#that book was full of weird contradictions that existed nowhere else

[tymime]

As much as I enjoy the latest iteration of Mickey Mouse in Roadster Racers and all the other related specials, shorts, and spinoffs (although I haven’t gotten around to seeing Funhouse just yet*), I’m beginning to notice a pattern that leaves me feeling a little disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the series and its cousins are a HUGE improvement over Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- especially when it comes to slapstick humor- even though obviously there’s a lot in common with that show, especially their depiction of Pete, what with his tendency to call Mickey “Mickey the Mouse” and shout “Oh, cheese weasels!” (which I’m actually quite fond of). Even the weirdness of Cuckoo-Loca doesn’t seem all that instrusive.

The main issue I have is the lack of other well-established characters- especially family members. The first thing I noticed is that Goofy’s son Max is nowhere to be seen, and hasn’t been spotted outside of the theme parks since House of Mouse in the form of nostalgia-inducing references to A Goofy Movie and Powerline. But the differences between Mickey in the 2010s and Mickey in the early 2000s become particularly obvious when you watch Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas and Mickey and Minnie Wish Upon a Christmas back to back.

You can look at those group shots and see that there are fewer characters. Again, I really enjoy Wish Upon a Christmas, especially the song Minnie sings, and it’s definitely better than the follow-up Mickey Saves Christmas. But there are five characters total that are absent in it- Max, Scrooge McDuck, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Roadster Racers, etc., feels a little weird sometimes because of the way they transplanted Mickey from Mouseton to Hot Dog Hills and seem to be pretending that he’s lived there all his life, not to mention that Donald is no longer living in Duckburg and Goofy is no longer in Spoonerville, or wherever else he happens to be living. I suspect they did this to avoid the logistical complications of having Mickey or Donald driving from town to town or whatever, and keep all the characters in the same place for the sake of convenience. Not that that was really an issue before. But I also strongly suspect that they wanted to avoid using Huey, Dewey, and Louie because they didn’t want to clash and compete with the series they most wanted you to be watching in 2017- the DuckTales reboot. I won’t get into how much I hate that series, since I’ve gone into detail elsewhere, but I’m fairly certain they didn’t want viewers tuning in to one series where Donald’s nephews were younger and undifferentiated and voiced by Russi Taylor, and then tuning in to another one where the nephews were entirely different. (This doesn’t exactly explain why the Paul Rudish Mickey Mouse can somehow exist at the same time, but Disney seems to be full of contradictions these days.)

It’s for a similar reason that I think Disney suppressed Legend of The Three Caballeros from US television and kept it within the Phillipines for an entire year, and barely acknowledges its existence to this day. I don’t think they wanted viewers to see two entirely different series based loosely (and I mean loosely) on the comic books.

And personally, I suspect that the way Three Caballeros more closely resembled Carl Barks adventures and the tone of classic Donald cartoons than the DuckTales reboot could ever hope to achieve was also a factor. But perhaps the biggest reason of all for the reduction of the cast was to just simplify and streamline the whole thing for younger audiences. Not sure why they think kids can’t handle large casts when My Little Pony does it so well, if that’s the case.

“What’s your point?” you might be asking. Well, when it comes to honoring the legacy of classic Disney characters, Roadster Racers, etc. falls a little bit short, even though the humor and animation is so much better than Clubhouse. During the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s there seemed to be a surge of Disney Afternoon nostalgia, in the form of DVD releases and new comic books, which coincided with a renewed interest in the classic Mickey and Donald comics when Fantagraphics reprinted them. Disney seemed to care about the “Expanded Universe” of the Sensational Six again. By excluding characters like Scrooge McDuck, the nephews, and Max Goof, you’re depriving these characters of their emotional depth and complex interrelations with one another.

I often think of these moments in Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas. Scenes like this where these otherwise over-the-top and silly characters feel sadness and disappointment just don’t happen in Roadster Racers (and I guess they aren’t supposed to), and this sort of pathos doesn’t seem to occur unless their closest relatives are around. I believe that Max brings out the best in Goofy, especially. And those aren’t the only characters that are suspiciously absent. Horace Horsecollar and Mortimer Mouse, who were staples of House of Mouse, are barely present, and for some reason have different names. Pete, for some reason, has a new nephew character instead of his son PJ. ...And don’t get me started on Sylvia Marpole from An Extremely Goofy Movie, one of the most criminally underused Disney characters ever.

