#and the many other versions of the beloved superhero over the years

[cocoabubbelle]

Personal Opinion

I can be both a Snyderverse Superman fan AND be excited for My Adventures with Superman.

#shenanigans #snyderverse #henry cavill #man of steel #batman v supeman: dawn of justice #justice league snydercut #my adventures with superman #jack quaid #and don’t get me started on #christopher reeve #bruce timm #superman #tim daly #brandon routh #george reeves #tyler hoechlin #dean cain #tom welling #and the many other versions of the beloved superhero over the years #there is clearly more than one way to wear the cape and to slay it #but that’s just my opinion

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Syndrome

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

In one of the earliest episodes of Psycho Analysis, I discussed the villain of Incredibles II, Evelyn Deavor. Evelyn is just a genuinely awful twist villain for not only being completely obvious, but for having a nonsensical and impersonal motive that makes her look like a vindictive idiot. And while there is so much wrong with her, things I detailed in that review (though probably not quite as well as I would now after doing this for a few years), there is one big issue that holds her back, one that no villain in her shoes could avoid: She’s standing in the shadow of a chubby ginger nerd with a Heat Miser hairdo.

Syndrome (real name Buddy Pine) is really something else when it comes to Pixar villains. While not the first to be genuinely, irredeemably evil—Hopper was already right there—he had a lot of things that the grasshopper lacked. For one, we get to see Syndrome’s backstory and how he ended up becoming the way that he is. But more importantly, Syndrome just has a much more stylish presentation that elevates him to being what I consider Pixar’s very best villain.

Motivation/Goals: Over the course of his many, many evil monologues, Syndrome paints a pretty vivid picture of why he is the way he is. It begins with his initial monologue to Bob, where he recounts the faithful night Bob cruelly rejected him and told him to fly home. Only… there’s one teensy little detail missing from the recap. A very French detail.

Yes, Buddy’s memory proves to be extremely self-serving, as he ignores Bob was at the time dealing with the terrorist and “World’s Greatest Punny Supervillain Name” winner Bomb Voyage to paint himself as a poor, innocent victim of a dismissive and cruel super. Note also how his posture in his version has him with arms wide open as Bob cruelly looks down upon him. All of this goes to show that his big desire for revenge, a core aspect of his motivation, is just completely fabricated by his warped, evil mind. I think he really was just looking for an excuse to go on a killing spree and Bob telling him to stop endangering his own life inadvertently created the world’s first super-school shooter.

Syndrome later elaborates on his evil scheme, because simple revenge isn’t all he’s about (it’s just really nice he gets to take it, that’s all). In another monologue, he details how his murderous robot was meticulously created so that he could fabricate the perfect deadly enemy for him to beat in a staged fight, thus turning himself into a beloved superhero and winning the public’s adoration and respect. With every other hero dead by his hands, he could now soak in all the attention he wanted, and then when he’s old he’d sell off all his tech creating a world where everyone is super (meaning, in his words, that “no one will be”). Syndrome’s initial scheme is very ego-driven and narcissistic, which honestly makes it perfect for a campy supervillain like him.

Of course, he ends up having one more plan when everything else goes awry: Steal Jack-Jack and raise him as his own. This is actually a nice recycling of his cameo from a deleted opening scene for the movie, where he was actually an old enemy who tried to kidnap Violet as a child and who ends up dying in a horrible explosion for trying to fuck with Bob and Helen’s kid (seems they liked that fate for him, because they kept that too). It’s pretty demented as far as a backup plan goes, but it certainly fits him.

Performance: Beloved Kevin Smith collaborator, former Scientologist, and Dave Seville actor Jason Lee is genuinely the perfect sort of guy to voice a villain who comes off as incredibly comedic, but he also gets to show off some really good range when it’s time for Buddy to drop the laughably evil schtick and dip into being a smug, sinister supervillain. All in all, he gives us the exact sort of Silver Age supervillain hamminess to keep you engaged even as he dips deeper and deeper into horrifyingly evil actions.

Final Fate: You’d think that after nearly dying from a bomb getting caught on it as a child, Syndrome would ditch the cape. You’d think that, being a former hero worshiper who absolutely had to know that Edna Mode was the hero designer, he’d be aware of her stance on capes in costume design and would ditch the cape. But no, Syndrome apparently really wanted that classic hero look, and as all truly stylish men must do, he paid the price for looking good. The price in this case is being sucked into a jet turbine where he was shredded into a fine paste before whatever was left violently exploded in a massive fireball, but hey, that's what you get for ignoring Edna's fashion advice.

Best Scene: I think his introductory scene when he fully reveals himself to Bob is, ahem, incredible, especially on repeat viewings. From the chilling moment where he makes Bob aware of his true identity to his warped self-victimizing recap of Bob rejecting him to getting caught monologuing and then tossing Bob away by accident, it takes the nerdy little fanboy from the opening and recontextualizes him as a laughably evil mad scientist who is at the same time an extremely disturbed murderer with a horrifyingly personal vendetta.

Best Quote: Syndrome has some of the best quotes in the movie this side of Edna, and he drops a good 50% of the film’s most iconic and quotable lines. But the one bit of dialogue that sticks out to me personally is the one he drops during his big (re)entrance into the film, where he makes Bob realize who he is by simply saying, “After all… I am your biggest fan.” It’s so simple and bone-chilling and really sets the mood of the film going forward.

Final Thoughts & Score: Syndrome is just really an amalgamation of everything great you could have in a villain in this particular type of movie.

On the superhero movie side, he’s obviously taking a lot of inspiration from envy-driven tech geniuses like Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom. He has a personal grudge against the hero, and is determined to use his technological prowess to outdo them and show the world he’s better than the supermen. Of course, Syndrome takes it to an entirely unhinged level by being an unrepentant serial killer, but he’s very much still in the spirit of those aforementioned supervillains. Much like them, and as previously mentioned, his version of the events that led to his rebirth as a villain are very skewed to paint him more as a victim, with his take being how he was unfairly treated by his idols rather than as some obnoxious nuisance who could have been severely hurt or killed and whose bumbling led to a disastrous chain of events. It seems very much in the same vein as the stories where Doom blames Reed for however badly his face is scarred, or Lex blaming Superman for making him bald. Syndrome just takes these classic comic book tropes and mashes them together into one fantastic package. Now if only he somehow involved super-intelligent gorillas in his plans...

Now let’s look at the James Bond side, because everything from the score to the island lair to the evil henchmen are pure Bond villain territory. Syndrome has Bond Villain Stupidity down to an art form; even when he points out being “caught monologuing,” he still does it multiple times where he otherwise has the titular family dead to rights. He had ample opportunity to kill them several times, only to end up with egg on his face because the heroes managed to use his time gloating to form a real plan of escape. And then there’s his death which, again, is caused because he felt like gloating instead of just fucking leaving. He even has a sexy henchwoman who betrays him for the incredibly sexy Chad of a hero, though Bob doesn’t need her pussy when he has it galore at home. Syndrome wouldn’t feel too out of place going up against Jimmy B, if I’m being honest; nothing Syndrome does is any sillier than Moonraker.

I think what’s truly impressive is just how they managed to balance Syndrome being utterly vile and absolutely hilarious, which is no easy task and can lead to a villain being insufferable rather than entertaining. Syndrome has some great jokes, great body language, and the voice of Jason Lee, a voice that exudes comedic energy in every syllable; he also nonchalantly orders children to be murdered, gambles his henchwoman’s life just to call Bob’s bluff, tries to kidnap a baby, and is basically what would happen if H. H. Holmes had robots. It’s such an amazing combination of traits and it all gels together into one of the best and most fun superhero movie villains ever crafted.

Yeah, that’s right. He’s one of the best superhero movie villains. This man easily clears most of Marvel and DC’s movie villains, and deserves every single point of that 10.5/10 I’m giving him. He’s Pixar’s best villain, and exactly the sort of fun, campy, yet ultimately deadly and threatening bad guy that all superhero movies deserve. Literally no part of The Incredibles is lacking, so why should the villain be any different, right? If only the sequel could have kept up even half the energy… Maybe if they’d given Evelyn Snow Miser’s hair, she’d have been a better villain.

#Psycho Analysis #Syndrome #Jason Lee #Pixar #The Incredibles

[tirorah]

PGSM (2003) Is a Story About Human Beings, and I LOVE It

Years ago, I attempted to watch the live-action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon show, or PGSM for short. And I quit because it looked so silly I couldn't maintain my sense of disbelief.

I've learnt not to judge a show by its looks since then. So, when I stumbled across a 20-second PGSM clip two weeks ago, I thought, "Shouldn't I give that another chance?" I'd heard a few interesting things about it, so I decided the answer was yes.

It took me a little while to adjust, sure. Some things still looked ridiculous to me. And yet, with every episode I became more and more emotionally invested. I started to see PGSM for what it truly was: an intricate tapestry of character-driven storytelling.

If you've read my other posts, you know I love characters more than anything. What I also love is an emphasis on narrative consequence and a willingness to explore new and/or interesting ideas, particularly when it's a new entry in an already-established franchise. And it just so happens that PGSM ticks all of these boxes!

In short, this show was made for me.

I'm not going to write about all of the clever things this show does because that would take far too many words. Here's my quick two cents: I think PGSM is excellent. It has flaws, and I think it only appeals to a certain type of viewer. But if you are that type of viewer, like I am, you're likely to be swept off your feet!

So yeah, I never thought I'd say this, but I love this show. It's by far the most fun I've ever had with Sailor Moon. And as is standard by now, I'm going to tell you why I feel that way under the cut.

First, I'll go over how PGSM manages to work at all. Then, I'll outline the theme; the central questions at the heart of the story. Finally, I'm going to illustrate just how well this show pulls off its primary goals---by examining the character arc of a certain old favourite of mine.

[FULL spoiler warning!]

[Word count: ~6,000]

New Kid on The Block

Ever since its inception, Sailor Moon has been an enduring presence in Japanese media and merchandising. Its presence has waxed and waned over the past decades, but it has nevertheless managed to remain incredibly successful. The original 90s manga spawned a concurrently running anime series, musicals, the Crystal anime series in the 2010s, and much more.

The fun effect of all these different versions is that each is its own thing. Even Crystal, which adheres much more closely to the manga than the 90s anime, is still different; a story can't be told the same way in every medium. This is why adaptations are difficult to do and are likely to piss off someone, regardless of intent or execution.

Smack-dab between the original and recent versions, a bold little beast emerged.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon aired from October 2003 to September 2004. Unlike the versions before and since, it's a live-action tokusatsu superhero TV series, like Super Sentai--a show the manga also drew inspiration from. This again marks a significant change when it comes to storytelling possibilities.

PGSM faces several challenges on top of that. It only exists because the musicals were so successful, yet it has a shoestring-looking budget that makes some aspects of the show look underwhelming. The lead actors were young and inexperienced, so it can take a bit for everything to click performance-wise. Lastly, the characters tend to have their faces in full view during action scenes, rendering the use of stunt doubles difficult and therefore limiting choreographic possibilities.

And yet, under the stewardship of writer Kobayashi Yasuko and a ton of passionate and experienced staff, this show found a way to stand shoulder to shoulder with beloved works of the franchise.

Let's examine how.

Limitations, Genre and Theme

If I'd given you a rundown of the obstacles PGSM faced without my glowing praise attached, you'd probably think this show was sent out to die. Maybe it was, I don't know. Perhaps someone at Toei thought it would hoover up some merchandise sales before it fell off a cliff to its pyrotechnic death!

The amazing thing about PGSM is that it takes these challenges and turns them into its greatest strengths. This is a show that understands the constraints it has to operate within. It can't compete on action and special effects, so it hones in on something it can execute well and bring a unique twist to: characters and story.

Its best claim to fame, at least in the little discussion I saw of it, is how it reworks its characters to serve a brand-new spin on a familiar narrative. But I believe this description to be...insufficient. The changes made here go beyond adjusting and emphasising personality traits. This is a paradigm shift; a top-to-bottom overhaul and a tribute to Sailor Moon all at once.

While there's still an overarching story that involves protecting the world from evil and salvaging a doomed romance from a previous life, the real meat of PGSM lies in the rich inner lives of its cast. This shifts the genre to character-driven drama with a dash of soap opera.

As a result, those aforementioned inner lives are established, built upon, and allowed to emerge and clash naturally. All the while, the characters contend with a turbulent new reality which further affects their interpersonal relationships. That in turn shifts the theme to something much more personal: past life versus current life.

What does it mean for your identity to be reborn with memories from a past life? What do you do when that past life has a stranglehold on your current one? Are you doomed to repeat the mistakes of ages past?

And what effect do these challenges have on a person's psyche?

PGSM spends its 49-episode runtime exploring these questions to the fullest. I consider it a true ensemble work, as every major character is relevant to the story and drives it forward at some point. And because each of them is unique, we're shown a full spectrum of viewpoints that are informed by personality traits and emotional baggage.

So, yeah, it's really good. Really damn good.

In fact, to demonstrate just how in-depth and detailed the characterisation is, I'm going to spend the rest of this post analysing my favourite example of a PGSM character arc: the understated and expertly-paced struggles of one Kino Makoto.

Wood and Thunder

A core part of Makoto in every version is her dual nature--possessing both traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics--and how this clashes with societal expectations. With her curly hair and long skirt, she comes across like a typical sukeban (a delinquent girl) of the time. Her imposing height, incredible strength and fighting skills confirm that image.

In truth, the sukeban resemblance is exactly that and nothing more; her hair is naturally curly and her new school doesn't have a uniform in her size. She only uses her strength to protect others. Notably, she has a romantic heart and yearns for a place to belong, perhaps even a person she can belong with.

Absolutely none of that matters to society. Through no fault of her own, people only see one side to her and assume the other doesn't exist. Prejudice and ostracisation follow.

You might think this would cause Makoto to be ashamed of her more masculine traits, but that's not the case. She might feel embarrassed by them at times, or attempt to play up her feminine side to compensate, sure. But in the end, she embraces all of these characteristics and doesn't think it's wrong to be this way. People just refuse to see the feminine side that's openly on display.

So, here we have a character with a compelling set of characteristics that can be utilised in different ways. The approach taken is something that differs per version. But like all things Sailor Moon, Makoto is a product of her time; the sukeban aspect is particularly dated.

As an early 2000s show, PGSM had a chance at a fresh start with this concept. Suffice it to say I was very interested to see how it would update Makoto to a new millennium and modify her without erasing her core traits. What I got was far more than I bargained for.

Makoto's PGSM debut gives us an effective overview of her as a person that hits many familiar beats. She protects Usagi, returns Usagi's friendliness with her own, develops a crush on a guy, and kicks ass both in and out of Senshi guise. She had her heart broken by her senpai at her previous school, but she also felt like something was urging her to come here. Now she knows why: she had comrades to meet.

