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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 3 years

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Psycho Analysis: Spider-Man Movie Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, he does whatever a spider can. And what do spiders seem really good at? Amassing huge quantities of hatred and animosity! True to the wily arachnids that inspired him, Spider-Man has quite the impressive gallery of foes, one that I might say rivals Batman as the greatest in comic book history with how colorful, crazy, and creative they are. Even villains derivative of one another, like Hobgoblin and Green Goblin or Carnage and Venom, manage to carve out unique niches that help make them fun and memorable.

And thankfully, these qualities usually translated pretty well to film! I’ve talked about how good Mysterio, Vulture, Kingpin, and Prowler are before, so now it’s time to cover the others all in one fell swoop! From the Raimi trilogy, we have Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Harry Osborn, Sandman, and Eddie Brock/Venom; from the Andrew Garfield duology, we have Lizard, Electro, Rhino, and Harry Osborn again; and leftover from Into the Spider-Verse we have Olivia Octavius, Tombstone, Scorpion, and that film’s brief take on Green Goblin! Oh, and why not throw in Riot from Venom while we’re at it, because he sucks way too much to get his own Psycho Analysis.

Motivation/Goals: A lot of villains are motivated by the classic motivation: revenge. All of the Green Goblins manage to have this as a main part of their actions, making them remarkably consistent and very easy to discuss. The Norman of the Raimi films wants to take out his anger at being frozen out of his own company, and his son wants revenge for his death, while the Harry of the Garfield films wants his vengeance because Spider-Man wouldn’t help cure him of his otherwise incurable disaease that would kill him (a fact made worse because Spider-Man is his actual best friend, Peter Parker, who is coldly condemning his pal to death). The only one who doesn’t really fit is the Spider-Verse take on Green Goblin, and that’s more because he has extremely limited screentime and spends all of it fighting Peter and being scary as hell.

Eddie Brock/Venom is a very interesting case as both halves of the character are motivated by different reasons. The symbiote half is, of course, motivated by the fact that Peter has tried to rid himself of it via using a church bell to kill it. Eddie, on the other hand, has the most absolutely hilarious motivation ever: He wants Peter Parker to die because Peter exposed him for submitting fraudulent pictures to J. Jonah Jameson. Eddie literally breached journalistic ethics but apparently Peter’s to blame for exposing his literal, actual crime! And he prays to God for Peter to die! This version of Eddie is cartoonishly hilarious.Finally, we have Max Dillon, AKA Electro, who is lashing out at a world that did nothing but belittle and demean him, giving him a far more sympathetic motive for revenge.

Kurt Connors is an interesting halfway point between the Doc Ocks and the villains above, because he is not really evil and his whole transformation came about for altruistic scientific reasons, as he tested his serum on himself because they were going to test it out on the public without consent. While the serum drives him mad, he initially only goes after those who were going to use his formula with people as guinea pigs.

Interestingly, the two Doc Ocks contrast each other. While both of them are doing evil deeds for scientific reasons, Otto Octavius is being forced by his tentacles and genuinely wishes to make the world a better place otherwise. Olivia, on the other hand, is a gleeful sadist who doesn’t care who she hurts as long as she can get some sort of scientific knowledge from it.

Sandman is interesting case because his motivations are entirely sympathetic and despite being the man who killed Uncle Ben, it was entirely accidental and he always regretted it. He only ever wanted to get money to save his daughter. It’s really hard not to sympathize with a guy who turned to desperate measures because the American health care system sucks even in a universe where a dude dressed in a bright red suit swings around New York.

Then there are all the rest. Aleksei Systevich, AKA Rhino, is just a criminal, and has barely any screentime to establish a motivation beyond that. This is especially hilarious because the ads really hyped this guy up, only for him to get maybe five minutes of screentime, with most of it at the very end of the movie before the credits (we don’t even get to see his final battle). Tombstone and Scorpion are basically just lackeys for Kingpin, with little established beyond that. Scorpion almost shows up entirely out of nowhere, just popping in for the fight at Aunt May’s house and then the final battle. And then there’s Riot, who just wants to start a symbiote apocalypse on Earth.

Performance: Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Thomas Haden Church as Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Sandman in the Raimi trilogy are, in a word, iconic. Dafoe brings a gleeful, cackling hamminess to the Goblin that perfectly suits him and manages to steal every single with how delightfully, cartoonishly evil he is combined with some hilariously chummy moments with Spider-Man. Molina as Ock goes in the opposite direction of hamminess, where instead of making Octavius cartoonishly evil, he gives him this air of gravitas to the point where he somehow manages to make this villain with giant metal tentacles that are controlling his mind come off as sophisticated and serious as Hannibal Lecter. Church meanwhile just looks eerily perfect as Sandman, as if he were ripped straight from the comics and put onscreen, and then of course there’s how well he manages to sell the emotional moments of the character.

The Harrys are a rather mixed bag, sad to say. James Franco and Dennis DeHaan aren’t really bad actors, but they unfortunately have the problem of living in the shadow of the actor who played their dad (Franco) or being in a really awful movie with a terrible script (DeHaan). Franco at least makes up for this by being hilariously, cartoonishly evil to the extent of his dad in the third Raimi film, but DeHaan unfortunately falls rather flat. Topher Grace as Venom is a choice that seems baffling until you realize Raimi cast an actor like this on purpose because he hates Venom so much he didn’t want to give him any dignity.

Jamie Foxx as Electro seems odd at first, but I feel it’s actually a great casting choice, and despite how unbelievably stupid the script is, he’s actually able to do a fairly good job. If his character was in a better movie, he’d probably get a lot less flak (and he’ll be getting his chance soon enough, apparently). Overall, he’s the best part of the Garfield films. Rhys Ifans and Paul Giamatti as Lizard and Rhino are serviceable, but neither film they’re in really gives them much to work with. Giamatti at least gets to steal the show with his brief scenes by being an absolute ham, but Ifans is sadly a bit forgettable in his role (though not for lack of trying on his part).

Now onto the Spider-Verse ensemble! Considering how I gushed over her delightful performance as the Wicked Witch of Westview in WandaVision as well as the fact she is solely responsible for me resurrecting this series from its long hiatus, it should come as no shock at all that Kathryn Hahn as Olivia Octavius is just perfect. Controversial opinion, I know, might get some flak for this hot take. Jorma Taccone as Green Goblin, Joaquin Cosio as Scorpion, and Marvin Jones III as Tombstone all do well for what they’re given, but it’s clear most of the love among Kingpin’s henchmen was given to her (and Prowler, but he got his own review where I talked about how great he is).

Oh, right, Riot. I forgot about him. Riz Ahmed, who plays the human villain Carlton Drake I forgot to mention because he’s incredibly boring, is a really good (and sexy) actor. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to be quite as good and sexy as an actor like him should be in his dual role. In an interesting subversion of how things usually go, he ends up being rather bland compared to the hammy, bonkers hero. This was Tom Hardy’s show, and no one was stealing it from him.

Final Fate: The Raimi films were all made during a time when, if your name wasn’t Magneto and you were a superhero movie villain, you were dying, a trend I’m certainly glad is finally starting to die off. Thankfully, Green Goblin manages to stick around and posthumously influence Harry, so in his case it’s not so bad. Harry and Doc Ock both manage to overcome the darkness in their hearts at the end and sacrifice their lives to help save the day, while Eddie dies after becoming such a simp for the symbiote he leaps into it while Peter is blowing it up. With Sandman, Peter actually has a touching reconciliation with Sandman at the end, forgiving him for the death of Uncle Ben before Sandman dissolves into dust and floats away on the breeze. And no, this is his power, not Thanos’ snap reaching across time, space, and dimensions; Sandman actually gets out of these films alive.

The other villains actually get off easier, as most of them go to jail. From the Amazing Spider-Man films, DeHaan’s Goblin and Rhys Ifan’s Lizard both end up in prison, and it’s safe to assume that the villains of Spider-Verse are going to jail alongside Kingpin. Octavius was hit by a bus, sure, but considering how popular she ended up being it would be really dumb to have that actually kill her. With Electro and Rhino though, it’s really ambiguous, the former because he’s made of electricity and the way he was defeated means it is possible he survived, and the latter because we never actually see the outcome of his battle with Spider-Man. If the film they were in was actually good and warranted sequels, we may have found out what their true fates were, but at the very least Electro is moving over to the MCU alongside Molina’s Doc Ock.

Oh, right, forgot Riot again. He dies.

Best Scene/Best Quote: I’m combining these this time just to make it easier on me, because in at least in a couple cases the two are the same.

Green Goblin has a lot to choose from, to the point where it’s easy to cop out and just say every scene he’s in is amazing. I’ve always been fond of his chummy chat with Spider-Man on the rooftop, or the scene where he terrifies Aunt May, or the scene where he attacks the parade and vaporizes the board of directors with pumpkin bombs.

Dock Ock is easy: the train battle. This might be one of the best action scenes in any superhero movie ever, and since he’s the villain in it, it almost goes without saying..There’s a reason this scene is singled out so often.

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Eddie Brock and DeHaan Goblin actually have their best scenes also be their best lines. Eddie praying for God to kill Peter Parker and DeHaan!Harry screaming “YOU’RE A FRAUD, SPIDER-MAN!” after Spidey refuses to give him a life-saving blood transfusion are just so absolutely hilarious and memorable that you can’t hate them.

Aside from the powerful forgiveness moment at the film’s end, I think it’s really indisputable that the best scene from Sandman, and perhaps the Raimi trilogy as a whole, is the scene of Sandman’s creation. Words really can’t do it justice, so just watch:

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Electro’s best moment isn’t even actually part of the movie, unless you want to count his rendition of “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” No, his is from a Tumblr post, proving definitively that Electro’s power can not be contained.

For Olivia, I’d say either of the reveals for her are great. You can go with the twist that she’s the Doc Ock of Miles’ universe, or the twist that she might have fucked Aunt May. Either way, you can’t really go wrong.

The rest of the villains… yeah, I’ve got nothing. At least with Rhino you can say his entire time on screen was fun, but the rest? Nope. They’re kind of just there.

Final Thoughts & Score:

Green Goblin

Where to begin with this guy? He is everything I look for in a great villain: he’s hammy and cartoonish, he can be terrifying and threatening when he wants to be, he has a ridiculous yet memorable costume, every word out of his mouth is hilarious and memorable, and he’s played by an amazing actor. It’s hard to dispute that Doc Ock is the best villain in Raimi’s trilogy, but Goblin is definitely the most fun. If you thought he’d get less than a 10/10, you thought wrong.

Doctor Octopus

Aside from Green Goblin, Doc Ock is Spidey’s most iconic and memorable foe, nd this adaptation of him does not disappoint. By making him a more tragic and somewhat anti-villainous figure and putting him in the hands of someone as awesome and talented as Alfred Molina, they managed to make such a cartoonish villain retain that comic book silliness while still being a legitimately imposing antagonist. I suppose it helps that a director who knows how to balance silly and serous like Raimi helps. It’s absolutely not a shock that the MCU wants to bring Molina back, because really, I can’t see anyone making the dubious doctor nearly as cool as the 10/10 performance Molina gave.

Harry Osborn

Franco’s Harry has an interesting arc, but one that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense under scrutiny. Frankly, his descent into villain is handled well but when he actually gets to be a villain in the third film, things fall apart.. But at any rate, he gets to be cartoonishly hilarious while he pettily ruins Peter’s life, so I think a 3/10 is warranted just for how goofy he is.

Eddie Brock/Venom

For the longest time, I hated Eddie Brock, but loved the Venom symbiote for its fantastic design… A design hampered by the fact Topher Grace keeps sticking his face through the symbiote and talking in his normal voice. But then one day I remembered Eddie literally prays to God for Peter Parker to die, and I realize that as crappy as this version of Venom is, he’s undoubtedly hilarious. A 3/10 mainly because of how hilariously bad he is, though the design of the symbiote is unironically great. Shame Grace kept sticking his face through and that Raimi hates the character.

Sandman

Sandman is a villain who deserved a better movie. Sure, Spider-Man 3 is fun and funny, but a character with this much depth and emotional weight deserved a film of the caliber of Spider-Man 2. At any rate, he adds a bit of class and dignity to the proceedings, and Thomas Haden Church really nails it. He’s a 9/10 for sure.

