#but the overall like. broad strokes and foundations of his character are there!!

[fia-bonkginya]

okay okay okay obviously this zerxus characterization (and a little bit of the story) doesn't FULLY line up with exu calamity but like. you can very much extrapolate and see how he could have gotten to this point!! he already sort of blamed laerryn for what happened to evandrin and to the city, and you can imagine that festering for a thousand years in a place like the hells.

and his line about how "there's no difference between the gods above and the ones below" perfectly mirrors his statements in the campaign- at one point he says something about how "once you bow to one you bow to them all," so that's always been something he's thought

plus, his fortress being called the brass skull- clearly some of his connection with his old friends is still there, even if he's trying to pretend it's not

i think it's a fun interpretation!!! and of course seeing the aspects of calamity depicted in stained glass like that (especially the ring of brass, evandrin, and elias) was. so so so good. what an excellent artistic choice. i cried

[raisansgrapeon]

Ghostbur Through the Lens of War

When analyzing a text (text being used as a general term), it’s important to establish what lens your analysis is going to be run under. It helps specify thoughts and arguments under set pretenses and brings focus to the discussion. Instead of looking at an article or a story through broad strokes, using a specific lens focuses on one stroke and allows for deeper analysis to be achieved. 

It is safe to say that most of the Dream SMP is either seen under then lens of politics or mentality/interpersonal relationships. Viewing the story as a grand political battle and the consequences of the mighty leads us right down to the more specific lens of war. Yet, despite this common viewpoint under which we, as a community, digest the story of the Dream SMP, the character of Ghostbur is often left out of the equation in those terms, favoring to shed light on him for what he represents mentally. While his character is very much geared towards that line of thinking as an individual, his representation of innocents in the portrayal of war in the DSMP is nothing to scoff at.

The scale of the DSMP is far too small to truly represent the role of the common man within the cogs of war. With (at the time of writing) 31 characters within the story and a vast majority too disconnected from the story line to feel any real impact from the major players, we only ever really got to feel the way war impacted the warring factions and the leaders. The way war impacted countries as government system. The way war impacted the individual. We saw how war warped Wilbur and how war pitted father against son. We saw how war tore apart L’manburg because the leaders in charge never learned when to quit. We saw how abstaining from war left the Badlands relatively unharmed until a new external force came into play.

In all these instances, we see either the characters as individuals in positions of power, or the overarching bodies and governments that share the land, but we never see the people. The innocents trying to live life as best as they can under dire circumstances. Until, we look at Ghostbur under the lens of war as well. 

Ghostbur is a prime vessel to carry the weight of the general population and how war impacts the people caught in the crossfire. He is the essence of the common people living their life only to have it viscerally uprooted and destroyed by war and by ignorant leaders gunning for their own gains. This can be seen in nearly every aspect of Ghostbur’s character.

Starting off with what inspired this essay and these thoughts in general is Ghostbur’s conversation with Philza on the 6th of January. Within this conversation is where the most blatant characterization and solidification of Ghostbur as a representative of the people comes into play. The line, “I read the history books,” and Ghostbur recounting his warped idea of how Wilbur’s death came to be reflects on how history is written by the victors, and that is the version taught to the population. We are told of the great triumphs of the heroes of history, even if those heroes will never see themselves as such. The people are told of all the good that came out of a horrid historical event without the whole picture because details will always be lost within the wash of time. And during conflict between parties and during horrid events, Ghostbur continued to just live his life. He became the foundations of the country that those in charge put on the line. “...I just wrote books... I built a house for people... I built this town, just like I built Logstedshire...” Ghostbur built L’manburg and Logstedshire as places for him, as a representation of a community, to live. 

Even beyond this conversation, the way Ghostbur acts and how everyone interacts with him continues to support the idea that Ghostbur represents the innocents in war. Again, Ghostbur learns everything from word of mouth and history books. They are all skewed to paint a simplified version of events that leaves everything black and white, like how so much of history is formulated and taught. Ghostbur is always happy and cheerful and naive, chasing ideals and chasing that happiness. People just want to be happy. They just want to live their lives freely and enjoy it. Ghostbur covers the more mundane tasks of L’manburg, such as building aesthetic things or extra houses or the town center. When interacting with Ghostbur, everyone treats him like a glass vase. They fight to keep him complacent and content and happy. The way Phil talks to Ghostbur during their conversation, how Phil lies to him about Friend’s canon lives and Dream brings another Friend to keep Ghostbur complicit and feeling positive towards Dream, how everyone practically tip toes around him whenever something serious comes up.  They all talk to him softly, like a child. At least the way I see it as an American Citizen, the government is all to happy to leave the people thinking there is nothing wrong, and to actively keep them from getting too close to whatever the truth may be. All parties try to keep the innocents innocent and complacent.

And yet, “I sowed the seeds of peace, yet I am the one who pays for war.” The people always pay. The innocents always pay with their lives and their homes for those in charge to play their games. “You knew everything everyone owned was in this town.”  The greater powers at play, whether they be governments or leaders or what have you, know that in this land is where people live. They know, but they enact war anyway. The decimate their lands anyway. They blow up their homes anyway. They kill their loved ones anyway. 

Phil’s final, “...maybe you’ll understand someday,” is saying, “one day, you will look back on this day in history and see all the good it caused. One day, the innocents will move on. One day, the people will forget why they lost what they lost.”

