#which is ironic considering the margot crossover | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snugglyporos · 4 years

Text

Okay, nope, I failed. I can’t hold it in.

Birds of Prey is fucking awful.

And it’s not at all because of the people in it. Everyone in this thing is trying their hardest to make this work. Much in the same way that Margot Robbie carried the fuck out of Suicide Squad with her performance, she’s doing the same here. But the rest of the cast aren’t exactly slouching. It’s clear they cared.

Which makes it so fucking infuriating that they’re let down by bad ideas from a company that can’t find it’s ass with both hands.

First, the actual Birds of Prey don’t appear for about two thirds of the movie. The movie isn’t really even about them. They’re shoe horned into this like Godfrey Ho decided to make this movie. Furthermore, the title of the movie isn’t doing it any favors. And we’re not going to touch on the fact that neither Harley nor Renee are actual members of the birds of prey.

Honestly, I’m shocked they didn’t fucking bring in Condor with how they were reaching for characters.

The biggest problem is that DC and Warner Bros. can’t fucking help themselves in trying to make a spinoff of everything. Recall that Marvel, the only company to manage to do a shared universe right in movies, did it by having solo movies first. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, they all got solo movies. Which meant all they needed to do was bring them together.

DC meanwhile, tries to shove as many characters as possible into their films, trying to make them all crossover as much as possible, ensuring that no one character or movie sticks out or is memorable.

Consider that this movie only exists because of Suicide Squad, another movie that failed and had way too many characters. Unlike that movie, Bird of Prey is actually well shot. It doesn’t look like someone was using a chainsaw to edit the movie.

But what this should have been was a Harley Quinn solo movie. That’s basically what two thirds of it is. But the Birds of Prey addition reeks of a desperation to make more spinoffs. Attaching more characters and making the title so long just ensures that the audience is unclear what they’re getting. Who exactly is the focus? Harley Quinn? Or the Birds of Prey who get the focus in the title?

And again, DC have always done this. They did the same thing when Batman and Superman kept interacting together, and they did the same when Wonder Woman showed up in Batman vs. Superman, because DC can’t help themselves.

It’s telling that the only good movies in the DC movie universe are Wonder Woman and Aquaman, you know, the two solo movies. I’m not counting the whole Superman Returns thing, a movie that was never meant to be in a shared universe and was added in as such retroactively.

The movie comes off as confused, unclear, and indecisive. It comes off like DC are hoping to launch birds of prey off Harley Quinn, the way they launched this movie off Suicide Squad, before actually making sure that they have anything to launch first.

And it sucks. It sucks because it’s clear that the actors give a shit and worked really hard to put on good performances. It sucks because it’s clear that they at least had ideas as to what they wanted to be. It sucks because this is another case of DC and Warner Bros. strangling something before it got the chance to become something great.

And i’m not going to get into the whole ‘not using the main members of the Birds of Prey’ thing. I’m guessing it came down to rights, given Black Canary has been used a ton by the television shows. And I imagine they didn’t want to use Oracle because they’re hoping to save Batgirl for... something. Actually, probably nothing. But I imagine they think it’ll be something.

But all of that is secondary to the fact that what they decided to do was Godfrey Ho a Birds of Prey movie onto a Harley Quinn movie because they didn’t have faith in either to deliver, and as a result don’t do so.

And it’s so sad.

Again, this movie isn’t as bad as Suicide Squad, because this movie wasn’t put together with tape after being cut by a hacksaw by a blind person. That movie is awful.

This movie is more mediocre, and unfortunately that’s worse in a lot of ways, because you can see what it SHOULD be, and you can see that the people doing the acting give a shit. And it sucks seeing people who give a shit be let down by the people behind them.

#rant tw #ooc #tw rant

4 notes · View notes

thebibliomancer · 6 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #191: Back to the Stone Age!

January, 1980

OH HEY WE’VE HIT ‘80s!

It took one-hundred and ninety issues plus annuals and crossovers but we’ve arrived. And now ten more years of comics (including West Coast Avengers, oy) and I’ll hit the terrifying 90s.

And what better way to ring in the 80s than have the Avengers fight a dude made of stone. No, not the Thing. No, not the Statue Black Knight. No, not Korg. No, not Geodude. No, not Tanuki suit Mario.

Grey Gargoyle.

C’mon. He’s right on the cover. There’s text that says his name right above him.

