#not the crossover event of the century because that was a couple years ago when Easter Passover and Ramadan were all at the same time.

[abortionado]

Hope everyone celebrating has a great Christmas and/or Hanukkah!

[kavardakmaria]

So, this is that big post about my Faust/M&M/Fight Club/Hannibal universe I mentioned. I still hesitate on what I should call it (Faustverse? Devil club?)

Brainworms include:

1) My interpretation of Woland

2) Fight Club M&M AU

3) My interpretation of the master

4) Hannibal crossover

Woland is a character from a novel by Michail Bulgakov called “The master and Margarita”. He is heavily implied to be Goethe’s Mephistopheles and the novel itself is inspired by “Faust”. So these two books are on the same timeline (according to my headcannons).

My interpretation of Woland/Mephistopheles is that he is not a fallen angel, but is instead a part of Primordial Chaos from which God and his order were born. He disconnected from the main body some time ago and now exists in the material world as a force of entropy. He is neither good nor evil, but he is categorized as a demon because of his constant need to ensue chaos. He is not a part of Hell’s hierarchy and has a friendly relationship with God, because I don’t like when these type of characters lose their autonomy.

When he existed in the Primordial Chaos he was subjected to constantly changing powerful emotions and other extreme experiences and got used to them (iPad kid moment). So now, trapped in the more calm and organized environment, he is constantly bored and tries to replicate those experiences to feel something. He can feel all human emotions, but they are so mild for him, that he views them more like an annoying distraction, than actual feelings.

Woland doesn’t consider himself as a whole identity, but he looks and acts like one because he contrasts the environment opposite to his nature. So, technically, he wasn’t born so he isn’t afraid of death (he’ll disappear in a billion years or so)

In his free time he likes to find sad philosophers who are unsatisfied with their lives and manipulate them into something more entertaining. But it is pretty hard to find educated and ambitious people who are not attached to anybody and are willing to leave their previous lives behind (Faust was the last one and he got to heaven, so now he’s sitting there in a constant state of euphoria, lost his ambition and pride, essentially becoming a shell of himself)

Woland thought that having a couple legions of hell to help with his chaotic shenanigans would be good for his professional development, so in the beginning of the XVIth century he makes a deal with Lucifer to be in charge of hell for a couple of centuries and Lucifer agreed because he was drunk.

Elements of Fight Club in my M&M AU:

Margarita is not a part of the main plot. I have plans for her storyline, which would be pretty similar to the original with her becoming a witch, but with different motivations and more character development.

Woland interacts with the master without his servants. I have a 9000 word fanfic written in russian about their first encounter.

Here’s the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57835000/chapters/147206677

For those who don’t speak russian here’s a short summary. It is important, because most of my M&M fanart depicting the master is based on the Fight Club AU, rather than on the actual events (boring straight romance with him being a depressed self insert without any depth).

In a nutshell the master is an apathetic historian/archivist whose whole life is based on his work in the Moscow Planetarium, which isn’t enjoyable anymore, but the rest of the world is even more undesirable. He exists in a sort of coma, feeling nothing, reading and writing instinctively with professionalism but without any interest.

Then he meets Woland, gets in an existential crisis, gets fired, attempts to jump off a bridge, gets interrupted by Woland, attacks him in resentment and they fight. Master experiences true anger for the first time. They end up lying on the ground, covered in dust and blood, laughing at each other. Later they agree to meet again and to repeat the fight. Sergei Berdyaev (the master) rejects his name and Woland suggests that he could go by the name Steingut (a kind of clay, the symbol of an ongoing rebirth).

After that Steingut wins a lot of money in a lottery (very very coincidentally totally not demonic help), so he stops worrying about working and just waits for Woland’s return, admiring his bruises and blood stains on his clothes.

But Woland doesn’t appear for weeks. Steingut's body is almost recovered and he is starting to forget the memories connected to those injuries, which deeply terrifies him. He feels incomplete, feels like he is going insane sitting in a room alone with nobody to talk to and nothing to do.

He decides to write down the events that shaped him, but realizes that he is unworthy of mentioning someone of that significance directly. By doing that he would defile the truth and its importance with his subjective judgment. So he switches up the names and writes about the director of Variety theater and his administrator fighting because of a misunderstanding, later organizing “The Fighting citizens club” together.

Only after he finishes writing, he hears a whisper in his ear asking him what he wanted to achieve with this story. “I wanted to survive” the master finishes his rebirth exhausted and sleep deprived. Woland treats him to dinner. As a reward Woland offers the master to make a wish. He wishes for Woland to visit him more often. They make plans to plant a copy of the master’s book on the table of the real administrator of Variety theater to see what would happen.

So, let’s talk about the master (Sergei Berdyaev -> Steingut -> the master):

After the rebirth the master’s main goal is to survive. But his meaning of “surviving” was warped into “constantly moving and changing”, so in that sense being around Woland is the perfect way to survive. But if Woland decides to spend time with someone, they need to be intelligent and entertaining. Because of that the master is always scared of not being enough, so he has to constantly educate himself to come up with interesting ways to ensue chaos. This time Woland stumbled not on a sad philosopher, but on an intelligent animal desperately trying to adapt.

He doesn’t strive for much, but he is willing to go to great lengths to achieve his survival.

The master is terrified of Woland just as much as he dreads Woland’s absence. He is very careful with his words around him, which Woland is annoyed by. To get rid of the master’s cowardice Woland angers him. Then the master becomes petty and forgets that he is speaking with someone so powerful and dangerous, which in turn leads to more meaningful and truthful interactions.

Fun fact: the master is unaware that his main goal is to survive. He thinks he is constantly moving and changing because he is looking for a purpose (because it is a more normal thing to do). There would be a separate fic about him realizing that through extreme chaos exposure. He goes through literal torture willingly just to prove Woland wrong (with Woland still being right in the end).

Woland plans to destroy the master’s desire for purpose, leaving with just a strong desire to live while believing that there is nothing worth living for.

And then get him into heaven. Like, if heaven is all about unchanging bliss, than the master who technically fought the Devil and lived without that much sin could get there and be immune to this pleasant hipnosis. He could be the only one awake and cause all sorts of trouble (even unwillingly).

The master isn’t aware of this scheme and doesn’t even want to go to heaven because of his incompatibility with peace and absence of change.

Hannibal crossover stuff:

Use of technology is not crucial to the plot of Hannibal so 1930s AU is pretty reasonable. It happens after the end of the series, everyone is alive and well, just in hiding. Hannibal would try to kill the master for ruining an opera performance as part of their own show with Woland, but he doesn’t know about Woland’s existence yet.

Another fun fact: Hannibal canonically admires Mephistopheles and despises Faust.

So Hannibal stalks the master and attacks him in his living room, the master fights back with Woland sitting behind the dining table unnoticed. He telepathically warns the master about surprise attacks but doesn’t intervene because he knows that the master likes the adrenaline.

When both opponents are tired and can’t fight anymore he stands up and politely apologizes for the inconvenience they caused in the opera, inviting Hannibal and Will for dinner.

All of them meet each other soon enough. Hannibal can’t stop fangirling over Woland (Meph) and both the master and Will are jealous. The master and Will bond over their attachment to their literal and metaphorical devil and the stress involved in caring so much about him. The master still dislikes Hannibal for trying to kill him over a prank, but Hannibal noticed enough similarities with Will to change his mind. Woland is intrigued with all of them equally, planning to turn their relationship into endless entertainment.

I hope you enjoyed reading this abomination! I’ll post my Woland/ the master fanart soon. Feel free to leave your opinions and suggestions in the comments!

[evilelena]

I'm so weird, I fill out three-year-old Cobra Kai surveys on tumblr.

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai survey

---

It’s the year 2021 and you’re obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Well, it's now the year 2024 and...fine? I was never really "obsessed" with the Miyagi universe until October 2022 when I started going through all the episodes for my so-called "fan fixion". it's not really fanfic; intentionally bad recaps with fictionalized elements are just something my sister and I used to do ages ago for the lulz. We actually did them for Beverly Hills, 90210 and The Shield. The Cobra Kai ones are done by me; but my sister remains my one consistent reader. She's also the one who challenged me to incorporate the phrases "practice dumby" (yes, spelled that way), "Why is this happening to me?!", and "Ouch, ouch, oh, ouch!" (a line from one of my old childhood stories) into all of my recaps -- or whatever you want to call them. (In case anybody ever looks at those and thinks wtf?.) Despite not being "obsessed" until a year and a half ago, I still really liked CK and re-watched many episodes even before October 2022!

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

Kind of both? I was born...uh, long enough ago that I was alive when TKK was released, although I don't remember its release because I was a very young child. I did see parts of all three first movies here and there over the years growing up -- and I watched that masterpiece The Next Karate Kid in the late 90's or early 00's while going on a Walton Goggins movie binge -- but I never appreciated them until my ex-on-good-terms recommended Cobra Kai. (I'm pretty new to the "fandom" but have been watching CK since May 2018.)

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:

Johnny, for sure. Second favorite is Terry Silver.

Favorite ship:

Johnny and Daniel when they're bickering and squabbling like an old married couple.

Underrated character:

Stiven. Too bad he left, or he and Hawk could've become pals. I like how Stiven bravely tried to start a fight with Tory during the LaRusso house brawl, and she punched him away like she was batting away a pesky fly.

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):

Johnny and Ali? I (gasp) prefer them to Johnny and Carmen.

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the leg!

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

Any where he incorporates the color blue. Bonus points if it includes his special blue-and-white karate headband.

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Charlie -- that minion of Ned, or whatever the main bully's name was in TNKK. (Charlie, played by Walton Goggins, was Ned's Rickenberger.)

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Oh, there are so many. Way too many to name in a three-year-old survey.

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

Technically, he was one of the most relevant characters in 5x10. Without him, Kenny Payne might still be Terry Silver's prize pupil. (And Silver might not have been arrested. Stupid Anthony!)

You live in The Valley and are forced to join the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Eagle Fang, but I'm not leaping from one building to another. (Sensei Lawrence is more than welcome to call me pathetic, though.)

