#those are iconic looks in the pre-final arc

[visionoasis]

Sailor Moon is fantastic. Iconic. One of my favorite things ever.

BuuuuUUUUuuut…

But also it makes me sad there isn’t much else? There are other short stories and manga Takeuchi did. I’m not discrediting that. I also don’t blame her for not doing new stuff because I’d NEVER fucking work again if I had something that hit it that big. I totally and empathetically understand. She deserves to kick back.

Still… her work is such a specific flavor that it makes me sad there isn’t more? Not just more Sailor Moon. Just more anything past that. ANYTHING. A NEW GREAT THING. I am but a sinner who has been shown a glimpse of paradise.

Sometimes artists only open their hearts for others to glimpse for a short amount of time. We really are lucky I think.

I’m thinking about it because we’re about to close on the Crystal series and my favorite arc and just like… ugh. It makes me sad just THINKING ABOUT IT.

I hope they cover the song from the original series. A new great song would be good, but also the original so sooooo romantic.

ANYWAY. The main thing is I started reading some of the other stuff! (the stuff pre-Sailor Moon) I think it’s exciting to see what other things people have made other than the main thing. Mermaid series? Sign me up!

And you should too! Especially if you’re looking for that very specific flavor. This is just one of those things I wanna share. Because I think you should try it.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

Hello! Here are some Debbie asks 💖 -

1. Favourite/least favourite Debbie relationship (can be romantic or platonic)?

2. Storyline you wish Debbie had?

3. Underrated Debbie moment?

4. Where do you see Debbie in five years time?

5. Best Debbie outfit/look?

6. First line that comes to your head when you think of Debbie? (Could be a line she says or one someone says about her)

7. Funniest/saddest/best Debbie moment?

8. Favourite fanfic or fanart or gifset about Debbie?

9. How did you feel about Debbie’s ending?

10. Five words to describe Debbie?

yay hi calli!

my favorite relationship debbie was in would probably be debbie x sandy (sebbie), but only pre-11x05 before they were ruined. and my least favorite relationship would probably be heidi? her character was brought in so randomly and in an obvious attempt to slander debbie more. i would say that my least favorite would be a relationship that she had with any of the guys she was with, but i don’t really count those since she was a lesbian and underage for most of those relationships.

i don’t really know how to answer this… there are a few storylines that shameless started for her and just didn’t bother to explore so i guess i’ll say those. (this is depressing sorry) in 4x07, debbie’s friend convinces her to self harm, and she does. season 4 debbie is very interesting because she explores abandonment issues, peer pressure, and grooming, which are all important issues. i think that the shameless writers got over her self harm too fast, and i think that it could have been interesting to see them talk about that, because it is an issue that many struggle with (although ian did also struggle with it in 5x10). i also wish that we got a scene where debbie talks to her siblings about how they treat her. in season 11, they mistreat her a lot, but it’s all for comedic purposes so nobody really talks about it, but i wish she or someone else would stand up for her.

every debbie moment is an underrated one if you ask me, lol. i think an underrated one may be when she bought a snake and put it in matty’s girlfriend’s car. it was so evil and maybe people hate her for it but i just found it funny. also, when she lied to jimmy-steve and said it was her birthday for free food. she’s iconic.

five years from now or five years from the finale? i’m gonna go with five years from the finale, which is 2026. i see debbie doing well. adult liam in hos says that they all end up doing well, and yes, he’s talking about a time far more in the future, but in season 11 debbie’s business was successful so i’ll say that she is. i think that she and franny will stay in the gallagher house, and i hope that debbie will get some therapy because she desperately needs it, especially if she has a ten/eleven year old kid. i want her to find a good girlfriend, maybe it’s sandy, maybe it’s not. idk. really all i hope is that she’s doing well mentally, franny’s thriving, they have a house, and debbie does everything is still going well.

hm… well, the wedding dress in 10x12 is the first thing that comes to mind. she looks fabulous and she’s doing it for the sake of gallavich, which we love. if it’s not that, it’s probably one of her other looks in season 10, because i think that was her best era fashion wise (and in general, honestly. that was her redemption arc, john wells just fucked it up), so probably the black dress with the leather jacket that she wore while convincing ian to get back with mickey, or the red dress she was trying on.

6. (the bullets got messed up😭), well, for lines, “you do not f with debbie gallagher!!!!” (after attempting to drown a girl who bullied her for being a closet lesbian), “you can’t drink him away, mickey. it won’t work”, (after convincing mickey to go back to ian, because my girl loves her family and is the biggest gallavich fan in the whole show).

7. funniest would probably be the, “you do not f with debbie gallagher!” thing, but also when she kidnapped that kid and was questioned by the police, specifically because the scene was just little clips of her talking and one was like, “yes i would like a cookie”, it was just so funny i love her. for saddest, i’d have to say hitting frank with a bag full of soap and then sobbing into her pillow, crying when she knew that derek left her, or when she was screaming at derek’s mother’s house and consoling franny even though franny couldn’t hear- i died inside a bit when i watched that scene. her best moment was any moment she helped out her siblings (which happens a lot, contrary to what debbie antis who think that she’s selfish think), like coming to mickey’s house to get him back, somehow getting ford up on a billboard so that fiona could shoot paintballs at his ass, creating a distraction at the gallavich wedding, and pranking kelly with carl- there’s a few more but those are my personal favorites.

8.i have a few favorite fics, like definitions by the lovely @astaraels, the sun; a little to the left, and familiar patterns by the also lovely, @aceyanaheim. this is probably my favorite gifset, and i don’t really know a lot of debbie fanart- but probably anything that @deedala did because she loves debbie also and is an amazing artist.

9. how did i feel about it… well, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I FUCKING HATED IT. i really hated every characters ending, gallavich’s ending was fine but there were also some things about it i didn’t really love. i’ve made really long posts about my issues with this ending, but to summarize: in s10, john wells attempted to make a debbie redemption arc, which is why there isn’t a lot of debbie hate in that season. many people liked her that season, esp because of 10x12. but then, in s11, we’re expected to believe that everyone hates debbie, (*cough* ian *cough*), and we hear her called a “terrible mom” a “loser” “annoying” etc. also, frank’s parting words to her were horrible and mean! i would start bawling if i were her, and i get that it’s frank, but still. also, they ruined sebbie and replaced it with a toxic person who we know debbie is only dating as a form of self sabotage. i have so much more to say, but that’s it simplified.

10. strong, selfless, ambitious, caring, loving, determined, chaotic, independent, creative, helpful.

💋

[jesncin]

I remember reading one of your asks on how you would like to do Batman and Wonder Woman's rouges right if you DID re-imagine them, so here are some recommendations.

For the Batman stuff, your best shots are looking at B:TAS/TNBA (A lot of the rouges were done wonderful there), The Arkham Games (Riddler, Bane, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and Penguin, but Joker is there too), and The Batman 2022 (Once again Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, and if we want to get into it Gotham's corruption). The Non-B:TAS pieces of media are dark, but they're not edgy dark thankfully so you can pull some pieces from there for Inso.

Now for getting Wonder Woman's rouges right, the best recommendations I have is just reading up on greek mythology and picking up some of the old school, pre-52 Wonder Woman comics to see what elements of from those characters you can pick apart and remix into something faithful yet modern. I mean its what the B:TAS crew did, and one of the reasons why the show is still iconic.

You don't have to follow this advice, but just be aware that you have years of media to help you.

Oh thank you for the recommendations! :D

I've watched all of those Bat media already! I'm a big DCAU fan (finally finished re-watching Justice League Unlimited wahoo), I followed the Arkham games closely in college (where I really became a Bat-fan), and I re-watched The Batman 2022 recently! It's a delight. I tee-hee-d the whole time, what a treat. These adaptations just do such a good job that I don't know what else to add! Like what's there for me to change up? At most Scarecrow is definitely underdone in BTAS and the Arkham Games, so there's creatively wiggle room to reimagine him. But the others? Dunno yet until I look into them more.

Yeah that's honestly exactly my struggle with Wonder Woman, haha. You basically need a lot of homework before tackling adapting her (at least the way I do it)- not only does she have a ton of comics and re-imaginings, but Greek mythology on top of that? Woof I have not attended Wonder Woman university yet where I'd have to major in mythology and history, and minor in "what did this male writer do wrong this time" haha.

I'm so intimately familiar with Martian Manhunter's stories at this point (even without having read all of them, pre-Crisis and many Justice League comics are holes in my knowledge, still-) that I can spot character arc pitfalls and the weaknesses of an adaptation immediately. I know all the plots writers re-cycle with him at this point- so I know where to innovate and where I can pull a through line from. I don't know Diana well enough to do that yet.

[maya-matlin]

Dumb question but your replies to asks are my favorites on this whole site, so I wanted to send an ask! Here it is: are there ships that you thought you'd love based on gifs but ended up not really liking once you saw them on tv or in youtube videos? For me one of them is Brulian. I kept hearing what an adorkable cutie Julian was and loved how happy Brooke looked in their gifsets but then when I actually saw them I just thought the chemistry was forced, Julian was a TOTALLY different character his first two seasons on the show and a lot less likable initially, and the acting and writing just didn't work for me? I expected them to be an otp but ended up meh at best on them! And I thought I'd ship Barchie because they're an iconic comic book couple, I'm much more of a Betty than Veronica personally lol, and their gifsets are gorgeous, but then when I watched the show I'm like, no, Varchie and Bughead are meant to be imo and Barchie doesn't do it for me at all. And one final example - Piper/Leo from Charmed. They're adorable in their gifsets, but it turns out the gifsets highlight literally the only times they're remotely happy?! Post-S1 Piper is perpetually angry, critical and miserable, she complains and snaps at everyone (especially Leo) every minute, Leo is so flat and personality-free, and their chemistry and connection are just lacking to me no matter how many times the show tells me their love is epic :) I can't wait to read your choices!

I don't think it's a dumb question! You're seriously sweet. <3 I feel like I'm really bad at replying to asks, so I'm glad you think that LOL

I think I might have to slightly alter this question to mean ships that I'd heard of, period, or had seen advertised and believed I'd end up shipping only to end up either disliking or feeling neutral towards. I only say that because for the past few years, I've really tried to keep an open mind when starting new shows so that I wouldn't go in with any preconceived ideas about what couples I'd root for.

Those are all interesting examples!

So when it comes to Brulian, I kind of agree. That being said, I did ship them the first time I watched season 6 and for the first half of season 7. But eventually, I was turned off by the Brooke/Julian/Alex arc. While I understand Brooke's LP trauma continuing to haunt her years later, it was just frustrating to watch it all play out again and for Brooke to devolve back into the most insecure version of herself. In some ways, I actually prefer Julian with Alex over Brooke. I still love the idea of them and think they had sweet moments, but their relationship never hit the same way Brucas did. It's an acceptable endgame for Brooke, but it will always kind of feel like second best. I'm sure that's an unpopular opinion, but oh well. I didn't force Chad and Sophia to have such strong chemistry or make the writers execute their seasons 2 and 3 arc so well.

Funny you should mention Barchie, because I had a similar experience in some ways. To be clear, I never read Archie Comics, but I vaguely knew some of the basics. The week Riverdale premiered, I'd been talking to a friend who rooted for BA in the comics and was excited to see Riverdale's take on their relationship. So, I watched the pilot episode to see what it was all about. I guess I shipped Betty and Archie then? But only in the sense that for the first couple of episodes, I was honestly cool with any outcome except Veronica/Jughead. That changed very, very quickly. Pre-Bughead, I was all about Beronica. Archie in contrast just wasn't as compelling to me and seemed to have a revolving door of love interests - something I'd heard was also somewhat the case in the comics. In the long run, BA became a good representation of everything I hate in a fictional couple. Their relationship is one of the laziest things I've ever seen. I truly mean that. Their fans did almost 100% of the work trying to piece that shit together because the writers were NOT writing a slow burn. The Riverdale writers seemed to deliberately avoid kicking off a story arc with any awareness of how it was going to end. The sad excuse for off screen, pre-series childhood anecdotes replacing any true development from episodes 103-416 didn't impress me. I hated watching Betty slowly sacrifice everything she wanted for her life just so she could conform into being Archie's ideal woman as he sacrificed absolutely nothing in return or ever once showed he had any true understanding of Betty. She needed extensive therapy, not the golden boy's dick. Anyways. Bughead forever, Varchie over BA because at least effort was put into that relationship.