Last time: The Avengers had a senatorial hearing to decide whether the government would withdraw their special priority status again. Because Gyrich was pissed that Scarlet Witch wanted to take more vacation instead of coming back to the team.

But they had to reschedule because a giant stone monster was rampaging and Beast offered to let Gyrich handle it but he didn’t want to for some reason.

Through some truly impressive teamwork and combos, the Avengers beat the rock monster into gravel, guest star Deadpool warning only too late that there was something lurking under said gravel.

So Iron Man and Daredevil got turned to stone and the Grey Gargoyle promised he would destroy the Avengers.

And then he just pops Falcon right in the face.

Yer a dick, Grey Gargolyle.

Vision jumps to Falcon’s defense and THRAMs Grey Gargoyle stating that since Thor has soloed Grey Gargoyle before, it shouldn’t be a thing for the assembled Avengers to beat him.

This is a valid theory and if the Avengers showed the teamwork they showed last time it would probably be correct.

Hell. Vision could solo this guy. He’s beaten a rock man before by letting him punch himself to death on Vision’s diamond hard abs.

He doesn’t get the chance for some weird reason (and Grey Gargoyle has some methods at his disposal that Statue Knight didn’t so...).

Grey Gargoyle punches him across the synthezoid face sending him flying into a building. Literally into a building. He apparently went intangible just before impact and just before passing out so he’s just sticking out of a wall, untouchable and unconscious.

Apparently when Ultron was having Vision built, he had him built with a glass jaw.

Scarlet Witch runs to check on Vision because these two crazy kids are constantly worrying about each other in battle and Grey Gargoyle takes the opportunity to punch her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

There’s a distinct lack of teamwork going on here...

Beast and Cap were too far off to watch Wanda’s back. But after she’s already been clobbered, Beast jumps on Grey Gargoyle’s and starts punching him in the head. And also criticizing how he treats women.

Beast: “First the Absorbing Man trashes Ms. Marvel, and now you deck the Scarlet Witch! Don’t you bad guys have any sense of chivalry at all?”

Grey Gargoyle: “Not really.”

Beast: “So I see!”

Kind of a weird thing to take issue with. I don’t like that Gargoyle punched Wanda in the back of the head but the other thing Beast cites, Ms. Marvel getting beaten up in the fight against Absorbing Man... Ms. Marvel can take a punch a hell of a lot better than you can, Beast. And she’s in the biz of punching people to get them to stop doing the crimes. Getting punched back is going to happen.

During this exchange Grey Gargoyle flings Beast at Cap. And while the heroes lay in yon heap, Grey Gargoyle reveals his ability to turn anything to stone for an hour by touching it with his right palm.

He uses this on an awning. So it collapses under its own weight and buries Cap, Beast, and Wasp in shards of rock.

Speaking of Ms. Marvel, she’s the last standing Avenger. I don’t know what she was going this whole time (teamwork real bad for some reason) but she comes up behind Grey Gargoyle, grabs him and throws him against a building.

This seemingly knocks him out but when she goes to investigate, he kicks her in the head, knocking her out.

I coulda sworn she’s taken a lot more damage before so her durability here isn’t really ringing true.

That’s one of the annoying things about team comics like the Avengers. When the plot requires someone to solo them, they go down super easily even when it doesn’t make any damn sense.

Anyway, even though the Avengers are all at his mercy and he said he would kill them, Grey Gargoyle suddenly changes his mind now that it would be super easy to kill them.

Grey Gargoyle: “I could kill you now, all of you, but why bother? There will be plenty of time for that later... when I’ve less pressing matters to attend to... or perhaps, when I become bored.”

I guess villains tenderly gripping the villain ball must go hand in hand with the heroes getting easily soloed. There wouldn’t be an Avengers if the villains actually killed them after they were easily defeated.

MEANWHILE AT THE MANSION OF AVENGE

Jarvis is cooking a hearty goulash for the Avengers when they get back from their hearing because dammit he’s a good butler and all that legal drama might make them hungry!

But then he hears a tapping and a pak-ing on the window door. Only Redwing and nothing more.

Falcon’s pet falcon is desperate to get out so Jarvis opens the window. AND NYOOM that to-be-a-vampire-in-the-future bird can book.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the Avengers’ latest embarrassing stomp.

Ms. Marvel is the first to shake off the one blow that seemed to be enough to completely knock her out for some reason.

Wanda is up not long after.

And... wow, geez. Wasp blasts her way from under the pile of rubble and drags Beast out from under it. While tiny sized.

