessly into it. the cornfield looks fake as can fucking be and i dont really know why? what else there was another fucking weird cgi moment. anyway, steppenwolf is ugly as sin and has no emotion and is all one color and is??? generally weird looking

speaking of which. he is not frightening at all. the New Gods isnt something casual dc fans are gonna be familiar with (i am barely familiar with it) and like? apparently, darkseid was supposed to have scenes in this but didnt? anyway go see thor ragnarok which features 1) a horned villain that is legitimately terrifying and powerful, that you fully believe can do the things she does, and who is beautifully designed and 2) features glow-y eyed masses of disposable soldiers that are cool but goofy and dont take themselves too seriously but were still frightening and made for thrilling fights because you believed they could actually pose a threat to the characters they were attacking

the beginning... uh i think like three scenes of the film looked pretty good, but they looked like cutscenes. very GOOD cutscenes, but honestly... if i wanted it to look like this id have played... a video game. like, i want it to look like a real place even if it’s heavily stylized. uh but the first showdown where batman is luring a parademon out looks beautiful if fake as shit. the scene with wondy in the bank (which features a group of girls from an all-girls school... at a bank?) and terrorists wearing cheap pinstripe suits (like, this is fine! it’s nonsensical and stupid but fine it’s a comic book movie) was kind of cool because for once i felt like... maybe diana was a creative person who goes in wit ha strategy? like picking the dude up with the lasso and holding him up was fun i was like oh!!! thats not something a typical movie would do! it was the first time she felt like Wonder Woman to me (ive seen the wondy movie itself, it was... eh). uh and idk what was up with the standing on the scales of justice or whatever idk the hilarity of gal gadot on that statue which sits on top of a bank like. it was funny.

hey question what the uh... fuck was the “what are you” “a believer” line about it made zero sense in context at all

dont quote me on the order of scenes i dont remember fuck all of this movie in order because literally, the pacing was so weird. so... it was very obvious there were parts missing from the movie. not like, cuts made where you could be like oh there was something there or maybe there'll be a deleted scene no like you Knew there was stuff that was necessary that was gone. the football scenes with victor from the trailers were gone!!! i think the movie was trying to set up a really strong friendship with wonder woman and cyborg but it never really went anywhere? and i suspect because it all got cut! and i dont understand why because ray did a really good job and he sold cyborg to me so well i loved his take! 

also... i dont know if theyre saving it for the aquaman movie next year but did Arthur get a bunch of his stuff cut too? because i like jason momoa, and i like his arthur and so im sort of torn because, like, he didnt have much to do. like, he has the bit where he sits on wonder woman’s lasso of thruth and tells them all this stuff but you dont know enough about him for any of it to land? but i really wanted to know more (at some point i did give up on, this was a very passive viewing experience). my friend was saying that like literally why did they try to make arthur so Cool he’s already jason momoa he is by default cool now you can do whatever you want with him we’re all going to love him.

speaking of the lasso scene... was the entire last half of the movie re-writen and re-shot by whedon because like? the lasso scene is a whedon. the bit at the end where wondy goes “children. i work with children” is a whedon (THERE’S NO REASON FOR HER TO SAY THIS? I THINK THIS WHEN SHE HAS TWO TEAM MEMBERS LIKE LAYING ON THE GROUND AFTER NEARLY BEING BLON UP? IT WAS FUCKING WEIRD). i genuinely cant tell if all of barry’s dialogue was written by whedon or if that was ezra improvising but uh... man he’s... he needs to practice if that’s hm. if it’s just whedon i mean fine but he also doesnt have the shitty RDJ quality thats let’s him say those lines with believability.

speaking of which, going to see barry was my priority because apparently im gay for miller rn so like. uh. man he wasnt funny like there were a couple parts where he was cute and the line landed and it was fine but generally he just... wasnt funny? because the movie wasnt funny? like... idk man ezra really acting his heart out and ive said like cool i wanna follow his career and see if he does good stuff and gets even better at his stupid art but maybe he peaked with credence barebone i dont know. the first scene where we meet barry, with the flash pad and the pizza, that was good, that was funny. the bit at the prison was good. he has very soft eyes and thats nice. the panic attack is cute in the clip and the beginning like rhrgrh moment he has is good but then idk the pacing falls apart again