As for Leo/Piper, you make some points, but I have to disagree. I can't help it. They were my favorite couple on Charmed. That being said, I acknowledge there was a lot of unnecessary angst, particularly during the later seasons. Leo's actor, Brian Krause, was also incredibly weak and nowhere near as talented as the women on the show.

Now, on to my answers. I already explained my history with BA, so I'll skip that one.

Bangel and Spuffy - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I'd heard positive things about both couples, so I had no clue going in which I would end up shipping. As it turns out, the answer was neither. The Buffy/Angel arc was fine for a while, but at a certain point Angel was just kind of there. As much as I liked the guy, their romance was one of my least favorite aspects of the show. So it was a relief when he moved onto his own show, where his character improved tremendously. I also liked Angel better with Cordelia, so there's that. In the case of Spuffy, I'd heard about the slow burn and the enemies to lovers arc. So I was curious how all of that would happen. I didn't expect Spike to be such a creep towards Buffy. Season 6 wasn't great for them as it was, but the painfully long, attempted rape scene was the last straw. There was no overlooking that, yet season 7 basically had Buffy bending over backwards to defend Spike just because he had his soul back. That sucked. Out of the two love interests, Angel > Spike, always. But truthfully, the only Buffy ship I was ever passionate about was the potential one with Faith.

Jonah/Frankie - Degrassi Next Class: I don't know what I was expecting from these two. They seemed to have chemistry based on the promos Netflix and F2N released. I naively thought Winston had been such a dick that any guy would be an improvement over him. Jonah seemed like an overall decent guy in season 14 during his relationship with Becky, even if he was still haunted by some demons. Unfortunately, Next Class Jonah was a cold, judgmental, arrogant asshole. At least towards Frankie. The writers seemed to want an enemies to lovers situation, but mostly it just felt like Frankie being berated by her older boyfriend. She was an insecure mess with him, and he got away with emotional cheating.

EJ/Gina - HSMTMTS: Looking back at all the signs, it's very obvious Ricky and Gina were intended to end up together from very early on. But I was so certain that Ricky/Nini was the Disney ship that HAD to end up together, so I didn't think my ship stood an actual chance. EJ was transforming into a good guy and I wanted Gina to be happy, so I thought they'd be pretty good together. Sadly, they didn't have a single ounce of romantic chemistry. It was painful to watch. Gina's one episode almost romance with a guest star shined a light on what was lacking with EJ. Watching them fumble into their awkward romance was the worst. Which is a shame, because their platonic chemistry was pretty solid.

Duncan/Veronica - Veronica Mars: This was a VERY long time ago, and my reason was shallow: based on pictures, I thought Teddy Dunn (Duncan) was cuter than Jason Dohring (Logan). I knew nothing of their relationships with Veronica, just that Logan was more popular. I'm not particularly attracted to either guy physically now, but it's very obvious it's all about the charisma. Logan had it and was played by an extremely talented actor. Duncan didn't, and his actor was considerably weaker in comparison. Logan and Veronica demanded to be written together regardless of what Rob Thomas wanted. Duncan as a character was never able to keep up with Veronica and kind of like BA in some ways, it felt like a regression whenever Veronica was with Duncan.

Honestly, there needs to be a category for ships you initially liked solely because it was the only thing being offered at the time and less that the ship was anything special. Because I decided against including several ships for that reason LOL

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1981

The X-Men, those back-to-the-future mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(Uncanny X-Men 141 - 152) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Brent Anderson, Dave Cockrum, Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod and Josef Rubinstein

While I also committed various fashion atrocities at the age of 14 (tye-die and fauxhawks, oh my), even Liberace would find Kitty’s outfits too much. (Uncanny X-Men 149; Uncanny X-Men Annual ‘81)

We dial back from the v. epic scope of the last few arcs. Instead, 1981 is just a lot of fun! We get:

Storm and Emma doing a Freaky Friday!

the X-Men vs. Magneto (again!)

A surprisingly effective Alien rip-off

An dystopian future! (OoOoOoOo)

Last year was the year of the Dark Phoenix, this is the year of Kitty Pryde. That’s not to say Jean’s death is swept under the rug: all throughout, we see her friends mourning her loss or remembering her fondly. (Scott even gets to have a demonic adventure about it.) But in general, Claremont puts Kitty in the forefront, fleshing out his YA-addition to the team. And what would a YA heroine be without a grim dystopia? Roll out the iconic Days of Future Past!

To be fair, 2013 was a dark time for all of us: What Does the Fox Say somehow got to the top of the charts and I was still watching Glee. (Uncanny X-Men 141)

How cool would it have been to see a name like Jonothon Starsmore or Eva Bell on those tombstones?

Anyway, that’s Kate. Kate’s had it rough. Mutants are at the bottom of the foodchain, most X-Men are dead and only a small cadre of resistance fighters remain, Sentinels dominate, and while she is married to Piotr, her children have been murdered. Bleak. Luckily, the rebellion has concocted the plan to shunt Kate’s spirit back in time to prevent this awful future from happening. (You’ve seen Days of Future Past, the last passably good X-Men film, you know what’s up.)

Let’s do the time warp again! 1981!Kitty’s mind gets taken over by 2013!Kitty, who promptly tries to convince the X-Men that a new Brotherhood of v. Evil Mutants will try to kill Senator Kelly, a presidential candidate who tries to put the mutant menace on the agenda. (Mutants tend to blow stuff up when he’s around.) Since the X-Men recently took a literal trip to Dante’s Infero and also befriended a cosmic world-ending entity, they basically shrug and go: “Yeah, this checks out.”

Off to Washington they go (zoommm) and there, they happen upon the Baddest Bitches in Herstory:

“How dare you hate mutants, senator Kelly! We’ll fix that by killing you!” (Uncanny X-Men 141)

This All-New, All-Different Brotherhood consists out of:

Destiny, a blind woman who can see the future. Definitely the eeriest member of this group. Badass lesbian, though that won´t be canon for years.

Avalanche. Greek who makes things shake. Is a long-standing member of the X-Men Rogue’s gallery, but rarely features in the spotlight. I think he got more characterization in four years of X-Men Evolution than he ever did in the comics.

Mystique. Shapeshifter. Ruthless and unhinged, the Cersei Lannister of the X-Men universe. Absolute legend, secretly the wife of Destiny, currently not as unhinged as she’ll be later. Immediately implied to be related to Nightcrawler: it’s the yellow-eyes-blue-skin-combo.

Pyro. Can manipulate fire, not create it. Absolute pillock, in all the best ways of the word. Originally intended as gay, but they decided to make him Australian instead. (?!)

Blob. Big, strong, immovable. We’ve seen him before.

One of the details in this fight I enjoy is that Storm is still struggling with her leadership, although she has a better grip on things than Cyclops:

Wolverine then proceeds to use those iconic but deadly claws about twice per issue for the next, oh, forty years. (Uncanny X-Men 142)

While the X-Men fight the Brotherhood in the present, we cut back and forth to the future. There, the X-Men consist out of some familiar faces - Storm, Colossus, Wolverine - and some surprises: Magneto (in a wheelchair), Franklin Richards (son of) and an unfamiliar ginger girl called Rachel. (She’ll be important later.) We even learn (one of) Magneto’s names: this is the first time he’s canonically called Magnus.

One of the strengths of Days of Future Past lies in its brevity, the way it tantalizingly taunts us with a brutal but familiar future without giving away too much. It’s single-handedly responsible for all those dark future timelines the X-lines are so fond of which will eventually culminate in time-displaced grandsons from alternative dimensions and the impossibility of a succinct answer to the question: “Who’s Cable?” Too much of a good thing and all that.

Still, what Days of Future Past does so successfully is:

Put the idea of the mutant menace back at the forefront, hammering home the metaphor of mutants being a minority. Mutants being put in camps and being forbidden to breed should - regretfully - make us think of all too many real life equivalents. (Specifically, all of the imagery harkens back to the Holocaust.)

It starkly shows what happens should the X-Men lose, reminding everyone of the stakes. The X-Men are here for a reason: bridging the gap between mutants and humankind. If they fuck up, we end up with mutant concentration camps.

It helps that the X-Men in the future almost all die horribly: Franklin is incinerated, Storm is impaled… It's brutal stuff. The only one to survive is Rachel, who wonders if their plan actually changed the future or if they created an alternative timeline. (It did the latter, sorry ‘bout it, Rachel.)

In the present, Kate chases after Destiny, who trains a gun on senator Kelly. I always wondered how this works: if Destiny saw the future, she knew that killing Kelly would trigger a terrifying future. What in the current Marvel timeline made her decide that the Days of Future Past was better? Did she see her own death? Did she see the Onslaught-crossover coming? The Chuck Austen run? What was it?

In any case, time-anomalous Kate stops Destiny from killing Kelly and the future is safe! For now. Kate disappears, Kitty returns to her body and some of the Brotherhood are apprehended. All is well, for now.

After being a key figure in DoFP, Kitty is also the main character in the Christmas special, which is basically a straight up horror and a pastiche of the Alien-movie.

Seriously, John Byrne still isn’t sure why he wasn’t sued by Ridley Scott for this. (Uncanny X-Men 143)

If you love Kitty Pryde? Read this issue. If you’re not convinced you like 80’s Kitty? Read this issue. It’s not continuity relevant and it’s basically Kitty playing the part of a Final Girl in a horror where she’s being chased by a demon, but it’s so good. It showcases all her strengths and her foibles. Kitty’s intelligent, cute (sometimes preciously so) and brave, but she’s also young, self-conscious and hot-headed. And it's not as if the other X-Men automatically adore her: Storm berates her all the time, she’s afraid of Kurt because of the way he looks (though she grows out of that) and she fights with Professor Xavier a lot. Moreover, she has a clever power-set for a young superhero who faces menaces on a daily basis: a thirteen year old who can go intangible is far less likely to have reality ensue on her and be dramatically offed because she's better at protecting herself.

I’m sure there are people who thought Sprite was hogging the spotlight, but I, for one, say she brings more to the table than, say, Angel. She’s not the Dawn Summers of this franchise.

Scott also gets a side quest. Poor guy can’t catch a break: first the love of his life dies, so he quits the X-Men, then he realizes he can’t do much else than be a superhero. He becomes a sailor on the ship of spunky captain Lee Forrester, is drawn into the sadistic plans of a demon unironically named D’Spayre and then shipwrecks in Bermuda with Lee.

The X-Men, meanwhile, are tormented by a team-up of Doom (who’s currently Latverialess and working on a comeback) and Arcade, that annoying crony. Locke, Arcade’s dom, has kidnapped the loved ones of the X-Men (Moira MacTaggart, Jean Grey’s parents, Illyana Rasputin and Amanda Sefton) in order to blackmail them into getting Doom to free Arcade. Apparently, Arcade accidentally insulted Doom and DOOM DOES NOT FORGIVE THAT FOLLY.

While the B-Squad (Polaris, Havok, Banshee and Iceman) goes to save Arcade’s hostages, the X-Men sneak into Doom’s castle. Well, except for Storm, who doesn’t give a single fuck and simply flies up to Doom, demanding an audience. Doom likes the cut of her jib and invites her to have dinner. (This is pre-Tinder, so this is a legit way of scoring a date.)

If Storm has a flaw (I said if!), it’s got to be her atrocious taste in men. (Uncanny X-Men 145)

The X-Men find Arcade’s cell empty, while Arcade casually saunters up to Storm and says hi. Storm realizes too late that this is a trap: while the X-Men are all trapped in Saw-like traps, Storm is encased in ‘living chrome’.

If you remember she’s claustrophobic, you know why this is a bad move.

While the X-Men free themselves from their traps - Polaris hilariously has to deal with a murderous merry-go-round - Storm is slowly driven mad in her prison, triggering a worldwide tempest. (She causes Lee and Scott to shipwreck.) Under the threat of Wolverine’s claws, Doom releases Storm - or rather, unleashes her.

“Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!” (Uncanny X-Men 147)

The memory of Jean brings Ororo back to herself and she starts undoing the superstorm she created. (If only climate change were reversed that easily.) Their confrontation ends by Storm easily forgiving Doom, because she apparently trespassed on his grounds without adequate cause.

Mkay.

All of Arcade’s hostages return to their homesteads, except for Illyana Rasputin, Piotr’s sister: she’s staying at the mansion for a while. Angel, who’s sort of been a part of the team since the Phoenix thing, has had it with Wolverine and his ‘tude, and decides to quit the X-Men : he doesn’t want to be a part of an outfit that has a killer like Wolverine on it. (Or maybe he’s just mad Claremont didn’t give him any storylines: his presence has been mostly pointless.) It’s too bad he left before Kitty started experimenting with her outfits: I bet he would have loved her ugly-ass costumes.

Equally inconsequential is the introduction of a brand new character, who then proceeds to disappear from the narrative for the rest of the year:

Black Tom has tried to kill you at least twice, but him sending you a long-lost daughter doesn’t give you pause? Ugh, Sean, you deserve Moira. (Uncanny X-Men 148)

Intrigued by Theresa? TOO BAD, WON’T SEE HER AGAIN ANYTIME SOON.

Another new character is the lonely, decidedly mutant looking Caliban, who can sense “people like him” and is on the lookout for companions. Like many lonely people who try and grasp at friendship, he decides to overshoot his shot and ruin the night of Storm, Kitty and Jessica Drew at a Dazzler concert. Because he tries to kidnap Kitty, the girls react a trifle aggressively. When they realize their mistake - the eerily pale Caliban is a simpleton rather than a menace - he’s already fled. No mention is made of the Morlocks yet!

There’s also another dull annual where the X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four to save Arkon’s dimension from the Badoon and yaaaaawn. Far more interesting is the landmark issue #150. Slowly, through the adventures of Scott and Lee Forrester, Claremont has been setting things up for the return of a favorite villain. While the X-Men investigate Magneto’s old base in Antarctica on a hunch of Professor X and tangle with Garruk, Scott and Lee survive Storm’s tempest, only to wake up next to a strange island that seems to have been raised from the ocean.

It’s apparently some ancient citadel from a long forgotten civilization with a fondness for squid statues. (I don’t know man, I’ve never been to the Bermuda Triangle, maybe this is just super-accurate.)The tentacles make Lee Forrester feel very amorous, but before Scott can tell her he is way too repressed to just have sex with an attractive someone he’s known intimately for a month or two, Magneto saves his ass by revealing he, in fact, raised this island from the seafloor.

Oh, Magneto. So extra.

My ambitious little mutant demagogue then proceeds to take the entire world hostage, showing how much he’s grown from the pompous, raving madman from the sixties. (Sure, Magneto is still a bit of a madman, but increasingly, he starts being on the right side of history.)

“I’m trying to make Magneto more sympathetic.”

“Just put him on a page with some bigger villains who are less noble, like the Vanisher, Count Nefaria, or…”

“Reagan, Thatcher and Brezhnov?”

“Er.” (Uncanny X-Men 150)

It’s obvious Magneto is being pivoted as a more noble villain, codified into the well-intentioned extremist we know and love today. Not only do we get the first hints at his past, fleshing out his motivations, he’s also not wrong. Humans are historically not great at taking care of the planet or each other.

When the Russians call his bluff and launch nukes at Magneto’s new island, he quickly disarms them. His retribution is swift and ferocious: the entire citadel is a machine that massively amplifies his powers. He sinks the submarine that launched the missiles, condemning the entire crew to death, and he casually erects a vulcano in a Russian city in Siberia.

Damn. Not messing around this time.

Despite his good intentions, Magneto is still definitely in the wrong: not only because of his methods, but as Scott points out: if Magneto unifies the world under his kind of benevolent dictatorship, all of that will simply fall apart as soon as Magnus dies.

In a way, Magneto is just as big a dreamer as Charles is: Charles believes in peace and integration, whereas Magneto believes his iron fist will be enough to make a perfect world happen. Both of them ignore the reality that acceptance is difficult and messy, because you’re trying to change essential human nature: the fear of the other. Magneto believes in big, sweeping gestures that will fix the world in move, while changing the world is also boring, hard work. One step forward, two steps back. Magneto just wants to leapfrog to his ultimate goal.

The X-Men fly over the citadel, returning from Antarctica, and their plane crashes into the ocean. (Magneto does not brook planes over his territory, humans!) The Professor is also nearby, looking for Scott with Moira, Peter Corbeau and Carol Danvers. The X-Men sneak onto the island, but to their horror, their powers are nullified by some machine of Magneto. They reunite with Scott, who formulates a plan to thwart the would-be ruler of the world.

While the rest of the X-Men go to trash the machine, Storm, Kitty and Lee infiltrate the control chamber where Storm finds a sleeping, shirtless Magneto. Once again showing her terrible taste in men, she is not weak in the knees at the sight of a sleeping Magnus: instead, she contemplates killing him.

Storm knows how dangerous he is, but she also knows that he’s a great man who’s fighting for ideals, no matter how misguided. She hesitates too long: Magneto stirs, suspects an attack and tosses her out of the window, to her death.

Magneto quickly undoes the sabotage the other X-Men have wrought to his machine. A fight erupts. Storm, meanwhile, has managed to grab hold of a ledge. She crawls back up and smashes an important-looking computer, restoring everyone’s powers.

The battle turns grim, but Scott sends Kitty away to wreck Magneto’s machinery. She sneaks off, following Scott’s orders and destroying both Magneto's power-up device and all of his plans by phasing though the computer circuitry. Magneto senses this and furiously gives chase. Overcome by rage, he attacks Kitty and disrupts her phasing power with a magnetic bolt, seemingly killing her?

Everything about this story beat is great: mama bear!Ororo, mournful Magnus and even the fact that Kitty’s godawful outfit serves a narrative function: highlighting to us (and Magneto) just how young she is. The fact that Kitty’s Jewish is just icing on the cake. (Uncanny X-Men 150)

And thus, the softening of Magneto commences. 1981 might be a year with wildly varying narratives, but it has given us at least three enduring legacies to the X-Mythos: a new kind of Magneto, a fondness for dystopian futures and the character of Kitty Pryde, who's really come into her own this year.

Ugliest Costume: Kitty! Purposefully, but still. Best costume, by the way, goes to Destiny, with her creepy, creepy golden mask. Just imagine this lady casually strolling across a battlefield, eerily calm and collected, dodging everything you throw at her. Awesome design.

Best new character: I usually pick one character - what good is having a shared award when declaring the best of anything? - but this year, it’s going to one of my favorite couples: Mystique and Destiny. Can’t wait to see more of them.

Most audacious retcon: Blob somehow retroactively becomes a member of the original Brotherhood, which is not what happened. Ever weirder is Xavier pondering that he never met Magneto before his attack in X-Men #1, while their cordially adversarial relationship rooted in a youthful friendship would soon become a cornerstone of the X-Men.

What to read: Uncanny X-Men 141 - 143 and 150 - 152

[charlieconwayy]

D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996) is the best Ducks movie and a flawless coming of age movie

It’s no secret that The Mighty Ducks are a beloved trilogy. The three films spawned a professional NHL team named in their honor, 2021 sequel series, as well as many knockoff films released in the 1990s. But with any movie series, fans tend to rank the films and have passionate opinions on which is the best. For most Ducks fans, the answer is simple: D2. It has the Bash Brothers, Team USA dominating, the iconic “Ducks Fly Together” scene and two Queen songs. What’s not to love? But upon a rewatch of the trilogy, I came to realize that it’s not D2, or even the original, that is the best in the series.

It’s the criminally underrated 1996 D3 that for me, is the most mature and has the most heart. Perhaps it’s that the Ducks are now old enough to carry their own weight on screen. Perhaps it’s that the film takes a look at trauma, specifically trauma in teenagers, and how that manifests itself. Perhaps it’s that the film is maybe ahead of its time, in the way it discusses classism, racism and sexism. There is so much about this overly hated film that makes it the best Ducks movie and a perfect coming of age film.

The movie starts presumably a few years following the Ducks’ win against Iceland. They all look noticeably older - definitely older than the middle schoolers we left behind in 1994 - and all of the male Ducks’ voices have dropped a few octaves. Gordon Bombay, played by Emilio Estevez, is presenting the team (except for unfortunately, Jesse Hall, a leader among the Ducks who would’ve made for a strong presence in this mature film, as well as Portman, but we’ll get to him later) with scholarships to his alma mater, Eden Hall, a preparatory high school in Minnesota. Charlie Conway, played by a young, pre-Dawson’s Creek Joshua Jackson, is the Ducks’ captain and unspoken leader. There’s been much debate over the years over whether or not Charlie is the true captain of the Ducks. Adam Banks, played by Vincent Larusso, is far and away better than practically every Duck combined. Fulton Reed, played by Elden Henson, has shown more maturity and leadership at this point. It’s probably true that the Ducks as a team think that Charlie is Captain because of Bombay’s favoritism towards him (and his mother), but I think that this film makes it abundantly clear why Charlie is the captain. 

D3 is Charlie’s story. We see that in the opening scene, when Bombay tells Charlie he will not be following the team to Eden Hall, accepting a job instead in California. We learned in the original Mighty Ducks film, that Charlie and his mother left a bad situation in Charlie’s father when Charlie was very young. We also hear about Charlie’s mother, Casey’s marriage to a new man in the D2, who we can assume from what Jan says, that Charlie doesn’t like. We see in that first film, Charlie’s reaction to Bombay announcing that he is leaving the Ducks after the two of them have formed a bond. It is very clear that Charlie deals with abandonment issues, stemming from trauma in his early childhood. Charlie freaks out when a D3 Bombay announces the same thing, and storms off. 

Change is the biggest theme in D3. We see how change affects each of the Ducks, even those who don’t get many lines. Some, like Russ Tyler, played by SNL’s Kenan Thompson, think it’s a good thing. All of the Ducks don’t come from good neighborhoods and we assume that most of them don’t have the best home lives, especially when Charlie tells their new coach, Orion, played by Jeffrey Nordling, that the Ducks are the only good thing that any of them have had. Going to a preparatory school should be a good thing for them. But for most of them, it’s not. The new Ducks (who by the way, three of which are people of color, and one of which, is a woman) are immediately told that “their kind” is not welcome at Eden Hall. The Varsity team claim that they feel this way because the captain’s younger brother was not admitted onto the JV team because of the Ducks’ scholarships, but it’s very clear what they really mean. Russ commented that he’s the only black person on the whole campus earlier, and he, Luis Mendoza (The Sandlot’s Mike Vitar) and Ken Wu (Justin Wong) are the only people of color we see in the film. Change takes a toll on each member of the team. We see it the most in Charlie, but we also hear from Fulton on how the separation from his best friend, Dean Portman (Aaron Lohr), who decided not to enroll at Eden Hall, is taking a toll on him. Connie (Margerite Moreau) and Guy (Garrette Henson) have presumably broken up, as the two small scenes we get of them, they are arguing. It’s a transition period, one that the first year of high school often is. But it’s also a look on how a rich, white privileged world is vastly different than the one that the Ducks are used to. 

Coach Orion seems like a hardass, especially when he tells Charlie at their first practice that he will no longer be “Captain Duck” (as coined by D2’s Gunnar Stahl, played by Scott Whyte, who now plays the level-headed Varsity goalie Scooter). This, to the Ducks, is a line in the sand. Ever since Bombay turned District 5 into the Ducks four years previous, Charlie has been their captain. They’re in a whole new environment, where the man who gave them so much happiness and so many friendships isn’t, and their “little Duck tricks” won’t work anymore. Orion thinks Charlie is a showoff, and perhaps he is. This Charlie is vastly different than the sweet, shy Charlie we see in D1 and D2. But this Charlie is older, has just been abandoned by a man he considered a father, and is being harassed on a daily basis for being, as Varsity Captain Reilly puts it, “white trash.” I find it hard to believe sometimes that fans can look at Charlie from the outside, and not see who he is on the inside. All of Charlie’s closest relationships that we see portrayed in this movie, are with women. His mother (who he, as a teenage boy, says “I love you” to in the final scene of the movie), his teammates, Connie and Julie, who he gets a lot more screentime with, and with new love interest, Linda (Margot Finley).

