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dilfdoctordoom · 3 years ago

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On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

#barbara gordon #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #tom taylor #tw ableism #okay to rb

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chezzywezzy · 3 years ago

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Congratulations!! I’m 5’5, dark brown hair that reaches my chin. I wear dark cute alt outfits. I’m shy but talkative when you get to know me. I like people but have a hard time getting to know them. Blue eyes, on the chubby side and pink cheeks. I love reading, art, drawing, anime, comics and writing. I read in the corner and take long bike rides. All that to say can I get a Ayano Aishi from yandere simulator OR Punchline from DC. Anyway thank you have a good day!!!!!

Hello, and thank you! It's exciting to receive my first submission thingy. I hope you enjoy! Much love, doll.

You would TOTALLY get Ayano!

Ayano loves anyone that's genuine and (hopefully) not as popular for the sake of making her job easier. And the fact that you're a woman never deterred her, because Ayano gives very pan or bi vibes. She only really cares about the character and personality of her darling (although having a darling as cute as you are is certainly a plus for her).

After and to school, Ayano enjoys walking/riding her own bike from a distance to follow you home. And on days that you take a detour or have extra activities to attend to, Ayano takes the chance to sneak into your room and take photos or objects. Hopefully you won't be too upset if some of your best drawings go missing.

When it comes to her rivals, it's a shame that even though you're on the shy side, you still have many that fell for your demure stature. So, Ayano does what she has to do. But after the first few bodies are discovered on campus, she realizes that there's something else as a plus-side for all of her work.

While the school is on lockdown, everyone is terrified - for good reason. And you happen to be no different. Ayano takes the chance to introduce herself and ask if you're alright. She makes sure not to seem too sane, though. Who would be, when a scary murderer's running around campus?

It's amazing that school is still open the next day. It easily allows Ayano to kill her other rivals instead of hunting down each of their houses. So, while she keeps killing, and the bodies keep getting found, she slowly gets closer to you.

By the end of her murder spree, she can barely withhold her glee. After all, her darling, her love of her life, is all hers now! And you would be once she confessed her feelings.

When she confesses, your life and fate are entirely on the line without you knowing. Despite the beautiful, serene environment, and the seemingly sweet girl in front of you, Ayano would break any moment if you don't give the right answer.

You either ;

Accept : That would solidify the perfect relationship you two would have. "Perfect" for Ayano, at least. Clingy and possessive and jealous is cute for the first few weeks bt it gets tiring. Especially when your criticisms go through one ear and out the other. Ayano is incredibly needy, and because of that, you'd have to be incredibly patient and dedicated for things to run on the smoother side.

If you happen to get annoyed by her habits (a.e., stealing your art, following you even when you're unaware, giving you too many gifts that you don't have room for), then good luck breaking up. Your fate was solidified the moment she fell in love with you. So don't expect to survive a breakup if you're so inclined to do so.

Let her down gently : You might think turning her down in any fashion will result the same, but no. Luckily, you're a kind and generally gentle person, so I doubt you'd resort to the final option unless if Ayano managed to truly creep you out. If you turn her down, Ayano would be a wreck. And yet, in her manic state, the cogs would be churning with a new plan.

She would be crying and/or laughing the entire time. But she'd leave anyways. However, later that night, she'd kidnap you in her infamous basement that may or may not have had previous victims. The only difference is that it'll be refurnished to your liking. You may be tied up, but at the very least, you can look at comfortable and fun things like manga and anime bobble heads and... hey, aren't most of these things yours?

You'd either succumb to her ruthless, forceful love or eventually strike and nerve and probably get murdered by the heartbroken woman. Let's hope you change your mind about her for the sake of survival, though. It can't be that bad, right?

Or let her down not so gently : It goes without saying what this would end up with. Ayano has always seen you as perfection. So, to have you possibly hate her is too much. Or, perhaps, you were never the one to begin with. Her brain is trying to figure out where she went wrong. She did everything for ou. But in her confusion, she is enraged.

And in that rage, you'll end up dead on the spot, along with any passing classmates. Ayano doesn't care if she gets caught. She's heartbroken. And if she doesn't die on the spot from that, she might be quick to join you before the cops can arrive on time. After all, you two could certainly be together in heaven, yes?

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dc-said-bi-robin-rights · 4 years ago

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That one storyline in the festival of heroes thingy is...ugh. So much wasted potential.

Dc: Damian and Cass are going to be in a storyline together!

Me: That’s fantastic! That one issue where they interacted back when she was Black Bat was wonderful! Damian being super pissed with Cass for pulling him out of Wayne Tower before it exploded and madly insisting she ruined everything and that he could have disarmed the bomb, even though it had only one second left on the countdown, thus showing he values proving himself over his actual life, brought tears to my eyes! Damian attacking Cass in an insane frenzy and Cass realizing that there is something deeper here than just Damian acting out was great! Her reacting like an actual emotionally aware adult and simply pinning him down and telling him that the only thing that matters is that he’s safe was precious! Tim telling Damian that he’s only upset because Cass is yet another person his father trusts more than him is kinda yikes on Tim’s part (Tim I get you’re overprotective of Cass but why the fuck would you say “you’re just mad dad loves her more” to a child who was actually afraid of that being the case), but it was so clear it hit the nail on the head and brought so much more weight to their dynamic! Damian and Cass coming together at the end despite the unresolved emotions was wonderful! Cass telling Damian that she needs him to trust her and Damian saying nothing but still doing what she says was awesome! That comic set up so much groundwork that never really got used and I’m so glad-

Dc: Damian called Cass a monster and Cass is sad about it.

Me: I’m sorry, what? Why would Damian do that? He literally has no reason to say that! He killed way more people than Cass! Besides, why the heck would Cass care instead of telling Damian “whatever, nerd” and moving on when he clearly has absolutely no ground to stand on? Damian can be mean, but he isn’t a hypocrite. He knows very well what he did and there was an entire solo dedicated to him seeking redemption so even if this is before all the shit with the Teen Titans this is really shitty characterization that does not at all-

Dc: Colin’s comforting her about it.

Me: I’m sorry, why is Colin, of all fucking people, comforting Cass? Colin, who was Damian’s first friend? Colin hasn’t even been in a comic book in years and you’re telling me bad-mouthing Damian is his debut in rebirth? What? Do Cass and Colin even know each other? Isn’t Cass like 18 and Colin a literal child? Why would Cassandra fucking Cain need comforting from a literal child-

Dc: Damian isn’t even there lmao, he’s just mentioned.

Me: wait, then why would you have Damian be the person to tell Cass that? Why not literally anyone else which would make way more fucking sense? Putting all that aside, you’re telling me that in the comic book dedicated specifically to Asians you mentioned but didn’t include a character with actual Asian heritage? Not only that, but you also bad-mouthed them along the way? What kind of representation is that? Is Colin even Asian?

Dc: Nah, he’s just there for some reason lol.

Me: but why? Why would-

Dc: the writer gets money every time Colin is used in a story.

Me: that explains a lot. Alright, whatever. So who wrote this, anyway? Who is the guy that hated Damian enough to do this? Adam Glass? Bendis, maybe? Or-

Dc: it’s the Lil Gotham writer, who is one of only four writers who have portrayed Damian in a good light in the past five years. He apparently doesn’t like Damian, actually. That means there are now only three writers who would write Damian fairly after his solo series ends. Have fun with that.

It’s just....why?

#damian wayne #batfam #robin #batfamily #batman #batman family #batman fandom #damian wayne robin #robin damian wayne #cassandra cain #dc comics #festival of heroes #why?#but literally just why?

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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago

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Cass wouldn’t even begrudingly tolerate [the Black Bat], because she’s even less lenient than Bruce on killing and far more willing to throw down.' - THANK YOU for remembering that.

Cass is my favorite Batfam member, the only one really that I have an active interest in reading about. I'd be incredibly ignorant to not bring bring up such a crucial aspect of her characterization. And even if I didn't personally care for her, well, last thing I'd want is to be another source of frustration for Cass fans. Lord knows there's enough of those to go around.

mousebrass also asked: On that note, how do you imagine a meeting between Cass and the Shadow going?

Fair warning: This one took me 6 hours to write, and it became a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. I liked Cass a lot, but I never quite realized I had this many feelings regarding her until I was tasked with writing this, and a lot of things clicked for me regarding my plans for The Shadow thanks to this ask. @mousebrass, thank you. I mean it. I think I may have found something here I've spent years looking for. Hope you enjoy the post.

I'm thankful that this scenario is only really taking place in a hypothetical fanon where both characters can get a fair shot, because I wouldn't trust DC with this premise. I don't trust DC with either of them as is.

There's a lot of ways that this crossover could go on about taking place naturally, initially because Cass is already connected to some of Batman's pulpier elements, due to her connections to Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and one could connect Cass to Myra Reldon (who really should just be race swapped if ever brought back so she can stand out as the cool character she is, without the yellowface gimmick holding her back). There's two things I think are crucial to making the most of this idea, and the first of which has to do with the subject of killing. I usually don't like to come up with hypothetical team-ups for The Shadow that focus too much on the fact that he kills, because it's far from the most significant aspect of his character to focus on, much of it is written from a wrong understanding of the character, and it never amounts to anything other than perfunctory. But here, not only is it completely unavoidable to discuss, here there is actually a very, very substantial grounding as to why this has to be such a big part of the story.

The first and foremost thing that's gotta be established to everyone reading that doesn't know already is this: Cassandra Cain, more so than Batman, more so than any other DCU hero, has a tolerance towards murder lower than zero, and this is completely non-negotiable. She will throw herself on the path of an assault rifle to stop men trying to kill her from accidentally killing each other. The defining moment of her incredibly grim backstory is that she was trained from birth to be the world's greatest murderer, and her first kill traumatized her so badly that she has pivoted as far away from that as possible. I stress a lot that the Shadow should not be written as the trigger-happy maniac comics made him into and that the pulp version killed mostly to defend himself and others, generally left criminals to the police if possible, offered plenty of second-chances, had stories dedicated to the rehabilitation of criminals and so on, but none of this would matter to Cass.