Once I noticed this, all the recent cartoons suddenly felt a little shallow. I still like them a lot, but ultimately I still prefer Goof Troop and House of Mouse and the rest from that era, before the characters became kinda childish and had all their edges smoothed off. (Update: I’ve seen several episodes of Mickey Mouse Funhouse now, and while the show has blessed us with some of the best weasel characters ever- Wheezelene, Cheezel, and Sneezel- I’m largely disappointed by how shallow and dumbed down it is.)

[darkpoisonouslove]

@supersonichero1 asked:

Regarding season 6 and the trix power up do you believe it was out of no where? I have two theories one is that as the ancestral witches direct ancestors they are finally starting to tap into the further capabilities and strength that being related blood wise to the three most powerful witches. My second theory revolves around bloom and the dragon flame. Since the trix took it in the first season I believe that remnants of it still burn within the trix because the series constantly screams at us that the dragon flame can't be extinguished so while they don't have nearly as much as bloom does their portions are still equally or slightly less powerful than blooms and would only cease to exist within them if bloom herself reabsorbed it or extinguished it like she did with valtor.

I do believe that the power-up looked out of nowhere because that was how the show framed it. Or rather, the lack of any framing and lead up to it implies that it was something that the writers just pulled out of nowhere because they needed the Trix to become stronger in order to oppose the Winx who will now get yet another transformation that’s going to be more powerful. There was absolutely no transition between the Trix attacking Domino with the Beast of the Depths while still in their Sirenix in 6x01 and them showing up at Cloud Tower back in their normal outfits and taking over the school. I feel like there was supposed to be another episode between 6x01 and 6x02 that would set up better both Daphne’s decision to go teach at Alfea (which is somehow contradicted on level motivation and goals later when she is crowned as Crown Princess of Domino because I don’t think she can be both a teacher and rule a kingdom) and the Trix’ new powers and new plan. However, I suspect that some of the other ideas ran away from them and they had to cut those parts both for the purpose on maintaining the episodes as 26 and because that would push the introduction of the Legendarium back with one more episode and that is the main plot point of season 6. So in the end we got a choppy, practically non-existent transition between the true end of season 5 (aka the consequences of it) and the new plot for season 6 as well as the new plan that the Trix devised.

As for your theories, I like them on account of them explaining what the show didn’t bother to but I can’t fit them on the time line. If the Trix are using their ancestry and the fact that they have the blood of the Coven flowing in them, why only now? Of course, there is the matter of them sticking with Darkar because he freed them and then with Valtor because they escaped Omega together. And the same logic also applied to Tritannus. But I still feel like there is something missing here. They didn’t have the time to get so powerful all of a sudden. Of course, no one tells you how much time has passed between 6x01 and 6x02 but the Trix looked like they’d abandoned their own development and relied on the power-ups they got from the villains. Of course, they had their dark Sirenix still and that could have helped them elevate their powers to a higher level but it’s weird to me that they suddenly come with a whole new power that they allegedly got on their own (we have no idea what happened during the time that was skipped between 6x01 and 6x02) after they got used to receiving all their boosts from whoever they’re teaming up with. Literally the last time they did anything on their own was back in season 1. I think that they would need more time to get in touch with their previous determination for development and the process itself would take more. Also, there is the matter of what they lived through in Magical Adventure. They got possessed by the Ancestral Witches and I can see things going either way from there - them either being reluctant to tap into the fact that they are descendants of the Witches or that only motivating them more to do it so that they could get stronger.

The Dragon Fire thing seems even more unlikely to me. It has never come up after season 1. And even if they have something left it is definitely super, super little in quantity compared to what Bloom has and probably even dormant. If they had anything that was nearly as powerful as hers, she should have been able to sense them like she was doing with Valtor at the time (back in season 1 she couldn’t sense them because she was out of touch with her own Fire before 1x25). Besides, you are right that the Dragon Fire can’t be extinguished but there is the matter of willingness here. Magic is emotion and the Dragon Fire is a special kind of magic and appears to have some sort of sentience. In 1x10 (I think) when they thought they’d gotten it in the Magic Reality Chamber, it turned out that the Flame had somehow escaped them. So I think the Dragon Fire itself left them when they got defeated because they were knocked out. While they were all unconscious, it could have freed itself from their hold on it that was keeping them in them after they stole it from Bloom. I don’t think they have any of it left.