What’s your training montage song?

"Gonna Fly Now"?

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

Beverly Hills, 9010. Mel Silver can be Terry's cousin.

Tagging:

Nobody, because this is three years old.

[i-drink-and-i-write-fics]

Original Female Characters

These are all the Original Characters I have made for past, current, and coming soon stories.

Story: Timeless Warrior (Fandom: Lord of The Rings)

Name: Phoenix Garcia (formerly Phoenix Nowak)

Alias: Khaleesi, Dragon Rider

Age: 40 (shortly after the story begins she turns this age)

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: White. Mexican on her mother’s side, Polish on her father’s. Born and raised in Arizona, USA.

Hair: Dark brown before the war; silver due to stress of the war

Eyes: Blue-grey

Height: 5′5″

Species: human

Any Markings: A few tattoos: Valar Morghulis on the inside of her right wrist, Valar Dohaeris on the inside of her left wrist, the three-moon symbol for her pagan religion on her left shoulder, a skull with a chef’s hat and crossbones of a chef knife and whisk on the right shoulder, a red rose with one black pedal on the inside of her left bicep (a tribute to Rosa). Crisscross scars over her left eye from when she tried to save her wife’s life.

Powers: No known supernatural ones. Controls a mechanical dragon.

Relationship status: Widowed. Wife died saving her life

Spouse: Rosa Garcia. High school sweethearts. Built Meraxes to help win the war. Sacrificed herself to save Phoenix’s life.

Love Interest: Lord Elrond of Rivendell

Bio: Phoenix was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ as the oldest of two kids. Her mother was abusive and her father stayed married to keep the kids safe. Phoenix met Rosa in high school and the two became instant friends, starting a relationship their senior year. Rosa went off to get her degree and a job at NASA while Phoenix went to culinary school and opened a restaurant in Downtown Phoenix. The pair got married once it became legal in their country. They then sold the restaurant so the couple could move to Houston for Rosa’s job. Phoenix began teaching cooking classes that went virtual once a pandemic hit their country. Not even a year later, a war broke out and they found themselves leading a small group of survivors. With Rosa’s intelligence and connections, she got a group together to turn an old plane into a mechanical dragon. Unfortunately, Rosa was killed two years before the war ended and Phoenix blamed herself.

After the war, Phoenix accidentally flies through a portal into Middle Earth where more problems require her help.

Story: Let Nature Take Her Course (Fandom: Marvel/MCU)

Name: Juna, Last name Everhart created during the advent of last names.

Alias: Mother Nature, Mother of Mutants

Age: 20,000 years, give or take a century

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: Unknown

Hair: Black when undercover, green naturally

Eyes: Brown undercover, gold normally

Height: 5′4″

Species: First Man, First Mutant, External/Omega Mutant

Any Markings: None

Powers: Control of elements, weather, gravity, animals, use of lightning for teleportation, resistance to extreme heat and cold, faint connection to humans.

Relationship status: None. Finds it pointless as she never dies.

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Everett Ross, much to her annoyance.

Bio: Juna was one of the first species of humans to grace the earth. Born with a connection to the planet and humans, when they evolved, so did she so she would be able to blend in. She is responsible for the catastrophic events from the ice age ending to Pompeii, all in an effort to maintain the balance of earth and nature. She is not fond of humans and grows more and more annoyed with them as the years go by and the planet becomes more trashed. She’s not a villain, she just wants to save her home.

She doesn’t remember her parents, her family if she had one, or really anything of her past after the first one thousand years.

Story: Mirror (Fandom: Marvel/MCU)

Name: Sonya, No Last Name

Alias: Mirror

Age: 50, though the project to begin her cloning was in the 1940s

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: None - clone of Steve Rogers

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Height: 6′2″

Species: Human clone

Any Markings: None

Powers: Super strength, speed, healing that comes with the super-soldier project.

Relationship status: Casually dating Bucky Barnes

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Bucky Barnes

Bio: Created as a clone of Steve Rogers by Hydra, leading to the sharing of physical features. Trained by the best team Hydra has, she is very deadly.

Feared by Hydra, she was locked away until they felt they could have more control over her. But then she discovered her origins and snaps, breaking free and going on a rampage to destroy any and all Hydra facilities before focusing on her last target: Steve Rogers.

Story: The Hidden Realm (Upcoming. Fandom: Lord of The Rings/The Hobbit)

Name: Rhyannon

Alias: Queen of Tir Na Nog, Fae Queen

Age: 34,000 years old (Born at the end of Years of the Lamps)

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: Fae, Home: Tir Na Nog

Hair: Midnight Blue

Eyes: Midnight Blue

Height: 7′

Species: Fae

Any Markings: Has wings she keeps hidden until she uses her powers.

Powers: Spells, magic, flight, super strength, communication with animals, control the elements.

Relationship status: Single

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Lord Elrond

Bio: Rhyannon is the Queen of the Fae and one of the first of her kind. Tir Na Nog is her kingdom and was one of the first realms established in Middle Earth. Contrary to what the Elves know, the Fae were actually the first beings of Arda. This realm borders both Mirkwood and Dol Guldur, causing tension between all three realms.

Thranduil has been engaged in a petty battle with Rhyannon since his father passed (who started the battle). The problem is, the realm is hidden so no other Elves believe it exists. Until Rhyannon decides to crash the Midsummer Festival in Mirkwood.

Story: The Queen’s Guard (Upcoming. Fandom: Game of Thrones)

Name: Myria Storm

Alias: Storm Breaker

Age: 30

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: Bastard child of Storm’s End

Hair: Ebony

Eyes: Black

Height: 5′6″

Species: Human

Any Markings: A tattoo of a black rose, to show her loyalty to Olenna Tyrell.

Powers: None

Relationship status: None

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Jorah Mormont

Bio: Myria Storm is a bastard child of Storm’s End. When she hears of the killing of Robert Baratheon’s bastard children and what they look like, she suspects she is one and flees her home. Myria had learned to fight from her older brother and soon becomes a sellsword. By the time she reaches High Garden, her reputation precedes her and Olenna requests an audience with the young woman. She is offered a job as Olenna’s personal guard.

When Varys brings word of Daenerys Targaryen’s return, Olenna sends Myria to have Dragonstone prepared for the future queen. And when all parties officially meet, Myria is noticed by the Dragon Queen’s right-hand man, Jorah Mormont.

Story: Kings & Queens (Upcoming. Fandom: The Hobbit)

Name: Ladien Peredhel

Alias: Ladi

Age: 3,041

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: Half-Elf, Noldor, The Grey Havens

Hair: Red

Eyes: Dark Grey

Height: 6′6″

Species: Half-Elf, Half-Human

Any Markings: Tattoos on the top half of her body. Flames that wrap around her shoulders like a shawl

Powers: None

Relationship status: Single

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Thorin & Thranduil (Love Triangle)

Bio: Laddi was born in the Grey Havens to an Elf mother who sailed West shortly after Laddi reached maturity. Her father was a human who died of an illness. Because she is a Peredhel, she never felt she truly fit in with the other Elves in the Havens and left to travel Middle Earth.

She is resting in Rivendell when Thorin’s company arrives. Gandalf persuades her to join the cause in re-taking Erebor. Thorin begins to warm to her as they make their difficult journey north. When they get caught in Mirkwood, Legolas reports to his father, Thranduil, that there is an Elleth amongst the Dwarves. Confused and intrigued, he commands she be brought before him. And is shocked to see someone almost identical to the wife he lost long ago.

Story: Battle of the Billionaires (TBW, maybe. Fandoms: Marvel/DC)

Name: Mya, No Last Name

Alias: Elemental

Age: 1,500 years old

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: Mexican & Mexico

Hair: Black

Eyes: Grey

Height: 5′6″

Species: Mutant

Any Markings: None

Powers: Can control the four main elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water (hence her name), super strength & speed, super healing.

Relationship status: Currently single. Briefly dated Diana Prince back on Themyscira and Alfred back in the 1970s

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Bruce Wayne & Tony Stark are making their bids known.

Bio: Born a mutant with the ability to heal from any wound and control the elements, Mya goes around helping humanity when she can. She mostly lends a hand to the X-Men or the Avengers when asked, until two friends of hers, Alfred Pennyworth & Diana Prince, ask for her help against Dark Side. Bruce Wayne takes an interest in her, but to his dismay, she is close friends with Tony Stark.

Story: If You Could Live Forever (Series. Fandom: MCU)

Name: Rose Fauna

Alias: Mother Nature

Age: Over 450 years (exact age unknown)

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: White/Germany

Hair: Silver (Changes colors when powers are used)

Eyes: Grey (Changes colors when powers are used)

Height: 5'5"

Species: Mutant

Any Markings: An old scar on the front of her body from when she was tortured as a child.

Powers: Controls the elements, controls animals, minimum flight ability, control of weather, uses the earth to heal, immortal.

Relationship status: On and off relationships with both Wolverine and Everett Ross, eventually married Everett

Spouse: Everett Ross

Love Interest: Wolverine & Everett Ross

Bio: Born during the time of the witch trials in Europe, Rose was proclaimed a witch when her mutant powers manifested. She was tortured and barely escaped with her life thanks to Loki and Thor. The Earth healed her and it was then she was given the gift of immortality. Ever since the trials, she has tried to stay hidden to stay safe.

Story: Against the Odds (Fandom: MCU/Olympus Has Fallen Crossover)

Name: Charlie Jones

Alias: Turbo

Age: 35

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: White, United States

Hair: Silver normally, Blue when using her powers

Eyes: Grey normally, Blue when using her powers

Height: 5'2"

Species: Mutant, Omega Mutant

Any Markings: None

Powers: Telekinesis, Telepathy, ability to make force fields, Omega Level Mutant

Relationship status: Single

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Mike Banning

Bio: Charolette (Charlie) is the youngest in her family. Her sister, Margaret, marries Ben Asher who eventually becomes the President of the United States. A family tragedy forces Charlie to go into hiding and for Margaret to lie and say she’s an only child to help Ben’s election. The return of Apocalypse brings everyone back together.