This looks like a mix of Makoto's introduction in the manga and 90s anime, adapted to modern times. But all that familiarity is distracting you from something. There's actually a big deviation here, and you can see that before she even does anything.

Take a good look at this picture. Obviously the sukeban influence was removed from her design, but that's not the most important detail here. Hopefully you'll notice what I didn't:

There are no rose earrings.

Everything spirals out from there. The Makoto from the 90s was open about her femininity, but the Makoto we meet in PGSM barely shows her feminine side at all. In fact, she takes great pains to hide it.

This affects her character on a fundamental level. When she first appears, she comes across as unusually withdrawn and stoic. As is typical of the character, she swiftly opens up to Usagi and that seems to be the end of aloof Makoto. But that feminine side doesn't surface. She still dresses in unisex clothes that lean more toward masculine than feminine.

Likewise, her flat may have a few plants and a neat kitchen, but they don't take centre stage. There's a skateboard and a hat collection (my beloved!) that are displayed at the entrance. A logical location, but that also means it's the first thing you see when you enter.

So, what gives? Here's the thing: the characters in PGSM are emotionally complex. Much work and care went into characterising all of them. Because of this, the characters feel like real people. They argue, make mistakes, agonise over things... Not to say this isn't the case in other versions, but PGSM takes it further and really emphasises how vulnerable--how tragically human--these characters can be.

That's what is being tied into here. Being mistaken for a tomboy, despite being openly feminine, is an external issue. But for PGSM's Makoto, the conflict is internal. She doesn't want to be seen as feminine. When exposed or questioned, she denies it despite being a terrible liar. If the questioning continues, she actually uses her tomboy image to refute it.

She does this because her feminine side makes her vulnerable. This Makoto has been burned so many times that she's developed abandonment issues. She's one bad experience away from yet another cocktail of intense sadness and deep-seated anger. Sometimes a mere reminder is enough to get her down, too.

No one wants to feel like that. She's learnt the hard way that opening herself up to others puts her at risk. That's why she prefers to play these darker feelings close to her chest.

To demonstrate all of this, her debut episode shows us exactly how bad it can get. It puts her through an especially cruel combination of deception, humiliation and rejection, no punches pulled.

It's at this moment that Makoto has had enough. Taking this risk was a mistake and it should never be repeated. She slams the gate to her wounded heart shut and locks it tight. The walls of her inner fortress become that much higher.

Learning to lower those walls and make another try for happiness is Makoto's character arc in PGSM.

This is why she was shifted so much toward the tomboy archetype. By giving Makoto an emotional incentive to deny a part of herself, PGSM gives her a believable, deeply personal obstacle that can take her the entire show to overcome. She now has to engage with her abandonment issues in order to become the more balanced person we know she can be.

Her powers as Sailor Jupiter also connect to this: there's the explosive power of lightning on one end and the soothing aura of nature on the other. Two distinct halves that each bring their own benefits. But Makoto's starting point is pure lightning.

Multiple times throughout the show, we're shown that nature is trying to communicate with her. But because she starts out as a lightning bolt, she doesn't understand it at all. This is another avenue for self-improvement, and PGSM understands that too; it explicitly ties the awakening of a Senshi's full powers to overcoming a core character flaw.

So, given all of that, how does PGSM build on the devastation she suffered during her debut episode and the emotional consequences left in its wake?

I'm happy to report it does nothing for 24 episodes. Yes, really.

For half of the runtime, Makoto acts as the support of the group; often present, but never centre stage. Sure, she develops a dynamic with each of her new friends, and she even begins to show some of her feminine aspects as that trust grows. The more she does this, the more her affinity with nature subtly increases; she begins to use non-lightning attacks and comes ever so slightly closer to understanding what the wind and trees attempt to tell her.

But when it comes to the story, Makoto doesn't drive most of the events that occur at this point. She becomes involved, or agrees to go along with something, but rare is the instance where something happens directly because of her actions. She contributes, but she's never in the driver's seat. She's the one who helps others become better versions of themselves.

She develops, but she doesn't grow.

This delay is 100% intentional. A Makoto who's only giving, only protecting, is completely fine. There are no lingering issues she needs to deal with because they've been swept under the rug, tucked away behind the walls of her fortress. For all she reveals of herself during this time, her abandonment issues might as well not exist.

This is PGSM's devotion to character-driven storytelling and narrative consequence on full display. As Makoto ignores her emotional baggage, PGSM is likewise content to misdirect you away from it.

Cycle of Fear

It's not until episode 31 that Motoki--the most endearing turtle nerd to have ever lived--unwittingly pokes at Makoto's defences. Up until that moment, she'd first considered him an acquaintance and later a supportive friend. In other words: a safe coexistence.

The moment she realises he has a crush on her, that safety disappears and all her thoroughly-buried insecurities rush to the forefront. Her old stoicism slams into place as the mask we now know it to be and she does her best to avoid eye contact. As brash as she usually is, she now struggles with all her might to seem detached and logical. She has to; the alternative is revealing how anxious this situation makes her. Although Usagi, Ami and Rei have earned her trust, showing that most vulnerable side of herself is still a bridge too far.

She drags herself to the date (probably because Usagi wouldn't let her worm her way out of it) and spends the entire time being awkward in spite of Motoki's oblivious excitement. It's clear that her heart isn't in it, but in typical Makoto fashion, she places the needs of the kind, sensitive Motoki above her own and does her best to let the date die a natural death.

Then, a sudden connection!

Makoto is stunned at first. No one has ever said that to her. As Motoki continues to extol her virtues--half of which are about how incredibly nice she is--she lights up! Aww!

...Only for her insecurities to take over again after an offhand mention of parents by Motoki, because PGSM is a story about fallible human beings. She immediately attempts to leave and is only stopped by a nosey Luna. It's impossible for Motoki not to notice something's off at this point. Keen for clarity, he decides to confess his feelings when they're not surrounded by other people. Makoto rejects him--by denying her femininity.

This is a direct result of Makoto's actions in the first half of the show. When she started to open up to her friends, she could've taken it further and started to navigate her issues. Her friends could've helped her. Instead, she chose to pretend that there was nothing to fix.

Now here she is. Avoidance--her first line of defence--has failed. Her second wall, rationalisation, has also been bypassed. Emotionally cornered, she falls back on the same defence mechanism she used at the start: denial wrapped up in irrational beliefs and low self-esteem.

"I'm really strong and get into fights. People are scared of me. That means I'm actually not feminine at all and what you saw was an anomaly. And because I'm not feminine, I'm not dating material."

By maintaining her tomboy image and denying her feminine attributes, this reasoning allows her to pre-emptively sabotage any blossoming relationship for herself. While this might bring relief in the short term, it's also the very thing that keeps her from happiness. Makoto is the Senshi of courage, but here she demonstrates how afraid she truly is.

Motoki seems to recognise this on some level. To him, Makoto is a strong, confident person. But she's also reserved in a way, and now that the emotional mess underneath is being dragged into the light, it's clear she's like that for a reason. He sees her for who she truly is and he likes what he sees, but she's not in a good enough place, mentally, to see that too. So he does the only thing he can do: he gives her space. He reassures her that she is feminine and then leaves her be.

"Why?"

This is the question that has plagued her for years. Uttered by a young Makoto and echoed by her present self, this representation of her thoughts comes up whenever loss or rejection hits. What matters here is the context: for once, it's Makoto who did the rejecting. She's in control.

So then, why does this still happen?

This is one of the uncommon moments where PGSM engages in subtlety. We don't get a definitive answer here. Makoto asks, "Why?" but we don't know what that refers to in this moment. We have to infer that ourselves.

My reading is as follows: "I rejected him before he could reject me. I removed him from my life before I could lose him. So why does it hurt? Why do I feel sad?"

During the subsequent fight against a powerful Youma, the other Senshi are held up and she ends up cornered and alone. It's an all too familiar scenario. She flashes back to all of the people she's lost.

Motoki shows up too, but he's almost impossible to make out.

At that very moment, the wind picks up around her. She lets out a breath in awe, gazing up at the swaying branches as the wind seems to communicate something. And then she awakens. Although she still summons a lightning attack, it's now taken on a green colour, signifying a new equilibrium.

When the others ask her what triggered it, Makoto naturally tells them the lesson of this episode: that she had to acknowledge her feminine side and truly open herself up to being loved--

--Wha...?

Yeah, you're seeing that right. Makoto just learnt the wrong lesson.

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted by this outcome. Deep down, as much as she wants to refute it, Makoto needs companionship, people to belong with. It's a core aspect of her character! It makes no sense for her to gain power from solitude.

However... If you think about it, why wouldn't this be her takeaway? She was alone and she made sure to sabotage her relationship with Motoki before it could go anywhere, so this is the only logical explanation, right? Her powers awakened, so the narrative is proving her correct as well.

Except no, the narrative is simply adhering to the consequences of her actions. By coming to the wrong conclusion, Makoto has once again delayed her growth.

For the next 13 (!) episodes, Makoto seems to be okay again. She easily slips back into her role of casual, friendly and supportive friend. But something's changed: Usagi, Ami and Rei have glimpsed Makoto's scars, and they're not content to let her ignore them.

They attempt to challenge her new outlook, but Makoto's resolve is ironclad. Even when she's forced to reveal her secret identity to Motoki, she still reiterates her rejection of him. What's worse, she now she has an extra defence: her duties as a Senshi. Although Motoki still carries a torch for her, he resigns himself to supporting her as best he can.

Still, despite her determination in this matter, Makoto herself has changed as well. There's conflict and pain present whenever she's forced to acknowledge her decisions. And ever since the start of episode 31, she can't help but look sombre whenever something reminds her of her parents. Somehow, despite her best efforts to repair the holes in her walls, some cracks have remained.

All of this comes to a head when Makoto's character arc collides with Minako's.

Diminishing The Self

Ever since the girls found out they were reborn after their past lives ended in disaster, they've been grappling with PGSM's theme more and more. With their past swiftly squeezing the life out of their present, each of them is forced to form an opinion: How much do their past lives affect their present lives? How much should it affect them in the first place? And what do you do?

Here's our spectrum: On one extreme we have Rei, who's become resentful of her past life and rejects it completely. She asserts that she is her own person and that her past life shouldn't dictate who she is and how she acts now. Makoto's stance is adding fuel to that fire. When Minako counters her coup with one of her own, Rei is kicked out and decides to fight on separately.

At the other extreme stands Minako. Diagnosed with a terminal illness that she has almost no hope of curing, she's completely rejected her present life and is devoted to completing the mission from her past life. She won't be around for much longer and she's determined to save the world as much as possible before she dies. She asserts authority over the Senshi for the sake of the mission.

Usagi and Ami fall between these two polar opposites. Usagi is the reincarnation of the Moon Princess and is literally anchored to the past life through her Silver Crystal. She can't deny that her current existence has been heavily shaped by the past. But she's also determined to prevent a repeat of the past, even if it's the hardest thing she's ever done. She works hard at controlling her emotions and is convinced she and Mamoru will succeed.

Ami's current circumstances don't seem to be shaped as much by her past life, so she's the most neutral out of all of them. But as someone who was turned to evil and emerged a changed person, it's hard to deny: Their lives have been affected by the past and it's necessary to acknowledge that. What to do with that information is something she doesn't have the answer to. She fights alongside Minako and Makoto, but stays in touch with Rei.

Makoto has been firmly in the 'this mission is paramount' camp from the start, but not to the extreme that Minako is. You see, Minako almost always chooses to refer to them by their Senshi monikers. Makoto doesn't; she and her three friends always refer to each other by their present life names, even during battle. This is a conscious change that establishes their current identities as distinct from their past selves.

But remember, Makoto came here because she was meant to. She was meant to meet her comrades. She was destined to be alone, so she could listen to nature and let it lead her to her true purpose in life.

So when Minako tells her she's so devoted to the mission that she will cast aside her life to complete it, Makoto can't help but be stirred. Finally, with Minako's help, she realises that the truth is even simpler than she thought: She's always been alone because her current life isn't what truly matters. She exists to carry out her duties, regardless of the personal cost.

This is the final piece of the puzzle for both her and us. Her shift to a tomboy archetype, her character arc and the theme of the show all combine here.

For years, Makoto has been haunted by something: "Why?" Why was she left to suffer all alone? Why was she abandoned over and over?

Then this Senshi business comes along, and with it comes a duty and moniker from a past life. For Usagi, this upheaval of her identity is upsetting. But for Makoto, it's a comfort. Being a Senshi gives her purpose, stability and even friends. For someone who's sorely lacked all of that for years, this development is nothing short of a godsend.

And so, from the very beginning, she took this newfound 'destiny' and ran with it. This was the best thing that had ever happened to her and she crafted her entire outlook around that. Heartbroken and expelled from school? That was just another way to get her to where she needed to be. Her powers awaken while she's dwelling on how she always ends up alone? Obviously that isolation was also intended.

From there, it's a hop, skip and a jump to what she's doing in this scene: discarding her current identity in favour of her past one. She perfectly expresses this by (in the next episode) copying Minako's statement: she might die, but "Jupiter won't disappear". Kino Makoto is a shell to house Sailor Jupiter, and shells are expendable.

This is Makoto at her most extreme. She's always downplayed her own importance and achievements, and now here she is, downplaying her very existence. No individual, only the greater good.

It doesn't even matter that Minako lied to them about her identity, illness and powers. Makoto understands by this point that a secret can be kept for good reasons; she's done it herself. If anything, Minako's deception and her ensuing burdens feed Makoto's view of her as a martyr and a leader.

By choosing to follow that example, Makoto joins Minako on the very extreme of the thematic (past life versus current life) spectrum. In turn, Minako gains the staunchest of allies--but she fails to realise how thoroughly Makoto has just been primed for the pinnacle of martyrdom.

A powerful Youma attacks. When Makoto, Ami and Luna wound it, Metalia possesses it, scaling its power beyond that of the Senshi to overcome. Minako can't transform. Ami and Luna have been knocked out of their Senshi forms and can't fight anymore.

Metalia is about to win. They're going to fail.

Makoto decides to fulfil her purpose. She grabs hold of the Youma and overloads herself with lightning, creating an explosion that annihilates them both.

Minako calls out to the person--not the Senshi--in front of her.

True Courage

Makoto wakes up in a hotel room, wounded but alive, watched over by Minako. The Youma threw her off at the last second, saving both of their lives. Makoto only laments her failure; she doesn't even seem to care that she almost died. In fact, she outright states that she was meant to be alone so that her possible death wouldn't make anyone sad.

Minako has been horrified by this entire ordeal and that feeling only grows with every sentence Makoto utters. When Makoto explains she was fulfilling her past life's mission, it hits Minako like a ton of bricks: this is her doing. By influencing Makoto in this direction, she almost had Makoto's blood on her hands.