Lizard

Lizard is just a very boring villain, which is a shame because Lizard is not a boring villain in the comics and other media like the cartoons. I don’t really know if he was the best choice for Spider-Man’s first outing; I’ll at least give him that he’s a more inspired choice than doing the Green Goblin again, but that doesn’t score him higher than a 4/10. As boring as he ends up being, that library fight was pretty cool and had a great Stan Lee cameo, so I can’t say he’s the bottom of the barrel.

Electro

Electro is a villain who desperately deserved a better movie. While his backstory as a nerdy fanboy who got kicked around by the world is nothing new, or fresh, or original, Jamie Foxx manages to make the character work fairly well even though almost everything around him is unbelievably stupid. The fact he managed to make “Don’t you know? I’m Electro” sound cool and badass is a testament to his skill, and thankfully he’s coming back in the MCU in some way, so I guess Electro’s power can not be contained to a single movie. Still, this iteration only manages to get to a 6/10, because while all the elements of greatness are there, he’s hampered by the abysmal writing.

Rhino

Paul Giamatti certainly looks like he’s having a blast here. His attitude is almost infectious, but alas, his time is too brief to bring any great joy, and his jarring appearance out of nowhere at the end of the film certainly do him no favors. Still, Giamatti keeps Rhino from sinking any lower than a 5/10.

Harry Osborn

This Harry is just a joke. His arc makes no sense, his actions are unbelievable, and he ends up looking like a really poor Warwick Davis Leprechaun cosplayer. The only thing of note about him is that he’s a Harry who becomes the Green Goblin before his father, something that doesn’t happen very often, and that’s not enough to score this loser higher than a 2/10. Not even killing Gwen Stacy makes him any more impressive, and that’s a real shame.

Olivia Octavius

Olivia Octavius is widely beloved by just about everyone who sees the film.. myself included. This is just a really fun, clever twist on Doctor Octopus, and it’s the sort of character you really hope gets a Harley Quinn-level break into becoming an iconic character across multiple forms of media. Kathryn Hahn’s fun performance and the wonderful design and fight sequences really make Olivia a 9/10.

Tombstone

Tombstone is a villain you might actually forget is in the movie, which is a damn shame. He’s an albino black man, a badass bodyguard, and has a striking design, but he gets a single line of dialogue and is tasked with bodyguarding a man who not only has cyborgs under his employ, but who murdered Spider-Man with his bare hands. Tombstone ultimately feels really superfluous, which is a shame because around the same time Into the Spider-Verse came out he had a very memorable and well-liked appearance in the Spider-Man video game. It’s a real shame but I gotta give this version of Tombstone a 2/10.

Scorpion

Scorpion has a lot of problems of Tombstone above, but he makes up for a lot of his flaws by having a really cool and striking design. Does it really make him a great villain? No. He’s not particularly well-characterized and he’s really just there to look cool and give Olivia backup. He’s a 4/10 at best, saved from being lower only by his awesome look. Looking cool really can get you far in some cases.

Green Goblin

Out of all the really minor villains in Spider-Verse, this version of Norman might be the best. His role is tiny, only appearing during the scene where the Peter Parker of Miles’ universe gets killed, but his battle with Spider-Man is what sets the entire plot in motion. His cool and terrifying design definitely help make him stand out enough to earn at least a 6/10.

Riot & Carlton Drake

Look, there’s a reason I kept forgetting these guys. They’re not memorable in the slightest. Venom may be a fantastic work of art, but that’s because Tom Hardy kills it in his dual role as Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote. Drake is just a boring corporate villain, the kind I hate talking about and the kind I’d only ever even bother mentioning in a review like this. And Riot is just a generic Big Gray CGI Monster for the hero to have a final battle with. Neither of these two are particularly interesting, and neither deserves more than a 2/10.

That’s it, right? There can’t be any more villains, I must have covered them all. Well, not quite. There’s one more character who is most certainly an antagonist and who I really, really want to talk about. And you’re absolutely not going to believe who it is.

You ready?

Psycho Analysis: Emo Peter

“Now wait,” you may be asking, “Emo Peter? Really? How does he count as a villain?” Well, as Schafrillas pointed out in his video on Spider-Man 3, Emo Peter is actually the antagonist for much of the second act. Peter, influenced by the symbiote, becomes a raging jackass and hurts and alienates everyone around him by being a colossal douchebag, not to mention how violent he gets as Spider-Man. This is very much an extreme case of the hero’s greatest enemy being themselves, because literally, Peter’s enemy in the chunk of the movie with Emo Peter is his own overinflated ego

Motivation/Goals: I mean, at the end of the day, it’s still Peter. He still wants to do the typical Peter Parker stuff, he’s just a jackass while he does it.

Performance: It’s Tobey Maguire busting loose and getting to act like an absolute doofus. There is literally nothing about this that isn’t amazing and I’m sorry if you can’t see it.

Final Fate: Peter eventually comes to realize that maybe the symbiote making him act like an egomaniacal tool is not a good thing, and so rebels against it, ultimately leading him to the roof of a church where Eddie Brock is praying for him to die and, well, the rest is history.

Best Scene:

Best Dance Move:

Final Thoughts & Score: Emo Peter has gotten a bad reputation over the years, but Schafrillas’ video really made me rethink why. As he puts it, Emo Peter comes off not as someone cool, but as what a loser thinks a cool person would be (which makes him still a loser). It seems fairly likely that the audience isn’t supposed to be rooting for Emo Peter or finding him cool, but instead finding him insufferable, ridiculous, and funny. We’re supposed to be laughing at Peter’s egomania, at his absurd and hammy showboating, not cheering him on and desiring to emulate him.

And that ultimately makes it more satisfying when Peter overcomes his ego and decides to rid himself of the symbiote. It might seem like I’m giving Spider-Man 3 a lot of credit here, but even Sam Raimi half-assing a movie wouldn’t leave things completely devoid of underlying brilliance. Emo Peter isn’t a villain in the sense that he’s some superpowered antagonist, he’s a physical representation of the negative impacts of fame and ego on Peter. This is Peter letting go of what makes him a hero and just reveling in being an absolute jerkwad to everyone around him.

I love the memes as much as everyone else of course, but Emo Peter is also a pretty clever symbolic foe. But even though I’m giving him an 8/10, we all know the real reason why he’s scoring so high:

Ok, but that’s it now, right? No more Spider-Man villains? Well, maybe for now. But don’t forget:

There’s gonna be Carnage.

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captainamericasbeard · 4 years

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The Most Important Battlefield- Ch1

Pairing: 40s!Steve x OFC (Betty Carver)

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: none

Summary: All Steve Rogers has ever wanted to do is serve his country. Senator Brandt gives him the chance to serve on the most important battlefield of the war, as he calls it. The USO tour across America raising funds for the war. Days before the tour is set to start he meets his new assistant, Betty Carver. Steve is hers the second he sees her but Betty might take more convincing. Her heart has become Steve’s Most Important Battlefield.

Who’s Strong and Brave?

Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way? Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day?

Steve sat in a folding chair on the wall of the mirrored rehearsal room, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. The last conversation he’d had with Senator Brandt was echoing in his mind.

“Son, do you wanna serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

“Sir, that’s all I want.”

“Then congratulations, you just got promoted.”

Steve scoffed. What a promotion. Honestly Steve wasn’t mad, he was nervous. He couldn’t seem to memorize his lines and someone had mentioned the word “tights” early on. He knew he could be putting in more effort but all he could think about was Bucky and the 107th on the front lines fighting the real fight. A voice broke him out of his thoughts before he could get really down.

“Rogers! Let’s run it again!” Steve’s head snapped up and he nodded at the director, a man named Michaels. He got up and made his way to the back of the crowd of girls in heels and rehearsal clothes. Some of them winked at him and smiled coyly which only served to make him even more nervous. Once Steve was at the back of the room pretending to be behind a curtain the girls got into formation and the piano started up. The girls did a few twirls and kick lines and then lined up for Steve’s entrance. The girl closest to Steve, Dot, would always give him a little nod to let him know it was his turn. The piano crescendoed, Steve stepped out to the front of the stage, opened his mouth, and nothing. The pianist held the note for a few seconds and one of the girls loudly whispered,

“Not all of us…” Steve glanced back at her in thanks and carried the line on

“…can storm a beach or…” Steve petered out. He glanced back at the same girl again.

“… drive a tank…” Steve nodded.

“But there’s still a way all of us can fight.” The music carried on and the girls danced around him. Steve felt so embarrassed but he carried on, muddling throughout the lines.

“Don’t worry about the lines, Rogers, just focus on the blocking,” Michaels called out.

“The what?” Steve shouted over the piano as he crashed into one of the girls. He kept her from falling over and gave her an apologetic look.

“Your movements! Try and remember your movements!” The director sat down in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. Steve and the girls carried on with him fumbling his way through the steps and muttering what lines he could remember under his breath.

As they were running the number the door at the back of the room opened and a woman slipped in trying to not disrupt rehearsal. She paused for a moment before Michaels spotted her in the mirror and motioned her over. Steve stopped in his tracks at the sight of her walking across the room. She was all curves and curls and red lipstick and his heart was gone before the end of the next verse. Steve was staring and he knew he was but he just couldn’t stop. One of the girls bumped into Steve and gently moved him to where he was supposed to be, rolling her eyes at him and smiling. Every girl in the room knew in that moment that they were out of the running.

The music finished with a triumphant flourish and Michaels called for a five minute break while beckoning Steve over.

“Rogers, this is Betty Carver, she’s going to be your assistant through the tour.” Betty stuck out her hand for Steve to shake and his heart skipped a beat as his large warm hand enveloped hers. She was soft to the touch even though her eyes told a different story.

“Nice to meet you ma’am,” Steve finally managed to get out. He realized he was still holding her hand and quickly dropped it.

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Rogers,” Betty replied.

“You can call me Steve,” he said

“Very well, Mr. Rogers.” Betty said, a coy smirk on her lips.

“No offense to anyone but I don’t think I really need an assistant,” Steve said turning to Michaels.

“The tour pays for an assistant so you’re getting an assistant,” Michaels replied with an air of not caring.

“I assure you, you do need an assistant, Mr. Rogers. For example, did you know you have a costume fitting in five minutes?”

“No, no I didn’t know that,” Steve replied.

“And do you know where the costume department is?” Betty asked.

“No, ma’am, I don’t. I guess I do need an assistant,” Steve smiling. “Will you show me?”

“I will. That’s my job. And let me make one thing very clear at the outset. This is my job and I take it seriously. I’ve worked with a lot of professionals before you and I know what I’m doing. I won’t accept any funny business, Mr. Rogers. No drunkenness, no lewdness, and no messing about with the girls. You got it?” Betty had the tone of a woman who had worked very hard to navigate herself in a world full of men and wasn’t impressed by any of them. Steve’s stomach did a flip at her speech, she wasn’t going to be easy to get but her fierce attitude made him want her that much more. He nodded at her and she broke into a genuine smile. “Great, then let’s get started.” She said before she turned on her heel and marched off toward the door without checking to see if Steve was following her.

“Don’t even think about it, pal. You won’t get anywhere,” Michales muttered without looking up from what he was reading. Steve gave him a challenging glance before chasing after Betty who was halfway out the door.

She lead him through a maze of hallways and up a few sets of stairs without breaking her stride. She stopped at a door that read WARDROBE. She stepped aside to let him enter first and his eyes were besieged by a riot of red white and blue. Skirts and tops were hung on rails in perfect order with little tags with each girl’s name on them. 50 pairs of sparkly silver shoes lined one wall while a woman sat cutting countless stars out on a table along the other wall. Another woman was steaming a never ending pile of white satin gloves and yet another woman was pinning little hats together. And in the corner Steve spotted what had to be his costume on a dressing dummy. Red, white, and blue with boots and gloves.

“Tights…” he muttered under his breath as a short hispanic woman approached him. Betty gave him a sideways glance and a smirk before she stepped forward to make introductions.

“Mr. Rogers, this is Rosmerta. She’s been the head of the wardrobe department for the USO for as long as I’ve been here. She’s designed your costume for you.” Betty said.

