#like electro and vulture are first but they have the least team chemistry

[voltrixz]

Remembering how I watched a silly recap of the 2 sinister six eps (do not ask what my reaction was seeing the electro and shocker scenes again (there’s a ramble sitting a server somewhere .) BUTTT one thing that really stood out to me was the 2nd sinister six ep. Because like. OURGHHHHHHH. Made me remeber that mysterio set up an illusion that shocker and doc ock were the final duo AND MAN. As much as I find Mysterio in the sinister six really fun, I really do wish we got a Spideman Vs. Shocker and Doc Ock. LIKE ARGHH I need to go on a full on ramble about their dynamic (and how I would further dissect it ) but mannnnnnn

[true-halloween-tales]

2018: #12-SUPERVILLAINS

The origin of the word “villain” reveals a secret about the significance of villains and supervillains. The origin of “villain” is the Latin word villanus; it curiously means farmhand. It refers to workers on villas or plantations. Over the years it transformed into the word “villein,” which meant serf or peasant. A villein came to mean that a person was lacking the politeness or chivalry of a knight – that the person was of a lower social status. Over some more years and human negativity further tainted the term. “Villein” in French is now “vilain” meaning bad or ugly, and the Italian “villano” means rude. What has happened is that one type of people has vilified another type of people as seen in the etymological corruption of the meaning. The significance of this is the difference between a criminal and a villain. A criminal is symbolically branded as a wrong-doer for breaking the law. A villain could be a mislabeled, misunderstood, oppressed person, a farmhand, and not necessarily a wrong-doer. Therefore some supervillains could be more like social rebels and less like evil criminals…

Early villains in fiction wore all black with a tall black hat and a twirly mustache. This was the archetypical image of villains such as Snidely Whiplash from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Early villains included the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood, Professor Moriarty with Sherlock Holmes, and Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (see 2012: #8-MING THE MERCILESS IN THE FOGGY RING OF HELL). In the 1960’s some villains started to emerge who had huge agendas, including: Blofeld from the James Bond series and the Master from Doctor Who (see 2017: #4-SPIES and 2018: #2-GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO). Perhaps the furthest a villain can go is to have a successful take over of the entire universe. To be able to threaten the universe’s existence nearly as a god, and to make announcements to the occupants of the universe as your subjects is when you have won the supervillain game. This has been done by the tv villains of the Master and Mantrid from the Lexx series, and each ended up destroying at least a section of the entire universe. Now that’s very, very bad and leads us to supervillains…

Supervillains are primarily comic book villains. The term originates from the 1960’s. The most simple definition of “supervillain” is a villain who has a superhero as an opponent. Supervillains often have specific costumes or outfits, catchy names, special talents or gimmicks, henchmen, secret hideouts, secret identities, and master plans. Supervillains appear in comic books to be challenging opponents of superheroes. If the supervillain does not have special powers, then they may have special skills that distinguish them like being a genius. A predominant supervillain personality trait is that of having megalomaniacal delusions. Many supervillains have similarities to dictators, terrorists, and gangsters, with aspirations of world domination.

Supervillains are not always criminals. Sometimes they behave as social rebels. They may not be farmhands or serfs, but they sure are rebelling. Heath Legder’s Joker standing there laughing with millions of dollars burning behind him is the quintessential film scene depicting this. Jack Nicholson’s Joker art gallery scene brings the rebellion to art. Burgess Meredith’s the Penguin only ever had one goal: to have Batman arrested, sued, entrapped, and disgraced. Sometimes supervillains are even depicted as being sympathetic. Magneto from the X-Men comics and films is a supervillain basically because he was a Nazi victim in WW2. Sometimes the line between the hero and villain becomes blurred. Sometimes supervillains become the good guys temporarily at least. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series has included such supervillains as Captain Cold working on a team for a common aim with other supervillains. Since there are so many supervillains, to understand them we must classify them…

The first classification of supervillain is for highly talented people without any special powers. This includes Lex Luther, the Penguin, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and Cat Woman. A sub-classification are highly talented people with special training: Deathstroke, Kingpin, and even the Joker supposed to have studied chemistry. Another sub-classification of supervillains are highly talented people with scientific gizmos: Dr. Octopus, Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, and the Scarecrow who often uses hallucinatory drugs on his victims as seen in the excellent Batman Arkham video game series. Many gizmo users are also mad scientists (see #2018: #5-MAD SCIENTISTS).