What I could offer as potential explanation for this power-up is that the Trix got sick of depending on someone else for powers (especially after the whole fiasco with Tritannus (and Politea if you count the third movie)). In fact, when you get back to look at their partnerships, they always get betrayed in the end and don’t receive the power they were promised. It happened every single time. So I think they got fed up with that and decided to go it on their own this time but took a page out of the villains’ book. I believe they might have stolen some magic the way Valtor was doing in season 3 and they could have found a way to imbue themselves with their respective element the way Tritannus was doing in season 5 as he absorbed pollution. They could have done that and, combined with any magic they could have stolen, it could explain their new boost. That has only one minor issue in that if they were stealing magic, how did Winx not catch wind of that? Seems kinda unlikely that they wouldn’t learn but then again, the whole show is full of inconsistencies and that could be explained with the fact that there was a lot of stuff left to fix after Tritannus was captured. Daphne was brought back to life so Bloom definitely had a lot going on with that and the rest also had stuff to take care of on their home planets so it could make sense that they weren’t on the battle front the whole time and some suspicious but ambiguous thefts of magic could have slipped through the cracks. I still think that there should have been an episode that showed all of those things, however. We were robbed of seeing the Trix learning to finally do things on their own and coming up with a new plan (which I am still unclear on even after 1/3 of season 6. Take over the magical colleges and then what? But anyway).

[soybloodandstakes]

Young Dracula Vampires and Their Eating Habits: an exploration

Throughout Series 1 and 2 we see Vlad and Ingrid eat breakfast before school; obviously there’s also the episode where Renfield packs Vlad a spinach sandwich that has a cockroach in it, and we know that Renfield is partial to eating a bug or two (or many). We could say that as they’re still under 16 and don’t drink blood yet, their dietary needs would be similar to a Breather’s - albeit that their cuisine is unusual by stereotypical western standards (because in quite a few cuisines it’s common to eat insects and the like, also the idea of food being made out of bugs is slowly becoming ever more popular) - and perhaps they don’t need to eat food once they’re vampires (and yes I know I mentioned Renfield but it’s kind of relevant, hold on). However. We do see the Count eat; in the episode where the Branagh’s stay over and Elizabeth cooks him that weird blood pudding thing, and even in the first episode there is mention of him having to eat black pudding at a service station BUT it’s only because he can’t otherwise get blood. When Magda first makes an appearance and the Count falls for her again, they have a dinner prepared for her. Now my question is - do vampires in this universe need to eat? Is it a necessity for survival or just a personal preference? And can they survive only on blood or vice versa?

I think I assume that no, they don’t need blood to survive, because if you look at Vlad and Talitha in Series 5, they’re both vegetarian vampires and so neither drink blood.  And I mean also - there’s a whole BRAND for soy blood. Surely that means that there’s enough of a demand for it to have at least one brand right? However I’ve just realised that I am COMPLETELY FORGETTING !! that the VERY FIRST instance we see of a vegetarian vampire is Ivan! Before his incident with Van Helsing, he speaks of many vampires in America living a blood-free lifestyle, posing it as the only sustainable way forward. From this we can assume definitely that no - vampires in the Young Dracula universe do not need blood to survive and don’t even need to eat meat either. So, what do they need and why do they drink blood?

I think that the answer to the latter question is simply instinct and possibly tradition. There are many instances in which we see Vlad have sudden cravings for blood; ones that he fights down and doesn’t give in to but cravings nonetheless. Ivan is converted back to blood drinking from the smell of Slayer’s blood, again the fact that it is an instinctual need. As for what these vampires need to survive? I don’t know for certain. And we probably never will. The idea of vampires and the lore of the creatures has been changed and shaped to many different stories and renditions; I don’t know many of them but we can logically assume that Young Dracula takes inspiration from at least one or two more sources outside of the book that it is based off of (which takes its inspiration from the novel Dracula which I have yet to read). I can’t remember where I read it, I think it may have been in a My Sister’s a Vampire book hahaha EDIT it wasn’t it was in Carry On, thanks Baz, but there’s one idea that vampires need to eat food like humans do, but they can go for longer stretches of time without it. However, an opposing idea is present in Twilight; in this series vampires cannot eat human food and it actually makes them dreadfully ill. Although, in this example the Cullens don’t drink human blood either and drink animal blood instead, something that we can assume the vampires in YD probably don’t do as there is no suggestion of it anywhere. These two ideas and the evidence in YD are the only things I really have to go on as I haven’t read Dracula or watched anything based off it. Though I have read Carmilla - a vampire novel that predates Dracula - it again suggests the idea that vampires don’t eat and may be repulsed by food.