And Ghostbur does.

---

A bit disorganized. I wrote this off the cuff so it’s more like a train of thought loosely formatted as an essay. I hope you all liked my small rant. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and just wanted to write it, you know?

Edit below the cut:

A small amendment to this post in retrospect in terms of one of my arguments and how I presented it along with some added hindsight and sleep, since I had written this at 2 in the morning.

This was spurred on by the tags of @asmoljay​ in their reblog of this post.

In their tags, they bring up the point that my argument on how people treat Ghostbur is placating and dismissive, mentioning that people are actually very confrontational with Ghostbur about Alivebur’s actions and its effect on them.

I will concede, my original claims are unfounded and far too broad. What I should’ve said, and what I have come to the realization of, is that Phil is placating and dismissive and trying to keep Ghostbur, for the most part, complacent. He never actively confronts Ghostbur about Alivebur’s actions and hardly has anything to say when Ghostbur brings up his death by Phil’s hands.

Overall, Philza is the only one engaging with Ghostbur thematically. He’s the only one playing into what Ghostbur represents, acting as a representation of the instigators of war to contrast with Ghostbur’s representation of the innocents.

I also feel I was a tad bit unclear as to why I was specifying that I was looking at Ghostbur through the lens of war. In doing so, I was taking a stance on Ghostbur’s thematic relevance and role in such an analysis and subsequently ignoring aspects of Ghostbur’s character that builds him up as that, a character. Looking through this lens, I am only looking at a small facet of how Ghostbur acts and interacts with the story at play. I am by no means disregarding how he works as a character or as a representation of guilt, unhealthy coping, drug use, etc. Ghostbur is multifaceted and I wanted to bring light to one facet that I found really interesting and didn’t really see anyone acknowledge. In the end, I am blatantly ignoring how different events feed into different aspects of Ghostbur as a character and bringing to light how other events pertain to him as a representation of a general populous and how that plays into the theme of war that is (or at the very least was) going on between Phil and Ghostbur.

Ghostbur isn’t defined by this characterization that I have illustrated, but it is certainly an interesting way to look at him under new context.

[shadowsong26x]

Random SW meta because Why Not

So, I’ve been thinking some about Thrawn lately (because a) I do that off and on, and b) commentary about Alliances has been on my dash again lately). And I’ve been thinking about where he works really well for me, and where he doesn’t quite hit the mark; and where a lot of the commentary from people who are not super fond of the character is coming from (i.e., the fact that he is The Smartest In The Room and the need to demonstrate that has a tendency to push back on other characters he interacts with in a bad way/sometimes makes them look less clever/competent than they actually are; I’ve particularly seen this in some of the discussions about Alliances, and it’s not entirely wrong.)

The rest is now going behind a cut because apparently I am incapable of shutting up XD

Anyway. Quick note before we get started. While Thrawn isn’t actually my favorite/a top-tier character for me, I do like him quite a bit, and most of the works he’s in. (I also like Timothy Zahn’s writing style, for the most part, though I know it isn’t for everyone.) Outbound Flight, for example, remains one of my favorite Legends novels. Also, I do like Alliances. Not as much as the first canon Thrawn novel or the stuff in Legends, but more than a few people I’ve seen comment on it. That being said, I don’t like the way Zahn writes Vader, for one thing, and I can understand where people who don’t like the way he writes Anakin and Padme are coming from, though I don’t 100% agree. I also, overall, like Thrawn in the novels a lot better than I liked him in Rebels, particularly S4.

And I think a lot of it comes down to this:

Thrawn is, essentially, a Sherlock Holmes expy*.

And, more than Moriarty or his other nemeses/notable antagonists, and probably at least as much as being Clever and solving mysteries, a lot of what defines Sherlock Holmes, and what makes stories about him good and compelling, is his relationship with Watson**.

So, with that in mind…

In each of the novels except Alliances, Thrawn has a pretty solid Watson at his side. In the original Thrawn trilogy, of course, he has Pellaeon. In Outbound Flight, he has Car’das. In Thrawn, he has Eli. And it’s interesting, because while all three of these men fill that Watson role, and have a sort of give-and-take with Thrawn that’s really fun to read about, it plays out differently with each of them, based on the relative positions they hold, and their personalities.

Eli tends to come across more or less as Done with Thrawn’s bullshit like 99% of the time, as much as he respects Thrawn’s brilliance – but, then again, while Thrawn does outrank him, they come up together/start their careers in the Imperial military together, and have parallel learning curves.

Car’das is a combination of wary and fascinated, because he’s stranded in Chiss territory and Thrawn’s prisoner, so a lot of his dynamic with Thrawn is negotiations to make the best of the situation for himself and his friends. Meanwhile, Thrawn has next to no experience with the main (from a narrative perspective) part of the galaxy, and Car’das in particular is his window into that world and has a way of thinking that intrigues him. The two of them also have a lot to learn from each other, in terms of culture, history, language, etc.

Bearing in mind that I haven’t reread his books in a while – Pellaeon, interestingly enough, despite being pretty established in his career, is in some ways even more conscious of the rank and status in play than Car’das, at least at the start. Because he is directly under Thrawn’s authority, being the captain/commander of his flagship. To the best of my recollection, he starts off serving mostly as a sounding board for Thrawn, but over time starts to bounce back, and the two of them hit their stride I think probably somewhere in the second book? And there’s a lot of cool things about their dynamic, even posthumously (on Thrawn’s end) in the Hand of Thrawn duology ten years later, where the possibility of Thrawn being back and undoing everything Pellaeon is currently trying to accomplish is something he has to thread his way through very carefully.