The second category of supervillains include normal people who gained special powers. This often means that the person came into contact with a rare manufactured substance that transformed them. This classification includes the Reverse Flash, Sandman, Bane, Poison Ivy, and the alien-looking Black Manta appearing in December 2018’s Aquaman film. There are a rare few supervillains in this classification that had their transformation sparked by a natural phenomenon. One such supervillain was Vandal Savage who was seen on season two of Legends of Tomorrow. Vandal Savage was a caveman who touched an alien meteor and developed super powers including eternal life. Another supervillain in this classification, Juggernaut from the Deadpool 2 film, received his size, strength, and power from touching the magical Crimson Gem of Cyttora.

A third classification of supervillain are those with natural, special powers that they were born with. This often signifies that the person is a mutant, usually placing them in the realm of the X-Men. This classification includes: Magneto, the blue Mystique, and the also blue Apocalypse, the first mutant from 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse film. A sub-classification of supervillains with powers are aliens, with many from the Superman comics. Superman’s foe, General Zod is an alien, originating from Superman’s home planet of Krypton. General Zod also created an evil Superman clone with grey skin named Bizarro. The strange Mister Mxyzptlk is another Superman supervillain, the “imp from the Fifth Dimension.” Another sub-classification of supervillains with powers are demigods and actual gods, such as Loki or Hela, the goddess of death from 2017’s excellent Thor: Ragnarok. Thanos falls into this sub-classification, from 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War film. Thanos is basically a Grecian Titan even though he is an alien, an Eternal. The top villain in the D.C. universe is Darkseid, whose father was Zonuz, the first god of evil and also the last Old God. Darkseid had the ultimate goal of controlling everyone in the universe. The one superhero who fights the most amount of deities, demigods, and cosmic entities is Doctor Strange. His first foe was Nightmare, evil ruler of the Dream Dimension. He fought the godlike Eternity and had a regular fantastic foe with the cool-looking Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension who briefly appeared in 2016’s Doctor Strange film.

A fourth classification of supervillains exists, those with dark powers. These are supervillains who border on being monsters or really are monsters. One such supervillain is Flash’s foe, Gorilla Grodd. Gorilla Grodd was a gorilla in Africa that came into contact with either a meteor or a spacecraft. In either case, he became ultra-powerful, brilliant, telepathic, and he could control minds. Venom is a particularly cool villain because he is a monster, created by an alien symbiont lifeform. What is surprising about Venom in the comics is that he sort of becomes a hero for homeless people. Eventually a harness is put on him and he works for the military on missions as Agent Venom. Hopefully a sequel to the 2018 Venom film will be made that is a proper cult film. In 1944 D.C. Comics had a wealthy merchant named Cyrus Gold get killed in Slaughter Swamp near Gotham City in All American Comics. He then rose as a zombie fifty years later, as supervillain Solomon Grundy, and went on a killing spree and became a Green Lantern villain. Morbius the Living Vampire is about a man who transforms himself into a vampire via a chemistry experiment, and he dons a cool outfit and transforms from being a Spider-Man supervillain to becoming an antihero superhero with his own comic and a film on the way in the future.

A fifth classification of supervillain are atypical supervillains who may fit in no other categories. These usually are supervillains that did not originate from comic books. M. Night Shyamalan’s film from 2000, Unbreakable, features Samuel Jackson as Elijah Price, a supervillain who is returning in January 2019’s Glass along with James McAvoy’s character from 2016’s Split. A sixth classification of supervillains are those appearing in comedy. The Terror appeared in both series of The Tick, and the new Amazon The Tick live action series is pretty good. The animated Adult Swim tv series from 2006-2008, Frisky Dingo, created by Archer’s Adam Reed, featured the supervillain main character of Killface who appeared as a ridiculous but powerful lich obsessed with destroying the Earth with his mad scientist weapon, the Annihilatrix. There are not many supervillains appearing in comedy.