“It looks fantastic,” Steve said while shaking Rosmeta’s hand. The older woman dipped her head in thanks.

“Let’s get it on you, shall we?” Betty asked. Rosmerta took the costume off of the dummy and showed Steve a room where he could change in privacy. After wrestling the costume on Steve stepped out and Rosmerta guided him in front of a three way mirror. Steve took one look at himself and blushed. The costume was tight, tighter than anything he was used to. Steve had always been drowning in the too large shirts he’d inherited from Bucky and his father. It showed off every muscle the serum had given him, a sight he still wasn’t used to.

“What do you think?” Rosmerta asked as she approached him with a pin cushion on her wrist.

“It’s great!” He exclaimed, wanting to show respect for all the hard work that had gone into the costume. “It’s a little tight?” Rosmerta chuckled.

“Like a superhero!” She exclaimed. Steve definitely felt uneasy with that term but he stood still and let her pinch and pin the fabric where she felt necessary. Next came the boots and the gloves. Steve liked the look more with the boots and gloves on and said so.

“And to complete the look…” Rosmerta said, pulling a red, white, and blue shield out of a closet. Steve took the shield and slid it onto his forearm admiring the effect in the mirror. He turned to face Betty who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you think?” He asked, unsure.

“I think you look like Captain America.” She answered.

#40s steve rogers #Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers x OFC #captain america #ca:tfa #the first avenger

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bluemilkboys · 4 years

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Kev’s Comic Book Odyssey #1 - Spider-Geddon and The Batman Who Laughs

Hello there! Haven’t posted to this blog in a minute! Last time I did I talked about Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, what an absolute riot that was, huh? Well this is going to be different. In my isolation in attempt to help stop the spread of coronavirus, I have dived deeper into comic books.

Now, the world of comics is one of the most complicated mediums of entertainment one can simply just venture into. And to avoid having existential anxiety about knowing exactly what was going on in the Marvel and DC Universes respectively, I devised a very simple method of how I would get my feet wet. My favorite superheroes are Batman and Spider-Man. So when trying to find something to invest my time in, I sought out the popular stories from those characters. This rang true more for Batman than Spider-Man (I’ve been on a pretty heavy DC kick in general lately).

So in my story hopping, I found myself really sinking my teeth into two stories in particular, Spider-Geddon, and The Batman Who Laughs. Let’s start with Spider-Geddon.

What originally drew me to this story was the inclusion of the version of Spider-Man from the 2018 PS4 game, and my familiarity with the previous event of this nature, Spider-Verse. It’s relatively easy on new readers like myself, and I and I had enough familiarity with characters like the Superior Spider-Man to be able to infer enough and be able to understand the story completely. I guess I should give props to more stories that are able to do that until I gain enough comic book literacy to where it’s not needed anymore, huh?

Anyway, the story centers around the villains from the previous Spider-Verse event, and they’re back for more. And to be honest, the Inheritors are fine, but I wasn’t focusing on them much. They make an immediate impact in their first big confrontation with the Spider-people, killing a few of them including Spider-Man Noir, but this story was much more for me about the seeds of dissent that were slowly and gradually planted throughout the series. Otto Octavius, the Superior Spider-Man, is very adamant that he be the one to lead the team of Spider-people in the absence of Earth-616 Peter Parker, who is gone for the majority of the story, and throughout the story there is a natural sense of distrust in Otto, due to him you know, being a supervillain before, and all that. Otto is determined to end the threat of the Inheritors forever by killing them, something that the Spider-Gang elected not to do the first time around, and honestly I think this is where you see one of the weaker parts of the story. Maybe I shouldn’t call it a weak point as much as it is a missed opportunity. I think the entire moral conflict on whether to subdue or kill the Inheritors is not explored enough, and there was an opportunity there to do a little bit of a character deconstruction about Spider-Man’s willingness, or lack thereof to kill his enemies. And I LOVE character deconstruction. It’s one of my favorite things that people can do with a character. To display such an understanding of a character, that you’re able to peel back the surface layer stuff and give readers a deep tissue narrative massage, I LOVE that shit.

I also really enjoyed PS4 Spidey’s role in this story. He was obviously not in Spider-Verse, and I don’t think anyone should have expected him to come in here and be the center of attention, so the way they utilized him really resonated with me. He was the newcomer who didn’t really have a full grasp on everything that was going on, and so I was able to appreciate his perspective because I personally do not have a full grasp on everything that’s going on. Not just in the Marvel Universe though. Just generally. In life. Anyway, PS4 Spidey gets consistently surprised and amazed at all the different Spider-Totems across the multiverse, including my personal favorite moment in the entire series right here:

All in all, I had a great time reading this event, it was a really fun Spider-Man story, and not to spoil, but the twist toward the end really got me. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a novice in the game, or if it was just that good, but nonetheless, I still enjoyed it. Spider-Geddon gets a solid 8.5/10 good book!

Alright let’s get edgy, lads. It’s time to talk about The Batman Who Laughs.

BWL is such a wild part of DC’s Rebirth. And according to people I talk to who’s opinions I trust, Rebirth is largely a big stinky mess, so I feel confident in saying this is one of the bright spots. God, this character, it’s entire existence is so chaotic. BWL exists in a negative version of earth, in a “dark multiverse” where different versions of Batman have become evil in different ways. Among them is the Batman Who Laughs, a terrifying fusion of Batman’s intellect, and the immoral propensity of the Joker. His origin issue was absolutely fucking wild, and a hell of a way to introduce a character, but now, he’s got his own series. From like 2 years ago. But I digress, let’s talk about it!

What I liked about this series was that it returned an element of horror that is always somewhat present in Batman’s best stories. I also love when an author knows a character so well, that they feel comfortable deconstructing that character and really exploring what makes, in this case, the Batman the Batman. BWL does a good job blending those two concepts. We’ve seen Batman pushed to the edge before, but me personally, I have never read a story that featured Batman getting pushed by someone who knows him so intimately, literally another version of himself. The story however is relatively low stakes, and relies a lot on the power of the characters and how attached you are to them. I wasn’t familiar enough with Jim Gordon’s son really at all before reading this, and a decent part of the story revolves around him, so I guess that was one aspect of it that fell short for me. And for a story literally called, “The Batman Who Laughs” there really isn’t a deep dive into the namesake character. I would actually even go as far as to say the Grim Knight gets more attention. It’s a good Batman story, but what drew me in was the Batman Who Laughs character, but this story doesn’t have much to say about him opposite of Batman.

I think Batman has been in a weird spot since the New 52, and this story, while imperfect, I believe was a step in the right direction. 8/10.

Thanks so much for reading this first in hopefully my long series detailing my journey into comics! Make sure you check out the Blue Milk Boys podcast, and follow me on Twitter @kevinOMO_. See y’all next time.

#marvel #dc #comics #comic books #superhero #avengers #justice league #xmen #batman #spider-man #spider-verse

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psqqa · 5 years

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by the time i stopped to consider why the fuck i was putting this together in the first place, i’d already typed most of it up. idk i guess i just like throwing my joy into the void, where the void can either choose to ignore it or derive some joy from it itself. either is fine.

anyway, i’m never going to have enough of these in any one category to put together a proper FST or anything, nor am i capable of imprinting on a song for reasons that aren’t like “feathers.......hawks”, because really this is all driven by my terrible sense of humour, but what i have collected so far Sparks Joy, so into the void it goes.

psqqa’s list of songs applicable to bnha in some way, shape, or form

No One Is Alone - Into the Woods - this is a vibe i’ve been getting from the manga for a while but then the my villain academia arc just totally cinched it (while we’re seeing our side/maybe we forgot/they are not alone/no one is alone)

Falling - Haim - this one is a bakugou song for me, which probably says something about me because i’m fairly sure it could almost equally be a midoriya song if you wanted it to be. yes, both could be good, but the brain doesn’t always work that way. (they keep saying/don’t stop/no it’s never enough/i’ll never look back/never give up/and if it gets rough/it’s time to get rough)

Ice and the Storm - My Brightest Diamond - inatodo. i did warn you. (darling we’ve accumulated/too much miscommunication/in the beginning everything is soft/not defensive/perhaps we begin again/shining)

Sacrilege - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - feathers.......hawks. probably dabi/hawks given the options so far, but that’s pretty immaterial tbh (fallen for a guy/fell down from the sky/halo/round his head/feathers in our bed)

Girl - Anouk - listen i’m not going to lie, i’ve never fully been able to figure out what the hell is going on in this song. like, i would say it’s just straight up anouk being in love with the titular “Girl”, but then there’s the “him” in the first verse so who even knows. i’ve settled on polyamory, which makes this my jirou highkey got the feels for yaomomo and lowkey got the feels for kaminari and she needs yaomomo to understand this so they can work on a frankly totally unnecessary because kaminari is already all in baby Wooing Plan (still got my hands/they’re clinging/so i just keep going/i don’t know where i belong/could i belong to you)

Electric Feel - MGMT - electric..........kaminari. i like to think of it in terms of kaminari/jirou/yaomomo. idk maybe he gets bored waiting for them to plan their Wooing Plan and just takes matters into his own terrible pickup line hands. or perhaps it’s just aimed at yaomomo and we can take these two songs jointly to be The Wooing of YaoMomo. which actually now that i’ve typed it out i am quite fond of as an idea. (i said ooh girl/shock me like an electric eel/baby girl/turn me on with your electric feel)

the three song stretch that runs Slow Show-Apartment Story-Start A War - The National - The Soul-Crushing Weight Of Being In Your Early-To-Mid-Twenties!kiribaku. this would be like triply the case if i were reading this manga in 2012 instead of 2019. (i wanna hurry home to you/put on a slow dumb show for you/and crack you up - be still for a second while i/try and try to pin your flowers on/can you carry my drink i have everything else/i can tie my tie all by myself - do you really think you can just/put it in a safe behind a/painting lock it up and leave/walk away now/and you’re gonna start a war)

Fireproof - The National - also kiribaku. look man idk what to tell you. it just be like that sometimes. (you’re fireproof/nothing breaks your heart/you’re fireproof/it’s just the way you are)

The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts - Sufjan Stevens - man of steel, man of heart...............tetsutetsu. pick your tetsutetsu ship of choice. it doesn’t matter. all parties equally applicable because only a steel man can be a lover/if he had hands to tremble all over/we celebrate our sense of each other/we have a lot to give one another

New Shoes - Paolo Nutini - kirishima song!! (hey i put some new shoes on/and suddenly everything’s right/i said hey i put some new shoes on/and everybody’s smiling/it’s so inviting)

Dance Apocalyptic - Janelle Monae - mina song!! what can i say, it’s got mina energy. also i feel like ‘dance apocalyptic’ would a great hero name for mina. (but i really, really want to thank you/for dancing ‘til the end/you found a way to break out/you’re not afraid to break out)

Whoo! Alright – Yeah...Uh Huh - The Rapture - kaminari song!!! do the lyrics even work for him? who knows, i’m just in it for the cowbell. and so is kaminari. (people don’t dance no more/they just stand there like this/they cross their arms and/stare you down and/drink and moan and diss)

Invincible - OK Go - now i could, and i guess sort of do, think of this as a bakugou ship song generally, but to be quite honest, i think it’s probably just the song his brain plays on a loop whenever he does anything (when they finally come to destroy the earth/they’ll have to deal with you first/and now my money says they won’t know about/the thousand fahren/heit hot metal/lights behind your eyes/invincible/oh oh oh/you’re invincible)

Daniel - Bat for Lashes - tododeku - don’t @ me (daniel/when i first saw you/i knew that you had/a flame in your heart/and under wild blue skies/marble movie skies/i found a home in your eyes/we’d never be apart)

Gekommen um zu bleiben - Wir sind Helden - BAKUSQUAD!!!! i mean, also like 1-a generally, but for me it’s really the bakusquad.....also i literally just realized that the band name itself works really well here (wir gehen nicht/aber wenn wir gehen/dann gehen wir in scheiben/entschuldigung ich sagte/wir sind gekommen um zu bleiben)