Pellaeon also fits the audience-surrogate/narrator part of being Watson (which becomes kind of the focus in some adaptations of the source material, to the point where a badly-handled Watson loses most of his own characteristics/cleverness) better than most of the others. And, true, all of the Watsons fill the role in this respect, since Zahn didn’t write Thrawn’s point of view at all in Legends, but Pellaeon hits those particular notes the best, IMO. I remember reading the annotated Heir to the Empire and Zahn commenting that he needed a human viewpoint character because Thrawn is, well, alien, and that’s in some cases a better way to get alien worldviews/psychology across than trying to write it directly***.

Interestingly enough, Thrawn kind of serves as an origin story for all three book!Watsons, too? Which is probably part of what makes them so compelling, that while this relationship is a hugely impactful/defining one for them, it’s not the sum total of their character or story. For example, as much as I like Thrawn and Pellaeon’s dynamic with each other, I’m almost more attached to Pellaeon once he comes into his own and builds on what he had and then lost with Thrawn. (Full disclosure – while I generally prefer the broad-strokes post-ROTJ worldbuilding in Legends to the same in canon****, I’m not super fond of a lot of the specific Legends plot points from that era; Pellaeon’s arc is one of the exceptions.) And Car’das had his own journey, building a smuggling empire and doing some light espionage on the side as the Empire rose around him. Eli, of course, we have yet to see what he’s done with himself after separating from Thrawn, but I expect he’ll have a cool story of his own, too.

…anyway, the point of all that is, giving Thrawn someone to bounce off of in the right ways, with whom he can hit that Holmes-and-Watson dynamic in one way or another, makes him work a lot better, at least for me personally, than Thrawn more or less on his own, and that works pretty well in the Legends novels and the first canon Thrawn novel.

Which brings me to Alliances and Rebels.

Alliances is kind of an interesting case to me, because there’s sort of the start to that kind of push-and-pull Thrawn gets with his Watsons when he’s interacting with Anakin, which is probably why those sections worked the best for me (despite some issues with Anakin’s POV, although I didn’t find them as jarring as other readers have). But, of course, it’s never actually going to develop properly into that kind of relationship, primarily because Anakin has already imprinted on other people/is already spoken for, so to speak, and so he and Thrawn are never going to mesh. Which does make for an interesting AU/story of what might have happened if Thrawn, or the Chiss in general, had been the ones to find Anakin/recognize his potential and take him in, as opposed to Qui-Gon and Palpatine. Buuuuuuuut that’s a separate conversation, and an AU I don’t need/will not be writing, lol.

And Vader, of course, is never ever going to fill that niche for Thrawn; which probably contributes to why that half of the novel fell a little flat for me, along with really not liking the way Zahn wrote Vader.

And then there’s Rebels.

S4 Thrawn doesn’t work as well for me overall, because there’s no one in his orbit that even approaches that dynamic. Pryce might try, but he doesn’t seem to think much of her/like and respect her in the way he does with his various Watsons. His relationship with Rukh has its own appeal, but it’s not the same thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, S4!Thrawn is still clever and competent and badass and all of that and I do enjoy his bits, but he doesn’t draw me in/I’m not invested in him in the same way.

S3, on the other hand…

Much like the flashback half of Alliances, there’s the foundations of this kind of dynamic between Thrawn and Kallus. To the point where, if the timeline had been fudged just a little bit; if Kallus hadn’t already defected when Pryce requested the Seventh Fleet (and Eli was already gone), I actually think they probably would have headed in that direction. I think the specific interplay would’ve fallen somewhere between how Pellaeon deals with Thrawn and how Eli does, in part because of jurisdiction/whatever (which, I mean, I’m making up but Kallus is ISB, not Navy/regular military; so while he is under Thrawn’s authority, it’s not really in the same way as Pellaeon is, being the captain/commander of Thrawn’s flagship).

Which is not in any way to say that I would’ve preferred it if canon had gone in that direction, because I wouldn’t – in all honesty, Kallus’s canon arc hits, like, all of my narrative buttons, and I’m not sure it could’ve been more up my alley if it had been specifically tailor-made to appeal to me, personally. But having that potential Holmes-and-Watson dynamic underpinning Thrawn and Kallus’s interactions throughout S3 definitely adds something to Thrawn (at least for me), and probably to Kallus as well.

Long story short, Thrawn is a character who works best when he’s matched by the right deuteragonist/foil, and the places where he doesn’t work as well, at least for me, personally, support that.

(Also, I’m looking forward to Treason to see what’s become of Eli and hopefully get some more Chiss worldbuilding! Because the snippets we got in Alliances are pretty cool and one of the things I really liked about that novel. Also Pellaeon is officially a canon character as of the Rebels series finale so I’m hoping we get to see more of him, too! Either in Treason or elsewhere.)

*I don’t take credit for this reading/interpretation, btw! I think it was first pointed out to me by my roommate, though I may be misremembering. Either way, it seems accurate/makes a whole lot of sense to me, so I’m sticking with it!