She tries to sway Makoto from a repeat attempt, but is taken aback when Makoto unintentionally throws every single one of her own arguments back in her face. When she claims that her own situation is different, Makoto looks her squarely in the eyes and says, "A life's a life. They're all the same."

Minako doesn't deny it. She can't. How could anyone refuse such a simple, factual statement when it comes from someone as forthright as Makoto?

It proves impossible to change Makoto's mind, so she changes tactics. Rather than challenge Makoto's standpoint directly, she questions one of its cornerstones instead. She does so by revealing that Makoto had muttered Motoki's name in her sleep. Perhaps, she posits, Makoto is more tied to the present than she believes herself to be.

This succeeds in shaking Makoto's beliefs. Minako leaves her to her thoughts, victorious in a way, but her own conviction was caught in the crossfire. While Rei's insistence opened the way, she was also easy to dig in her heels against. Makoto, on the other hand, has fundamentally disproven Minako's views by agreeing with her. In that suicide attack, she saw first-hand the logical endpoint of her own ideology. She's more than a little disturbed.

It's the opening Artemis needs, even though he doesn't know it's there. When he subsequently shows her how much joy and comfort her songs bring to others, she finally realises what she's been missing in herself. Her current life does have value, her achievements do matter, and she shouldn't dismiss them so flippantly. She should love herself, love the person she is now.

In the following battle, she awakens her full powers and transforms. The Senshi are finally united for good.

Now that Minako has admitted to herself that she also resents the past life for what it's done to her, Makoto has become the new extreme on the thematic spectrum. However, Minako's revelation is forcing her to reconcile conflicting truths. She awakened because she was alone. But if Motoki's still on her mind like that, if he's still part of her life like that, then she's not alone. If she's not alone, then her reasoning is intrinsically flawed.

When she sees Motoki in a Youma-induced coma, the question of "Why?" returns for the final time. And then she sees him, clearly this time.

In that moment, she realises all of her beliefs were wrong. She didn't reject Motoki, she lost him through self-sabotage. Foiling a possible relationship didn't work; he'd cracked her armour before then. Their connection was gradually built up over the entire show and came cocooned in comfortable friendship, the only type of connection she did allow.

When that connection touched her heart and stirred something more, that was when she unlocked her full potential. He cares about her, the real her, not the skewed facade she puts on. She's not alone anymore. When she told herself that she was alone and always had been, and the wind rustled the leaves, that was nature calling her out on her self-deception.

But why did that self-deception even occur? She didn't need to draw this conclusion from the start, did she? Unfortunately, she did. That's the final, heartbreaking part: Being a Senshi was the ultimate coping mechanism.

There's a reason this shot is repeated multiple times:

Makoto was constantly looking back at the past, looking for answers. Because her abandonment issues went unresolved, that question of "Why?" was burning a hole in her. She was desperate for a reason, any reason, so she could understand. If her hardship and loneliness were predetermined and in service to this all-important duty, then being a Senshi justified her suffering. She craved that more than anything. No wonder she transformed without even questioning it.

And hey, if that duty meant she had to avoid the type of relationship that terrified her most of all, well... That was a happy coincidence, wasn't it?

Fortunately, for all the trouble her uncompromising, black-and-white outlook has brought her, that same determination also allows her to accept this new truth in an instant. She screwed up big-time, but as long as she lives and breathes, she can work to set things right.

She strokes Motoki's hand and runs off to join the fray--not to throw herself at the enemy through all her lifetimes, but to protect those who are dear to her now. After the fight, she looks at the turtle-shaped charm Motoki bought her and smiles, allowing herself to dream of the future for the first time.

Minako passes away the next episode, but she does so with no regrets. Although grief follows, that final unifying moment, jump-started by Makoto, was enough. Ami, Rei and Makoto head off to the finale together, as a true team, never losing sight of what's important to them.

PGSM is exceedingly compelling to me, and the structure of this character arc exemplifies why. Makoto learns the wrong lesson three times: when she first becomes Sailor Jupiter, when she awakens her full power, and when she embraces Minako's ideology to an unhealthy degree.

Not only does PGSM allow her to miss the mark so spectacularly, it also gives her the time to deny and then address her irrational beliefs in a plausible manner. Moreover, because she and Minako drive each other to unlearn their internalised misconceptions, Makoto gives both Minako and the story one of the last pushes they need.

The last we see of Makoto's new and improved self, in relation to romance, is her final encounter with Motoki in the show. She shows him she's attached his cute turtle charm to her wallet, out there for everyone to see. Motoki treats it with cautious optimism, then relief. It's a deliberate signal: Makoto is open to new possibilities now. Maybe they can try again. They laugh a little, sharing their first comfortable moment together in this context.

Sadly, likely due to a few cut episodes, this is the last we see of them. Makoto's character arc is definitely complete, but because the ending shows the Senshi alone before they meet up with Usagi again, her relationship status with Motoki is left ambiguous.

But not to worry! Due to the success of the show's DVD sales during its runtime, both a special prequel and sequel act were produced! The sequel act is a 1-hour movie that shows us where everyone ended up four years later.

In that time, Makoto has undergone a significant transformation. In the show, her dreams for the future were never even mentioned. But here, we find out she's studying floral design, something that she's obviously passionate about. Reaching for happiness indeed.

On the wardrobe side, she still owns unisex clothes (you see this when she charges off to the action portion of the movie), but otherwise her femininity is on full display. A blouse, an embroidered shirt, even a bright yellow skirt, it's all there. Not to mention the stunning dress she wears at Usagi's wedding. And to symbolise how full-circle we've come, she's even wearing earrings!

Her flat has likewise seen major changes. The skateboard and my beloved hats have been moved to make way for what appears to be storage (a fulfilling life can result in extra possessions!) and a picture of something nature-y on the wall. And the room is now filled with plants!

All of these differences stack up. The flat looks...filled, for lack of a better term. It started out rather sparse in her debut episode, but back then she'd just moved in and probably hadn't finished unpacking yet. However, even after she gained more possessions, there were parts that felt like they had just a little bit of empty space to them. Now the entire space is lavishly furnished!

Speaking of which, there's a large stuffed turtle on her sofa, indicating she and Motoki have pursued their relationship and now live together. This is later confirmed when she takes Motoki's car--which she had the keys for--to save Usagi and Mamoru.

At the very end of the epilogue, Motoki clumsily but earnestly asks Makoto for her hand in marriage. And Makoto, overwhelmed and overjoyed, accepts. She's the only version of the character to have achieved this.

It's immensely satisfying seeing a character brought so low, only for them to soar higher than ever before. This Makoto has undergone an immense personal journey. There's no telling what kinds of challenges she might need to overcome in the years to come, but she's already climbed this mountain. Perhaps there's nothing she can't do. And no matter what, she'll always have someone at her side. She'll never be alone again.

I love it. I love all of it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this is my favourite take on Makoto in the franchise. She's the best, and PGSM is the best for treating her with the nuance and maturity she deserves! Bravo!

---

That's the end of this post! It was meant to be way shorter, but I suppose that was an exercise in futility. If you made it all the way here, thank you very much!

I know I just said PGSM was the best. This is a subjective statement. PGSM is far and away my favourite incarnation of Sailor Moon, but I hold to what I said at the start: Every version is different, and I think that's great. We all enjoy media differently; the more people that can find a version of Sailor Moon befitting their preferences, the better.

It just so happens that PGSM was made for me! And hey, if you've never watched it before, or you dropped it like I first did, maybe it's worth another try. You never know, it might just be your thing too.

Like a certain person once sang:

~Just like predictable movies and books are boring When life is a little bit off, it might be more fun~

#pretty guardian sailor moon #pgsm #kino makoto #makoto kino

[jjorbles]

(Repost) Why we want Batman to beat Superman

Note: This article was originally posted April 24th, 2015 on the Agony Booth, which I used to write for. Since that site is sadly no longer with us, I’m reposting my old articles here. 

Superman: The Movie was released nearly 37 years ago with the tagline “You will believe a man can fly”. Oft repeated, this phrase has since become more than a simple marketing gimmick. It now verbalizes everything Superman represents: Hope, belief in the impossible, and the potential greatness of humankind.

37 years later, we no longer believe a man can fly.

Warner Bros. has just released the first trailer for their upcoming Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. And if you’ve been following my articles at all, you know I’ve been dreading this movie, mostly due to my displeasure with Man of Steel and DC Comics’ projects in general lately. This new trailer has done nothing to make me more optimistic. In fact, I’m more convinced than ever that Batman v. Superman is going to be the culmination of everything I dislike about superhero movies.

Batman v. Superman, whatever else it ends up being, is the end result of decades of heated fan debate: Who Would Win in a Fight? It’s a question comic readers have fought about time and time again, despite the comics being uninterested in answering it until relatively recently. The Caped Crusader and the Last Son of Krypton have butted heads once or twice over the years, but traditionally, DC Comics is much more about heroes teaming up than fighting. Pitting characters against each other for shits and giggles is much more Marvel’s thing. The notion that Batman and Superman should ever be enemies instead of friends didn’t really catch on until Frank Miller’s radical re-envisioning of the duo in The Dark Knight Returns.

But it all strikes me as a silly debate, even by comic book standards. By any reasonable argument, Batman vs. Superman would be about as much of a “fight” as Bambi Meets Godzilla. The only way to even pretend Batman stands a snowball’s chance in hell is to stack the odds in his favor with ridiculous deus ex machinas. “Oh, Batman would win because he’d have a bat-kryptonite ring or something!” Arguments like these are meaningless, because by that logic, anyone could beat Superman, especially if they happen to have kryptonite handy. It’s like saying Howard the Duck would win in a fight with Galactus because he’d just happen to have the Ultimate Nullifier on him.

And the reason why Batman is the frequent favorite in this fight has absolutely nothing to do with the actual capabilities of either hero. It stems entirely from popularity. Batman is generally the more beloved of the two, so when they do battle, writers use any excuse they can think of to have Batman emerge the victor. The insane popularity of Batman in the last few decades is a cultural phenomenon that I’ve devoted a lot of thought to, and to be honest, it kind of disturbs me. I don’t like what it says about the mindset of our culture and what we value.

Before I explain, let me say that while I may often give off the opposite impression, I actually really like Batman a lot. Even the Christopher Nolan version. I just get sick of the fandom’s laser focus on this one particular iteration of the character. I liked The Dark Knight as a film, but frankly, it’s among my least favorite versions of the Batman mythos. He’s one of the most adaptive and versatile characters in all of fiction, and with so many interesting and diverse visions of Batman out there, to be obsessed with just this one seems incredibly dull to me.

And the fact that Nolan’s take on Batman has become such a dominating cultural force worries me, because Nolan’s Batman has some really troubling themes going on when you really look at those films. Batman, at his core, has always had a somewhat fascist undercurrent to him. Certainly, that can be said of most superheroes, since the very concept of being a vigilante crimefighter implies an individual deciding his judgment is superior and forcing it upon others. But with Batman, these qualities have always seemed a little more pronounced. He’s an absurdly wealthy private citizen devoting his resources to assaulting and imprisoning people usually far less powerful and well-off than he is. At the very least, Batman can’t help but feel a tad elitist, regardless of how much his enemies are deserving of his wrath.

But in the Nolan movies, these troubling fascist themes are no longer just an interesting curio in the background. They’re magnified and put front and center. Christian Bale’s Batman is an explicit fascist. Brutal, manipulative, and largely uncaring about the collateral damage of his mission, he violates the civil rights and privacy of those citizens he professes to be protecting, and by The Dark Knight Rises, he and his allies have turned Gotham into a virtual police state.

It’d be interesting if Nolan’s trilogy was meant to be satirical, deconstructing the inherently fascist aspects of superheroes by exaggerating them, a favorite trick of Alan Moore’s. But the tone of Nolan’s Batman films is weirdly unironic, as though we’re meant to see Batman as completely justified in all his actions, and that Gotham City is actually better off sacrificing their freedoms for his protection.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily the wrong way to look at those films; I’m saying they don’t exactly leave much open for debate when it comes to some pretty complicated questions, and instead offer up the moral certainty that Batman is in the right. Bale’s Batman is one of the least heroic versions of the character I’ve seen, and may be even borderline sociopathic. So the fact that this is the version people have most latched onto is deeply troubling to me.

And really, why do people like Batman so much? I mean, I know why I like him. I dig the ninja/gothic/film-noir mystery mash-up aesthetic, and I like the sort of dark Peter Pan-esque story of a broken man who’s still a little boy trying to reclaim his lost childhood inside, and of course he has one of the greatest rogues galleries ever. But why do the people who don’t really like comics, who hate the Adam West show, who like to pretend Robin never existed, who shun all the colorful or weird parts of character, why do they like Batman? Why is Batman the one superhero who seems to particularly appeal to those who don’t even seem to really like superheroes?

Part of it may be that Batman, more than any other A-list superhero, most easily adapts to the “real world”, or at least as close as movies get. At the very bare bones of the Batman concept, there are no sci-fi or fantasy elements. He’s not an alien or a mutant, he didn’t fall into a vat of chemicals, and he’s not a mythological god. He’s just a guy in a costume who fights gangsters. So if you’re looking to make a toned down, “realistic” superhero movie for people turned off by more outlandish fare, Batman is probably your best bet. He’s the only hero with both the name recognition to draw a crowd and the flexibility to go the ever popular grim-and-gritty route.

But I think a bigger part of it is that Batman offers people a certain kind of wish fulfillment that other heroes don’t. Fans will tell you they prefer Batman because he’s “more relatable”, due to his lack of superpowers, but that has nothing to do with it. Surely, the socially-awkward middle class Clark Kent would be far more relatable to the average Joe than billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne.

Batman’s appeal is in his empowerment fantasy. Yes, Superman also offers the fantasy of being powerful, and we can identify with the shy, unnoticed Clark pining over the pretty girl in the office, and we can fantasize about secretly being the all-powerful he-man that can save the day and sweep her off her feet. But the fantasy of being Superman comes with restrictions. Superman is a role model, and therefore bound by a pretty strict moral code. Having all the power can seem a less appealing fantasy when you're not allowed to let your aggression out, or to unleash your id and go nuts. No one wants to be a smiling boy scout all the time.

But Batman is a little more flexible. Of course, he’s also bound by certain rules: He must never kill, and he must never use a gun. But Batman can get angry. Batman is allowed to intimidate and sometimes even torture people. And since Batman isn’t an alien Hercules who might decapitate someone if he gets rough, he gets to play hard. He can beat his enemies bloody. Batman offers the fantasy of being obscenely wealthy, sexually unattached, desired by women and feared by men, and able to take out your anger every night on anyone who looks suspicious.