Don’t Call Me Baby - Madison Avenue - the kacchako song. why? because i was reliving the turn of the millennium. next question. (don’t think that i’m not strong/i’m the one to take you on/don’t underestimate me boy/i’ll make you sorry you were born/you don’t know me/the way you really should/you sure misunderstood/don’t call me baby)

You Will Not Take My Heart Alive - Joanna Newsom - All Might. although i think this entire album is one he would Have Feelings about. and tbh it’s impossible at this point for me to consider any one song off this album entirely on its own. it’s always within the greater context of the album as a whole. (and i won’t come round this way again/where the lonely wind abides/and you will not take my heart alive)

Don’t Wanna Fight - Alabama Shakes - bakudeku. i didn’t actually think any song would ping me as bakudeku at any point, but here we are. (what you like/what i like/why can’t we both be right?/attacking/defending/until there’s nothing left/worth winning)

Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel - hawks/dabi-hawks/endeavour melodramatic clusterfuck. no i’m not taking questions. (DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE/DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO/DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE)

Riot Rhythm - Sleigh Bells - riot........kirishima. but yeah kirishima and bakugou are bros and that’s Good. they might also be more than bros, but that’s up to you i guess. (because my best friend/she's okay/carve you out/all the way/straight A kids/like a treat/she stands up/takes the heat)

In The Shadows - The Rasmus - tokoyami. i feel like i’m virtually incapable of talking about tokoyami without also mentioning this song, but like, you’ve seen the video right? (i've been watching/i've been waiting/in the shadows/for my time)

The Hero - Queen - this one is probably cheating, given that it was written for the actual soundtrack of an actual superhero movie, but it’s not like there’s any rules to this and i’ve never seen the movie......or anything else with flash in it i guess, so whatever. anyway, not so much All Might as like every character in this manga when they were 4yo watching All Might. (he’s for every one of us/stands for every one of us/he’ll save with a mighty hand)

Impossible Soul - Sufjan Stevens - this wasn’t on this list until sometime around 2:30 AM last night when i was lying awake because i didn’t take my nightly melatonin and something something i can’t even vaguely remember the train of thought but it ended in me deciding this was a good bakudeku song. not so much the first part, but like ‘do you want to be afraid’ onward. maybe the eight minutes of “boy we can do much more together” will be enough for bakugou to get the message. (boy we can do much more together/better get it right/get it right/get it right/get it right/boy we can do much more together/it’s not so impossible)

to be updated if further song pinging happens, i guess?

#bnha #so many of these songs have videos that i never knew existed and have never seen before #the one for sacrilege in particular is real fucked up #the daniel one appears to have changed the intro #which is bothering me #but fine #i will live #sound is a colour i know

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fablemonger-ao3 · 5 years

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Me-Oh, My-Oh, What a Girl!

There_Was_A_Star_Danced

Summary:

A little over two weeks after bringing home their first child, Emma Bernadette, Marinette wakes up to hear her husband serenading his “other girl” and thinks back.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Marinette thought it must have been the floorboards creaking that woke her, but she couldn’t be sure in the first three seconds after coming to consciousness. She stayed still, knowing how light Adrien slept, and that if she moved she would wake him. Emma was quiet for the moment, but Marinette had a new mother’s radar that knew when her child was awake and was just waiting for Emma to realize that she was hungry before Marinette herself moved.

Wait. Floorboard?

She shifted silently onto her back and looked towards the crib where, to her relief, Adrien stood smiling down at his “other girl”, his golden head shining in the moonlight from the window. A second or two later and the cooing baby was in his arms, being shifted onto his shoulder as she liked.

‘ Barely over two weeks old and she already prefers being tall. ’ Marinette thought wryly in her sleepy state. Whenever she wasn’t being fed, Marinette’s fussy infant enjoyed being held, the higher the better, and so when Grandpa Tom wasn’t around preferred her Dad’s arms over her mother's.

Adrien started humming as he walked around, nothing set at first, just something to send vibrations through his chest and so keep Emma calm. He brought her over to the window and stood looking out over Paris, a little golden spot above the blankets where his daughter’s head rested on his chest. Gradually his humming gathered strength and rhythm until she recognized it as an old Dean Martin song they’d translated into French for a project in high school. They’d both preferred the original version in the end though, and it was a staple for a little while when they dated. What was it called again? She listened.

What started out as humming changed to singing when the little one had gotten fussy again, Adrien shifting over with a quiet “Oh, you want to hear the words to it too, huh? Well okay, if you promise to go to sleep.”

“ The naughty lady, of shady lane, has hit the town like a bomb; ” Adrien began,

Marinette thought back to when she found out she was pregnant, and how she had told Adrien, her parents, Alya and Nino, Tikki, Plagg. Adrien had been thrilled beyond measure to learn he was gonna be a Dad, his “positive waves” as Nino called them easing any fear Marinette had that she was gonna be a good Mom.

Tom and Sabine had been equally supportive, and ecstatic they were finally gonna have a grandchild. Alya and Nino practically put Marinette under house arrest when they had found out, not letting her do anything until she had finally blown up (hormones, everyone agreed) and said if they didn’t stop smothering her she would transform and climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Everyone stopped smothering her.

Tikki and Plagg had been happy too, though worried for Marinette and Adrien’s safety as was everyone else. But in the end, they pacified themselves and set about making themselves useful. From Tikki, that meant a lot of practical advice and rationalizing with Marinette, and from Plagg that meant, well, he tried not to bring Camembert too close to Marinette while she had morning sickness.

“ The back fence gossips ain’t been this good, since Mabel ran off with Tom; ” Adrien went on, his voice soothing in the otherwise quiet of the room.

Marinette remembered the gossip that went around when Ladybug didn’t show up as usual to fights. She was there, of course, but hidden, cautious, generally hiding and dodging and telling Cat Noir what to do. Eventually, She stopped coming out at all when she started to show, and she had her loyal partners (Thank you, Master Fu) handle it and only call on her when she was needed. The Press had had a field day until Ladybug’s partners had shown up to a press conference with some hints being thrown out about a secret mission that required Ladybug’s attention for a matter of some months and she wasn’t likely to be back in circulation for a while yet. Marinette sighed in her mind. She wasn’t ready to go back into the fights that came their way. Did Superheroes take Maternity leave?

“ The town was peaceful and quiet, until she came on the scene. The lady has started a riot, disturbin’ the suburban routine… ”

She certainly had. Marinette thought to the early days of having her Miraculous and how everything grew since then, and yet stayed the same. And then suddenly being a superhero wasn’t the most important factor in her life anymore with a little plus sign on a plastic stick and the doctor’s words: “Congratulations Mrs. Agreste! You’re a mother!” Then it was a flurry of excitement and planning, talking with her mother and getting advice, being teased by Alya and Nino, setting up the nursery… actually, that one had evaded them for a while, which is why for the first month or so until the finishing touches could be done and the air purified of the residue of carpentry and painting, the baby was sleeping in their own bedroom.

“ Oh, the naughty lady of shady lane, has the town in a whirl!” Adrien went into the chorus, petting his daughter’s head against his chest, “ The naughty lady of shady lane: me-oh, my-oh, what a girl!”

Marinette smiled. Adrien had fallen head-over-heels with their little angel the moment she had been placed in their arms, and looking at him now, he hadn’t fallen one jot out of love. Of course, it had been easier for two people who were used to only sleeping half the night each anyway to adjust to having to wake up every hour to feed a little cooing bundle, so maybe that helped to dull the usually sharp disenchantment pains that most new parents felt. Marinette was grateful for that. In fact, she’d found it a little bit of a cushy assignment, and now she knew why.

As Adrien hummed the interlude between verses, he moved away from the window and to the new mini-fridge still awkwardly installed by the crib, pulling out a pre-made bottle and sticking it under his arm. ‘Sneaky little cat...’ , Marinette thought, with a smile as he began singing again.

“ You should see how she carries on, with her admirer’s galore. She must be giving them quite a thrill, the way they flock to her door.”

Marinette giggled softly, thinking of the near-constant flow of their many friends in the hospital and when they had gotten home. Even Chloe and Sabrina had stopped by once or twice to hold Emma, and Sabrina had gotten a little kick out of feeding her. Aunt Alya and Uncle Nino had almost moved in, and Tom and Sabine weren’t much better. But Adrien and Marinette liked the company, and it was well known that the Agreste's kept an open house, to “Aunt Nathalie’s” complete unamusement. Poor Nathalie; when Gabriel went missing, Nathalie wasn’t sure that Adrien would ever want to see her or his bodyguard again. But to her surprise, Adrien had relied on her as much as his father had, and Marinette had welcomed the extra protection that his bodyguard provided.

“ She throws those come hither glances, at every Tom, Dick, and Joe! And when offered some liquid refreshment: the lady never-never says no!”

Emma Bernadette might have been born with her father’s coloring and strong head of hair, (the doctor’s first words upon seeing her had been: “Look at that hair!”) but she had inherited her mother’s eye shape, and consequently “Marinette’s look of doom™”. It was physically impossible to resist loving those eyes, and Marinette dreaded with a passionate fervor the days when she would learn how to turn on the “baby-doll eyes”. And she certainly never turned down “liquid refreshment.” Sabine said she’d never seen a baby that greedy, but Nathalie swore she got it from her father.

“ Oh the naughty lady of shady lane, has the town in a whirl! The Naughty Lady, of Shady Lane: Me-oh, my-oh, what a girl!” Adrien sang the refrain again, and deeming the milk warm enough, began feeding Emma. Marinette swore that man could heat the whole room on his own if he tried. She’d often curled up with him on the colder of their runs around Paris, saving herself from frostbite through his warmth, and after many many trials (though less errors) Nathalie had finally agreed that he didn’t need to keep too close an eye on his diet and Marinette could finally stop having to sneak her own husband his favorite foods. Marinette smiled again, drinking in the sight of her Adrien and her Emma in the light of the window, Emma sucking greedily on the now warm bottle, and Adrien grinning and continuing his song.

“ The things they’re trying to pin on her, won’t hold much water, I’m sure. Beneath the powder and fancy lace, there beats a heart sweet and pure.”

Marinette had to hold back her habitual groan as she heard the puns coming from her husband’s mouth. She had known he was Cat Noir the first time they had heard the song together, but couldn’t understand why he had cottoned onto it so fast, especially that last verse. It wasn’t until a few days later, when they were talking about the project alone in her room that Adrien had let himself go, singing the puns at the top of his voice and suddenly it made sense why he had chosen this one. She had groaned heartily at it then, and she almost groaned now; but as in the first instance, a reluctant smile had pulled itself onto her face as she listened to her dorky husband.

“ She just needs someone to change her, and she’ll be nice as can be! If you’re in the neighborhood, stranger, you’re welcome to drop in and see-”

Marinette rolled her eyes silently and grinned.

“ The Naughty Lady, of Shady Lane! So delightful to hold! The Naughty Lady, of Shady Lane! So delectable! Quite respectable!” Adrien was forcing himself not to sing it in its usual way, but to sing it as a lullaby which in this last verse was hard. But he pushed through and finished and Marinette smiled.

“ And she’s only nine days old!”

Emma was cooing contentedly now, her bottle gone a couple of seconds ago, and Adrien stayed in the window with her for a while, re-singing snatches of the song as Emma burped and calmed down from the bottle, cooing all the while. Eventually, she fell asleep, and Adrien laid her down in her bed, whispering softly to her.

“Que des vols d'anges te chantent à ton repos, ma petite dame,” he whispered, kissing his daughter on the head before heading back to bed himself, crawling in beside Marinette. (“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, my little lady.”)

His hand came around her waist and he curled around her (she chuckled to herself) like a cat. She was almost sure she’d gotten away with seeing the whole thing unnoticed until he spoke softly in her ear.

“You should be asleep too, my ‘bug’ lady.”

Marinette opened her eyes and spoke drowsily, a smirk on her lips. “Who are you calling ‘bug’? I’m not ‘bug’ anymore. And whose fault was it in the first place?”

Adrien snickered.“ ‘Bug’ is relative to ‘little’, mon dame. And two puns in twenty seconds? From you? That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

Marinette snorted. “Hardly. Using the same pun twice when you are half asleep doesn’t count. And anyway, I’ve done better than that.”

Silent laughter from her husband shook the bed, and his rapid breathing tickled her neck. She broke into stifled giggles.

