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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years ago

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Michael in the Mainstream: The Dark Knight Trilogy & Its Negative Impact on the Superhero Genre

Superhero movies have come a very long way in the past couple of decades, cementing themselves as a genre unto themselves rather than the odd action movie here or there. Almost every year a few new ones of varying quality pop up that incite equal parts excitement and derision. It’s definitely a genre people feel very strongly about, but even people who tend to not love superhero films will admit that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is fantastic.

From 2005 until 2012, Nolan reinvisioned Batman in a way that grounded the character in reality. There’s no fantastical elements, there’s no insane science, there’s no superpowers… Everything in these films could happen in the real world. In a post-Batman & Robin world, this was seen as a breath of fresh air, and the critics loved it. In particular, The Dark Knight helped to usher in the modern age of superhero films, releasing the same year the MCU kicked off and widely being hailed as one of the greatest films of all time. That’s right, not even superhero films, films period. These films were impressive, groundbreaking, and… they fundamentally ruined superhero movies for quite a while.

Look, I don’t particularly hate these films. I think all of them are pretty good, in their own ways. But they have a lot of glaring issues that really hamper them a fair bit and yet, somehow, they became the blueprint that studios decided to look at for what they thought a successful superhero movie should be. Nolan’s films are serious, brooding, dark, and lack the whimsy and creative insanity that makes comics such a fun and engaging medium, and I think this right here is what has hurt comic book movies the most over the past decade. These are films that feel absolutely ashamed to be comic book movies, and they desperately want to seem like they’re “mature” and for “adults.” And, unfortunately for the rest of us, this shame translated over into a lot of other films, something we’re only just now recovering from.

Looking at the greatest strength of the trilogy shows this issue pretty well, that being the villains. Nolan’s films gave us truly iconic portrayals of characters like Bane, Joker, and Scarecrow, and you’re not gonna hear me say much bad about them. Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Aaron Eckhart, and Heath Ledger all do fantastic jobs as the insidious rogues of Batman. But the issue I have is that by grounding these characters in a realistic setting like this, it kind of misses the point. Joker isn’t using exploding cakes and laughing gas, Ra’s al Ghul isn’t an immortal warrior, Bane isn’t a drugged-up super soldier… They’re all just Guys. They’re Guys With Gimmicks, yes, but at the end of the day they aren’t what should be looked at as the be-all, end-all of the character’s portrayals.

And yet everyone acts like no one should ever play Joker again, because Heath Ledger’s Joker was just so good, guys! And he was good, but I don’t think Ledger’s Joker should be the absolute final Joker ever. Quite frankly, I prefer Phoenix’s Joker, because even if that version is also in a rather grounded film missing the overt weirdness of comics for the most part, he still dresses in a colorful costume, acts weird, tells jokes, and is in general more Jokery. Out of all of these villains, I think Bane and Scarecrow at least come within the ballpark of being close to how they should be, but Scarecrow is horribly underutilized and Bane is given a rather undignified sendoff.

Then there are the bigger issues. Batman himself is really downplayed throughout the trilogy, getting fairly little screentime compared to villains and side characters. This was a huge point of contention when The Dark Knight Rises came out, with most of the film featuring Bruce Wayne, and in hindsight it highlights how unwilling Nolan was to engage with the comic book trappings of what he was adapting. I like Christian Bale a lot, he’s a great actor, but I don’t think he really carries any of the films; in fact, it’s usually the villains carrying the movies. Bale is certainly not as bad as Val Kilmer in the role of Wayne/Batman, but he’s no Keaton, he’s no Clooney, he’s not even an Affleck. A lot of the time, he also just feels like… a Guy. And Batman should not ever, ever just be a Guy.

But perhaps the most egregious fault of the films is what it did to Gotham City itself. In Burton’s films, you really get a feel for the Gothic atmosphere of the city with how it’s designed, and this goes for Batman: The Animated Series too. And even the more cartoonish, colorful Gotham of Schumacher’s films pops and leaves an impact. But Nolan’s Gotham? It’s very much just a City. There is nothing distinct about Nolan’s Gotham, it’s literally just a generic city, and if you even have the faintest knowledge of Batman you will know that Gotham is not just a city. Gotham is pretty much a character itself, a dark, imposing landscape in which Batman does battle with his costumed foes. Every other adaptation I can think of knows to make Gotham feel unique and distinct, but this one just absolutely drops the ball. You might as well just have the city be New York if you’re going to put no effort into giving it personality.

And that all brings me to this: every reviled superhero movie of the past decade, from F4ntastic to The Amazing Spider-Man to Dawn of Justice, all have their genesis in Nolan’s trilogy. He laid the groundwork for these films to exist, and a large majority of the blame needs to be put on Nolan for sapping the fun out of comic book movies. Now, to be totally fair to Nolan, he’s not entirely responsible for what happened to the comic book film landscape; prior to him, the X-Men film series was giving all of the heroes dark costumes and being a bit more serious. But despite those films playing a bit of a part, there’s one major reason I don’t fault them nearly as much: The X-Men films never once felt ashamed to be comic book movies.

You have to understand, people loved grit and edginess in the 90s and had just violently rejected Batman & Robin a few years prior to the original X-Men film, so it’s hard to really fault it for wanting to avoid being too campy. But much like Blade, the films never tried to act like they weren’t still crazy comic book films. Scott still has eye lasers, Mystique is still blue, Nightcrawler looks like a demon, there are Sentinels and Apocalypse and even Dazzler shows up at one point! The X-Men franchise wasn’t always good, but it managed to balance between being silly and taking itself seriously pretty well for the most part. Magneto is still a Holocaust survivor, his relationship with Xavier still has impact, there are still emotional moments here and there, but then you also have Deadpool movies and the multiple comic book style retcons to the timeline that leave the continuity a mess, and something about that just feels right. And all that makes Logan less egregious despite being the sort of brooding, angsty superhero drama Nolan would make, because even if it is those things, it still centers around a dude with metal claws coming out of his hands trying to stop his best friend from wiping out everyone with psychic seizures. Nolan could never make this superhero film.

Nolan’s films, on the other hand, did. These films did not feel like they wanted to be comic book movies, they felt like they wanted to be serious crime films but Nolan was stuck with Batman so he just mashed the two together. And honestly, I’d probably be more forgiving if it weren’t for the hugely negative impact these films and their critical success had on the superhero genre even until this day. The first decade of superhero films as a major contender in cinema were colored by these films. People outright balked at silliness in superhero movies for quite some time, with a lot of criticism levied at the early phases of the MCU for being too goofy; in fact, at times it seemed as if the MCU was going a bit too far in the goofy direction without striking the proper balance, with films like Age of Ultron having most of its tension defused by constant wisecracks. And on the DC side, Nolan’s grounded approach lead to Zack Snyder’s flaccid filmmaking with dark coloration, moody atmosphere, and not a shred of joy to be found. Nolan is essentially the peak of dark, grounded superhero films, and Snyder is the nadir, but Snyder’s awful DC films wouldn’t exist if not for Nolan.

It was a slow crawl getting to what superhero movies should be. Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man were films tossed out only when Marvel was certain they could take risks, because absurd concepts like those would just not have been able to survive if not for years of good will beforehand. That’s not even getting into some of the more bonkers elements of later films, such as Ego the Living Planet and basically everything about Doctor Strange. In fact, Doctor Strange, for all its issues, is still a massive step forward for a genre that outright rejected magic for a long time, instead for a time turning Thor and his costars into a cast of hyper-advanced aliens, with later films having to clarify that there is magic and zombies and so on. The recent WandaVision was able to further clarify this by making Wanda unambiguously magic and not an evil Nazi science experiment.

Superhero animation didn’t suffer quite so much, but that’s mostly because, much like comics, animation is still seen as “kid’s stuff” by way too many people. And even then, they didn’t escape the shadow of Nolan totally unscathed; one need only look into the infamous Bat Embargo, which limited Batman villains so there could only be one given incarnation of said character in media. For instance, the Scarecrow being in Batman Begins meant he could not appear in the animated series The Batman. This lead to such things as no Batman characters appearing in Justice League Unlimited. It was truly a stupidly frustrating time to be a Batman fan when some of his most iconic foes were relegated to only certain appearances because it “might confuse kids.”

Let me again clarify this: I mostly like the Nolan films. I usually like Nolan, though he has become unbearably, obnoxiously pretentious these days. I think a lot of elements of them are great, I feel like they mostly have strong villains, and I don’t disagree that The Dark Knight is a fantastic film. But the thing is these are only good as AU stories, as their own thing; they should not be the template every superhero movie should follow, or any superhero movie for that matter, because they lack the ability to engage with the things that make people love comics in the first place. People love wacky, off-the-wall concepts, superpowered aliens, magic, talking animals, evil living planets, alcoholic ducks, and all that fun stuff.

People desperately want the fun, camp, and wacky stuff back in comic book films, as the success of the goofier DC films like Aquaman, Shazam, and Birds of Prey as well as the success of shows like Doom Patrol in comparison to the critical and audience revulsion of Snyder’s films, with Shazam in particular giving us such bonkers concepts as an entire family of superpowered children and Mr. Mind, the evil alien caterpillar. Thor: Ragnarok and the Guardians of the Galaxy films have become some of the most beloved MCU movies despite being weird, wacky, and wholly embracing the joy of comics to the point the latter films feature Howard the Duck and the aforementioned Ego alongside bizarre characters like Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Taserface. And the thing with all of these films is that they’re able to balance the weirdness and wackiness of comics without losing sight of human emotion, moving storytelling, and drama. They’re both fun and deep, goofy and yet meaningful. This is what comics are, and what they should be, and anyone who thinks comics should be grim and gritty really needs to think about why they think an entire genre needs to be colored in with only the dullest colors.

I think what I’m trying to say here is this: Make a Detective Chimp movie, you cowards.

#Michael in the Mainstream #mitm #review #movie review #the dark knight trilog #the dark knight #batman begin #the dark knight rises #superhero movie #christopher nolan #DC

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softgrungeprophet · 4 years ago

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i liked agent venom when i read it, partially because it actually had a discernible plot and a story that wasn’t just half finished and abandoned from constant cancellations, but at the same time i hate it. i hate it so much.

i hate that flash became venom and suddenly, all of his relationships were completely erased except for like, betty and sometimes peter and that was it. mj and harry who? childhood friendship with liz? no she’s just going to... blackmail him for some reason even though they’ve known each other for literally like 15 years

i hate the agent venom origin slott wrote, i hate flash being pissy about peter confiding in MJ, who they are both friends with, because if you’re dan slott you can’t talk to girls unless you plan on fucking them, i hate how gung ho slott is about the military propaganda and the fucking american flag behind flash in superior spider-man, even though superior (a comic i don’t ever plan to read in full) actually had a good moment with flash and “peter” and flash’s tenseness in a domestic argument situation

(i also hate that that one pre-agent venom web of spidey comic could have been good, actually had good assistive devices, but then... the entire villain plot is about some Mysterious Terrorist or whatever who nonetheless congratulates flash for “constructively” letting out his anger on faceless middle-eastern soldiers, and this is played straight--disgusting)

i hate all of it even the things i like because they took a character who actually was fairly complex and flattened him into a football-loving, gun-toting, all-american patriot who loves god and his country, at odds with the previous 30 years of character development, at odds with the flash who when asked if he liked being in the army (after being DRAFTED into fucking vietnam) said that there is no liking the army, only dealing with it, and i hate every bro who thinks agent venom was the coming of the great whatever and acts like flash was completely nothing before then and that only in agent venom did he have any character when the opposite is true and agent venom trampled out every bit of nuance he had to focus on alcohol and football and nothing else (at least bunn finally put him back into a school again, had him working with youth again (andi in this case))

i hate, unrelated to agent venom, the fact that flash the complex character has been further and further stretched and distorted to have been a horribly violent schoolwide bully as a teenager rather than what he actually was--an obnoxious kid with a fucked up home life trying to fuck with one specific kid--to the point that even in the college stuff, even AFTER having “become good,” he’s the only one who gets repeatedly and purposefully excluded from official works and fan works alike because everyone thinks of him as nothing more than a bully, that every movie appearance of flash sucks except TASM (which is still barely a flutter but you can tell thought was actually put into his character by the actor himself), the fact that he’s the only living member of the friend group (because i assume gwen is dead) who doesn’t get more than a single-line mention in the ps4 game (but at least it’s positive, and i like to pretend that MJ was checking on him when she went to the veteran’s center since we know he works with veterans in the game, even if we never see him) (i still want to be able to go to coffee with mj, flash and harry all together)

i don’t like the bullying flashback in the bunn AV run (even though i liked the comic as a whole, especially with andi, and how bunn and shalvey moved away from the military stuff more toward neighborhood protector stuff), i don’t like bunn’s take on high school flash (he also wrote a different spider-man comic with high school flash a little bit before then)

i hate that flash’s growth wrt his disability, which he came to accept as a part of him that he didn’t need to find some miracle cure for, was completely thrown down the toilet so they could do their stupid supersoldier agent venom shit, which flies directly against the SPECIFIC endpoint of the stages of grief comic, which SPECIFICALLY used superserums and bionic military limb testing as the thing he did not need in his life--and then dan slott runs over like teehee here’s some bionic supersoldier military testing shit :3c

hate that he was killed for the stupidest reason by norman fucking osborn, hate that the disabled abuse survivor was killed by the man who killed one of his best friends, who abused another, who manipulated HIM, who drove him into a fucking building after force-feeding him hard alcohol, hate that norman got to “win” against flash one last time, hate that norman is now being treated as this fucking “couldn’t help it” case while harry is Actually Bad, and still, flash is what? a dream symbiote dragon? fucking stupid and i hate it, i don’t want any of it

every new thing i see about new spider-man and venom comics wrt flash makes me wish he would stay dead lmfao

but it’s not like there weren’t already a ton of bad comics about him but at the very least... i would like something that isn’t just about the Patriotic Soldier Boy who never actually fucking existed

the football thing is a really fun one--and i love that the TASM movie made flash play basketball in that movie because if you look at comics from the 60s through to the early-mid 2000s, preceding agent venom... flash stopped playing football after high school and started playing basketball instead. started doing other sports, probably stopped football because, gee i can guess who told him to play football in the first place, but somehow agent venom happened and decided that his entire life was just Football and Guns? when he hadn’t touched a football in literally like... 10 years in-universe