Let’s face it, Batman appeals a lot to angry, antisocial misanthrope types. They don’t want to be a happy, monogamous goody two-shoes like Superman. They want to be rich enough to have anything they want. They want to plow model-attractive super-villainesses without the responsibility of a relationship. They want to sneak around and blow off steam by beating up anyone they think deserves it. They want to be feared and respected.

So truthfully, the reason why a lot of people like Batman is obvious. But why the fascination with seeing him fight Superman? Many of Batman’s fans don’t just seem to prefer him to Superman, they seem actively hostile to Superman. There’s something almost fetishistic about the way people would love to see the Dark Knight take the Man of Steel down a peg or two.

At first, it may seem like a simple case of people rooting for the underdog. Batman, a mere mortal, is obviously at a disadvantage going up against the godlike Superman, and people love to see the little guy triumph over impossible odds.

But that’s not really what this feels like. For one thing, it’s impossible for me to look at a conflict between a poor, well-meaning farm boy who fights for truth and transparency as a journalist and a manipulative, secretive billionaire on a violent, vengeful rampage and see the latter as the underdog, regardless of who has superpowers.

Whenever I ask people why they hate Superman, the response I get is always along the lines of “he’s stuck-up” or “he’s a wimp”. There’s this perception of Superman as being out of touch, a stuffed shirt, a coward. But any fair reading of almost any of his movies or comics doesn’t really support this, regardless of what you may have gathered from Superdickery. Superman has always been compassionate, brave, and heroic. So what exactly makes people see him as otherwise?

It feels like people want to see Superman punished. Punished for what, exactly? Well, what’s the principal difference between Superman and Batman? Yes, I know it’s hard to narrow down, since the two are night and day, but the one I’m focusing on here is optimism. Batman and Superman have views on the world that could only be more different if one of them was an outright villain.

Superman assumes the best in people. Batman assumes the worst. Superman is more about protecting the innocent, while Batman’s focus is on punishing the guilty. Superman lives in bright, clean Metropolis, and Batman lives in dark, crime-ridden Gotham. Superman lives in a world of hope, Batman lives in a world of fear.

People say they relate to Batman because of his lack of superpowers, but what they truly relate to is his anger. Unlike Superman, Batman lives in our world, or at least our world as we too often choose to see it. We’re pessimistic by nature, because it’s easy. It’s easy to see the bad in things. It’s easy to let all the horror in the world get us down. We dwell on it until it’s all we can see anymore. Mostly, it’s easy because it requires no effort. The world has always been shit and will always be shit, so why waste time trying to make it a better place? Gotham is the real world as viewed through the lens of a bitter person who’s given up.

But Superman is different. He may be a flamboyant fantasy, but the world he lives in is every bit as much the real world as Gotham. It’s just seen through the lens of an optimist. Superman is about hope, and Metropolis is the world as seen by a hopeful person. Superman challenges us to see the good in life, and dares us to actually make an effort to improve things. He tries to show us that life is worth living and that the world is worth saving.

But it’s hard to hope, and easy to despair. People turn away from Superman and towards Batman because he offers the easier path. Superman says, “Yes, life can be hard. Tragedies happen. Your home may blow up. Your father may die. The woman you love won’t even notice you. But you can overcome it. You can save the world. Because inside you’re strong. Inside you’re a Superman.” Batman says, “The world is misery and pain so don’t bother trying to fix it. You’re living in a madhouse. People are maniacs, and the only way to deal with it is to either lock yourself up in your house and shun everyone, or beat the maniacs bloody and lock them away where you never have to think about them.*”

[*Granted, that’s not a very accurate summation of the real message of Batman, but it’s what I think a lot of people take away from him.]

A big part of the plot of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice seems to be the world becoming mistrustful of Superman. The trailer shows protesters yelling at him to “go home”. A statue of Superman bears graffiti reading “false god”. Voiceover narration talks about him as though he’s some aloof deity who everyone fears and mistrusts simply for being so powerful. As sad as this makes me, it may be the most accurate reflection of the current public perception of Superman.

The fantasy of Superman has always been that a man with that much power but also the strength of character to use it only for good could actually exist. That basic human decency could prevail over the corrupting influence of power. But maybe in a post-9/11 world, we’re just too mistrusting to believe in that anymore. The world just seems too confusing and violent for us to indulge in a happy fantasy like Superman.

So those who root for Batman to beat up Superman aren’t doing it because he’s the underdog, but because they hate Superman. They hate him for wanting to save the world and make a better tomorrow. Because they’ve given up on tomorrow. They want nothing more than to wallow in misery, and lash out at anyone who asks them to do otherwise. The strange thing is, I bet when a lot of these people were kids, they looked up to Superman as a hero. Now they only see him as a coward.

37 years ago, we believed a man could fly. Now all we want is to see that man dragged down into the dirt with us.

#stuff I wrote #agony booth #repost #batman vs superman #dawn of justice #dc #comics #Warner Bros #zack snyder #Frank Miller #Christopher Nolan #ben affleck

[hopefulstarfire]

As someone who's deeply invested in comic books, I'm gonna tell you right now; the stories of the creators of a lot of these beloved characters are just as, if not even more intriguing, than the backstories of their characters.

Batman, for years, had only Bob Kane accredited as his creator, and he would constantly talk about being the sole creator of Batman. It took over 70 years for Bill Finger, the man who most people will tell you did most of the work, to even get his name on the comics. And there were other key players in helping shape and co-create that mythos that Bob brought in as part of his slew of ghost artists and ghost writers.

William Moulton Marston helped create an early version of the lie detector -- something you see highlighted in the Lasso of Truth belonging to his character, Wonder Woman. He also was in a polyamorous relationship, enjoyed bsdm, and believed a female empowerment revolution was coming and he was ready for it.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster were one of the first big fights to get proper crediting and payment to comic book creators. And, fun fact, you can tell pretty heavily that Superman and Clark Kent were based off of Siegel's appearance; and he ended up marrying the model that Schuster modeled Lois Lane off of, a woman named Joanne Kovacs. Which, you got admit, that's just cute.

A literal cult tried to recruit Jack Kirby because they loved his work so much, and he let them into his house and showed off what he'd been working on, while his wife Ros made them lunch. He also had some nazis call him, telling him they were waiting in the lobby for him so they could beat him up, for having Captain America punch Hitler. He literally said "Okay", rolled up his sleeves and headed on down there, with every intention to beat the shit out of them. There was no sign of them by the time he got to the lobby.

Gardner Fox was a New York lawyer and polymath turned writer. He is the reason why we have superhero teams, having created the very first one with the JSA and later also created the Justice League, and he's also the reason why comics, specifically DC, have multiverses. He's also responsible for being one of the lead writers to have gone to rework things in the Silver Age due to the Comics Code Authority and their rules being implemented. He also created Batgirl and did some of the early writing on Batman as well. This man is a legend.

And these are only like just a few examples, there's so many more out there and it can be genuinely fascianting to learn about them.

#kenz musings #dc #dc comics #comics #marvel comics #superheroes #marvel #comic books

[nerdarena2]

Have You Seen The New Flash Movie Yet?

The Flash is a beloved and iconic character in the DC Comics universe. He has a rich history and a strong presence in comic books, which has attracted a dedicated fan base over the years. The character of Barry Allen, who becomes The Flash, is often portrayed as a relatable and likeable hero. He is depicted as an ordinary person who gains extraordinary powers, and his humorous and down-to-earth personality resonates with many fans.

Multiverse Storyline: The Flash movie, titled "The Flash" or "Flashpoint," is expected to explore the concept of the multiverse, where different versions of characters and alternate realities exist. This may involve interactions with characters from different DC Comics adaptations, such as Batman and Supergirl from different universes.

Time Travel and Alternate Timelines: The Flash's ability to manipulate time and travel through different timelines is likely to be a central element of the movie's plot. This could lead to changes in the established timeline, creating new possibilities and consequences.

Character Development: The Flash, played by Ezra Miller, is expected to undergo further character development as he navigates the complexities of time travel and confronts personal challenges. The movie may delve into his backstory, motivations, and growth as a hero.

But before going as to how the upcoming movie of the flash might come across. We need to know the prime characters of the flash universe which play a pivotal role in adding a new dimension to the series.

Prime Characters Of The Flash

 Below is one of the prime characters of the flashseries till now :

The Flash

The Flash is known for his superhuman speed, which allows him to move, think, and react at incredible velocities. The Flash is Barry Allen, a forensic scientist who gains his super speed after being struck by lightning and doused in chemicals in a laboratory accident. Barry Allen is portrayed as the fastest man alive and is a member of the Justice League, a team of superheroes in the DC Universe. If you are a true fan of the flash and you wish to purchase such flash action figures then you can find these dc comics india.

Reverse Flash

The Reverse-Flash is essentially the arch-nemesis of The Flash, often depicted as an evil speedster with powers similar to those of The Flash. There have been multiple individuals who have taken on the mantle of the Reverse-Flash throughout the comic book history. The most notable and prominent version is Eobard Thawne, a fanatical admirer of The Flash from the future who gains access to the Speed Force, the source of super speed, and becomes a speedster himself. However, unlike The Flash, Thawne uses his powers for villainous purposes and harbors a deep hatred for Barry Allen, the original Flash. The Reverse-Flash is known for his yellow and black costume, which is the inverse of The Flash's red and yellow costume. He is a recurring adversary of The Flash and has played a significant role in several storylines and events within the DC Universe. If you are a true fan of the flash and you wish to purchase such flash action figures then you can find these dc comics india.

Apart from the above anime action figures, there are many other action figures. If you are looking out for such action figures then Nerd Arena is a one-stop solution for such kinds of action figures. 

To know more: https://nerdarena.in/collections/flash-action-figures

#The Flash movie #Anime action figures

[thevindicativevordan]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#nightwing #dick grayson #batman #gotham knights #titans #dc comics

[beckface]

Addendum to this au where there’s actually been a longer line of superhero’s training the next in line and just kinda screwing each other up. I like mentorship stuff

Miss Power->Amazo Guy

Okay so in this version we start with Amazo Guy, who at the time is the main superhero of Fair City. He and Steven are NOT the same age in this au, Steven’s actually a kid who looks up to Amazo Guy! He’s a big fan

forgive me for the Amazo Guy slander </3 but he’s going to be kindof an asshole. Partially due to his own training and partially due to his ego never being checked he really only fights crime for the attention and glory, and he likes feeling like he’s the most powerful.

Amazo Guy’s mentor was Miss Power, who came to earth in her childhood with her family to escape a war. Her first impression of the earth people was when they ran her parents out of the planet out of fear, and she was taken in by a kind older woman who eventually passed on when Power grew up.

Miss Power decided to become a superhero in her teens, when she felt like she had to do something to cleanse the world she now lived in from all of it’s evil, still traumatized from losing her parents.

Miss Power found Amazo, a young wannabe hero when she was around her 20s, and basically taught him that to be a hero you have to be callous towards your enemies and look down on your citizens. She grew more and more disillusioned with earth as time went on and eventually abandoned him to try and take over for herself in a desperate attempt to “fix” everything. Calling him useless and saying that he’ll never be more powerful or loved then her, really just spitting out whatever insults she could think of. He eventually won against her and banished her for decades to another galaxy

What she said to him struck him hard however, and he based his whole career on proving her wrong. Destroying himself internally in the process.

When Miss Power finally makes it back to earth years later, she knows to not make the same mistake again, deciding that she needs to have any possible threats to her mission on her side. She is delighted to find that Amazo is gone and a Wordgirl, a new, impressionable child has taken his place

Amazo Guy -> Steven Boxlietner

Steven is a 13-year old boy genius when one of his experiments goes wrong and he’s given superpowers. Steven panics when this happens and quickly realizes he’s unable to control it, and accidentally starts destroying the city. Amazo of course goes to stop the chaos, and is surprised to find that instead of a malicious villain, it’s a scared kid who is clearly not in control of whatever he’s doing.

Amazo manages to catch him and help him calm down and takes Steven under his wing as his sidekick, and future hero in training, thinking that being seen as a wise mentor would do his image good as many people have started calling him plastic and selfish

Steven is excited at first to be a superhero, but quickly sees Amazo for his true colors as a paranoid, bitter man who wants Steven to do whatever he says. Steven’s basically a glorified intern, and whenever he messes up or gets distracted Amazo gets mad at him, and impresses upon him how important it is to be perfect. “If you’re not perfect they won’t love you. If you’re not perfect your enemies can take advantage of you.” Steven takes this to heart, as his image in the public eye slowly becomes more and more important to him

He takes this obsession with image into his adulthood and his villain years. Cue Steve McClean episode

Steven, still trying to do a good job as a hero, starts doing community service that Amazo was taught was beneath him, making Steven more beloved as a hero then Amazo is. This causes Amazo to panic, and he starts sending Steven into more and more dangerous battles alone

It gets to the point where one of the top villains, an inventor ironically, starts going after Steven and even takes his family hostage, saying that if Steven didn’t willingly give up his powers in this new machine they built, then he could say bye-bye to his family! Steven, in tears, agrees to these terms and begs for his family to be safe.

As he steps in the machine, wishing that he had the luxury of a secret identity, as the villain cackles manically. Steven sees the unmistakable outline of his mentor. Just standing there and watching, doing nothing. Steven feels an anger like he’s never felt before rise up in his gut while his powers are drained from his body.

Steven does his best to be on good terms with Amazo, not wanting to believe his mentor would really just abandon him like that, and does some mental gymnastics to start blaming the city instead. Mans started his joker arc “it’s all societies’ fault >:( dad would love me otherwise >:(( why did we have to be heroes anyways.” He writes Superheros and You: a Practical Guide to try and keep down everything he learned from being a hero.

Steven finds himself missing the attention and validation from being a hero, and missing Amazo Guy despite still feeling angry at him, and distracts himself with his projects hoping that one day he’ll invent something that will really make a difference in his life again.

Steven Boxlietner ->Wordgirl

One day Steven is in the woods doing his weird science man things when a tiny five-year-old child just like crashes into a tree next to him. He goes to check if she’s okay, and when she’s completely fine he asks how she managed to go that fast. She starts talking about how her best monkey friend told her she needs to practice flying if she’s gonna be a superhero like Amazo Guy, and Steven under his breath is like “Yeah I dunno if you wanna be one like him, ha” and the kid is all “:D why?”

Steven just shakes his head, and tells her she can be whatever she wants, assuming that it’s just some kid playing pretend until she actually starts flying out of excitement in front of him. He realizes that this is, in fact, a super-powered child. His blood runs cold as all of the pent up emotions he has towards Amazo and towards the concept of superheros all come flowing back

At first he thinks that it’s not his business and he should just leave it alone, but suddenly he realizes that he’s been chatting and walking (well, she’s floating) with this kid for like an hour in the woods and oops he got attached

He decides to try and hide her from Amazo, for now at least, and tells Becky about how he was actually a superhero too for a little while! To which Becky is like “WOW this is awesome!”