I think now is a great time to talk about the shockingly impressive way all of the female characters are portrayed in this series, particularly this movie, especially for a 90s sports film. Connie has always been a leader on and off the ice. She’s in a relationship with Guy, but it’s not her only character trait. Dubbed “the Velvet Hammer” by Averman (Matt Doherty), she stands up for herself, and for her shy teammates (she literally shoves Peter Mark - a character cut out of D2 and D3 for good reason - in D1 when he insults Charlie) and stands up to the entire Varsity team despite them telling her that they hope they can “fight” with her later. Julie “The Cat” Gaffney (Columbe Jacobsen) is the second best player on the Ducks, despite the little ice time (thanks, Bombay) we see her have. She is the first person to tell of the Varsity, telling Captain Reilly that his little brother “just wasn’t good enough.” She’s a huge facilitator in the fire ant prank and despite the very weird and out of character game she had against the Blake Bears, shows that she deserves the number one goalie slot that Reilly gives her - despite what Goldberg, and the obvious underlying sexism there, have to say. I’ve also always been very impressed with Charlie’s mother, Casey (Heidi Kling). Although she has a romance with Bombay in D1, she makes it clear from the get go that her first priority is Charlie. We know that she took the two of them away from an abusive situation, and she’s a goddamn hero for that. Her scenes in D3 are limited, but they always show her chastising Charlie’s antics and encouraging him to stay in school. It goes unsaid, but it’s clear that she knows that he’s not going to get an education this good in the problematic public school system. But according to Linda, Charlie’s love interest, the private school system is no better. The first time we see Linda, she is protesting the “outdated” Warriors team name. This was in a 1996 kids movie, no less. She holds her own against Charlie, calling him out when he’s wrong. No one aside from Charlie, and maybe Fulton, get much screentime or lines aside from Bombay and Orion, but her presence and the point of her character is clear - not every rich person agrees with the horrible things that wealthy people do. 

Back to the plot.

When the Ducks receive their positions, they learn that Banks, as a freshman, has made Varsity. From an outside perspective, they seems obvious. Banks is the best player we see in any of the films, definitely miles better than the losers on Varsity, so it seems obvious that he would be promoted. But Banks is unhappy with this. Adam Banks is a fan favorite character, definitely due to the sweet, understated performance by Larusso, but we don’t see much of him. From what we do see of him though, he underwent a huge character arc from D1 to now. In D1, Banks goes against his father’s protests and joins the Ducks, claiming that he “just wants to play hockey.” Here in D3, we see that Banks is utterly miserable despite playing with some of the best players in the state, purely because he’s not with his friends. At the end of the film, he makes the (questionable) decision to rejoin the Ducks and go against the Varsity. But Varsity seems to feel that Banks fits in with them, for obvious reasons. He’s the only Duck who comes from an affluent background, and he’s definitely the most clean cut. Captain Reilly is visibly angry in the final showdown with the Ducks that they no longer have Banks on their side, as if he’s betrayed “his kind.”

The turning point of the film comes when after Charlie has quit the freshman team (no longer the Ducks), Hans, a father figure to the Ducks and Bombay, suddenly passes away. It’s an insanely dark moment for a Disney film, especially when Bombay returns to the funeral and reminds the Ducks that it was “Hans who taught them to fly” and Charlie storms off, crying. I think Joshua Jackson, in the Ducks films, as well as in Dawson’s Creek, is phenomenally good at portraying teenagers who wouldn’t normally be seen as leading men. Who let their emotions overtake them, who have anger issues, who deal with familial problems. Characters like that in leading roles were almost unheard of in the 90s, and in the upcoming scenes, it reminds us why this side of Charlie that we’ve seen throughout the movie is not the only side of Charlie.

Bombay takes Charlie to the rink to see Orion skating with his disabled daughter, who was injured in a car accident. He reveals to Charlie that Orion quit the NHL to take care of her, and this immediately changes Charlie’s opinion of him, but he’s still unconvinced about rejoining the team. The next scene is without question, the greatest and most important scene of the trilogy. The last two films spent way too much time telling us how great of a person Bombay was, how he was the Minnesota Miracle Man,despite us seeing so little of that onscreen. We see him making mistake after mistake, hurting the team, being an unjustified dick to those around him. But this scene more than makes up for all of that. I’ve put the quote from this scene below.

Bombay: I was like you, Charlie. When I played hockey, I was a total hot shot. I tried to take control of every game. I wound up quitting. So I tried the law. I ruled the courtroom, but inside, I’m a mess. Start drinking. Man, I was going down. But then this great thing happened, maybe the best thing ever - I got arrested and sentenced to community service. And there you were - Charlie and the Ducks. And as hard as I fought it, there you were. You gave me a life, Charlie, and I want to say thank you. I told Orion about all of this when I talked to him about taking over. I told him that you were the heart of the team and that you would learn something from each other. I told him that you were the real Minnesota Miracle Man. 

Charlie: You did?

Bombay: I did. So be that man, Charlie. Be that man.

It’s a callback to D2, when Jan tells Bombay “Be that man, Gordon. Be that man.” This scene is flawless. Every good thing that has happened to the Ducks, came because of Charlie’s heart. It came because of that game when Charlie refused to cheat, and made Bombay see his wrongs. It came because of when Bombay first tried to quit the team, and seeing how hurt Charlie was, agreed to stay. It was Charlie who stepped out of the game against Iceland so that Banks could play. It was Charlie who found them Russ. Giving the credit to a young, emotionally unstable teenager, rather than their Emilio Estevez, hotshot Bombay, is the best thing this series ever did.

This movie, in my opinion, is nearly flawless. Every moment has been planned to make the same point - change sucks. Especially when you’re a teenager. Even more so when you’re a teenager with trauma.

[thealmightyemprex]

1960′s Bond films ranked

,1960′s was the era of Bond mania ,and it was the decade with the most movies ,with 7 movies(Second to it is the 80′s with 6 movies ,then the 70′s with 5 ,90′s and 2000′s both only had 3 each ,and 2010′s only had 2 ) ,and since the 60′s is the most classic era of Bond ,I decided  to rank the 60′s Bond films 

7.Casino Royale(1967)

Yup I am counting the unofficial movies too  and this is the only film on the list I would say is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.This is  a crappy movie,pure insanity  with no clear vision and it commits the biggest sin of a comedy :ITS NOT FUNNY .....Woody Allan as a Bond Villain is a funny joke though 

6.Thunderball(1965)

Only Bond film in which I have read the book.It’s an OK book ,love some of the characters  but it was just fine  .....But I like it better then the movie  .This is a boring movie  to me ,Largo is only remembered fondly cause he has an eyepatch as he is a lame villain  ,Domino is a lot less interesting then her book counterpart ,there is a cringeworthy scene with Bond blackmailing a physiotherapist into sleeping with him ,there is a random character who is important to the plot but the film doesnt treat him this way ,the Q scene feels less playful and more meanspirited  and underwater battles sound cool in theory ,but are dull in practice .That said I do like aspects ,Connery  is good ,I like the SPECTRE scene (Love Shadowy Blofeld ) ,the pre title action scene is great (Complete with ACTUAL WORKING REAL JETPACK ),The theme song performed by Tom Jones is AMAZING ,and  I do love the films main henchwoman Fiona Volpe ,she is such an awesome baddie I wish she was the MAIN villain  .I know it’s considered a classic but I just cant get into it 

5.You Only Live Twice (1967)

THis one I am .....Mixed about . I think it’s directed well ,there are some cool camera movements,the Little Nellie gyrocoptor is awesome  ,the fight scene against the driver (Played by Peter Maiva ,the grandfather of Dwayne “The Rock “ Johnson ,which is awesome )  is pretty badass , The Volcano Lair is SPECTACULAR (PRobabbly the best villain lair in the series ) ,Tiger Tanaka is a likable ally ,Aki is a great Bond Girl,Nancy Sinatras theme song is good ,it’s cool seeing a snapshot of 1960′s Japan ,the final battle is epic ,and Donald Pleasence is FANTASTIC as Blofeld ,bringing such a creepiness to a character who has been built up for 5 movies .....But  what holds it back for me is Connery looks so damn bored throughout the entire movie ,the plot I dont really care about ,Helga is just a rehash of Fiona and not even in a interesting  way ,KArl is such a boring henchman ,Aki is killed off just to be replaced by Kissy who is less interesting and I dont know why they didnt just have one Bond girl ,DOnald Pleasence is barely  in the movie ,and then you have Bond going undercover as a Japanese man......Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.This is just such a mixed bag of a movie for me 

4.Dr No (1962)

Now lets get to the good ones.This is a lowkey Bond adventure(As they couldnt afford to do one of the bigger stories ) ,and I imagine that can be jarring for someused to the high octane globe trotting adventures of the other films,and I have seen some calll it Vanilla  .....And I kind of like the simpler vibe of this film .Connery comes out the gate swinging ,he is suave and with moments of  brutality.Both the Bond girl and villain arent in the film long but Ursula Andress is memorable as Honey Ryder  and Joseph Wiseman as Dr No while only getting really one scene to show off has a cold  detached delivery to his lines that makes him extremely eerie (Would’ve preferred a Chinese actor  and am distressed none were even considered but thats the 60′s for you ) .Anthony Dawson  makes for a good secondary villain as Professor Dent  ,Jack Lord is a cool Felix Leiter ,John Kitzmiller is great as Bonds ally Quarrel ,the film sets up Bonds dynamics with both Bernard Lee’s M and Lois Maxwell’s Miss Moneypenny ,both making strong first impressions ,the film is brutal with it’s action ,and overalll it’s a good introduction to the world of Bond  

3.Goldfinger(1964)

The iconic Bond film .This film is fun ,plain and simple. It has flaws (Mainly there being a whole section of the plot involving gangsters that makes absolutely no sense and how Pussy Galore turns good is REALLLY cringeworthy) but I feel like the rest of the film is awesome  .The villain Auric Goldfinger is one of the best  (Easilly my second favorite in the series )ruthless and greedy but with an odd sense of charm ,I just love watching him .The films main henchman Oddjob   is also awesome  ,a super strong  silent loyal thug  who kills people with a toss of his killer bowler hat .Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore  is fantastic ,easily one of the best Bond girls,and while I dont like how her arc is handled,I do like that she starts off as a baddie .The film is full of classic moments from Goldfinger and Bonds golf game ,the laser scene (And the classic exchange “You expect me to talk”*Chuckles*”No mr Bond ,I expect you to DIE!!”),the fight between Bond and Oddjob in Fort Knox (Which is a gorgeous set by Ken Adam ) and of course the iconic image of the dead woman painted gold .I also have just a personal fondness for this film as when I was a kid we had a whole bunch of Bond films on VHS (From Dr No to Live and Let Die ) and this was the one I watched the most 

2.From Russia With Love (1963)

I flip flop on whether I like Goldfinger or From Russia With Love more ,and I think I prefer From Russia With Love ,for one simple reason :Goldfinger is a fun action romp .....From Russia With Love is a genuinely intriguing spy movie .It’s also cool cause it is a direct sequel to Dr No which is an anomaly in the classic Bond films. There isnt one villain in this film ,it’s an organization ,SPECTRE ,meaning we get a whole ensamble of villains (Including creepy evil genius Kronsteen and SPECTRES head thug Morzeny),but the stand outs are Red Grant  played by Robert Shaw of Jaws fame, a sadistic assassin who is sort of Bonds dark mirror  and Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb ,a former SMERSH agent now working for SPECTRE ,who is commanding in every scene .....EXCEPT fore when she is around the films true villain Blofeld,in those scenes  she is TERRIFIED ,and thats a detail I love cause it adds to Blofeld mystique,that if he can scare KLEBB he is a force to be reckoned with  .I also love that we dont actuallly SEE Blofeld beyond his hands stroking his cat  ,and yet personality wise we get everything we need to know (That and his deep commanding voice which I LOVE ) .We also get Kerim Bey who is hands down the BEST Bond sidekick ,he is so lovable and charming,it’s hard not to like him.Connery is excellent  as usual ,all the action is awesome including Bond evading a helicopter ,a climatic boat chase,an encounter with a deadly piece of footwear,and a absolutely brutal fight between Grant and Bond on the Orient Express .If I have one  complaint I am not that fond of how the Bond Girl Tatiana  is written but  Daniela Bianchi does a good job .Overall this is a great movie  