(TASM best live-action spidey adaptation)

there is not purpose to this rant i just needed to get all this shit out of my head

i am very On Edge the past few weeks and idk why, just ADHD brain shit I guess but everything makes me tense lately (probably why i played through 77% of the spidey game in literally four days by virtue of doing absolutely nothing else in my free time) (i’m taking a break for the sake of my hands but maybe i should go keep playing lol)

i know some people like the dragon and i’ve added it to my “flash trans” list but in the context of stories about flash over the past ten years i really am not interested, and this coming from someone who read eragon 9 times in middle school and grew up reading mostly high fantasy and dragon books. i just. don’t want it. not by the writers currently going at least. maybe if it was someone else or if i knew it would be anything more than a future of soldier boy alcohol football crap lmfao

#nadia reads comics #anyway if anyone has recs for pre-2000s issues that focus on flash i would like that #i have read the prom story though i like that one... nuance...#not interested in the hobgoblin comics either i think those fucked up his character #flash: calls sha shan a wench #me: literally who the fuck is this cause it's not flash

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davidmann95 · 5 years ago

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thoughts on the unity saga?

I had occasion to reread it fairly recently, and while distance definitely takes the bloom off the rose I still like it a lot; it overreaches in a big way but what it does accomplish is considerable.

I’m not gonna pretend its failings are negligible: its focus on Jon in the second half while yielding lots of interesting material means Clark himself ends up sidelined for a lot of this, Rogol Zaar is indeed either a total waste of potential or a big fat nothin’ depending on your perspective, all the space stuff was apparently set up in Supergirl,* and the Legion popping in at the end while not thematically out of place is ridiculously jarring. This is Bendis at his clumsiest plotting-wise, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to advocate for Unity Saga being any longer, it probably should have at least had a breather arc breaking it up in the middle. I’ll still stand up all day every day for The Man of Steel (2018) as flat-out excellent but this isn’t something that should end up on the shelf of anyone other than Superman devotees; it’s the mixed bag that pretty much all of Bendis’s good stuff that still isn’t on the Ultimate Spider-Man (with Bagley) tier is.

That being said? I’d say a solid 70-80% of this was a blast, and the first story in Superman proper that I’d call good since 2007 that wasn’t either a one or two-shot or Chris Roberson playing clean-up. Bendis gets Superman himself *exactly* right and believably pushes him to the limit of his mental and emotional endurance without breaking anything, Reis and Prado are off the goddamn charts and Brandon Peterson’s a perfect fit for the intimate sci-fi feel of the Jon and Krypton sections, there’s tons of inventive superpower-driven setpieces, #4 is the closest Superman has ever come to feeling like a shonen manga in the best way, Jor-El is used as best he can be if you’re dealing with him having been brought back in the run before yours and then he’s shuffled back offstage where he belongs, Zod is for the first time an actual character,** and even Adam damn Strange is fun to have around. And nuclear take, everything with Jon in here rules. Could I have stood for him to have a few more years before a big coming-of-age story? Totally, there was so much potential to be mined with kid Jon, but he was around for all of two years in comics that numbers wise overwhelmingly tilted towards ‘lifeless crap if not actively wretched’, so it’s not as though that was a status quo with much weight behind it. As-is it’s the experience of learning how the world really works as you grow up blown up into big mythological Superman terms, seeing the world and learning about the worst in it across spacetime and dimensions, and Jon still stays the good kid he is and in the process pulls off the only Action Comics #1 cover homage I can recall that’s actually thematically weighty instead of an empty Easter Egg. Given the time travel shit it’d be easy to bring back kid Jon, but I sure hope that doesn’t mean taking this new vision off the table, just let ‘em be weird brothers or something.

It’s that thread specifically that lets Unity Saga pull off putting Clark into a position of political power that actually feels sensible and in keeping with his priorities: it’s not a lack of faith in the people of Earth that leads to him deciding he needs to stand for them, as was rebuked in that killer speech in #2. It’s seeing that there’s no kindly galactic community waiting for them but instead just further and bloodier extensions of the exact same problems, problems Krypton and his father were both actively complicit in and possibly victims of. He’s not stepping up because he doesn’t believe in us, but because he’s coming to understand just how heavily the deck is stacked against us - both in the odds of a world figuring thing out for itself ideally and the threats said worlds can come to represent on the cosmic stage - and that not having someone standing up on our behalf isn’t going to be an option. That strong unifying concept isn’t enough to overlook the problems I mentioned, but on the whole even if it comes together awkwardly nearly every individual scene in this is still at worst pretty good, and while there’s no reason to expect Bendis is going to suddenly resolve all his problems going forward #16-18 have already extrapolated on the ideas presented here in exciting and promising ways. Sorry folks, but for now I remain the Bendis Superman liker; for what it’s worth I’ve been ambivalent at best on almost everything else he’s done for DC so far.

* The last time I fell for “this comic focusing on a side character will be about a mystery set up in the main book and will give the big answers” was Red Robin when I first started collecting comics. How could I have possibly expected that this time they’d mean it?

** Historically some of you may cite New Krypton as a counterpoint, to which I’ll say that I don’t care because I haven’t read it and almost certainly never will, but my understanding is that if New Krypton is the closest thing you have to an argument you’re on shaky ground.

#Superman #Jon Kent #Superboy #Brian Bendis #Ivan Reis #Joe Brado #Brandon Peterson #Opinion

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 5 years ago

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Peter and MJ in Far From Home

SPOILERS!

I will be talking about the movie over all but I feel given the subject matter of this blog that this aspect of the film deserved it’s own section.

Basically they did our ship a disservice.

If you ever see anyone daring to bring up the MCU movies as superior to the Raimi films and are using the Peter/Mary Jane romance as ammo against the latter shut that shit down because they don’t have a leg to stand on.

I’m not going to die on the hill of the Peter/MJ romance under Raimi being the best thing ever or there being the greatest possible chemistry there. But at least from a plotting point of view it was competently executed, at least it was believable on paper. *

In this movie it’s like they hook up because the plot says so.

And I know this because in Homecoming, Peter had a crush on Liz and Michelle was...a rude jerk to him basically and then abruptly at the start of this film BOOM Peter has the hots for MJ. Out. Of. Nowhere.

In fact he’s MORE into her than he was into Liz.**

In Homecoming Peter’s drive revolves around his relationship with Tony whereas in this film his primary motivation at first is to hook up with MJ until that goal then has to be weighed against being a hero. Chunks of the movie are dedicated to him thinking about ways to get close to her, to get her the right gift, to take her to the right place, to charm her basically. And further chunks are dedicated to the obstacles he faces to that end (namely a deep cut comic book reference from Marv Wolfman’s run which was kinda cool)*** and her gradual reciprocation of his feelings...oh and her knowing he’s Spider-Man.

In contrast Peter’s feelings for Liz weren’t nearly as big of a deal and yet somehow were much more believable.

Oh and to say the PS4 game delivered a better relationship would be an understatement. I think we all knew that was going to be the case going into this but even I wasn’t expecting the chasm to be this big. I thought we’d get a competent teen romance story if nothing else. But we didn’t even get that.

As problematic (in all the ways you can use the word) as the John Hughes movies that MCU Spidey borrows from are, they were better than this.

I think the word that comes to mind the most when looking at the handling of the relationship is ‘rushed’.

And yet ironically when they finally do get together their first kiss is awkwardly overlong. I mean maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe that was the point because they’re awkward teenagers but I think it was just incompetence.

I look at both characters and I cannot really fathom why they like one another. They just do because the plot demands it.

You can headcanon and contort the plot as you like but the end result is the film gives you nothing. They are together because...Tom Holland is the lead and Zendaya is a hot property right now I guess.

Now MJ is better than in the last movie, much more likable and less Ally Sheedy from the Breakfast Club. I guess that goes against her prior characterization but I can buy it.

She’s gone from boring and someone you could never see hooking up with Peter because she’s a jerk to him to...well someone who’s a bland goth-lite stereotype I guess but is capable of the odd compliment. Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill don’t see what either of them see in the other though. They have nothing in common and they also don’t have traits that balance one another out.

But that’s all looking at Michelle and the relationship unto itself...how does it stack up as an adaptation.

Well how should I put this?

FUCK THIS MOVIE, THIS ISN’T MARY JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t believe Mary Jane has been given the Dark Phoenix treatment of screwing up once then getting a second chance only to screw up again.

What the fuck are (the live action) Spider-Man movie’s problem with just doing the female love interests from the comics rather than mix and match elements from different characters, AUs and OCs?

At this point Betty Brant and Liz Allan have been the most faithful!

...Sigh...

Okay so first of all if you were still holding out hope Michelle/MJ might not be Mary Jane sorry you are shit out of luck. When they kiss there is a visual reference to ASM #143, their first kiss. They also never refer to her as anything other than MJ in the movie.

So she’s MJ.

And no, despite your hopes she never dyes her hair red either.

As I already made clear her personality is nothing like Mary Jane’s. Which is like disrespectful even beyond how it’d be disrespectful for any character because Mary Jane’s personality is essentially her super power.

I died a little every time she was on screen and uttered some eye roll worthy bullshit about how people died here or there or how she likes broken things more.

It’s not even that they gave her a different personality to comic book MJ’s but rather that they almost went out of their way to give her the absolute opposite personality.

Just about the only thing they sort of took from the comics was her knowing Peter’s identity, but they play it more the way it was presumed she found out before Parallel Lives was published.

It even creates something of a plothole because it’s made clear she learned because it was an obvious secret, so why hasn’t anyone else deduced this besides this cynical high schooler?

I might write more about this as thoughts come to me but that’s all I got for now.

They fucked up MJ, they fucked up the relationship. Go rewatch that fucked awesome texting scene from the PS4 game.

*Hell in a rare instance where I will invoke the Webb movies and Gweema Stoney positively, even those movies did the romance better than this. Put aside the chemistry the pair had, at least you could understand why Peter and Gwen would like one another.

**I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I feel so sorry for Laura Harrier. Not only was she a good actress delivering a likable performance and had chemistry with Holland, but you could buy her and Peter getting together even if it was a bit fanboy wish fulfillmentey. Plus their relationship was seriously plot relevant beyond just coaxing one half of the equation to be in the right place at the right time and ultimately get themselves endangered.

And what did she get for her trouble?

Publicity played up Zendaya, Zendaya gets on the posters which Harrier is wholly absent from and she isn’t even mentioned in this movie.

***On a side note that scene where the SHIELD lady demands Peter strip in front of her and get into his new costume and then Brad stumbles across them...and takes a picture that he’s going to use to prove Peter was trying to hook up with her and thus torpedo Peter’s chances with MJ...

Um....WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An adult authority member lures a minor away into a secluded area and exerts their dominance by demanding they strip in front of them. Then in a state of undress another minor comes across them and their reaction is that this is perfectly fine but they’re going to use this as ammunition to protect their romantic relationship.

Like no dude you just stumbles across a scene from a PSA about pedophiles.

Why was this scene played for cringey laughs it’s really fucked up, imagine if the genders were swapped for a moment holy shit!

#Spider-Man #Spider-Man: Far From Home #MJ Watson #michelle jones #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #mjwatsonedit #Peter Parker #spider-man: homecoming #zendaya #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #gwen stacy #emma stone #marc webb #Sam Raimi #spider-man ps4 #Spider-Man Playstation 4

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monkey-network · 5 years ago

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Good Stuff's Best of 2019

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

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

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

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

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

10. Super Mario Bros GT

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

9. DC SUPER HERO GIRLS (2019)

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

8. JOKER

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

7. TUCA & BERTIE

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

6. PRIMAL

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

5. SPINEL

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

4. MOB PSYCHO 100 II

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

3. KLAUS

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

2. BEASTARS

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

1. GREEN EGGS & HAM

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

That leads us to the actual number one which is

1. STEVEN UNIVERSE FUT-

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

Stay tuned, and always seek out the Good Stuff.