So Steven tells her where his little lab is and invites her to come by any time for superhero training, and to bring her monkey too! So now he’s got his own little superhero pupil and nothing could possibly go wrong

Eventually Amazo Guy has to leave earth, his home planet contacted him and they need him to help. Steven is upset and also really relieved about this. And without Amazo Guy actually there he starts to develop some genuine internal hatred for the man, and for the book Steven wrote that has his face plastered all over it. Steven ignores it because thats what we do with feelings on my tumblr blog

Steven gives WG lessons about being a good hero and helps her physically train the best he can without powers of his own. Steven never really liked how mean Amazo could be to the villains, but always kept quiet about it. So in a weird act of rebellion Steven makes sure Becky is aware that yes, villains are people too. He also makes sure she knows that, unfortunately, the view of the public is going to mean quite a lot to her inevitably, even if it doesn’t right now.

One day Becky mentions to Steven how she told her parents that she’s getting better at fighting and he just flips for a second, getting flashbacks to his final battle. He grabs her shoulders like “NO. Your family can not know. Your friends can not know. It will put you and them in horrible danger, hell i’m in danger just by training you, as few people need to know as possible. Understand?” And Becky is just terrified at the outburst and like “yes sir understood…”

Eventually Becky does debut as the newest Fair City hero, and the people are just too happy to finally have one after Amazo left. Steven is proud but starts getting worried that she might start getting a big head like Amazo had and accidentally starts leaving Becky a bit desperate for validation, which she overcompensates for with her ego ironically

All the while Steven has been obsessively indulging in his scientific curiosity still, and then the day comes that it goes too far. Enter Doctor Twobrains.

Doctor Twobrains vs Wordgirl

Steven doesn’t want to be a villain. He’s been on the hero side his whole life! And he definitely doesn’t want to hurt Wordgirl. At least, he thinks he doesn’t, his memories of her are not as clear as they were before for some reason, same goes with everyone he knows. However, as he looks at the original copy of Superhero’s and You a familiar anger boils inside him, he starts to think that maybe this won’t be so bad.

Wordgirl just deals with the new transformation best she can, not really processing that this is her mentor until the night after his first attack, when she lets herself cry. It’s mostly out of confusion and guilt, she blames herself and doesn’t really get why he’s not even trying to turn back, in her perspective he just stopped caring about her and abandoned her to be her enemy.

Over time Dtb makes friends in the villain league. Friends his own age for once, and even starts dating and discovers that he had absolutely been missing out on these kinds of human interactions his whole life. He had gone to college and he did the whole party animal thing but he has never put his social life before his various projects. He goes a little crazy and becomes THE social butterfly of the gang, dating around quite a lot. He starts healing a lot of the loneliness and desperation that had plagued him for so long, and within that starts realizing that there is someone that was really overdue with some kindness from him.

I love how as the show progresses it feels like she gets closer with a lot of the villains so thats canon here, as DTB starts finding himself he also starts trying to be good to his former student, to the point where she felt comfortable coming over again, even if he never intended on being a “good guy” again

Before that completes though, theres some other things that occurred.

Miss Power -> Wordgirl

Amazo guy’s former mentor returns. She sees that there’s a new young hero and wants to trick her into taking over the earth together, yadda yadda

Dtb has heard about Miss Power from Amazo and immediately doesn’t trust her, but he’s still bitter to Amazo so he doesn’t really tell WG anything, and trusts that she can make the right decision which ofc she does in the end

Not before Wordgirl takes some trauma from her time with crazy though! She’s haunted by how she treated everyone and she feels terrified of Miss Power even after she’s gone, not sure how much of her training was genuine and how much would actually be good to apply

Also seeing your unstable notdad and your abusive notmom arguing and feeling like you have to take a side even though both sides are objectively bad for you can take a toll

Becky takes a note from Steven’s journal and buries that experience deep in her psyche and hopes it doesn’t ever come out in any bad way

Wordgirl -> Kid Math

Kid Math comes to earth and Becky is freaking the fuck out the entire time, because if she ever learned anything from Steven it’s that you should NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR SECRET IDENTITY, and Kid Math is having a really hard time learning that.

Kid Math struggling to process earth things generally frustrates Becky, and considering the fact that every mentor before her was a full adult who had done this for years she feels like she’s not living up to the standards set by the past because she struggles with being a teacher.

Kid Math already having a handle on his superpowers messes with Becky too, because it’s a different type of mentorship then she had. It’s not about training much here, it’s about teaching Rex’s mind to be prepared to be a superhero and to handle his hero duties well, which is something that Becky herself still struggles with

She kinda infantilizes Rex a bit and doesn’t really respect his intelligence the way she should, and he starts getting frustrated and starts feeling bad. He wants to impress her and he wants her to trust his hero instincts, but if she thinks that he’s not ready to take charge yet then he must not be working hard enough surely?

Becky feels like she should be teaching him about physical fighting too, but since he’s already got a handle on that she ends up taking a page from Miss Power’s book and going too hard on Rex. He’s even younger then her and it exhausts him quickly, to which she gets annoyed at. She takes any limitations, mental or physical, that he has as something that SHE did wrong.

One day Rex just stops in the middle of an exercise and he starts crying, and just yells at her that he can’t be enough for her, and he must not fit in the earth equation well enough to be a superhero, and he’ll never get the people to like him enough. Becky takes this as him rejecting her, she wants to comfort him but something in her doesn’t want to apologize and admit that she was wrong. She says fine and flies off, abandoning him.

She can’t help but feel really guilty and finds herself going to DTB’s lab. He’s confused but trying to be more sympathetic towards her, especially since he’s not doing an evil plan right now. He has no idea why she’s here but sees that she’s upset, and at some point she explodes on him. “Why did you leave!”

He’s taken aback by this and sits down, explaining all he can to her and apologizes. Through this, Becky realizes how she’s been treating Rex, and flies back to him. He looks at her like he’s expecting her to be upset but she just tackles him in a hug and says “I’m sorry. You’re doing perfect, I’m the one who was messing up.”

He forgives her and they make up, Rex is really happy now and says something corny like “You + Me = Best crimefighting team!” and Becky just smiles and agrees, “Yeah, we’re the best team”

The end OR IS IT

#wordgirl #hc/au #Miss Power #steven boxlietner #Amazo Guy #dr two brains #becky botsford #Kid Math #generational trauma au #but I made it unnecessarily long #Hi

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ryan North's 'How to Take Over the World'

There’s a certain kind of Internet Person who makes the world a better place every day, just by showing up. People like Ryan North, whose many accomplishments include his daily, long-running, brilliant Dinosaur Comics:

https://www.qwantz.com/

The secret to Dinosaur Comics is the simplicity of the bit, coupled with the lengths that North takes it to: it’s the same six stock-art panels of a T-Rex, a Utahraptor and a, Dromiceiomimus, discoursing on some funny, bizarre or philosophical topic. Three times per week, every week since 2003, Ryan North has written new dialog for these three dinosaurs, as T-Rex crushes a log cabin (panel 3) and a tiny person (panel 4), while pondering the imponderable.

Thinking up three different gags per week for the same six panels for nearly 20 years has meant that North has had to go to some very weird and amazing places, really push through all the obvious riffs, and take us beyond the obvious bounds of the imagination.

Now, Dinosaur Comics is all the more amazing in that it is basically a side-hustle and passion project. North has several other careers he pursues, like producing improbable, delightful, wildly popular crowdfunded books. His choose-your-own adventure version of Hamlet was the most successful publishing Kickstarter when it funded:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadpig/to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-adventure

And then there was “Machine of Death,” a pair of CC-licensed theme anthologies and a card game North co-created, about a world in which people know the exact time and manner of their deaths.

http://machineofdeath.net/

Not only are these great books, they also destroyed Glenn Beck’s 2010 book launch by beating it to the top of the charts, causing Beck to conceive of a bizarre, long-running feud against the “culture of death.”

http://blog.serindu.com/2010/10/28/glenn-beck-thinks-i-celebrate-destruction/

North’s wide-ranging interests and deeply nerdy outlook (he’s also an accomplished computer scientist) makes him perfectly suited to writing superhero comics, and his runs on several Marvel titles are distinguished for their humor and inventiveness:

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Ryan_North/Writer

But beyond the comics, the webcomics, the science fiction and the Shakespeare-inspired remix comedies, North is also an accomplished science communicator. His first book-length foray into the field was 2018’s “How to Invent Everything,” which addressed itself to time-travelers stranded in the past and explained how to bootstrap a technologically advanced civilization as a frame for stripping away the layers of knowledge and art underpinning our everyday lives:

https://www.howtoinventeverything.com/

Now, North has published a sequel of sorts: How to Take Over The World, a popular science book that tours a wide-ranging set of technological ideas by means of explaining how to realize the supervillain plots so beloved of Marvel comics:

https://supervillainbook.com/

HTTOTW is full of extremely funny, extremely informative riffs that make for a engrossing frame for very deep dives into knowledge that is esoteric, interdisciplinary, and damned interesting. For example, if you want to build a supervillain lair, you want to be beyond the reach of state authority, and that’s a jumping-off point to recount the history of nation-states, the deeply flawed nature of seasteading and other “libertarian exit” projects, and, finally, a triumphant exploration of Antarctic treaty law and Buckminster Fuller’s plan for vast, floating spheres, with a detour into carbon nanotubes and other exotic new materials.

HTTOTW gives the same treatment to immortality, bringing back dinosaurs (so you can terrorize your enemies from atop a ferocious thunder-lizard), controlling the world’s weather, traveling through time, switching off the internet, and sending information forward in time to the heat-death of the universe.

For each of these, North presents the hilarious and often terrible histories of previous attempts, the current state of the art, and the outer speculative edge of science. Each one is a way to talk about biology, physics, sociology, and politics — and each one sneakily introduces the book’s main theme, which is that the supervillain’s true, inevitable downfall is their belief in their singular genius and desire to ignore or trample the agency of others.

That message emerges inexorably through North’s expert scientific explanations and often laugh-out-loud humor: supervillains are, basically toddlers who would like very much for everyone to simply let them decide how everything should work, without complaining about their own wants and needs.

At a moment when selfish assholes have decided that the pandemic is over, and other people have no right to demand that they consider how their actions harm others, HTTOTW is a timely reminder that we all have intertwined destinies, and that science and reality have an anti-hyper-individualist bias:

https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1515329047785574404

#pluralistic

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

#this is only like half of it #but at least you can get like a few answers #yanno fuck it #bataranswers #ask #asks #anon

[letterboxd]

In Focus: The Mummy

Dominic Corry responds on behalf of Letterboxd to an impassioned plea to bump up the average rating of the 1999 version of The Mummy—and asks: where is the next great action adventure coming from?

We recently received the following email regarding the Stephen Sommers blockbuster The Mummy:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you on behalf of the nation, if not the entire globe, who frankly deserve better than this after months of suffering with the Covid pandemic.

I was recently made aware that the rating of The Mummy on your platform only stands at 3.3 stars out of five. … This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is simply unacceptable. The Mummy is, as a statement of fact, the greatest film ever made. It is simply fallacious that anyone should claim otherwise, or that the rating should fail to reflect this. This oversight cannot be allowed to stand.

I have my suspicions that this rating has been falsely allocated due to people with personal axes to grind against The Mummy, most likely other directors who are simply jealous that their own artistic oeuvres will never attain the zenith of perfection, nor indeed come close to approaching the quality or the cultural influence of The Mummy. There is, quite frankly, no other explanation. The Mummy is, objectively speaking, a five-star film (… I would argue that it in fact transcends the rating sytem used by us mere mortals). It would only be proper, as a matter of urgency, to remove all fake ratings (i.e. any ratings [below] five stars) and allow The Mummy’s rating to stand, as it should, at five stars, or perhaps to replace the rating altogether with a simple banner which reads “the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking”. I look forward to this grievous error being remedied.

Best, Anwen

Which of course: no, we would never do that. But the vigor Anwen expresses in her letter impressed us (we checked: she’s real, though is mostly a Letterboxd lurker due to a busy day-job in television production, “so finding time to watch anything that isn’t The Mummy is, frankly, impossible… not that there’s ever any need to watch anything else, of course.”).

So Letterboxd put me, Stephen Sommers fan, on the job of paying homage to the last great old-school action-adventure blockbuster, a film that straddles the end of one cinematic era and the beginning of the next one. And also to ask: where’s the next great action adventure coming from?

Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ (1999).

When you delve into the Letterboxd reviews of The Mummy, it quickly becomes clear how widely beloved the film is, 3.3 average notwithstanding. Of more concern to the less youthful among us is how quaintly it is perceived, as if it harkens back to the dawn of cinema or something. “God, I miss good old-fashioned adventure movies,” bemoans Holly-Beth. “I have so many fond memories of watching this on TV with my family countless times growing up,” recalls Jess. “A childhood classic,” notes Simon.

As alarming as it is to see such wistful nostalgia for what was a cutting-edge, special-effects-laden contemporary popcorn hit, it has been twenty-one years since the film was released, so anyone currently in their early 30s would’ve encountered the film at just the right age for it to imprint deeply in their hearts. This has helped make it a Raiders of the Lost Ark for a specific Letterboxd demographic.

Sommers took plenty of inspiration from the Indiana Jones series for his take on The Mummy (the original 1932 film, also with a 3.3 average, is famously sedate), but for ten-year-olds in 1999, it may have been their only exposure to such pulpy derring-do. And when you consider that popcorn cinema would soon be taken over by interconnected on-screen universes populated by spandex-clad superheroes, the idea that The Mummy is an old-fashioned movie is easier to comprehend.

However, for all its throwbackiness, beholding The Mummy from the perspective of 2020 reveals it to have more to say about the future of cinema than the past. 1999 was a big year for movies, often considered one of the all-time best, but the legacy of The Mummy ties it most directly to two of that year’s other biggest hits: Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace and The Matrix. These three blockbusters represented a turning point for the biggest technological advancement to hit the cinematic art-form since the introduction of sound: computer-generated imagery, aka CGI. The technique had been widely used from 1989’s The Abyss onwards, and took significant leaps forward with movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997), but the three 1999 films mentioned above signified a move into the era when blockbusters began to be defined by their CGI.

A year before The Mummy, Sommers had creatively utilised CGI in his criminally underrated sci-fi action thriller Deep Rising (another film that deserves a higher average Letterboxd rating, just sayin’), and he took this approach to the next level with The Mummy. While some of the CGI in The Mummy doesn’t hold up as well as the technopunk visuals presented in The Matrix, The Mummy showed how effective the technique could be in an historical setting—the expansiveness of ancient Egypt depicted in the movie is magnificent, and the iconic rendering of Imhotep’s face in the sand storm proved to be an enduringly creepy image. Not to mention those scuttling scarab beetles.