**This holds true whether the relationship is romantic or platonic. This is in no way about shipping Thrawn with any of his Watsons (though, for the record, I do ship him with Pellaeon).

***This is another thing I like about the Thrawn books in general, and some of the worldbuilding Alliances gave us – Star Wars doesn’t do a whole lot with that side of things (i.e., with making aliens and the way they think/approach problems really feel alien, barring species like the Geonosians which are a little too removed, and make it hard to hit that sci-fi/fantasy sweet spot of being just the right combination of Similar But Otherworldly, if that makes sense? …tangentially related, I really should revisit that idea of an atevi Jedi at some point…but I digress). Anyway, I think it’s nice when this kind of thing is put into the universe. And since the Chiss Ascendancy and the Empire/Republic don’t have a lot of contact, it can be handled a lot better/more credibly with them, given the way the galaxy is built. So I appreciate that Zahn does that.

****I.e., the way the New Republic is set up; how the remainder of the Galactic Civil War played out over the next few years; a few other things; to the point where anything I write in that timeframe will absolutely be a blended canon, even beyond what I already do as a matter of course, integrating characters/specific locations and situations I like from the canon!ST with something like the broader Legends backdrop I prefer – with allowances, of course, for how AU I’ve gotten on the way to ROTJ. I mean, to be fair, once we get past roughly the Hand of Thrawn duology, I start getting a bit cranky at the worldbuilding again, but that’s when the plot points I dislike start taking over. But for those fifteen/twenty years, for that foundation, I prefer the Legends setup to the canon one. …and any more on the subject will be a long digression on my feelings about the ST in general which are out of place for this essay. Short version: I really like almost all of the new characters, but I’m not super invested in the story that’s being told with them.

[aion-rsa]

Best Stan Lee Comics: A Marvel Reading Guide

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If you only know of Stan Lee from his MCU cameos, you need to read his Marvel Comics work with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others.

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It’s tricky to pinpoint what would be considered the best Stan Lee stories, because he was a consummate collaborator. Lee was a writer, an idea man, and scripter who worked with some of the greatest storytellers in the business to bring characters to life in tales that were greater than the sum of their parts. And thus, a history of the best Stan Lee Marvel comics is also a showcase of some of the other historic talents in comic book history as well, with two looming larger than any others: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.

With apologies to Don Heck, John Buscema, John Romita, and many others, it was with Kirby and Ditko that Lee did his best work. There are, of course, controversies surrounding all of these collaborations. Lee's working relationship with Ditko was particularly contentious, and the issue of the Kirby/Lee partnership is still the subject of heated debate to this day, and will remain so for all time. I’m not here to unpack any of that. I’m just here to outline what, for someone who may not be overly familiar with the early days of Marvel, are the most essential segments of an impossibly large body of work.

I hit the big ones here. It’s not that I forgot about the early Hulk, Avengers, Iron Man, or Daredevil comics so much as I never considered those, especially when taken as a whole, to be the best work of Lee and his respective collaborators. And before you kill me, I'm not talking about the characters themselves, I'm just talking about the body of work Stan Lee did on those characters with his collaborators. It's good stuff, but little of it, in total, is the kind of legendary, essential reading I feel these other books are. The same goes for the Lee/Kirby X-Men series. While the essential elements of the X-Men as the ultimate metaphor for the ongoing fight against bigotry in all its forms was more or less in place early on, the concept (and the overall quality of the stories) didn’t really come into its own until the 1970s, under the guidance of other creators. That’s just my opinion, of course, and by all means, feel free to seek out all of the above, but in terms of sheer scope, and as the best possible showcase of the kind of power contained in Marvel’s early days, I give you these stories by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Buscema, John Romita, and others...

Fantastic Four

For some modern readers, the earliest Fantastic Four tales might not land with the kind of impact that you would expect, considering that they essentially redefined superhero comics. But rest assured, this is the foundation of the entire Marvel Universe, and the proper beginning of one of the greatest collaborations in all of comics with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

But if the first two volumes (Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The World's Greatest Comics Magazine and Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Master Plan of Doctor Doom, which make up roughly the first three years of the book) are too dry for you, then just go ahead and jump right into Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Coming of Galactus, which is really when Lee and Kirby find themselves in full flower. By this point in the series, you’ll find more ideas per page than most comics usually crank out in a year, and the book truly earns the title of “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” with the legendary "Galactus Trilogy." And while the “Galactus Trilogy” itself is often (rightly) cited as the pinnacle of the Lee/Kirby team, this volume ends with “This Man, This Monster” which is possibly an even better example of what Lee and Kirby could do with extraordinary characters, even when the fate of the planet wasn’t at stake.

And the amazing thing about that volume? It’s still only the halfway point of the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four stories. But before I dive deeper into the Lee/Kirby partnership, or the Lee/Ditko years, there is one brief diversion worth taking...  

Silver Surfer

At the moment, there isn’t yet an Epic Collection for the second half of the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four run (you can find them in assorted Marvel Masterworks volumes, though). But what there is is Silver Surfer Epic Collection: When Calls Galactus. What this volume does is reprint all of the early Silver Surfer appearances in the next two years or so of Fantastic Four. The Surfer here is a much more alien figure than he would later become, owing more to Jack Kirby’s continued influence on the character he created.