1.On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

This is my favorite Bond movie .It is at it’s core a love story and a damn good one .Diana Rigg steals this entire movie as Tracy  ,she is the best Bond girl .Telly Savals is charming ,intelligent ,but also tough as hell as Blofeld ,he is my third favorite Bond villain  and hands down my favorite Blofeld .I think the film contains one of the best evil plans (And surprisingly relevent over 50 years later ),Irma Bunt is a terrific henchwoman ,Gabriele Ferzetti is  entertaining as Tracy’s criminal father Draco ,Louis Armstrongs We Have All The Time In The World is a terrific love song  ,I love the setting of the Swiss Alps ,the film somehow makes a BOBSLED chase badass ,and the ending  is unforgettable .Now the one common complaint people have is George Lazenby ,and while I agree he isnt great ......He is a good Bond ,and he hits the dramtic  notes when he needs to .I adore this movie and reccomend it to non Bond fans  even

[murphystartedthefire]

Okay it’s been some time, I’ve had some days,

MEMORI FINALE DISCOURSE ANONS LET’S GO

My feelings are mixed! They really are. My overwhelming finale reaction was “huh, I guess that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been” followed by a long, numb, aching feeling in my chest, followed by peace, followed by “they can still grow babies on Bardo though, can’t they?” (that’s a side conversation)

So I’m not telling ANYONE else how to feel, because I’m still sorting my own feelings out. I certainly appreciate that this is a hard ending to swallow for Murphy fans who don’t like Memori. Remember, even for you it’s not as bad as it could’ve been since he’s alive and happy and with everyone else at the end!! But the way he got there basically by accident and was otherwise 100% gonna choose death over living without Emori as the final culmination of his story... not everybody’s gonna find that super romantic and beautiful, especially if you’ve felt for seasons that Murphy’s Epic Love For Emori is not your favorite thing about his character, or you actively think their relationship is unhealthy, toxic, etc.

(I promise I’m only gonna yell SHE’S MADE THAT CHOICE TO SACRIFICE HERSELF AND DIE WITH HIM TOO once. I’ll just say it once. I needed to get it out of my system, it’s my tumblr. I know it’s not the same because they survived all those situations. Then again they also, incredibly, survived this one.)

As someone who does love Murphy’s Epic Love For Emori? And expected it to play a big role in the end of the show, but never imagined it happening like this? Yeah, it got me. It made me cry. It’s making me cry now.

Murphy and Emori are THE love story of “The 100″ for me, the way normal(?) shippers felt about Bellarke or Clexa. Without them I wouldn’t have made this sideblog or ever engaged with this fandom. Without them I would have stopped watching the show pretty early in season 6, if not earlier. I’m not going to act like this conclusion to their arc wasn’t *extremely validating* and emotional for me.

If I have something to criticize about this ending (pre-transcendence epilogue), it’s really a problem that was built up long before the finale and especially in this season. I wish they weren’t so isolated. I wish Emori wasn’t basically the only thing Murphy valued or made his life worth living, ‘cause that was never fair to either of them. I wish their love had made them stronger and more connected to others, instead of constantly just anchored to each other, dead or alive.

“The 100″ might’ve been better overall -- certainly more watchable for me -- if they were part of it and not on a whole other show sometimes. On the other hand, my lizard brain only wants to see them together, so being the center of each other’s world to the very end, to the point where they’re SHARING ONE UNCONSCIOUS BODY, only makes me ship them harder. It’s a double-edged sword.

The whole mind drive thing... you don’t have to think it was the right choice or the healthy choice, even. You just have to get that it was Murphy’s choice, and completely on brand for him. He never wanted to just ‘survive’ if it meant losing her. It was an insane gesture that he committed to with every fibre of his being.

Look, once the mind drive was in Murphy’s head -- once Emori was dead, honestly -- there was no “good” way for it to end. I felt that viscerally as I was watching the episode. (Yes, yes, pre-epilogue, I was proven wrong by magic and aliens.) Murphy could stay in there and die with her, or Emori could push him out and convince him to let her go. He’d still get to say his last goodbyes with her, but she could more firmly insist he needs to move on -- I briefly wondered if that’s how the scene would end.

But I wouldn't BELIEVE Murphy moving on and letting go. I've said in like 20 different posts that the ending I wanted LEAST was for Emori to be killed and shatter Murphy’s soul and force him to be alone. (Not least because holy hell I didn’t want to watch a WOC violently fridged for his survival and character growth.) The second-worst ending to me would be him dying and her surviving.

It wouldn’t work without another full season (at least!) of Murphy coming to terms with Emori's death and finding SOME way to cope and be happy again, which of course in the real world I’d think was possible. In the world of fiction, we didn’t have time for that, and to rush him to the Acceptance stage of grief would be completely unearned.

Seeing Emori all bloody and contorted and glassy-eyed on that table while Murphy falls apart was... so, so fucking awful in a way that’s going to haunt me for a long time. I made a gif set with ONE shot of her in it, and it was somehow the LEAST upsetting one and still like the worst thing I’ve ever put on my blog. It didn’t need to be as ugly and graphic as it was. It did not need to linger on her body that way. But I think *why* they made it like that, besides sadism and shock value, is so even the audience felt his need to undo it and not have that be our last memory of her either.

So yeah... on a gut level, on a story level, it was so satisfying IMO. The goddamn tear of relief and fulfillment falling down his face when he’s holding her again, and he never has to let her go for the rest of his short life. The way that every other Memori scene has led to this. I’ll love you forever, even if we die today. To the anon who asked if you’re a bad person for liking it? You’re a human person responding in the intended way to a love story!!

I like a whole lot of tropes in fictional romances that aren't great or admirable in reality. Is this particular form of attempted “suicide” -- where doing it LITERALLY allowed him to reach her in the mindspace and see the light in her eyes again and spend their last hours/days together in a happy place -- likely to spawn any copycat behavior or ideation? I doubt it, certainly not as much as other triggery crap they’ve done on this show. I'm willing to not worry too hard about whether Memori are Setting a Good Example for how people should react to a loved one's death, and instead be like "Hell yeah those two deserved to go out like Romeo & Juliet, and then be brought back to life just as a bonus anyway.”

It's not REALISM and should not be TREATED as realism, but it was a perfect end to an iconic TV romance where they never could live without each other. That’s where I stand on it right now.

[boasamishipper]

all the top gun Kids™️

i have decided to answer this for all of my top gun faves, i apologize in advance if this is not what you meant lol

maverick mitchell

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | Someone Please Give Him A Hug

listen you already know i love maverick mitchell but i Really Really Love Maverick Mitchell with all my heart and i HATE that people refuse to see him for the three-dimensional character that he is (and that tom played him as). he’s determined and confident and has every right to be, he’s a badass pilot, but i love his character arc about learning how to be a team player. i LOVE his relationship with goose and carole and baby!bradley (and ice, in any capacity) and i am so ready for said relationships to Destroy me in the sequel. (also when mav is Sad i am Sad, and it looks like he has had even more to be sad about btwn tg1 and tg2. what happened to you mav. what did they do to you. mcq if u do not give this man a happy ending a hug and some therapy i swear to GOD-)

iceman kazansky

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive (i refuse to consider otherwise) | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

the fact that ice is as much of an ensemble darkhorse / breakout character has everything to do with val kilmer (whom i also love) being a fantastic actor, bc lets be real the script did not give him a lot to work with here. i love his hair and his face and his very pretty eyes (whose color i can STILL not discern after many rewatches) and his absolutely warranted confidence in himself (and as a pilot). i love that he isn’t afraid to call mav out for being unsafe (srsly, he is the Only Sane Man in this entire movie) but appreciates mav’s outside the box / ‘dangerous’ thinking as his wingman. he’s got a big heart (as evidenced by the 'i’m sorry about goose’ scene) behind those ice cold walls, and i cannot WAIT to see how his relationship with mav has grown by the time the sequel is finally released. give me respected admiral iceman kazansky or give me death. if they kill ice off i AM disowning canon mcq, do you hear me.

goose bradshaw

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | rip cinnamon roll too good for this world

i love goose SO FUCKING MUCH, every bit of him, from the not-at-all-regulation mustache to the bad jokes to the country-fried southern vibe to the singing and piano-playing to how much he respects and cares about mav (and how much mav respects and cares about him in return). his relationship with carole is my favorite thing on this entire earth, followed closely by his relationship with mav and also his relationship with ice. (like ice really respects goose and vice versa, and they clearly knew each other pre-canon, and one of the few times ice smiles genuinely in the movie is at goose - i really wish canon gave us more goose&ice, there’s so much to analyze there.) his death scene makes me tear up every time.

carole bradshaw

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | ray of sunshine too good for this world

carole is the BEST. actual ray of sunshine in human form and also a fashion icon. i adore her optimism and kindness, even in literally the worst times, and i especially love how much she adores goose and mav. forever bitter that they didn’t recast meg ryan to play her in the sequel though i’m sure jean louisa kelly will do a good job bringing carole to the big screen. (NOT a fan of the fact that it looks like she and mav and bradley by extension haven’t spoken in a long time and i Demand an explanation, even if it’s angsty.)

bradley bradshaw / rooster

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

last we saw bradley he was a little kid who clearly worshipped his dad and by the time the top gun 2 trailer rolled around, he’s the spitting image of his father, serious and determined to make a name for himself (with possible authority issues like young!mav, given he’s still a lieutenant in his late thirties).  i am very excited to meet him, and i’m also super excited to see his relationships with phoenix and the other pilots, and with jean louisa kelly’s carole bradshaw. (if bradley is playing great balls of fire on the piano in that one clip in the trailer i am going to just. straight up drop dead.) 

speaking of the trailers it’s clear bradley holds a serious grudge towards mav - “my dad believed in you, i’m not gonna make the same mistake” GOD. what happened btwn mav and bradley? what happened to their relationship?? (who taught him to blame mav for his dad’s death bc i hope to god it wasn’t carole - i’m leaning toward jon hamm’s character bc he seems like an asshole who does not like mav, or maybe even mav just refusing to correct bradley’s assumption bc he blames himself too.) anyway, PLEASE tell me bradley realizes he’s being an asshole by blaming mav for his dad’s death and works on repairing their relationship (and works through his own grief as well).

phoenix

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

one of the people i am most excited to meet in the sequel! i don’t know anything about her besides the info from a 2017 casting call describing her as a “fierce pilot, gifted leader, kind of a loner, eager to prove herself, who falls for bradley aka rooster,” but that is enough to make me Very Excited to meet her - ESPECIALLY if the bradley/phoenix is going to be set up like icemav, which i have a strong suspicion it’s going to be, complete with height difference. (phoenix: *does anything*, bradley: top me top me top me.) also, a potential mav&phoenix father/daughter relationship????? Sign Me The Fuck Up. this movie is just going to end with me in tears and with custody of seven or eight new children.

fritz

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

listen apparently he is just a cryptid because we only know his name and i THOUGHT he was gonna be a main character since he was one of the first to get named, but we have only seen him on the periphery of some scenes in the trailers, even after all this time, so now i kinda doubt it. but he is played by the gorgeous manny jacinto and he and bradley sat near each other once so i am assuming they are friends in some way, and also my headcanon of him as amy santiago trapped in the body of jason mendoza has made me love him very much. pls don’t kill him, canon. also pls @ manny and mcq and kosinski give me SOMETHING to work with here lmao. 

hangman

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

look. i know mcq and co are probably going to set up hangman vs rooster to be like mav vs ice, enemies/rivals to friends, but honestly, i’m not all that here for it??? i do like that from his callsign alone, hangman is probably going to be a darker version of ice (less kind, more focused on the job, maybe more like charlie than like ice if that makes any sense at all) and his rivalry with bradley is already clearly a lot more heated than mav’s ever was with ice. anyway, glen powell is an excellent actor, so let’s hope he makes hangman a 3d character in his own right and not just an iceman expy. 

payback, fanboy, and bob

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

i’m already lowkey shipping payback/fanboy and i love bob for looking like a dorky 21st century radar o’reilly, but honestly, not super on the edge of my seat to meet these guys. i do want to know whose WSO bob is - my guess is phoenix’s since they were sitting next to each other at one point, but he could also be hangman’s - and my worry is that since he’s the only named WSO right now, they could very well Pull A Goose and kill him off in a training accident. (i hope not since i don’t want a complete canon redux, but it would definitely be angsty.)

put a fictional character in my ask box and i’ll rate them accordingly

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Why Early One Piece Remains So Magical

  If you go back and rewatch episodes from One Piece's early years, there's a vibe that can best be described as "breezy." Not that the series doesn't have its emotional, heartbreaking moments (it has a bunch) but there's a sense of meandering delight. You know when you wake up in the morning on a day that you have all to yourself? That feeling of "Well, what am I going to do today?" That's the feeling I'm talking about. Early One Piece has a lot of that.