Cass has literally chosen suicide over the prospect of living with murder on her hands time and time again, and The Shadow kills. When he kills, he does so without remorse, with unshakeable certainty. He hates death, he doesn't want lives to be at risk in the first place. But people will die if he doesn't do anything, and what he can do, what he exists to do, is turn the tools of evil against evil, and murder is the oldest tool of evil there is. He doesn't kill because a war scarred him, he doesn't kill because he's got a demon in his soul, he doesn't kill because he's mentally off balance, he doesn't kill because he's evil or sadistic or arrogant or anything of the sort. He kills because the men he fights chose death when they sought to harm innocents and fire guns at him. He kills because he is Death itself.

Regardless of how compassionate he is or can be, regardless of the fact that he's motivated by a desire to protect people, regardless of how justified he is, he is still dropping corpses and laughing maniacally doing so. Cass's real arch-enemy isn't Shiva or David Cain, it's Death, it's the thing that she's fundamentally most opposed to. And guess what The Shadow gets compared to often enough? Literally the very first line of the very first book where we get to see him, this is how we are introduced to him:

So the premise here is that we are taking a character who is defined by her fundamental opposition to death with every fiber of her being, who understands death on a level no other human being does, who is traumatized and hard-wired to detest death at all costs and to choose suicide over it, and asking her to team up with The Grim Reaper.

Even if he received the most abject lesson conceivable on the sheer wrongness of murder, even if he does put down the guns around Cass out of respect for her, he cannot protect his agents and others if he cannot shoot or kill those who try to harm them, and the protection of the agents is absolutely non-negotiable and not at all something he's willing to fuck around with by trying out gadget kung fu superhero alternatives. The Shadow has chosen to throw his life away for their sake time and time again, and no matter how appaling or disgusting Cass finds his deeds, even if he concedes that she's right and should be right on all accounts and that he is fundamentally a monster who has no right to judge others, he would not concede on his mission and he would make it very clear she would have to put him down violently to stop him from protecting others this way, and death has not stopped him before.

And to be upfront in case there's anyone who doubts it, Cass would kick The Shadow's ass, if they had to fight. She is the strongest fighter in the DCU, she lives and breathes fighting and combat in a way no one else does. And The Shadow's not one of those characters who is supposed to be invincible and the best at everything all the time always, he can and does lose fights and scrapes to people far less adept at it than Cass. He's a great fighter, obviously, he hauls bigger men than him through doors and was disabling people with Vulcan neck pinches decades before Spock, and he would definitely have an edge in other areas, but he's out of his league here. Frankly, I don't see The Shadow raising a finger against Cass unless she's been brainwashed into killing people by bad writing. Not because she's a woman, that doesn't really stop him from dealing with evil. But because, for one, she's practically a child compared to him age-wise. Two, he'd obviously know beforehand of her capabilities and how futile it would be to fight or even provoke her. And three, the Shadow's whole thing is knowing. The Shadow Knows and all that. Knowing comes with understanding.

He'd understand very quickly that there is no way someone this young could grow so quickly into the world's greatest fighter without horrific treatment that no one should ever be subjected to. He'd see the movements too practiced and quick, the self-control, the strength and speed far beyond even the trained warriors he's seen, the places where she's been scarred and is good at covering it up. Assuming he doesn't already know about her life story, any meeting between the two would lead to him very quickly figuring out that there's something much deeper about her opposition to killing than just moral reservations, something deeper than Bruce's own gun trauma.

Denny O'Neil's 2nd Batman and Shadow story was about The Shadow secretly helping Bruce overcome gun trauma, and Bruce rejecting The Shadow's intentions to hand him a gun. And to make it clear, people tend to assume that The Shadow only helps people for utilitarian reasons, which is not true as I've tried to demonstrate many times now. I don't want to convey that he would want to help Cass overcome her trauma just so she could be more efficient or something, absolutely no, he'd help her because he helps people in any way he can. I think a story with The Shadow and Cass might involve a similar premise, The Shadow understanding that she has been traumatized very deeply by death and refuses to accept it on any terms, trying to help her overcome it, only to learn that she does not want to "learn" anything she doesn't already know, that she has weaponized her trauma into a source of strength, and wishes nothing more than to help others with it.

And here's where we get to the part that allows the two to be on less antagonistic terms, because one thing that also very strongly defines Cass, at least the Cass I like reading most, is her stubborn, almost desperate need to believe in the best of people, that people can and will change for the better. Like The Shadow, her strength too is knowing, it's perception, the things that she knows about people that words cannot convey. Just as there are many things The Shadow would grow to understand about her that others would not, there would be many things that The Shadow would not be able to conceal from her. Things that no one but her would figure out. Things that, despite her age and lack of experience compared to him, he would have to defer to her knowledge on, which reverses the usual dynamic The Shadow has with people. And perhaps one aspect of that reversal, it's that maybe it's she who winds up secretly manipulating The Shadow into overcoming a deeper issue.

Cass's perspective on killing is shaped not just through trauma, but from a painfully intimate understanding of not just what happens to someone at the time of death, but the cost of murder upon the human soul, the ways it warps people into things they never should have been. Killing is a deeply, deeply serious matter, much more so than fiction seems ever willing to go into. Of course we suspend disbelief for fiction, there's nothing wrong with that, but if a story starts asking questions, starts poking holes into fantasies, they should not be disregarded.

And so it begs a question: How has it affected The Shadow? Is he really as remorseless as he appears to be? Is the fact that he's only killing evil people really of that much use? What's the cost of living as someone who has to know so much about so much evil in so many hearts? Knowledge never comes without price, and knowing evil is his tagline. When he enlists Harry Vincent, he makes it very clear that he has lost lives as he has saved them. From when is that regret coming from? What lives did he lose then? Is he saving people by damning his soul or merely prolonging the inevitable by piling corpses on another end of the scale?

If there's a character that could meaningfully start bringing these questions forth, who could ever truly get The Shadow to stop and reveal things to the audience he never would otherwise, maybe Cass could be that character. A girl who was raised to be a monster, who is treated as a monster and an aberration in-universe (and even outside of it), and turned that into a strength she uses to help others, who cares about everyone and refuses to let others be dehumanized as she was. Who better to know what lurks in the Shadow's heart?

Sometimes when I get an ask, I bullshit my way through infodump walls of text until I can structure it into something vaguely resembling a point. And sometimes, and I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I get a very, very clear word on my mind related to it before I start writing, that almost seems to be a beacon pointing where I need to get to, and I work my way into getting there. Once you sent me an ask about crossing over The Shadow with Cassandra Cain, the word that came to mind the very second was Language.

It's an interesting relation the two have with language. Language is of course a very substantial part of Cass's character, who does not process language and linguistic development the way most people do, and instead reads body language to the point of superpower. Many stories revolve around Cass's relation to the concept of language, the help she may require from others in getting around things beyond her upbringing, and ways in which she has mastered beyond anyone's scope. Though she is mute, language is her power, what makes her what she is, and she is someone that Batman freely admits could kick his ass if she ever felt like it.

For The Shadow, language is also his power. He speaks all languages and connects allies all over the world, he is an expert ventriloquist, he is able to project his voice beyond what's physically possible, he can imitate voices perfectly to the point of being able to conduct group conversations single-handedly well enough to fool even the people whose voices he's imitating, much of his presence and terror and manipulation are done through his voice, arguably the very reason he exists in the first place is entirely because a radio actor's voice performance was so good and captivating that it tricked people into thinking the character was a real star and not just a glorified narrator. The man you cannot see, but only hear, the perfect hero for radio. And then of course the laugh, which I have a whole separate post on and which, in many ways, acts as a substitute for language in the novels. He uses the laugh so often as a substitute for statements or words, even to himself, that it's pretty much his own personal language. And language is at the core of how he deals with people, as he knows the right language to use to manipulate and move and help them. He knows what to promise, what to reveal, what to omit. He knows what to say, how to say it, when to say it. Language is the strings by which he puppeteers the world around him (and he can talk to animals, at least of one kind).

The Shadow and Cassandra Cain have mastered two different types of Language as throughly as anyone can possibly master them. The Shadow can talk a group of hardened criminals into killing themselves, Cassandra can punch a heart into stopping without killing it. The Shadow echoes his voice "through everywhere and nowhere at once" to whip crowds of thugs into frenzies, Cassandra outraces missiles and was tanking bullets as a child. The Shadow can lie and usurp lives so masterfully to fool even the families of those he's passing off as, Cassandra is a living lie detector who gleams inner conversations from miniscule reactions. The Shadow can speak every language known, Cassandra is the greatest master of the world's most universal language other than music. The two are supposedly human, but every now and then, something comes along to call that into question because of the things they can achieve. They cannot hide secrets from each other the way they do to everyone else. They are driven by a deep desire to help others, to make something out of the circumstances of their lives. To weaponize that which dictates they should be evil and monstrous into a relentless force of good.

Language is the root of understanding. And if nothing else, as impossible as a conciliation of their approaches to crimefighting may be, I think there could be an unique understanding between the two. Perhaps, and this is a bit crazier a concept but one that seems to be where I might have been heading towards all along, even Cassandra Cain finding a calling away from the frayed dynamics of the Batfamily, away from the Bat's looming presence, to become The Shadow's successor, swearing to uphold a mission of justice through non-lethal tactics while he stays on the backseat guiding her. If The Shadow could trust the safety of his agents and the protection of the innocent at the hands of someone as capable and selfless and good-natured as Cassandra, I think he'd be all too happy to be able to trust someone in such a manner, to no longer be the Master of Darkness, but instead to serve the next generation that's weaponized darkness without submerging in it. To achieve, and perhaps return, to his strongest, highest self: A disembodied voice heard, but not seen. Once again the narrator, not the star.

It's a concept I've thought about very extensively for the years I've been a Shadow fan, but now it occurs to me that, if I had to appoint a successor of The Shadow, someone who could take up the mission but shine on their own right, even improve it with the right guidance and circumstances, it would be Cassandra Cain. The Orphan, The Shadow of the Batgirl. Daughter of the greatest assassins, meant to be the world's most lethal murderer, instead pivoted to being one of it's greatest heroes, but never allowed to shine as she should. But in the darker, less restrictive and wilder world of pulp heroes, in The Shadow's world, a beacon would shine all the harder. Perfect strengths attached to perfect opposites, joined together for a greater good, unstoppable after together having weaponized that which most take for granted: the power of language to move worlds.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #comic books #the shadow #cassandra cain #batgirl #i always had a feeling that a successor to the shadow should not be modeled on batman but someone within that range #i never quite found a character i would be happy with taking that role or a similar role #aw shit i just talked myself into a new favorite character #that just so happens to be another character brimming with potential that's denied them by corporate overlords #who could have seen that coming

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ilikekidsshows · 3 years ago

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One thing that pisses me off not just about the miraculous fandom but modern fandoms is fans inability to consume long overarching stories.