Story: Peredhel (Upcoming. Fandom: LoTR)

Name: Samantha Johnson

Alias: Sam

Age: 30

Race/Ethnicity/Home Country: White/Biracial/United States

Hair: Black

Eyes: Black

Height: 5'7"

Species: Human

Any Markings: None

Powers: None

Relationship status: Single

Spouse: None

Love Interest: Erestor Peredhel

Bio: Sam was a full-time chef and a part-time bartender when she accidentally finds herself in Middle Earth. Gandalf determines there is no way to send her home and so the Rohan take her in since it was their lands she appeared. After serving King Theoden for a few years, she travels all over Middle Earth learning different cooking techniques and even works at the Prancing Pony for a couple of years, where she meets and befriends Strider. Sam returns to Edoras just as a farewell party is being held for Elrond and Galadriel, where she meets Erestor.

[ckret2]

The Unofficial Symbiote Fan Club

Written for @symbruary Day 21: "team". Before this event started I was like, one day, one day, I need to write a team up between a bunch of hosts who actually love their Venom symbiotes.

So here it is. A pack of symbiote-loving Venoms: Eddie, Alea, Ngozi, and Gwen. Plus a token Peter Parker who has never met a Venom, just to make things awkward.

Because this is what big crossover events should be used for: loving symby.

###

Venom stumbled out of a portal.

Four humans, three of whom were clearly wearing symbiotes, looked at them.

"What—?"

One of the symbiote-human combos started at the sight of them. "Eddie?!" She stepped forward, reached out, stopped, drew back slightly. "You died years ago! How...?"

Eddie reached back toward her; their symbiotes bridged the distance between their hands, connecting in the middle. Their symbiote, rather. The same symbiote, separated by decades. A single symbiote and two hosts, Eddie and—

"Alea," said Venom—which Venom? their minds were briefly tangled together—2020 Venom. "You're taking care of my other now?"

"You're the famous Eddie Brock I've heard so much about." Alea's face and legs were revealed as the majority of her symbiote oozed off her and over to Eddie, stirring through its past self like colors roiling in an oil slick and nuzzling over its past host.

"So, what is this," Eddie asked, "a time travel thing?"

"Or a parallel universe thing," said another one of the symbiote-bearers, a woman wearing her symbiote like a hooded jacket. "I've got some experience with these cross universe duplicate things. I was just catching everyone else up to speed on how this works, I can give you the abridged version."

"We're good, we've done some universe hopping too," Eddie said. "How do you know we're all from separate universes, though? Are all of us...?"

"Venom." Jacket-symbiote raised her hand. "Briefly. Going by Ghost-Spider now."

"Black Panther," said the one with wings. Her dreads were stretching out toward Eddie, as if trying to reach him the way Alea's other had; she calmly brushed them back behind her shoulders. "But my other was once Venom before coming to me. Ngozi."

Ghost-Spider shrugged. "No secret identities today, huh? Fine—I'm Gwen."

"I'm not Venom," grumbled the final member of the party, a black trench coat-wearing man lurking near Gwen.

"Yeah, outlier. He's my plus one, I think," Gwen said. "I've run into him in a couple of these universe-hopping gigs, guess that's how he got sucked in. Some kinda quantum entangled nonsense or something. This is Spider-Man, I call him Noir to tell him apart from the others."

The other three Venoms immediately tensed. "Spider-Man of the Peter variety?" Eddie asked cooly.

He nodded.

"Oh," Alea said.

"Great," Ngozi said.

Gwen winced. "Ooh, is there a history?"

The other three vaguely muttered about their others' bad breakups.

Gwen glanced at Peter questioningly.

He shrugged. "Never met a Venom. No bad blood here."

"Right," Gwen said. "Well. Sorry, looks like you're all stuck with him. We can all be mature and professional in front of an ex, right?"

Ngozi nodded, but with some effort that made it obvious she was fighting her symbiote to do it. Alea hesitated, but nodded more willingly. Eddie just crossed his arms and grumbled.

"Cool," Gwen said.

Eager to move on from the subject of Spider-Man, Eddie said, "We should probably figure out what we're all doing here. Any of you aware of any inter-dimensional experiments or reality-blurring mystical rituals that might've caused something like this?"

The others all shook their heads. Gwen said, "Maybe if we look at our similarities. There's usually some parallels between the people that are pulled in these things."

"Obviously, we're all some variety of Venom," Ngozi said. "Except Gwen's friend." She only gave Peter a sideways glance, clearly trying to remain neutral despite her other's antipathy. Eddie glared at Peter on her behalf.

Peter shrugged.

Alea said, "But there should be billions of Venoms across the multiverse, right? Why are we the ones that are here? What's the common thread?"

"You and I are both close to our others," Eddie said. "I felt that when we touched. You care for it in itself, not just for what it can do for you. That's rare enough it might mean something—maybe we've been hauled in on some kind of symbiote rescue mission." He looked at the other two Venoms. "What about you? Would you fight to protect symbiotes?"

"Absolutely!" Gwen said. "If they're anything like mine? Mine's basically a big gooey baby made out of gummy spiders. If I'm not looking out for it, who knows what could happen to it?" (Eddie and his other briefly pondered over the "gummy spider" description.)

"I've never had to protect mine before," Ngozi said. "But when I met it, it was a captive. If I met another in a position like that, I'd fight to save it. How could I not?"

Eddie felt his other's mood bubble up in the face of not one, not two, but three alternate hosts that considered it and its kind worthy of protection simply for its own sake. "So we're all pro-symbiote. Looks like we have a solid starting point for a theory."

Peter raised a hand. "Question. Why is being pro-symbiote noteworthy?" he asked. "Isn't it like being pro-stomach?"

All four Venoms looked at him in bafflement. Ngozi was the one to ask first, "How do you mean?"

"Everyone's got one inside 'em and you'd be pretty screwed without it. Like a stomach," Peter said, as if this was a perfectly obvious thing to say.

There was a pause, and then the Venoms exploded into questions. Alea's voice managed to carry above the others, "What do you mean, 'everyone's got one'?!"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? Egeryone's got one!" Peter declared. "You're born with one! It splits off your mother's in the womb! What, are you saying not everyone keeps 'em on your worlds? Is it some kinda cross-universe circumcision? Did your twenty-first century rock concerts scare them all off?" He addressed the latter question directly to Gwen.

She crossed her arms. "Hey, mine loves rock. And, no, none of us are born with symbiotes!"

"Then when do you get them?"

"Mine came to me from heaven," Eddie said, and at his other's prompting, clarified, "Space."

Ngozi said, "A jar."

Gwen said, "A lab."

Alea said, "Space by way of jars in a lab."

Aghast, Eddie asked, "Were all your symbiotes jarred when you met?" Poor things.

Gwen asked, "You guys have aliens?"

"Wait," Peter said. "The rest of you—is your Earth not covered in symbiotes?"

"No! It's just my other and its offspring," Eddie said.

Ngozi nodded, and Alea added, "A few more have come and gone, but that's it."

"Only one's been made in my universe," Gwen said.

Ngozi asked, "Made? Yours was invented? On Earth?"

"By Dr. Elsa Brock."

Eddie warred over what questions to start with —whether this Elsa was his sister or his genderbent alternate was high on the list—but settled on, "So when you called it a gooey baby, you meant that literally?" She nodded. "Once we've resolved whatever crisis brought us here, want to trade symbiote parenting tips?"

Gwen laced her hands together in faux prayer. "Please."

"And you!" Eddie pointed at Peter. "Are you saying your Earth is covered in symbiotes?"

Peter pointed back. "Is this why you've got colors and we don't?"

"Hold on, hold on, everyone hold on." Gwen turned to Peter. "You have a symbiote."

He nodded.

"With you?"

He gestured at himself, indicating his clothes, as if it should have been self-evident that his black trench coat had been a symbiote all along. "Man's best friend. Wouldn't leave home without it." He paused. "What do people in your universes wear?"

Gwen went on excitedly, "What do you call it? Do you call it anything, does it have a name?"

Peter hesitated. "I've always called it Vinny."

"Vinny! You're a Venom too!" Gwen laughed in delight.

Eddie's, Ngozi's, and Alea's symbiotes stretched longingly toward the mythical symbiote-sympathetic Spider-Man.

###

Until and unless canon specifically says otherwise, we don't know Spider-Man Noir doesn't have a symbiote.

Fic crossposted to AO3, link in my description. If you enjoyed, I'd appreciate a comment or reblog!

[bigskydreaming]

X of Swords continues to at least be a lot more interesting than most crossover events Marvel’s done in the last twenty years, but we’ll see if that holds up, lol. Though I gotta admit a lot of the worldbuilding they’ve done is intriguing as hell, and they’ve breathed more life into Apocalypse’s character in less than a year than he’s had pretty much since his inception. And tbh, the X book I really want to read now is just like, a book set in Arakko at any point over these last five thousand years....or in particular, the twenty year war at some point in the last couple centuries, when Genesis raised a new army to take the war directly to Amenth. 

Like the parallels to Krakoa with what looks to be like the Arakkoan version of the Quiet Council really make it seem like Apocalypse hasn’t just been scheming to create the External Gate to transport all of Krakoa and everyone on it to Otherworld to join the war against Amenth.....but it also makes it seem like he’s been subtly shaping Krakoan society itself into a mirror image of what Okkaran society - and thus Arakkoan society - use to look and function like. And given that we know that Krakoa itself also wants to be reunited with its missing half and thus seems to be kinda allied with Apocalypse or at least steering things in the same direction itself.....and given the ways that Krakoa has been shown to be able to psychically influence mutants that live on it, like Kwannon found out in Fallen Angels.....this could go a looooooong way to explaining the more disturbing elements of Krakoan society we’ve seen thus far, like the Crucible. We’ve all been assuming that the darker aspects of it have something to do with Xavier’s manipulations.....but its possible and even likely that it really is Krakoa itself, working towards Apocalypse’s end goal of forging the Krakoan nation into an army to join with the Arakkoans.