Um, good hustle, the Wasp?

Cap is also okay, having gotten his shield between him and the rocks fall nobody died. Weirdly it seems there was a layer of rock between him and Beast when they were sprawled on top of each other before Grey Gargoyle brought the awning down.

Wanda is concerned about Vision though. He’s still unconscious and if he is badly hurt, they can’t even help him because he’s intangible!

And then Vision sits up, perfectly fine.

Vision: “My systems shut-down was merely temporary -- and undeserving of your rather dramatic reaction. You have acted strangely ever since your return from Attilan, my wife. Something troubles you. We must talk.”

I hope we’re not back to the point where Vision would deride Wanda for being concerned about him BECAUSE EMOTIONLESS ROBOT.

But they really should have that important relationship talk.

Which maybe they do off-screen while Beast and Cap go to check on Iron Man and Daredevil.

Yup. They’re stone.

But its like they can still hear Iron Man’s voice on the wind.

Oh wait, they can.

In a kind of cool moment that probably makes total sense if you don’t think about it too much, the man inside the armor is perfectly fine (give or take an aggravating itch on his nose). The Grey Gargoyle’s touch turned the armor to stone but left the gooey center alone.

And as the Avengers leader, Stone Man is ordering them to not worry about him and Daredevil. Track down the Grey Gargoyle before he does anymore harm. And prey that no pigeons find Daredevil and Iron Man before the stoning effect wears off.

Which solves the dilemma of what to do with their stoned buddies really. Good call, Stone Man.

Also the reason why you shouldn’t think too hard about Grey Gargoyle’s stone effect is because then you might start wondering. If the Iron Man armor was turned to stone but Tony left squishy, does that mean that Daredevil’s insides are as blood and organs as before and only his skin has been made stone?

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

Also, at this point, Beast notices that Falcon is missing.

Beast notices this. Cap was apparently oblivious.

Way to be conscious of your best friend and partner, STEVE. He’s only here as a favor to you!

But where is the Falcon? I guess as the first one rock punched, he was also the fastest to recover and has been secretly trailing the Grey Gargoyle as he has rooftop hopped across Manhattan.

Grey Gargoyle finally reaches his destination. The apartment he rented under his human identity when he started operating in New York months ago and--

So remember how this whole thing started when Grey Gargoyle in his rock monster spacesuit fell from space?

It turns out that when you disappear (into space), your landlord tends to rent your apartment to other people.

And in this specific case, Grey Gargoyle’s secret lair is now the home of Margot Neil.

“She considers it her sanctuary against the concrete and combat of inner city living.” Emphasis mine.

So obviously a giant stone man is going to OH YEAH through her window.

What did she expect, setting up dramatic irony like that?

Margot runs for the door, yelling that when muggers dress up as pet rocks and crash through twelfth story windows, moving to Montana starts looking good.

But Grey Gargoyle jumps over her (geez, he can book for a guy literally made of stone) and turns her door into stone, rending it unusable as an aperture.

And now that he has a captive audience, Grey Gargoyle does whatever any self-respecting villain does upon gaining a captive audience.

Exposits about his backstory.

SEE HE USED TO BE A BRILLIANT SCIENTIST

But not so brilliant that he didn’t accidentally spill chemicals on himself like a stupid asshole.

And since he was a comic book brilliant scientist, obviously he has superpowers now. Anything he touches with his chemically contaminated right hand would turn to stone for an hour.

And since his body absorbed these chemicals, he could also touch himself to suddenly become as hard as rock.

Easy joke. Sorry.

But that’s why he’s a rock man. He turned himself into rock but because of his exposure to chemicals, he could still move even as a rock man.

And then like most scientists who practiced insufficient lab safety and got powers as a result, decided to become a supervillain.

So he decided to fight Thor to steal his hammer under the assumption that Mjolnir would make him immortal. This is an assumption that everyone keeps making for some reason.

But then Grey Gargoyle realized that the magic was inside him all along. For all practical purposes he IS immortal! He can survive prolonged periods underwater and even in space.

That’s where he was assumed dead, by the way.

A rocket carrying him to Earth in Thor #259 exploded. Luckily for him, he managed to cover himself in cosmic particles and wreckage that he turned to stone and which for some reason didn’t turn back after an hour.

And thats where the rock monster spacesuit came from. The Avengers were kind enough to punch him loose from that.