Like so many people are complaining about how long the reveal is taking or why haven't certain characters outgrown this trait yet or why is this character arc botched or abandoned. Like guys we just got the confirmation this show will be 7 seasons long PLUS like 3 tv specials. We're only roughly halfway through the series.

Once the reveal happens half the tension in the show is gone! I'm not saying leave the reveal till season 7 and make us wait 9 years this isn't HIMYM but miraculous is not a fast paced story. It's a long haul story. I just wish more fans would be patient. Miraculous is in the extremely fortunate and rare position that it will have a conclusive end and not be suddenly cancelled. That was and still is a huge problem for shows and cartoons with dedicated fans but networks pull the plug for stupid ass reasons.

So miraculous fans please chill the fuck out on things not resolving right away. We still have 78+ episodes plus the tv specials. If we get the end to certain things now it'll be so boring.

I think the concept of Instant Gratification describes the issue with many modern fandoms today. I hate to sound like I'm anti-technology, but the constant stream of quick and short bursts of entertainment allowed by the information age has made people more impatient. It's not about waiting for the climax to get a deeper sense of satisfaction, it's about getting that instant gratification right this instant. It's why one-shot fanfics are all over the place, when multi-chapter stories used to be just as common and popular, if not even more so, and it’s also why people are less willing to read a fic that’s still a work in progress. It's why people refuse to watch Youtube video essays even as they leave comments on the topic based on the title and thumbnail alone because, while they couldn't be assed to watch a 20-minute video (let alone an hour long one), they sure can spend that time calling the Youtuber names and making arguments the video actually already refutes. It's why a lot of online arguments happen only because one party read nothing but the first and maybe the last paragraph of someone's post and skipped all the explanation for their point of view (if I've ignored an counter argument for one of my posts, it was either because I missed it or because said counter argument did this. I have attention deficit issues so I do genuinely forget responses sometimes, but I'm also not writing a second essay for someone who's proven to me they won't read it).

Of course, it's only by constantly consuming only fast-paced content that you can become this impatient. People have different ideas about stories based on what stories they have encountered in the past.

Another thing that influences the Miraculous fandom in particular is that, while I love to show off exactly how much Miraculous has done to build up the overarching plotlines, Miraculous isn't really a show that's about a single story. It's easy to understand why people think it is one though: there's one main villain, we keep discovering more about the mythology, one of the main plot threads is the romantic relationship between the leads and singular episodes and plot elements tend to get payoff later. What is the purpose of a show if not to progress the story? Because the heroes aren't getting closer to defeating Gabriel or getting together, people think that the story isn't accomplishing anything.

I'll do a comparison to illustrate why these things aren't as clear-cut signs of a continuous storyline as people think. In the Spider-Man comics, you can pick any issue up and the chances are that the villain will be a part of Spider-Man's already established Rogues Gallery, who's back for more after who knows how many defeats, and those past defeats might even get referenced in callbacks to previous issues. It's also very possible that Peter and Mary Jane's relationship is the central focus with them not being together yet, having relationship problems or even having broken up (in really old issues the girl might be Gwen Stacy and short-term options have also always been available for romantic entanglements). Does this mean Spider-Man is a continuous story where the only point is that all the villains get put away for good and Peter and MJ live happily ever after? No, it doesn't. Spider-Man is designed to go on indefinitely, so there's no clear ending point. So, what is the point of Spider-Man then, if there is no Ending?

It used to be the single issue, because comic books used to have every issue be a stand-alone story about the hero and their supportive cast. These days it's more every three-to-six issues, because superhero comics are written to have short story arcs that can then be collected into trade paperbacks. A superhero series is not a single story; it's a series that functions as a story engine, meaning the series can generate several shorter stories where the hero helps fix a problem or solve a mystery.

In the superhero genre a villain will never get killed off or removed from stories permanently as long as the writers think they can still come up with stories to tell about them. The hero's romantic life will never be completely smooth sailing unless the writer is using other things to ramp up the stakes. Everything always allows for there to be another adventure.

I think the huge success of Avatar: the Last Airbender made people think that a series that is a single story is always superior to a series with multiple shorter plots. When I was liveblogging Sailor Moon, a viewer offered to give me a list of all the non-filler episodes because they genuinely thought I'd feel like I was wasting time on the show otherwise. This attitude is simply not based on fact. It's not fair to compare Miraculous Ladybug to Avatar, because they're both setting up to do completely different things. Miraculous Ladybug is trying to become a brand, like Batman or Spider-Man. It is part of the "Zag Heroes" lineup, a series of French-created superhero franchises to compete in the America-centric superhero market. This challenge is good for the genre, because Marvel and DC have started resembling each other more and more as these companies stew in their old ideas and copy everything that worked for the other one. The superhero genre needs new blood.

Also, Avatar: the Last Airbender first became popular by doing episodic plots for almost the entirety of the first season because it's actually not a wise choice to expect the audience to be willing to commit to a story that'll only give payoff later when working with an untested IP. Very often shows with longer story arcs start with the episodic format to hook people first, and sometimes the more linear plot is introduced specifically because the audience for the show is now expected to be both dedicated enough and older and capable of keeping up. Because, here's the thing: you can't expect little kids to remember every episode or even every character you've introduced in your show. I'm not sure if people are ready to hear that but I'm throwing it out there anyway. Kids are not dumb, they can understand more complex storylines, but many kids are still training their memory, so they might not remember the details of complex storylines that go on for too long.

This is why the news that Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season was going to have a recommended viewing order originally had me concerned. Miraculous is being branded for kids. The plot requiring too much skill in memorizing story details will make it less accessible to kids and might put those two additional seasons at risk. However, it seems that the "constantly changing status quo" concept of Truth, Lies and Gang of Secrets was a fluke and the evolution of the show is more subtle, so they might not be cutting the amount of episodes for those final seasons because the show is getting too complicated for kids to follow all the important details.

Regardless, Miraculous Ladybug being an adventure cartoon TV show instead of a comic book or a more cheaper-to-produce TV drama does mean that Miraculous Ladybug isn’t expected to go on for decades like a superhero comic or a soap opera. Because of this, it can have evolution and changes and even a planned ending. The show is expected to end at some point, even by the people making money off of it, mostly because making a cartoon like this indefinitely costs a lot of money, and kids’ adventure shows tend to see a decrease in returns if they go on for too long.

#media and fandom response #ml fandom salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir

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renaroo · 4 years ago

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Other History? More Like Other MYSTERY

as in it’s a MYSTERY how the hell this got past an editor the week before Pride Month are you fucking kidding me?

I was kind of hoping for more than like... a week of being back on tumblr before I breathed fire and ripped a comic book to shreds. But we all know why I’m here.

There are so many preemptive things to get out of the way before I rip into this thing...

John Ridley as a writer in other forms of media has been incredibly accomplished and an important additional voice to entertainment industries. I do not wish to take away from that or to minimize the impact of voices like his.

But, you know, he’s a voice in media. Not the end-all, be-all to all marginalized people worldwide who can substitute his perspective for any nonwhite straight male voice. And I don’t think that has ever been more apparent than the continued spiral down the drain that has been every issue of The Other History of the DC Universe since the first.

DC’s “new” approach to everything being canon and everything mattering is dumb and filled to the brim with ways it’s going to backfire and reveal itself to be the eye sore of publications that it’s aiming for, but I was curious to see how they would try to incorporate these characters’ long and contentious histories in the comics with the real world issues they often were billed to tackle, and try to fit it into the current pop culture landscape. That was the whole reason I had my eye on this comic to begin with.

By the second issue we were getting some stark warning signs because as much as I appreciated hearing an authentic perspective on how the Teen Titans brand carried on while neglecting its landmark Black teen heroes (Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher), there was a note of cruelty added to the issue that felt otherwise misplaced and uncharacteristic of the tone being set.

There was no reason to have a significant portion of that issue dedicated to Mal and Karen’s monologues taking some aggressive words out on Roy Harper specifically for being an addict.

Perhaps it was a quirk of writing from a flawed perspective or a show of how righteous upset and anger could be turned outward to other people suffering in a vy for your own empowerment.

I’m now pretty sure that wasn’t it at all. I’m pretty sure because it kept getting worse every issue and it’s culminated in today’s issue where the retelling of Renee Montoya’s story managed to be petty, cruel, shockingly pro-police brutality int its adulation of Jim Gordon and especially Harvey Bullock, and managed to make a well-rounded and very beloved Latina lesbian and just retrofit every stereotype she never had before to her without regard for what it did to her story or to the stories of people around her.

Honestly, lapsed faith and a poke at the damage that Catholic guilt can have on especially queer believers is kind of my jam, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be down for a story with that perspective. I could even understand exploring that with Renee. But not at the expense of her established history.

Which is a question all of its own. Here we have the skeletal structure of Renee’s life events that we have read before (in much better stories), but they are surprisingly out of order and also shockingly twisted in a way to make EVERYONE as unpleasant as possible.

And in a way that has convinced me that either John Ridley has never read comics featuring Renee, or that he was mandated to change things that had no business being changed.

According to this issue Renee hated Batman and other superheroes? Which, ah, I don’t even know where that could come from. Ever since the animated series where she got started, Renee’s whole bag has been “the acolyte of Jim Gordon, only other cop who supports Batman”. Like I don’t even know how you get around that.

But according to Ridley she’s hated them all along as an extension of her internalized homophobia and self-loathing. Great.

What follows out of that is that apparently? Renee and Batman specifically butted heads over wanting to rehabilitate Harvey Dent? As in Renee wanted to help him and BATMAN was the one flipping out and saying Harvey was a sociopath and couldn’t be helped.

Like. I’m starting to question if Ridley has read Batman comics before. I don’t know where that interpretation could possibly come from? Bruce and Harvey were friends? Bruce has always held out hope for saving Harvey from his psychosis? It’s like. THE storyline for Two-Face.

The cop stuff... I don’t really know how to talk about the cop stuff to be completely honest. If you mention the LA Riots on one page and a few pages later try to frame it so that over policing and methods of brutality weren’t a thing until 9/11... I don’t know what to say to you.