I have a feeling that ultimately X of Swords is going to end with Krakoa and Akkaro united against Amenth, and in the aftermath, most or at least some of the survivors of Akkaro are going to return to the main Marvel plane, meaning Krakoan society moving forward will be some kind of blend between the two societies with a lot of stories about or defined by their attempts to find some balance between the two that works for everyone. With Krakoans, thanks to resurrection, likely vastly outnumbering the survivors of Arrako....but the latter having five thousand years of history as a society themselves, compared to the newness of Krakoa.

But anyway, the idea of Apocalypse as the lone survivor of a lost mutant nation that includes his wife and children, and that everything he’s done over the millennia since then has been to forge a new mutant army strong enough to descend into Otherworld and rescue and reunite with his original family and people, is like...vastly more interesting than “only the strongest should survive for no other reason than I predicted social Darwinism and decided to be obsessed with it just cuz I’m immortal and needed a hobby.”

And its not just Genesis and the original Horsemen that I’m intrigued by....one of the characters I most want to learn more about is Isca the Unbeaten, who apparently was his wife’s sister, as well as the person who forged his sword, Scarab. And the info page about that sword says that it was imbued with “External Sadness”....and since the Externals have always been said to embody a specific concept or emotion, I’m wondering if Isca is actually an External herself, the External of Sadness, and that’s why the blade she forged is said to be imbued with it. 

And if her mutant power is somehow to never lose, even if that means sometimes she just ends up switching sides at just the right time....with it being suggested that her power somehow even compels this of her in some way, like she’s for some reason incapable of fighting what seems to be a losing fight and has to thus switch to the winning team whether she wants to or not....like, I have no idea how that works and thus can’t say how I really feel about it yet, but I can definitely see how it would go with the idea of her embodying Sadness.

Its also been explicitly stated that at least one of the other Swordbearers, the White Sword, is an External himself, with some kind of healing ability and the ability to resurrect his One Hundred Champions every single time they die so they keep battling endlessly.......so I’m wondering what concept he’s supposed to embody himself....is it just Resurrection or is it something else? His sword is apparently called Purity, but is that a reference to his External nature or more just his name for it?

And also, I really want to know how many of the other Externals we’re familiar with are aware of this secret history of mutantkind. Selene’s older than Apocalypse so she has to be aware of this, there’s no way she’d have missed an entire mutant nation thousands of years ago, lol.....so it absolutely makes sense that she was one of the Externals Apocalypse picked to be his allies when they turned on the other Externals and killed them to make the Gate. (Though I’m definitely curious about whether or not this means Selene was ever actually an Okkaran herself....we didn’t see her in any of the flashbacks to that war, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there, since the focus was kept on Apocalypse, Genesis and their family). 

But I’m trying to remember how old Gideon is though, because I didn’t think he was old enough to have been alive at the time or to have any kind of stake in Akkaro’s return, as I’m almost positive both Saul and Nicodemus were older than him.....but it could just be that Marvel wanted him kept around since he’s the next most popular/most used External of them, after Selene and Apocalypse themselves. Well, other than Candra. I’m still bummed about her, she was always a way under-utilized villain and I would love to see her mixing it up in all of this. Maybe though since Saturnyne shut the External Gate and all of this is coming to a head without Apocalypse needing to use it after all, there will be no need to keep the dead Externals in crystal form to power it, and so they’ll end up coming back the way they always normally do anyway. Hmm, food for thought.

Anyway, also, cuz the Externals as a concept have always had a big focus on numbers, with it being a thing that there were eight of them (at least in the main Marvel plane), I’m wondering if any of the other Swordbearers, or any of the Horsemen, are also Externals aside from Isca and the White Sword. I feel like Genesis is definitely one herself, and maybe Redroot, since she seemed to be present in those flashbacks, unlike Solem and some of the others? (And what the hell is the deal with that crocodile guy.....they seem to be pretty heavily alluding that his sword is actually sentient and the Swordbearer itself, with the giant crocodile just being an extension of it or something it manipulates into wielding it? Idk).

Lastly.....its not just me, right, and everyone else thinks Genesis is definitely Annihilation at this point? Like, Summoner said she died facing Annihilation in a duel, but Summoner is a lying liar who lies and orchestrated everything to betray Apocalypse and Krakoa to Amenth......and since we know the golden helm of Annihilation or whatever actually IS Annihilation, and is just a spirit that possesses whomever puts it on, and given that Annihilation in all the flashbacks has been talking about testing Genesis specifically, in order to see if she’s ‘strong enough’.....I mean, I’d honestly be pretty shocked at this point if its NOT actually Genesis wearing the helm, with the duel not resulting in her death but rather just Annihilation deciding she was strong enough to host her, and that’s why Arrako seemed to join forces with Amenth....because the leaders of both societies, Genesis and Annihilation, are now one and the same.

.....Saturnyne still sucks though.

[paulsebert]

Ok Marvel we need to talk... (diversity isn’t the problem)

Marvel has already stepped back from David Gabriel’s recent comments blaming diversity and a push for female characters for slumping sales, but that doesn’t change the fact that Marvel Comics has some SERIOUS problems that have to be addressed. There was a time not that long ago when Marvel was kicking ass: Secret War was possibly the best crossover ever, The X-Men were in the most interesting place since Morrison’s run.  But it didn’t last and clearly something has gone awry in the past couple of years.

Marvel’s books cost a dollar more than DC’s.  That’s like if Coke decided it needed to cost a dollar more than coke. The justification for this for the longest time is that Marvel included digital copy codes in their physical books thus adding extra value but that only screws over customers who don’t live near a brick and mortar store.

Speaking of brick and mortar stores there simply HAS to be a better way to offer customers intensives to buy physical copies than resorting to the variant-cover gimmickry which helped crash the market in the 90s.  The selling point for U.S. Avengers #1 shouldn’t have been “check out our 50 variant covers, buy them all!” it should be “Al Ewing is the best team-book writer in comics and this is awesome!”

End the fricken’ pissing contest with 20th Century Fox already. Have you seen the box-office for Deadpool and Logan?  They ain’t giving you those rights back.  Oh and guess what despite all of your attempts at making Inhumans the New X-Men, people still wanted the X-Men.  Oh and having the Inhumans responsible for a bunch of X-Men dying or losing their powers did NOT endear us to them.  The whole Death of X/IvX storyline basically made the Inhumans look like oblivious idiots at best and genocidal zealots at worst. Oh and while the Fantastic Four haven’t been an A-list book since hell Marc Waid’s early 2000s run, a lot of people miss them.

Marvel had such confidence in “Deadpool & the Mercs for Money” that they gave it not one, not two, but THREE spin-offs.  Then they changed the team line-up of the group in issue 4.  So the anchor book that was supposed to sell the spin-offs no longer featured the characters in the spin-offs.  It was like you were intentionally setting three books up to fail!

Speaking of Deadpool spin-offs you know the super obscure Marvel character from the film that everyone loved: Negasonic Teenage Warhead?  All she gets is a spot in the Mercs for Money ongoing. Almost zero is done to cash in on her newfound popularity.

Lets talk Big Hero 6.  An super obscure Marvel property gets turned into a $300 million dollar movie and the only new comics are a manga adaptation from Yen Press and a adaptation from Joe Books a publisher that’s not even on Comixology.  How the hell can you not cut a deal to do a Big Hero Six series when YOU ARE PART OF DISNEY?! 

Speaking of Disney, why are the only Disney comics being published right now outsourced to IDW and Joe Books a canadian publisher that isn’t on Comixology and whose website doesn’t even work?! I repeat YOU ARE PART OF DISNEY!  Why are they outsourcing this?!

Anyone who reads my tumblr regularly knows how much I hate Avengers Arena.  I hate to be a broken record but how can I become attached to your next young group of Avengers when the last time I got attached to some young superheroes you butched a lot of them for a cheap hunger games cash-in?!  Why should I care about your next group of X-Men when the last time I fell in love with a group of new X-Men you slaughtered so many of them in Decimation?! These kind of kill-fests only discourage people from becoming attached to new characters.

You announced Civil War II before Secret Wars was over.  You announced Monsters Unleashed before Civil War II was over.  You announced Secret Empire before Monsters Unleashed was over!  Your jumping on points between crossovers actually became buffers between events. You basically told readers to take time off because these MAJOR WORLD CHANGING EVENTS are all that maters.

Ok let’s talk about the elephant room... HYDRA CAP.  Now as a comics fan I could explain that Hydra was originally created as a Spectre-esc organization for Nick Fury to fight.  Or that it’s canonical that Hydra is actually a secret society that predates the Nazis by hundreds of years.  But guess what?! I shouldn’t have to explain that and it still looks to the causal reader that Cap is a fascist.  Even defenders of this story have to admit this is a bad look particular at a time when people are worrying about genuine fascists! I mean I get it, Hydra Cap kind of works if you want a totally blunt metaphor for America being a lot more messed up than anyone ever thought but... that’s not what a lot of readers want.

Also get Nick Spencer off of twitter for awhile.  I genuinely enjoy most of the dude’s work but he seems to come across as thin-skinned, prone to lecturing, and immune to even the slightest bit of criticism.

Between Image, Darkhorse, IDW, BOOM, Dynamite and that weird Canadian company that isn’t on Comixology the market for talent is the most competitive it’s been since the early 1990s. You have to work harder to retain talent because being not working for the Big Two isn’t the threat it used to be.  I’m sure Robert Kirkman isn’t regretting an opportunity to write “Marvel Zombies On Ice” while he’s sleeping on a giant pile of Walking Dead Money.

Speaking of competition... lets talk about DC.  Not that long ago DC was screwing up every week.  It became enough of a running gag for news site “The Outhousers” to create “Has DC Something Stupid Today?” Well guess what. In 2016 DC got their act together, launched a ton of books that people genuinely like, brought back characters that people genuinely like, held off on the crossovers almost entirely and launched a bunch of books that were cheaper than yours.

Marvel Unlimited needs reexamination.  People used to wait for the trades if they were uncertain on a series.  Now they wait for Marvel Unlimited where for less than the price of one trade you can read until the cows come home.  It’s an awesome service but it’s probably cannibalizing your sales.  Oh and it still has no unofficial support for the Kindle Fire one of the most popular tablets on the market.  WHY?!