why is his character like this? i just dont think ezra’s... funny enough yet. (tbh i think he takes it too seriously even if he’s trying to be light-hearted man sometimes jokes is just jokes). there’s a bit where theyre digging up superman’s body and it’s JUST HIM AND CYBORG FOR UH? SOME REASON? maybe they explained why they sent the two babies but i didnt hear it and it’s literally just them two. and he tries to fistbump victor but vic is like “no” and tbh barry is annoying? like maybe u think he’s cute and an audience member but he’s uh... you can tell he’s annoying in the story and anyway then the flash says “right, racially charged” ABOUT A FISTBUMP? WHICH? LITERALLY MADE NO SENSE? WAS THIS LINE IMPROVISED? WAS IT WRITTEN? IM GONNA PUT MONEY ON IMPROVISED BECAUSE HE IS EXACTLY THAT KIND OF STUPID BITCH

if they were breaking into the lab why even bother going through the front door? barry drives the thing in (theyre trying to smuggle superman’s body into star labs) disguised a soldier (the literally most unconvincing thing, not to me as an audience member, because it was cute and funny to me,, but that a guy with THAT FACE is military like yeah sure, why did that guard believe him) but then they get to like the normal ass parking inside and the other three are standing there in full costume in full grey DC-brand daylight? are you telling me between 5/6ths of the justice league they couldnt sneak in a fucking pine box when wonder woman can lift a fucking tank on her own? like.

speaking of which uh.... superman is stupidly overpowered. like i said i read an issue of JL where mera hands every one of the justice league members their own gently roasted ass in hand on her fucking own. diana regularly kicks superman in the head. why was she not able to take him down? when theyre fighting steppenwolf for real it’s not until superman shows up that they even have a real fighting chance. they dont fight as team, they dont even fight as people casually unified in a common cause. theyre playing high-stakes legos and cyborg gets pulled away from them like three times?? and it gets fucking annoying? and then supes shows up and literally wipes the floor with him. it is so completely bizarre and stupid.

here’s a problem i still have with wonder woman: why is she so thin? the other amazons (except Hippolyta and maybe one other one) look built as FUCK? LIKE THESE WOMEN COULD EASILY TOSS ME ACROSS THE ROOM. wonder woman has serious fucking arms, where are they

also those amazon bikinis were bad. the whole styling of this movie is bad, but especially the amazons. everything is red and gold, for some reasons? the outfits dont looks heavy like armor, they look heavy like bullshit material. there is no reason for the fucking bikinis. the gold cloak hippolyta wears is??? heavy and looks like? like drapes like window dressing like thats the weight of it. additionally, there is no reason for their hair to be SO STYLED. it’s really like prom night hair it’s like shiny and muss free and always loose and in perfect clearly salon-styled curls. also, why are they so heavily made up? it’s really prominent. wondy herself has the same issue going on, she looks much more heavily made up (why is everyone’s blush so PINK, like it's distracting, is this a side effect of the recoloring process) and her hair isnt loose and doing its thing like in BVS or Wonder Woman it’s like... idk she looks really. Pretty when she’s on the field and it makes no sense.

the amazon fighting style is still ugly and makes no sense ive never seen such a wasteful fighting style it made sense exactly once during Wonder Woman

why is themyscira entirely the ugliest cgi i have ever fucking scene

why does the camera INSIST ON MOVING LIKE THAT. the action is super hard to track, the cgi is ugly as fuck (it really cannot be overstated)... i made it to about... i want to say when theyre on the way to the big fight and then the combined everything gave me a heaache that o had for the rest of the movie

i mentioned earlier that the pacing is weird the transitions are also weird. you get cuts to and from places that never fade into each other, it’s always a hard jump cut but it’s never the right cut to make? like, in thor ragnarok for example, there are a bunch of scene changes that happen via the bifrost, via people going through doors. there are wide shots that jump to wide shots in other places, so youre not suddenly on a close-up. there are a lot of people emerging from something into view, and there are a lof of people being alone in the center of the frame. it’s a very smooth and easy to watch movie. JL is the opposite of this in every way. I SUSPECT. AGAIN. THAT WHILE THIS WOULDNT HAVE BEEN FIXED ENTIRELY. THAT THOSE EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES THAT WERE CUT WERE PROBABLY REALLY IMPORTANT

the lois lane bit where she calms supes down just reminded me of the age of ultron and i quoted “sun’s going down” at my friends who were with me and they shit themselves laughing

ma kent calls lois lane “thirsty” in a Hilarious Teen Humor Gag thanks joss whedon you fucking hack

bruce wayne is fucking useless he could have got barry ANY JOB EVER and like... my god whatever.

also i still dont understand how how voice sounds like that when he’s batmanuh the after after credits scene is setting up, according to my friend, a sinister six movie. deathstroke isnt played by manu bennett so it’s fucking usless thanks for coming to my ted talk

[tessatechaitea]

DC House of Horror #1, Part Two (AKA A Review of Netflix’s The Mist)

It looks like Batman is fucking Flash while Flash fucks Green Lantern while Green Lantern, covered in semen, jerks off a candle.