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loopy777 · 5 years ago

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Peter parkers main 3 love interests is generally accepted as Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy/Black cat. Taking your favorite/best written portrayals of each of them as a starting point, what would you say is the biggest strenghts and weakness of each of them as a permanent Romantic partner to peter on a romantic writing level, and a overarching plot writing level?

Hm, this might get complicated. I guess I’ll take it character by character.

Mary Jane

MJ is my preferred romance for Peter, and my favorite portrayals of her are the Spectacular cartoon, the Ultimate comics, the Renew Your Vows AU, and the mainline comics- in that order. (I also like Michelle from the MCU, but I don’t consider her Mary Jane Watson. Michelle just happens for share a nickname with her. For some reason.) The thing that I think helps MJ rise above the rest if that I don’t consider her to have been created as a love interest. Yes, I know, she was literally created to be the Veronica to Gwen’s Betty, but that’s the thing- she wasn’t really intended to be the winner, from what I’ve read. She was meant to be a challenge, a brief diversion, and only accidentally wound up as the winner due to the chaotic nature of comic book production.

As such, MJ has a resilience that most love-interests don’t. Even when she wasn’t dating Peter, the character was able to stick around and continue to develop. She was able to leave the narrative for a while, possibly with no intentions from the writers for her to return, and yet she did and extra layers were added to her character as a result. Even now, her marriage to Peter was sold to the devil as part of a writer agenda to make Peter swingin’ and single again, and yet she’s stuck around and the character has continued to find places in the story. What hasn’t killed MJ has made her stronger, and if she was always intended to be the Final Girl, then I don’t think she would have gotten the opportunities. Sure, it’s a messy history of character development and retcons if you look at it in detail, but that’s true for any comic book character that’s passed through multiple hands and lasted more than a decade.

Within the story itself, I like when MJ is spunky and able to roll with Peter’s life as Spider-Man. I like when her career, whether it’s acting or something else, is only a modest success if a success at all, to fit with the whole Everyman theme of the Spider-Man stories. I’m fine with her feeling stress or angst because of Peter’s heroing -- after all, Peter gets so angsty about he quits every five years or so -- but I do want her to generally buy in to the whole thing; if she’s in love with Peter, she’s in love with the dedication that makes him use his powers for others. I also like when she’s portrayed as an old hand at dealing with the superhero life and gets to meet the other heroes, despite not having powers. It can be contrived when she gets involved with Peter’s adventures, but I do think it can be a great angle, as she can provide even more of an Everyman perspective to the proceedings.

(I haven’t played the PS4 game, and I recognize that making MJ a reporter is an easy way to get her involved, but as I’ve said before, I always feel like making the Love Interest a journalist is rip-off of Lois Lane. I’d like to see a bit more creativity in such things. Personally, I someday want to pitch a ‘Mary Jane: Agent of SHIELD’ book to Marvel where she works in SHIELD’s public relations office in New York.)

In terms of personality, I think the Spectacular cartoon nailed exactly what I want. The show didn’t get to the really juicy stuff of a romance with Peter or her knowing his secret identity, but her every scene felt perfect to me and she really did add a nice dynamic to the cast. I think the Ultimate comics captured a good depiction of the character dealing with her background as an abused child from a broken household, but I think it missed the mark in the whole ‘Brainy Janey’ thing where she was supposed to be a nerd like Peter. It felt like little was done with that, and Peter still eventually emerged as smarter than all the other students anyway, so I’m not sure what the goal was. I prefer the idea of MJ putting on a facade of a Cool Extrovert to cover her angst.

Gwen

Gwen is odd to me in that I mostly know her as Dead Love-Interest Walking. The only times I feel like I’ve experienced her as a real character are the Spectacular cartoon and the Ultimate comics, and my understanding is that neither captures the character as portrayed in the comics. Comics Gwen was the acerbic rich girl who evolved in a sweet rich girl. Ultimate Gwen was a punk rock rebel with a sense of justice. Spectacular Gwen was a sweet nerd who pined after Peter. (I don’t remember much about Amazing Gwen, other than the moment of her death and her glaring dad.) All of those are a bit different, but I feel like the only thing they all have in common is that they’re a girl who Peter falls for before he eventually marries MJ.

To that end, though, I think that’s enough to define Gwen as something of a fantasy. She should be The Ideal Love-Interest, which is not to say that she should be some kind of flawless angel, but she should be what most people’s fantasy should be of a great girlfriend for Peter. She should be a smartie like him, and either be sweet enough for them to be natural buddies or else spiky enough for them to be rivals with romantic tension. Or, like Ultimate Gwen, she should be interesting and living an exotic lifestyle but Good in a way that makes her uncomplicated for Peter to love.

And, in the end, the romance with her should always fail. Perhaps due to her death, or perhaps due to other factors if we don’t want her to be Dead Love-Interest Walking. Either way, I think she should be the precursor to Peter’s true love interest, with whom he has a messier romance that eventually becomes a perfectly-fulfilling endgame. Gwen should be the person we all think we’re going to marry when we first start dating, but later comes someone else and a more adult connection where we end up with someone we never would have imagined when we were young and naive.

Felicia

I hate to say it, but Felicia should be Catwoman. She’s the naughty, slightly dangerous lady who’s super sexy and is always offering an exciting time. She’s the love interest for the superhero side of Peter’s life, a wild fantasy of leaving all the concerns about Peter behind and just being a fun adventurer all the time with a hot cat-chick by his side. But, because such fantasies are always false, there needs to be a problem with Felicia that ultimately makes her a poor match for Peter. Usually, it’s her morals, where she’s fine with theft or violent revenge or other compromises that Peter himself fights against.

Ironically, the version of Felicia I’m most familiar with is nothing like this. That’s the 90′s cartoon, of course, where she’s mostly a version of Gwen Stacy. There’s a bit of it when she becomes the Black Cat, but her grand romance was with Morbius, and my memory is fuzzy enough that I’m honestly not sure what the short-lived romance with Spider-Man was really like. Honestly, I’d look at the animated Felicia as more what to do if anyone wanted to give Gwen superpowers. XD

But as far as my ideal depiction, I like a Black Cat who’s a thief, but not a full baddie. She should walk moral line and sometimes cross over, but not in a big way. (I’m not really a fan of Dan Slott making her a full crime lord who wants revenge on Spidey, but I admit I didn’t read the storyline. I hear it worked pretty well in the Silk comics but didn’t otherwise make a whole lotta sense.) She should be flirty and sassy and clever. I like when she comes on so strongly and so quickly that she flusters Peter. And I also like when she has superpowers, because that more firmly puts her on that side of things, as compared to someone Peter could bring into his civilian life. Peter’s civilian life should always be in conflict with his life as Spider-Man, and his love-interest should always play into that dynamic.

#thekingofwinterblog

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ryanmeft · 5 years ago

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MCU Phases 4 and 5 Wishlist

Last night at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel dropped their pants and coated the audience in a thick, rich layer of big-and-small screen announcements. Briefly recapped: across Phases 4 or 5 (not that that means anything), we’re getting Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, the Fantastic Four and Blade. On the streaming front, the previously announced series were all confirmed, and in a move most probably didn’t see coming, Marvel added a series based on their often bizarre What if? Series, which speculates on what might have happened had some element of continuity gone a different way (and which has become a bit moot in the comics in an era where continuity is gleefully mixed and nixed whenever an editor wants a sales boost).

As folks might be aware, I’m not a huge fan of Disney, skipping almost all their movies, but I have a severe weakness for the MCU. There’s a lot of wish lists going around as to what we want to happen in these movies and series, but as you know if you’ve read my blog before, the correct answers are mine. Since you can rest assured these answers are the best, I graciously share them with you now. Remember, I’m never wrong.

Mjolnir Gets Retired

I am totally down with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster as the God of Thunder. There will be those who call to give her the same powers and weapons Thor had, but why would we want to do that? In the comics, she’s still Jane Foster while Thor is still Thor, and with Chris Hemsworth also in the film, there’s no reason to think that won’t be the case here. Instead of simply “Female Thor”, she needs her own set of traits and skills. Start with giving her a new weapon; a magical spear would be just right. Mjolnir got its greatest moment of glory in Endgame, and from a sheer story perspective, it is time to retire the venerated hammer.

Rebellion in Wakanda

I’m going to be in the minority on this, but: the Dora Milaje have gotten shafted in the MCU thus far. In the best of the comics, they are the king’s guard, but they are also a group of women with independent minds and goals who don’t always agree with the king. In fact, members have rebelled several times. In the movies to date, they exist to devote total fealty to T’Challa, never once seriously questioning anything he does. This is a terrible fate to befall an actor with Danai Gurira’s fire. Instead of existing merely to poke holes in things on behalf of a (male) ruler, it’s time these ass-kicking ladies got to play a more important, and complex, role.

Christoph Waltz as Doom

This idea isn’t mine, but was passed on by a friend who is clearly brilliant. There’s not much to say about this one: the actor who made his reputation playing two very different roles in Quenton Tarantino films is the perfect choice for the literally tin-plated dictator. As for the rest of the cast, Keanu Reeves is the favorite for Reed, but I have another idea in mind for him...

The Master of Time

That said: it’s about time to get Kang involved in this universe. When it became obvious that Endgame was going to involve time travel, I slapped together what I thought was a pretty good post-credits tease that would introduce both him and the Fantastic Four side of the universe. Obviously, nothing like that happened, and there were no Avengers movies or mass team-ups of any kind announced at SDCC. Yet with time travel established, the potential to bring in this reality-warping mega-baddie is always there.

Don’t Undo Iron Man 3

Yes, fans are shooting their shorts over the fact that the real Mandarin will be the villain of the Shang-Chi movie. But those of us who don’t rub the comics on ourselves regularly recognize the truth: Iron Man 3 had a great twist that was one of the few truly creative decisions in a modern blockbuster, and it would be a shame to overturn on the whim of a handful of hardliners. Have a “real” Mandarin, but keep Ben Kingsley’s washed-up, hedonistic actor on the books. Maybe even give him a cameo.

Unrelenting Nightmare

Director Scott Derickson has already said he wants to use Nightmare, a being who feeds off his namesake, in the Doctor Strange sequel, and given that it is apparently multiverse-focused (and that Strange has few interesting villains), this is probably a given. Marvel has been after Keanu Reeves for a long time; most people seem to want him for Reed Richards, but may I humbly suggest we go against the hype and cast him as a dimension-devouring trickster deity instead? As a side note, please, please follow up on Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Baron Mordo. He was the best part of the first film, and it’d be a shame to let him trail off into the ether.

Take Some Risks in Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel was fun. It was not the kind of movie that took risks, however, or blew anyone away, despite amazing box office numbers. CM will be an idol for little girls; it’s time to think outside the box, utilize the oddness of Marvel’s galactic properties, and make her next movie one that can rival the time-hopping chances DC has taken with Wonder Woman. Brie Larson needs more to do than pose heroically and hit things.

Where’s Spider-Man?

More of a question answered than a wish: a lot of people are freaking out because Spider-Man was not mentioned last night, despite a post-credits tease that’s impossible to ignore. Relax: the deal between Marvel and Sony likely just means Sony has to finalize plans and sign off on the next film before Marvel can announce it. Far From Home cracked 800 million at the box office, and the refurbishing of Spidey’s tarnished reputation by Marvel is one big reason Sony’s own dull, uninspired Venom series is now a viable money-maker. It would be the height of stupidity for Sony to pull out of the deal now; expect Spider-Man: Homeboy or whatever it is called to be announced for 2021 before much time passes.

Make What If? Truly Bizarre

As a series, What If? wasn’t always great, but it was always interesting. There are some obvious concepts they could include in the series, and probably on the top of most people’s lists is “What If Iron Man had survived Endgame?” Old Man Tony would be absolutely delicious, but we can get stranger than that. This series should be a chance to explore concepts that would never fly in a massive, internationally-marketed blockbuster movie. Think stuff like “What If Loki had been Thor?” or “What If Peggy Carter had been Captain America?” Get wild up in this.

Make Loki a Reverse Doctor Who

Loki became a far less evil, far more complex character by the time he was dispatched in Infinity War. The Loki that will star in the series, however, is the one from Avengers, before all that character development. Audiences didn’t truly and completely fall in love with him until he went from evil god of chaos to a more ambivalent trickster figure, so pulling off sympathy for this older Loki across an entire series will be difficult. The obvious answer is to make him a sort of reverse Doctor: instead of an eternally-helpful alien who influences everyone he meets for the better, he’s an alien out for himself who is gradually influenced by those he meets to be (a little) better.

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years ago

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Spider-Man: Velocity #1 Thoughts

...A little disappointing if I am honest...

I don’t want to crap all over this story because it wasn’t TERRIBLE.

But for the first all original Gamerverse Spidey story (that isn’t a tie-in to an event) this didn’t really live up to expectations.

Let’s start with the art. It was not bad and in fact, in a rare role reversal of most comic book art, the civilian scenes and characters looked better than the super hero stuff.

This take on Spider-Man though veers a little too much towards 2000s era Marvel Adventures’ look for the character. Which wasn’t baaaaaaaaaaaad...but it was also kind of geared towards looking softer and more child friendly because well...it was for kids.