The name “All New, All Different Marvel Now” kind of says it all.  Marvel got complacent and decided to offer more of what was super-successful in 2013 and gave us more 4 years later without adjusting to a changing market.

[thelondonfilmschool]

MEET THE PROFESSIONALS - Brian Dunnigan (Head of Screenwriting)

Photo Credit: Chi Yu

In the final of our MEET THE PROFESSIONALS series, interviewing LFS staff, lecturers and tutors for an insight into the working professionals that are the heartbeat of The London Film School, the spotlight falls on Brian Dunnigan, Head of Screenwriting.

Younger than its Filmmaking sibling, the MA Screenwriting programme has been under the careful watch of Dunnigan for 12 years as he built it up from scratch.  As it continues to grow, branching out into areas such as writing for TV, animation and video games, Dunnigan took a moment to reflect on how his passion for film and writing developed while travelling the world and how a background in Sociology gradually brought him into the role of teacher.

Sophie McVeigh (S.M): Could you describe your role at LFS and your involvement in the teaching of the different courses? Brian Dunnigan (B.D): My title is Head of Screenwriting, which means I’m responsible for supporting the development of writing and scripts across the school, although as course leader of the MA in Screenwriting, my main responsibility and most of my time is taken up with managing and teaching on the MA Screenwriting course. 

I think one of the developments that I’ll be exploring with Gisli [Snaer] now that we have a new Head of Academic Studies is looking at ways in which we can increase the relationship between the two courses, but currently there’s a number of things I do on the Filmmaking program. One is I have a team of tutors, some of whom also teach on Screenwriting, and they run a series of script workshops for the film makers. They get four in terms 2, 3 and 4. 

I’m also available on a one-to-one basis to talk to filmmakers about their scripts as they develop them. I run two or three classes every term – an introduction to scriptwriting for [the] first term, and I do a script to screen, where we look at an early and a later draft and then the actual film for a term 4 project. Beyond that I attend the end of term screenings, which is pretty much a whole week of comments on the films that have been made during the term. There’s often anywhere between 50 and 60 films.  My responsibilities, though, are principally as course leader of the MA Screenwriting, which has a whole set of tasks and responsibilities attached to it. 

S.M: You set up the MA in Screenwriting 12 years ago. Could you talk about the process behind it and the decision to do that? 

B.D: I had been practising as a freelance writer and supporting myself in different ways in order to continue to write for a good number of years before I came to The London Film School. I started running workshops before I came here at a number of universities around the south of England and some in international workshops. I first developed a program up in Leeds at The Northern Film School, and when I came back to London I was very much part time at the LFS for two or three years, really from about 2000. Alan Bernstein, the previous Head of Studies, brought me in. So I was running script workshops just for the filmmakers, because that was the only program. And historically that has been pretty much the only program that the London Film School has had. I happened to be on site when the school decided it needed to reimagine itself for the 21st Century. They brought in a new director – a producer called Ben Gibson – and it was decided that one of the changes that we ought to introduce to the school would be to have a writing program that insinuated its way into the Filmmaking course. I happened to be on site at that point as someone who had, not only experience of teaching, but also as a practitioner and had designed and redesigned the course up in Leeds. So I was asked if I would take that on and design that course, which I duly did. I had a template from Skillset, which included certain things that had to be included in the course, touching on the craft skills, the personal voice, the career context and so on. I also researched other courses in the UK, in the States and Europe. I talked to a number of script people and on that basis I began to design the program. It was based on my own experience, on research into other programs, along with input from Alan Bernstein and Ben Gibson at the time. We arrived at a design for the course which was then validated by the university that we had set up a relationship with at the time, which was London Metropolitan University.   

S.M: How has the course changed over the last 12 years? 

B.D: It’s just got better, of course! It’s the twelfth draft. Some changes are incremental. We’ve built the team that delivers the course. The core of that team has been around a while and they have a lot of experience. The management of the course has obviously also got better at responding to feedback from students over the years and refining what we’ve been doing. Since the course was set up, TV series writing has become a very exciting place for writers and directors to work in, and so we’ve introduced a strand into the Screenwriting program on that. We’ve also addressed the reality that when people go out there to try and write for the screen there are many more screens to write for. So we do run classes on writing for animation, video games, web series … We don’t go deeply into these but we give people a set of references and an idea about how they can take the story telling skills they’re learning on the program into other arenas.   

Also, over the years, the relationship between the Screenwriting program and the Film Making program has been built up so that there are a number of formal points where there’s a crossover, particularly the script editing of the Filmmaking scripts, which often then leads on to relationships where the writers are working with the film makers on graduation films. 

S.M: You’ve brought in some really interesting people to talk this term. How do you go about choosing and finding them?

B.D: By being charming. These are transferrable skills that you’ll be practising on the course! Networking is one way. If you’ve been around as long as I have you’ve got friends and contemporaries that you were at film school with or that you’ve met in the process of working who have become quite established and successful. So that’s one way. Another way is that you keep your eyes and ears open for the right kinds of people. Not every writer or director is good at communicating what they do, either. So I attend conferences and film festivals, I go to industry events, I’ve got a social life where I meet people from the industry. So I will encounter people and invite them in through that networking. It is absolutely a skill that you would hope a good course leader would have – attracting people onto the course – and that does require being interested and passionate and being able to communicate that and be able to know where to go and where to meet people. 

S.M: You mentioned that you also do some work internationally. 

B.D: Over the years I’ve run workshops in Ghana, Cuba and Norway. I’ve been invited out to Taiwan, currently, for a month to run a workshop. They’re all different depending on their requirements. I design something that is appropriate to their needs, the stage that they’re at, the kinds of writers they are, the culture and so on. That is very good for my teaching, and it also extends my set of experiences and references by exposing me to different cultures and different ways that people approach making films and telling stories. And sometimes story is not the most important thing.   

S.M: What was your background before teaching and what led you into education? 

B.D: I was at university in the 60s that tips into the 70s, so I was very much a child of that generation. I did Sociology and that gave me a real intellectual grasp of theory, and so one of my abiding interests is the relationship between theory and practice, the way in which I think you can be a better writer if you’re an intelligent one. That’s one of the qualities that we try and insinuate into the way we teach. We draw on a range of the Humanities and we believe that having a deeper understanding of who we are and where we are will inform your writing.   

So, coming from a sociological background, it really opened my eyes and got me very excited intellectually. When I was at university I edited the student newspaper. I wrote poems, I’ve always written over the years. After that I went travelling for a couple of years in North America with my guitar, and I was doing all the usual On the Road type of jobs – I was picking tobacco and I was a roofer. Before that, I made money by emptying garbage, I was a road sweeper and I was a department store Santa Claus. I was in America for two years, wandering around and travelling and having adventures and writing a bit about that. Then I came back to Edinburgh, where I was from, and I set myself up as a freelance writer. I had an idea for a history book, which became a book for school kids. I still get returns on it from Germany, actually! And then I used that material to set up a publishing company; I published maps and broadsheets out of copyright. Then I turned it into a dramatized life in the 17th century for educational radio, and that got me into radio. Radio’s a great medium for a writer. One minute you’d be talking in the pub about an idea, the next you’d be in the studio with a couple of coconuts and Robbie Coltrane back in 18th century Edinburgh. The idea for the book, which took me two years to research and was published, opened up an avenue into radio. My writing in radio was right across the range, to a point where I had a short story on Radio 3, my book had just been published and I was working with a filmmaker in Scotland who told me about film school.   

So, my life changed dramatically. I came down to London and I was at the National Film School, I wrote and directed a number of award-winning short films. Then I went out into the world and I was paid to develop and write feature scripts. Often they don’t get made, but I was in the swim and I was learning a lot, making contacts and building relationships. I started, as one way of supporting and contributing to the writing, doing workshops and maybe teaching one day a week. I suppose storytelling and writing and teaching all share a kind of urge to communicate. So that was always there, and of course on the teaching side you need to have performance skills. Not unlike a director, as well. These skills are all related and they all feed back into each other. If you talk to any of the tutors on the programme who are continuing to practice, they say that they just love coming in for a day or a half-day because it really reminds them how much they know, and they take it all back to their own work, refreshed somehow. So teaching’s always attracted me. It’s a two-way communication as well. ‘I teach, I learn’, says Pablo Casals. You learn a lot from encounters with other humans, who challenge what you are saying and offer a different angle on how you see things. And ultimately, what all this about, is an interest in who we are and where we are. It’s a portal into exploring our reality, and it’s exciting. I’ve always been curious, I’ve always read across the range of philosophy and psychology and art history and I find that all of that broad learning, which is very much a Scottish kind of approach to education.  I find film and storytelling is a perfect arena in which to bring these things all to bear because what else are we doing but trying to create humans in action, and to understand what they might be doing and why they might be pursuing what they’re pursuing? It’s a never ending study. So teaching was always there for me. It was in that direct line that fed my curiosity about life. 

Photo Credit: Chi Yu

S.M: Had an interest in film always been a constant in your life? 

B.D: It had been but I hadn’t always been fully aware of it. Remember, this is an era before TV. I grew up in a family without television until I was about ten, and then there was only one channel. Famously, people will tell you from my generation about the encounter with foreign film on tiny little black and white sets, extraordinary other worlds opening up. So they were always around for me, but growing up in a small country like Scotland where there was no film school, there was no particular film course, it wasn’t something you did. It was something they did in America, in Hollywood.   

So my encounter with the film maker, over a major exhibition that we devised which ended up being an official exhibition at the Edinburgh Festival called Scotch Myths, this man Murray Grigor, he told me about this film school in London. And I’d always fancied coming to London but I didn’t want to come unless I had something specific to do. And I thought, yes. I could take my skills in storytelling, my ability to work with people, and take it into writing and directing. So, that’s what took me to London and film making. Film had always been an interest but once I went to film school it really opened my mind. Film became a passion and I got interested in a deep way. 