George Lucas wanted to test the boundaries of the technique with his insanely anticipated new Star Wars film after dipping his toe in the digital water with the special editions of the original trilogy. Beyond set expansions and environments, a bunch of big creatures and cool spaceships, his biggest gambit was Jar Jar Binks, a major character rendered entirely through CGI. And we all know how that turned out.

A CGI-enhanced Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

Sommers arguably presented a much more effective CGI character in the slowly regenerating resurrected Imhotep. Jar Jar’s design was “bigger” than the actor playing him on set, Ahmed Best. Which is to say, Jar Jar took up more space on screen than Best. But with the zombie-ish Imhotep, Sommers (ably assisted by Industrial Light & Magic, who also worked on the Star Wars films) used CGI to create negative space, an effect impossible to achieve with practical make-up—large parts of the character were missing. It was an indelible visual concept that has been recreated many times since, but Sommers pioneered its usage here, and it contributed greatly to the popcorn horror threat posed by the character.

Sommers, generally an unfairly overlooked master of fun popcorn spectacle (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is good, guys), deserves more credit for how he creatively utilized CGI to elevate the storytelling in The Mummy. But CGI isn’t the main reason the film works—it’s a spry, light-on-its-feet adventure that presents an iconic horror property in an entertaining and adventurous new light. And it happens to feature a ridiculously attractive cast all captured just as their pulchritudinous powers were peaking.

Meme-worthy: “My sexual orientation is the cast of ‘The Mummy’ (1999).”

A rising star at the time, Brendan Fraser was mostly known for comedic performances, and although he’d proven himself very capable with his shirt off in George of the Jungle (1997), he wasn’t necessarily at the top of anyone’s list for action-hero roles. But he is superlatively charming as dashing American adventurer Rick O’Connell. His fizzy chemistry with Weisz, playing the brilliant-but-clumsy Egyptologist Evie Carnahan, makes the film a legitimate romantic caper. The role proved to be a breakout for Weisz, then perhaps best known for playing opposite Keanu Reeves in the trouble-plagued action flop Chain Reaction, or for her supporting role in the Liv Tyler vehicle Stealing Beauty.

“90s Brendan Fraser is what Chris Pratt wishes he was,” argues Holly-Beth. “Please come back to us, Brendaddy. We need you.” begs Joshhh. “I’d like to thank Rachel Weisz for playing an integral role in my sexual awakening,” offers Sree.

Then there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bey, a member of the Medjai, a sect dedicated to preventing Imhotep’s tomb from being discovered, and Patricia Velásquez as Anck-su-namun, Imhotep’s cursed lover. Both stupidly good-looking. Heck, Imhotep himself (South African Arnold Vosloo, coming across as Billy Zane’s more rugged brother), is one of the hottest horror villains in the history of cinema.

“Remember when studio movies were sexy?” laments Colin McLaughlin. We do Colin, we do.

Sommers directed a somewhat bloated sequel, The Mummy Returns, in 2001, which featured the cinematic debut of one Dwayne Johnson. His character got a spin-off movie the following year (The Scorpion King), which generated a bunch of DTV sequels of its own, and is now the subject of a Johnson-produced reboot. Brendan Fraser came back for a third film in 2008, the Rob Cohen-directed The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Weisz declined to participate, and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Despite all the follow-ups, and the enduring love for the first Sommers film, there has been a sadly significant dearth of movies along these lines in the two decades since it was released. The less said about 2017 reboot The Mummy (which was supposed to kick-off a new Universal Monster shared cinematic universe, and took a contemporary, action-heavy approach to the property), the better.

The Rock in ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001).

For a long time, adventure films were Hollywood’s bread and butter, but they’re surprisingly thin on the ground these days. So it makes a certain amount of sense that nostalgia for the 1999 The Mummy continues to grow. You could argue that many of the superhero films that dominate multiplexes count as adventure movies, but nobody really sees them that way—they are their own genre.

There are, however, a couple of films on the horizon that could help bring back old-school cinematic adventure. One is the long-planned—and finally actually shot—adaptation of the Uncharted video-game franchise, starring Tom Holland. The games borrow a lot from the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll be interesting to see how much that manifests in the adaptation.

Then there’s Letterboxd favorite David Lowery’s forever-upcoming medieval adventure drama The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander (who herself recently rebooted another video-game icon, Lara Croft). Plus they are still threatening to make another Indiana Jones movie, even if it no longer looks like Steven Spielberg will direct it.

While these are all exciting projects—and notwithstanding the current crisis in the multiplexes—it can’t help but feel like we may never again get a movie quite like The Mummy, with its unlikely combination of eye-popping CGI, old-fashioned adventure tropes and a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of overflowing hotness. Long may love for it reign on Letterboxd—let’s see if we can’t get that average rating up, the old fashioned way. For Anwen.

Related content

How I Letterboxd with The Mummy fan Eve (“The first film I went out and bought memorabilia for… it was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars”)

The Mummy (Universal) Collection

Every film featuring the Mummy (not mummies in general)

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

#the mummy #brendan fraser #stephen sommers #action adventure #fantasy adventure #action adventure film #the green knight #david lowery #dominic corry #letterboxd

[sodone-withlife]

i know who i am

summary: really, he never saw himself ever willingly letting anyone in on his broken past, but here he was, sitting in across from Waipo in the tiny cramped office at the back of the shop and nervously sweating about what he was about to tell her

read it on ao3: chapter 1 is the original version with Mandarin, chapter 2 has everything translated into English

the movie really hit me hard as an ABC, and I really wanted to write something for it. even though she barely had any screentime, I loved Waipo—she reminds me of so many of my relatives—so I decided to make her be one of the most important people in Shangqi’s life, and it turned into this wonderful mess (i had to stop writing this for a bit because I literally made myself cry). there is mandarin in this, it's kind of intended to be a physical manifestation of how my bilingual brain works (i did put the English-only version first, the original version with Mandarin is under that one but the formatting for it one is better on ao3, so i suggest reading it from there). apologies for my shitty mandarin; I have mediocre language skills, but I'm still so excited to be able to incorporate it in my writing. in regards to the character's names: I only know for certain the Chinese characters used for Shangqi and Wenwu, but for Xialing, I'm going to go with what it apparently was in the hong kong release (夏灵, with 灵灵 as the nickname)

English Translation:

“Waipo, do you have a bit of time?” Shangqi stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously as fluent Mandarin rolled off of his tongue with an ease he's never felt in any other part of his life. “I want to talk to you about something."

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “Does it have anything to do with the trip you and Katy went on this past week?" she asked, Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

He wasn’t exactly sure what within him prompted this interaction. He had come to San Francisco for a normal life, to get as far away from his father’s reaches as he could and to outrun the blood that stained his footsteps.

Never did Shangqi imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to Xialing, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

Never did he imagine letting anyone in on his broken past, and even though his hand had been forced when it came to telling Katy, here he was going to the second person who truly saw something in him when he first started his new life and planning to tell them everything.

(Okay, fine, Shangqi wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling Waipo, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, Lingling, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“Little Dragon, what’s on your mind?”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that Waipo also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

You have the heart of a dragon, she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

It was a while before he could bring himself to visit the family again—there were a lot of awkward excuses before Katy reluctantly backed off—and it took even longer for him to get somewhat used to the name again, but he eventually started seeing it as a gift with each faint impression of happier days that he got every time Waipo called him that.

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. Shangqi wondered how Waipo would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell Wenwu had put him through, he was still his father. Shangqi still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past Wenwu wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered the whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

Mom, I miss you so much.

(And now Wenwu is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

(But just as she died to protect her children, he did the same. Now, his children are reunited and in contact again, getting ever closer despite living as far apart as they did, and he was reunited with his love in the afterlife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at Waipo, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“Waipo, have you heard of the legend of the Ten Rings?”

And Shangqi told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving Lingling behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before Waipo moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw Waipo.

“You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person.” she finally said gently, and the tension in his shoulders slowly loosened under her familiar touch. “You decide your own fate.”

~~~

That night, Shangqi knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

Am I still your pride and joy? Lingling grew up, but I didn’t even take care of her like I should have.

I swear to you, I will never abandon her again

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and Lingling dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their parents’ legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

Lingling is dating my best friend now, and they’re so happy together. Mom, I know you would have loved Katy. Dad, I know you didn’t like her much, but she really is a wonderful person.

Life went on.

There were the good days, when he went out with others and could almost feel normal, and there were the bad days, when phantoms pains plagued him and he woke up from a restless sleep expecting to see bruises mottling his body like they did so often when he was younger.

(Also, he was considered a superhero now and holy shit that’s still insane, even years after he first got in contact with the Avengers and the sorcerers in New York. Now he was going all over the West Coast, to help the locals take care of whichever crazy supervillain decided to wreak havoc that day.)

Dad, I hope you find this story as funny as I did: I helped a group of American superheroes yesterday. They’ve never been to San Francisco before and were extremely unfamiliar with the roads, especially Lombard Street. They spent half an hour trying to drive down the street, but I ended up driving them down myself.

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and Xialing whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

Mom, Dad, Lingling and Katy are getting married today and everyone is so excited for them. I’m taking over the Ten Ring within a month so Lingling can take a break. She’s led the organization for so long, it’s my responsibility now. I hope I can live up to her standards, she’s done really well. She’ll be back in a few years, but even after, I’m going to be much more involved to lessen Lingling’s workload.

Shangqi walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

Mom, Dad, don’t worry. I’ll take care of them.

I hope you’re happy together in the afterlife.

~~~

Don’t be afraid, Shang-Chi, for you have heart of a dragon and the power of the Ten Rings.

We will always be with you and Xialing.

Original Version w/Mandarin

“外婆，您有没有一点儿时间？” 尚气 stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously. “我想告诉您一些事情。”

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “是不是跟你和瑞雯这前个星期去的旅行有关？” Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

He wasn’t exactly sure what within him prompted this interaction. He had come to San Francisco for a normal life, to get as far away from his father’s reaches as he could and to outrun the blood that stained his footsteps.

Never did 尚气 imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to 夏灵, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again and damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

Never did he imagine letting anyone in on his broken past, and even though his hand had been forced when it came to telling Katy, here he was going to the second person who truly saw something in him when he first started his new life and planning to tell them everything.

(Okay, fine, 尚气 wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling 外婆, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, 灵灵, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“小龙，你有什么心事儿？”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that 外婆 also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

你有神龙之心 ，she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname. You have the heart of a dragon.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

It was a while before he could bring himself to visit the family again—there were a lot of awkward excuses before Katy reluctantly backed off—and it took even longer for him to get somewhat used to the name again, but he eventually started seeing it as a gift with each faint impression of happier days that he got every time 外婆 called him that.

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. 尚气 wondered how 外婆 would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell 文武 had put him through, he was still his father. 尚气 still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past 文武 wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

妈妈，我太想你了。

(And now 文武 is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

(But just as she died to protect her children, he did the same. Now, his children are reunited and in contact again, getting ever closer despite living as far apart as they did, and he was reunited with his love in the afterlife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at 外婆, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“外婆，您听说过 ‘十环’ 的传说吗？”

And 尚气 told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving 灵灵 behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before 外婆 moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw 外婆.

“你是所有在你之前的人的遗产，但你是你自己的人，” she finally said，“你决定你自己的命运。”

You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person. You decide your own fate.

~~~

That night, 尚气 knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

我还是你的骄傲吗？灵灵长大了，但我也没好好照顾她。

我向你发誓，我再也不会抛弃她。

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and 灵灵 dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their family’s legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

灵灵跟我朋友最近开始谈恋爱，他们俩可开心了。妈，如果你还在我们身边，我保证你会喜欢她。爸，我知道你一开始不太喜欢她，但她确实是一位精彩的人。

Life went on.

There were the good days, when he went out with others and could almost feel normal, and there were the bad days, when phantoms pains plagued him and he woke up from a restless sleep expecting to see bruises mottling his body like they did so often when he was younger.

(Also, he was considered a superhero now and holy shit that’s still insane, even years after he first got in contact with the Avengers and the sorcerers in New York. Now he was going all over the West Coast, to help the locals take care of whichever crazy supervillain decided to wreak havoc that day.)

爸爸，我希望你跟我一样觉得这个故事很好笑：我昨天帮了一组美国超级英雄开车。那是他们第一次来旧京山，对道路非常陌生—尤其是 Lombard Street。他们开也开不好，花了半个小时慢慢的开下去。最终，我把他们的车开下去的。

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and 夏灵 whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

妈，爸，灵灵她今天会跟我最好的朋友结婚，我们都很兴奋。我一个月之内开始接管十环的业务，让灵灵休息休息。她干了多少年了，现在是我的责任。我希望我能辜负她，她管的非常棒，帮了许多人。她几年后会回来继续当领导，但我好像在领导方面发挥更大的作用。

He walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

妈，爸，你们放心吧，我会照顾他们。

我希望你们俩来世都幸福。

~~~

尚气，你别怕，你有神龙之心，十环的力量。

我们永远会在你和灵灵的身边。

#i’m so sorry if the mandarin is shitty #the format is better on ao3 #but i’m so excited to be able to at least try it #shang chi spoilers #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings spoilers #shang chi fanfiction #shang chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #marvel fanfiction #mcu #shang chi imagines

[anunvalidcritic]

Justice League: Snyder Cut

(DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION IS MY OWN AND CAN BE DEEMED INVALID TO THOSE WHO DON’T CARE FOR IT.)

Oh, the time has come my friends! Now, I originally did a review on Batman V.S. Superman and I didn’t care for it, so I deleted it. But before I start, I would like y’all to read this statement made by @verified-villain-fxcker - You can click HERE to read it. As I stated in my repost, I couldn’t have said it better. May Autumn Snyder continue to rest in peace. Let’s get started!

It’s been so long since I’ve made a post I can’t even remember how I do this LOL.

CLARK is outta there to say the least...

WONDER WOMAN and LOIS look flabbergasted, as they should... BRUCE as well.

Talk about a shock-wave scream 

All jokes aside, the hate that LEX has towards SUPERMAN is just to much energy to be giving to another person..

THESE BITCHIES ARE READY

why are they letting a minority approach the fucking the cube?!?!

*insert travel montage scene here*

                      Part 1 - “Don’t count on it, Batman.”

BRUCE knows damn well he’s talking to AQUAMAN. Let’s move this shit along lol

“Oh Gotham? How’s that shit hole?” - AQUAMAN

Ik these bitchies aren’t singing rofl

I’d sniff anything wore by Jason Momoa too.

“Maybe a man who broods in a cave isn’t cut out to be a recruiter.” - ALFRED

TALK YO SHIT ALFRED!!!!

AMY ADAMS can literally take my heart, step on it, throw it in a river and I still wouldn’t be mad. 