This comic wasn’t, nor was the game exactly. So that look I feel is a bit at odds with the target demographic for this story.

More importantly I feel it’s a major step down from most of the art in City at War which is annoying because City at War was a retelling of something we’ve already seen. Shouldn’t the ORIGINAL content get the better artist?

Again it’s not BAD, but I just don’t feel it looks as good.

On the positive side this is a Peter/MJ tale. I’m not sure if anyone following my posts for any length of time has ever picked up on this but I am ever so slightly fond of Peter and Mary Jane as characters and as a couple. I know that might come as a shock to most of you but it is in fact true!

Anyhooo this story’s set up is a great use of their dynamic from the Gamerverse. It allows for Peter to get organically involved in the story and in turn gives a story where they get to be deuterogamists. And I say this as someone who will always defend Mary Jane’s subplots not HAVING to tie into the main superhero action of Spidey stories. But in the Gamerverse, because it’s built around a video game who’s story must serve the necessity of game play, it makes more sense for MJ to be more plugged into that aspect of Spider-Man. And thus it makes for a totally organic expansion of the game to have her rope Peter into something she is investigating.

And her scenes are quite good.

The drawbacks, and this is JUST me I admit, is that they could’ve amped up the romance a bit. It seems almost kind of...I dunno how to phrase this exactly...You know how older cartoons had a set status quo and then stuff just happened in that status quo? That’s how their relationship feels. They are together. It’s a fact...we’re not seemingly going to do much with that. I mean you could tweak the story and exorcise the fact they are dating right now.

Not that the story demands a focus upon romance stuff but I mean...that was one of the strengths of the game, and this story is more MJ focussed than anything in the Gamerverse since at least the prequel novel.

Maybe I’m just taking for granted Peter/MJ shipperiffic stories because we’ve been spoiled with so many as of late.

It’s not really a negative of the story, it’s just something I personally would’ve liked to have been in it.

Now one thing that is more of a bona fide con of the story...Peter’s characterization.

Is he hardcore out of character?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...but...

See back when I did one of these posts about Spider-Gedoon #0 I noted that there was a dissonance between how Gage in that comic wrote Gamerverse Spidey and how the game itself wrote Spidey. In the game, and this continued into the DLC stories too, Spidey was...pretty competent. He wasn’t perfect, he made mistakes for sure, but he wasn’t ever really made a fool of, he was never the butt of a joke really.

Spider-Geddon #0 however presented him as noticeably more incompetent and immature. Not to humungous degrees...but you noticed it is what I am saying.

What was poignant about that was that it felt a lot more similar to how Gage typically wrote 616 Peter whenever he was picking up Slott’s slack. The most infamous example is perhaps when he had a story with the message that Spidey is a great example to young superheroes because they look at him and know what NOT to do.

That incompetent, buffoonish slant to Spider-Man was the norm back then across most of Peter’s appearences and it went back even further to Brand New Day. BND and Slott’s run of course were major sources of inspiration for the Gamerverse’s story and Slott and Gage contributed to the story.

Off the top of my head I can’t recall that many times Hopeless has ever written Peter Parker. City at War is all I can recall.

And there wasn’t anything wrong with Peter’s characterization in City at War. But then again...it was following the game.

This is the first time Hopeless is writing Peter without the training wheels as it were. And his take feels an awful lot more like Gage’s without the training wheels, an awful lot more like Slott’s.

Not to a huge degree mind you...but when a Spider-Man battle with (at best C-lister villain) Swarm literally ends with Spider-Man being stung in his butt, his boxers showing beneath his torn pants and then limping away rubbing he sore behind...it isn’t exactly in line with the game’s portrayal of his is it?

And when it is followed up by Peter’s new suit freezing up on him and leaving him immobile on the ground at the mercy of common crooks...you see where I��m going with this.

It should be remembered Hopeless was working in the Spider office when Slott, Gage and Zdarsky were very much in power. And he was there for a good long while so I’m just wondering...maybe he either always had a perception of Spider-Man in line with those guys’ or maybe he adopted a perception in line with them because that was the in-house thinking at the time????

Either way I really hope this trajectory doesn’t continue.

Another con I have is regarding the eponymous Velocity suit. First of all it doesn’t look like it does in the game nor the cover. That’s fine it’s a prototype probably...hopefully. But I do question why Peter didn’t create anything to protect his head? His mask seems unchanged so couldn’t Swarm or other opponents target the very obvious gap in his protection...which is a vital area anyway???

A more significant problem is...how did Peter make this suit?

As I said the game borrows a lot from Slott’s run and to that end has Peter working a science job and using the resources there to make different suits. That was true in Slott’s run as it was in the game. But unless I’m forgetting something (so please remind me) Peter’s job is caput given how his boss was you know...a convicted terrorist...

He even says in the issue that his science job isn’t going so well. So where is he getting the resources to build something like the Velocity suit?

Moving on, this is a nitpick, but I didn’t get MJ calling out the stand up comedian as a jerk. Why was he a jerk? Because he insulted Ben Urich when he’d just been assaulted? Seems overkill MJ. Seems seriously overkill for the paramedic to also call him that.

Finally I don’t know who the villain is. I would guess Mysterio but I also would think he’d be reserved for a sequel to the game, not wasted on a tie-in like this. What intrigues me most at the moment is the invisible villain doesn’t trigger the spider sense and has ties to Oscorp. I’m hoping that gets dived into more.

Anyway pick this up in spite of my criticisms because we should all want more content from this fresh Spidey universe.

P.S. I also really liked that MJ allows Peter an organic ‘in’ to the Bugle and the supporting characters there. This is the first time we’ve seen (sans prequel novels) Robbie or Ben Urich.

#Spdier-Man: Velocity #Marvel Gamerverse #Dennis Hopeless #insomniac spider-man #insomniac games #spider-man playstation 4 #Spider-Man ps4 #peter parker #spider-man #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Mary Jane Watson #mj watson #miles morales

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duskkodesh · 6 years ago

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If y’all gonna be jumping in the Morbius tag because you’re thirsty for a certain cast actor at least read about the character first. Those of us in the Michael Morbius fandom (all six of us and a shoelace) would love to have some more people to talk to.

So, without further ado under the cut, my Recommendations for people who’ve never read Morb before:

Amazing Spider-man 101, 102

The first is his first appearance and the second is story resolution and backstory ala dream sequence. He was created by Gil Kane and Roy Thomas in 1971 while Stan Lee was off handling something else. They wanted to do a vampire but in Spidey’s science based world they wanted him to fit with other science-based villains. There are some articles that say he was made science-based to get around the Comics Code Authority. This is false, the comics code had already been repealed.

Vampire Tales 1-4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11.

This is a more teen targeted black and white magazine Marvel did in the 1970′s and featured a lot of occult stories, articles, and some amazing art. This was Morb’s first set of appearances after his intro and his first played as the protagonist. When thrown back into Spidey comics he tended to go back to villain but this established him as a sometimes unorthodox anti-hero. The originals are a bit hard to get but Marvel reprinted all these as three softcover books.

Giant Size Werewolf by Night 4

This one was an intertwining tale about he and Martine with appearances by Werewolf by night who later in the 80′s becomes a close friend of his. It’s highly recommended for both backstory and art.

Marvel Premiere 28

This is the first credited appearance of the Legion of Monsters. It’s used loosely here but later becomes an honest to god team withing the Marvel universe.

Marvel Preview 8

A double feature with Blade. This issue is notable for art by Sonny Trinidad who did a lot of art in Vampire tales. His stuff is beautiful.

Spectacular Spider-man 38 - Savage She-Hulk 11-12

The arc where he turns human again and he stays that way for most of the 80′s, fading into the background as Marvel really focused more on their heroes.

Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme 10,11,14-17

Here’s the arc where he becomes vampire again. It has some notable art and his first encounter with a lot of sidecast that will become lifelong friends for him.

Strange Tales Dark Corners, Blade vol1 2,3

A short story arc of Morb trying to help Martine’s family and getting caught in a fight with Blade. Unfortunately the Blade title was canned so the last thing we see is Blade and Morb fighting. It must have worked out because they’re both fine later in other issues.

Morbius the Living Vampire 1-13

His first complete title series! (he headlined Adventures into Fear for a while but I exempted it from this list for an odd convoluted plot and action that happens more around him than him actually propelling any plot forward.) It was a success at the time, going for 32 issues but honest to god the first 13 are the best as the staff changed after that. Keep in mind the 90′s were a gritty grimdark time in comics and it is RIDDLED with forced crossovers.

Marvel Zombies vol3 Marvel Zombies vol4

Each of these was four issues and full of gore so be warned. In volume four his personality is spot on and the art is fantastic!

Amazing Spider-Man 679.1, 688,689,690,691

A sad arc for Morb but riddled with well written appearances and a plot to which he is integral. This led into his second solo title series which honestly crashed a bit and I’m not recommending (despite the fact I liked some of the new characters.)

Punisher 11-17 Frankencastle arc

If you love old cheesy scifi this comic was just loaded with stuff you’ll dig! Good art too and a fantastic visual style.

Legion of Monsters 1-4 mini series

Campy art and an interesting plot means this gets on the list for sure. This is also a four part story and just plain good pulpy stuff.

#Morbius The Living Vampire #Morbius #Michael Morbius #Good starter list #Obviously there's loads more #But I can't list everything #But if you have continuity questions or anything I'm always here #Or just wanna talk Morb #Just be aware when the movie comes out I'm gonna dissect it like a six graders biology project

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itsclydebitches · 6 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 6 “The Lady in the Shoe”

Welcome back, everyone! The summary for this episode: Part Two was pretty excellently done (with one major exception) and Part One would be stellar if we could just separate it from its context. Which of course we can’t. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag this week.

Episode Eleven is titled “The Lady in the Shoe,” but apparently instead of a scolding and early bedtime children get to be blown up via missiles. Alrighty then. We open back on the mech battle with Ruby telling Weiss to get her butt down here, we need your help if we’re going to take down this monstrosity. Weiss briefly speaks my language.

Weiss: “You’re joking, right?”

Except it’s not a criticism about picking a fight with a Atlesian special operative in the first place, just that said special operative has some serious firepower on her side. Ruby justifies this leaderly decision with, “We’ve fought giant monsters before. This is just a tiny old lady…”

Which is precisely the problem, Ruby. You’re not fighting a giant monster here—this mech is not an objectively evil grimm rising up from the depths of the ocean that you are duty bound to fight. You are about to attack a tiny old lady—the sort of person you’re supposed to be protecting, even when they’re dicks. It still astounds me that the writers put all this dialogue into the characters’ mouths without commenting on (or even realizing) the staggering irony here. Can Ironwood please show up at the last moment and chastise them all for doing everything but what huntsmen are supposed to do?

Notice in this shot that no one has drawn their weapon yet. We know the kind of response time this group has. If there’s any danger nearby—real (grimm) or imagined (their uncle)—those weapons are raised in a heartbeat. Now here’s a massive mech bearing down on them and no one is moving to defend themselves, so some part of them must realize that this is a stupid, childish, needless fight that they are responsible for diffusing, considering that they started it in the first place. No one bothers though. They’re not outright attacking yet, but they’re not backing down either. That stubborn faith is admirable when set against monsters and Salem’s henchmen, not when it’s aimed at an authority figure you never should have made an enemy of in the first place.

However, Cordovin then reminds us of her dickishness, calling the kids “spider roaches” (ew) and promising to take them down. She wants to see how their “resolve holds out against the might of the Atlesian military,” once again encouraging the audience to accept this fight as the volume’s long-awaited resolution. Their resolve has been shaken the last few days, but fighting Cordovin has absolutely nothing to do with facing off against an immortal enemy. Having the kids hold their ground here doesn’t somehow tell us that they’ve re-discovered purpose in their good deeds and are willing to continue fighting against Salem, it just highlights how unwilling they are to admit when they’re wrong. This fight emphasizes only how immature and reckless the group is behaving right now. That doesn’t disappear just because RT tries to flimsily reframe it in another light.

Things immediately start going downhill. Done with her warning shots, Cordovin launches a missile at Maria and Weiss, though at the last second it’s blown out of the air by Ruby. This cues Cordovin into the fact that the rest of the gang is down on that cliff. She launches another shot and Weiss jumps down at the last second, getting up a barrier of stone and ice to protect them. Like so much in this fight, the save only comes at the very last second.

Oscar: “That was close…”

This should really be cueing the kids in. Cordovin isn’t playing around and this little encounter just got horrendously dangerous. The answer here is to surrender, admit that you were in the wrong for trying to steal military property, not escalate the situation by gleefully fighting back. And Ruby absolutely escalates it. A minute later—after laughing while dodging more missiles—Ruby takes a freaking headshot at Cordovin.