  First, I should clarify that when I talk about "early" One Piece, I don't mean specifically pre-time skip. I actually mean the story up until about when the Going Merry gets its viking funeral. The adventure up until that point had been full of hints and nods and little tangents about where it could go, but it's when Garp arrives, reveals his connection to Luffy, and then basically lays out the schematics behind how the world works and who the Emperors are that suddenly One Piece begins to fall into line a little bit.

    For me, that's where early One Piece definitively ends. I'm not saying that the stuff to come after it is worse in any way. Far from it. There is so much joy and cool stuff to be found in arcs like Thriller Bark and Sabaody and Marineford and Whole Cake Island and Wano. One Piece is still an engaging, enrapturing story, and I sincerely doubt that I will ever quit it. It's just a different kind of story.

  A lot of this has to do with how the series allocates its goals. In early One Piece, the main overarching goals are "find the One Piece" and "ensure Luffy becomes King of the Pirates," and both of them are approached very loosely. There's a real "We'll get there when we get there" attitude. In fact, most of the major arcs from this time period — Arlong Park, Alabasta, Enies Lobby — don't take place due to any grand plot machinations. The story does not push them to the forefront. Rather, they happen due to the Straw Hat Crew wanting to take care of one of their own. They are the main thing going on, yet they are totally character-based, and in that way, almost happenstance. Luffy does not strive to take down Arlong or Crocodile or Rob Lucci. Rather they get in the way of his beloved crew member's happiness, and he can't abide by them.

  Also yes, Vivi is a Straw Hat. 

    Fast-forward about 15 years and we're dealing with the team-up to take down Kaido and the discovery of the Poneglyphs. These have personal ramifications, but they're very narrative-based. Definite things in the plot will happen when they are completed. For me, this is exciting in, again, a different way. For a long time, the Straw Hat Crew was kind of aloof to their accomplishments. They stopped a warlord from over-throwing a kingdom and released a sky nation from the grips of a megalomaniacal tyrant and declared war on the World Government just so Robin could live freely. Then they sailed away like "Yeah! That was fun! Break out the meat n' booze!" Now, they're very aware of their impact on the world. They are major players who recognize their roles.

  In the first Wano opening "Over The Top," the wonderful Hiroshi Kitadani croons, "I have to get there because I want to get there first." But in "We Are!", the first-ever One Piece opening, he sings, "Compasses and such will only hold us back." Obviously, I doubt this was deliberate, but it's kind of indicative of the aims of these two sections of the One Piece timeline. One is about explicitly getting somewhere. The other is about getting somewhere ... sort of.

    Of course. none of early One Piece would be possible without the talented folk behind it. Having previously directed on Sailor Moon, series director Konosuke Uda oversaw the series until midway through the Enies Lobby arc, during a time when the character designs were often less formal than they are now. Noboru Koizumi's beautiful characters seemed to burst with enthusiasm and feeling, their faces tailor-made for the expressiveness required of the series.

  The late Michiru Shimada worked on many scripts and her work remains consistently underrated for just how well she translated Eiichiro Oda's big character moments to the screen. Nami's "Help me?" Luffy waving the flag for Wapol and Chopper to prove that it didn't break? Zoro declaring that he will never lose again after his loss to Mihawk? Shimada had a hand in turning all of these from unforgettable manga scenes to unforgettable anime scenes. 

    Meanwhile, directors like Hidehiko Kadota, Junji Shimizu, and many others ensured constant energy. And finally, you had Shiro Hamaguchi, who after composing the score for a little game called Final Fantasy VII, gave One Piece its iconic music. Early One Piece is full of wonderful anime creators and I implore that you look them up and see what they each bring to the table.

  I think early One Piece's mix of playfulness and amazingly touching emotional moments is why it remains so rewatchable for me. At the point of this writing, it's almost 1,000 episodes long. Under most circumstances, that would be too high of a hill to climb. But those first few arcs present a world I want to be in, a world so comfortable and exciting that the episode number doesn't matter anymore. It's a testament to their power that so many fans have stuck around this long. Early One Piece, y'all. There's just something about it. 

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[coolgirl]

Jason expert rate Jason’s designs

sorry for being late i was busy with school but now i’m free so to celebrate. jason indulgence.

pre-crisis not robin

very cute. i like that it has a lil more of flair to it? the collar and the lines on the gloves and the shorter cape.. also love it has pants. king rlly king. wonder if they already knew he was gonna be robin anyways or if they were still considering nightbird. anyways, 8/10 bc its cute

pre & post-crisis robin (bc its basically the same)

i mean its a classic.. however it reminds me jason was the only robin who was simply given dick’s clothes rather than like. have an unique look? which sucks. 7/10 middle child syndrome is REAL

post-crisis robin (winter edition)

OKAY NOW THIS. i absolutely love. is it tacky? oh yes without a doubt. i still love the pants and the sleeves. finally winter clothes for this child, especially considering his new titans scene where he was bitching about the costume not being snow proof. he got what he wanted! 9/10

new 52/rebirth costume by

EPIC. IDC I LOVE IT.the circles on his arms and his boots.. the lines on his legs.. i just love it. i love the red mask too… it feels.. not more unique, but feels more jason-y than the other costume. 10/10

NOW. onto older stuff

hush

as u can see im VERY confusion about the pouches and the straps?? why??? whats the purpose.. generally its fine. the white strand moved a nation and i think the chest piece is cool, but everything else.. uglee. like the long as hell jacket and him looking 40 years old like why r u 19 looking like fifty? ugly white man. 5/10

winicks/utrh version

LITERALLY A CLASSIC. i love this costume sooo much. like jason obviously grew out of it, as in it wouldnt make sense for him anymore to go with something like this as his main costume because i feel like this fit the utrh mood (him not veing a vigilante/hero/villain whatver but trying to be a mob boss n shit) and it just. fucks. i love the helmet just being plain with no stupid mouth or nose shape. i simply love it. 10/10

nigthwing

its just. its just the nightwing costume. didnt even try he just stole that from dick. he still rocks it and looks better than dick, and u gotta give him points for accessorizing with his dagger. 7/10

red robin 

im not. a big fan of this costume.. i think the cowl is ugly, it just does not work for someone as big as jason… however i do like why he took this mantle and what it meant.. 6/10 no words head empty. 

oh brother. furryman

ITS SUCH AN UGLY COSTUME. muzzle batman walked so muzzle red hood could run. its just. ugly like ugly. i dont like the ears or again the muzzle or whatever the hell is going on in the arms.. its just so edgy. 5/10

WANNA KNOW WHAT A SEXY EVIL BATMAN COSTUME LOOK LIKE?

Injustice 2 batman

I2 HAD IT IN THE BAG BABY. i like that its like classic batman costume but again! with some jason touches! the red eyes, the electric tiddies making a comeback.. epic genuinely epic. 10/10

and if ur not into evil jason

100% dad ‘i have my life figured out’ batman jason 

just like the nightwing costume this is just. batman costume. nothing special or different from it so its like did u even try? BUT in this scenario it actually means smth that he stuck to bruces costume.. sweet.. but boring. 7/10

speaking of. evil ugly designs. ugh i hate this.

this motherfucker

ive never. ever. felt as humiliated by a costume than thetime jason wore this. like MORTIFYING RLLY. its DISGUSTINGGG. the helmet shape. the fucking WHITE. the SKULL PLEASE WHO DESIGNED THIS WHO HATES ME IN PARTICULAR SO MUCH??? THIS MAN DOES NOT FUCK! HES UGLY! HE STINKS!!!! the red guns are epic that much i can say. LOOK AT THOSE PANS GOD ITS SO HUMILLIATING. 0/10 WORST COSTUME EVER.

HOWEVER. winick and the artist spun GOLD from it, because next time jason wore possibly my favorite costume to date

this motherfucker…2!

like look how much better it looks with a little of swag.. the helmet without eyes.. the belts.. the fucking leather jacket.. keeping the red guns/gloves.. like seriously i dont know a better man. the skull is still awful and i wouldve replaced the white for black and MWAH best costume. like the black part at the top make it all red and the white make it black.. god this jason fucks massively i love him. 11/10 my favorite by a landslide perhaps

new 52/rebirth red hood

OKAY I KNOW theyre slightly different (rebirth has shorter sleeves and a more padded look) but to me its like. same thing. okay i think its.. fine. its not phenomenal but its not ugly.. i like the brown jacket more than the black jacket i have to admit, its more distinctive and i simply like the color more, however i do not.. like jason having the bat symbol.. but thats also a me thing about how badly written this is. anyways. the helmet with the mouth disgusts me and everytime its drawn like that its humilliating. like. 7/10. maybe 7+. when it has the mouth or like nose ANY FACIAL EXPRESSION RLLY its a 5. 

wingman

oh i absolutely despise that helmet. he looks like fucking. terminator. its the ugliest shape ive ever seen and the visor is.. huge. i dont like the shoulder pads either idk what the fuck its going on with the thing around his neck either.. like hes. knockout batman and i HATEEE IT. damians costume slaps tho. i just… its… ugly. like.. 3/10. 

get damian back arc red hood costume

oh im a HUGE fan of this design.i love how his costume is designed in a way thats like. if jason was a dnd character he absolutely would be a tank. the padding, the red undertones everywhere, i just.. love it. i like how all the costumes were done to reflect their personalities you know.. i like this robin red hood hybrid. 9/10 would even say 10/10 bc i just enjoy how gleason draws jason.

red hood/arsenal costume

its like. i dont hate it completely (i love the way the hood+helmet looks) and thats.. yeah thats pretty much all i like about it. i HATEEEE the vest i hate it fr.i hate how huge the sumbol is and idk this costume just does not spark joy. 5/10

outlaw costume

okay this one. this one drives me insane. because like. okay i dig parts of it. i like the lack of sleeves. i like the gloves thingies. i like the hood. i could get aboard him ditching the helmet - it breaks all the damn time anyways. i like the stripes on his pants in the boots. ALL SEPARATE? NEAT. now i hate. hate. the muzzle. like WHY IT LOOKS SO UGLYYY LIKE SO UGLY like unless the artist GETS IT and is SEXY it looks awful. look at this

AWFUL. also like it made sense for when he was on the run and he had to make do and assemble a costume from what he had but like now hes sponsored by lex, get that man a goddamn new suit already please. anyways. 6/10.. like i said i like many elements from it but its still.. kinda ugly all together and depends A LOT on the artist.

three jokers

im torn on this one.. i think its a bit boring.. i dont rlly like the top part, it reminds me SOO much of that one tt issue where he beat the fuck out of tim while wearing a robin costume like i understad the implications of him wearing a costume thats similar to the robin blouse but im not a big fan.. also i prefer the brown leather jacket. its like not his worst costume by far but not the best.. like pretty basic?  i would say 6/10

NOW SOME AUS.

tiny titans & lil gotham

okay these two are like. pretty much the canon versions of robin and red hood HOWEVER they both have details that are different from the original version and DESERVE a mention. the curls on robin jason and jasons red gloves/belt are ICONIC. whoever designed them knew what they were about, so 10/10 best bapy jason.

arkham knight

does the person who designed this know how much theyve done for the lgbt community? i hope they do. i love.. a lot about this costume. i love the ears, i love how techno it is, i love the layers to it.. im.. not a big fan of the whole military thingy but i have to admit that applying it to the design itself is kind of neat.. i love the colors too and how.. practical it is while being. well. kinda dramatic? the whole bat aesthetic.. yeah. i love it. 9/10

arkham red hood

this one.. when u think about it the outlaw version is VEEERY similar to this one: the pants, the hood, the jacket eve. however i like this helmet so much more, i have a weakness for eyeless (??) helmets.. i like the little details of it as well, i remember that pic going around of it being held together with like. fuckign stitches and bandaids. legendary. i love this look, i would say 9+/10

injustice 2 jason

okay gonna go ahead and say it: not a big fan of the helmet. it looks like.. a bug? the lenses do not spark joy. this bitch has many styles and like toners etc and i will no rate them all. i think its a pretty basic design, not the best but not the worst either. like if it was an exam i would make them pass but make faces at what im reading like eeehhhgh. 7/10.

hag jason

middle one is like literally, on the outside and superficial level, just. his usual costume. the jacket and the grey kevlar and the bat. now the gloves are sexy as hell.. and in the whit ebackground one u can appreciate the under costume better and i really like it?? i just.. like the design. I HATE HOWEVER the bat helmet. WHY IS IT HOLLOW?? BITCH HELLO?? AND THE BATMAN SYMBOL DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! and i like things making sense!!!. we will not talk about jason in this book. like.. 8/10. maybe 9 if im feeling it.

hag jason 2: the hagger and the furious

hes just.. a little old man.. he cannot change this.. i like this design. i like seeing jason grow old. wish it wasnt in this context. my father rlly. 8/10

—-

am i forgetting any jays.. i wont do all animated robins because they all look the same and the one that doesnt i do not like. SO HERES my thoughts..