But there are quite a few teams of supervillains. The Suicide Squad is a team of supervillains forced to work for the good guys. The 2016 film was awful, and a sequel is in the way. The Suicide Squad team members change a lot throughout the comics but usually include Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. The Sinister Six are a group of Spider-Man supervillains who are rumored to appear in a future film. The team includes Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and the Sandman. 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home will nearly include the Sinister Six with: Michael Keating reprising his Vulture, Michael Mando as the Scorpion, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. Yet another supervillain team is the Legion of Doom which appeared in 1978’s Challenge of the Superfriends cartoon tv series. The Legion of Doom consisted of: Bizarro, Cheetah, Captain Cold, Black Manta, Gorilla Grodd, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, and more!

If we toss all of the supervillains into the Cauldron of Creepiness, which three bubble up to the top and rise above the rest? The Joker is pretty much the number one villain. And Venom is pretty much the most monstrous villain. So those two are easy. I would have to say that Superman’s strange supervillain, Mister Mxyzptlk, would be the third to rise to the top. Since he is from the Fifth Dimension he can virtually do magic and twist reality. The Joker, Venom, and Mister Mxyzptlk are probably the top three coolest supervilllains. But if the top three strongest supervillains were selected, it would be a completely different group. Thanos with his Infinity Gauntlet is certainly in the top three; he sure had plans on making major alterations to the universe! Dormammu is definitely one of the top three most powerful supervillains with godlike powers. His head is made out of evil fire. Dormammu would not be affected by the Infinity Gauntlet, and he could take Thanos down with ease. But Dormammu could be taken down by Galactus, an alien from the planet Taa from before the Big Bang. Galactus survived the destruction of his universe by bonding with the Sentience of the Universe. He gestated for billions of years in our universe until he woke up, and he woke up hungry so he started devouring whole planets. An alien eventually made a deal for Galactus not to gobble up his planet, and the alien was transformed into the herald of Galactus, the Silver Surfer. So Galactus is pretty much the most powerful supervillain.

Superhero films pretty much started with 1966’s Batman: the Movie with Adam West. The quality of the film is usually directly related to the quality of the depiction of the supervillain. 1989’s Batman with Tim Burton’s vision and Jack Nicholson as the Joker is a classic. The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as the Joker is also an incredible film. The Dark Knight Rises with Bane is also a decent film with an amazing scope. As for tv, Adam West’s Batman series is one of the best for outrageous supervillains. Cesar Romero’s Joker is excellent, Burgess Meredith served up the best Penguin to date, Frank Gorshwin provided an effervescent and the best Riddler, and Vincent Price laid a wonderful Egghead. All three seasons of the series are finally available on disc. Ralph Bakshi’s Spider-Man cartoon series from 1967-1969 was a great series also for its supervillains. It delivered the best Green Goblin even from any film, included traditional supervillains from Electro to the Rhino, had neat-looking monsters, and it featured great incidental music. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series features interesting supervillains, including some who are members of the team of the superheroes. Captain Cold and Heatwave are Flash supervillains who made the transition into being acting superheroes. An entertaining recent depiction of a supervillain was by Tom Cavanaugh as the Reverse Flash on the first season of The Flash tv series. These days Netflix is starting to cancel the Marvel superhero series – the ones with the least interesting supervillains.

Back to the derivation of the word, villain. Could supervillains be related in any way to farmhands, serfs, the poor, or social rebels? Are the superheroes now the super-rich land owners, the knights? Are superheroes ever depicted as being millionaires? Like Bruce Wayne…Tony Stark…Oliver Queen… Hmmm, maybe sometimes the supervillains may not be as bad as they seem, and the superheroes may sometimes be really more villain and less hero…

[game-refraction]

Movie Review: Spider-man - Homecoming

I remember fondly the first theatrical Spider-Man movie. I must have seen it at least a dozen times on the big screen, having gone to it four times just on opening day alone; it was one of my favorite movies for years to come. Spider-Man 2 had come along and Alfred Molina’s brilliant portrayal of Otto Octavius was fantastic, and while Spider-Man 3 wasn’t terribly impressive, It did allow me to see ol’ webhead fight a few villains that visually looked fantastic. Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel did a lot of things right and despite my issues with Jamie Foxx as Electro, they were really enjoyable flicks, that again, allowed me to see things I always wanted in a Spider-Man movie.