Look, there’s no excuse for that. Not in my book. I don’t care how likely it is that Atlas glass is strong enough to stop one of her rounds. I don’t care if Ruby assumed Cordovin would have her own aura up as an extra precaution inside the mech (if she can even manipulate aura like that. Cordovin is military, but that doesn’t automatically mean she can fight like a huntsmen. There might be a reason she got in that mech instead of fighting them herself). I don’t even care that Cordovin shot first and people are going to claim that the group is now justified to do whatever they want to her. Ruby could have been wrong. All of her assumptions about glass and aura might have come back to bite her. She looked a woman dead in the eye—not a grimm, not Cinder, not Salem herself—and shot with an intent to kill. What would everyone think of our precious protagonist if she’d murdered a Atlesian official after getting caught trying to steal their tech? Since when does the show encourage us to cheer on the group attacking an ally, no matter how much of an asshole she is as an individual?

I’ll be blunt: I don’t like this Ruby. I wanted leader!Ruby dealing with her anger at Qrow, our kind and level-headed girl growing into a mature young adult this volume. Instead we’ve gotten a smug, flippant child who is so obsessed with moving forward that she’ll eschew strategy and ethics in favor of results. She’s impatient. She’s once again overconfident in her abilities. She’s backsliding and this would be a fascinating thing to witness if the show weren’t incorrectly characterizing this as growth.

Before Ruby takes her shot though we get a bit more of that irony. Jaune points out that such a large mech will have difficulty hitting a small target, so they should spread out and give Cordovin too many things to focus on. “We just have to be smart,” a hilarious line given the context of all this. Maria is charged with keeping the airship safe, despite the fact that she had her license revoked. (Another example of them taking the legitimate, “How is this woman flying a plane?” question and reducing it to a joke.) Qrow offers to give them another bird’s eye view of the situation, despite the fact that we’ve seen no reason for this sudden change in his outlook. For 7 episodes now Qrow has been under the impression that everything he’s done as a huntsmen is useless and last week he followed that up with the worry that his semblance is at the heart of it all. Neither of these fears have been addressed. Ruby giving one incredibly broad line about how she still needs Qrow Branwen shouldn’t erase what’s been plaguing him for an entire volume… but it apparently does. Fighting is no longer a useless endeavor with Salem hanging over him. Stealing an airship is no longer a plan he’s against. His semblance is no longer something to take into account. (You’ll notice that, conveniently, his semblance doesn’t seem to have any impact on the fight. Suddenly close combat alongside allies is no longer the dangerous thing that the Tyrian fight once painted it as.) Like so many others I’m thrilled that Qrow seems to be in a better place… I just wish we’d been given a convincing reason for him to drop his bottle here and happily join a fight he’s so-far been against for three distinct reasons. Like so much in this volume, the ideas are great while the execution falters.

Truthfully though? I love the fight itself. Ruby skillfully dodging missiles or running along their back, Weiss creating a series of ice islands for them to jump off of, riding on the lancer she summoned… all of that is epic as hell. However, that’s undercut by the fact that I’m just not rooting for Team RWBY here.

Over the course of the fight they do a good amount of damage to that mech. One of the biggest blows is when Qrow and Ren manage to destroy the device generating Cordovin’s shields. They don’t disable it, they just shoot it until it breaks. The entire time I was thinking, “Wow. This is going to be a pretty penny to fix/this mech is going to be entirely useless if Argus suddenly needs it to defend themselves from some grimm.” The entire time the group—particularly Ruby—treats it all as a fun adventure that’s only serious when they want it to be (like shooting at Cordovin). Ruby’s logic is chastised because “This isn’t a game!” and when she gets into trouble Weiss demands, “What if I hadn’t caught you?” The answer is just a sunny smile, not any actual thought about what her choices just were and whether she should change them.

Ruby is meant to be chipper in the face of danger, i.e. “Bad! Landing! Strategy!” after getting knocked off a cliff by a grimm. She’s not supposed to attack other people, destroy their defenses, and laugh about it. Perhaps the most frustrating moment is when she hangs off the front of the mech, waving at Cordovin like they aren’t having a legitimate battle here. Nora’s commentary is something that I always enjoy, “And you said it wasn’t beach season” + “You get back here with my man!” is fun, especially since the latter finally acknowledges that she and Ren are a couple now. Hallelujah! But it only works because Nora’s entire brand is happy-go-lucky in the face of overwhelming odds. That never really changes. Ruby, however, is jumping between silly goof and murderous huntress within the span of a few seconds. Is the Cordovin fight supposed to be comical or something they’re taking seriously as one of our final battles? The writing can’t decide.

Of course, we do hit a point where things get bad enough that the group starts panicking again. Cordovin has enough of all this and makes a swipe at Nora, forcing Jaune to make a last second grab for her. Both of them are slammed into a rock with their auras broken. The rest of the group gets blasted right off Weiss’ lancer, but Ruby can’t quite make it to the edge of the cliff. She stops her fall with Crescent Rose and then just…hangs there?

Okay. This is what I mean when I say the writing is contrived; that things are working out in one specific way to serve the plot, regardless of logic. Why isn’t Ruby using her semblance? Is she really that exhausted already? Why not just dive into the water? We’ve seen numerous times—starting at Beacon’s initiation—that Ruby can fall from great heights provided that she use the impact of her shots to slow her descent. Why isn’t Weiss summoning something for her to drop onto? Why does Qrow reach for Ruby and then just stand there stupidly while Cordovin levels a shot at his niece?

There’s no reason why prodigy Ruby would just hang there cringing, or why all of her talented friends would just stand there dumbly, except that the plot wants Maria and Oscar to “have” to rescue her. Except they don’t have to. We haven’t set up a situation where they’re truly the last line of defense. Jaune and Nora have already been knocked out. Now you could have Cordovin cut off the rest of the group with one arm while aiming at Ruby. Show a brief shot of Ruby trying and failing to start up her semblance, slipping further down the cliff in exhaustion. Let Weiss scream at her to just drop and Qrow shout back that she never learned how to swim. Give us reasons—even if they’re flimsy—for why using the airship is suddenly the only option.

Because you know, airship. The entire point of this fight is to keep the airship intact and get to Atlas. Now it’s been shot at. We don’t see what exactly the damage is, but I’m going to roll my eyes hard if it’s conveniently minor. Have Oscar and Maria escape unscathed, but I hope the ship itself is wrecked. Let the group realize that they picked a fight and their reasons for doing so are now useless.

“This is what happens when you think you know better than those rightfully in charge,” Cordovin says and she’s right. Her being an asshole is entirely separate from the fact that she’s got her facts straight. She is in charge of the Argus base, adults do often know better than teens, and this is what happens when you think you know better than those who told you, “This is a bad idea.” RWBYJNR made their bed and now they can lie in it. Now if only the writing would actually acknowledge that...

We cut with the mech fight half over and transition to Blake and Adam. This is the part of the episode that I think was very well done, but let me preface that by saying I view this battle in the same way I view Qrow’s current characterization. Meaning, I’m glad we got there… but how did we get there? That’ll make more sense in a moment.

For now, we watch as Blake tries to get away from Adam, no doubt hoping to make her way back to Yang. All of Adam’s dialogue in these scenes is excellently done. He’s the epitome of an abuser, characterizing Blake’s growth as a flaw—“Can’t you do anything besides run?” Missing the fact that nowadays she’s only running from him—and blaming her for his actions: “I wouldn’t have to be doing this if you’d just behaved!” It’s the kind of dialogue that I’m sure will sound too familiar for many viewers. Definitely hard to watch, but that’s because it’s well crafted.

“You’re selfish. You’re a coward,” Adam says. “You’re delusional,” Blake shoots right back.

As the fight continues Blake ends up losing her coat, something the whole fandom was hoping for given the importance of her scar. I really enjoyed the use of editing during all this. Adam ends up breaking Gambol Shroud (symbolic and a good setup for volume 7) and manages to get Blake into the same position as when he first stabbed her. This time Blake blocks the hit and when she does we get the briefest look at Yang’s bike rushing towards them. The speed of the cut is a good choice, keeping up with the fast-paced action, letting us know Yang is almost there without drawing attention away from Adam and Blake.

However, the fight does simmer down as Adam finally removes his mask.

That brand is… disturbing. Granted, it would have been more disturbing if I’d been able to figure out what those letters (numbers?) were right from the start lol. For anyone still confused, Adam has a horrific SDC burned over one eye—a literal mark of the Schnee Dust Company. Did he work for the Schnees and receive that as a part of their slave labor? Was it enacted as punishment after one of his raids, a way of sending a message to all the other faunus? We don’t know, we might never know, but at the very least I want Weiss to see Adam before he’s either killed or makes another escape. Given everything else that’s been going on, RWBY hasn’t had time to explore the accusations Blake leveled at Weiss all the way back at Beacon, or the conversation we overhear her dad having at the party. It’s looking like Yang and Blake’s arc with Adam is finally coming to a close, but getting a look at his face could be the start of a new one for Weiss. She deserves to know the full extent of what her father has done. Not just to her as his daughter, but to an entire minority group.

“You didn’t leave scars, you just left me alone,” Adam whines like his own trauma in any way excuses what he’s done to Blake. “How does it feel to be alone?”

We get Blake’s ear twitching towards the sound of Yang approaching, she uses her semblance to escape, and at the last second proclaims, “I’m not alone.”

THEN YANG STRAIGHT UP HITS ADAM WITH HER BIKE.

Right now I do not CARE about in-world physics, or how Yang aimed coming off that cliff, or any of that. She hit Adam with a goddamn motorcycle while doing a flip off of it. There’s no world in which that isn’t badass.

Now we know how she gets rid of bumblebee. Yang couldn’t drag it on their adventure for forever. I’m glad it became something symbolic—Yang giving up a precious momento that carried her off into her new life, doing so without a moment’s hesitation for Blake—as opposed to just something like, “Yeah I shipped it off back to Dad!”

RIP Bumblebee. You will be missed.

Here though we get to the portion of the fight that (dare I say it?) feels a little un-earned. Look, I’m thrilled that we got these girls protecting one another and standing tall in the face of their abuser, but like Qrow’s sudden mood change, these kinds of payoffs are 100% better when we see how characters got there. The last time we touched on Adam in Blake and Yang’s lives:

Both of them were still having PTSD flashbacks, to the point where they instinctually flinch away from him in terror.

Blake was under the impression that she has to protect Yang and had no idea why that might not be what she wants.

Yang got pissed at Blake’s protective instincts and refused to communicate, shutting down the conversation.

Yang was coming out of a situation (Ozpin) where her anger had reached new levels and she was once again ready to punch her way through her problems.

Now, suddenly:

Neither Yang nor Blake hesitate for an instant. Yang in particular, who had no idea what she’d find when she went after Blake, is 100% confident in facing down Adam. Her hand shakes, yes, but that doesn’t actually have an impact on the fight. PTSD isn’t that kind. If you’ve been cowering instinctually for months now upon seeing visions of someone, that doesn’t conveniently disappear when you meet the real thing.

Blake announces that she’s not protecting Yang… even though two-three days ago that was her position. What changed?

Yang doesn’t react in surprise to hearing this sudden change of heart. Why is she acting like they’ve always been on the same page about protecting one another when they explicitly haven’t been? They had this disagreement literally days ago.

Yang is perfectly calm during the whole fight. She doesn’t use her semblance, immediately listens to Blake’s info about Adam’s, never once loses her temper. I’m thrilled to see the improvement but again, where did it come from? If Yang is going to get that worked up at Ozpin, why would we expect her to be perfectly cool when facing Adam, of all people?

As said, these are all things I wanted to see, but it feels like we skipped over a big chunk of the journey. And honestly part of that journey could have been worked into the fight itself, pretty easily. Let Yang jump off that cliff, see that it’s Adam, and immediately freeze. Blake has to block a hit to save her and comments, “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” Yang gets pissed. She doesn’t need Blake to protect her, she’s doing the protecting, and she starts the first half of the fight in a temper that Adam takes advantage of. You can have them realizing in the moment that they need to protect one another so that by the time they’re holding hands we feel like we’ve evolved to this point naturally.

Let Yang realize halfway through the fight that this head-on approach isn’t working so that when she suddenly tells Adam to leave this feels more like growth instead of, “Wait. Yang’s just gonna let this guy walk away? Since when?” Like so much in volume 6, I’m thrilled with what we got… just not in the way that we got it.

Each fight is only half over though. Presumably Episode 12 will wrap things up and then Episode 13? That’s up in the air. At this point though I’m still really hoping for some repercussions. Give me a moment where Cinder and Neo show up, but the gang is so exhausted from needlessly fighting Cordovin that they don’t stand a chance. Let them encounter a swarm of ocean grimm drawn up by how scared the Argus population is,

but they’ve destroyed the mech specifically designed to fight them. Let the kids face some actual consequences for their actions so that they can finally realize how stupid they’re being.

Then Ozpin can show up and save them all. I want them to learn something, not die lol.

I doubt we’ll get it though. Most likely? The airship is fine, the battles are won, we’re encouraged to cheer for our current “heroes,” and they fly off towards Atlas without consequence. Yuck. I’m preparing myself for it though. We’ll see…

Until next week!

Other Things of Note

Just for the record, that team up with Ren could have been a perfect moment to slip in Qrow’s semblance. You recklessly shoot at the dust generator creating shields for a mech? Bad luck causes it to blow up in your face, launching Ren into the water, explaining Nora’s yell about giving her back her man.