Follow that up with Silver Surfer Masterworks Vol. 1, where Lee and artist John Buscema fleshed out Norrin Radd’s backstory and gave him a little bit more of an interior life. These are really the tales that have essentially defined the Surfer for the rest of his pop culture history, and John Buscema at the height of his own artistic powers is a real treat to behold, even as Lee took the Surfer character a little further afield from the roots that Jack Kirby had tried to imbue him with. Still, key to these early Surfer tales is "The Power and the Prize," the first appearance of Marvel's Mephisto, and an important example of Lee's gift for high drama and melodramatic dialogue.

As a bonus, you absolutely should check out Silver Surfer: Parable, in which Lee partnered with visionary French comics artist Moebius, to tell a short, but weighty and compelling, tale that melds the end times imagery of Galactus with religious fanaticism.

Thor

While the earliest Thor stories (collected in Thor Epic Collection: God of Thunder) might feel a little tough to take for modern readers, often utilizing relatively traditional superhero storytelling tropes combined with faux-Shakespearean “elevated” dialogue, stick with ‘em and you’ll be rewarded. But really, starting at the beginning is overrated. You know the broad strokes of all these characters otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this site, right?

read more: Thor Comics Reading Order

You want another pure, unfiltered blast of Lee/Kirby awesome? Start with Thor Epic Collection: The Wrath of Odin, which is when Thor goes full blown Marvel Cinematic Universe cosmic god mythology mash-up, complete with familiar MCU figures like Destroyer, Ego, the Living Planet, and plenty of Loki. Like When Calls Galactus, you get Jack Kirby in his finest form, and it’s incredible that the pair were able to produce both Thor and Fantastic Four on a monthly basis. Just follow that right up with Thor Epic Collection: To Wake the Mangog for even more cosmic mythology mash-ups. While the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four is the true bedrock of the Marvel Universe as we know it, their collaboration on Thor is just as impressive. 

Basically, if you loved all the crazy comic-flavored visual goodness in Thor: Ragnarok, you'll want to settle in with a stack of these.

Captain America

No, Stan Lee didn’t have a hand in creating Captain America (but Jack Kirby sure did). But Lee DID bring him back from publishing limbo in the early 1960s. And that’s the focus of Captain America Epic Collection: Captain America Lives Again, featuring the tales that first brought Captain America back into the public consciousness.

Kicking off with Avengers #4 and then following up with the Tales of Suspense stories featuring Steve Rogers (before Marvel was confident enough he could sustain his own title), this, perhaps even more than the original Joe Simon/Jack Kirby Cap stories from the 1940s, is ground zero for Captain America fans.

read more: Captain America Comics Reading Order

Roughly half the stories deal with Cap readjusting to the modern world and the overwhelming guilt over the fate of Bucky Barnes, with plenty of Lee’s trademark introspective, soul-searching dialogue. Meanwhile, Kirby delivers some of the most spectacular fight scenes ever put on the page. This volume contains many of my favorite Captain America stories, and for my money, it's the definitive Cap. As out there as Lee and Kirby got on Fantastic Four and Thor, this is pure costumed superhero adventure on as "grounded" a level as you're ever likely to see from that team.

Doctor Strange

There have been plenty of talented creative teams who put in the time on the Sorcerer Supreme (we’ve written about plenty of them here), but none have ever matched the original Lee/Ditko stories. Hell, they’ll probably admit to it if you ask ‘em.

read more: The Doctor Strange/Pink Floyd Connection

Stan Lee’s creative partnership with Steve Ditko was always a tricky one, and perhaps nowhere was it more strained than in their collaboration on Doctor Strange. Ditko certainly maintained that Lee's input in these tales was minimal. And while these stories are indelibly stamped with Ditko’s style and philosophical sensibilities, perhaps even more than their work on Spider-Man, it’s nevertheless Lee’s lyrical dialogue and inventive, bizarre names for the numerous magical devices, dimensions, and demons that populate these stories that helped give Stephen Strange his unique identity. By the way, if you're ever in need of a thorough cataloging of the magic spells in these early Doctor Strange stories, you should really check this out. 

I have long maintained that there are no three greater words in our modern language than “the complete series” which is why you should just stick Doctor Strange Epic Collection: Master of the Mystic Arts on your shelf. 

Spider-Man

It’s remarkable how Spider-Man remains relatively unchanged from his earliest appearances. The costume is the same, the origin (one of the most oft-told in all of popular culture) has not only remained virtually unchanged, it has downright rejected any attempts to foist extraneous elements on it, and the central principle that guides the character was there from the very last page of his very first story. All of that just speaks to how solid the storytelling by Lee and Ditko was from the very start. Like Doctor Strange, these early Spider-Man tales have aged far better than their contemporaries, and still serve as the blueprint every time anyone looks to reinterpret the character, whether on the comics page or the screen.

The entirety of the Lee/Ditko Amazing Spider-Man partnership can be found in two Epic Collection volumes, Spider-Man Epic Collection: Great Power and then Spider-Man Epic Collection: Great Responsibility. You can almost pretend that these two volumes comprise one complete story, so cohesive is the storytelling, and if again, like their Doctor Strange, if these were the only stories ever told with this character, they would be enough.