Here, a woman smells her fingers for some mysterious and sexy reason.

I'm sorry for that previous caption! The only reason I said it was probably sexy was because she is a woman and I'm objectifying her. I smell my fingers for decidedly non-sexy reasons all the time! If anybody is interested in my life away from my blog, you can visit me intellectually debating the guys at the weird science comic book review blog on their review of Deadman #1. I'd forgotten that they were supposed to be my nemeses! But I remembered! Oh how I remembered! The woman smelling her fingers has been possessed by Wonder Woman because she took part in a Milton Bradly sponsored seance.

See?! You probably thought I was being facetious about the chewing testicles part! It's a known fact!

It's too bad I just scanned two images so closely together because the next page contains a nipple and a bare butt! The nipple is in shadow but you can still see the shape of it! I don't know why I'm using an exclamation point for that revelation. Back in the pre-Internet days, it would have been a glorious find for a young kid. But now, it's as tame as if the panel depicted a basket of kittens. The girl possessed by Wonder Woman kills all of her friends and everybody she meets before getting home and killing her abusive father. She also says a bunch of stuff in Greek. I bet she's saying things like, "I'm here to kick ass and chew testicles! Mmm! So good!" Nope. I was wrong. The first thing Wonder Woman says after possessing the girl is "Where am I, witches?" Then she kills the witches. Later after her killing the girl's dad, she says, "The world of man is Hell. It is going to be a glorious war." Man's World Rating: Are these stories horrific? I guess so. Imagine if Superman were a confused toddler scared out of his wits when he arrived on Earth? He probably would kill everybody by accident in his fits of terror. And Wonder Woman suddenly coming to man's world without any context except what she's been told about why the Amazons can't leave the island? She'd be ready for some serious clean up! And she only killed the women at the beginning because they were obviously witches. Some women, you just can't trust. So you get what we had here in this story. I don't like it any more than you women.

[wr8tur]

SUPERGIRL RANT TIME 3

I don’t necessarily agree about the intellectual property and writers not being able to do what they want.

I think it’s been established that the show has creative freedom. We see it in how they create the villains and we see it in the protagonists as well. They differ origin stories because the show is merely based off the comics.

Not everything that happens in the comics happens exactly on the show. Probably because writers make adaptations to surprise the audience.

Just look at M’gann. She’s supposed to be a young woman around the age of the Titans yet they changed her into Martian Manhunter’s love interest. The writers clearly have freedom over the characters so when someone commented that the writers ‘can’t do that’ I disagree wholeheartedly.

They can. They choose not to.

The more well-known characters are bisexual in the DC comics. Wonder Woman’s the most recent bisexual. Before her, Catwoman came out. And now Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are in a non-monogamous relationship with one another. Batwoman is an out and proud lesbian that has her own comic so I’m assuming DC comics doesn’t really have problems with their characters suddenly joining the LGBT community.

The simple fact is the writers and showrunners choose not to take risks. As I've mentioned, I don't think CW has a problem with the bisexual route or girl on girl loving in general. They did it after all with Clexa and they're doing it with Sara Lance.

It’s just that they’re playing safe and I understand all about the target audience and relating to characters. I posted about that in my first rant.

And to those that feel I’m pushing the homosexual agenda out of some perceived hatred I have for the heterosexual norm, it is not about that. It’s not because I want some gay propaganda to be pushed. If I felt Mon-El was a strong male character then I would gladly ship Karamel.

There are heterosexual characters that I love from programs such as Castle, The Originals, Empire, Lucifer, and a bunch of others.

It’s not just because I want to see Katie Mcgrath finally get the girl.

It’s about what’s good for the characters as well as the plot and of course I’m looking for a show that will challenge my perception, keep me on my toes, and make me think.

The reason why I’m upset with Supergirl is because it had a plethora of chances to be that show, to fully break stereotypes and push the modern female aspect, but they simply don’t want to take any risks with her character, the stories, or the plots.