S.M: What would you say is unique about the program at LFS? B.D: Clearly, what makes it distinctive compared to many courses is that it takes place in the context of a film school, not a university. Our strap line that we steal from Jean-Claude Carrière is that Screenwriting is Filmmaking. That is something that we put into practice here, because we are a film school where we make about 60 films every 12 weeks and the writers can’t help but be touched by that reality, that screenwriting is just a step towards making a film. It’s a process. So that’s one thing.   

I think the intensity of the course is another – it’s only really 10 months and we pack a lot into that time. A lot of writing, a lot of transferrable skills. I think the sense of community that we establish amongst the writers is certainly one of the things that I think’s important and that we achieve. The mentoring program is not something you find everywhere, and in fact you get a lot of one to one, small group feedback. And I think the responsiveness and the quality of the team of tutors that we have also adds to its quality. We believe that you’ll be a better writer if you’re an intelligent one, so whilst the emphasis is on the practice of writing, there is also a critical journal that we ask you to write, that is an account of what you’re learning. We do this in the belief that thinking about what you’re learning makes you someone who not only knows what the right choice is when you’re writing, but why. It makes you much more able to defend your work and your writing as you move out into the world.   

Another thing that is certainly singular on this course is the quality of written feedback that you get on all the work that you submit, sometimes 3 or 4 pages of detailed notes at every major stage of your development. This, both the work and research journal and the critical feedback from the assessors, is much admired and often talked about by the external examiners. 

S.M: There’s a huge variety of backgrounds amongst the students on the course. Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for when you interview potential students? B.D: You’re looking for people who have got a body of work related to screenwriting or filmmaking – that’s the entry level. But you’re looking for people who are open and curious as well, and who are ready to learn. That’s what it’s about. The course is very much about creating a space where people figure out what it is they need to learn to do what they want to do, rather than telling people so much. So it’s very much about questions rather than answers. Of course, there are a few answers – it’s great when you discover three act structure, but then it’s also a nightmare because it suddenly constrains your imagination. How do you play with that? That’s what you have to figure out through your practice. So we’re looking for people who are curious and open, and who have a passion for, and some knowledge of, film. People who can work with other people. Their ability to communicate. We’re looking for people who’ve got a kind of storytelling gene or some sense of the dramatic. It’s not something that you can necessarily teach, as such. People who are able to listen and pay attention. Having responsive, thoughtful people in the room is what builds the community and the trust and what accelerates everybody’s development.  Not everyone’s got all of these in the moment but these are some of the boxes you’ve got to tick, that’s what we’re looking for. 

S.M: Once someone has been accepted, what advice would you give them to best prepare themselves for their experience here. 

B.D: Enjoy the moment. There are a few moments in life that are really joyful and that are resonant with possibility and change, and getting into a post-graduate programme like this is very exciting. Then, follow up on the homework that I send. Have a look at the screenwriting books, but also at the other references that have nothing to do with screenwriting as such, to deepen and widen their film references. Go to websites and start reading feature screenplays so you get a sense of it, because it’s a very particular form. It’s not unlike a sonnet, or a haiku, or twelve-bar blues. It’s something that can be studied and it has a set of rules and certain principles that you can play off against once you understand what they are. And, of course, continue to write as a daily practice.

To read the complete MEET THE PROFESSIONALS series, visit our Tumblr website.

[aion-rsa]

Inhumans’ Black Bolt Is Sent to Cosmic Prison – with the Absorbing Man

Not only is Blackagar Boltagon part of the Inhumans’ Royal Family, he has a voice that can level mountains, so he’s used to being one of the most influential figures in the Marvel Universe. That all changes this May with the launch of “Black Bolt,” a new ongoing series by sci-fi and fantasy novelist Saladin Ahmed and artist Christian Ward which finds the titular character locked down in a mysterious cosmic prison.

PREVIEW: Inhumans Prime #1

What turn of events led him there? Who is serving time alongside him? And how will he communicate with his captors and inmates? For the answers to these questions and more, CBR spoke with first time comic writer Ahmed about penning a series that’s both new reader friendly and offers some payout to longtime fans of the title character. And then there’s perhaps the biggest question of all: how did the Absorbing Man come to have a large supporting role in the series?

CBR: You’re picking up Black Bolt after what’s been a pretty eventful couple of years for the character. So what’s your sense of your protagonist? Which aspects of his personality are you especially interested in exploring?

Saladin Ahmed: Despite the fact that he’s been around 50 years we’ve really almost always seen Black Bolt reflected in others. He’s sort of this blank slate to a degree because he doesn’t talk and because he has this kind of imperious distance as a king. So part of the challenge is getting in his head at all and starting to think about how with this being a solo title he’s always been defined by his place in the Inhuman Royal Family.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from “Black Bolt” #1 by Christian Ward

This book is a chance to think about his personality and ask what is Black Bolt like on his own? Just even beginning to ask that question has been both fun and a challenge.

As far as the past few years go, I’ve been walking a tight rope with this book. Marvel came to me as a science fiction/fantasy writer. This is my first comics project. I’m interested in bringing in some new readers; ones who don’t necessarily know who Black Bolt is or know a ton about the amazing past few years of the Inhumans comics. I’ve really loved reading those issues, but the mythology is thick. There’s a lot of material there with the history and the crossover events.

On the one hand, I wanted to take Black Bolt away from all of that and just strip him down to some essential questions about his character and this unique thing of his power being something that’s always in check. It’s kind of this curse and blessing, but mostly a curse. So there’s these thematic threads that I’d be weaving through a novel and now I’m doing the same thing with a comic. We’re dealing with this question of being silenced, not being able to talk, and silencing yourself.

There’s all these kind of abstract things that this character brings out and I’m trying to make those accessible and interesting to both to long time readers and readers who are new to Marvel Comics. I want to take a look at this almost god like figure who’s been humbled and examine what that means.

I also wanted to say that those who have had questions about or outrage over Black Bolt’s machinations from the past few years should find this to be a satisfying series. Lingering questions about his unleashing the Terrigen Cloud and [his relationship with] his son definitely do get answered. So I think there’s going to be some satisfying examination of some of the decisions that Black Bolt has had to make, especially for people who have been reading Inhumans comics over the past few years. Ultimately though I want this to be a book that’s open to new readers.

What’s it like writing a character like Black Bolt, where you can’t really have him communicate with dialogue? Will you use other techniques for the character, like an internal monologue?

EXCLUSIVE: Art from “Black Bolt” #1 by Christian Ward

I don’t want to say too much about the exact technique because both myself as a writer and Christian Ward as an artist are going to employ some neat tricks to get in there. Giving readers a chance to discover those things on their own will be part of the fun of the book, but there will be a cerebral edge to the series. So we will occasionally get into Black Bolt’s head via captions the same way that Stan Lee did some 50 years ago.

Part of what I’m trying to do, stylistically, is to do an updated version of that. The Inhumans are these epic sets of characters like the Asgardians. They’re one of the places where Lee and Kirby came closest to almost doing illustrated books. There’s this real kind of mythical sense to them. I haven’t looked at things like word count, but if you looked at an issue of the “Fantastic Four” where the Inhumans appeared versus say an issue of “Spider-Man,” I’d guess that the word counts would be higher.

So there’s this prose quality about the Inhumans as opposed to some of the other characters. I’m trying to take that into the 21st century with “Black Bolt.”

In “Black Bolt” you’re taking your character to a location that I don’t believe he’s spent much time in: prison. And what’s it like for a former monarch to suddenly find himself behind bars?

That’s the thematic core of the first arc of the book. Black Bolt is kind of a mysterious guy, but he’s also kind of arrogant. We’ll see him humbled — but it’s not a story about humiliation so much as becoming less sure of the pecking order of things as he interacts with his fellow prisoners.

The comic book takes place in a space jail with aliens and super villains, but I think the story of what happens when we lock people up, having had family locked up myself, is an important set of questions. So this is very much a cosmic sci-fi comic, but the chance to occasionally examine some of those questions is why we started here.

Will readers immediately know why Black Bolt is behind bars?

You’ll get an immediate answer, but there is a much deeper answer that will be revealed over the course of the arc.

What can you tell us about the prison that Black Bolt is incarcerated in? Is this an established Marvel facility? Or something you created for this story?

It’s something new, and that’s all I can say about it right now.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from “Black Bolt” #1 by Christian Ward

Fair Enough. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other inmates then. We know this is a cosmic story which suggests the jail would be populated with alien inmates. I was surprised and intrigued, then, to learn that Carl “Crusher” Creel, aka the Absorbing Man, would be one of the convicts incarcerated there.

Yes! He is going to be the only other Earthling in the prison, so he and Black Bolt immediately have a kind of weird connection. Crusher is very much the co-star of at least this first arc of the book. There’s almost a buddy picture feel to it. It’s been a lot of fun playing this king off of a lifelong con.

The Absorbing Man and Black Bolt are a very unlikely pairing. What made you want to bring Creel into the book?

The fun part of this book was that I originally had developed some of the pitch as a mini-series around Crusher. Just around the time I was getting ready to pitch it to Marvel, editor Wil Moss came to me and said that since I have a background in science fiction and fantasy he was thinking about me for “Black Bolt.” I said, “It’s funny, because I have this back pocket pitch that I was going to send you.”

Then when we bounced these things off of each other they just immediately meshed. That’s where this story came from. So Crusher predates Black Bolt as far as Marvel characters I’ve wanted to write about. He’s a hero to me, even if he’s a villain. [Laughs]

Who are some of the new supporting characters you’re introducing in “Black Bolt?”

One inmate is a teenage kid named Blinky. She is an alien psychic and an ex-pickpocket. She ended up in this story because the aspect of the incarceration question where we lock up kids kept coming up in my mind. She then became this really important character.

Another cellmate is a woman named Raava. She’s a Skrull, but not like the Skrulls we’ve seen. She’s a kind of anarchist pirate.

There are some more supporting characters that will be revealed. Some are ones I’ve created and there are also a number of obscure Marvel characters in the book. I’ll leave those cameos for readers to discover.

What else can you tell us about the action and tone of “Black Bolt?”