After Ditko departed the book, Lee continued on as writer, partnering with John Romita, Sr. You can see how the story shifted with the transition from Ditko to Romita, as Romita’s more romantic style turned Peter Parker and his supporting cast from a group of regular folks into matinee idols, and even as Peter found a little more luck in the romance department (while Gwen Stacy had been introduced in the latter part of the Ditko years, it was Romita who formally introduced Mary Jane Watson), the spirit of Spidey as a hard luck hero remained.

Perhaps more than any other book, the years Stan Lee spent guiding Spider-Man with Ditko and Romita encompass the elements of Marvel's unique brand of superheroics. Nobody else in the entire stable embodies the everyman the way Peter Parker does, from his personal struggles to his homemade costume. And a single panel, the final panel from Spidey's first appearance in 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15, sums up the ethos of the Marvel Universe as a whole, in a perfect meeting of words and images.

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

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Feature Mike Cecchini

Dec 28, 2019

Marvel

Stan Lee

Jack Kirby

Steve Ditko

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[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Jon Espino on The Young Folks: Interview: Trey Edward Shults, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Taylor Russell talk about the complexities in ‘Waves’

Every decade or so, we get new media that only entertains us but educates us on the experiences of the next generation. Many times they highlight the new complexities and differences of their experience to ours, but they also remind us that while it may be put in a different context, at its core they are things we have also gone through. Trey Edward Shults delivers exactly that in his latest film, Waves, which explores not only how these experiences affect a family unit, but how race can also play into them.

We spoke with Trey Edward Shults, and actors Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Taylor Russell collaborating together, revisiting their teenage years, MySpace and the start of social media, and more.

Since your first film, Krisha, you’ve created films that explore different family dynamics. We revisit topics like addiction and overbearing fathers. What attracts you to these types of stories?

Trey Edward Shults: I just connect to a lot of them. Personal experiences and loved ones’ experiences, especially in these 3 movies [Krisha, It Comes at Night, Waves] because they weren’t made that far apart. They were probably all brewing in the brain at around the same time. Whether it’s conscious or not, I think I was still rustling with some certain things, and remain fascinated by them.

As the film starts, everything seems almost idyllic, nearly perfect, but as it goes on, we learn the true complexity of each character. What was it about your respective characters that drew you in?

Kelvin Harrison Jr.: For me it was seeing this boy who had so much love and respect for his dad and those around him, but he really didn’t know how to communicate that or know what to do with that information for himself. He starts trying to appease everyone in a way that ultimately strips him away from his own identity and his own voice. I wanted to show the humanity of a black boy where he doesn’t fall into the cliches, but who can make mistakes that also don’t define who they are. I also wanted to show how a family would have to grow because of the historical traumas that come from being a black family in America right now. It wasn’t just about the character but also the entire message of what we have to go through as African Americans. 

Taylor Russell: It’s really rare that you get characters like this for a young woman. I haven’t ever seen a script like this come across my lap, so it was a no-brainer to be a part of it. To see a story that is so nuanced, truthful, and authentic to the complexities of the black experience, which is so vast and so different for every person, made me admire how that was portrayed in this story. I liked how quiet she was, and how her strength was unconventional and unique. Even the storytelling style was perfect, how it was told in the two halves, was something that felt unique and that I had never seen before. I knew Trey’s work from Krisha. It was shot in such a beautiful way and unlike any other cinema. People were telling me that it was going to be quite close to Krisha, and I was like, “Oh my god, if it’s going to be like that then hell yes! Let’s do it!”

I like the way the film is split into two different perspectives. The first half focuses on the male experience, while the second half follows the aftermath and the female experience. Was it always your intention to split the film up this way?

TES: I think it was in the DNA way before even writing it. It functions in dichotomies, literally from highs and low, white and black, male and female, love and hate, and everything else in between. I liked the idea of the movie functioning in these dichotomies, but what it’s really about is the link and complexity of how we’re connected by the contrasts in our lives.

Although the film mostly focuses on the individual struggles and the family as a whole, there are a few moments in the film that talks exclusively to the black experience in America. What resources did you use to research this before incorporating it into the film? 

TES: Kelvin was such an invaluable resource, and he’s the reason that the story is about a black family. We met on our last film [It Comes at Night] and first started talking about Waves. I didn’t have it written yet, but I started talking about ideas of what I thought the movies was, and broad strokes about what I wanted it to be. Then, we were like, “We should do it together.”  When I was first writing it, we were texting a lot. Almost like little therapy sessions as we were learning about each other, learning about our commonalities and shared experiences with families, especially around the character’s age. Kel got a first draft, 8 months before we started shooting and then we kept building it further and further at that point. I let the actors kind ad-lib and make some changes to the scenes so that it would feel more natural and authentic. I felt like it was my job just to listen and understand and try to capture everything I could. 

So this was truly a collaborative process?

TES: Oh, absolutely.

KHJ: It was so easy because it really feels like the script and Trey’s version of it really understands the family. It was like the skeleton and the muscles, setting a strong foundation so that we can come in and be like, “Well, let’s put some brown skin here and a little blush and we’re good to go.”  I was never fearful of speaking up and being like, “Well this is how I feel and this is how I experienced this.” He would also respond with, “Well that makes sense and I understand that so now let’s shoot it that way.” To me, that’s beautiful.

While watching the film, it takes a turn partway through where it turns into a horror film. It feels almost nightmarish at a certain point.