Adrien got up on his elbow and slowly kissed her shoulder, her jawbone, her cheek, her lips, and her forehead. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear: “Je t'aime mon dame.” … Then he promptly collapsed over top of her, and cuddled into her to never let her go while saying sternly, but not harshly: “Now go to sleep.” They both fell asleep to her breathy giggles into his shoulder. (“I love you, M’lady.”)

#fanfiction #fanfic #miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #marinette agreste #adrien x marinette #adrien agreste #miraculous fanfic #babyfic #the naughty lady of shady lane #In honor of it's almost 500 reads #I am finally crossposting to Tumblr #sorry guys #these last couple months have been busy #hope you enjoy

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comicstoastonish · 5 years

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My Top 10 Favorite Comics of All Time (2019 Update)

Hi guys,

A few of you have been asking what are my favorite comic books? I usually send them to a post I made a few years back about this same question. But as time goes on and more books are discovered, my favorites have changed a little. Apparently not as much as I thought but enough to update the list. Judging by most of the panels I post, you can tell I like humor. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the books I gravitate toward aren’t heavy in darker tones. Not saying I don’t read them too, just saying they aren’t my favorites. So here are the top 10 books I enjoyed the most. Please leave your judgments in the comment section.

10. Invincible The tag on almost every issue says “The best superhero comic book in the universe,” and I have to say, it holds up. Invincible is the story of Mark Grayson, son of the greatest superhero of all time. When Mark finally gets his powers he becomes the hero Invincible to keep on the family legacy. Robert Kirkman does a great job of telling the story of a teenager discovering his powers and finding out his origins may not be what he’s been led to believe. This book is just fun. No more explanation needed.

9. New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis This book will always have a special place in my heart. It’s the book that brought me back to comics and I loved every moment of it. 6 months after the Avengers disbanded, a massive prison break forces Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Sentry to come together to put an end to the riot. The book follows the newly formed team on their mission to track down the 42 escaped prisoners, all while trying to solve the mystery of who started the break out and why? New Avengers also brought some of the best characters in Marvel including Wolverine, Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and more, to join the team. The book became the center stage for Marvel Comics from 2005 until 2012 running through events like House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, all the way to Avengers vs. X-Men. It’s a fun super hero book that really throws you into the world of Marvel Comics.

8. Paper Girls If you like the show “Stranger Things,” you’ll love Paper Girls. Taking place in the 1980s, 4 middle school girls, on their morning paper route get caught up in the strangest day of their lives. To ninjas, dinosaurs, time travel, clones, to apple products, Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang hit you with a sci-fi nostalgia story that will keep you guessing where the next turn is.

7. DC The New Frontier A book paying tribute to the Silver Age of DC Comics. Focusing on the Macarthy era, a time where America couldn’t be less trusting, the story focuses on the super heroes, once praised for their services, now find themselves ridden off as outlaws. Multiple perspectives from Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Flash, Superman, etc, as they fight for truth, justice, and the American way, all accumulating to the upcoming battle with “The Center.” Darwyn Cooke tells an amazing story that you all should check out.

6. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man volume 2 For years my favorite super hero was Spider-Man but then in 2011 I was introduced to a better one, Miles Morales. We all saw “Into the Spider-Verse” so you know what’s up. Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man makes you really love the character of Miles. The story of what happens after Peter Parker dies and a new clueless Spider-Man must fill the void, is nothing short of great. It puts you in the shoes of a new character trying to figure out who he is, all while trying to keep the memory of Peter Parker alive.

5. Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Two Avengers books on one list? That’s right. In my opinion the greatest era in Avengers history. Jonathan Hickman pulls double duty writing two parallel stories of heroes at their greatest and heroes at their worst. On the one hand, the Avengers are expanding and they are responding to bigger and badder threats. From Ex Nihilo’s attempt to terraform Earth, to the universe eradication of the Builders, to Thanos invading, to the attack of evil Avengers. One the other hand unknown to everyone but Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Beast, and Namor, parallel Earths are crashing into each other, destroying the multiverse. The only way to save their own is to destroy worlds. But after you destroy a world is there anything left of your humanity?

4. Justice League International The late 80′s had one of the greatest Justice League runs of all time. Keith Giffen and J.M. Dematteis pumped out some of the funniest and most entertaining comics to date. Focusing on the Justice League as a work place comedy, this massive run follows the adventures of a newly formed Justice League made up of mostly second string characters. The satisfaction of Batman punching out Guy Gardner, the comedy duo of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, GNORT! If you want your super hero books to be fun and hilarious, this is the book for you. Starting in Justice League #1 through 6 and transitioning to Justice League International, then splitting between Justice League Europe and Justice League America.

3. Saga If you’re not reading Saga, you are missing out. A Romeo and Juliet story set in a sci-fi fantasy space adventure. In the middle of an intergalactic war, Alona and Marko leave their worlds behind to risk everything for the survival and protection of their newborn Hazel. Hunted by both sides of the war, the two travel across the stars and encountering creatures from all over the galaxy who either want to help them or want them dead. Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples take a story about the ups and downs of parenting and throws it into a cosmic and crazy story of awesomeness. Look out for Izabel, Prince Robot the IV, and Ghus. You will smile every time they are on the page.

2. Scott Pilgrim I cannot recommend these books from Bryan Lee O’ Malley enough. 6 graphic novels in total, focusing on Scott Pilgrim’s desire to date Ramona Flowers, his journey to defeat her 7 evil ex’s, and the challenge of being a responsible adult. This book is filled with post high school confusion, punk rock, video games, anime style action, and heart. If you liked the movie, I promise you, you’ll love the book.

AND NUMBER ONE….

 1. Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerads Everyone should read this book even if you’re not a New Gods fan, it’s amazing. Mister Miracle and Big Barda are two of the greatest comic book characters of all time and in this book it really shows. Scott Free is royalty among the New Gods of New Genesis but Scott would rather live in Los Angeles and be the world famous escape artist known as Mister Miracle. Scott eventually grows bored of his stunts and attempts suicide in order to escape death. The book follows Scott and Barda through their responsibilities as New Gods in the war with Apokolips, to Scott’s performance work, to their marriage, to Scott’s suicide. It’s a beautiful book filled with action, humor, great art, and a whole lot of heart. Of everything on this list, Mister Miracle is an absolute must read.

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that-shamrock-vibe · 5 years

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2018 Round-Up: My Favourite Movies of 2018

Disclaimer: 2018 has been another feast for movie goers all year round, so with the new year just around the corner I have decided to disclose my favourite movies of the year. Careful for spoilers for movies that have recently come out as a couple are on this list.

#10. Love, Simon

As I mentioned in my review, I enjoyed this movie. I still think it accurately captures a teenage coming out story, not THE teenage coming out story because everyone has their own story and the endings aren’t always good but this one definitely showed the good without over-fantasizing it.

I mean okay, I still think this movie doesn’t do enough to show the dangers of emailing virtual strangers outside of the fact that you get your private information shared but again that balances out with the fact it is only a school-centric forum so I give the movie a pass on that. Also I do feel bad for saying there are “better” ways to come out because as I did follow immediately up with saying, everyone has their own story.

But overall I do really think this is a great movie and an underrated one at that. The characters are all likeable and relatable, Nick Robinson surprisingly proves himself as a leading man and Keiynan Lonsdale gives his best performance.

#9. Venom

I always had in mind that Venom would make my favourites list. Not only is Tom Hardy finally getting the chance to shine in a superhero role, but I finally get to see one of my favourite anti-heroes brought to life in the right way on the silver screen. I loved this movie, I thought this was a great spin-off in the Spider-Verse and a great start to Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters.

I know for a fact this movie has problems, Riot as a villain isn’t the most compelling, the movie does play like it’s set within the 90s Spider-Man Animated Series and that Carnage tease was a let down in the casting department. However, this movie gives us Venom and allows him to be Venom. Yes the comedy is slightly damp at times but Tom Hardy sells himself as an action hero, comedy star and stunt performer. I do hope this movie gets a sequel because I really want to see more.

#8. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I am in the minority of people that enjoy this movie, but am in the majority of people that feel the end reveal was completely nonsensical. However I am giving J.K. and the team a pass on this movie and that is why it takes the #10 slot.

It is a great movie visually, it has all the traditional sceneries and locales that you would expect from a Wizarding World movie, the world building of exploring not just the British but also the French Ministries of Magic was a fun addition, Grindelwald shrouding Paris as a way of summoning his followers was visually appealing and of course seeing Hogwarts again brings back all the nostalgic feels a Potter fan could ask for.

I will continue to defend Johnny Depp in the role of Grindelwald as I feel he is very well suited to the role and that he was one of the better things about this movie. Like I said in my reviews he kind of book-ended this movie with two great scenes first when he escaped captivity and then when he addressed his followers, both were well acted, well shot and largely counted of Depp’s performance which he mastered.

My biggest complaint with the movie is that I did expect more of a mythos built movie than the focus being on characters we already said goodbye to in the first one, but that’s not to say what I did get was bad it was just not how I would have taken the story going forward.

Eddie Redmeyne and the cast from the first movie are all still charming and have more character development to carry them through to the next movie, while Jude Law and Zoe Kravitz are both really great additions.

I will wait and see what the third installment in this franchise has in store before deciding my final opinion on the movies as a whole but I do think J.K. has some work to do to keep people on board.

#7. Christopher Robin

This was a complete nostalgia trip for me, I really had a good time watching this movie. Not only did it really hit at the emotional core of anyone who grew up with Winnie the Pooh but it was just so charming, so quaint and made me feel like a kid again.

Ewan McGregor as an adult Christopher Robin was very well cast, not only did he go through the arc that apparently every working adult goes through in losing his child-like wonder only to be reminded of it and realizing what is truly important in life, but Ewan is an actor who can do it with such charm that a tired old story like this seems fresh.

Also this story is made fresh by the fact that it does centre on the characters of Winnie the Pooh. The visual effects used to bring these characters to life are so well done. I loved the behind the scenes knowledge of knowing that they created toy replicas of these characters and then digitally animated them throughout the movie. It just adds a sense of realism to the movie and makes it more enjoyable.

Mary Poppins Returns did a similar story arc with Michael as they did with Christopher but in my opinion this story is told a lot more organically. I’m happy with the movie and glad I now own it.

#6. Incredibles 2

14 years in the making and still worth the wait. I had a blast watching this movie. Not only was it a direct follow-up to the first one but I felt the story managed to progress our favourite characters in an organic way that still kept in theme with this being a superhero family franchise.

I thought the focus being on Elastigirl being the focal superhero as opposed to Mr. Incredible this time around was a fun change of pace and didn’t feel like a cry for feminism as other movies and TV shows do.

Meanwhile having Mr. Incredible being the stay-at-home dad learning to cope with his teenage daughter’s drama and super-baby discovering his powers was a lot of fun and led to some very comedic moments.

Also the hilarious moments in the first movie were still here in this one from Frozone and his wife to Edna Mode. The whole movie just felt that, even though it had been over a decade since the first movie, it just felt like coming home it was so inviting.

The main problem is the reveal of the villain because anyone with half a brain would be able to tell that while they tried the red herring of Win Deavor being the evil Screenslaver, the fact it was Evelyn Deavor wasn’t a shock. Evelyn Deavor...Evil Endeavor...it was obvious.

But overall a really enjoyable movie and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 14 years for the threequel.

#5. Avengers: Infinity War

The movie event of the year but that doesn’t mean it was the movie of the year. This was such a spectacle and celebration of 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I could not get enough of it.

Everything worked well in this movie, all the characters we’ve seen throughout the last ten years working together was such a treat and a promise that only Kevin Feige’s MCU could deliver on.

There are so many things right about this movie, I thought the plot for the movie really brought a genuine threat and splender to the MCU that managed to almost fix the MCU’s villain problem, Thanos was a genuine threat despite the fact that he had not been shown as formidable in any of the previous movies, then there’s the Black Order who present both a brilliant and fun henchmen group.

The heroes all coming together for the first time isn’t as big of a deal as made out because aside from the Guardians teaming up with Iron Man, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, everyone else who teams up has teamed up before aside from a brief interaction between Shuri and Bruce Banner.