However, I am inclined to go with the idea that vampires (these ones at least) do actually need to eat to survive, and perhaps that their requirements for survival in terms of needing food are very similar to humans if not almost the same.

For one thing, the Dracula’s seem to keep pretty regular mealtimes. Throughout the entire program, they can often be found to at least be having dinner if not any other meal. In Series 3 in ‘Bad Vlad’, Vlad invites a Breather girl, Becky, up for lunch - though you could argue that this is to be in-keeping with Breather life. On this note, ‘lunch’ is intended to be her, which again does question whether they need food at all, however throughout Series 3 there are a number of things related to food that we can explore. Again with mealtimes, something that is actually used as a point to drive the narrative forward is when they’re all having lunch and Vlad is given the ocelots nose instead of the Count, who claims that he “always get[s] the ocelots nose”. There are also various other mentions of food throughout the later series in particular, so we know that these creatures do eat and perhaps they indeed do it out of necessity to survive, much like we do.

Contradicting this though, is the language that is often used when referring to blood and Breathers, and it is something that I also want to explore – how blood is consumed and what it is considered to be. Food or drink? In Series 3 in ‘The Blood Thief’, when Ingrid invites Bertrand to the blood cellar to taste one of the Count’s vintage bottles, she says “What a great evening – dinner and a show.”. With “dinner” being not even a full glass of blood we could just assume that this is a turn of phrase; with blood also being treated in a similar way to wine (vintage bottles, a dedicated cellar, drunken out of stemmed glasses) it does seem to therefore be considered to be like a drink. Additionally, in Series 5 where Warlock ‘puts in his order’ with Ingrid, he says “mines a _” which echoes that of a drinks preference (like a usual coffee order). However, there is also constant referral to Breathers being a “meal” or “playing with your food” so – perhaps vampires can survive without food, as long as they have a supply of blood. Hence the glass of blood being “dinner” for Ingrid. This seems very plausible, especially with the opening of the blood banks in Series 4 for the ‘strays’ or ‘ferals’. Vlad claims that they would go wild without them, and we do see evidence of that when the blood runs out at one point. These homeless vampires with nowhere else to go would probably not have access to food; most likely being led by their instincts alone, the only source of nutrition they crave is blood. Human when they can but animal when they can’t. It’s with this point that I retract my earlier statement that we see no evidence of vampires drinking animal blood instead of human like in Twilight, as in Vlad’s speech to the ferals he mentions the fact that they are/will be feeding off of stray cats if they do not follow him to Garside, as they cannot hunt because of the ceasefire. With this information, perhaps I am wrong in my assumption that vampires need to eat food. Maybe they can simply survive on blood alone. So, this begs the question – why do the Draculas have meals? Why are, according to Renfield, certain maggots a vampire delicacy?

If we forget for a minute that vegetarian vampires exist and focus on the majority, what exactly are the reasons for the Draculas and other vampires, like those at the Hunt Ball in Series 1, to be eating food? Is it still indeed a necessity thing and vampires like the ferals, though surviving, are perhaps malnourished without food as well as blood? Is it a culture thing, a tradition thing? A class thing? Up until the introduction of the ferals, we are not shown a way of vampire life other than that of the Draculas and their associates. The Draculas are therefore really our only source of information and so that is what I am basing these assumptions on. The mention of it possibly being a class thing is also because, assumedly, the Count is.. well, a Count. Whether his title is with or without the corresponding status is irrelevant though, because we know that the Draculas as a clan are still supposedly renowned as a name and have status in their own right because of that, and so may be expectant of certain things due to having money - like food being a part of their life. Another theory is that maybe, turned vampires don’t need to eat but born ones do? (With the assumption that most of the ferals are Half-Fangs?) It’s a possibility. My personal thoughts are that vampires in this universe can survive only on blood – as possibly evidenced by the ferals – but need some sort of food too if they don’t want to be constantly hungry and/or malnourished. In addition, those of a higher status may be more accustomed to eating food perhaps because of tradition, which is usually found to be kept more in higher status places, or because of culture. The cuisine in question is also definitely very odd by human standards, and so here we come back to one of the opening points. The fact that these vampires seemingly have a pretty vamp-specific cuisine even before being 16 is another indication to the possibility that vampires in this universe eat food for possibly more than just enjoyment, and their dietary requirements are the reasons for this. This being said, Renfield also seems to share a lot of the same food, although he isn’t exactly a regular breather and he is pretty disgusting in his taste (even by a vampire’s standards), so it does still raise the possibility of it just being culture/tradition.