ANYWAY

Its been fun chatting but now he’s going to use the chemicals he hid in a secret compartment behind a mirror to become even stronger.

Why have his chemicals been replaced with bourbon and dom perignon??

Well. The secret compartment wasn’t so secret. Margot found it when she moved in and figured she’d throw out the smelly chemicals so she could have the classiest liquor cabinet.

I like you, Margot.

Grey Gargoyle is distinctly less fond though.

Grey Gargoyle: “Why, you dimwitted witch! I’ll crush your silly head into jelly!”

Thankfully this is when Falcon chooses to show up and tell Grey Gargoyle to take it ease.

Grey Gargoyle wastes no time being surprised and throws a suddenly stone bowl of candy at Falcon and then tries to him with with an entire stone couch.

Falcon grabs the couch mourning Margot and leaps out of the way of the SKABLAM but then with a SKAWK Redwing flies into the apartment.

I love you, comic book sound effects.

Do you know whats wrong with comics these days? Constant rebooting series to #1s in a ill-conceived attempt to create jumping on points? Derailing characters for shock value? Too many big events? The fact that Phyla-Vell is still dead and she and Moondragon aren’t having a sapphic road trip through space? All of these things maybe. But definitely the lack of sound effects.

Falcon tells Redwing to go get the other Avengers (because Timmy fell down a well?) but Grey Gargoyle grabs the bird and turns him into stone. Rendering this entire mercifully short subplot moot.

I should be glad that the book remembered Redwing at all.

Falcon stashes Margot under a table for safety (which she mocks) while he goes to fight the dude that soloed the Avengers.

But using his agility and not standing around like an idiot, he manages to get about a page of keep away, thus giving him the best record against this guy so far.

Eventually the Gargoyle does manage a glancing punch to Falcon’s chin which floors the guy and leaves him unable to acrobatics. But thankfully someone (Cap) throws a mighty shield and Grey Gargoyle’s midsection must yield.

The Avengers have arrived! They heard reports of a “war” going on in an East Side brownstone and figured it was either the Grey Gargoyle or at least something else requiring punching.

Geez, news gets out fast.

Anyway, this time the Avengers remembered to have their teamwork turned on. Because we’ve hit that point in the page count where the Avengers win instead of getting taken down like fool chumps.

Wasp blasts Grey Gargoyle with a full force bio-power sting, which actually hurts his forehead region. Then Ms Marvel grabs Grey Gargoyle and swings him all around while also pointing out that he only won last time because they fought him one on one like idiots. And then she throws Gargoyle at Vision who punches him BRAMM. And as the punch slams him into a wall, Scarlet Witch uses her probability altering powers to turn Grey Gargoyle back to flesh.

And. I guess he just wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants this whole time. His costume is a cape, a domino mask, gloves, boots, and underwear.

I guess when your skin turns to stone you don’t need real clothes but if not for an art trope, he would have been flashing stone nipples to everyone this whole time.

Oh. And now that Gargoyle’s face is not stone, Beast lays him out flat with a punch.

Then we zoom out to see the shambles the fight has turned the apartment into. And Margot crawls out from under the surprisingly intact table (wow, Falcon was right that it would protect her!) and meekly asks

Margot: “I, uh, don’t suppose some of you would care to stay and explain all of this to my landlord, would you? Please?”

I like to think that some of them did. Or at least that a sighing Tony Stark wrote a check for damages. And by like to think, I mean that the caption box on the following page does confirm that the Avengers were cool people and did have a word with her landlord.

You’re not bad some of the times, the Avengers.

The last page of the book finally gets us back to the subplot about the senate hearing.

And even though the hearing heard the rest of the testimonial Gyrich had prepared, it seems like the senators have already made up their minds.

A senator: “Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Gyrich. Your concern that the Avengers might pose a threat to our nation’s security is greatly appreciated.”

“However, the recent incident with the Grey Gargoyle seems to reaffirm that this group’s prime concern is the safety of not only American citizens, but of law-abiding people everywhere, and that they require a certain amount of freedom to carry out that purpose seems indisputable.”

“Therefore, it is the decision of this committee that the Avengers priority privileges and security clearance remain intact -- and that the restrictions on their autonomy be lessened considerably, as detailed in the committee’s report.”

Cue Beast dancing in triumph in the background and saying “Awriiight!”

Henry Peter Gyrich, lessened liaison to the Avengers, takes this with all the grace he can muster.