TR: On the day of shooting those scenes, you could tell right away the tonal shift the movie was taking. It felt scary, and that day of filming was really intense too. Although a lot of that was in the script, it is still quite shocking when you see the final version. 

TES: I talked about this with Sterling [K. Brown] a lot too. For this family, the greatest tragedy has happened and a nightmare has come to life. It started with exploring how this would feel for this family and this situation, and from there it grew to adding the visuals and audio elements that would end up giving it more of a horror feel. 

One of the things that really helped push some of the more unnerving elements was the sound design and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score. How did that come together?

TES: It just got super lucky. One day, I got an email from Trent and Atticus saying they were interested in working together. It was unbelievable. For sound design, I had Johnnie Burn and his whole team create that atmosphere and mood. 

I’m still haunted by the sounds of the ligaments and muscles tearing. It was almost like ASMR, but in the most stressful kind of way. 

TES: Johnnie had such an amazing foley team and I don’t even know how they got most of the sounds they used in the film. We played with that beyond just what would sound natural and tried out things that would be more subjective to the characters, like whenever Tyler would use his shoulder. 

KHJ: Oh, I was on the ground and I could definitely hear it and feel it.

Did you know how to wrestle or did you have to learn just for the role?

KHJ: Hell-to-the-no. I had to transform. I did 3 months of wrestling training. I did 3 days a week of CrossFit with wrestling twice a day. My wrestling coach Vlad is actually in the movie. He would tell me, “Kelly, get tough!”  It was a tough experience but ultimately great for the movie because I could feel free and authentic when playing the character. 

For some people, their teenage years are either the best or the worst. How did it feel revisiting that time for your characters, or even while developing this film together?

TR: I mean, we play teenagers a lot. I feel like I’m constantly in high school. Maybe I’ll finally graduate one day. One can only dream. I think I got a little bit longer because I have a babyface. This story though feels so transcendent beyond being a 16-year-old, it’s more about the human experience. In that way, it feels like it could be at any age. At the same time, it’s telling the story of teenagers and experiencing and feeling things for the first time. It was a fun thing to explore, but also a hard thing. 

KHJ: It was therapeutic for me. My parents saw it for the first time and they told me that that could really understand the relationships. That’s what the movie ends up being about: relationships. At the end of it, I was feeling like maybe I should call my mom and try to figure out how to communicate with her a little bit better. It transcends age in a lot of ways, but the specificity of the 2019 kid experience is fascinating to me. I remembering having MySpace growing up.  

I honestly still miss MySpace. It’s basically the only reason I have the limited HTML coding knowledge I have. I mainly miss that you could set specific songs on the page. 

KHJ: I don’t miss it at all. So many fights when you would set your top 5 or top 10. It was the beginning of proper social media drama, and I was just not interested in it. The intensity of that now with apps like Instagram and Snapchat is insane. 

TR: In the film, you see the role that social media plays after the major event happens. Just the way people comment and speak about it so realistic. Even the cussing in the movie feels real, like when Trey has the phone autocorrect “ducking” for the f-word. We all know about that and that feeling when you’re so mad that you just don’t even care that it typed that out because we all know what they’re trying to say. It just adds to the overall relatability and speaks to real experiences.  

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[higglety]

Ok, so Power Rangers! :D

It was good and you should see it!  Full review below the cut because spoilers

Ok so it’s got pretty much exactly the plot you would expect out of a Power Rangers movie - five teens find the magic advanced alien science coins, become the Power Rangers, and battle Rita Repulsa to save the world.  Pretty simple stuff!  And that’s good - there’s no reason to make it any fancier or more complex, at least not in this first movie (apparently we’re going to be getting a few more).  We’ve got 

Red Ranger Jason, the leader who is played by Dacre Montgomery.  He was the star quarterback, but the movie opens by showing him throw away his promising football career by being a dumb teen and making stupid dumb teen choices (this will be a recurring theme).  We see him pulling a prank on a rival team with a friend, fleeing the police, and getting into a dramatic car accident resulting in a career-ending injury and legal repercussions.  Notably, his partner in dumb gets away, and Jason refuses to rat him out; accepting all of the blame and repercussions himself.  Jason’s poor choices have damaged is relationship with his father, who has lost faith in him.  

Pink Ranger Kimberly, played by Naomi Scott. She was a popular cheerleader, but we first see her being bullied and ostracized by former friends. We later discover that this is because she had done an incredibly mean-girl, extremely not-ok thing to another girl.  Her character arc involves her struggling with her guilt and working towards a redemption that she doesn’t completely believe that she deserves.  

Blue Ranger Billy, played by RJ Cyler.  We first see him when Jason meets him for the first time in detention.  He’s being bullied by the resident detention tough guy, and Jason steps in to get the bully to lay off.  It’s played as less “hero jock swoops in to protect the nerd” and more “teenage fuckup with zero fucks left to give finds that he does in fact have one single fuck left so come and get it asshole”.  Billy’s on the spectrum, which he mentions once(after he’s been on screen for several scenes) and never again.  That’s not to say he’s glossed over; to the contrary, he’s an integral part of the team.  The movie just never dwells on the fact that he’s Autistic; it never becomes a joke or a morality play.  This is a fact about who he is, nothing more and nothing less.  Billy’s father died relatively recently, and his character arc involves him working through his grief and becoming closer to his new found family.