EXCLUSIVE: Art from “Black Bolt” #1 by Christian Ward

I like good fight scenes, and Christian is amazing at drawing fight scenes. That may not have been one of my strengths in scripting, but that’s one of the wonders of collaboration. People can strengthen your weaknesses. So Christian’s fights have an almost French style manga edge to them. Characters are flying off the page.

“Black Bolt” is not a slugfest book, but there are absolutely some big action scenes. There’s a meditative tone to the book as well though. It is about incarceration in a social sense and in an existential almost Kafka sense. Some times the art will reflect that.

So Christian can do these amazing fights, but there will also be this dark, bleak tone from time to time that people won’t be used to seeing from him. He mostly does really psychedelic, colorful, cosmic stuff and he’s perfect for the book because of that. He’s quite good though too when things get grungy.

Besides the action and social commentary I always try and put jokes in my books. Readers have to laugh sometimes. So we’ll try and include a laugh at least once per issue. [Laughs] Plus, Crusher is a great source for that kind of stuff. He’s really good at deflating Black Bolt’s serious balloon with some Bronx-style snark.

I understand you want your books to stand on their own, but “Black Bolt” launches one month after Al Ewing’s “The Royals,” where your title character heads into space on a mission with his family. Will there be some connective tissue between your two books for people who read both?

I believe that over the next year or so there will be some light connective tissue between all of the Inhumans books. It may look like there’s a paradox happening in the first issue of “Royals” and “Black Bolt.” We will provide an explanation, though, of how he can be in both books.

Finally, your work on “Black Bolt” is bound to make some readers curious about your work as a novelist. What would you like curious readers to know about your prose work?

The best thing they can do is check out first my novel “Throne of the Crescent Moon,” which is an epic fantasy with a sort of Middle Eastern flair. People like George R.R. Martin have said nice things about it. [Laughs] So if they enjoy the epic scope and weirdness of the Inhumans. I think they’ll enjoy the book.

Christian Ward’s character sketches for Black Bolt

The post Inhumans’ Black Bolt Is Sent to Cosmic Prison – with the Absorbing Man appeared first on CBR.

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Where to Watch the Watchmen: A Rebirth Guide

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for various DC Comics Rebirth titles.

The final issue of “Watchmen” may have debuted nearly 30 years ago, but as Doctor Manhattan observed so famously, “nothing ever ends.” Indeed, Doctor M himself looks to be making a comeback as part of DC Comics’ Rebirth initiative.

RELATED: “Batman”/”Flash” Crossover Set to Explore DC’s “Watchmen”/Rebirth Mystery

It started with May’s “DC Universe: Rebirth” special and continues to roll out in bits and pieces as part of the publisher’s superhero line. Because Co-Publisher Dan DiDio and President and Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns have each teased more “Watchmen” involvement in 2017, we’re taking stock of where the landmark miniseries’ characters might already have appeared, and what it all could mean going forward.

Down Time

Doctor Manhattan’s departure, from “Watchmen” #12 by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Of course, mixing “Watchmen” characters with the main-line DC super-folk is a bit like Garth Brooks adding tortellini to all his recipes: It sounds preposterous, it shouldn’t really work, and you don’t want to try it because either you’ll get sick or you’ll hate yourself for liking it. Indeed, both “Watchmen’s” in-story and real-world timing suggested very strongly that it wasn’t to be considered part of the DC superhero cosmos.

Nevertheless, here we are; so let’s see where the end of “Watchmen” left its players. On the most basic level, “Watchmen” — written by Alan Moore, drawn by Dave Gibbons and colored by John Higgins — is the story of Adrian “Ozymandias” Veidt’s plot to save the world from nuclear holocaust in 1985 by teleporting a giant telepathic squid-bomb into the middle of New York City. Because that involves killing an awful lot of people, it produces a giant conspiracy, an attendant cover-up, and a lot of death along the way.

RELATED: Geoff Johns Hints He’ll Write “Watchmen”-Focused Comic

Among the dead is The Comedian, aka Eddie Blake, who’s been a masked vigilante (and, later, government-sponsored assassin) since the late 1930s. Blake knew too much, so Veidt killed him. The vigilante who investigated Blake’s murder, Walter “Rorschach” Kovacs, also ended up knowing too much and wanting to die because of it. At the end of “Watchmen” he asked Doctor Manhattan to kill him, and the latter obliged.

Veidt’s plan succeeded despite the efforts of two other vigilantes, Nite Owl (Dan Dreiberg) and Silk Spectre (Laurie Juspeczyk). Both are still around at the end of “Watchmen,” having assumed the new identities of Sam and Sandra Hollis. Although they’re apparently on the run from the law (thanks to breaking Rorschach out of jail in Issue 7), both are also apparently interested in continuing their costumed careers, with Silk Spectre hinting at a more Comedian-like approach.

Finally, there’s Doctor Manhattan, once a scientist named Jon Osterman, whose omnipotence was held in check only by his indifference, and ultimately his logic. He leaves Earth at the end of “Watchmen,” thereby depriving the planet of the single greatest influence on its late 20th-century development. (Speaking of planets, he also leaves behind a smashed crystalline castle on Mars.) We’ve speculated previously that while Doctor M talks about creating some new lifeforms, perhaps the “Watchmen” universe itself is Earth-Q, created artificially by the Superman of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s “All Star Superman.”

As for the Earth itself, the final pages of “Watchmen” indicate that Veidt’s plan worked. The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union and the United States are working together in the wake of the apparent extraterrestrial attack, and Robert Redford may even run for president in 1988. The one thing that might upset the optimistic mood is Rorschach’s journal, delivered to a right-wing newspaper just before his death.

Watchmaker, Wizard and Watcher

Abra Kadabra’s “Watchmen” allusions from “Titans” #3, by Dan Abnett and Brett Booth

Accordingly, if the Rebirthed comics pick up after the events of “Watchmen,” four of its main cast are still “at large”: Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. The “DCU: Rebirth” special, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by various artists, also connected to “Watchmen” through a couple of artifacts, Wally West’s watch (repaired telekinetically on Mars) and the Comedian’s blood-stained button.

In 2011, in the main DC Universe, the “Flashpoint” event ended with the Barry Allen Flash — guided by the mysterious immortal Pandora — reordering the timeline to facilitate the New 52 reboot/relaunch. The New 52 eliminated Barry’s successor Wally West, but the “DC Universe: Rebirth” special brought him back, with the awareness that a new and powerful force had taken away 10 years’ worth of history. The Rebirth process also switched out the late New 52 Superman for his pre-“Flashpoint” predecessor.

A number of “Rebirth” events seem to indicate Doctor Manhattan’s work within the DC Universe. Perhaps the most obvious is Pandora’s murder, portrayed in the “Rebirth” one-shot as a fairly close parallel to Rorschach’s death. Johns and penciler Gary Frank’s combined efforts made that explicit, with Pandora’s anger and atomization matching Rorschach’s. In hindsight, we can also suppose that whoever killed Pandora had previously dispatched Owlman and Metron (who were fighting over the Mobius Chair at the end of “Justice League” vol. 2 #50), because they died in much the same way.

Pandora’s “DC Universe: Rebirth” death mirrors Rorschach’s in “Watchmen” #12

Doctor Manhattan also appears to be behind Wally’s allegations about the timestream, although “Watchmen” itself never depicted him changing the past. Indeed, Doctor Manhattan regarded time as immutable, asking in Issue 4, “Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there … a clock without a craftsman.” At the end of Issue 9, Manhattan tells Laurie he values life — “rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg” — but that’s not necessarily an opening to mess around with time itself. Just before his departure in Issue 12 he tells Ozymandias “[h]uman affairs cannot be my concern,” which suggests he would need at least a compelling reason to do anything so drastic.

For that matter, “Watchmen” doesn’t say whether Doctor Manhattan can even affect the timestream. He may have a unique perspective on time, but he travels through it at the same rate everyone else does. Granted, it’s not something we would have seen, because his philosophy probably wouldn’t have allowed him to try and change the past. After all, someone who experiences past and present as he does would probably go insane if any of it were altered.

RELATED: DiDio & Lee Say DC Will Take the Time to Do “Watchmen”/Rebirth Story “Right”

Additionally, Doctor Manhattan does have trouble seeing the future when faster-than-light tachyon particles are involved. As part of his plan, Ozymandias generated tachyons artificially to confuse Manhattan so he wouldn’t be able to stop the squid-creature. Literally in the midst of the destruction, Doctor M finds this appealing: “I’d almost forgotten the excitement of not knowing, the delights of uncertainty …”

Therefore, when Doctor M leaves Earth he doesn’t know where he’ll end up, maybe because there are a lot of exotic tachyon-style particles. Naturally this reminds us of the Speed Force, where everything goes faster than light, and where he could have encountered the lost Wally West. However, Doctor M’s “uncertainty” about his future could also be merely an act, and he knows what he’ll be doing but wants to pretend it’s all a surprise.

Abra Kadabra erases Kid Flash and himself from history, from “Titans” #6 by Dan Abnett and Brett Booth

Speaking of the future, though, the first arc of the Rebirthed “Titans” involved the classic Flash foe Abra Kadabra. A magician from the 64th century, the applause-craving Abra used advanced technology to perform “magical” feats. At the end of 1999-2000’s “Dark Flash” storyline by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Paul Pelletier (“Flash” vol. 2 issues 156-58, January-March 2000), Abra kidnapped Wally’s wife Linda Park with the aim of erasing her from history; and in the recInt “Titans” arc he hatched a similar scheme. This time, however, Abra claimed to have removed Wally from history (and, as revealed in Issue 5, himself too).

In “Titans” #3, Kadabra also talked about wanting to avoid a “soulless, clockwork future.” That could either be a reference to Doctor Manhattan conquering Earth for all time, or a more “Watchmen”-esque way of talking about the 64th century’s various monotonies and repressions. Wally had visited Abra’s future in August-September 1992’s “Flash” #67-68, and found it to be oppressive for everyone, not just for Abra. Omen confirmed this when she tapped into Abra’s mind in “Titans” #6, describing his future not just as “clockwork,” but as “cold and joyless. Like a laboratory experiment.”