[justanalto]

#parting shot

my shoulders are feeling a little heavy as I write this, especially since it’s midnight on wednesday, and there’s literally less than 24 hours until the end of aos as a whole. but I was tagged by the wonderful @besidemethewholedamntime​ for the parting shot challenge, thank you! :)

With this tag game, I want to know the answers to these five (5) questions and then tag 5 or more mutuals. Wasn’t tagged but want to join? Join in ! Everyone is an essential part of this fandom! Name from @ agent.of.shield_ on Instagram ( @agents-of-fangirling ) who had a great idea to post a picture of yourself with a drink (or just a drink) and tag it #partingshot as a finale goodbye to the show (which I also am going to post tomorrow on IG).

Where were you in life when you first started to watch AoS?

I was 16 and in my junior year of high school; I was struggling to get over a guy that I’d thought I was in love with and chilling right through pre-calc. As one does. One of my best friends then (still is now, shout-out, honestly!) had introduced me to Marvel via Captain America: the Winter Soldier the year before. I was writing fanfiction like the world was going to end, I’d just made my first online friend...things were going about as well as they could for someone panicking about college way too early. AoS was in my peripheral (it had to be, I felt like, if you were writing Avengers fanfic), but it wasn’t something I was actively focused on. My dad was watching it on TV, I think, when I came downstairs to chill with him; he’s the kind of man who’ll just pick up on things from time to time, Marvel being one of those things. 

The episode was 2x05, A Hen In the Wolf House. The scene was “We have a mole, ladies and gentlemen.” Adrianne Palicki walked into the lab and my gay ass was done for. (And I didn’t even know it yet.)

Where are you now?

Six years later and a lot of revelations later, I’ve just graduated from uni with degrees in English and Communication with a certificate in film studies! I will admit, AoS dropped off my radar a little bit from seasons 4-6 because I was applying and going to uni; while I managed to either keep on track or live-watch it all, they’re not the freshest seasons in my mind because I’d back burnered it so hard. But now I’m back full-force, unemployed and anxious about this pandemic and wondering where the light at the end of the tunnel is.

I’ve made a couple more close online friends since that first one -- we’ve actually met a couple of times, and I put deciding to comment on their fanfiction that fateful night one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve been lucky to meet so many other people through this fandom as well; they’ve taught me about everything from dumplings to how to be a better writer. Some of them have even helped me grow as a person -- I look at the world and my relationships with people differently now because of them, and I can honestly say I’m thankful for it. 

I’m also a lot more comfortable in my sexuality now, which was a long journey that I wish had hurt less in some places but I’m glad I took. That’s another thing I’m thankful this fandom and show gave me -- in the early days of my coming out, when I was weathering it all, I was able to channel my energies into producing a work that mirrored my fears and uncertainties about my future rather than outwardly expressing it to an audience that had nothing to offer me but indifference.

What character development arc (or storyline in general) did you love the most?

That’s a hard one to think about, honestly, especially because my brain dropped out hard through a few seasons, but I’d probably have to say I enjoyed watching Daisy grow and change throughout the seasons. Every season, I’d think she was finally at her most badass and at her best, but by the end of the season, so much would’ve happened and she’d wind up so much stronger than she was at the beginning of it all. Her growth and change is something I feel like I can relate to on a very general level, if not that it means that we all have shit to go through that causes us to evolve. 

(Other than that, I am absolutely a sucker for Bobbi and Hunter’s arc, short as it was. Goddamned cancelled spin-off.)

What will you miss the most?

I’m going to miss the new episodes every week, honestly. At the end of every episode, everyone I know is abuzz about what just happened, trading theories and yelling about iconic lines/scenes they’d just witnessed and worrying about what’s going to happen next week. It means they’ll all be taking bets on just how bad the lighting is going to be next week, whether plot line A will ever be resolved or it’ll just be left in the wind, or fics upon fics coming out furthering character studies more deeply than I could ever hope to.

I’m also going to miss the iconic recaps that are the frickle frackles, live-tweeting the episodes along with the cast, watching the cast post accompanying Instagram photos to each episode. And while I hope this doesn’t end, I’m going to miss my friends swooping into DMs with me yelling about a random fic plot that they’ve just come up with either on the fly or while watching an episode, stimulated by the new canon creation. 

Favourite quote?

I’m absolutely awful with quotes, dammit. But one scene that I keep coming back to (it’s also conveniently located in 2x05, LOL) is Hunter to Raina: “Tiny violin’s playing, love. No one’s listening” because it’s just so snarky and Hunter. I’m also a really big fan of when he takes out the weapons when they infiltrate the summit, and Bobbi says “I love you” while May says “I don’t hate you quite as much”. Or Daisy’s “The one that looks like New Hampshire with legs...that’s D, right?”

(My favorite scene, even though no one asked, is absolutely the Spy’s Goodbye. I’ve never seen such cinematic magic. I cry every time. Honorable mention goes to “Get ready for a large file transfer.” “How large?” *filing cabinet crashes out of window*) 

tagging some friends I haven’t seen tagged yet to join me: @aleksandrachaev @nazezdha321 @brokenbookaddict @untying @faenavi and any aos fan that hasn’t been tagged yet -- this is for you and your parting shots! 

[bigskydreaming]

Lemme get the timeline right, so Dick was about 15-16 when first Teen Titans happened, then he came back to Batgirl's debut, some time later he left for college & that was the issue where Bruce is kinda teary, looking at Dick's prizes, Dick teases him a lil? Or was that golden age? Then he's recruited by Raven, NTT happens, but the firing... I'm confusing these parts. He got fired after getting shot by Joker? He was Robin then so before Jason, but was he with NTT or in Gotham?

LOL don’t worry about being confused, because it very much IS confusing thanks to so many continuities and retcons.

Personally, I tend to go with pre-New 52 timeline and then just later stories like that timeline never ended and just kept going with New 52 and Rebirth stories....with any discrepancies being like....’flashback stories’ retroactively inserted at the appropriate point in the characters’ histories. That’s just my approach though, doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.

But pre-New 52, the ages up until Dick is around 16 or 17 are pretty flexible.....you can kinda pick and choose when you view the first Teen Titans having formed because there aren’t any hard age milestones to use as a marker. So regardless of what you go with, up until Dick was about sixteen, maybe seventeen, he lived full time in Gotham with Bruce, was Robin, and ‘moonlighted’ with the Teen Titans, who in their early years were kinda more an excuse to hang out with their superhero friends rather than like....a specifically focused team.

THEN is when it gets confusing, because enter the Age of Retcons:

ORIGINALLY, pre-Crisis of Infinite Earths, aka Retcon-Palooza, Dick went on to become Nightwing while he was still on good terms with Bruce. Bruce took Jason in and adopted him, but there was zero conflict with Dick over this....in fact, at this point in the comics, Jason was ALSO an orphaned circus acrobat whose family had been friends with Dick’s family, and DICK was the one who helped him after his parents were murdered, and took him to Bruce, which led to Bruce adopting him. 

(Fun fact, and part of why I side-eye people who dismiss retcons as ‘not counting’......Jason’s extremely iconic and well-known history as a street kid who Bruce found stealing his tires......only spanned about TWELVE ISSUES. Before his death, he literally only existed with that origin for about a year’s worth of comics....as opposed to pre-Crisis, when he existed for SEVERAL years worth of comics as the plucky acrobat who adored Dick and was always doing his homework and saying “Robin gives me magic” and stuff. Fandom lives mashing these two versions of Jason together, which is fine, but they have zero problem plying his twelve issues of having grown up as a street kid for angst, while being dismissive of other characters’ retcons, and that’s right up there when talking about Things That Make Me Go HMMMM).

Anyway, so originally, pre-Crisis, Dick moved on to become Nightwing when HE was good and ready, of his own volition, because he felt he was entering a new stage of his life and wanted to reflect that. And then HE gave Robin to Jason HIMSELF, like, literally bequeathed it to him, brother to brother, with Jason being appropriately grateful to HIM for that rather than crediting Bruce with it, who had absolutely nothing to do with it other than looking on fondly and proceeding from there with Jason as his partner. Dick then transitioned to living and working with the New Teen Titans full time in New York. 

He also briefly went to college at this time, but dropped out after just one semester or one year or so......which other people often skew to make it sound like he’s lazy or spoiled or just wanted to live off Bruce’s money all of which makes me gnash my teeth, lol.....nah, he already had the equivalent of several college degrees just from growing up being trained by Bruce. Dick dropped out for one reason only: nothing he wanted to do with his life benefited from a college diploma specifically, and none of the jobs he went on to work later required one. He’s a kid who comes from a family who never went to college either because they didn’t NEED to in order to do what they loved....and Dick was no different. People love to cite that Dick was already fairly old when his parents died and that’s why ‘he didn’t need Bruce to be his parent as much specifically’ or whatthefuckever....but then they turn right around and act like he should live his life more according to the expectations and standards of Bruce as opposed to.....in keeping with his first family and their priorities and whatnot. BUT I DIGRESS.

But anyway, at this point, he mostly lived in New York and came back to Gotham every now and then to visit or to help with cases. Babs had at this point been Batgirl for some time, before he became Nightwing, but again, the timelines are messy, so the only real marker that’s important IMO is that her history with Bruce and Dick as Batgirl predates Jason joining the family, AND post-Crisis, when Jason had his street kid origin.....I think she interacted with that version of Jason maybe once?

My point there is there’s a lot of piling on the angst and pointing back to Dick as the ultimate culprit, with people making a big deal about how Barbara and others were constantly comparing Jason to Dick and resenting him for not being Dick and this made Jason’s childhood even with Bruce especially difficult....but again, nah. The vast majority of the time Babs/Batgirl co-existed with Jason/Robin, it was pre-Crisis Jason, which meant that he was on great terms with Bruce AND Dick and Dick was on great terms with Bruce, all of which means....NOBODY WAS RESENTING ANYBODY OR COMPARING ANYONE TO ANYONE ELSE, THEY ALL COEXISTED JUST FINE.

NOW.

ENTER THE RETCONS.

This is where it gets messier and more complicated, because JUST LIKE the comics retconned Jason’s origin to make him a street kid - and which NOBODY has trouble acknowledging or balancing......the comics ALSO retconned Dick’s departure from Gotham. Now it was because there was a story in which Dick was shot by the Joker, Bruce freaked out about his safety, and decided the best way to express this was by firing Dick as Robin and alienating him. Dick lingered for a few weeks, its said, in the hopes that Bruce would change his mind, but when Bruce didn’t, Dick finally packed his bags and left to go live with the Titans full time, where he became Nightwing. Its further said that this was the last contact they had for about a YEAR AND A HALF.....with Dick being the one to make the first move to resume contact.....when he found out from the papers both that Bruce had taken in a new kid (Jason) and adopted him already, AND made him Robin.