Regardless, this was such a fun movie, a slight complete deviation from the comics event as the key characters aren’t in play for the MCU just yet. However, this was very much the movie of the summer and definitely an event everyone was talking about. I loved it and roll on Avengers: Endgame.

#4. Bohemian Rhapsody

I love Queen, I love everything about the band and more to the point I love Freddie Mercury. I love everything that he stands for and everything that makes him an icon for the LGBT community. Throw in Rami Malik and you have everything I am looking for in a movie like this.

A Star Is Born did not make my list and in fact almost falls into my Least Favourite Movies list because I just didn’t really like it as a movie and the two movies are often compared. But while A Star Is Born had okay songs and an okay story, Bohemian Rhapsody had fantastic songs and a fantastic story because they all came from a raw and talented source.

I get there is some controversy with the movie as the remaining members of Queen tried to make it more of a Queen origin story than a Freddie Mercury biopic but the best thing about this movie is it is a perfect blend of both stories because you can’t have one without the other.

Also, the movie recreated Live Aid in such a mirrored way that it was almost like a straight-up recording with the actors in place of the actual people. This movie should definitely garner praise and accolades for that alone.

It’s just such a fantastic movie and provides such a potent love-note to all Freddie fans, I can’t say enough good things about it.

#3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Spider-Man movie ever! This is a statement I found myself saying throughout this movie and a couple of days after seeing it I still think it, this is the best Spider-Man movie ever created. I’m not including Venom in that because it’s from the same material but is more of a spin-off from the mainstream Spidey movies than what has come featuring the red and blue webslinger.

But yes, I had reservations about this movie. Not only do I not know Miles Morales that well but I genuinely thought they were going to go down the Spider-Man origin route again and to be honest I don’t think I can sit through another retelling of that. Now this movie has one trope that goes in line with the traditional Spider-Man story which doesn’t exactly damage the movie but doesn’t seem necessary for the movie.

Also this is an all-age animated movie, that is very hard to do without pandering more to one age demographic and traditionally if they go down the adult animation route it’s often offensive and vulgar whereas this had none of that. Instead it dealt with several mature themes, mixed with some brilliant action sequences and quite hardcore violence. I mean it, Kingpin goes all out here.

In terms of the overall movie, there is a disclaimer right at the start before the opening credits that is specific to this movie saying “Do not copyright”...In the first 4 minutes you understand why. This movie is choc-full of twists, spoilers and treats for any Spidey fan and I personally guarantee there is something for everyone to enjoy.

Furthermore, because it is an animated movie, the entire story plays out like a comic-book practically like a live motion comic partially because of the use of captions used just they are in comics. The movement of the characters and the artistic scenery adds to what makes this movie so unique and so special.

Voice talent wise, Chris Pine makes a surprising vocal appearance as the Peter Parker of Miles’ Earth who dies towards the start, but then you have Jake Johnson, Nicholas Cage, Liev Schreiber, Hailee Steinfeld and Mahershala Ali all providing great support to Shameik Moore who himself is brilliant.

All in all, as everyone has said, this is the best Spider-Man movie to be released, I am very much looking forward to seeing where this movie takes the universe in the future.

#2. Aquaman

This movie came so close to being my #1 because I genuinely believe it is the best movie of the year, however #1 is my favourite and that’s what this list is about.

If someone had told me Aquaman would be DC’s best movie since The Dark Knight I would have laughed in their face. I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this movie. Visually stunning, there is not a lot more I can say about how gorgeous this movie is that everyone else has not said.

Jason Momoa takes to this role like Gal Gadot takes to Wonder Woman and Hugh Jackman took to Wolverine. He has so much joy in this movie and you can tell he, Amber Heard and the other cast members love being part of this world.

I will reiterate what I said in my non-spoiler review, this movie essentially showed us the scenary of a live-action Little Mermaid complete with Ariel in Amber Heard’s Mera and yet we are still looking forward to Disney’s live-action version of the movie. I guarantee you there will be a lot of comparisons between these movies, even if Zendaya gets cast because she will be compared to both Mera and Aquaman as both the lead and lead female.

This movie does what Wonder Woman could not and that is nail the final act and the climactic battle sequence. Oh my god it was like watching Lord of the Rings underwater it was so magnificent.

What they set up for a hopeful sequel is very juicy, you have Nicole Kidman as Aquaman’s mother still alive, you have Aquaman and Mera finally together, you have Orm still alive so there’s potential for either redemption like Loki or a return to form in a future movie. Also Black Manta will hopefully become more formidable in a future movie considering he was essentially a side-villain in this movie.

I want a sequel, I want a sequel for Aquaman more than I want any other DC Movie coming out. I cannot wait.

#1. Black Panther

Without question this movie outshines most movies in any genre. I still think Aquaman is the best movie because it is solidly brilliant from beginning to end, but Black Panther is miraculous in terms of visuals, music and the representation of African culture.

It is in some ways an origin movie because it’s how T’Challa adapted to becoming king of Wakanda, however because we already met T’Challa during Civil War, much like Spider-Man it wasn’t a question of needing to know their origins it was more about exploring them as individuals and what makes them superheroes.

However, surprisingly, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther was not the most compelling part of this movie. Don’t get me wrong he’s still a brilliant actor and an integral part of the movie, but the way Ryan Coogler accurately portrays African culture, from the tribal combat tradition of earning the mantle of king, to the styling of each tribe to make them distinct, even with what the inclusion of the superhero angle brings with Wakanda being a technologically advanced nation and the visuals that they bring.

Just like Aquaman, this movie had a great main villain but a somewhat weak side-villain. Both Orm and Killmonger were brilliant but Killmonger outshines Orm because what he stands for divided audiences and even created a social media storm with the hashtag #Killmongerwasright. Yes Ocean Master also had a sense of righteousness because of what he stood for with believing the surface world to be the sea inhabitants enemies which sparks an environmental debate but Killmonger struck a core with African history. His final line of “Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.” is still probably the best line in any superhero movie for the power of the message it gets across.

Also T’Challa has been often critiqued for being outshined by his female supporting characters Shuri, Okoye, Nakia and Ramonda. I personally agree with this critique but again it’s not to the detroment of T’Challa or the movie because if anything it makes the movie that much better for having strong female characters who aren’t just “the love interest” or “the family” because yes that is what they essentially are but they’re celebrated for that.

Also, Letitia Wright is the breakout star of this movie, I would say Danai Gurira but she has The Walking Dead under her belt. Shuri is not the stereotypical princess character as not only is she 18 and head of the science and technology division of Wakanda but she has the personality and drive to easily take over the Black Panther mantle as she did in the comics.

Overall, this is not quite a perfect movie but it is definitely one of the best movies of the year, century and MCU in total. Not only is it a cultural milestone in terms of movie representation but also it is a movie that has earned numerous award nods and deserves to win all of them.

So that’s my list of my favourite movies of 2018, as I said it was a truly brilliant year for movies and I cannot wait to see what the new year has in store for us. In the mean time you can check out more Movie Reviews and other posts.

Happy New Year to all!

#2018 #2019 #black panther #aquaman #spider-man: into the spider-verse #love simon #bohemian rhapsody #avengers: infinity war #incredibles 2 #christopher robin #venom #fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald #the crimes of grindelwald

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shellheadtmarc · 6 years

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v; fallout 4 companion

October 23, 2077: The world ends. The East and West bomb one another into annihilation, the government retreats into the safety of their oil rigs, an awol group of soldiers form their own little militant survival group, the vaults seal well below their maximum capacity, and the rest are left to loot, riot, panic, and either ghoulify or die in the leftover chaos.

Not everyone dies. It isn’t a, “and then all was silent,” situation. More people scrambled and panicked than tried to keep the peace, but those not caught in the immediate area of the bombs survived - at least for a time. Tony Stark is one of those people. Something he should have seen but hasn’t, is the buffering effect of his arc reactor, which keeps him in a stasis all its own. It keeps his heart beating, it keeps the shrapnel out of his heart, it keeps the ambient radiation neutralized. He survives.

And survives.

And eventually lives long enough to see settlements begin to form again in the New York wasteland, begins to establish his own, help connect them in a network of security and exchange. Sees, on a smaller scale, his goals for things like clean energy start to come to life in making the post-war world he finds himself living in as comfortable as possible. His own technology advances, not through his most-used fix on fail method of testing, but through simulations, calculations, long years of ruminations that are carefully weighed and considered before he acts, because resources are scarce and there are some changes he’s making the he knows he can’t take back if he goes through with them. Errors are checked for, the math checked and rechecked a hundred times, all while the vaults open and people begin once more to strive for some semblance of life in a place that’s far removed from the one before the bombs.

And he’s content that way. He’s busy. He’s occupied and making a difference somewhere, until a group of power armored soldiers pass New York a little too slow in their cosplay of the Hindenburg and he decides that, with New York as stable as he can personally make it, it’s time to branch out and see what else is out there, following them into the Commonwealth just in time to hear their “do not interfere” speech. He doesn’t have an intention to stay, but plans have a way of going awry, at the worst of times.

technical info ;;

Tony comes as his own free agent to the Commonwealth to investigate the Brotherhood of Steel. From his position in New York, he’s heard rumors from passing caravans both coming from DC and leaving Boston, but rumors are rumors, and he wants solid, verifiable facts, because their crawl past New York was too slow for his own liking. He’s been alive long enough in the wasteland that he, like everyone else that lives there, is much less trusting than he originally would have been. He’s suspicious, can be cagey, paranoid, and above all, take an us vs. them mentality when it comes to anyone that displays violent tendencies, such as raiders.

He doesn’t go by Iron Man - if you put that one together it’s probably because it’s been a dire situation, and he’s used the suit. He doesn’t do that often anymore. Instead, he picks up the moniker Handyman from various settlements, or the Mechanic. Or he’s just plain old Tony. He’s learned the value of keeping certain things close to the vest, and doesn’t hand out personal details like candy to just anyone anymore, and he’s not exactly a public figure.

His primary goals in the Commonwealth are gaining info about the Brotherhood of Steel, and will grow to finding out more about the Institute, Railroad, and Minutemen, as he starts to put together pieces to see there’s a bigger picture in front of him. It’s because he’s insatiably curious, nosy, and likes to put his thumb in pies it probably doesn’t belong in, because he’s a busybody. The Minutemen gain him as an ally, as, outside of a SoSu, he’ll put together settlements (eventually) of his own, because he can’t help himself. The Railroad does good work, but he’s not interested in joining, and they don’t want him. He’s too loud, too direct, and even if he did get Black Ops training from SHIELD, he doesn’t use it in a way that would be conductive to the Railroad’s goals.

His main bases are: Fort Hagen: This he cleans up after the SoSu has their Kellogg-killing rampage and turns it into a lab. The town around he spruces up and makes ready for settlement...Further down the line. He’ll start with the ones in Fort Hagen at first, but he’ll also rebuild and reprogram Gen 1 and 2 synths in Commonwealth, building a ground force of the Iron Legion. Waste not, want not, you know how it goes. The same goes for unclaimed power armor, he’ll snag that, as well, and any assaultrons, protectrons, and other robots he can get his hands on. He’ll gripe about the wiring and coding of General Atomics and RobCo, but he’ll strip them clean and use them as a case to do his own work. Cambridge Polymer Labs: If anyone’s going to get this place workable in seriousness again, it’s definitely him. Will wander along and find it either with or without the SoSu (depending on if a SoSu is in play and if they mess with the quest there or not). This will be Lab #2, with no settlement outside. This is the one he keeps quiet and private.

He also has various boltholes he’ll establish throughout the Commonwealth, but you gotta be a VIP to know where they are.

He mostly hangs around Goodneighbor, out of the larger settlements. He’s got a good rapport with Daisy and KLEO and prefers to trade with them over Myrna in Diamond City, and he barely glances Bunker Hill’s way because of how the raiders are paid off. Otherwise, the best place to run into him are prewar industrial ruins. He’s always picking them over for resources.