Abra also expressed a more personal vision of the future in “Titans” #4: “I know that one day, Wally West will stop me for good. He will finally beat me so comprehensively, I will be destroyed. That’s unacceptable. But the lovely thing about the future is it’s so bendy. I’ve come back to change it … and stop Wally West before he stops me.” Thus, a blood-splattered pocket watch in “Titans” #3 may keep readers in a “Watchmen”-minded mood, but Abra sees himself acting alone. To be sure, Abra is aware of someone else with the power to alter time. In Issue 3, he notes that “time has been knocked askew. History is muddled. This is not West’s doing. It’s … his handiwork. It can only be.” Put together with Lilith’s finding the word “Manhattan” in Abra’s memories, and it points directly to “Watchmen.”

Mr. Oz visits the pre-“Flashpoint” Superman, from the “DC Universe: Rebirth” special

Still, it may not point to Doctor Manhattan himself. So far, readers have yet to see “Watchmen’s” only superhuman in the blue flesh. Instead, they’ve been getting a lot of Mr. Oz, a character who first appeared in Issue 32 (August 2014) of the New 52 “Superman” series. Created by Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr., Mr. Oz spent a lot of time observing both the New 52 and pre-“Flashpoint” Supermen, and indicated that he helped train the New 52 version when the latter was younger. Following the New 52 Superman’s death, Mr. Oz then tells the pre-“Flashpoint” Man of Steel that “you and your family are not what you believe you are[,] and neither was the fallen Superman.” Mr. Oz also talks to unseen guests, who may be the prisoners he’s collected for some as-yet-unknown purpose. We know these prisoners include a pre-“Flashpoint” version of Doomsday and Red Robin (Tim Drake), teleported away from (respectively) the Phantom Zone in October 2016’s “Action Comics” #962 and from certain death in November 2016’s “Detective Comics” #940.

Mr. Oz and assistant Janet send the New 52 Superman a present, from “Superman” #39 by Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr.

Mr. Oz wears a green hooded robe, carries a crescent-topped staff, and employs an assistant named Janet whose tattoo looks a bit like the logo for the Veidt company’s perfume Nostalgia. (She delivers to the New 52 Clark Kent a blank S-shield notebook — shades of Rorschach’s journal? — and Mr. Oz observes “The future is unwritten, Clark. But you and your friends will see it soon enough.”) His bank of monitors is further reminiscent of the dozens of TV screens in Ozymandias’ Antarctic home. While these details tend to suggest “Watchmen’s” Ozymandias collectively, they’re not conclusive and could simply be coincidental.

In fact, “Oz” arguably makes just as much sense as a nickname for “Osterman.” Doctor Manhattan was susceptible to emotional outbursts but (for lack of a better term) prided himself on his restraint; and as discussed above doesn’t seem like the kind of being to interfere in the timeline on a whim. By contrast, Adrian Veidt didn’t get overly emotional and dealt heavily in large-scale manipulation, using whatever methods were available to him. We would not be surprised if Veidt found a way to duplicate the accident which led to Doctor Manhattan — he did take Doctor M apart in “Watchmen” #12, albeit temporarily — and gave himself time- and space-spanning powers. Alternatively, if somehow that made Doctor Manhattan human again, the identity of “Mr. Oz” wouldn’t be much of a stretch. (Of course, “Dr. Oz” would be too confusing.) We’re still at a loss about the robe and staff, though.

Worth a Second Glance

Quoting William Blake and mentioning “watchmen” in “The Hellblazer” #2

Janet’s “Nostalgia” tattoo is just one of several elements in DC’s superhero line that remind us, intentionally or otherwise, of “Watchmen.” In “The Hellblazer” #2, John Constantine finishes a quote: “The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations.” It’s from William Blake’s “America: A Prophecy,” spoken by a libertine character during the Apocalypse. Blake also wrote “Tyger, Tyger,” quoted in “Watchmen” #5. The “Hellblazer” quote (courtesy of writer Simon Oliver and artist Moritat) is probably just a gentle jab at “Rebirth”; but we feel compelled to note it regardless.

The same goes for Tweedledum and Tweedledee quoting their signature nursery rhyme in “Batman” vol. 3 #9: “Just then flew down a monstrous crow, as black as a tar barrel; which frightened both the heroes so they quite forgot their quarrel.” Naturally, in the context of “Watchmen,” the quote recalls Ozymandias’ hope that an external threat would force the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to be “so frightened” that they’d “forget their quarrel.”

Also in recent issues of “Batman” is the Psycho-Pirate, famously one of the few characters to remember the infinite Multiverse which existed prior to “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” It doesn’t connect him directly to “Watchmen” — which, remember, is decidedly post-“Crisis” — but if anyone knows anything about the Multiverse, he would.

Of course, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) and Captain Atom are themselves the inspirations, however distant, for Nite Owl and Doctor Manhattan. (Others included Nightshade/Silk Spectre, Peter Cannon/Ozymandias, and Peacemaker/Comedian.) That connects them to “Watchmen” on a metatextual level, and each has returned to DC’s superhero lineup after an extended absence, although so far neither has been involved in the current cosmic mystery. As it happens, during “Forever Evil” a few years ago DC seemed to have big things in store for The Question, who of course was Rorschach’s inspiration. The Question was also part of the Trinity of Sin alongside the Phantom Stranger and the late Pandora, which may make Pandora’s Rorschach-mirroring death just a little more noteworthy.

“Watchmen’s” electric-car recharger and Wally West’s Flash symbol

Perhaps one of the biggest coincidences is the similarity between two unrelated symbols. Both the electric-car recharge stations in “Watchmen” and the Wally West Flash share a stylized lightning-bolt symbol that is more streamlined than the other Flash emblems. Wally’s symbol came to the comics from a slight redesign done for the “Superman” animated series (and seen later in “Justice League”); and the electric-car recharge is such a minor detail that it has to be a coincidence. Nevertheless, an enterprising writer could probably make it into a bit more.

The name “Wally West” is also superficially similar to “Wally Weaver,” the Jimmy Olsen-like character who was Doctor Manhattan’s buddy in the early days. Weaver was diagnosed years later with cancer, allegedly (and falsely) attributed to his association with Doctor Manhattan. It’s a stretch as well, but if Doctor M became lost in the Speed Force and heard the name “Wally,” it probably would have caught his attention.

As for the Comedian’s button, Nite Owl had it cleaned up by the end of Issue 1. (He’s got it on the last page during his and Laurie’s after-dinner chat.) Therefore, it must come from some other place along the “Watchmen” timeline — which doesn’t have to be the beginning of the miniseries, because it also got blood-splattered when Blake received his scar in Vietnam. The point is that it seems mostly symbolic of the new connection between the two universes, and not a major plot element. It will, however, be the subject of an April crossover, as described below.

Finally, we expect Wally West to get his uncle’s watch back (and in good working order) sometime before “Rebirth’s” resolution plays out. That does seem like it could be a plot point.

Minute Details

Superman and son fight a tentacled creature, from “Superman” #2 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Certain other elements of current series may have further resonance with the “Watchmen” portions of “Rebirth.” For example, the villain of “Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad” is Maxwell Lord, who completed his turn to the dark side by killing Blue Beetle. Like Ozymandias, Max started out as a wealthy do-gooder who eventually orchestrated a vast conspiracy and (in 2005’s “Countdown to Infinite Crisis” special, co-written by Geoff Johns) murdered one of his old associates who had discovered it. That plot didn’t originate with “Watchmen,” but these days the similarities are hard to ignore.

Superman’s Rebirth experiences also include some “Watchmen”-esque elements. He fights giant tentacled monsters in both the “Justice League: Rebirth” special and in “Superman” #2; and in “Superman” #1 and “Superman Annual” #1, he leaves glowing-blue handprints in the ground. Admittedly, not every tentacled monster comes from Adrian Veidt. However, the “Annual” seemed to explain that these handprints — one of which turned Swamp Thing temporarily into a glowing-blue, Kryptonese-speaking creature — were a byproduct of Superman not being attuned correctly to this Earth’s natural frequencies. Swamp Thing seems to have helped “re-tune” Superman, so the handprints might not reappear. Still, until further notice it seems that anything blue which glows needs a bit more scrutiny.

Finally, Ray “Atom” Palmer’s visit to the Microverse (discussed both in the “DC Universe: Rebirth” and “Justice League of America: Atom Rebirth” specials) could be connected to Mr. Oz’s prison, but all we know so far is that he’s there and its gatekeeper can’t be trusted.

The Clock is Ticking

The New 52’s Clark gets a blank notebook from Mr. Oz, in “Superman” #39 by Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr.

The expanding intersection between the world of “Watchmen” and the DC Universe has given readers a lot to examine. While there are a number of direct connections, there are probably even more red herrings and blind alleys. (No doubt some of those blind alleys will have “Who Watches…” graffiti.) We haven’t even brought up the “Three Jokers” subplot, mentioned in May’s “Justice League” #50 and the “DC Universe: Rebirth” special and then pushed onto a back burner, because it doesn’t seem to have much “Watchmen” relevance. Granted, Doctor Manhattan could duplicate himself without any apparent limit, but that doesn’t make him the Joker.

As the “Watchmen” characters don’t have home-field advantage, this will probably play out according to standard superhero-serial tropes; and that most likely means a Big Event miniseries in the not-too-distant future. Until then, expect more teases, surprises, and perhaps even a cameo or two. Mr. Oz will be in the spotlight fairly soon, specifically when one of his prisoners escapes as part of March’s “Superman Reborn” event; and in April Batman and the Flash will tackle the mystery behind “the button.” If it’s not resolved until May 2018, that’s a lot of anticipation and buildup. With everything the two universes have to reconcile, here’s hoping all of “Watchmen” and “Rebirth’s” gears end up meshing together smoothly. We’ll be watching for more hints, and we’ll keep you posted as they come in.

Which “Watchmen” elements have you seen in DC’s superhero comics? Let us know in the comments!

The post Where to Watch the Watchmen: A Rebirth Guide appeared first on CBR.com.

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