Kinda surprised by Adam’s blue eyes. Not gonna lie. I mean, not that anyone else in this show is following real world genetics (Yang’s eyes are purple and red I MEAN), it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

“He gets to dish out damage without having to feel it? That’s just cheap.” Ah, that feels like a sentence with more than one meaning…

I brought up in a previous recap about how RWBY treats disabilities, emphasizing that they’re either ignored (Maria’s blindness isn’t a problem! She can still fly just fine!) or we reach a point where there are only upsides (Yang able to detach her arm and escape Mercury). We see another example of that here wherein Yang’s new arm is able to withstand the blow that would have otherwise torn through flesh. She’s now stronger not just because of what she’s survived, but because her arm is literally better in all respects from the one she was born with.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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dannyphantomrpg · 6 years ago

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Visual Aid: It's been a month since the accident

If anyone knows any of Butch’s videos that have relevant DP info that I might have missed in my depression hiatus, just let me know and I’ll transcribe them.

Hey Hartfans, Butch Hartman here, so glad you guys are here with me. Danny Phantom! I think you've heard of that show, if you're watching Butch Hartman channel, I think you've heard of Danny Phantom. Alright, so Danny Phantom: very, very popular show of mine that, for some reason, keeps living on. And I am so excited that you guys are such fans of the show. I've done Fairly Odd Parents, I've done T.U.F.F. Puppy, I've done Bunsen is a Beast, but Danny Phantom is by far and away the show that gets the most response of anything I've ever done, and so I have all of you to thank for that. And so, I want to explore something in this video that a lot of people have been sort of asking me about. It's find of a neat idea, and I thought I would just kinda delve into it a little bit here and let's see what you guys think of it.

In the first episode of Danny Phantom, in the pilot, uh, called Mystery Meat, Danny and Sam and Tucker are standing around and Danny has a line of dialogue

Danny: It's been a month since the accident, and I still barely have any control.

In that line, you're like, "it's been a month since the accident"? You know, if you go back to the theme song of Danny Phantom "Young Danny Fenton he was just 14". Yes, it's "young" not "yo", we talked about that in other videos. "Young Danny Fenton he was just 14/When his parents built a very strange machine" all that stuff, you know the whole theme son, right?

So, anyway, um, there's the whole Danny Phantom theme song, there's the fact that Danny has snow white hair, glowing green eyes, he can walk through walls, disappear, and fly. And, you know, all that in the theme song seems to have just happened to him. Like he got exposed to the ghost plasma DNA is, it mixed with his DNA, he's half ghost, and then he, he says it's been a month since the accident. What happened to Danny between the Fenton Portal accident, and the Mystery Meat episode? There's a whole month in there. That's four weeks, that's thirty days! Unless it's, like, January, that's thirty-one days. That's a- there's a lo- February's twenty-eight days, there's - ok. All kinds of days where things could have happened to Danny in that time span, so what could have happened to Danny Fenton in that month?

Let's talk. That's why we're here.

So let's think about this. Maybe it goes something like this. Maybe ectoplasmic rays exposed Danny to the radiation - to the ectoplasm, right? So this is, is ghost portal energy coming out, cause Danny actually activated the Ghost Portal, Jack Fenton's device, full-sized actually. Or, he had tried the device in college with a, uh, a much smaller version. There's where Vlad Plasmius got exposed and that was about eighteen years before Danny was even born. So, years later, when Danny's fourteen, Jack's experimenting with a huge, giant version of the portal, and it exposes Danny to these rays. And so that alters his DNA, I - think about that. There's a lot of, you know, stories in comic books where characters get their DNA altered by radioactivity, or cosmic rays, or something. Like Captain America got a super-soldier formula. It was injected in him and, boom, he was super. Wow! Spider-man gets bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly has all the powers of a spider. I've that. I put a spider on a microwave once, and it bit me, and all it did was itch. I didn't put a spider in a microwave - don't think I did. How would you even get a radioactive spider to bite you in the first place? And then it gives you its powers - it makes no sense! And then, Spider-man has gloves on! His hands are sticky, but he wears gloves and climbs walls? I just don't - it's, it's all, it's all superhero logic, right

So, Spider-man, ad then, you know, the one that always made sense to me was the Incredible Hulk. That one, what? That makes sense? Exactly, right? But that one made sense to me. Like, Bruce Banner gets exposed to the rays from a gamma bomb. It explodes and just bathes his body in radiation. I'm thinking, ok, I can get behind that one because his entire body got irradiated with this, this energy, and then it just alters his DNA so much when he gets angry, he turns into this giant monster. I could kind of get behind that one. But the other ones you're like, it's just comic book logic, it's a lot of fun.

So Danny Phantom is sort of the same thing. It's kind of comic book, superhero logic. His DNA gets altered and, you know, it, is it - now if my DNA got altered, I'd probably be a pile of goo on the floor. That's probably what would happen. I mean, your body is so intricately designed that messing with one little thing would probably screw it up completely.

But let's go back. So Danny is exposed to this radiation, right? In the theme song he wakes up, he has snow white hair and glowing green eyes. But, like, it - does he feel ok? I mean, is his body kind of smoldering? I mean, are his clothes torn? So I think it didn't just alter his DNA, I think it sort of altered his entire, um, um, the way he perceived him. The way humans, the way light perceives him. For some reason, Danny's cells are now irradiated, and they're changed, and they're different. And so his cells don't retain light the same way. So that's why he can turn invisible. As well, his cells are able to go from the positive spectrum of light into the negative spectrum of light, which is kind of deep. Hidden deep. Should I bring the ukulele out again?

All right, so now, so Danny's cells now, I would imagine what would Danny's, when he first wakes up I think he's really, I think he's hurting. I think he's been exposed to this energy. I'm sure he's burned a little bit. I'm sure, like... you know, I would think, I don't want to make this too graphic, but I'm sure Danny's been, like, kind of fried from this energy, and I think his body has to kind of repair itself. So I would imagine he kind of wakes up, he's at the bottom of the, of the floor of this, of, of the Fenton Portal. His hair is singed, his face is probably singed, he's probably... feeling the energy inside of him, and I think he feels maybe almost like he's burning from the inside. Like he's been in a microwave. So all of his cells are now having to find, kind of having to reform themselves and, and regroup, and - because your body's designed to heal itself. I mean, I know, like, Wolverine has this amazing healing ability. You know, like, when you cut yourself or you get a scrape or something, your scrape will heal? I mean, your body is designed to heal. So Danny's body is struggling to heal itself. And, so, he's pulling himself back together, pull himself back together.

There's great sequence in um, the comic book miniseries Watchmen, written by the great Alan Moore, where Dr. Manhattan is just this normal scientist, and he gets put into a particle accelerator chamber, but it's locked and he can't get out, and uh, the experiment's gonna happen, so his body basically gets pulled apart uh, um, molecularly gets ripped apart and he's just disintegrated. But as the days and weeks go by in the, uh, science facility, people see a skeleton appear in the hallway. And then they see a nervous system appear, and they see this and this and this a bit, they start seeing part of a human body appear out of nowhere until, one day, out of nowhere, Dr. Manhattan is able to reassemble himself and he uses the energy that tore him apart to use it as his power, and I think that's what happens with Danny. Danny probably got so damaged by the Fenton Portal accident that he had to pull his body back together. I would imagine his, his cells and his DNA, even his consciousness are all kind of separated and he probably has to pull himself back together, I think in that month, between the Fenton Portal accident and Mystery Meat, when Danny finally becomes a hero, I think Danny's really having to pull himself together and become a human being again. And really try to , uh, just keep his body together. We kind of played with this idea, uh, in the episode D-Stabilized with Dani, the young girl Dani Fenton, D-A-N-I, Dani Fenton. She is a destabilized version of Danny's DNA because she can't hold herself together. Vlad Plasmius could never recreate that experiment perfectly.

So I think Danny after the, after the Fenton Portal accident, that month is just Danny trying to pull himself back together, learn how to be a human being again, and also he's got these amazing powers that he's just trying to get the hang of, and I think the only ones that can help him are Sam and Tucker, his closest friends. I would imagine there's a sequence where Danny's probably in an alley somewhere, and I think Sam and Tucker have to bring him food because he can't go out in public cause he looks kind of half-human, half-ghost, um, and suddenly he probably starts floating off the ground. Like, for no reason. Probably because his body's becoming lighter than air. Like his cells don't have the same density that they used to have because he's half-human, half-ghost now. So, I think his cells make his body lighter than normal, that's why he can fly. Also, his molecules wouldn't be the same either. His molecules would not be as close together as most uh, most human beings' molecules. Or I think it would have separated a little bit. Uh, he could probably control that, which is why he can slip through walls. He can slip through the molecules of the walls, allowing his molecules to slip in between them.

So I think there's a lot of emotional stuff and physical stuff you'd really have to get his mind around. I mean, what if you suddenly started lifting off the ground? And didn't know how to control it? Would you just keep going and going and going? I think tucker would devise a way to train Danny as to how to help him fly and, and maintain his powers.

So I think that month in between the accident and the Lunch Lady episode, uh, Mystery Meat, I think it's spent with Danny trying to retain his humanity, learning his powers, and then Sam and Tucker helping to train him how to use his powers. How to train - train him for flight, train him for going through walls, train him for, um, you know, turning invisible and things like that.

And think about it, so Danny really hasn't been attacked by any ghosts at this time and I think, like any good superhero, he needs time to train just a little bit. It's almost like when Peter Parker discovered he was Spider-man, you know, he had to train a little bit, then he started fighting villains. And the villains come out of the woodwork. I think the same with Danny Phantom. Danny has to get his powers together, get himself pulled back into reality, and then I think the villains start showing up. Again, that's comic book logic, we probably play with that a little it. And it might be kind of cool to actually get Danny attacked by a ghost or two in there while he's training. Doesn't really know what he's doing. So maybe some smaller, lesser ghosts, like those Ectopuses in episode one that come out of the Ghost Portal. Now that's how he kind of gained a little bit of experience of what other ghosts are capable of.

He doesn't dare say something to his parents because his parents are ghost hunters, and I think there's a fear inside of Danny if they find out that I'm now half ghost, they'll hunt me and want to experiment on me, so he doesn't dare tell his family, doesn't dare tell his sister cause his sister's true-blue and really honest and wants to, you know, help with everything. I even think, for the next month, Danny would have to maybe come up with some excuse as to why they can't see him. Maybe he's either A, he's sick; B, there's a sudden school field trip that'll take him out of town for three weeks, and of course, Jack and Maddie are so, uh, you know, ditzy sometimes, they would be like "Oh, I didn't even know that! That, of course our son's going off for three weeks, he's helping people!" They wouldn't even think about it because they're so focused on their experiment, so Danny could probably get away with it. But I see him living down in the Fenton lab, or living somewhere in Amity Park, finding a quiet place to be and just learning how to use his powers, and, and just pulling himself together and, and focal- learning how to focus.

If we were to go down that rabbit hole and find out, it's been a month since the accident, what happened to Danny Fenton in that month? What do you guys think of that idea? What do you think would happen again? Do you guys agree with my idea? Was there a better idea that you have? Leave a comment down in the comments section below.

That's a much deeper way to go with the story, as opposed to what, you know, the semi-lighthearted way we treated Danny Phantom at the beginning. But if we were to do a little more deeper version of Danny, I think that'd be a really fun way to go. What do you guys think?

#Danny Phantom #Butch Hartman #visual aide #It's been a month since the accident #sidequests #it took a while to get to this one #danny fenton #sam manson #Tucker Foley #dani fenton #officially #jack fenton #Maddie Fenton #ghost powers

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videogamesincolor · 6 years ago

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Lament for Mr. Negative, or misleading the audience to hide an Octopus (SPOILERS)

I think one of the things I was excited about with regard to Marvel’s Spider-Man (or, Spider-Man PS4) was the fact that the game appeared (emphasis on appeared) to be hinging its bets on a relative unknown villain (within the spectrum of the mainstream or pop culture awareness), Mr. Negative – otherwise known as Martin Li (voiced and apparently modeled after Stephen Oyoung).

I had some trepidation toward the use of the character – especially since the “Demon gang”, a seemingly Chinese-American fronted group of criminals, tended to invoke the aesthetic of “Evil Asians” that was really hot all through the eighties and early 2000s (think any action film dealing with the “Yakuza” or “The Triads”) – even with the presence of characters like Yuri Watanabe (a Japanese-American police officer who works with Spider-Man) as an apparent offset to Martin Li.

His comic book backstory certainly invokes a lot of those feelings, but his affiliation with characters like The Spot (who I initially mistook him for, lmao) and Hammerhead, opens the character up to an otherwise interesting avenue of villainy. At least, on the assumption that the game had no intention of using established rogues (like it ended up doing).

Mr. Negative was quite literally the only villain you saw consistently amongst the promotional material, even after the reveal of the Sinister Six during E3 2018. The advertisement and demos seemed intent on letting the audience know that this was a person that Peter Parker looked up to and admired greatly – what with his repeated insistence to want to help him in earlier demos from 2017.

More importantly, Martin Li wasn’t just important to Peter, he also meant a lot to May Parker (Aunt May), who was a little more proactive in helping around Li’s shelter (because she doesn’t exactly have other responsibilities like Peter does).