She’s a super heroine yet half the time she’s being saved/helped by someone and yes, she’s a newb but it just feels like they don’t even trust her to be a captivating enough stand-alone character. They included popular characters from the comics like James Olsen and Martian Manhunter in her show right off the bat, and before they even put her in the DEO, she already had Winn and James helping her, meaning she’s always had a whole team of people helping her save one city while Superman is off on his own protecting Metropolis and I’m assuming he never had the proper fighting training that Alex has given Kara and he manages well.

And I know Arrow and Flash and Legends of Tomorrow have teams and I’m not saying that I was looking for a one woman show, but it would have been nice for Kara to shine by herself for a little while without any help. Maybe even keep her secret for more than one episode because not going to lie, when she told Winn that she’s Supergirl I kind of felt like it was propagating the stereotype that women are gossips, which I know they are not.

I believe Oliver was able to hide his secret identity for more than one episode and Barry needed help dealing with powers he never had before so it’s understandable for him to have a team right off the bat.

Maybe I’m the only one who has a problem with that…

And if people wonder why I’m still watching, why I’m so involved, I won’t deny that it is because of Katie Mcgrath. But now they’re even butchering her character by adding a romantic interest.

It’s almost like they are saying women aren’t interesting enough without the romantic element.

Maybe they should change the title of the show to SuperRomance since it seems like this season is all about love of the romantic kind. Or maybe the unavailability of other characters like Cat Grant, Maxwell Lord, and Lucy Lane just really messed with the dynamics of the show. Or maybe I’m just being too sensitive.

But like I said, I’m sick of the breadcrumbs.

I’m tired of feeling like I have to be grateful that they gave even a female super hero a show, that they have gays and lesbians on television, that they are giving minorities any sort of representation.

On a side note, loved the Sanvers moment! Also that Danvers sisters moment was amazing! I missed seeing those scenes!

This is what the show is supposed to be about; unconditional love and support and it gives me hope when they show us these moments, instead of having Kara and Mon at each other’s throats. It lets me believe that perhaps all hope is not lost.

Speaking of support, I did like that Mon was actually supportive of Kara and didn’t try to fight her on publishing the article but then again what would he have to say against it? I doubt he knew she could be fired since Kara herself didn’t seem to know because really, she could have approached a different news outlet as Supergirl and offered the news to them.

There are plenty of reporters who would have jumped to interview her live, maybe even given Snapper this ultimatum about her going to someone else or even went to James if she wanted this to remain a CatCo story because I’m pretty sure James would have green lit everything but I guess this is Kara’s arc, to show that she won’t stop doing what’s right just because her superiors tell her otherwise. There was just a smarter way to go about it though.

Anyway, if only Mon can show her this type of support always and stop being an ass every time they have a disagreement then maybe I can learn to live with Karamel.

I say live with because Supercorp is still my main ship!

And the SuperCorp moments, that overwhelming concern about Kara’s well being instead of being upset that she forgot about their lunch date, the helpful advice, the fact that they had a lunch date, the lip biting, the lingering gaze, the fond looks, the phone call, the balcony moment… it all just made me scream for like a good minute.

It makes me wonder though, who’s behind the queerbaiting? Does it specifically say bite lip on the script? Or is that Melissa just reacting to the SuperCorp fans and Katie McGrath’s natural charisma?

Also, Lena totally has to know that Kara is Supergirl by now because come on, if Supergirl was getting coffee someone would have # that and posted it online, and really Supergirl? That’s the best excuse you can come up with? She could have said I was on patrol near the area! It’s like she wants to get caught.

I wonder what Kara’s going to do now that she got fired. But honestly, danvers.com? Couldn’t she have found someone else to blog for her? Leak the information to a pro-alien supporter somewhere? Why couldn’t she make a statement as Supergirl on the news? Make a Viral video as Supergirl? Instead of posting it as Kara? I know Lena gave her advice when she suggested another form of publication but Kara could have posted it anonymously.

Then again this gives Mon the perfect moment to shine and be supportive. Up until his parents come to take his butt back.

Since Mon El’s parents seem to be villainous they’ll probably try to establish their monarchy on Earth instead. But family coming in to take over sounds like a too familiar plot doesn’t it?

Maybe Lena can use the job loss and the inevitable break up as an opportunity to sneak in and get even closer to Kara? Hire her as a secretary? Start her own newspaper and give Kara a job? She’s a billionaire, she can afford it! And when Kara’s in tears over her break up with Mon El, Lena can be the supportive friend until making her move!