I’d say maybe I was being ungenerous here except there were two characters who got entire full page spreads about what good cops they were. And one of them was goddamn Harvey Bullock with the explicit commentary that Renee USED to be uncomfortable with his torture methods and general brutality but figured it was “okay” because he knew how “innocent people screamed different” and that he “never collared someone and it didn’t stick” because. Y’know. Police violence and falsifying evidence never go hand in hand. what the actual fuck ever right?

The timeline for Renee and Kate’s relationship is also completely changed which means that we get to add a trope I just LOVE as a lesbian personally, which is that lesbians can’t keep relationships and can’t keep from cheating on their loving partners. Especially when they are butch.

And I’m not talking about Renee cheating on Kate. Oh, no. Ridley decided Kate was the Other Woman during Renee’s relationship with Daria.

And just.. the cruel commentary that Renee had about both Kate and Daria throughout. It made my skin crawl. The way she talked about other women in general made my skin crawl. “Uncomplicated women” “Broken souls” “Can’t be with someone better than yourself”

So I actually planned to go into a full rage post about just the queer content because 1. my lane and 2. it honestly affected me so bad I was shaking and tearing up in anger a bit. Every single friend I know who loves Kate and Renee, see themselves in Kate and Renee, have been the same kind of mess I am after this.

The NASTINESS of the internal monologue. I don’t know how to explain it more than this is how poorly men think of flf and to have one use a character so meaningful to the community to spout this hatefulness has revolted me in a way I... haven’t had happen to me for a while.

I was going to talk about the weirdness of just... randomly deciding to retcon Renee’s parents into being undocumented when that’s never been a thing before and just doing NOTHING with it the whole while after. Or how it’s pretty questionable how Renee suddenly became so adherently Catholic when it’s never been portrayed like that before (that’s Hel B’s bag, JPV if you squint) but it’s entwined with any of her commentary on her ethnicity p sus too but I don’t have the nuance for that discussion right now.

Rena Rants are back and what a fucking JOKE this comic was.

I didn’t pay for it and neither should you.

P.S. bringing back Tim Fox and calling him “Jace” is dumb as fuck too

#VICTOR #CHARLIE #Rants of Unusual Size #Rena Rambles #Wednesday Spoilers #The Other History of the DC Universe (2019)#Renee Montoya #the Question #Kate Kane #Batwoman #character assassination #for who?#take a pick #I didn't even touch on her calling Vic instead of #In the name of the moon fuck you my dude

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III. Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe.

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers.

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point.

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing. This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome.

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast.

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list.

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend.

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome.

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows.

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again.

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up.

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4.

So with our major players out of the way, let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands. Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off. Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain.

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more. The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have. This show is just great at costume design.

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback.

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious.

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working. Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant. Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time.

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up. F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly.

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly. At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in.

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do.

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense.

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room.

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda.

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian.

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go.

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it.

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior.

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances.

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included.

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her. It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag.

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you.

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him. Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t. It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to. So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight.

However at home Virgil points out it was Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.

#static shock #static #virgil hawkins #richie foley #robert hawkins #sharon hawkins #hotstreak #milestone comics #dc comics #dc animated universe #dcau #dwayne mcduffie #robert l washington IIII #kids wb #hbo max #2000s #animation #black lives matter #black history month

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demivampirew · 5 years ago

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Keep Calm and Go to London Chapter 23

Synopsis: This is the story of (y/n), a successful actress, musician, musical producer and songwriter. After battling depression and breaking up a long relationship, she seeks for a change of air, escaping LA for a while going to visit some friends in London and there she meets Henry. -Disclaimer: some chapters are mostly smut.

Previous Chapters in the masterlist

Triggers: talking about anxiety; quarantine; cursing.

Tag list: Here’s the incredible people who showed me support (thank you so much for that) and people who asked me to tag them too ☺️ (I think I will write a few chapters of this story, if you want me to tag you, tell me ☺️ ) @cavillanche @mary-ann84 @henry-owns-these-tatas @yespolkadotkitty @dancingwendigo constip8merm8 penwieldingdreamer iloveyouyen littlefreya wondersofdreaming alyxkbrl solariumss sweetybuzz25 @thethirstyarchive @agniavateira @honeyloverogers @hell1129-blog @lunedelorient @michelle-1185 @madbaddic7ed @summersong69

When you accepted to go with Henry to the gym, you planned to sit and watch his beautiful ass workout, but your boyfriend had other plans. While he worked on his legs, he made you lift some weights and later practice some boxing. He made you punching in his palms as hard as you could, but he was so strong that your hand almost broke when it collided with his. Dammit! His hands were like rocks. He wanted to help you train better for your role because you needed to gain some strength to be successful in the stunts. After a hard workout session, you decided to go back to the house walking to catch some air. It felt odd. It's been a few months since the quarantine started that now it was strange to go outside. It truly felt like if it was another world. You felt a little anxious, even if both of you were wearing masks because they're more effective in terms of preventing you for spreading a virus if you have it than to catch it; but, in the same time, it felt marvellous to be outside. You took a few deep breaths, allowing your lungs to feel the oxygen that entered your body. Henry was grabbing Kal's leash with one hand, and yours with the other. The little bear has always been his emotional support for his anxiety and your boyfriend was yours. You felt how he stroke your hand with his thumb. You pressed your head against his arm and then give him a big smile. Even though both of you were wearing masks, you knew that he noticed your smile and that he smiled back at you. The world might have gone crazy and thing could never be like they used to, but one thing was undeniable and that was that your life was a thousand times better since you met Henry. You were beyond in love with him and since the beginning, your cold and dark mind was full of light and warmness. And he was the main reason why you felt that way. Therapy was great, but also having someone that praise you and made you feel loved and try hard to help you see how wonderful you were was incredible. After a nice shower, you prepare tea for you and a coffee for Henry and went into his office to give it to him. Before you entered the room, you heard him talk over the phone. "Oh, great!" You heard him said; "Yes, I cannot wait to get back to work. But, I really need to ask for a favour. If they decide to change the date and start earlier, it's ok, but I need to be free by the 28th and 29th of July. The 28th is my girlfriend's birthday and I want to be with her that day," he pleaded and then thanked the person on the other side of the line. You felt tingles and butterflies in your stomach. The fact that he'd beg no to work on your birthday to be able to be with you melted your heart. You waited until he finished the call and then knock on the door. You entered the room and he announced that production was set to restart in August. You pretended not to hear the conversation and acted excited - you weren't faking, though. After all, The Witcher was one of your favourite shows. You spent the rest of the day laughing with him while he played videogames. Later he decided to go prepare something for dinner and you used his laptop to check your social media and listen to some music. To your surprise, you saw your name in second place of worldwide trends. "The fuck happened now," you thought. And then you saw that Henry's name was also trending as well as your ex-boyfriend's. You clicked on yours and saw that a site dedicated to gossip Daily Mail, posted pictures of you and Henry while you exit the gym and walking with Kal with your hands together. The headline said "New hot couple alert: Y/N and Henry Cavill". The article said "The famous actress, musician and producer y/n (age) is seen leaving a gym with British actor and heartthrob Henry Cavill (37), famous for his roles as Superman and Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's The Witcher. (...) The star ended a relationship with actor and musician Jared Leto -who recently was seen walking in the streets of Hollywood with Russian model Valery Kauffman-. The couple walked together grabbing hands while walking his dogs, an American Akita named Kal. (...) Not so long ago were rumours of a possible reconciliation between y/n and Leto, given the fact that she continued to share love song in her Instagram stories, but now it could be assumed that those songs were actually dedicated to Mr Cavill. (...) We tried to contact their agents to get a confirmation of their romance, but there are not comments at the moment. (...)" "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" you repeated in your head. You took a deep breath and went back to Twitter to look at the comments. To your surprise, there were mostly supportive. There were some jealous and aggressive ones, from both sides - your fans and his fans- but were mostly supportive. You then realized why Jared's name was also trending. A lot of people, especially comics and dc fans, were uploading memes about Superman stealing Joker's girlfriend. Some of your fans posted some new selfies from your Instagram account saying "this is a woman who left a toxic relationship for a better man. Be like her"; some fanboys were saying things like "Henry Cavill is the only man allowed to steal my wife," "I don't know who I envy more," and a lot of memes with pictures of Henry and Jared from the Comic-Con mocking Jared because Henry "stole" his girl.

You had to admit that most memes were really funny. After having a good laugh, you were stressed again. How was going to react Henry to the news? You panicked. You felt guilty like you should have stayed in the house and the secret would be protected. You went into the kitchen and delivered the news to Henry. He sighed in a sign of defeat and you apologized again. He looked at you and you felt a lump in your throat; he seemed angry. You knew it, he was mad at you. - Stop it! - he ordered.- Stop apologizing! You didn't do anything wrong! - he exclaimed and you looked at him confused. - Are you mad at me for going with you? It was my fault, I should have stayed here.- you prompted - No, it's not your fault. It isn't anybody's fault because it's not a bad thing. So, people know now, so what? They were going to find out sooner or later. We cannot spend the rest of our lives behind these walls to protect a secret. I don't care that people know that I'm happily in love with a wonderful woman. And, by the way, it was my idea to get out, not yours. - he reminded you. He came closer to you and cupped your face with his hands - The only thing I'm angry about is the fact that you keep blaming yourself for everything and that you'd think that I could be mad at you for that. You should know me better by now. I'm not him. I don't want us to live a secret for the rest of our lives, like if it was something bad. On the contrary, you're the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm more than proud that people know that I'm awesome enough to get a woman like you. Like I just gained hundreds of cool points.- he smiled at you and kissed you.

#henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #demivampirew

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monkey-network · 5 years ago

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Good Stuff's Best of 2019

WARNING: Just wanted to say cheers to you for making it through another year. I send you best wishes for next year to be fruitful. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy. (Best of 2017) (Best of 2018)

Dedicated to Russi Taylor, John Witherspoon, Rip Torn, Tartar Sauce, Caroll Spinney, Peter Matthews, and the many of KyoAni lost in the arson incident. You all did wonderful; rest in peace.

Welp, I figured the last year of this decade would be the most chaotic one by far, then again everything peak after 2012. As for now, I am counting down the best cartoons/animations/comics I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order other than #1. Same rules apply: No sneak previews of future projects, no repeats, and this time anything goes.