When you get to the game, proper, however, Martin Li is rarely seen in the game beyond a few cinematics that establishes he was responsible for creating the help center, F.E.A.S.T, which shelters the homeless and generally helps out those without stable financial means or a stable lifestyle.

But, once Peter shows Martin the “Demon gang” mask, and he vaguely explains it’s a mask with ties to an old story his parents used to tell him as a child, then the character rather disappears for long periods of time. If you aren’t going into the game blind, you already know Martin is the ringleader of the “Demon gang” that begins terrorizing New York following Wilson Fisk’s arrest.

The problem with watching the story unfold is that you never see Martin doing anything within the narrative to reinforce that he’s a legitimate threat, most of the really violent acts are done (seemingly) on his behalf by people under his influence. You also really don’t get to see his side of the narrative, you just see him reacting to Peter’s constant interference with his plans.

He shows up two times before he goes completely villainous: Once to tell May and Peter to look after F.E.A.S.T when he goes off for an undetermined absence, as it’s the only “good” part him left, and again when Peter discovers his cubbyhole in F.E.A.S.T, and just says-without-saying he knows that Peter is Spider-Man and that he found his hideaway.

Afterward, a lot of your encounters with the Demon gang have nothing to do with Martin. When he shows up again one last time (before the Sinister Six reveal), actually leading the Demon gang, it’s just so he ends up getting arrested and sent to “The Raft” (a maximum security prison for supervillains and above-average criminals).

You certainly don’t get any information about his motivations until well near the end of the game. Assuming I didn’t misunderstand the shabby video, he was experimented on by Norman Osborn – and the experiment resulted in the creation of his “Negative” powers and the death of his parents, who I think were getting him treated for some kind of illness.

The downside to that reveal, however, is that information isn’t about informing him as a character. It’s all to establish why Otto Octavius – Doctor Octopus – broke ties with Norman Osborn and left (or got fired from) Oscorp. And that’s the problem with Spider-Man’s story.

Martin Li was never the primary antagonist – that rather becomes obvious when Li is reduced to nothing more than a boss battle mechanic alongside the Sinister Six. He was used by Insomniac games as a smokescreen to hide the fact that Doctor Octopus was the central antagonist of the game.

I really thought Insomniac was gunning for the sympathetic villain angle Marvel Studio’s been trying to reproduce since the advent of Black Panther’s Erik Killmonger, but when you take Martin Li’s actions into consideration to the greater narrative – none of it really comes off as understandable or remotely sympathetic.

Doctor Octopus wants to besmirch Norman Osborn’s name by making him seem incapable of protecting the public from terrorism (specifically bio-terrorism), he’s not particularly interested in exposing his crimes against humanity (the experimentation he did on Martin Li) or using the recorded evidence to get him thrown in jail (the excuse being “he always bounces back” from a scandal).

So, as a means of keeping himself out of the spotlight, Octopus uses people like Martin Li, who’ve been exploited by Osborn, to exploit Li’s vengeful state-of-mind further to his own benefit. Sure, it makes Doctor Octopus look like an absolutely irredeemable asshole that needs be locked up, but Martin Li comes off looking like a fool who got played. Nothing Martin Li does is of his own design. It’s all basically done to the benefit of Doctor Octopus and on his orders.

Afterward, Spider-Man just knocks Martin Li out – following the last big boss battle with him – and he just vanishes from the narrative altogether. IIRC, we never know what happens to him after the fight, but the game lets us know that Doctor Octopus was thrown in jail (where he belongs). I guess Martin’s still lying on the ground in Oscorp somewhere?

The game takes great pains to establish how important Peter’s relationship with Otto is in relation to his work and his belief system (Peter repeatedly tells Otto that he was everything he wanted to be, he worshiped him, and admired his mind), but you really don’t get that with Martin Li.

By far, most of Spider-Man’s interactions with Martin never feel quite earned because neither Martin nor his alter-ego, Mr. Negative, are present in the story very long.

Why would Martin Li try to turn Spider-Man to his side when he’s proven to be nothing more than a nuisance? This might’ve made sense if there was any real time was dedicated to Martin and Peter’s relationship, but there wasn’t, so it’s like some odd thing that comes out of nowhere just so the player can have a trippy experience in the “Negative Zone” with Mr. Negative during a platforming battle.

I dunno, I’m disappointed that this was how it turned out for the character. They really could’ve built an entire story around Mr. Negative and Martin Li.

#videogamesincolor #marvel's spider man #spider man ps4 #mr. negative #martin li #insomniac games #lord jesus its a long post #spider man series #spider man spoilers

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hoogiehowser · 6 years ago

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MEDIA DIARY JANUARY

:::::::::: MOVIES ::::::::::

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) I liked this so much I ended up seeing it twice. The animation is on a whole different level from everything else in theaters I just can’t believe it. Nothing has immediately endeared me to a character more that when Miles gets to the place where he’s going to put up graffiti and yells “BROOKLYN!” to get the echo. Absolutely perfect.

Happy Death Day (2017) The trailer looked good but the trailer for the sequel looked even better. Good time repeating movie. Way better than Blood Punch. I’m excited to see more of this.

Alien: Covenant (2017) Had no clue what to expect going in but I actually dug it. It’s just Alien again like every Alien movie but what they do with David from Prometheus makes it really interesting. There’s also some straight up slasher movie sleaze that definitely appeals to me.

MacGruber (2010) It’s just a bunch of dick jokes while a bad action movie happens. There’s no clever spin to it.

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) Wanted to watch this due to the Fast & Furious connection. It’s a great movie about overachievers and getting away with shit. I think Justin Lin is a great director and his unique voice benefits every movie he does.

Collateral (2004) I didn’t realize until the credits that this was a Michael Mann movie but it was so obvious in hindsight. The premise is simple, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are great, and everything comes together in a genuinely cool film.

Wilson (2017) Based on a comic I don’t particularly like from Dan Clowes’ grumpy old man phase. The cool thing about the comic is that each page works on its own and has a different art style. The movie can’t do that. But it’s still faithful to the book which means it feels like a series of one page gags strung together until it finishes. Woody and Laura Dern are great though and it is pretty funny at times.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare (2018) There was another truth or dare based horror movie a year before that was a Syfy original. The Syfy one is better. The problem with them both is the supernatural contrivances that make people play truth or dare against their will. It’s such a strained premise.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) Guy Ritchie made a King Arthur movie and it feels exactly like you’d expect.

Thoroughbreds (2017) Girl who can’t feel emotions befriends girl who is very politely hiding her extreme emotions. Things get bad when they start to think about murder. Anton Yelchin plays a druggie scumbag loser. It’s such a good movie. 100% my kind of thing.

:::::::::: TV ::::::::::

The Great British Baking Show (Beginnings, Collections 1-4) Got addicted to this one. I love cooking competitions shows and pleasant ones are usually the best. I like seeing competitors that like each other. I like Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry not trying to tear people down. I love Mel and Sue. It’s just a nice show for the nice people.

Toei Spider-Man (Episodes 1-5) I’m not a big toku guy but Spider-Verse got me curious about various Spider-Men. Takuya Yamashiro wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he was injected with blood from the last survivor of Planet Spider and carries out a mission against Professor Monster’s Iron Cross Army to avenge Planet Spider and his own father. Next to nothing present from the classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man and that’s totally alright. I’m going to try to watch more because the episode where Spider-Man has to donate his blood to hurt child has some serious heart.

The Prisoner (Episodes 7-17) I started watching this a while ago but only now got around to finishing. Mostly super clever plots and the atmosphere is always great. Patrick McGoohan sells it every single time. Some of the later episodes go really off the rails though. There’s an entire wild west episode. Nothing in this stretch tops my favorite episode, The Schizoid Man, where Number Two brainwashes Number Six to act differently and then forces Number Six to pretend to be Number Six while a different man is already pretending to be Number Six. The ending is solid though and carries a really good tv series to a confusing, surreal end.

Cutthroat Kitchen (Season 7, Episodes 1-7) Polar opposite of The Great British Baking Show. It’s the Mario Kart of cooking competition shows. Everyone tries to fuck each other over and Alton laughs at them the entire time. It’s brilliant.

:::::::::: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING ::::::::::

TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ‘19 (January 4) I don’t follow TJPW and don’t know any of their wrestlers besides Meiko Satomura but I watched this because it was on before Wrestle Kingdom. Meiko vs Reika Saiki definitely made the show worth watching and the rest was pretty alright. Lots of fun, new personalities that I like.

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 (January 4) Probably the most I’ve looked forward to a show and it absolutely delivered. For the past few years I’d watch WK and recommended matches but in in July I started following everything NJPW. That added investment made this WK special. Ibushi/Ospreay tore it up and I really hope Ibushi recovers soon. Jay White/Okada shocked me. Naito/Jericho was fucking brutal. And Kenny Omega vs Hiroshi Tanahashi was a match I was so invested in that I thought I was going to cry. If you haven’t checked out New Japan yet this show would make an excellent start. GO ACE!

Impact Homecoming (January 6) Impact has gotten pretty good. I’ve only seen a few of their most recent ppvs but it’s obvious that they have a wealth of talent and they’re willing to tell the kind of dumb stories that I really like. Since Homecoming was in Nashville I went and it was one of the best shows I’ve been to. The energy was insane all night and LAX vs Lucha Bros has to be the best match I’ve seen live. Now that they air on Twitch I’ve been following the weekly show and enjoying it quite a bit.

WWE Royal Rumble (January 27) I always love the rumble but the rumble was weird. Both rumble matches were okay but filled with dumb stuff and way too many recovery spots that were immediately deflated by the person getting eliminated. I like the winners. AJ/Daniel didn’t deliver like I wanted. Sasha and Ronda had a good match. I loved how Finn Balor worked Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis. Fun show.

NXT UK Takeover Blackpool (January 12) NXT UK doesn’t really grip me aside from the women’s division. I liked this well enough but nothing really changed my mind. Finn Balor made a surprise appearance and he looked like such a star compared to everyone else. Excited to see what WALTER can do here though.

GCW 400 Degreez (January 12) GCW’s brand of hardcore indie nonsense is my absolute favorite. 400 Degreez isn’t the best they’ve done but it was full of disgusting beautiful deathmatch bullshit. Markus Crane vs Nate Webb especially.

NXT Takeover Phoenix (January 26) Takeover always delivers. Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet was definitely the match of the night. I don’t dig the War Raiders schtick but their match was great. Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler also killed it.

:::::::::: COMICS ::::::::::

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (Volumes 1-10) I wanted something long to start reading so why not One Piece? Enjoying it so far. I like getting the crew together and Usopp’s story in particular is great. Oda is a master cartoonist. I love every time we get reaction faces.

Spider-Man: Fever by Brendan McCarthy Spider-Man fever got me wanting to revisit Spider-Man: Fever because I remember liking it. I still like it. Doctor Strange accidentally opens a doorway into a spider dimension and Spider-Man gets caught in Doctor Strange’s bathtub and the alternate dimension spiders take him. All this and McCarthy’s art make Fever pretty far out.

Spider-Man 2099 by Peter David, Kelley Jones, and Rick Leonardi (1-15) Miguel O’Hara wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he had Peter Parker’s DNA put into him by weird future DNA machine and he wages war against the gigantic corporations that control everything. I like Spider-Man 2099. Miguel is so different from the Peter Parker archetype and he’s got claws and fangs. He’s brutal. It’s got a neat post-hero future kind of like Batman Beyond. I stopped reading because the next part is a crossover with Punisher 2099, Ravage 2099, Doom 2099, and X-Men 2099. I’ll hopefully pick it back up because I want to know what happens with the hologram that’s in love with Miguel.

Spider-Man by Kazumasa Hirai & Ryoichi Ikegami Yu Komori was bitten by a radioactive spider and he definitely wishes he wasn’t. It starts off a lot like our usual Spider-Man but the villains are so much more tragic and Yu deals with some heavy shit. Ikegami’s art evolves from cartoony to serious as the tone of the book changes. He’s a really incredible artist who is consistently pulling neat tricks and trying new things. I really liked this and it may top my favorite Spider-Man comics. It’s just so bleak and unforgiving to poor Yu. By the way, the final plotline is exactly the same as the Sonny Chiba movie Wolf Guy. Turns out the comic that movie was based on was written by the same guy that write Spider-Man. An odd find.

:::::::::: VIDEOGAMES ::::::::::

Axiom Verge Had my eye on this for a long time and finally picked it up on sale on my Switch. It’s okay. There are a lot of clever ideas here that I don’t think work for me. But I do like the decorrupter and the teleport. Some of the movement feels great but some stuff like the grappling hook feels awful. I hate the story. Completely incoherent sci-fi nonsense. But it’s a fun game and I enjoyed my time with it.

Hollow Knight I’ve spent about 30 hours on this game and I feel like I’m close to the end of the story. I absolutely love it. The movement, the combat, and the exploration all feel excellent. I’ve played over ten metroidvanias in the past year (I really like them) and this might be the best. My favorite part about them is how you’re almost never wasting time because there are new secrets to discover all across the map and Hollow Knight does such a good job with that.

#media diary

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davidmann95 · 6 years ago

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Best comics of 2018?