Yellow Ranger Trini, played by Rebbeca Marie Gomez (stage name Becky G). We first meet her at the mine where the local disaffected youths hang out and be angsty teens.  (Our five are there because of Plot Reasons, of course.)  Trini’s family has moved around about a zillion times, so she is always the New Girl.  She’s given up on getting close to her peers or attempting to form friendships long ago, but now her self-preservation tactic is turning into isolation and is becoming painful as well.  She’s pulling away from her family, too - we can infer that they were once close, but she feels she needs to hide her sexuality (she likes girls); her parents (particularly her mother) know that she’s hiding things from them and their response is to be even more overbearing and intrusive, which is making her pull back more in a vicious feedback loop.  The isolation and repression is making her act out in any way she can, resulting in risky, daredevil behavior.  Even before they find the magic coins, she climbs higher and runs faster than any of the others.  Trini’s character arc is about ending her isolation and allowing herself to be vulnerable to others; accepting her new found family and letting them see her.

and Black Ranger Zack, played by Ludi Lin.  We first meet Zack in the mine; he hides out there when cutting classes and whenever he doesn’t want to go home.  At first Zack just seems like a cool slacker, but later we find out that his mother is very sick.  Zack does everything he can for her, but he’s terrified that she’s going to die, and sometimes he needs to run away from everything to deal.  Zack’s character arc is about bravery and emotional fortitude.  His bravery and willingness to be vulnerable to his team is what allows them to be vulnerable in turn.

I think the thing I love the most about this movie is that yes it’s a goofy kitchy  action movie, but it backs all that fun cheese up with real emotional substance.  In order for the Rangers to morph and achieve their full powers, they have to be able to connect to the morphing grid AND to each other.  They have to do this by being open to each other and connecting on a real, intimate level.  I’m a sucker for the found family and teams-becoming-family tropes, and this movie is that in spades.  

The first third of the movie sets up who these kids and introduces their powers - which, by the way, the discovering-their-powers sequence was one of the best examples of that concept I’ve ever seen.  There was a real youthful exuberance, and the fact that they were all learning together meant there was tons of egging each other on and trying things out and one upping each other and a bit of fun peer pressure (resulting in some foreshadowing).  I could practically feel the adrenaline rush.  

The middle of the movie is the training sequence - they physically train, but that’s largely window dressing for the emotional work they’re doing.  They’re trying to build friendships, but they’re still questioning who they are and who they are to each other.  The emotional climax happens when Zack invites them all to camp out with him out at the mine; and then when they’re all sitting around the campfire, opens up about his mom.  This prompts sharing from the others, and they start to gel as friends beyond the team.  That night is the catalyst that allows them to advance towards actually morphing and becoming the Power Rangers by the end.

The final act is all about them finally being able to morph and take on Rita Repulsa, who has been doing villainy this whole time.   At this point, because the movie has done the legwork to lay the emotional foundations, we can really lean into the cheese for the payoff.  This is when they finally morph, this is when they do that jump-into-battle superhero land-and-pose thing, this is when “MAKE MY MONSTER GROOOOOOOOW” this is when the Zords come out to play, this is when they form the Megazord (which, by the way, they’ve never trained for and there is an appropriate learning curve).  It all works, and it’s fun!  There’s no real suspense because come on, we all know how this is going to go down.  It’s pure indulgent catharsis, and it’s great.  

So that’s my impression of the movie, in broad strokes.  There’s more little stuff that I appreciate  - for example, there’s no forced obligatory romantic subplot.  Apparently they were going to go into Jason/Kimberly, but it got nixed because the test audiences found it distracting and unnecessary.  I can only say yay, because I think trying to develop a romantic relationship between them would have detracted from the core of the movie, which was focusing on the overall team dynamics.  Plus they couldn’t have done a particularly good job developing a romantic relationship because those two characters have like, five seconds of romantic chemistry total.  There’s something there to work with and I think they could develop it further in future movies, but there’s roughly the same level of romantic chemistry between Jason and Zack, and Billy and Jason, and Trini and Zack.  There’s not nothing there, but there’s also not enough to build a relationship in the in-universe time allotted, and certainly not with all of the distraction of forming a solid friend group and defeating an evil alien determined to destroy all life on earth.  They made the right call cutting it, and I hope other films follow their lead.  

I think part of why I loved the movie is that I wasn’t huge into Power Rangers as a kid, but I do have nostalgic memories of it.  I caught a few episodes here and there, and would “play power rangers” at recess (basically, run around with other kids shouting “I’M THE YELLOW RANGER”).  If you’re the type of superfan who LOVES the Power Rangers and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the shows and hates deviations from canon, you might have some issues with this movie.  I don’t know; I don’t know how far the deviated, although I’m sure it’s not an insignificant amount.  Try seeing this as an AU, or a really high-budget fanfiction, and give it a shot!  If you’ve always hated Power Rangers because of the cheese and, I don’t know, you hate fun?  Well, you might not like this movie, because as I mentioned, it really leans into that cheese.  I see that as a positive, personally, but that’s why there’s chocolate and vanilla.  

All in all, I loved this movie!  It brought back and amplified every good feeling I’ve ever had about Power Rangers.  I went into the theater thinking “oh yeah, Power Rangers.  That was that thing I kind of liked when I was a kid.”  I came out going “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH POWER RANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and ready to run around the school yard shouting “I’M THE YELLOW RANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!”