[wbwest]

New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/04/07/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-4717/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 4/7/17

  So, last night I became the last person in America to see Get Out. As I joked on Twitter, I’m totally getting a divorce now. No, I kid, I kid. Like everyone said, it’s really good, though it may be a tad overrated. Just a tad. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Get Out is the story of Black man Chris Williams who joins his White girlfriend Rose Armitage on a visit to her parents’ home for the weekend. And then crazy shit starts to happen. I can see what the appeal of the film is. I really can. But I’ve got to level with you: this movie hit a little too close to home. Yeah, I know that one Black reader I have is like “That’s what you get for datin’ them White girls!” No, seriously, I probably would’ve ended up just like Chris. First of all, I have a thing for Allison Williams. Even as bitchy, self-centered Marnie on Girls, I still have a thing for her. When her father fell from grace, I just wanted to tell her everything would be all right. So I would’ve taken the bait. In addition to that, I’ve dated that kind of family. Yes, in those cases, you’re dating the whole family. They had the same socioeconomic status as the Armitages, their friends were the same way, with the same weird questions. Sometimes you don’t realize how Black you are until that’s ALL you are to some folks. What some folks saw as just fun entertainment is something that I kinda lived. They’d do weird shit, where I felt like they were testing me. I remember the first time I went to stay for the weekend, they put me in a room with, like, three Rolexes just laying about like they were nothing. No, I don’t think they would’ve killed me, but I can totally see how something like this could happen. Meanwhile, I’m here thinking that I need to get me a friend as good as TSA Rod. I’ve got a lot to unpack from that movie right now. I’d love to have a conversation with Jordan Peele, ’cause that movie came from a place of experience. I wonder if I’d ever see it again, or if it’s like Bamboozled, where it’s just gonna make me hate White people for a while. Naw, I can’t hate y’all. You’re the only ones who read my site!

In movie news, it was reported that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are set to produce a film based on the Image comic Invincible. I used to read the series back when I worked at Diamond and got the hardcovers for free, and I really loved it. It follows Mark Grayson, who’s half human and half Viltrumite. His father, who’s full Vultrimite, is the hero known as Omni-Man, and Mark seems to have inherited a lot of his powers. Mark becomes the hero Invincible and a bunch of other stuff happens. Hey, what do you want from me? I only read the first 48 issues, and that was, like, 7 years ago. The thing I like about the series is that Mark is allowed to grow and change. People die and stay dead. In comics, there’s always the approach where they give the semblance of change without actual change, but that’s not how Invincible works. I mean, he’s currently married with a kid, and they haven’t resorted to having the Devil erase it all, unlike some heroes… Anyway, I like the idea of a movie, but I don’t know if Rogen and Goldberg are the guys to do it. After all, they’re the team behind AMC’s Preacher – a show that I’ve yet to really hear anything good about. Mainly, I heard season one was just boring. So, I guess we’ll just have to see what they bring to the table.

In other movie news, Scarlett Johansson’s live action Ghost In The Shell adaptation bombed, and the congregation rejoiced. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the film because it was felt that the main character, played by Johansson, was whitewashed. They felt she should’ve been portrayed by an Asian actress, and even the studio is now saying the movie failed to meet expectations due to the whitewashing controversy. I’m really not educated enough to weigh in on this one. I mean, I’d always heard that Japanese identity politics went a little deeper than we might think, which is why their cartoon characters always have blue hair and shit, but never really look Asian. But again, before I say something uninformed, I’m gonna bow out of this one. For a better understanding of the controversy, check out my friend Jenn’s post on the film.

Speaking of outrage, there was a Pepsi commercial that ruffled some feathers this week. I’d post the video, but Pepsi is trying to scrub all reference to the thing. In it, Kendall Jenner breaks away from a fashion shoot to join a peaceful protest, capping it off by offering a stern looking cop a Pepsi. He accepts, takes a swig, and everyone rejoices. The problem, however, is that the ad was kind of tone deaf. It seemed to trivialize the act of protesting, and to add insult to injury, it installed a pretty White girl as the face of the protest. Now, I saw the thing, and it was hamfisted, but I’m not sure it was worth all the threaded tweets and thinkpieces that it generated. Like, I get why folks didn’t like it, but I’m not sure I’m “woke” enough to see the whole matter. Anyone wanna weigh in on this one?