In Series 1 the Dracula’s are found to be eating various gross-looking things, a lot that looks kind of mouldy; at the Hunt Ball, we are shown a vampire eating an eyeball skewer, and bugs seems to be a large part of their general diet as evidenced by the maggots for Magda in Series 1, and also Renfield’s “bug burgers” in Series 5 that George helps him make. In Series 2 we also see a large fox in a sort of pie thing among other mentions of badgers and birds that Renfield serves, which leads to Ivan telling the Count he’s vegetarian. There is far more mention of the food that they eat throughout the show, however we can generally deduct that they seem to eat pretty much anything and everything if it’s an animal that moves, particularly if it is gross by regular human (also western) standards. In Series 5 the Count even mentions how he hasn’t “had a toad in years” when one (weirdly CGI-ed) appears on his balcony. So they eat toads too. Maggots seem to be weirdly popular; Series 3 at the Carpathian Feast shows Renfield ‘teaching’ Wolfie how to eat maggots, these ones considered to be a delicacy of “fine dining” having been “fed on a diet of elephant dung”. Gross. These vampires’ diet seems to be quite broad; however, the existence of vegetarian vampires also proves that they don’t need to eat these things to survive or be healthy. Obviously it can just be argued that they eat these things because, well, they’re vampires and it’s a work of fiction, and the fact they eat these weird foods just helps to hold the suspension of belief of them being supernatural creatures. But that’s not how I am going about this, so we’ll forget about that argument. With the consideration of vegetarian vampires, I am inclined to go with the fact that vampires eat these foods in particular because of tradition, because of their culture. Or at least the Draculas do. This may just be that it’s because they’re from “the old country” (Transylvania), and like aforementioned, they’re of a higher status and more likely to keep old vampire traditions. So it isn’t to say that vampires of this universe don’t enjoy a burger or two, despite the Count not knowing what they are. (“What is that, a person from Hamburg?”) However, the vampires that we are shown are all from a similar status family/position as the Draculas, and so their food does seem to be kind of similar. Whatever background a vampire comes from though, their diet is most definitely carnivorous, whatever form that meat comes in. This comes back to my main point of their eating habits coming from their vampire instinct. The fact that the Draculas are accustomed to eating certain foods in certain ways is probably more indicative of their class than anything else. As with all people, I’m sure these vampires have preferences and different types of food across the vampire globe – raw meat is something that you would assume they would eat, yet it is only seen to be eaten twice throughout the show. Ivan in Series 2 after his run-in with Van Helsing, and Hack in Series 5 from the basket of meat that Ingrid sent him. But, they definitely don’t need to have this diet to survive, and we can assume that its reason is more of instinct and tradition.

So what do vampires in the Young Dracula universe need to consume to survive?

Like I said previously, we don’t and won’t know for sure. But this exploration has shown that their need for blood and for meat as food is most definitely instinctual than anything else. Those that are led more by their instincts like the ferals, and even Ivan, are more likely to be blood thirsty and want their hunger satiated that way, more so than through food. They also prove that vampires can survive only on blood if need be, without the need for food as well. However, without food they definitely seem to be wilder than your average vampire. Or perhaps are exactly what you imagine a vampire to be like and the Draculas, due to their class and status, are simply more controlled. I’m not sure. What I am sure about though, is that it is possible for a vampire to live without blood, and without meat. This is proven by both Vlad and Talitha, and Ivan before he was reverted. So, what vampires need to survive is still unclear, but is nothing to do with having a special dietary requirement that is unlike a human’s. In fact, they probably can survive on the same diet as a breather. But, the key thing is their instincts, which are hard to control, being the main reason why the majority of vampires are carnivorous blood suckers. Even Vlad, who has always refused to drink blood even before he was vegetarian, has instinctual cravings for it.

TL;DR - Food for vampires in the Young Dracula universe seems to be more a thing of culture, tradition, and class than anything else. These vampires can definitely survive without blood and without meat if they wanted, however for most their instinctual need takes over. They also seem to be able to survive only on blood, however this appears to make them more instinct dependant, driving them slightly mad. Essentially, food seems to be a preference, and either it or blood can be the sole thing a vampire survives on, irrelevant of the consequences. Also, vegetarian vampires are pretty happily surviving without blood.