My favorite era of Spider-Man, in the comics, is Ultimate Spider-Man. This was a separate universe that told modern retellings of classic Marvel characters. Even though the Ultimate universe is no longer around, bits and pieces of it currently still exist, namely, Miles Morales, another of the superheroes to use the Spider-Man name. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a combination of what Captain America: Civil War gave us for the Marvel films version of Spider-Man and that of not only the Peter Parker version of Ultimate Spider-Man (and no, I’m not talking about the recent cartoon) but that of Miles Morales as well, who coincidentally is getting his own animated movie at some point in the near future. In fact, there are several components of this movie that are directly lifted from the Miles Morales arc, but I’ll get into those later.

Spider-Man: Homecoming came about when Kevin Feige, the man in charge of the Marvel films, put together a deal with Sony to reboot the character within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a deal where Marvel would produce the films and Sony would sit back and collect all the profits from them. While that deal may sound somewhat bizarre, remember that Marvel will still rake in hundreds of millions from any and all toys and merchandise surrounding the film, and be able to use Spider-Man in their other MCU films. It’s really a win-win situation for everyone involved. These deals are good for Marvel because frankly, have you seen many X-Men or Fantastic Four figures around? Nope.

Director John Watts, who is really only known for the 2015 Kevin Bacon movie, Cop Car, campaigned hard to direct the movie. Watts had been wanting to create a ‘coming of age’ movie for several years before hearing that Marvel had intended to go quite young for the Peter Parker role, casting 21-year-old Tom Holland, who would be playing a 15-year-old High School Sophomore. With Watts being a fan of filmmaker John Hughes, it felt like the perfect mix of what Marvel had intended to do and his desire to make that style of a film.

Despite the inexperience that Watts has when compared to several other filmmakers that were possibly up for the job, Kevin Feige, and the team behind creating this Spider-Man MCU reboot, saw his desire to create something that was exactly what Marvel and Sony had in mind, and something that felt faithful to the character of not only Spider-Man, but of Peter Parker as well. In short, Spider-Man: Homecoming was brilliantly crafted.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a coming of age story about Peter Parker, a 15-year-old kid that recently just fought alongside Iron Man and several members of the Avengers. He’s sent back to his normal boring life, well as normal as being a super powered teenager is anyway, and wondering when his next big Avengers-sized mission will be. While stopping various small crimes around his neighborhood, or at least attempting to, Peter is constantly is looking to prove himself, to show Tony Stark that he is ready for the big time, except he very clearly is not. It’s during one of these attempts to prove himself that he stumbles across something a bit more sinister than a simple bike theft; a string of crimes that will put him face to face with the Vulture.

Michael Keaton might be the best Marvel villain since Loki, as he brings such a depth to a character that is normally not known for it. The Vulture hasn’t really been a big villain for Spider-Man for years, if not decades. Adrian Toomes, the name behind the bird costume, is written as a man who will do anything he can for his family. Keaton’s performance outside the costume is just as intimidating as the Vulture is when swooping in, or lashing out with its large metallic wings at Spider-Man. This is a villain that is not looking to take over the city or the world, he just simply wants to make a living to take care of his family, even if he does go about it a bit extreme.

Tom Holland as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man is the real highpoint of the film. Holland brings a believability to the role as a young kid wanting to do the right thing but constantly screwing up. The majority of the movie is Peter getting in way over his head, and fighting for what he believes is right. Tom has great chemistry with everyone in the film, whether it’s his best friend Ned, his Aunt May, his fellow classmates, or even Tony Stark himself. The quips he has during the bank robbery scene are fun, and the way he enters that scene trying to be all cool and confident is really enjoyable and rather hilarious.

What differs from previous movie versions of the character, is that this Peter is very inexperienced and is still getting used to being Spider-Man. While the previous versions tried tapping into that, they still had him far more successful in his attempts than not, and Holland’s Spider-Man is constantly getting batted around and losing almost every single encounter. The film also does not have Spider-Man using his Spider-Sense, and while it’s not used throughout the film, it has been said that he will eventually come to rely on it, just not in the way we’ve seen before. The film is also a lot more grounded, and this is to be taken quite literal, as there isn’t one single city-based web swinging scene like in the previous films. Much of the action takes place in small neighborhoods, far away from sky-reaching buildings, so when Spider-Man needs to get around, he’s either hoofing it, jumping from house to house or riding on the backs of other vehicles.