Here comes the lovely WONDER WOMAN!

broooo her hands were moving like Donnie Yen in Ip Man!

Fucked that entire ceiling up

Ofc the one who tried to touch it would make the stupid statement. 

STEPPENWOLF is really wildin’ out

Don’t look back! I hate it when they look back!!

These are some strong as women!

                             PART 2 - “The Age of Heroes”

“It’s toxic, that’s good.” - STEPPENWOLF

I can only imagine that this is how toxic people think. 

this dude really just threw that lil demon fella like it was nothin’ lmao

You know you're working at a job for too long when you say this is the first time in a while that they're going home early smdh

Now that shit was pretty lit....

SILAS thinkin’ shit I better check on my son. 

“You know a lot about monsters, don’t you? Especially how to make them.” - CYBORG

If that isn’t teen angst, then I don’t know wtf is lmao

Seeing Gal in this tomb makes me want to re-watch Wonder Woman 1 all over again!

DARKSEID ol’ trifflin’ ass

plopped him down like he was dirty laundry

God bless Willem Dafoe, this man is a fuckin’ legend!

“This world is divided. They’re a primitive species. Unevolved and at war with one another. Too separate to be one.” - STEPPENWOLF

DeSaad kinda looks like Doctor Doom in the Fantasic Four reboot lmao

GREEN LATERNS!!!!!!!!!!!! OH SHIT!!!!!!!!

we really need a Green Lantern Corps moving...

ZEUS + ARES = A Dynamic Duo When They Aren’t Being Dicks To Each Other

You know I feel bad for man because all they did was bury that shit in the ground rofl

                  Part 3 - “Beloved Mother, Beloved Son”

BARRY + IRIS = Love at First Sight 

The burger can’t be that good like damn. 

Bro the detail on his fucking shoes and the glass!!

ROFL PLEASE TELL ME HE TOOK THE HOTDOG FOR HIS DOG!?!? 

damn did the car really need to explode...

lol BARRY must really need the job lol

... I would’ve just played dead after he threw me against that rock...

Man of Steel probably has one of the best soundtracks not just for a superhero movie but just in general

Americans love their football!

I have this love-hate relationship with CYBORG being in the JL and not with the TITANS you know since he’s a kid, but he’s a college student in this one. 

Thank God DIANA spoke with VICTOR instead of BRUCE because I honestly don’t think he would’ve gotten him on board.

Everyone can literally zigzag zoom across this planet at undeniable speed except for BATMAN lol

Come on, VIC, help the lady out.

You know honestly, BARRY has a pretty cool pad for someone who's trying to get by paying for a Criminal Justice Degree. 

“A very attractive Jewish boy. Who drinks milk, I don’t drink milk.” - BARRY

“Fuck the World.” - CYBORG

dang Ik DIANA has every right to grieve over STEVE, but damn that man has her whipped!

“You’re looking at the hottest thing on Earth. The exact same thing I said to my prom date. She dumped me anyway.” - RYAN CHOI

Why does MERA have an accent in this but not in AQUAMAN?? (ik the answer)

DAAAYYUUUMMMN MERA TURNED INTO A WHOLE BLOOD BENDER!

                               PART 4 - “Change Machine”

CYBORG just glided over silently

STEPPENWOLF + WONDER WOMAN = EPIC FIGHT SCENE

Seeing BARRY move like that to stop the debris and to ping DIANA’S sword really is amazing..

But he should not be screaming like that LOL

How do you not remember the planet that’s habitants almost killed you?? Because if that was me, I wouldn’t have forgotten that shit at all!

 Would've held a big ass grudge until I could go back. 

“I know we’re all thinking the same thing right now. Who’s gonna say it? I’m not gonna say it.” - BARRY

WOOOAAHHH J’ONN JONES?! (forgot about that)

 “There are six, not five. There is no us without him.” - BRUCE

Damn, no faith at all 

                         PART 5 - “ALL The King’s Horses”

ICONIC DIALOGUE

BARRY - “Wonder Woman. What do you think, man? You think she’d go for a younger guy?”

VICTOR - “She’s 5,000 years old, Barry. Every guy is a younger guy.”

I would’ve kept swippin’ that ID like a cashier at Wal-Mart swippin’ a debit card.

They're movin’ a little too slow for me. Ik they’ve never been on the ship before, but I would’ve been zoomin’ through that entire ship just to hurry and get the job done. 

NOT THE PREGNANCY TEST

Damn, they couldn’t have at least picked up the photo??

The foreshadowing was spectacular! It will always amaze me. 

I’m sure Allstate will cover that person’s car...

Just when LOIS was about to move on. 

CLARK grabbed DIANA like miss me with that Rafiki shit.

I would’ve come back to my senses too after looking at Amy Adams. 

AQUAMAN + THE FLASH = A CONUNDRUM

DR. SILAS takin’ one for the team

                              PART 6 - “Something Darker”

As crazy as radiation is, it’s quite an amazing spectacle.

I wish this Justice League movie could’ve held off until we got some other heroes such as the Green Lanterns, Hawkgirl, and many others. 

Our generation was truly blessed to have an incredible actor as SUPERMAN, and we are not putting him to use!

JONATHAN sounds like President Biden lol

Alright, team?! Break!

AQUAMAN is totally enjoying this fight. He rode that Parademon like a surfboard.

AQUAMAN + CYBORG + FLASH = *THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN*

I swear every scene that WONDER WOMAN enters into does not fail to include the “Ancient Lamentation Music”. 

VICTOR hurry up and say “one” god damnnit!!

SUPERMAN COLD!!!!

Somebody needs to put this fight on WorldStar

BARRY = HE’S A RUNNA HE’S A TRACK STAHHHHARRR!!!

THAT WAS FUCKING IMMACULATE

The Unity  = The Three Bitchies

I bet DARKSEID will remember that shit now

                        EPILOGUE - “A Father Twice Over”

VICTOR = A Final Requiem

LOL VULKO and MERA look stressed tf out!

“Uh, I have too much to live for. And more important things to do.” - LEX

A cocky motherfucker LMAO

Alright, we’re back in this type of dream sequence. 

“Who have you ever loved?” - MERA

Uh, bitch his parents, Robin tf?!

Thank you, JOKER, for stating the facts for Ms. Fish-stick

 Oh shit, they let LOIS die, goddamn it!

HARLEY’S DEAD TOO?!?!?!

BRUCE LOOK SICK AF!!!

Well, the dream is over once again...

I just don’t see how people can live with all those fuckin’ windows. 

“Oh, and some have called me The Martian Manhunter.” - J’ONN

Alright...

________

Yes, the movie was long but what needed to be expressed was. As we already the Snyder Cut wasn’t supposed to be seen because a father simply wanted to grieve the death of his child. I’ll once again reiterate what @verified-villain-fxcker you don't have to like the film but at least give it the benefit of the doubt from its predecessor. For me, I did enjoy watching his version, but let’s be honest what he who shall not be named did was just fucked up. 

#RIP Autumn Snyder #Justice League snyder cut #zack snyder #cyborg #the flash #batman #aquaman #superman #Wonder Woman #hbo max #lois lane #amy adams #ray fisher #ezra miller #ben affleck #jason momoa #henry cavill #gal gadot #dcu #dc comics #jk simmons #Alfred Pennyworth #jeremy irons #lex luther #jesse eisenberg #jared leto #the joker #dc

[8bitbobby]

My Journey with Arcade1up - Part II: Star Wars

It didn't take long for me to 'catch the bug' so to speak with these mini cabinets.  Just a short 2 and a half months after my first purchase, Pac-man, I was shopping around for the next one.  In early June during the E3 Electronics conference Arcade1up announced 3 more cabinets that were being released that fall.  Of the three 'second generation' cabinets the one that blew my mind the most was the Atari classic Star Wars.  The moment this one was available for pre-order I went into my local EB Games (now doing business as Gamestop) and slapped down a deposit.  

As the receipt stated, the date was:  August 8th, 2019 and now I had to figure out what to do for the next few months before the cabinet shipped.  What was great about EB Games was that they only required a small deposit for pre-order unlike other retailers who wanted the full purchase price up front (even if the wait was several months).  

The E3 offerings in 2019 tugged at the heartstrings on many fronts. Of course any kid born in the mid to late 70s grew up with the Star Wars universe, but the other two games: Marvel Superheroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles garnered a lot of nostalgia as well for our cohort.  Of the three I think I was most influenced by Star Wars and that is why it was an easy choice for my 2nd cabinet.  I have fond memories of playing the sit-down version of this cab at my local Scandia Golf & Games in the early 80s.  At the time I think that they had it right inside the door as you came in and it was the biggest game in the place at the time.

 Fast forward 3 months or so and on November 12th I got the call from EB Games that my cabinet was ready for pickup. Just like Pac-man before it the distress signal came while I was at work and so I had to finish my shift before making my way over for pickup.  I felt like Boba Fett arriving to collect my bounty and upon finishing the transaction hurriedly making for my escape pod before enduring any "Imperial entanglements".   The drive home was akin to Han Solo weaving through the Asteroid field as I attempted to navigate my way back through rush hour traffic in the quickest and safest way possible.

Immediately after opening the box I could tell that this cabinet was something special.  The build quality seemed to be light years ahead of the previous generation cabinets and with the iconic John Williams soundtrack playing in the background I got to work assembling this soon to be "fully operational" battle station.  From the replica fight yolk controls to the light up marquee to the beautiful side panel artwork this cabinet was (and still is) a sight to behold. Pre-loaded with the 1983 vector classic, Star Wars, the 1985 follow-up, Empire Strikes Back, which was released as a conversion kit for the original game and Return of the Jedi which was an isometric raster game from 1984 the lineup on this cabinet ran the gamut of scenes and scenarios from the beloved Original Trilogy.  The irony is that ROTJ actually was released the year BEFORE ESB was offered as a software upgrade to the original Star Wars game.  

Assembly of this cabinet was much the same as Pac-man with a few exceptions.  It all went together with some wooden dowels and a screw driver in under an hour.  It was the first cabinet that I owned that came with a custom matching riser and a light-up marquee right out of the box and even though the gameplay is not as varied on this cabinet as it is on some of the later ones it will always have a place in my home arcade if for no other reason than the pure nostalgia it generates when you look upon it and hear the digitized voices and music from the films.  I could have never imagined that when I was 7 or 8 years old playing with the Kenner action figures in my back yard and creating trenches and planets out of mud and snow and gravel to re-enact my favorite scenes that I would be able to bring home a replica arcade cabinet in my adult years.  

As with Pac-man, I added a matching stool to this cabinet the following July from The Source.  It was the official Arcade1up licensed stool that matches the side art of the machine with Darth Vader's visage figured prominently on it.  

The finish on this cabinet truly puts this one ahead of all the ones that came before it and even some that came after.  New to this cabinet was an upgraded monitor that was more vibrant and colorful than the first generation screens a proper volume toggle that allowed you to turn the volume up and down 15 levels instead of the 3 position: off, Loud and OBNOXIOUS settings of the older cabinets, and if I'm not mistaken the software was emulated by Code Mystics for the first time and they did a fantastic job of bringing these games to the home market by offering a settings menu for each game that allowed you to change the difficulty as well as add scan lines.  Switching between games was also made unique by the sound cues of Artoo's whistles and the hyperspace starfield effect that transitions from the game menu to each chosen game.  Another highlight of this cabinet is that the 'attract mode' has sound so you can turn this game on and leave it running to get that arcade ambience even when it is not being played.  There is nothing like turning all the lights off and just seeing the glow of the machines and hearing Ben Kenobi's famous dialogues from the movies or hearing selections from the soundtrack.  The Atari Star Wars Arcade1up cabinet is one for the ages.

#Star Wars #Starwars #Darth Vader #darthvader #arcade #arcade1up #homearcade #gamersunite #retrogaming #vector #atari #jedi #obiwan #r2d2 #artoo #journey #space #sci-fi #1980s #80s #80smovies #cockpit #scandia #scandiagolfandgames

[jacepens]

1: HamilTurn(you can differentiate if needed) or MCU, 2: Washette, 3: Anna Strong

And generally a fandom list would be nice to know what to pick from ;) (Love you♡)

You said HamilTurn or MCU and I say both, I'm going to try my best haha. But anyway, thank you!:) Apologies in advance if this gets rambly, but that's the point of this right? Anyway, for ease of scrolling sake, I'll probably put a cut if this gets long but don't worry, it's just me talking a whole bunch lol. Ok, thank you again!! <3 (love you too!)

1. Hamilton/Turn (fandom)

Favorite character: I have to say Lafayette for both. Oh and Mary

Least favorite character: I have no real reason behind this so sorry but Burr, and Simcoe for many reasons

5 favorite ships: washette, lams, hamliza, benwash, whamilton

Character I find most attractive: ...all. But I have to say overall Brian Wiles as Lafayette. That face just…🥺

Character I would marry: Mary Woodhull or Eliza

Character I would be best friends with: you know I'm not sure, but in an ideal world Lafayette (both versions) or Ben but I feel like we wouldn't be best friends. But also everyone, is that an option? Even some of the "villains" would have good stories to tell

A random thought: I feel like most people in the fandom now are so new (they joined in with the movie release!) and unaware of the uh atrocities of back in the day. And y'all are lucky, but those of us who know. Know. (yes, I was unbearable but that's ok because I was having fun, and despite what I just said: have fun in your fandoms even if you're "unbearable", just keep it welcome to all and enjoy the enthusiasm you have for it:))

An unpopular opinion: Oh boy. Maybe stop making quick judgments about people based on what they write/who they ship? There is a line, but I've genuinely never seen it crossed by anyone at least openly sooo just let people have fun? And don't say anything about something? Unless it's actually harmful but even then, keep it to a dm or something and have an open discussion. Just let people vibe, please? Especially younger fans. Just, I’ve seen a weird amount of negativity towards them. They’re kids having fun, we all used to be like that so please, be kind and patient. They’ll learn if they make a mistake. Ok? Ok cool:) (maybe not unpopular but still I wanted to say it)

My canon OTP: Am I allowed to say lams?

My non-canon OTP: washette, wow, who would've guessed? xD

Most badass character: Mary my beloved

Most epic villain: Robert Rogers hands down

Pairing I am not a fan of: no one murder me, but in general I'm just not a fan of jamilton. also whatever was the deal with Anna and Abe

Characters I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): um. Where to begin? Honestly I think every woman in Turn at one point or another, except perhaps Peggy in my opinion. Oh but especially Anna. Also Simcoe. With Hamilton, probably again everyone at some point, but the way Angelica was written just feels so overwhelmingly fictional it bugs me. (But at least Hamilton had some genuine relationships between women, not great but still)

Favorite friendship(s): Ben and Caleb, Washington and Lafayette (what?? yes, you fools. lol). It may sound a tad ~cringey~ but I generally like Hamilton's vibe with the boys, maybe it's just the gender envy, but it's kinda cute and fun.

