#and I remembered that Klunk is in like One Scene but I forgot which so I did let out a little squeal when I saw him
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I'm about to watch one of the cringiest episodes of 2k3 someone hold my hand please
#rewatching btts has been A Time in the most neutral sense#I meant to finish watching it weeks ago but I literally couldn't find the energy to watch more than one or two eps every few days#as someone who's sure they watched this season twice#I have retained next to No memories of it lol#I remembered the Splinter gets cyber zapped part lol#did NOT remember how fucking guilty Don felt the entire time oh gosh#but also GUHHHGHGHHG it's so hard watching the animation#few bright spots though:#I enjoy the small callbacks of Mikey calling himself Sir Mikey the Bold in like ep1 then using that handle for Superquest#also I totally forgot he calls dibs on Maid of Honor during the proposal ep#also that small bit where he's wearing a tiara during a PD confrontation was cute#and I remembered that Klunk is in like One Scene but I forgot which so I did let out a little squeal when I saw him#ALSO back to bad GHGHHGD I had to skip part of Virtual Reality Check cuz it was literally just Bad Day vibes but Worse lmao#anyways anyways anyways I'm gonna start the ep seriously someone hold my hand
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Wonder Woman Annual #2
Previously in FUCKITY FUCK FUCK I FORGOT THERE WAS AN ANNUAL AS WELL: Diana prepared to face down her most terrifying foes yet: the Dark Gods.
Who or what are the Dark Gods? Dunno.
What do they want? No clue.
What is this awesome and terrible power that they wield? So far, mostly just the ability to shoot lasers out of their eyes and incite people to deliver badly-written villainous monologues.
Why are we supposed to be so pants-pissingly afraid of them? Because James Robinson told us so.
Last issue ended with the Dark Gods manifesting over Washington DC, at which point it was revealed that they are⌠giant floating statues, I guess? But, like, scary floating statues. With lasers. So scary.
And then moments later, a couple of Star Sapphires arrived to whisk Diana away so she could appear in this shitty annual.
Diana is teleported to the Star Sapphiresâ home planet of Zamaron, which is heavily battle-damaged.
The two Sapphires who brought her here are called Miss Bloss and Miri Riam, who are apparently pre-established minor Green Lantern characters â something I had to figure out on my own, because Robinson just assumes we all known them, and that Diana does too (Iâm reasonably sure theyâve never met). The one time his overexplaining might have actually been useful, and he couldnât be arsed taking a panel or two to make introductions.
Diana yells at them that sheâs too busy to help with whatever their deal is, and launches into a recap of last issue. But, you know, that was all of two weeks ago, so by all means, spend a page getting us up to speed.
Sheâs also still throwing around âcrazyâ and âinsaneâ like theyâre going out of style.Â
ââŚand although Iâm not certain â the woman who told me was insane at the time--â
How about âpossessedâ, âout of controlâ, âsomewhat incoherentâ or âcompromisedâ? Any of these would be more accurate in this context, as well as not equating mental illness with dangerous and violent behaviour.
But anyway, essentially Diana says âmy world is being attacked by the Dark Gods and itâs my faultâ, and Miss Bloss is like, âwell, if that was your fault, then our thing must be your fault, tooâ, and points up at the giant floating Dark God statue thing that Diana has somehow failed to notice until this exact moment.
Oh, goody.
Diana starts questioning them about what happened. Honestly, thatâs really all she does these days. If sheâs not delivering plot recaps herself, sheâs setting up allies for flashback-exposition or allowing villains to monologue at her. Oh, sure, occasionally she fights somebody, but mostly sheâs just a vessel for tedious exposition.
Miss Bloss describes the Dark Godâs attack:
âEven to recall it now, it feels like a dream or vision from another world. Almost like we were looking at ourselves from outside of it all.â
The first time I read this, I took it to be a figure of speech. I interpreted it as an expression of Miss Blossâs deep level of shock at the devastation sheâd experienced, that it still felt unreal, as though it had happened to somebody else.