I’m sure there is much more I could talk about, especially once I finally read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but this is pretty much all I can think of to explore for the moment. I would be here forever otherwise, and will probably add quite a bit in the future as I come up with more ideas to do with this.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v4 #1 and 2099 Omega Thoughts

This is literally the third time I’ve purchased a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 #1 in 5 years. Technically more if we include reprints. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?

Fun fact, I wasn’t buying any comics (sans some pre-OMD Spidey and Deadpool Classic trades) between 2009 and 2014. It was the 2014 Spidey 2099 run that got me back into the game, for good or ill.

This issue wasn’t nearly as good at series. And Omega was…lol…it was so bad and essentially an extension of Spidey 2099 I’m covering them together.

I remember fondly my hype when I saw Miguel in ASM v5 #25 and my hype for this one shot, back when I didn’t realize it was just part of a larger event.

Oh boy did this let me down.

Let me start with some superficial praise.

The art for Spidey 2099 and Sandoval on Omega were decent. And there was some interesting ideas pertaining to the world of the future, such as the removal of money and instead having everyone’s value depend upon what they can contribute. A society built upon meritocrisy, albeit with harsh reprisals if you can contribute little. Also the idea of corporations fixing things so only insiders can gain employment speaks to the corporatocracy  of the 2099 universe (one severely undermined when we consider Doom is ultimately in charge anyway…). People intentionally using drugs to keep up their work productivity is another great idea, and a genuinely interesting twist upon the original depiction of the rapture drug from Spidey 2099 v1 #1.  Finally people essentially enabling identity theft in exchange for drugs was an interesting sci-fi concept.

But beyond that…this was bad.

When I began covering this event proper with 2099 Alpha my dominant critique was ‘who is this for’.

A reboot of the 2099 line over 20 years since the original line ended and less than 3 years since the revival of it ended? A reboot intended to modernize the 1990s’ take on the future, a take that frankly proved 99% accurate anyway. And finally a reboot that alternated between doing spotty world building, killing off new characters, tie-ins to modern canon events and most of the time communicated its ideas in confusing and baffling ways.

I put forward that it was doomed to displease the old 2099 fans like me because it was erasing what we knew and loved. But it was also so poorly communicating its rebooted vision that new people were going to be alienated.

I’m only slightly going to backtrack on what I said. Because the Punisher 2099 issue was if you like the greatest argument in favour of the reboot. It wasn’t just the best issue in this mess, it was a bona fide awesome story just in general. It actually dived into an aspect of futuristic sci-fi that the 1990s 2099 series (to my knowledge) would’ve struggled to cover as it pertained so much to 2010s life and technology.

More poignantly though, the problem with this event is that there was no over arching vision between the titles. Not every one shot had the same problems but they all in different ways displayed problems that smacked into the very premise of this event.

F4 2099 was literally pointless as it spent a whole issue introducing a new F4 then killed them.

Conan 2099 could’ve been virtually the same if Conan was like 20 years in the future not this new future we rebooted.

Arguably Punisher 2099 relied upon familiarity with the Jake Galloway Punisher 2099 before it subverted your expectations.

Ghost Rider 2099 was fun but the writer clearly LIKED the original take on the character to the point where he essentially minimized changes to the rebooted version making the act of rebooting the character pointless in the first place and failing the mission statement of the event.

Venom 2099 was a weird tie-in for Cates current Venom mega arc involving Knull that was nonsensical as it proposes that Knull is still en route to Earth and thus in theory there is no tension in Cates’ run. Moreover it wasn’t much of a futuristic take on Venom himself and fundamentally hurt as there was no Spider-Man for Venom to act as a dark reflection of.

Doom 2099 in fairness had a cool twist, but a cool twist that didn’t make sense in and of itself and was also reliant upon familiarity with the original 1990s character.

And then we come to these issues.

These issues I’m sad to say just absolutely fundamentally fail conceptually.

He’s incredibly passive and very bland as a character so newer fans coming in with no knowledge or attachment to the Miguel O’Hara of old are unlikely to warm to him. His defining trait is being someone who cares enough about the suffering of others that he will not actively take part in it, but will also not actively do anything to help like his brother Gabe. This is then set up for his brother to die, cue a less good retread of Peter Parker’s origin story but minus much action of Miggy in costume. On paper the idea of a guy experiencing Peter’s ultimate failure and from this being motivated to OBTAIN super powers is interesting but it’s just not examined all that much in the story. What I’m saying is at a time when there is a sea of Spider-Heroes to read about on the stands this version of Miguel O’Hara is lame, derivative and the execution of his character half-hearted.