Henry Peter Gyrich: “Well, Iron Man, you’ve won. I suppose this means you’ll go back to having more members than the Mormon tabernacle choir?”

Iron Man: “No, Mr. Gyrich. We probably would have cut our membership to about what it is anyway, if left to ourselves.”

Henry Peter Gyrich: “I see. Very well then, I’ll drop by next week to supervise implementation of the committee’s new guidelines. Good-day, gentleman.”

So with a lot of mustered grace. Really, the only way you can tell how disgruntled he is is that he takes off his sunglasses for the first time to wipe them and squint at Iron Man.

I wonder if they’re prescription.

Also, it sure is lucky that a supervillain attack happened just when the Avengers were not really but kind of on trial regarding how necessary they were. In a more cynical title, it would have been staged. Or just somewhat down the line from now in Marvel. Like how Reed Richards once staged a supervillain attack when he was testifying in Congress. Or something coming up moderately soon in Avengers.

Cap congratulates Iron man and says that things can get back to normal now. But Iron Man looks at Vision and Scarlet Witch having a relationship talk by the windows and says he has a feeling that for some of them, getting back to normal isn’t going to be that easy.

And thus ends the era of the Gyrich Restricted Avengers.

It was mostly wasted potential. It shook up the team roster a little bit but Falcon was the only real new thing aside from Wasp being on the team without Yellowjacket. And the new roster didn’t really get shown much due to subbing people in and out.

The stuff before the new roster, where the Avengers tried to operate without the usual privileges they enjoyed like launching jets and access to government databases made more of an impact.

More could have been done with Gyrich’s roster as he intended. And more could have been done with the idea of a more restricted Avengers team. They really only pay lip service to the idea with Cap having to go over Gyrich’s head to get presidential approval to save Scarlet Witch and the Avengers fretting briefly if Gyrich would approve them stopping to help the Russians with some elements of doom.

I guess it was an inherited plotline so David Michelinie and assorted other filler writers didn’t really have a clear idea where to go with it. Per Shooter, he intended Gyrich to be an asshole that has a point so I wonder what he would have done with the post-Korvac stuff.

At least we’re not losing Falcon immediately. No, we have him until 194.

Its a shame because this issue was really the first time he shined on the team. And it wasn’t great but it was okay. By recovering first and following Grey Gargoyle, he led the Avengers to where he was which saved the life of Margot Neil. And he put up the first good fight against Grey Gargoyle the entire issue.

I think it could have been better with a minor change. Instead of Redwing flying to the battle and getting turned to stone, have Redwing fly to where the Avengers were and lead them to Falcon.

Could have gotten some brief comedy out of that with Redwing flying off and then flying back and trying to communicate with people he doesn’t have a psychic bond with and then Beast finally says ‘I think we’ve all seen enough Lassie to know he wants us to follow him.’

It would have made Falcon look more proactive and also demonstrate why having a psychic link to a bird can be handy.

Alternatively, buy him a walkie talkie so when he flies off alone he can just call you up. Did walkie talkies exist yet? The idea at least of portable communications must have existed. Like Dick Tracy’s radio watch.

Anyway.

Falcon did a good job. Good job, Falcon. I wish you got myriad moments to shine at the beginning of your time on the roster like Beast did. That’s how you build up a new Avenger.

... I just realized that Daredevil never shows up again. Matt Murdock shows up in the background of the last page but Daredevil’s contribution to a comic that had him on the cover was to catch Cap out of a fling and to ineffectually warn Iron Man of something.

Not a great crossover! Its neat in the interconnected universe way but that could have been accomplished just by having Murdock show up. Sorry, Daredevil fans!

Next time: STEEL CITY NIGHTMARE -OR- PERIL IN PITTSBURGH!

See. Not everything happens in New York.

If you want to see a new Pet Avengers with Redwing, Lockjaw, Tippy-Toe, and of course Pizza Dog, follow @essential-avengers. I have no power to actually make it happen though. Don’t get your hopes up. Also follow if you just like me doing these posts. They take so much of my time...

#Avengers #Grey Gargoyle #Falcon #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #they need to have relationship talks #Ms Marvel #Carol Danvers #Beast #Captain America #he threw his mighty shield and it wasn't immediately invalidated #Redwing #the most important Avenger of them all #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging #Henry Peter Gyrich #did not want to fight a monster and now the avengers can do what they want #Margot Neil #she never shows up again

10 notes · View notes