Runner Ups: Superman Smashes the Klan, Marvel’s Aero, Infinity Train, Enter the Florpus, Amphibia, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Helluva Boss, Meta Runner, Lego Movie 2, Forky Asks a Question

Anyways, Badda boom bang whiz, let’s do this shizz...

10. Super Mario Bros GT

Nostalgia can be quite a mystery, especially one that can come out of nowhere. Super Mario Bros Z kicked so much ass as a kid that now, it still frustrates me to this that it got a cease & desist from Nintendo, even the reboot from the same person couldn’t last long. But the gods have offered a slight miracle in the form of this new spiritual successor that has heart and soul put into every pixelated frame. There is much to celebrate with Youtube animation, where many say it’s dying due to the algorithm and all of the site’s corporate bullshit, but it’s stuff like this which helps me understand why we should celebrate. Against all odds, channels like Smasher Block willfully put their works out their for the people and continues to because on top of getting a little dough, it’s what they want to do.

9. DC SUPER HERO GIRLS (2019)

Awwwwww yeah, this is She-Ra and the Princesses of Power done right. Diverse female squad, each given a quality screen time to truly shine (Beecher especially) on their which makes the episodes where they’re all together feel earned and joyous to watch. Certainly reminds me of Friendship is Magic, which is coincidental since they were created by the same woman. I’d like to think this and MLP G4 were the answers to Faust’s cancelled project Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls where multiple personalities collide to one extraordinary superhero team of girls capable great feats that are lifted from their insecurities or drawbacks. And on top of this being a fun series to kick back to all around, it’s a comforting, somewhat aspiring thought to consider.

8. JOKER

I am somebody that rarely goes to the theaters to watch a film; you have to hook my tight just for me to even think of buying a ticket, no less plan to. But honestly, Joker was worth the hype, the ticket, and the fact that it wasn’t the incel uprising that buttfuck normies tried to make it out as. It’s lower on the list because in thought, there definitely could’ve been some tweaks to the dialogue and a couple scenes that I felt didn’t work in the long run. But really, this movie to me worked because of the escalation that leads to a cathartic climax and ending that left me in actual tears. I don’t give a shit if it “doesn’t fit”, having Frank Sinatra sing the film's credits put me in shambles. Joaquin Phoenix was phenomenal as Arthur, and this movie felt authentic in its many details. This is definitely up there with my favorite comic book films of all time. Good thing, too, Spider-Man was taking up most of that shelf.

7. TUCA & BERTIE

This series being what I can’t help but say is a spin-off to Bojack Horseman, a show I respect, was enough to pull me into watching it. But it being like Bojack where it’s tight-roping between a bouncy comedy and a grounded drama was what kept me around for more. It is a damn shame this was cancelled after one season (while 13 Reasons Why gets FOUR seasons like what the fuck), because while this did feel enough like a complete series, I was certainly interested for more because I really enjoyed it all. I have my issue with a couple choices in the show, but I am sure this series would’ve addressed them later down the line. I can see why some women would find this personally endearing, it felt like the personal stories of actual people, and it deserved better. Either way, I enjoyed this series and I recommend it just as much as Bojack.

6. PRIMAL

Genndy Tartakovsky is that kind of cartoon creator where you feel he’ll go beyond if you give him the right amount of space. He’s not a perfectionist like John “Dirty Diddler” Kricfalusi, but with things like Hotel Transylvania and Samurai Jack, he certainly has proven to have the range in animation where you know how he plays. Primal showcasing his noted skill in dialogue-less storytelling and dynamic action scenes, able to convey everything clear with its ruthless yet careful protagonist and his dinosaur friend, all on top of the most luscious backgrounds. This is a series that definitely feels like Genndy’s taken what he’s used from his previous works and putting it together for a brutal yet passionate look at the prehistoric life. He truly brought us an adult series to enjoy and to look forward to more in the coming year.

5. SPINEL

Bet you didn’t expect a character to be on this list, eh? Spinel is the best thing to come out of Steven Universe in general; makes me wish she was in a better movie. The crew certainly did their darndest to make her not only an enjoyable and connectable character through and through, but a very versatile character that the fandom could take in any which way. Call it corny, but Spinel perfectly represents SU as a whole: a lovable goof that can certainly mean business but deep down is deserved of a hug because of what she’s gone through. Wish she had a more satisfying resolution in her respective debut, but really it’s the balance between those three elements mentioned that makes Spinel almost eternally wonderful.

4. MOB PSYCHO 100 II

As someone that doesn’t like reading, I’m a firm believer that the best animations or visual medias elevate the writing to a memorable degree; the visuals hook to the point where you want to think about what you saw and how it was conveyed. Mob Psycho 100, for two seasons now, does this in spades where Studio Bones throw them bones in animating one of the most dynamic animes of the modern era, providing the writing and characters a proper chance to flex its muscles. The characters are especially what makes this and MP100 as a whole work so well, the story being about a boy learning to be more sociable as well as emotionally stronger all while helping others understand maturity and empathy. For more on this, I recommend Hiding in Public’s video(s) on Mob. But with the animation, Bones was able to provide a sense of impact and immersion to the moments that matter, not making it an overstimulating mess, and putting some respect on ONE’s webcomic art style.

3. KLAUS

Hands down, this is a great Christmas movie. Take away the animation and you have a charming, wanna say ground and authentic, story about the makings of Santa Claus. With memorable and likable characters, a nice escalation in terms of the plot, and moments that are/can be so satisfying, they can bring you to tears. A couple overdone tropes in the road that doesn’t make this the most perfected story, but those sincerely minor compared to everything else that makes this story the best. Now. Add in the animation, and you have a gold, nay a platinum animated story of the year where the visuals definitely enhance the story to a degree where they’re undoubtedly inseparable. The visuals alone is enough to check this movie out and it’s eye-opening when you learn of how it’s all done. Klaus is a film that did it’s job and then some, and I hope this will be well remembered as a classic holiday film for it deserves that status.

2. BEASTARS

I’ll be fair, I’m mostly referring to the manga and not the anime but since the anime premiered this fall, it counts. Because be it the anime or the series overall, Beastars has such well intricate world building all while offering a little something for everyone (violence, romance, slice of life). The story is well paced and even when we aren’t focusing on the main characters momentarily, Itagaki is surprisingly able to make every supporting/side character we come across memorable in their own way; like I said before, the city is much a character in this story. Oh yeah, and the mangaka is the daughter of Keisuke “Grappler Baki” Itagaki, that in itself is a treasuring bit of trivia for this. Everything about Beastars is enticing and Studio Orange certainly helped in giving this series more of a following.

1. GREEN EGGS & HAM

Well, well, well. Guess Netflix is three for three in terms of bringing its best foot forward among its few steps back each year. The best term to describe this series is surprising. Surprising that this is a Dr. Seuss story that got expanded a 13 episode series, that has fleshed out characters, fun hijinks, an easy story, lovely emotional, more quieter moments... on top of being 2D hand drawn animated. I mean, what else is there to say? Green Eggs and Ham is to Dr. Seuss what Seven was for Final Fantasy, what Friendship is Magic was for MLP, what watermelon was before a nice menthol cigarette. This definitely took the top spot because to me, it was able to bring many good elements from the previous entries and knot it all together into a well kept bow that I never knew I wanted until now. I’m genuinely glad this show got to exist the way it is and I am hoping, praying, that the second season keeps that momentum up.

That leads us to the actual number one which is

1. STEVEN UNIVERSE FUT-

Total Dramarama is now the two time World Heavyweight Champion, babey. Will 2020 give us a quality contender? Will the streak last another year?

Stay tuned, and always seek out the Good Stuff.

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mymelancholiesblues · 6 years ago

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Just wondering, what your head canon for Leon's family?

Oh my god, I was planning to post this huge compilation of my RE Headcanons soon (starting with what I have for Leon) when I got your ask’s notification. Are you a mind reader? Hahaha. But really, thank you for providing me with a justification to start posting them.

I would like to please invite you to sit because I have plenty – honestly PLENTY – of things to share over this specific matter (Leon’s family). And, of course, to ask you to bear with me through them.

For anyone else whose interest might be picked over this: keep in mind that these are (obviously) my headcanons for Leon’s background and family and in no way is anyone else under the obligation to accept nor fully agree with them.

I wrote them down because I think A LOT about storytelling devices, stories structures, characterization and characters studies, world-building, fiction tropes, etc. and, since I’ve been a Resident Evil fan from age eight to this day, I also tend to spend a lot of time thinking about its characters – and the overall rest of its lore. Furthermore, as a way to help me write them in fanfictions or even in meta-analysis, I’m always thinking of what would make sense within these characters narratives and to their personalities.

Anyway. Back to Leon and his family!

There’s a very solid theory in RE Fandom that Raccoon City is set in Missouri. I really take this into account when I think about RE Characters because it helps me “placing them” before Raccoon, since not all of them were originally born/living there. Leon, for example, according to canon material, only decided to apply to be a police officer in Raccoon because “he was intrigued by the bizarre murders cases in Raccoon City” going in the news.