(A name which no matter WHAT origin you go for in terms of what it means to Dick, is regardless HIS CREATION, the mantle HE made for HIMSELF, and was never Bruce’s to give away, whether or not you go with the take that it was Dick’s mother’s nickname for him, or it being a reference to Robin Hood, Dick’s favorite childhood hero).

Anyway, Dick confronted Bruce about this, and Bruce basically just....acknowledged this without actually ever putting the words “I’m sorry” or “I messed up” in there, and that was Dick’s one and only ON THE PAGE interaction with Jason post-street kid origin before A Death In The Family....which occurred like two story arcs later. 

(However, something I like to point out is the issue where Dick and Jason meet after both their respective retcons, was a FLASHBACK issue. It literally starts the issue off with the caption “One year ago”.....meaning that even though Jason died only two story arcs later and we never saw Dick and he interact on the page again, that issue was deliberately scripted in such a way as to allow for a good couple years to pass IN UNIVERSE....which, IMO, is where Dick and Jason’s sibling bond and dynamic had more than enough time to form. Just because Dick was on bad terms with Bruce doesn’t mean he ever took this out on Jason, and we know from later stories that they at least interacted a few times we never saw, like when the two of them went skiing together - so while people act like they barely knew each other because Dick was never around, IMO there’s literally no reason to assume that Dick wasn’t just as good about reaching out to Jason and forming a sibling bond with him after that first initial meeting, as he later was with Tim and Cass and Damian. In fact, given how familiar Dick and Jason seem to be with each other after his return to Gotham years later, IMO the thing that ACTUALLY strains credulity is the idea that before Jason died, he and Dick only interacted a bare handful of times. Nah. That doesn’t track.)

ANYWAY. That’s how all that played out those two different times, and why there’s so much confusion, BUT I maintain a huge part of that confusion is artificially produced.....by people deliberately trying to mix and match continuities in a way that just flat out doesn’t work. Sooooooo many times over the years, we’ve heard takes on how Dick ‘quit’ being Robin and then Bruce made Jason Robin and Dick resented both of them for this, but uh.....that’s the one version of things that DIDN’T ever happen. There were two distinct ways it played out. In the first, Dick quit voluntarily, and then made Jason Robin himself, and he and Bruce and Jason were all on great terms. In the later version, (the definitive version, because just like Jason’s street kid origin, it was the retcon, yes, but it was also never refuted or contradicted, the way it would have to be to ‘reset’ canon to that earlier sequence of events/state of affairs) - but yeah, in the later version, Dick was fired, Bruce made Jason Robin, and Dick resented BRUCE for this.

But people keep trying to play mix and match so Dick both quit - thus ‘giving up his claim to Robin/theoretically having no basis to object to someone else being Robin’....AND Bruce made Jason Robin - thus getting ‘credit’ in Jason’s eyes for giving him this mantle, responsibility and trust - with Dick then resenting Bruce for giving away the thing he ‘gave up.’

And that’s so disingenuous and obnoxious, when people try and play that game. They don’t want Dick to have ‘the right’ to the same complaints they have about Jason and Tim being ‘replaced’ but they also don’t want him to get credit for giving Robin to Jason because that would imply a strong brotherly bond and connection between them, one in which Dick clearly loves his little brother, and its just....uggggggh. So annoying.

BUT I DIGRESS.

Anyway, that’s the scoop, the buzz, the happening.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1976

The X-Men, those fiery mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 97 - 102) - by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

If I ever participate in Drag Race, this will be my entrance look. (“Hear me, bitches! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am fierce! I am fashion incarnate! Now and forever, the winner of season 27!” *mugs at camera* ) (X-Men 101)

It really amazes me how quickly Claremont shifts things into high gear. One year in and he absolutely does not calm down, giving us both the Shi’ar, more Sentinels and the (motherfucking) Phoenix. SO LET'S GOOOO

You’d think that, as a telepath, Charles would be used to dreaming absolutely twisted shit, surfing everybody else´s freaky dream waves, but apparently, vividly dreaming of space is so exhausting that he needs a vacation.

To be fair, I’d be exhausted too if I dreamt of schizo space bugs on detailed splash pages. Get into it, Mr. Cockrum. (X-Men 97)

Meanwhile, Alex and Lorna have absconded to the sizzling Rio Diablo to work on their doctorates. It’s unclear what they’re studying (archaeology?) and where this Rio Diablo is (Panama, Chili, Ecuador?), but considering that Rio means River, I’m unsure whether drawing a dry dry desert is the appropriate setting. But hey, this was the pre-Google era and you’re not here for topographical nitpicking, so.

Lorna is shot by an unknown assailant and continues the long, long history of Polaris being mentally overtaken by other entities. Together with the equally not-himself Havoc, they travel back to NYC and attack the plane Xavier is boarding. The X-Men battle them, until it is revealed that these former not-quite-X-Men are in league with… Eric the Red?

Scott is all: But I was Eric the Red! Also, Eric the Red does not exist!

Xavier escapes, apparently not giving a fuck that all kinds of X-Men are demolishing the JFK airport, but the still-evil Havok and Polaris also get away. The X-Men are shook!

Some time later, The X-Men celebrate X-Mas at Rockefeller Square, where Claremont skips some steps in favour of narrative expediency. Moira and Sean are apparently in a relationship, Jean and Storm are the best of friends. It’s some pretty rough telling, not showing, but we’ll allow it, but only because the Storm/Jean-friendship is one of my favourite things.

What, you think only the movies indulged in Lee/Kirby-cameos? (X-Men 98)

Anyway, Jean and Scott are attacked by the Sentinels, who continue their trend of being way too sneaky for supersized racist robots! Xavier is kidnapped on his boat trip with super-duper scientist Peter Corbeau (seriously, he has two Nobel Prizes), while they steal away Jean, Sean and Logan in NYC. When they come to, there’s some gloating from Stephen Lang.

Jean Grey being a literal pin-up while delivering nazi-burns is such a big middle finger to everything she was in the sixties and I am here for it. (X-Men 98)

When the three kidnapped X-Men make a break for it and escape the Sentinel’s clutches, they burst through a wall, only to be greeted by the cold vacuum of space! They’re not on Earth at all: they’re on a formerly SHIELD space station! GASP! (literally)

In secret, Peter Corbeau, inventor of sliced bread, helps the X-Men back on Earth board a space shuttle, where Colossus remembers his brother Mikhail (objectively the worst Rasputin), a kosmonaut who died at the launch of another spacecraft. It’s another Future Plotline Seed©.

The X-Men dodge solar storms which sounds like a made-up contrivance but aren’t, while the Sentinels try to destroy the shuttle. In what the kids these days call a pro-gamer move, the X-Men instead ram the space station and go through to these apparently sub-par Sentinels like Magma through butter. Kurt’s showmanship and Colossus’ loyalty are highlighted, while Cyclops becomes more robotic and repressed the more Jean is in danger.

Colossus’ secondary mutation is apparently BEING THE BIGGEST DORK. (X-Men 99)

Scott almost kills Stephen Lang, but then Stephen throws his ace in the hole at them: THE OLD X-MEN? This reveal throws us right in the hallmark one hundredth issue!

And, look. Stephen, this is just a terrible plan. Instead of using most of your budget on making more impressive Sentinels, you blow half of it on making janky X-Men clones to… what? Confuse the real X-Men?

It works for a hot minute, but Kurt and Ororo quickly figure out something is wrong. This Beast, for example, isn’t hairy and this Jean doesn’t remember being in Storm’s confidence. Wolverine is the first to snap: acting on instinct, he kills ‘Jean’, proving she’s an android.

Stephen Lang, foiled by the X-Men’s logical thinking skills (which, to be fair, are notoriously unreliable), spews some hatred and accidentally blows himself up. Nothing of value is lost.

Too bad the X-Men can’t return to Earth: their space shuttle is too damaged. I actually love this: going to space is kind of a big deal for most people and the fact that the X-Men have trouble because they’re stranded in space lends them a kind of vulnerability that has been lost over the recent years. Jean steps up to the plate, herds the other X-Men into the protected life cell and assumes the pilot seat of the shuttle. This is after zapping Cyclops into unconsciousness and telling the other X-Men to kindly fuck off when they try to stop her.

As the X-Men descend onto the Earth, Jean’s telekinesis isn’t enough to protect her as she’s engulfed by solar flares. OR IS SHE?

Nothing funny. All of these panels are just beautiful. Forget those robot copy X-Men, this is why this issue is worthy of being the hundredth one. (X-Men 100)

The space shuttle crashes, rolls over JFK airport before dunking in the water. The X-Men emerge, safe, sound and very lucky and then, defying all odds, Jean emerges as the Phoenix. Fire, life incarnate, etc.

After a brief but melodramatic burst of energy, Jean collapses into unconsciousness and is hospitalized. Wolverine intends to bring her flowers (aw!), before throwing them out when he realizes the gal’s taken, establishing the X-Men’s most famous love triangle. (You can fuck right off with your Scott/Jean/Warren-bullshit.)

I’m not sure what my favorite thing is here: the absolutely bonkers everybody’s-elated-panel (special mention to Kurt’s boots and his bounce) or the subtle character beat where Kurt goes all heart-of-the-team and checks on Scott, who turns out to be not so stoic. (X-Men 101)

Charles orders all the X-Men (except Scott) to go on vacation, so he can take care of Jean. Like, Charles, you’d think they could just go hang out at the X-Mansion. Instead, they go to Ireland because Sean has conveniently inherited the ancestral Cassidy Keep.

All the X-Men dress up fancy for a welcoming feast, and it seems Kurt and Ororo are flirting? But sometimes, it also seems like Ororo and Piotr are flirting? Listen, I’m not judging: I love these polycule vibes from the early X-Men. Especially because neither Kurt nor Ororo have had particularly satisfying romantic plotlines for the past 20 years.

I’m not here to insinuate nothing, but last time I said “I enjoy being with both of you”, it ended up in a spitroast. (X-Men 101)

The soiree is interrupted by… THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH, and Black Tom, Sean Cassidy’s evil cousin. They are hired by an unknown someone to kill the X-Men! Since nobody subtle is involved, they quickly wreck the castle and everybody tumbles into the dungeons. (Local news paper reports: gay power couple harasses ill-dressed American tourists.)

This story is mostly a vehicle to tells Ororo’s backstory: Storm, one of the few who could conceivably put up a fight to Cain Marko, feels caged by the cold rocks of Cassidy Keep and is incapacitated by her claustrophobia.

Back in the USA, Charles, who’s heard Storm’s mental anguish, is furious with Scott because he doesn’t hop in a plane to save the other X-Men, even though Scott correctly points out that he’ll never get there in time if he leaves now. Meanwhile, Jean awakens, convinced she somehow brought herself back to life. Yeah, you go girl.

While the rest of the X-Men fight the evil duo in Ireland, Claremont tells Storm’s backstory in a few gorgeous spreads.

“I could write a novel about Storm’s backstory.” “You get two pages.” “Deal.” (X-Men 102)

Another classic comics trope appears here, where family members are immune to one another’s powers. I have no idea how Black Tom is immune to Banshee’s sonic scream - he has ears.

Does Black Tom just have a voice in his ears going NEENER NEENER NEENER when Sean screams? (X-Men 102)

When Storm finally pulls herself back together, it’s too late: the Juggernaut has pummeled the other X-Men into a paste and she also falls to his onslaught. IS THIS THE END OF THE X-MEN?!

Other things introduced this year:

Kurt’s image inducer, which he abuses to look like Errol Flynn. (I would abuse it to look like an amalgam of Milo Ventimiglia (ca. Gilmore Girls) and Timothée Chardonnay. OR like Emmy Raver-Lampman.)

The fastball special!

All kinds of name confusion: Lorna is Polaris, Havok is sometimes Havoc and Piotr becomes Peter.

Best new character: Phoenix. Hit me with that iconic shit.

What to read: The Stephen Lang arc is not fully necessary, just read issue 100 and 101. Don’t skip issue 102 if you want to know all about Storm’s past.