I was giving Robinson too much credit: he meant it literally.
As weâll learn in a few pagesâ time, one of the Dark Gods has some kind of power over peopleâs perceptions, enabling him to induce in others a sense of unreality and dreamlike detachment. Weâll learn that the Dark Gods have deliberately used this ability in order to confuse enemies and limit their ability to respond to or even comprehend attacks.
Frazer Irving â who illustrates the flashback, along with a couple of other scenes in this issue â plays into this well. His stylised art and colour work lends a somewhat eerie dreamlike quality to his pages, creating a sense of altered reality.
Unfortunately, Robinson canât write dreamlike.
So what in theory should be an eerie, confusing, unreal flashback instead just turns into Miss Bloss telling us that her memories of the attack are eerie and unreal and hazy⌠aaaaand then proceeding to describe the attack, the enemy, his name, the concept he embodies, his powers and the precise reason why he was able to kill so many Star Sapphires, all in exacting detail.Â
The Dark God who attacked the Sapphires is called Karnell and he calls himself the god of love, but the love he embodies is dark and gritty and edgy and corrupted. He can sense any âimpuritiesâ or âflawsâ in a personâs love and rub it in their faces. When he does this to Star Sapphires, something something their rings freak out and they spontaneously combust.
Diana asks, âyeah okay, but you didnât know that this was my fault when you dragged me here, so what gives?â, and Bloss and Miri are like, âwelp, our leaders are all dead, Carol Ferris is busy in another comic, we all frankly suck, and you were a Star Sapphire once in that Blackest Night crossover event.â
At which point I went, âwait huh what??? but that was before the New 52 reboot!â, before remembering that Geoff Johnsâ entire preboot GL run survived the reboot for no other reason than because Geoff Johns gets whatever he wants.
Diana agrees to lead the Sapphires against Krakoom (Iâm sorry, Iâm not going to bother to learn his name, heâs not worth that kind of time), and the Sapphires respond by giving her the Nazi salute due to an unfortunate artistic miscalculation.
Diana: And if I am going to stand among you â fight alongside you â let me look the part. Sapphires: As you wish it, so do we, Wonder Woman⌠be a Star Sapphire once more.
And with that, they give Diana a makeover.
Itâs not a bad costume, especially when you compare it to her Blackest Night design. That one tried to ape Carol Ferrisâ hideous then-costume, which featured hip cut-outs and a plummeting neckline that ended around the crotch area, by giving Diana a bathing suit with hip-holes and a bared midriff. This design retains many familiar Star Sapphire costume elements â the stiff pointed white collar, the combination tiara/mask, the starburst symbol, the long gloves and high boots â without going into creepy male-gazey territory.
buuuuut it also looks like Diana is wearing a pink apron over her usual costume, and that is something I cannot get past. It also varies wildly across the issue, depending on which of the four credited artists is drawing it.
By the way, I say âmakeoverâ because despite violet blaze on her right ring finger, it took me several times flicking back and forth before I was certain that Diana had been deputised into the Corps as opposed to just being given a new costume in order to âlook the partâ, as she put it. I know this sounds like it should have been self-evident, but Robinson gives absolutely no indication of any deeper change in her. Not even lip service to the fact that Diana is connected, through the power ring, to the emotional spectrum and the violet energies of love.
Contrast this with Diana in Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3:
âExtraordinary. All of them, in their way, have tried to explain it to me before. Hal, John, Kyle⌠even Guy, may Ares watch and aid him. But it defies all attempts. There is no way to describe it. What it is to wear a power ring, and feel emotion made manifest. To wear fear on anger or will or hope on oneâs hand⌠To wear love. Too beautiful for wordsâŚâ
Thereâs a lot about Wondyâs Blackest Night tie-in thatâs flawed and frustrating and flat-out bad, but this page gets it right. If youâre going to make Diana a Star Sapphire â going to give one of the most loving hearts of the DCU the power to channel her love into tangible power â then you need to acknowledge the weight of that.
In this comic, itâs as insubstantial as a costume change.