As I mentioned above, there are several things lifted directly from the Miles Morales version of Ultimate Spider-Man. The Ned character is essentially Miles’ best friend Ganke, in both attitude and overall look. There is also a mention that Miles exists in the movie during a scene where Spider-Man is talking with another character, that while is part of the regular Spider-Man world, this version is based upon the Ultimate Comics version of the character. And while I didn’t catch it on my first viewing of the movie, the license plate of that character’s car is UCS-M01, which translates to Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Issue #1, which is the first appearance of Miles Morales. There are several other easter eggs in the movie to watch out for, and a few names that pop up during the film that while they may not necessarily mean anything right now, they could pave the way for certain characters to make an appearance in future films.

There also isn’t the Uncle Ben origin here, which is a good thing as we’ve already seen it on screen twice before, in fact, he isn’t even referenced by name here. I like the fact that he loses his clothes and backpack almost everytime he goes out to fight crime or investigate something that may be a bit suspicious. Having Aunt May say something like that he’s lost 5 backpacks already, really shows that Peter isn’t as good as this as he could be, and another character in the movie also points out that he really isn’t nailing certain parts of being Spider-Man as well. I also like the fact of seeing Peter having to miss out on much of his social game due to being Spider-Man, and this means letting down those that he cares about, for the greater good.

John Watts does a great job at framing the action and while the movie plays very much like if John Hughes had made the movie, there still is some strong action moments throughout the film. The Ferry scene alone has some really fast paced web swinging and acrobatics on the part of Spider-Man and really showcases the filmmaker’s ability to show that he really understands the fast paced nature of the character. Long time readers of the comics know of the test of strength moment from Amazing Spider-Man #33 in 1966, where Spider-Man must free himself from being trapped under tons of metal and rock debris, a collective weight that seemed beyond his capacity to lift. The movie does a great job at not only how this scene is played out, but the fact that Peter is really out of his element with how inexperienced he really is.

The suit itself is really nice and while I wish the black lines were a bit more pronounced, it’s my favorite of the Spider-Man movie costumes so far, even if it has a few changes made to it visually. I like the web cartridge slots on his hips as it looks really impressive when he pops them in and out of the web shooters, which are more like bracelets than anything built into the suit. The suit also has a voice of its own, much like Jarvis for Iron Man, Spider-Man has Karen, voiced by Jennifer Connelly, who is actually married to real life Jarvis, and Vision, Paul Bettany. The suit has some nice tricks, and provides much of the humor in the movie, with moments where Peter is trying to understand exactly what this suit can do. The eyes are what really set this costume apart as they move and squint with retractable lenses when the expression calls for it and this is directly lifted from the comics, at least visually.

I’ll also mention a part of the movie that many people thought was going to be an issue; Tony Stark. Many assumed that there was going to be too much of him and that he might take away from the movie. He doesn’t, in fact, he only has a small handful of moments in the film and he is here mostly as a guide and mentor for Peter and not the co-star than many assumed he would be. There were several jokes about how this was Iron Man: Homecoming, featuring Spider-Man, and that is easily not the case here.

When the supporting cast was first shown, many of the characters they were playing, who exist in the comics, were of a different race, and this lead to much-unwarranted hostility towards the cast. Tony Revolori, who plays Flash Thompson, actually received death threats. There was also wild speculation regarding Zendaya, a character simply named Michele. And while I won’t spoil if those concerns were warranted, don’t take what happens at face value as the truth behind her role has already been talked about in length by Marvel Film’s Kevin Feige.

I could see some people having issues with how much of the film is via Peter Parker and not Spider-Man, but the fact of the matter is that both of these persona’s need to exist as it is very much what Spider-Man has always been, a delicate balance of being Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Holland excels in the role and his eagerness to impress Stark is through a very believable energy that can be rather contagious. The movie is playful, energetic, and can be a bit dark when it needs to be. Spider-Man: Homecoming really nails all the fun elements of various Spider-Man iterations throughout the character’s rich history, and the fact they chose to adapt so much from Ultimate Spider-Man is just, to me, the icing on the cake.

Tom Holland is the Superior Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was seen in ULTRA AVX 3D, where the 3D effects were ok, but not drastically impressive.

Movie Review: Spider-man – Homecoming was originally published on Game-Refraction