A handful of disqualifications up front: since they’re just beginning, I’m not counting Electric Warriors, Martian Manhunter, The Green Lantern (though Evil Star explaining his name in #2 might be my favorite moment in comics this year), Ironheart, DIE, Shazam!, Killmonger, The Batman Who Laughs, or Miles Morales: Spider-Man, all of which almost certainly would have ended up somewhere in here with some more time. Additionally, I switched to a new online pull list system in March, so I don’t have a list of what I got before then - if I’m forgetting about something great that came out early this year, there’s a good chance that would be why.

Honorary Mentions: While there were plenty of comics I was happy to keep up with, a number stood out as exemplary examples of straight-take relatively traditional capeshit: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and companies’ Justice League, Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America (which would probably go among the best of the best if the art was a bit more consistent or the lineup more to my personal tastes), Brian Bendis and Nick Derington’s Batman work in the Walmart 100-Page Giants, Donny Cates’ Thanos and Doctor Strange work (the latter might not have quite made it, but that last issue with Irving and Zdarsky was gangbusters), Steve Orlando’s brief Wonder Woman run with Laura Braga, ACO, and Raul Allen, Tim Seeley’s Green Lanterns, Nnedi Okorafor and Leonardo Romero’s Shuri, Robert Vendetti and Bryan Hitch’s Hawkman, Saladin Ahmed, Javier Rodriguez, Rod Reis, Dario Brizuela, and Joe Quinones’s Exiles, Captain America by both the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee team and the current Ta-Nehisi Coates/Lenil Francis Yu lineup, Dan Slott and Valerio Schiti’s Tony Stark: Iron Man when it’s committed solely to being a superhero comic and not Dan Slott trying to be Contemporary, Brian Bendis, Patrick Gleason, Yanick Paquette, and Ryan Sook’s Action Comics, and Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli’s West Coast Avengers.

On the slightly different side of things, Steve Orlando and Giovanni Timpano showed how you do an intercompany crossover right with The Shadow/Batman, Max Bemis’s Moon Knight while not living up to all it could have been - and likely to age poorly - had moments of truly bizarre grace, Saga was Saga even if I’ve lost the plot, Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt concluded as well as we all might have hoped, Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt’s The Wild Storm continued to build up steam in its own fascinating style, Doomsday Clock remains utterly captivating in spite of itself, and Tom Peyer and Jamal Igle’s The Wrong Earth is making the most of a deceptively tough premise. On the one-off end, Chip Zdarsky and Declan Shalvey’s Marvel Two-In-One Annual is an essentially perfect off-kilter Doom/Richards story, Action Comics #1000 had no chance of living up to all it needed to be but was largely a great set of Superman stories regardless, and while the remainder of the miniseries has thus far been fine, Tim Seeley and Carlos Villa’s first issue of Shatterstar was a strange, special delight.

My Favorite Comics of 2018

Rock Candy Mountain: Technically Jackson - the rail-rider who can beat Any One Man in a fistfight - reached the end of his journey for hobo heaven this year, and flat-out, every Kyle Starks comic is a perfect one. This is a book where the first issue has a dude beating ass with a beautiful savagery that leaves an awestruck onlooker declaring “He’s got punch diarrhea and their faces are the toilet bowl”, and by the end it built up to one of the most moving climaxes of the year. It’s a comic about fallen men finding redemption in friendship and in dreams, and also there’s a cage fighter who calls himself Hundred Cats because it would be really hard to fight a hundred cats.

Dark Knights: Metal: This is the final, perfected form of traditional Event Comic Bullshit. Everything good about Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia’s Batman post-Court Of Owls is retooled and reenergized to fit the scale of a Crisis event, everything that I would have considered to be a weakness regarding their partnership either burned away or placed in a context where it becomes a strength. This is the Morrison approach to the DCU rightfully ascendant and presented in a form even more fit for mass consumption, and manages to live up to being the first classic-style, large-scale DC event comic in almost a decade - Marvel may blow its own load every six months until it’s simply got nothing to offer anymore, but DC waited until they really and truly had something, and that something was bloodsoaked magic.

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (by Chip Zdarsky and assorted artists): I actually wavered a bit on whether this belonged in the best of the best as a whole; most of the issues this year were definitely very good (regarding Zdarsky’s run specifically, I haven’t checked out the Spider-Geddon tie-in stuff), but more on the honorary mention end of the scale. Ultimately however, the Amazing Fantasy arc and #310 are Spider-Man comics I’m going to be coming back to for years to come - the latter is going to end up in every ‘Best Spider-Man Stories Ever’ softcover from now until the end of time - and they tipped the scales.

Batman: Very much in the same boat as Spidey above; a lot of this year didn’t do it for me in the same way as this run has in the past, but The Best Man is the best thing anyone’s done with Joker since Morrison, the ‘wedding issue’ itself worked really well for me, Cold Days made a premise that’s often stymied creators work as well as people have always wanted it to, and the Dick team-up issue was a perfect little summation of a relationship, nevermind how much this year succeeded in getting me hyped up for things to come.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: This is one of those comics where it’s so consistently good in such a specific, quiet way that people stop talking about it, but for real, this has never not in the top five or six things Marvel is publishing at any given time for as long as it’s been around. Erica Henderson leaving right before hitting the Kraven story that had been building literally since its first issue 3 years earlier could have been disastrous, but North and new artist Derek Charm manage to hit their own rhythm and continue delivering one of the funniest, cleverest, most sincere superbooks on the stands every month.

Mister Miracle: Yeah, it really was that good.

The Immortal Hulk: So is this, and if I have to name a single best comic of the year, this has probably gotta be it. Al Ewing’s been Marvel’s best creator for a long, long time, and putting him and Joe Bennett (who holy moley, I don’t think anyone would have guessed had this in him) on a tentpole character Ewing’s got genuine reverence for worked out even better than a fanboy like me might have expected. It’s sublime horror, it’s perfect Marvel comics continuity bullshit, and if the superhero is at heart a morality fable, this is very much a soul-searing apex of the genre as it speaks of how we can all go wrong.

Eternity Girl: …or maybe this is the best? It’s probably gotta be this, Hulk, or Miracle. Mister Miracle’s where the comparison really becomes clear, as they’re both books way out on the fringes of the DCU dealing with a character grappling with depression amidst the mundanity of their cyclical existence. However, as perfectly constructed and rawly human as Mister Miracle is, this hits a lot more of my own buttons and expresses its own brand of more surreal emotional authenticity, and rather than the expected and beautiful next step of a pair of already-acclaimed creators with an established partnership, this was a shock coming out party for Visaggio and Liew, who do things stylistically just as odd to see in a DC Comic as anything King and Gerads came up with. It seemed to sail under the radar for readers but also seems to be racking up awards, and I hope this’ll attain the reputation it deserves in years to come.

Ice Cream Man: Likely the respectable fourth place to the three above, while I can’t quite sing its praises in quite the same way when it’s playing so hard-to-get that I can’t quite put a pin in what it’s ultimately about, oh my GOD this is as good as gut-punch horror gets. Not simply grody shock-value stuff, but pit-of-your-stomach-everything-in-the-world-hates-you-and-you-were-wrong-to-ever-believe-in-love shit that’ll rattle your bones and fuck you up good. Not usually a horror guy myself, but this is an essentially perfect comic.

The Man Of Steel: Screw all y’all, this kicked ass and after how hard the Rebirth books blew it - Jon and the new status quo were both excellent, Tomasi had good bits here and there alongside some quality fill-in teams, but those books were still aaaaaaaaaaassssss - this is exactly the fresh start Superman’s needed for years. Granted the Fabok interstitials had some wonky pacing, but this was on-point and insightful for Superman as a character, exciting as hell, and has thus far led to nothing but more good comics as far as I’m concerned.

Milk Wars: Did the various tie-ins live up to the bookends? Nah, though the Shade/Wonder Woman story was pretty good. But those bookends? Friends, those books were AAA+ sup-per-he-ro-bull-SHIT, and while I was initially let down because it seemed as though it would have Superman in a major role and then didn’t, this is even more of an apotheosis of the Morrison approach to the genre than Metal. ACO is ACO, Eaglesham slaughtered it, and Orlando and Way should be as joined at the hip as cowriters as Abbnett and Lanning used to be. This is a gold standard for strange, edgy, colorful, wondrous, fucked-up superhero comics, and there should be a million more like it every day.

Justice League (by Christopher Priest and assorted artists, primarily Pete Woods): On the exact opposite end of the scale, while I don’t think I can say I enjoyed this book as much as the current Snyder-helmed gonzo cosmic adventures, I absolutely feel this was the better of the two. More importantly, this run is the successful version of what just about every other Justice League comic of the past 15 years has been trying and failing to be as the post-Authority, post-Ultimates, post-Civil War take on the concept. It’s as smart and atmospheric and bold as a book like Justice League ever CAN be, building its exploration of the conceptual stress points of the team around one and two-part adventures and clever character dynamics, illustrating an interesting new take on how to handle the main team book with the power players: taking their ability to handle physical threats as a relative given, a structural conceit acting as a delivery mechanism for the politics and people in play. It hardly breaks new ground in terms of redefining the superhero concept, but it’s as far as they’ve gone with the marquis characters without ending in disaster, and it’s an approach I’d love to see more often applied to this scale.

Superman: Walmart 100 Page Giant (by Tom King and Andy Kubert): Of all the places for King to do a regular Superman comic, huh? Still, we’d already seen what he’d done in that Batman two-parter and Action #1000, so I’m more than willing to take what we can get (even if most are going to have to wait for this to come out in trade). There have been four installments so far: the first is the sort of stage-setting that’s common to this type of long-form arc but with a distinctly different atmosphere than how this is typically done with the character, evoking a sort of Miller-tinged Golden Age flavor connecting Superman back down to Earth before throwing him into the stars. The third is a great Fuck Yeah Superman Doin’ Superman Shit throwdown that gives Kubert a chance to shine. The fourth and most recent is haunting, inspired, moving, and tight as a drum. And the second begins as the worst-case scenario of Tom King doing a Superman comic, and ends as likely my favorite Superman story of the last 5 years. If it continues in its current direction, Superman: Up In The Sky is almost certainly going to be a perennial people are going to rank among the best Superman stories of all time for decades to come, and everything I’d want out of this team tackling my favorite character.

Detective Comics (by James Tynion IV and assorted artists): I’m honestly surprised at myself for putting this here, but I just have to hand it to this run - which had to go quite a ways to win me over, between its opening gambit with Batwoman’s status quo and centering the whole thing around my least-favorite Robin (even if it won me over to him over time) - as basically being the platonic form of Dang Good Superhero Comics. Not boundary-pushing, not the sort of thing you’ll remember in 20 years, but just really fun, exciting, good-looking, slick, character-driven adventures building on themselves into the logical culmination of 21st century popular Batman stories. This is Batman 101, but in a good way, and I honestly think that on reflection it’s gonna hold together better as a Batman run than its immediate predecessor in Snyder/Capullo.

You Are Deadpool: This is the smartest, funniest, most inventive big two comic of the year and even if you’re so tired of Deadpool that your skull bones are threatening to suddenly contract and spear your brain in an attempt at saving your weary soul from the prospect of seeing any more of him, you should get this.

Superman (by Brian Bendis and Ivan Reis): I noted Action Comics among the honorable mentions, as while it’s a dang good comic that I enjoy a great deal - and Ryan Sook may well have established himself as my ideal modern Superman artist - it’s very much the best possible version of *exactly* what you’d expect from Brian Bendis doing Superman. This, on the other hand, feels like Bendis stretching himself to do something truly different in a way he hasn’t in years, and the results are stunning. I won’t pretend Rogol Zaar has amounted to much of anything as of yet, but Bendis has acclimated to the realm of Cosmic Superman Punch-Ups in a way no one could have reasonably seen coming; he’s managed to sidestep his usual issues by anchoring each issue in a crazy setpiece and a single perfect Superman character moment, and Reis is doing work here than can unquestionably stand alongside his Sinestro Corps War heyday. Whether it’s #1 having Superman fight an astro-goilla in the middle of a questioning on his responsibilities to humanity, #4 going full Shonen in the best possible way with probably my favorite fight scene of the year, or #6′s storybook mythmaking building to the best, cruelest needle in the balloon possible, or the consistent delightful fucking with Adam Strange, every issue here has something I didn’t know I badly wanted to see, and damn if that isn’t exactly what I want in my Superman stuff.

Assorted one-offs: Along with the major arcs and runs, we’ve got stuff like the Thanos Annual and DC Nuclear Winter Special, as good as anthologies of this kind get. T-shirt Superman got one last ride under Morrison in the Sideways Annual, fighting his way out from under the wreckage of a weird DiDio book to get exactly the sendoff he deserved. The Injustice 2 Annual, of all things, was a perfect piece of bittersweet character work. Invincible #144 satisfyingly closed out The Best Superhero Comic In The Universe by essentially also doing Invincible #145-500 or so, putting this often tumultuous title to bed with the dignity it had earned. And finally, Slott and Marcos Martin’s The Amazing Spider-Man #801 was a perfect minor mediation not even on the title character so much as the basic moral appeal of the genre as a whole.

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