Then on the other hand you have the older fans’ perspectives. Obviously old Spidey 2099 fans are unlikely to take to this new version just on principle. But when you realize you lost the old character for THIS guy…oh boy does that sting.

Original recipe Miguel O’Hara was cool because he zigged where Peter zagged. He was kind of an asshole, but one with limits on how little he cared. And he became more heroic over time, but never the same type of hero as Peter. And above all he was a sarcastic, sardonic, cynic who you could tell was thinking ‘I can’t even with this Spider-Shit right now’. Case in point, he was okay with straight up killing opponents. He was more unique and much more compelling than this version, as were his cast. Lyla is basically the Aunt May of this story and not the source of humour that she was even in the first 3 issues of the 1990s run. She also lacks her iconic Monroe look, and isn’t even consistent with how she looked in ASM v5 #35.

Losing a cool character for a lame one would be bad enough but then the story straight up invalidates both itself and the entire goddam event.

It does this by having the rebooted Miggy start to see visions of the pre-rebooted (prebooted?) 2099 timeline, meet an aged version of his prebooted self and then have even more flashes of the prebooted timeline. *

Wow…Just….Wow…

Let’s pretend that the vision of 2099 in this event was a temporary thing, an Age of Apocalypse or a House of M just for 2099 and the plan was always to go back to how it was before when the story wrapped up.

That makes this entire event pointless. See the reason AoA worked (and HoM in theory could have worked) is because it was a temporary change of pace.

That doesn’t apply to the 2099 line, a nostalgic, discontinued line of comics and characters that are unlikely to get a full on revival and who’s last attempt at a revival wrapped up over 2 years ago.

THIS event should’ve been a nostalgia trip for the old fans and a chance to introduce that line to a new generation. Instead it discarded the old in favour of something new which was seemingly intended to go nowhere.

Good job Marvel, any new fans you MIGHT have gotten hooked just got fucked over and people like me who pre-ordered this event thinking we were going to get the characters we knew and loved also got fucked over.

And in fact the entire exercise was an example of intentional redundancy.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oh and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So Miguel was thrown back in time when his timeline was starting to be erased and replaced with the rebooted timeline, then he was erased in ASM v5 #34, which began this new rebooted timeline…but he is alive in it, remembers it, can give his past self visions from the old timeline...

…I’m a Doctor Who fan and that’s not any kind of wibbly wobbley timey whimey nonsense. It’s just regular ass nonsense, just like the Man-Spider monster Miguel encounters who repeats ouroboros to him, the same word ReedDoom said in the Doom 2099 issue. How and why would the Man-Spider creature say that to Miguel. How would prebooted Miguel know it said that? How and why would rebooted Miguel see Spidey 2099 in costume spray painting that?

Shit what the fuck does ouroboros even mean?????????

*one google search later*

A snake eating its tail as a symbol of endless infinity…what the fuck does that mean?

That Miguel makes himself Spider-Man 2099 always?

There was a cool idea in the Omega issue wherein we learn Doom essentially erased everyone’s memories with magic so they’d forget the Age of Heroes altogether, but the rise of the characters in the one shots represented that spell breaking down. Too bad it doesn’t add up given how Venom was always going to exist and existed SINCE the Age of Heroes and people obviously remember Thor as there is an entire tribe dedicated to him!**

However the Omega issue’s biggest sin is showing us how truly pointless most of the issues of this event were. Honest to God you only need to read Doom scenes from Alpha and then Spidey 2099 and Omega. Those are the only plot relevant issues out of this whole event.

Over all, these issues and this event have been a humungous, insulting disappointment. Check out some of the art but literally nothing else sans the Punisher.

*I mean if you want to get technical the 2099 universe has technically been rebooted multiple times. The version of it presented from 2013-2017 actually differed from the original 1990s version in various ways, e.g. Miguel’s love life panned out very differently. When I refer to the pre-rebooted/prebooted timeline I’m referring to the version from 2013-2017, just to be clear.

**There are other contradictions in these 2 issues as well, like how poverty and bad health have been erased but…we see they haven’t as there are multiple examples of both in the one shots.