He favors energy weapons over ballistic weapons, but he can use either. Wouldn’t say no to a power fist, either.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: If RJ MacCready has NOT been romanced or picked up as a companion by a SoSu, Tony directly defaults to the romantic relationship he has with @gwinnetts‘s MacCready, especially if there’s no expectation of shipping with the other character in play. This is not a thing that’s set in complete stone, but Mala and her Mac have been instrumental in helping me hammer this whole verse out, so extracting Mac out of it isn’t impossible, but will require some plotting. Note: I don’t mind doing that plotting. It also means that Tony isn’t unwooable - he is. Just if nothing is initially discussed with this verse, that’s where he directly defaults to.

(The short version is Tony runs into Mac fairly early on in his time in the Commonwealth for information on the Gunners. MacCready sees Tony is a possible cash cow because if you don’t think Tony uses his math brain to hustle at pool in the Third Rail, you’re wrong. Shit happens. Feelings happen. Whoops, there’s attachment. He helps Mac get Duncan to the Commonwealth. They’re a ridiculous family with a grumpy merc, a reckless superhero, and a cute af kid. The end. Also thus why I say if he hasn’t been taken as a companion and max affinity reached, because there’s a rewriting of Mac’s whole questline in play there.)

Obviously the above does not count if threads are with a different MacCready. I mean. /props on elbow /leans closer Unless you wanna do a thing. /waggles eyebrows Especially since Mac is a good foil for Tony, but hey. Just throwing that option out there.

Some Links! About The Suit Some Info On The Fandom Mashup Tony & Settlements Tony As A Companion About M.O.E. Tony And Other Factions Concerning Institute Sole Survivors More Tony In The Wasteland Notes The Original Take On This Verse Using Tony As An Endgame Faction About Traveling At Night Should You Loot His Body Appearance Headcanons & Wasteland Vocabulary Quirks And Habits #1 Things Game Mechanics Left Out But Probably Exist #1 New York Wasteland Misc Notes The Playlist

#;; verse info #;; i wrote my name in the sky so remember me (v; fo4 companion)#// please note this is for his MAIN fo4 nonsosu stuff #// things plotted that are separate #// (such as with bucky and loki)#// fall under a closed verse umbrella but #// also look i have banners now

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onimiman · 6 years

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Halloween 2018 Film Retrospective (no major spoilers ahead)

Throughout the entirety of the month of October 2018, I had watched a movie everyday that was, in at least some tangential way, related to Halloween. I can't really call all of them horror films (and to find out why, please see below), although I will say that many of them were unfortunately films that ranged from mediocre to downright unwatchable; had I not been forcing myself to watch these movies for the month, I would have given up ten minutes or so in. And I know I'm a bit late to the party since I'm only posting this on November 3rd, but fuck it, here's the list anyway. So without further ado, let's begin this retrospective with not the first film I watched this October, but the last film I watched for September, which I will call Film #0.

#0: The Babysitter (2017)

The plot: A twelve-year-old boy still hangs out with his babysitter when his parents are away, and just as he is developing deeper feelings for her, he learns a dark secret about her and her friends. This prompts him to undergo a night of survival that forces him to grow up and move on from his own feelings of inadequacy.

My thoughts: This movie feels like it was somehow a holdover script from the 1990s; when the film brings up an element from 1996's hit movie Independence Day, a movie that no one gives a shit about anymore (see how its sequel, 2016's Independence Day: Resurgence, flopped hard at the box office), it serves as only one piece of evidence for that claim. However, I did find the movie to be quite fun nonetheless, even if not all of the jokes in this horror comedy quite landed the way they intended to, but to me, it did have a stable story structure and everything storywise paid off with what was established early on. It's an easy less than 90 minutes to kill on Netflix and I recommend it even if you're not a horror fan.

#1: Leatherface (2017)

The plot: In this prequel to Tobe Hooper's seminal 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, we see the birth of the cannibalistic Sawyer family's iconic member turn into this film's titular villain.

My thoughts: By all means, this was a stupid and unnecessary film that shouldn't have been made. But I went into this expecting to simply be entertained by the violence and gore that was to come about. And was I? Yes, I was, and admittedly, the film did make me feel stupid in misleading me as to who Leatherface was going to be, even though there was a piece of evidence in the movie that did make me think, “Naw, it couldn't be.” So, for that, I can't completely shit on this film. If you're not a fan of gore, you'll despise this movie, but for me, it's a guilty pleasure by far.

#2: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

The plot: In this remake of Tobe Hooper's seminal 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre... pretty much the same shit from that film occurs in this one with only a few slight differences.

My thoughts: Having watched this not long after watching Leatherface, I knew that I was going to get something significantly more conventional, and boy did I get it. It's as boring and unmemorable as most other horror films from the 2000s are, and if I wasn't doing this retrospective, I would have forgotten this one altogether. And moreover, the kills in this are so much more disappointing than in Leatherface, with little to no gore here, so I can't even watch this from the POV of basic primal enjoyment. Skip this one whether you're a horror fan or not.

#3: Goosebumps (2015)

The plot: What starts off as a boy-meets-girl story turns into a spooktacular tale of adventure that involves stopping an army of monsters that come directly from the mind of children's horror author R.L. Stine.

My thoughts: This is a movie that I imagined that I would have enjoyed watching as a kid every now and then, especially during Halloween, but as it stands, it's a little too dull for me and it makes me question what kind of threat do any of these monsters pose to our characters if they never actually kill anyone. It's still fun, if even in a standard way, and Jack Black as R.L. Stine, while incredibly hokey in the role, is obviously having a lot of fun here, so for that, I guess I can recommend this one if you have kids. There's nothing in here that'll actually scare them (unless they're a young Justin Bieber type who'll have nightmares over fucking Scooby-Doo) so you won't have anything to worry about showing them this.

#4: Silent Hill (2006)

The plot: When a young woman takes her adopted daughter to a ghost town called Silent Hill to solve the mystery of the girl's nightmares, they are quickly separated from one another and plunged into a dark demented world with hints of a core secret that must be solved.

My thoughts: I heard about how bad this one was for years, but as I was watching it once the characters actually reached Silent Hill, I found myself enjoying it and finding it to be a legitimately scary movie. The problem? The payoff at the end. I don't know if this is the payoff in the game, but the solution somehow felt a little too mundane and I kind of eye-rolled at the film's jabs at religion (and I speak as someone who's not religious at all). Decent movie for the most part, but I can't really recommend it on account of where it all leads.

#5: Venom (2018)

The plot: When disgraced San Francisco journalist Eddie Brock sneaks into the lab owned by the business magnate who ruined his career, he is bonded to an alien parasite who gives him extraordinary abilities and the antihero persona of Venom. Together, Eddie and Venom must work together if they are to take down business magnate Carlton Drake and the symbiote that he bonded to, Riot, before they can unleash a symbiote invasion upon Earth.

My thoughts: Okay, I know this is kind of cheating because it's not really a horror film in a conventional sense, but since the movie deals with a man being bonded to something that can kill him from the inside if they are both not properly fed, I thought I'd include this movie in this retrospective. Now, with that being said, I found this movie to be pretty standard for a superhero film, and in the year that films like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Deadpool 2 came out, Venom looks kind of subpar in comparison. However, as standard as the story and action scenes were, I still enjoyed it for what it was, and as cliched as it is to say this now, Tom Hardy as both Eddie and Venom have some magnificent chemistry that makes me want to see more of them in a sequel. I'd recommend it, but with this stipulation: Only if you're not too versed in superhero films.

#6: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

The plot: A pair of mysterious death leads a medical doctor and the daughter of one of the victims to investigate a conspiracy in a Halloween mask-producing factory that can have far-reaching consequences.

My thoughts: I regret seeing this movie for only one reason: That this wasn't the film I saw for October 31st, because this is, by far, the most Halloweeniest movie I have ever seen. Otherwise, I enjoyed this movie more than I did the original 1978 Halloween or any of its sequels or remakes (which I'll get to later in this retrospective). While not exactly having the best atmosphere, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a very interesting movie that is draped in its titular holiday, with a unique premise to boot, that is kind of suspenseful, even if it doesn't have a real resolution. It's a film I wouldn't mind rewatching for next year, especially if it's a rainy day.

#7: Final Girl (2015)

The plot: A teenage girl is trained in rigorous self-defense techniques by a mysterious man for the purpose of combating those who seek to wrong others.

My thoughts: As trite as that premise may sound, it's still very interesting in execution, especially if one is familiar with horror movie tropes like the defenseless teenage girl who wins at the end despite all odds against her. It's decently acted and directed, it runs at just the right length, and if I have any complaints about it, I just wish we went into this movie with our killers believing that this was just going to be another of their victims so that we could be surprised at the turn of events. Other than that mil critique, it's a quaint, simple film that you could watch on Netflix on a rainy day like the previous movie above.

#8: ThanksKilling (2008)

The plot: A 500-year-old talking turkey is brought back to life via dog urine on his grave and intends to kill the nearest people nearby.

My thoughts: This movie was an abominable piece of shit that's as unbelievable in every way as the premise that I laid out above. I'm not even joking about the dog piss thing either; that's how the killer comes back. The filmmaking here is student-level amateurish, the acting in it is jaw-droppingly bad, and this film's attempts at trying to be humorous make me want to punch a cat. Never watch this movie ever.

#9: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

The plot: Ten years after his killing spree in 1978's Halloween and 1981's Halloween II, Michael Myers has returned (as the title would indicate). With his sister Laurie Strode having died in a car accident in between films, Michael's new target is his niece, Jamie Lloyd, and his titular return renews the carnage that his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, must stop.

My thoughts: A fairly dull film that's only half as decent as the first two films and nowhere near as entertaining as the third. The acting on the parts of Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis and Danielle Harris's turn as Jamie Lloyd were the bright spots in this film, and the ending is famous for being one of the most shocking things in this series that is never followed up on. Unfortunately, I can't recommend anyone watch this, whether you're a normie or a Halloween fan, especially considering what follows...

#10: Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

The plot: Pretty much the same shit as the last movie only with more self-aware corniness this time around and a shittier Michael Myers mask.

My thoughts: Ditto from what the plot described. I feel bad for Pleasance and Harris here, they are way too good for this movie.

#11: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The plot: Michael Myers finally kills his niece Jamie Lloyd, but now must go after her child as per instructions from the Cult of Thorn. But not if Dr. Loomis, Kara Strode, and Tommy Doyle have anything to say about it!

My thoughts: If you thought that how I delivered this plot wasn't exactly all that Halloweeny, believe me, this movie doesn't deserve to be treated with that kind of respect. I honestly don't want to say anything more about this movie except for these two things: what an awful last movie for Donald Pleasance to go out on before he died, and for a first movie, who woulda thought that Paul Rudd could be so damn boring?

#12: Halloween II (2009)

The plot: Director Rob Zombie takes one last shit on the Halloween franchise after his 2007 remake of the first movie debacle. Is it sad that this movie gets less of a respectful plot synopsis than the last three Halloween movies discussed on this list?

My thoughts: I saw Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween remake in the theater, and it was one of the worst movies I'd seen on the big screen. I'm so glad I missed out on this one when this came out in theaters because holy fuck, this one makes Zombie's first Halloween look like a masterpiece in comparison. I could go on to explain why for those of you haven't seen these movies, but all I have to do is point you to Phelan Porteus's reviews of Rob Zombie's Halloween movies; he'll explain it all.

#13: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The plot: Deranged child murderer Fred Krueger returns from the dead in the form of a dream demon to kill the teenage offspring of the people who murdered him through those teenagers' dreams.

My thoughts: Finally, a legitimately good movie on this list that I don't have to dismiss as just mindless fun or even scary but with a bad payoff at the end like with Silent Hill. This movie is good even if you're not a horror fan; I whole-heartedly recommend this. And if nothing else, it's interesting to see how young Johnny Depp was, what with this being his first movie, and I could see just what the ladies saw in him back then.

#14: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

The plot: Freddy's back! And this time, he intends to enter the real world through the form of a troubled teenage boy who may or may not have some repressed feelings about himself...