Because of this, *my* Leon S. Kennedy:

– Was born in small Galena/Illinois. His parents moved to Chicago/IL when he was around 8;

– So, huge fan of the Chicago Bears (and the Chicago Bulls);

– Leon was lovingly raised by a very Catholic couple, Liliana and Isaac;

– Since Kennedy and Scott are, respectively, an Irish surname and a Scottish name and Leon is not an unusual name in Polish (check out about Polish Americans in Illinois and you’ll have a more proper comprehension of my thought process) and German cultures, I think Isaac would be a man of mixed Irish and Scottish heritage, and Liliana of Polish and German heritage;

– Although, his biological parents were actually Roberto (Italo-American punk) and Abigail, Liliana’s youngest sister;

– Robby was a drunken deadbeat, while Abbie was an airhead obsessively in love. Leon was conceived when they were both very young – his mom had sixteen and his dad eighteen;

– Liliana had three daughters (ages 10, 13 and 15) by then (1977), but she and Isaac always dreamed of having a little boy. They even tried to, but the attempts led to miscarriage after miscarriage, so when Abbie gave birth to Leon, the couple was pretty much devoted to their nephew, always visiting to see him and make sure he was properly being taken care of;

– Robby took note of all that and when Leon was only barely one year old, he packed his and Abbie’s stuff and imposed that he was leaving and that she should go with him, leaving the baby behind, telling her that surely Liliana would raise him as if he were hers;

– Indeed she did, albeit feeling distraught by her sister’s complete negligence;

– Isaac adored the boy, and Leon’s three cousins always treated him as their little brother;

– Also: Liliana decided she wanted to erase Abbie’s true connection to Leon, so she got rid of all the photographies that led to those deductions, leaving only the ones that showed baby Leon alone or the ones with the rest of his relatives, but not with his biological parents. Isaac never agreed with this, though. He believed that once Leon got older, he had the right to know his origins, believing that if their love for the boy was true he’d love them back and recognise their role in his life, so there was no need to lie. Thus, he kept a photo that featured Robby resting a hand in Abbie’s shoulder while she was breast-feeding Leon;

– Isaac was very ill when Leon was nearing his eighteenth birthday, and passed away just five months prior to Leon turning nineteen (Isaac was sixty-three years old by his time of death). Leon found that hidden photo after Isaac’s death since his dad left most of his personal belongings to Leon;

– Leon never confronted his mother on it, putting together two and two and realising his biological parents haven’t thought twice before abandoning him, so he shouldn’t bother with them either as he was raised in a genuinely loving and supportive family;

– As I said, Leon has three older sisters: Lydia (born 1962), Meryl (born 1964) and Olivia (born 1967). Two nephews from Lyds’ side, and a niece from Liv’s;

– Parents personalities: I picture Leon’s dad as a mixture of both Jonathan Kent (DC Comics) and Eddard Stark (ASoIaF). A firm, caring, kind, upfront and sincere man with high moral values, strong ethics and unwavering sense of justice, who valued honesty above all else and always believed in the best of people and in helping others, true to the “love your neighbour as yourself” commandment. Liliana was the more stern parent (especially with Lydia, always wanting and expecting her to set out a good example for her siblings), so I picture her as a fierce, proud and honest woman, passionately protective and supportive of her family, that dedicated herself entirely to whatever she put her mind into (domestic activities, city projects, EVERYTHING);

– Lydia would be the “Patricia Arquette’s character in Boyhood (2014)” kind of woman. Kind-hearted, hardworking and amazing, but guilty as charged of the serious flaw of always being romantically involved with scumbags. A Geriatric Nurse, divorced twice, mother to Kilian and Luke – both kids from her first marriage;

– By the way, Kilian is a problem-child and Lucas is the emo kid. Leon has trouble dealing with both;

– On top of it, Leon have several difficulties dealing with Lydia. Being the most distant from him in age terms, Lydia always came off as a bit distant to and unnecessarily strict with him;

– Meryl is Leon’s lesbian best buddy. Confidant, a bit arrogant, always open to give advice, prone to bluntly point out faults in her loved ones and to get angry with Lydia. She graduated in architecture and is a state employee, working as an Urban Planner. Has cleaning OCD;

– Olivia is the sister Leon was closest to since it was with her he had the “smallest” age difference. Driven, headstrong, empathetic and an introvert, she’s actually the one who inspired him to join Law Enforcement and is now a detective in Massachusetts. Liv has a long-time relationship with Peter, whom she met during her childhood in school, and they have a daughter, Harriet (any coincidence with Olivia Dunham from Fringe (2008-2013) is on purpose since Olivia would be Leon’s perfect older sister, ok);

– Leon’s sense of humour takes much after his brother-in-law’s one, Peter, considering he spent a lot of time with him as he would be a frequent guest to their house;

– He fell in love for the first time when he was in middle school in his seventh grade with an eighth grade girl, Allison, who was an exceptionally good basketball player and would kick his ass in all the practice games;

– Allie has very evident native-American heritage, skin and eye colour, hair;

– It was Allie the long-time girlfriend who broke up with him right before Raccoon. She felt he was being distant even prior to his decision to be a cop in Raccoon City. In truth, what happened was that Leon feared his future being set stone too early in his life the way things were going. His wishes to have more agency over the shaping of his own destiny started driving him further and further away from Allie as he felt she was expecting their relationship to progress over time to the building of a family etc.;

– Meryl and Olivia both loved Allie and to this day they don’t get over the fact that Leon didn’t marry her;

– Leon unwillingly distanced himself from his sisters, though, only contacting them for birthday calls and holidays alike because of all of that government recruitment stuff and classified shit and also dealing with a heavy emotional load after surviving Raccoon;

– The only reason Hunnigan found out that Leon had living relatives was that Lydia called to give Leon the news of Liliana’s death in 2010 (by seventy-two years of age) on work-time. Leon, of course, was very shaken with the news;

– While Leon only knows what Ada herself lets him about her past, family, childhood and the circumstances that put her precisely where she is now, Ada knows everything there is to know about his past, family, childhood and the circumstances that placed him precisely where he is now because she’s very competent at her job and did her homework as a spy (this will die with her, but for countless times she fantasized about him confiding all of those mundane details of his life and backstory in her);

– I’m very convinced that in one of those nights Ada visited him for some hoochie coochie after like, six to eight months without seeing or talking to him at all, Leon had to break up the news that she came in in a bad time since he already planned for a Thanksgiving dinner with his sisters. Ada accepts the challenge because she’s been REALLY missing him (horny on main). Ah, and he’s quite upset with her because of that “six to eight months with no news at all” “little” issue. So, picture that. Please.

And that is all I have for “Leon’s family” headcanons. For now. As I warned: PLENTY. Hahahahaha, sorry! Hope this can provide some entertainment and delight to you.

#Leon Scott Kennedy #Leon S Kennedy #Leon Kennedy #Resident Evil #rebel-the-way #OTP: like a part of me I can't let go #レオエイ #Aeon #Leon x Ada #♥#[games]#[mine]#//#golden puppy #///#asks and answers #Aeon fandom #my headcanons

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ty-talks-comics · 6 years ago

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Best of DC: Week of March 27th, 2019

Best of this Week: Detective Comics #1000 - Various Writers and Artists

Possibly more controversial than I'm thinking it'll be, I'm glad Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo did the job of reintroducing Slam Bradley into the DC Universe. Slam Bradley, of course the way I choose to remember him, was one of DC's first characters and the precursor design to modern day Superman. He was a 1930s dick (detective in this case) who made his name in infamy with racist depictions of Chinese people being swung by their braids with toothy grins. He's likely the reason DC won't reprint some of the early Detective Comics works in a compendium.

This is without a doubt, a great celebration for one of the greatest comic book characters of all time, if not THE greatest. The difficulty in reviewing something like this, much like Action Comics #1000 (if I reviewed that one, I don't remember) is that so many stories have their ups and downs, hits or misses and there's so much ground. But some of these were so good that this book is getting an entry all on it's own this week.

He's been made better in recent years with a badass run as a side character in Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman (2001) as a cool former police officer with a son by the name of Slam Jr. on the force. He was probably some of the best parts of his short time there and was very compelling in interactions with Selina.

Kevin Smith and Jim Lee have arguably done some of the best and WORST Batman projects ever, but through the good and the bad, both have immense talent and their tale “Manufacture for Use” added a beautiful layer to the significance of the metal plate that his emblem is made out of.

The book is simple enough, a montage of Batman fighting his greatest villains shows in the background while his alter ego, Matches Malone, has a conversation with a merchant peddling in the various pieces of gear left by villains. He has Harley hammers, crazy quilts and even freeze guns, but there's only one weapon Malone is interested in; The Gun belonging to Joe Chill. The weapon that killed The Wayne Family.

He and others had been leaving Batman clues since his first days as a hero to have him join a guild of detectives, solving unsolvable or very difficult cases and knowing that Slam is one of the detectives along with Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, The Question, Detective Chimp, Elongated Man and his wife, Sue Dibny is relieving and fantastic.

I'm glad DC hasn't shied away from him given his past history. Even his inclusion in Superman of China based on his former character, warts and all, seemed like DC was kinda ashamed of it, but here he is, as awesome as he was later in life!

Upon seeing it, Alfred questions why Bruce would keep it as a trophy, nothing the ridiculousness of The Penny and the Dinosaur, he sees the gun as strange or even perverse. Batman, however, wishes to never see it cause anyone pain again, melting and forming it into an oval adorned with the symbol of a Bat.

Batman has dedicated his life to stopping crime in Gotham at all costs, but not everyone see his methods as being right or just. Doctor Leslie Thompkins has been looking over Bruce since his parent’s murder and oped that he would take his pain and do something productive with it, actually fix Gotham, but instead she sees how vengeance has consumed him, turning him into something of a violent monster himself and she’s not wrong. They meet each other on the anniversary of his parent’s murder in Crime Alley and are beset upon by a group of teenagers whom Batman viciously slaps the hell out of. Dr. Thompkins stops him out of fear and Batman looks like the real villain here.

If that isn't chilling...

Brian Michael Bendis is a GREAT Batman writer. Checking out his 15 pages in the Batman Walmart 100 Page Giants, much like Daredevil, Batman is a character that is PERFECT for him. “I Know” drawn by frequent Bendis collaborator, Alex Maleev, is amazing. Penguin started becoming disillusioned with the meetings put together by villains like The Joker on how to finally get rid of The Batman, Penguin begins to muse about who had the money to fund Batman. I believe he proposed the idea to the others, but they all shot him down, citing times Batman showed up when Bruce was a hostage or how he “blubbered like a baby.”

Penguin didn’t let it go, however, and prepared Suicide Bomb Penguins to attack Wayne Manor while Bruce was hosting a ton of high profile Gothamites. It would have been the end of Bruce Wayne.

Warren Ellis writes some very character driven stories, but when he has to get technical, he is a master as good as any. In “The Batman’s Design” he goes over Batman’s methodology when taking on criminals, treating things like a chess game that he’s already won. He leads the criminals to a trap and plays them like a fiddle, setting off an explosion that knock out or send some flying, determining a sniper’s location and just being so terrifying that the leader just hands him a bomb switch before his ass gets destroyed.

Becky Cloonan does a great job of alternating between cool and warm tones for when Batman is in the shadows vs contending with explosions he’s setting off. Batman looks slim, but imposing regardless. This is definitely some of her best art so far!

Now… if you ask any of my friends from when I was in The Navy, they’ll tell you about how I waited in line for Batman: The Arkham Knight. I was excited. I was elated. The conclusion to an amazing trilogy of games that shaped a newfound love for the character for me! And it bloody sucked. I HATE Arkham Knight with a passion. If it’s not The Batmobile, it’s the Joker, if not the Joker, it’s the Knight himself, if not him, then Scarecrow as the shitty final villain.