Flying up to confront Kratakoa, Diana wonders if she could really have summoned the Dark Gods. Supergirl said she brought them into this plane with a careless wish, and⌠oh, come to think of it, she did inadvertently make a wish during the recent Dark Nights: Metal crossover, while coincidentally handling some magical wishing metal. But nah, that couldnât possibly have done it!
She reaches the big floaty statue and a bloke with spiky wings emerges from it. Itâs Klangalang, and heâs got his monologue cued up and ready to go!
He opens with a fairly standard âahaha, Iâve been expecting you, hero!â, and the implications fly straight over Dianaâs head.
Kibble: You came, Amazon! Sooner than I expected, too! Good⌠Iâm going to love this! Diana: Youâre some kind of seer, too? You expected me?
Letâs review: The villains Diana supposedly summoned, the villains who have been trying to kill or neutralise Diana before she can interfere in their plans, have attacked the Star Sapphires in advance of their invasion of Earth. Despite not knowing about Dianaâs connection to their attacker, the Sapphires reached out to her for help, teleporting her away at almost the exact moment that the villains launched their opening assault. Now the one villain who hasnât joined the invading force is cackling that heâs been expecting Diana.
Even a half-competent hero should be able to join the dots and realise theyâve been deliberately lured away. Not so Robinsonâs Diana, who gazes at him wide-eyed and demands, âomg, u expected me? are u psychic or sumthin???â
After a couple more rounds of obscenely dense questions from Diana (along with another out-of-character âcrazyâ slur), Klunk ends up having to straight-up spell it out for her. He also explains how she summoned the Dark Gods.
Krunch: You wished for the godsâ return. Well, here we are. Here I am! Diana: Like a dream, but yes, of course. But I meant the Greek pantheon, not�� Krump: Gods! Thatâs all you said.
Small nitpick: Diana would not think of her gods the âGreek pantheon���. Sheâd be more likely to call them âthe Patronsâ, âmy godsâ, âthe gods of my peopleâ, âthe gods of Themysciraâ, âthe gods of Olympusâ, âthe Olympiansâ â she knew them as all of these things long before she knew Greece, or any world outside her island home, existed. The only reason she might refer to them as âGreekâ is for the benefit of people in Manâs World, as a point of reference.
More importantly, are you friggin kidding me, the friggin layers of incompetence here from our supposed hero
accidentally makes a wish while wielding a weapon of magical wishing metal
manages to make the vaguest wish possible, opening a loophole for THE WORST GODS to infiltrate reality
immediately forgets she ever wished it
why would she even wish for that?! her gods havenât gone anywhere!
To be somewhat fair, the reason she doesnât really remember it is that âthe God With No Nameâ (YES REALLY) made it all feel like a dream so that she wouldnât realise sheâd made an irresponsible wish and needed to immediately rally everybody together to resist the Dark Gods.
Except⌠that in itself doesnât make any sense.
There are two possibilities here: the Horse With No Name could have clouded Dianaâs memory of making the wish after the Dark Gods were pulled into this reality â in which case, why? How would she even land on the conclusion that sheâd accidentally summoned some evil gods that sheâd never heard of, when her intent was to call on her own gods and sheâd had no indication that it had even worked?
Alternatively, he clouded her mind in the moment of the wish, to render her thoughts vague and imprecise and open the door for the Dark Godsâ invasion. Which doesnât work either, because it turns out that the Dark Gods are pretty pissed off at being pulled out of their awesome reality.
King Koopa: War was declared the moment you dragged us from our home⌠our beautiful world â which you regard as the âDark Multiverseâ â we see as a paradise⌠where we were more than even gods to our worshippers⌠we were everything!â
So basically their plan is to turn Earth into a desolate hellscape just like their home.
Diana, who has already been told that Kraig is a god of corrupted love, conveniently forgets this fact just so that Robinson can tell it to us again.