Character I most identify with: well jeez, I won't lie but Washington. In both versions, except god knows I could never be that chill. Also a dash of Laurens.

Character I wish I could be: wow what a loaded question ummm. I don't want to be like him, but I want to be like in his position so Hamilton lol. Playing an active role but I know personally I am not cut out for a battlefield, so a desk suits me well.

2. MCU (fandom-that I am so out of date from, please take all of this with a grain of salt)

Favorite character: so when I was younger it was Tony Stark but now it’s definitely Wanda and T’challa

Least favorite character: ummm. I genuinely couldn’t tell you, I’m very out of date

5 favorite ships (canon or non-canon): wandavision, …ngl I can’t think of anymore, I honestly never shipped many and wandavision was like the only couple I remember really liking. Oh, I don’t know them but Loki/Mobius and/or Sylvie

Character I find most attractive: embarrassing confession time, Loki was my first bad celebrity crush. Wanda now and Shuri is cute. Also Sylvie

Character I would marry: if I could, Wanda 

Character I would be best friends with: Vision and Peter Parker

A random thought: y’all it’s been so long since I’ve touched MCU I should catch up/refresh shouldn’t I?

An unpopular opinion: I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I’m going to say it anyway. Personally, I really don’t like the movie Civil War, I think it’s what sorta made me disinterested in mcu. It’s been years since I’ve watched it so maybe I would have a completely different opinion if I saw it today, but at the time it just felt so...wrong? And childish? I literally don’t even remember why they were fighting or how that movie even ended (I feel like it just wasn’t satisfying??) but I think also, as a kid or teen watching that, it reminded me sooo much of the dumb drama that, you know, kids get into. I mean, getting your friends on someone’s side like that?? Like, I know they were mad but- but there are other ways of dealing with emotions??? And involving everyone's friends too? So yeah, it just felt off to me at the time, and looking back now, from what I remember, it just frustrated me. Especially as a kid who deals with dumb drama like that all the time, kids would want to see a better example especially from adult superheroes or at least not be reminded of the bs they have to go through sometimes. But, rant over, that’s all just my opinion:) 

My canon OTP: wandavision

My non-canon OTP: ummm. I guess just Loki/Mobius and/or Sylvie lol

Most badass character: I have to say Natasha but actually there are many

Most epic villain: when I was younger I liked that Ultron was voiced by Robert California from the Office lol

Pairing I am not a fan of: I don’t know if it’s popular but I never liked Tony and Pepper. What happened with her?

Characters I feel the writers screwed up: I guess I’ll say Thor because I just felt such a weird difference in his personality that did not make sense to me

Favorite friendship: Wanda and Pietro!! Honestly I think a lot, there were a lot of good friendships but I can’t think of which ones are my favorite

Character I most identify with: ummmmmm. 

Character I wish I could be: My gut says Thor

3. Washette (ship-bless you<3 get ready for rambles oh no)

When I started shipping them: So I first had the thought in 7th grade while my history teacher was talking about them and my little brain went: haha that’s pretty gay. (teacher keeps talking about them) wait a fucking minute, that is pretty gay! But it wasn’t until I got sucked into Hamilton that I really started actively shipping them by reading fics and what not, but something about them became an instant favorite. And later (little personal story time) I pretty much completely stopped reading fic and being active in fandom for years and actually, when I got my first panic attack that - no joke - lasted for 5 hours, for some reason my brain (as it’s decaying lol) said I want to go and reread all my favorite washette fics and also do what I was I always too scared to do. Write!! So that night I binged the fics and found myself falling in love again, feeling all the old passion I had for them again, and the next night (still very shaken) I wrote an outline of a good ol washette confession + kiss that was extremely thoughtful and good, and honestly, I have not actually used that outline yet! Maybe I’m saving it. But yeah, this is a long answer, but I have a weird amount of attachment to them and this ship, I wish I knew why too. <3 

My thoughts: so many. Too many. First of all, I love that I have so many versions of them in my mind, right? When I started writing, I had never watched Turn but then I did and then it was like: hell yeah, another washette set. At this point, my brain has created it’s own unique version of them but it’s like, they’re so versatile! That’s one neat thing about this fandom as a whole, we get more than one character and personality and that’s just fun right?! More specifically on washette I mean, they’re just so sweet. Historically, their relationship is unique and cute, and you’d have to be a fool to think that to Washington Lafayette was just another friend. Even strictly platonically, it was something special and it’s so obvious I just love them. Ok. Enough thoughts for now <3

What makes me happy about them: the loooove, the comfort they found in each other, the fact that like every person at the time documenting them knew and understood they were special to each other like, they were just that in love. 

What makes me sad about them: oh so much that I try to ignore lol. There is the one year when Lafayette went to France and all his letters to Wash are like: “I have not received one letter from you, but it’s ok, I love you and I know you love me too :)” WHO WAS NOT DELIVERING THESE LETTERS, I HAVE NAMES, NOW I WANT ANSWERS. Anyway, also just most things that happened when Laf went back to France. And then when he visited America in 1824 and visited Washington’s grave. Yeah. ow. (also, you know what, I have done too much research on this event. lmk if you would like a post)

Things done in fanfic that annoy me: Generally, I’m not annoyed by much in fanfic at least with them and what I’ve seen. I’m still nostalgic for the old school nonbinary Laf fics, so it ain’t those. Literally maybe it’s because I’m starved for content but I can’t really think of anything, I love it all.

Things I look for in fanfic: back to the whole starved for content thing, I am a library of washette fics but I think if I was to pick a certain thing that I would love it’s just um fluff? And honesty, if that makes sense. Love confessions are very good as well. Canon era, please :) pining but not too much that it hurts me lol

My wishlist: literally all my wips. If I could whisk them into existence I could die happy and knowing I have put a variety of washette content in the world. Something else though, more fics :’) I love writing but sometimes I want to curl up with a cozy, new washette fic like a cup of hot chocolate and be surprised and learn something new and just..yeah:)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: what. Ok but actually, Martha and Adrienne because they are both honestly perfect for them and I love them too (I’m going to be biased, especially Adrienne)

My happily ever after for them: Can Lafayette just move the family to America? But also, it’s sad, but like I know Laf would be sad in America while France suffers. So...maybe a world where things in France go better and Lafayette gets to visit Washington more often and bring the family!! (Washington visit France too??)

4. Anna Strong (character)

How I feel about this character: I like her! She’s fun and…strong (oops lol) and she’s made some mistakes sure, but I feel like she did her best to learn from them and move on

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Honestly, I know they didn’t have a lot of interaction in the show but Anna/Mary has potential. And Anna/Edmund

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: her and Ben and Caleb

My unpopular opinion about this character: I really can’t think of anything unpopular

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: in general, her having more screen time with less men you know? I mean like one-on-one kind of scenes. Also I would’ve liked to see at least her and Selah talk. Like, really talk. They never really did that, right? I just have so many questions about them

Favorite friendship for this character: Anna and Ben

My crossover ship: I have no idea

And well, I know it’s been a few days but for a fandom list, I’m just a weeb lol but here

Octopath Traveler (my beloved)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Star Wars

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Persona 4

Zelda (to a point)

Pokémon

What We Do in the Shadows

Sailor Moon

Literally anything historical

Ok!! I tried to add a lot because I’m not sure what you might know or not haha. But thank you again!! I had fun <3

#ask game

[vancampemily]

Emily VanCamp On Reprising Her Role As Sharon Carter And Those Power Broker Theories

Sharon Carter’s dark, bitter, and vengeful return in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ could mean many things—or nothing at all.

You’re always one decision away from a totally different life, and that rule applies doubly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A simple choice in the heat of the moment can have grave consequences for our beloved heroes; Peter Quill punching Thanos just as Iron Man and Spider-Man almost pull the Infinity gauntlet off the villain’s hand is a hotly debated Twitter topic every other week. The current Marvel conflict on everyone’s tongue? Why on Earth is Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) an enemy of the state, when the Avenger who got her in this mess in the first place is roaming his past life worry-free?

Last we saw Sharon, she was the wide-eyed, determined Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a CIA operative whose loyalty to Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) prompted her to defy the Sokovia Accords and steal Cap’s shield and Falcon’s wings from the government. Her allegiance to Steve landed her a kiss from the Avenger but not without controversy: Sharon is the grandniece of Peggy Carter, Steve’s true love and the woman he traveled back in time to be with at the end of Endgame. Sharon’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it romance with Steve was just as short-lived as her residence in the MCU timeline, but thanks to the newest Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sharon gets a second life—just not the one the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent envisioned.

When we meet Sharon in episode 3, titled “Power Broker,” the glow of the woman who longed to live up to her grand-aunt’s accomplishments is eclipsed by a dark cloud. She’s traded in her button-up shirts for hoodies and operates as an art thief out of a sprawling mansion in the eerie fictional town of Madripoor. She hasn’t spoken to her family members in months. When Sam reminds her he was also on the run, she reminds him, “Was. Is. Big difference.” She’s cynical, bitter, and vengeful, which apparently turned her into a stone-cold killer. She murders three bounty hunters with a steel bar and darts a knife into the shoulder of another. Sharon Carter is long gone, her one driving force the desire to be pardoned. Who is this new person? Well, Marvel devotees have their theories. Ahead, Emily VanCamp talks reprising her role as Sharon Carter, those Power Broker theories, and more.

Let’s go back to your Marvel introduction. What qualities initially drew you to the character of Sharon Carter?

I loved her dedication and devotion to Cap [and] to the cause. She was in this bloodline of agents, and this kick-ass woman who was a little bit more idealistic at the time. Now some of those qualities have been stripped away, unfortunately, based on her circumstances and the sacrifices she made. She’s wondering whether or not it was all worth it. She feels abandoned.

Knowing what she knows now, especially with Cap out of the MCU timeline, do you think Sharon would have made a different choice in Civil War?

I don’t think so. One of the things I love about her is her integrity. And to her, that’s what she believed in and that’s what she thought was the right thing to do. So I think it’s less about Steve and more about her devotion to the cause at that time. No, I don’t think she would go back and do anything differently. Do I think that the character would have liked a little bit of help, with all these other characters being pardoned, and she’s just sort of been left on the run as this fugitive? Yeah, I think her reaction to it would have changed. But I don't think she would have changed her choices.

At the end of Avengers: Endgame, Sam and Bucky were able to get closure from Captain America. Do you ever wonder what closure would look like for Sharon, had she had the opportunity?

I’m sure she would have wanted that, but I think that she's moved on from that. Now she just wants to be pardoned to get her life back. That ship has sailed in so many ways for Sharon, and we don't even really address [Steve and her] in the show. It’s so much more about where she is now and how to move forward and make that deal with Sam: Listen, I’ll help you out if you can get me out of here. [Sam and Bucky] are on this mission and she's reluctantly helping them, and that’s what the dynamic is now. Does she want to? Probably not. But is it her ticket out? Probably.

What did you have to understand about her mindset now in order to play her in this new phase?

I think it was just important for me, one, that we address all this time that’s passed and kind of discuss, “Where has she been? What has she been doing?” And we talk about it a little bit in episode 3, that she’s been hustling and dealing in stolen art and living in Madripoor. You get the sense that things have not been easy on Sharon. And she’s definitely made her way and she’s thrived in this environment, but it’s not an environment she would have chosen. She was sort of, in her mind, left behind, so there’s a chip on her shoulder that I think it would be really hard to get rid of at this point. And she even says at one point, “The superhero thing is a joke.” She’s definitely lost that kind of idealistic, young agent mind.

How did you prepare for that change in her?

I think it’s great to dig a little bit deeper into all these characters and their perspectives. And with Sharon, it’s so much about her resentment and her tenacity. She’s thrived in this new environment, even though it’s not ideal. So that’s something that’s carried through in her personality. She didn’t lose that. But I think just her goals, her thoughts have just changed.

What is a Marvel training session like? Sharon killed so many bounty hunters by herself.

It was months of prepping even for that sequence in episode 3. Sharon doesn’t have superpowers, so everything is just with her bare hands. We wanted it to look as gritty and raw and real as possible, so we trained a lot. Every day that I wasn’t shooting Falcon or The Resident, I was in that training center going over choreography, doing the footwork, doing boxing, doing jujitsu, all the things that I need to do to prep my body and mind for those sequences. You hope that when you get there to shoot it, that muscle memory and that adrenaline kicks in, and off you go. But Marvel is amazing at preparing you for those moments. I was welcomed to go and train every moment I could, and I did. But to have that available is just such a gift, especially when you've got a sequence like that, where you can't really hide from anything. It’s just you.

Sharon’s dark return reminded me of your Revenge character Emily Thorne. Do you prefer these darker roles over characters like Nicolette in the soapy drama The Resident?

They’re all so different. I think that’s part of what I like—just embodying totally different characters. Revisiting Sharon was very cool because we get to see her, as you said, in this totally different light. I don’t have any sort of preference. It was definitely difficult because last year I was doing Falcon and Winter Soldier and The Resident at the same time, so sometimes getting home at night I was a little bit screwy in my brain as to where I was headed the next day and what mind frame I should be in. But it’s not to say I enjoy playing one more than the other. It was fun to get back to Sharon, though, and see this new, kind of hardened version of her.

What was it like shooting both The Resident and Falcon in the middle of a pandemic?

Even before the pandemic, it was hard because it’s two different characters, one of them being very, very physical, so even that in itself was a challenge. Then the pandemic happened, and luckily I didn’t have to do both at the same time. We only had about a month left on Falcon and Winter Soldier, and I finished that up and then went straight into The Resident. It was nerve-racking going back to work after months of being isolated and at home, but also really nice to have a sense of normalcy. Even though it’s not normal at all on set anymore, it’s nice to be around my colleagues, to be at work. We’re kind of lucky to be able to do that and just to deliver new content. Everyone’s streaming everything Marvel. It's made our jobs a little bit more challenging, but also more rewarding in many ways because we’re able to deliver that joy.

When you pay close attention to Falcon’s episode titles, they’ve been very descriptive of each episode. So when the third episode was titled “Power Broker” and we see Sharon return, Marvel theorists ran with it.

We see Sharon return. We see Zemo return. It’s kind of like, yeah, episode 3 was always a big blast of so many things. There’s a ton of theories going around.

Have you ever envisioned Sharon going to the dark side, going against the heroes? What do you make of those theories?

Sharon’s always been this kind of idealistic personality, but I also think there are so many gray areas now between heroes and villains, and that’s something these Marvel shows are really exploring more in-depth. I think anyone at this point is capable of anything. There are so many characters that haven't even appeared yet. There's a lot going on in these six episodes. So for me, I don’t want to say too much because there’s just so much more to come.

source

#emily vancamp #sharon carter #the falcon and the winter soldier #the resident #revenge #interview #*