I really loved the noir tone that was set by Elizabeth Breitweiser’s colors over Steve Epting’s art. Things are very dark and cool. Batman is shrouded in shadow and Doctor Thompkins acts as a small light by comparison. There is great contrast when action happens with warm tones as Batman slaps the teens and Batman standing in the shadows as Leslie and the kids are under the one light is powerful.

Suffice to say, I was not pleased when it was said that The Arkham Knight would finally be appearing in comics different than his video game counterpart, but… I dunno, I kinda like him here.

His characterization seems to be that of someone who has lived in Gotham and has seen Batman’s methods of treating the poor citizens, the weak and the sick. He sees Batman as a cancer, a darkness that needs to be exterminated for Gotham to truly thrive. The best thing, there’s precedent for this kind of character.

One of the first few arcs for Detective Comics involved a cool set of villains known as The Victim Syndicate, people who have been hurt or grievously injured in Batman’s relentless pursuit of crime. These guys put Batman’s team through the ringer, almost turning Stephanie Brown against him completely as Tim Drake had been presumed dead at the time. Another casualty of war. If I remember right, The First Victim noted that there was someone or something coming for Batman soon and if that’s the Arkham KNight, then I am excited.

The Victim Syndicate was one of James Tynion IV’s best ideas during his run and I really hope whoever the creative team is for Detective Comics thus forth lives up to the quality. Peter J. Tomasi and Doug Mahnke are both amazing, so I have high hopes if its them.

But Penguin had an epiphany. Ending Bruce Wayne would not end Batman. Batman would become focused. Driven. Possibly to the point of killing. Bruce Wayne is the only thing keeping these villains alive, so Penguin relents and never reveals what he believes he knows, until years later when Bruce is old and mute… but who says that Bruce has lost a step? He zaps Penguin who is taken away as Bruce tells him that he knew, pretty much calling him a “coward ass bitch” as he’s taken away.

Overall, while there were few misses, this collection of stories had great ideas, great characterization, heart and was just fantastic. Looking forward to another 80 years!

This one was just cute. The Batfamily interacts with each other and take a FANTASTIC family photo drawn by Tony S. Daniel. Starring, Batman, Alfred, Nightwing, Batgirl, “Robin” Damian Wayne, Red Hood, Batwoman, Catwoman, “(Red) Robin” Tim Drake, Spoiler, The Signal, Cassandra Cain Ace the Bathound and Huntress. It’s a well put together double splash page and everyone, even Bruce seems happy.

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rankakiu · 6 years ago

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Thoughts of the Droid: Shazam! (2019)

Hello, people of Tumblr! How life treats you? As always, I hope very well. At five hundred, but at last. Not only I already had the opportunity to see the movie of Shazam! I have also made a space in my busy schedule to write my opinions and thoughts about this film. DC and Warner have managed to deliver a good product? Or is it another failed attempt to compete with Marvel Studios?

WARNING: NOT SPOILER-FREE. Read at your own risk

Entering already the full review and answering the previous question, What did I think the movie? Short answer: DC and Warner have done it. They have delivered a quality product with a lot of fun and that has no waste of seeing. Now let's enter with more details.

Characters: Undoubtedly all are striking and have charisma. From our protagonist Billy Batson / Shazam, passing through his adoptive family, to the villain Thaddeus Sivana. Each of the characters has a well-achieved background and credible motivations and it really is very nice to see them on screen.

At this point, I emphasize the interpretation of Zachary Levi as the superhero Shazam, since he has a unique charisma and innocence and that I personally, I have not seen in other superheroes. In truth he did a great job with his character, balancing quite well that he is a powerful being with the soul of a young man who seeks to find his way in the world. Also, without a doubt, the scenes where he discovers his powers, helped by Freddy, are the most comical scenes and have the most soul, because despite the appearance of an adult he has, in fact, his reactions are those of a child who is surprised with every new thing. I do not know about you people, but it means for me that we never leave our inner child aside so that we can remain fresh in mind and heart. In addition, the chemistry that has with the character of Freddy Freeman (played by actor Jack Dylan Grazer) is very fun to watch, especially that you also feel an authentic connection that goes beyond friendship: it is a connection of brotherhood, very much in spite of the fact that they are not related biologically. Both support each other, fight each other, advise each other, try to come to their senses and walk shoulder to shoulder in the world of the superheroes of which they are already a part.

On the other hand, the villain Thaddeus Sivana, played by actor Mark Strong, offers a solid villain. Although his background sins of being a bit cliché (the typical case that he suffered a lot as a child), they managed to arm the villain well and that the spectator can really feel it as a real threat. That and the fact that it represents a situation that unfortunately occurs in the real world: child abuse, which unfortunately often happens in the family, where supposedly in the institution in which children should be protected more. Basically, he is a villain who as a child refused to love and affection and who seeks to compensate with the feeling that only gives excessive power. Strong's acting and gestures make Sivana a memorable villain.

History: solid, entertaining and well achieved. Something that I find curious is that at the beginning we see what is the background story of our villain when it is usual to see the story of the hero first, but I do not complain. In fact, that background helps a lot to understand the psychology of the villain. You could say that they used (and very well) the phrase: "a great story, before needing a good hero, needs a good villain". We see the day (or to be more precise, the night) that radically changed the life of Sivana, where, not being chosen as a new champion, he dedicates his life to prove himself, looking for a way to access the Rock of the Eternity and thus to become of the corrupting powers of the Seven Deadly Sins, objective that finally it achieves later to bring chaos to the world; not without before cruelly killing his own father and older brother. And this is where it may seem cruel what I'm about to say, but the truth both had it well deserved.

Continuing with the story, we are then shown, now, to our protagonist, Billy Batson, played by the actor Asher Angel, who is shown as a teenager somewhat looking for problems, but also effectively raises their emotional conflict, where it looks for its biological mother so that they return to be the family of yesteryear. That is why he constantly escapes since none of his previous adoptive families seemed not to fill the emotional gap in the absence of his mother. Again Billy is given to another family, which has an interesting peculiarity: All its members are of different ethnic groups, in addition to all of them are adopted. Even Víctor (played by Cooper Andrews) and Rosa (played by Marta Milans) in their childhood were also adopted. Here I emphasize that although all the members of this bizarre family, despite being so different, come to understand each other and can understand the pain of being in complete solitude and having no family ties of blood. It could be argued that this extended family represents the truth in this world: it is love and affection that makes a family and not blood.

If I had to highlight a particular scene, this would be when Billy is reunited with his biological mother. A scene where the enormous range of emotions of which both mother and son are prey is palpable. It is an emotional reunion, which, however, becomes bitter when Billy knows the devastating truth: his mother had abandoned him on purpose, is that she felt very overwhelmed by the responsibility that represents a child (you can understand why she did it, but not for that reason is totally justified). And it is particularly in this scene that we are shown because Billy is worthy to carry the power of Shazam: when he learned how his mother abandoned him, Billy did not develop an instantaneous hatred towards her (despite having reasons to spare), but simply understood that he was no longer part of her world. Not only that, but also, Billy gives him the same emblematic gift that his mother made him back when he was a child: a compass, which represents that one may be lost for life, but that it is always possible to find the way to home and towards happiness. Billy, seeing that her mother is in an unhappy situation, gives her the compass so that it is now she who finds her way. It is in that scene where you can appreciate in detail that Billy really has a kind heart, worthy of being a superhero and that is why he was chosen by the old Shazam.

From the rest of the story, it is fun to see the relationship that Billy has with his new family, at first reluctant to change again and in the end, accepting all its members with all his heart. The story works well enough to represent an ancient superhero in a more modern environment, where the heroes continue to help the weak, but now are also public figures who enjoy appearing before the masses. Basically, the heroism of yesteryear updated to modern times.

Visuals and special effects: At the height of what you would expect from a super production like this. Despite the fact that we all know that now all special effects are now made in CGI, that detail really goes unnoticed by paying more attention to the performances and the story. At this point, I would like to highlight the wonderful design of the Shazam costume, which really feels that it has been strongly influenced by the comics where the character made his first appearances, but also feels like an updated costume, more typical of these times ; besides that it makes our protagonist look very muscular. Another wardrobe that I want to highlight is that of the villain Sivana, which basically are common clothes, but that manages to give an elegant and somber look to the antagonist.

Action: What can I tell you? Undoubtedly the battles and action scenes are perfectly coordinated and you feel the adrenaline to the fullest. You can see the strength, speed, and endurance of both the hero and the villain and they do not look at all exaggerated. They have managed to handle the scale of powers of the characters very well.

In conclusion, Shazam! feels like a cool movie of superheroes, where we see the worthy evolution of our protagonist in which he goes from a problematic teenager and with a big ego because of his powers, to a superhero that has been taken more seriously his role as protector of humanity ... of course, without losing his style. In general, Shazam! It is a very good product that is worth seeing and that together with the films of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, it shows that DC and Warner can really achieve great superhero movies. For now, I give this movie 3.5 out of 5 Rocks of Eternity. Hopefully, DC and Warner will stay on this good path in which they have been placed.

Greetings

Rankakiu

#shazam #dc extended universe #dceu #dceumovies #billy batson #freddy freeman #thaddeus sivana #seven deadly sins #zachary levi #asher angel #jack dylan grazer #mark strong #movies #superhero movies #movie review #opinions #thoughts #thoughts of the droid #rankakiu

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 7 years ago

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Wednesday Roundup 6.9.2017

Here we are with a fairly straightforward week! I know, I’m surprised by my restraint, too! Who could have imagined I’d ever manage a week with less than five comics. My wallet definitely would appreciate if I did so more often.

Regardless, let’s get right into the bones I have to pick. With one of these entries. Because it’s a bone and a half. And I use a lot of UPPERCASE so uhhh Guess which one gets that treatment!!!

Marvel’s Generations: Iron Man & Ironheart, Dark Horse’s Usagi Yojimbo, DC’s Wonder Girl: Adventures of a Teen Titan

Marvel’s Generations: Iron Man & Ironheart (2017) #1 Brian Michael Bendis, Marco Rudy,Szymon Kudranski, Nico Leon

Whooooooooo boy. It’s been a long time since I picked up a new comic at release date and just.... did not have a pleasant experience reading it. Like at all. So this was kind of a disappointing conclusion to what has for the last year been a pretty solid record of maintaining great comic book readership. I don’t know why I’m even a little surprised it’s a Bendis comic.