Diana: You call yourself a god of love. What kind of love wants to be feared? Love is unconditional. KHAAAAAN: Spoken like the addled naive romantic I expected. Love always comes with conditions. Sometimes, I confess, I question⌠am I god of that love, of those conditions behind it? But then I realise⌠I donât care.
Cool story. Glad we can agree on one thing, at least.
He monologues for a couple of pages about how heâs going to open her eyes to the truth of how horrible and selfish and corrupt love is, then draws Diana into his mind so that he can monologue some more.
We learn that the world of the Dark Gods was forged by a group of divinities called Titans, âmuch like the reality of your own Greek pantheonâ (incorrect, youâre thinking of the Protogenoi; the Titans were the second generation of gods). But because these Titans were hardcore, they did it by smashing five other realities together. And into this terrifyingly dark edgy metalscape came⌠+~teh D4rK g0dz~+
Robinson then undermines the super-extra-double-dark feel heâs going for with another embarrassing name and an accidental rhyme.
âWe Dark Gods followed, as gods do. King Best and then the rest.â
KING. BEST.
But wait, we havenât even gotten to Kalamazooâs dark edgy totally original backstory!
In fact, this is so dark and edgy and original that Iâll throw in a quick content warning here for descriptions of domestic violence and shittiness towards sex workers.
âYouâll meet a boy â his mother broken by a wanton father who forced her to cheapen herself further with wraiths and under-beings. The mother died â beaten to death. When he saw her blood still dripping from the fists of his father, the boy ran, fearing the same fate. The boy loved his mother, but hated his father and the world. Both emotions â love and hate â burned so brightly that even from within the darkness of our world, their glow caught the eye of mighty King Best.â
Domestic violence! Sexism! Slut shaming! Fridging! Itâs like a game of grimdark bingo!
After three goddamn pages of this, Diana suddenly twigs what we all figured out eleven pages ago, âoh now waaaaaait a minute, you didnât lure me here so that your buddies could invade Earth while Iâm distracted, did you?â
Klinger responds by almost murdering Diana, and is only stopped by the intervention of the Star Sapphires. They all retreat, and Diana proposes a new plan: all the Sapphires will channel their energy into her, something something, true love wins the day.
So Diana flies up to Kimberley, sword held aloft and blazing with violet energy, and announces, âboy did you make a mistake when you told me that you used to be a sad boy child! now I have only love in my heart for you!â
Karma Khameleon is like, âoh no, love! my one true weakness!â, and Iâm like, âd⌠didnât we just have this story?â
Then Diana straight-up stabs him with her love sword, and Korgo fades away with an âIâll beat you next time, Captain Planet! Next tiiiiiimeâŚâ
Diana farewells the Star Sapphires, and Robinson shoehorns in this bit of virtue signalling:
Miri: Please⌠Diana, think of us as your sisters, too, for all time. Diana: Or âbrother,â I notice. Miss Bloss: Love is love, no matter who bears the heart.
This is a welcome and needed change to the Star Sapphires. The fact that they have been portrayed up until this point as an all-women corps (with the exception of a few briefly deputised blokes) is bound up in ugly gendered ideas, exemplified by Geoff Johnsâ comment in 2009 that âanyone can join, but most men are not worthyâ.
But thereâs something gratingly self-congratulatory in the execution of this course correction. Robinsonâs doing the absolute bare minimum here â including one or two male background characters in a handful of panels â and flagging it as progress with a phrase associated with the LGBTI community. We havenât even seen a single named male Sapphire, let alone one with a speaking part; I think itâs a little premature to be looking for kudos. And either Miri or Miss Bloss could very easily have been replaced in this story by a new male character.
The Sapphires teleport Diana back to Earth, where she finds DC a smoking ruin. And as the air clears, she seesâ
âwait for itâ
âthis is truly shocking and terrifyingâ
THE DARK GODS MADE A MEGAZORD
THEY MADE A FUCKING MEGAZORD WITH THEIR DUMBASS FLYING STATUES
A GODDAMN MEGAZORDÂ WHO WHAT HOW WHY.
Dianaâs face does this:
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