In television news, Disney Channel officially ordered Raven’s Home to series. Serving as the sequel to That’s So Raven, it features Raven Symone reprising her role as Raven Baxter, only now she’s the divorced mom of twin tweens. She also lives with her best friend, Chelsea, who’s ALSO a divorced single mom. Things start to get crazy, though, when Raven’s kids start to exhibit her psychic powers. See, that was always my thing with that show. Sure, I was too old for it when it was a hit, but I love a good tween TV show. That said, I feel like Raven and her friends could’ve had zany adventures without the whole psychic powers gimmick. I mean, the kids of iCarly didn’t need superpowers in order to be entertaining. The psychic stuff made it too much like a mystical tween Three’s Company which, on paper, sounds perfect, but isn’t that great in execution. Anyway, I just typed all this to justify posting a pic of costar Anneliese Van Der Pol. This whole thing just sounds like Fuller House with powers. I’ve got no nostalgia for the original show, so I doubt I’ll be checking this out.

In other TV news, Freeform has ordered New Warriors to series, featuring fan favorite character Squirrel Girl. I’ve got to admit that I know next to nothing about that character except that she was the nanny to Jessica Jones and Luke Cage’s daughter, Dani. I know she was a Great Lakes Avenger, but she was never a New Warrior. Still, they’ve been trying to find a vehicle for that character FOREVER, so I guess they finally figured it out. Based on how WB/DC has handled Powerless, I’m not too eager to see another comedy set in a comic book universe. The one bright spot in the whole thing is that Kevin Biegel is rumored to be the showrunner. Not only does he follow me on Twitter, but he’s the creator of the Fox series Enlisted (which I loved), and he co-created Cougar Town. Knowing that, I think the show is in good hands. I still feel weird about being a 35 year old man watching Freeform. It’s like you’re paying for The CW. The news, however, makes me sad that The Middle is still going. If you didn’t know, a few years ago, when it looked like the writing was on that wall for that show, Eden Sher had a meeting with Marvel. While we don’t really know what was discussed, her name was thrown around in the same discussions of Squirrel Girl. With The Middle already renewed for next season, though, that takes her out of the running. Sucks because I think Sher’s perky, Sue Heck personality would be perfect for Squirrel Girl.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Barry Manilow came out as gay, which makes me realize that he’s actually been singing about Man D all these years…

Speaking of gay, on Doctor Who it was revealed that The Doctor’s latest female companion, Bill, is gay. I mean, her name is “Bill”, so, surprise?

NBC ordered 2 additional episodes of the Will & Grace revival, bringing the total up to 12.

Also in the Department of Things We Don’t Need, there are apparently outlines for 14 more Transformers movies

I’ve written about my love of The Undertaker a few times here on the site. Basically, he’s a relic of a bygone era in professional wrestling – an era of kayfabe, when enemies wouldn’t fly on the same planes together, or be seen hanging out together at IHOP. He’s from a time when people had flashy names and in-ring gimmicks to set them apart. The industry has changed a lot since then, but you could always depend on Taker. If I were to be a professional wrestler tomorrow, my in-ring name would be Bruce Williamson. That’s how they do it now. Other business ventures came along, like Total Divas, which even further blurred the lines between real and fake, but you could always depend on Taker.

In recent years, he’s basically been a part-timer. Ever since The Streak was broken, there wasn’t really much need for him to be around. The mystique was kind of gone by that point. But, like clockwork, he still showed up to Wrestlemania and did his job. In my heart, I knew the end was near. I’d always said that, given some advance warning, I’d even try to attend his final show. He means that much to me. Well, I didn’t even get to watch his final appearance, which was last Sunday at Wrestlemania 33. The card looked weak, and I felt I had better shit to do. Little did I realize I’d be missing history in the making. The Undertaker jobbed to Roman Reigns, narrowly missing out on his 100th pay per view victory. While the rumors of retirement had been floating for years, no one was ready for what would happen next. He donned his signature coat, gloves, and hat, and took one last look at the crowd. Then, he removed them, placed them in a pile in the center of the ring, and walked away. He kissed his wife, pretty much breaking character, and proceeded to walk up the ramp, where he was lowered until he disappeared. As the crew dismantled the ring, they refused to move his belongings – a gesture of respect to the man who brought us all nearly 30 years of entertainment. I hate that I wasn’t there, but I especially hate that I didn’t even watch it. Sure, in this technological age we can always find what we’re looking for, but I feel like I let him down. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t give a shit about me, but I know him, and I thank him. So, with that in mind, Mark Calaway, AKA The Undertaker had the West Week Ever.