Here’s the thing, I don’t... aggressively hate BMB as others do. I’m just critical of him on what I feel are pretty logical issues to be critical of someone on and in turn that leads to this dagger’s edge of when his comics are good, they’re really damn good. But when they’re bad? It’s like this collision of all the things in comics possible that work as my personal pet peeves. Which is why, though I genuinely adore Riri Williams as a character, and had been enjoying her book, I moved it to a trade wait status right along with Miles Morales: Spider-Man -- it’s easier to take the good with the bad when it’s not an issue by issue basis.

And... well. Let’s just say that for being THE guy at Marvel who usually gets all the very best talent to lift up even most of his comics I didn’t personally enjoy? There was not that saving grace this time around. Believe you me. I wish there were. But let’s just jump into the details.

Story: TONY STARK AS THE SORCERER SUPREME. TONY. STARK. SORCERER. SUPREME. Who asked for this. Who wanted this. Who thinks this future makes absolutely any sense whatsoever other than calling what everyone has thought since Tony “died” in Civil War II which is that Marvel doesn’t have the actual guts it takes to permanently kill off a franchise character that isn’t the original Jean Grey? Who thought this was a good idea? Bendis. Basically because Bendis likes to pretend he’s doing Morrison-style shake ups of continuity and bringing things together but rarely delivers it in a way that is either consistent or satisfying.

The one reason I’ve been giving a good number of these Generations books a chance isn’t because I’m particularly interested in the event itself. Truth be told I have absolutely no idea why it’s happening or why Laura was sent back through time to meet up with Logan in Japan or just... anything. I didn’t catch a single clue of what was going on. And I didn’t really care because I’ve read comics long enough that I just want the issues themselves that center around the characters I care about to make sense and be enjoyable on their own. That, for me, is the most valuable part of an experience comics can grant me. And when it doesn’t, I would hope that at the very least it would be because they were providing me some insight on the event as a whole because it was substituting characterization and plot for the Event. Which happens.

This comic managed to not only provide neither of those things for me, I would argue that it made me unerstand less about the event and less about Bendis’ own characterizations for Riri and Tony than I had a handle on before. Which is... frankly impressive. Also... what a fucking bland future. Like I appreciate it not being a nightmare dystopia like every other comic book future, ESPECIALLY at Marvel, but..... damn, man. There was exactly no life in the city of mushrooms and LSD of tomorrow. Apparently the only inhabitants of a positive future are.... oh my god I can’t believe I have to type it again, Sorcerer Supreme Tony Stark, and the blandest version of the future Avengers I think I’ve ever seen. Like at that point why even bother.

Oh and adult Franklin Richards is special. Shocking. YES. FRANKLIN IS AN OMEGA LEVEL MUTANT BUT WHY WOULD STARK GO TO HIM TO FIX TIME TRAVEL SHENANIGANS WHEN IT’S VALERIA WHO IS THE SUPER GENIUS AND WAS THE ONE IN THE PAST RUNS OF FF THAT INVOLVED FUTURE FRANKLIN TIME TRAVELING WHO CREATED THE TECHNOLOGY FOR HIM TO DO SO. BENDIS HAVE YOU NOT BEEN KEEPING UP WITH THE FF FOR THE PAST TWO DECADES OR SOMETHING WHAT THE HELL. Moving on...

Art: One thing I can usually always count on with Marvel is that they love to match their best artists with the leading talents they have writing, and there’s no one shaping the entirety of the Marvel Universe right now more than Bendis, so usually the art for his comics is easily some of the best to come out in any given week.

....

That’s not.... really the case here??? Is it terrible, no not at all. And there’s definitely nice sequences. The problem arises from the page layouts which, ngl, utterly awful. There were multiple pages in a row where I had to reread the whole page again just so I could follow the dialogue. It was not easy to follow from one panel to the next, and the psychodellic affects just made me wish for 70s comics. Back when they had rulers.

Characters & Dialogue: Sorcerer. Supreme. Tony. Freaking. Stark. No I’m not over it. Especially since this entire issue was more dedicated to beefing up how awesome and amazing Tony is. Riri’s fine, but her biggest part in this issue is to be Tony’s fan and to learn that she’ll be awesome!!!... in the future. She’s only 15 now! She’ll have to grow up into a more prominent hero in the next 45 real world years. But mostly it was... just really lazy. What’s interested me about Generations is that it’s given an excuse for Legacy characters to team up across timelines with versions of their predecessors that in all honesty would have not made sense in other context. What was great about the Wolverine issue I covered before wasn’t just that we got to see Logan and Laura the way we had back when Logan was alive. We got to see Laura with a version of her father that she had never met before. And to make it even more unique, it was viewing this older, more matured Laura almost entirely through the eyes of the father who didn’t yet know her. It was creative and it added depth for both characters even if it’s not going to be the source of some great shift in the main comics for them, it provides a refreshing look into who they are and even how far they’ve come. This issue? Honestly I can’t even tell you what Bendis’ goal was here. And that cover -- the name of the issue? -- the idea we’d get to see Iron Man and Ironheart team up together and kick ass is apparently just too predictable and lame for an event that is literally advertised as being that exact premise.

I’m so annoyed with this comic. But I’m really more annoyed with myself for expecting something more interesting and paying Marvel’s outrageous and nearly unethical price gouging of their comics. $4.99 for this comic. I’m never getting that $4.99 back. That’s... That’s like five bags of chips from the vending machine at work. That’s a Hot & Ready pizza at Little Ceaser’s. I spent it on this comic. What’s wrong with me. What did I expect???

Dark Horse’s Usagi Yojimbo (1984-present) #161 Stan Sakai, Tom Luth

Why are the best comics always the most difficult to explain in quality? This thing has been going on for thirty years, has never changed writer or artist, has impressed by the hundreds of thousands, and drastically impacted the atmosphere and tone of comics publishing since the 80s right alongside Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all without truly getting due credit. I would tell anyone who asked to just immediately drop what they’re reading and go catch up on Usagi, but it feels like that should go without saying.

Instead I’ll say, this issue is the first of a new arc and since you can jump into Usagi Yojimbo comics at any point in continuity and be assured to have a good time and pick up what you need to know along the way, pick up today’s issue and get started.

Story: We see the collision of a few of Usagi’s favorite supporting casts and as always it leads to a lot of ruckus and a lot of fun. Though not specifically fun for Kitsune this time around as she’s been seemingly framed for murder. Fortunately Usagi comes in to vouch for her and due to Ishida’s immense respect for Usagi earned over the years Kitsune gets off relatively lighter than usual. But there’s still a murderer about.

Now one of my compliments to Usagi Yojimbo and really the genius of Stan Sakai in general is that he’s maintained a high quality solo comic for over thirty years and somehow still makes new stories always keeping hot takes and ideas for characters refreshingly new and refreshingly fun. That remains true of this story, too, since this match up of supporting characters hasn’t exactly been seen yet, but at the same time I’m suspicious of the retread of the idea of Kitsune being framed for a crime other than the one she really did and Usagi having to figure out the mystery. I don’t expect that plot to be repeated beat for beat, especially since Inspector Ishida is here and that almost always develops into a more thickly plotted mystery story. So part of me talking up all that flowery wording on my adoration of these comics is to explain why, despite my usual instincts to be distrusting of a repetitive plot beat in comics, I know to expect more from the upcoming issue continuation and don’t have that fear of disappointment that has been instilled in me for the past two decades.

Also new to the comic is the addition of a one page sub-story at the end of Chibi Usagi which might be the most adorable idea ever and Stan Sakai truly is the hero we don’t deserve.

Art: I once read a comic reviewer’s explanation of Usagi Yojimbo’s art as being “deceptively simple” -- the bold lines, the character designs, the adherence to a completely black and white comic -- what is seemingly such a simple comic in theory dazzles with its true complexity and tight control of action sequences and blocking. Stan Sakai uses Japanese patterns and crosshatching as well as detailed background art to turn almost every sequence into an unmistakable landmark that makes every town and prefecture that Usagi travels to feel unique.

It’s just one of those amazing things you have to see for yourself to truly believe.

Characters & Dialogue: This section is pretty much purposeless on an Usagi Yojimbo comic because Sakai has been writing these characters so long and giving them all such identifiable traits and voices that they’re just always good. If you enjoy these characters then Sakai meets every heightened expectation along the way.

DC’s Wonder Girl: Adventures of a Teen Titan John Byrne, Bob Kanigher, Bruno Premiani, Neal Adams, Ross Andru, Bob Haney

One thing I have liked recently that DC’s been doing is these recollections of their properties that for a long time they haven’t capitalized on the most, and there’s probably no better example of that exact thing than the severely underrated Wonder Girl Legacy, which has finally earned a short and cute collection going over all the (three) Wonder Girls over the years and even includes the introduction of SOLSTICE! One of my favorite underutilized characters.

It’s a super neat collection, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the history of Wonder Girl (which is a bumpy ride to be sure) but it also spans so many generations and so many writers and story arcs that I can’t really summarize it the way I do my usual reviews. I can just say that if you’re curious about the Wonder Girls, it’s a great collection to check out.

Also as a side note, as someone who was deeply disappointed by the lackluster to downright confused and insulting use of Cassie Sandsmark in the New52, DC is apparently doctoring the character to resemble more of what she was in the preboot because the New52 is utterly ignored in this collection, hilariously enough.

Oh, those tides. How they turn.

The unsurprising pick of the week is, obviously, Usagi Yojimbo. It’s one of the best comics ever made, it continues to be one of the best comics ever made, and also the competition was thin if only I’m being lenient. But regardless, this comic was a fantastic start to the new storyline and I’m so excited to see what twists and turns shall be weaved.

Now that’s all for this week, but I’m curious about your opinions! Did you agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed out on some great comic I didn’t pick up? Please let me know!

And finally, another necessary plug:

I am in a bit of a financial crunch for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the medical bills I’m paying for my dog, Eve, who experienced a catastrophic dog fight and underwent surgery recently.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Patreon

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#Rena Roundups #Wednesday Spoilers #SPOILERS #Generations: Iron Man & Ironheart (2017)#Usagi Yojimbo (1984 )#Wonder Girl: Adventures of a Teen Titan

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