My thoughts: This movie is about as subtle in its homo-eroticism as a series of Michael Bay explosions (not that I'm against homo-eroticism, since I'm a bisexual myself, I just think that this movie was a little too on the nose with that kind of stuff). And while I did find this movie to be surface-level enjoyable for the creative kills, I can't help but think that this was kind of dull, especially in comparison to the first film and as we move forward with the other sequels. The worst part about this is that I find myself scratching my head as to why this is a Nightmare on Elm Street movie when, in spite of the use of dreams here, this doesn't really feel like the Freddy Krueger we know from the first movie nor does this hold up with the character we see in the subsequent sequels. I don't know how to explain it, but somehow, Freddy's characterization seems off in this one. In spite of this film's inclusion of homo-eroticism, something we seldom see in movies like this, I have no problem saying that you can skip this one.

#15: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

The plot: Nancy Thompson, the sole survivor of the first Nightmare on Elm Street, returns with Freddy Krueger this movie, and this time, she intends to help his intended victims fight back. In a sanitarium for suicidal teens with sleep disorders, Freddy intends to kill the last of the Elm Street children. But Nancy intends to utilize the help of one of the teens, Kristen Parker, who has the special ability to unite people into a single dream space and allow them to develop their own dream powers to counter Freddy. But Freddy isn't as easy to defeat as one may think.

My thoughts: Honestly, this is as good of a sequel as the first Nightmare on Elm Street deserved, as it's a unique take that manages to continue the story of the first in a natural yet unorthodox way, not unlike what Aliens did with Alien. The horror of the first film may be toned down significantly here, but at least the story was interesting, the characters were fun to watch, and Freddy is so much fun here. I recommend it for how Inception-y this movie can get, even if this doesn't have the same level of intelligence as that movie did.

#16: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

The plot: Despite his defeat at the end of the previous film, Freddy Krueger is resurrected and he finally accomplishes his goal of murdering the last of the Elm Street children, accomplishing his goal once and for all. However, Freddy isn't so satisfied; he wants more children and teens to kill, and he will get more, through Kristen Parker's friend, Alice Johnson, to whom Kristen gave her dream-sharing ability. So unless Alice can find a way to stop Freddy, the latter's fun could continue...

My thoughts: I think it's safe to say this is the point in the franchise when all the horror in Freddy Krueger is pretty much gone and replaced with fun schlocky Freddy. And you know what? I'm okay with that, because it's always great to see Robert Englund have fun in this role. And in spite of the writing not being as strong as it was in the first and third films, I still find myself caring about our characters like Alice, and I was genuinely saddened when the last of the Dream Warriors died. It's rare when I can actually feel that kind of sadness for dead meat characters like these. Fun watch, would recommend, but be prepared to look at Freddy in a different light. And stay around after the credits, as Freddy sings a hilarious rap that just made me smile.

#17: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

The plot: Freddy just can't stay dead, for now he has a new dream master to kill people through: Alice Johnson's unborn child, who spends 70% of his life in a dream state in his mother's womb. So how can Alice defeat Freddy this time without having to sacrifice her dream child in the process?

My thoughts: “Faster than a bastard maniac! More powerful than a loco-madman! It's Super-Freddy!” If you don't know what that scene is, I urge you to look it up, as it's the best scene of the whole movie and it really capitalizes on just how much of a joke Freddy Krueger has become at this point in the series. However, unlike the bastardization of a character like Michael Myers in, say, one of Rob Zombie's Halloween movies, Freddy is still an enjoyable enough character where even one who despises the Nightmare sequels overall can still find little jewels like the aforementioned line. Give it a watch if only for just that one scene.

#18: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

The plot: Freddy Krueger has all but run out of kills in his hometown, and now he wants to expand nationally. But not if his daughter has anything to say about it!

My thoughts: This has become pure comedy at this point. But my God this is golden. When one of this movie's kills is an extended scene of a guy jumping around with cartoonish sound effects to boot while dreaming that he's in a video game being played by Freddy, you know that the filmmakers know what kind of movie they're making. And I enjoyed this as one of the most guilty pleasure films I'd ever seen. I do think that the film ended on a somewhat anticlimactic note, but alas, the film was an interesting end to Freddy's evolution as a character of horror to a character of dark comedy, and for that, I recommend this one.

#19: Halloween (2018)

The plot: Forty years after he terrorized Haddonfield, Michael Myers has once again escaped from Smith's Grove Hospital to return to where his reign of terror all started. But this time, the one who got away, Laurie Strode, is ready for him... but her daughter and granddaughter may not be.

My thoughts: Aside from Jamie Lee Curtis's fantastic performance in this film, I thought this was just a run-of-the-mill horror film that's competent enough and has its moments but is otherwise forgettable if you forget that this is a Halloween film. If you're a Halloween fan, I think you'll be satisfied; it's certainly better than the majority of its sequels (especially The Curse of Michael Myers and Resurrection) but that's all.

#20: Meet the Blacks (2016)

The plot: During the Purge, the Black family (yes, that's their last name, and yes, the film does make several racially inappropriate jokes about it) move into an upper class white neighborhood where they are confronted by their patriarch's past in the forms of those he's financially wronged in some way or another.

My thoughts: This is only the second worst movie I've seen for this retrospective (yes, ThanksKilling is number one). Aside from all the racist jokes going on here, this movie is just a failure of a comedy and as a spoof/satire of the Purge franchise. It doesn't say anything new or fresh or in any interesting ways, and in fact, some of the “comedy” here just doesn't make any sense (then again, I just might be missing out on a reference, as if that's supposed to justify bad comedy). This movie may have been less than 90 minutes, but my God, it felt like an eternity having to slog through this piece of shit. Do I honestly even need to say skip this one?

#21: The Rezort (2015)

The plot: Years after the cancellation of the zombie apocalypse, the remaining zombies have been rounded up to an island owned by a private company where people can come and pay as tourists to shoot zombies. But when a conscientious objector sabotages the island's systems, the zombies quickly take over and many people die. So a small group of tourist survivors must reach a rendezvous point at the end of the island if they are to escape not only the zombies but also a strafing bombardment meant to eliminate the zombie outbreak.

My thoughts: For a movie that was obviously conceptualized as Jurassic Park (or Jurassic World since this park is actually running) but with zombies instead of dinosaurs, this movie ain't half-bad. The characters are nothing to write home about, although there is a Dirty Harry-type I was routing for the entire movie, and the action and plot are pretty standard for a zombie flick. Still, it's a mildly fun time and I recommend you give it a go.

#22: Scream (1996)

The plot: A mysterious serial killer who is savvy in the ways of the slasher subgenre of horror is gradually killing off various people around high schooler Sidney Prescott. So who could it be?

My thoughts: Talk about a standard slasher flick elevated by the principle of being meta. I enjoyed it, yes, and with the way the film is constructed as a whodunit, it certainly manages to stand out as above average overall. I could see how this was revolutionary back in the 1990s, but now, with pretty much every single genre movie being self-aware in some way or another, I just kind of shrug my shoulders at it as an experience. I think it helps if you're familiar with the slasher subgenre if you're to watch this, but I think it's a good enough film to stand on its own to someone who hasn't seen a slasher flick their whole lives, if only for the story.

#23: Hush (2016)

The plot: A woman with an instinctive writer's mind who is both deaf and mute in a cabin in the woods is thrust into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a deranged serial killer who wants to toy with her before he kills her.

My thoughts: This is a movie that squeezes every bit of tension and suspense it can in the eighty-something minutes it has, and it makes good use of that tension and suspense in conjunction with its expert pacing. At no point did I think anything was dragged out; everything here was just as long as it needed to be, and it was all resolved in a satisfactory (and quite bloody) way that left me feeling, “Yep, that was a good time.”

#24: The Bye Bye Man (2017)

The plot: There is a demonic entity known as the Bye Bye Man who will psychologically torture you before he kills you if you think or say his name. And he's doing that to three young adults who are all living together in a haunted house. Yeah...

My thoughts: A very forgettable, subpar horror film with an antagonist with an awful name and no memorable appearance. Skip.

#25: Scream 2 (1997)

The plot: One year after the Woodsboro killings, Sidney Prescott is once again haunted by the return of Ghostface as she is attending college this time around. But who could Ghostface be this time? And what meta-commentaries could this movie bring forth about the slasher genre and sequels both?

My thoughts: This is a film that feels like it was planned out from the beginning as a companion piece to the first film; by that, I mean that it feels like writer Kevin Williamson always intended to have this movie be made after Scream had come out. And considering that this movie was released only a year after its predecessor, I think that theory may be true (then again, I haven't done any research for this movie, so for all I know, Williamson and Wes Craven didn't even intend for there to be a sequel in the first place). Regardless, this feels like a natural progression of the first film and while not necessarily surpassing it in terms of quality, I feel like it lives up to the first Scream in a satisfactory way.

#26: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

The plot: After years of killing horny teenage counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason Voorhees is finally blown away into literal bits and pieces by the FBI. However, his spirit lives on as his essence is passed on from person to person until he can find a permanent new body through a living blood relative, and all the while, his killing spree resumes.

My thoughts: As a movie that was intended to be the finale to Jason Voorhees, this did have some silly moments in it like Freddy's Dead but not nearly as over-the-top. And it is a little disappointing to not have Jason in his prime form like he was in Friday the 13th Part VI to VIII and, again, it was a little bit more disappointing than Freddy's Dead (which is far more entertaining), especially since this movie retcons so much of Jason's mythology that it feels like no one who worked on this movie has ever seen a Jason movie. So, yeah, I can't recommend this one unless you're a Friday the 13th fan (and even then, I don't think you'll like it).

#27: Terrifier (2016)

The plot: A mute man in a creepy clown costume stalks multiple victims in a condemned apartment complex with ruthless killing methods that make him worthy of the moniker Terrifier.

My thoughts: Holy shit, this movie was fucking creepy... and I fucking loved it. Of course, I can't recommend it to everyone, as this movie was also ridiculously over-the-top with its violence and gore. I don't want to give anything away, but as an example, there is a scene that involves our killer, Art the Clown, with a saw and a woman's who's upside down that's one of the most shocking things I've seen... and, again, I fucking loved it. It was an unnerving film that's worthy of having been watched for this month.

#28: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

The plot: Take Jane Austin's feminist classic Pride and Prejudice and then shoe-horn a half-baked zombie plot into it. Okay...

My thoughts: I'm not familiar with Pride and Prejudice, so I went into this completely blind. But with that being said, I still thought that this was one of the most pointless, unfunny and unexciting parodies I've seen. The action scenes aren't all that good and it makes me wonder why this was adapted to the big screen. And as for the parts that are actually in Pride and Prejudice (at least as far as I can guess), I thought they were competently done, but they're just not for me. I guess someone who really Pride and Prejudice might like it, but that's only if they have a taste for zombie violence, too. Otherwise, skip this one; it's just dull.

#29: Zombeavers (2014)

The plot: A container of radioactive waste falls from a truck and floats down a river to infect a number of beavers that are nearby a cabin where a bunch of horny teenagers are. And those beavers become zombie beavers, or zombeavers.

My thoughts: I thought I was going into a movie that was going to be on the same level of bad as ThanksKilling, but thankfully, while the comedy isn't anything to write home about, the acting is at least competent and I was amused by the events that were going on. It was interesting to see what would happen if a zombeaver infected a human, and there were decent amount of subverting of expectations as to who was going to die first and who would live (and not in a Rian Johnson way either). I could see this movie not working for everyone, but it's fun enough as a creature feature with a supernatural element to it.

#30: Event Horizon (1997)

The plot: In 2047, a spaceship dubbed the Event Horizon mysteriously reappears near the edge of Earth's solar system and a salvage team is sent to investigate what happened. But as they arrive, they find that the ship may be more than just a ship now...

My thoughts: As much as I'd love to see what this movie would have looked like had the filmmakers not toned back on the violence and gore, I was still satisfied by what we got here. Sam Neill delivers a deliciously evil performance once Dr. Weir goes to the dark side that it practically borders on Tim Curry territory, and I thought the movie was a good space horror film that was just original enough to be its own thing and not be a knockoff of, say, Alien. Give it a watch; the violence you do see here ain't that bad.

#31: Halloweed (2016)

The plot: A couple of stoners move to a small town so that one of them can get away from the reputation of being the son of a now-dead serial killer. But what these stoners don't know is that they've arrived just in time for a slew of killings to start as Halloween approaches.

My thoughts: I'm mentally kicking myself for having this be the movie I ended the month of October on. This was one of the lamest comedies I've ever seen in my life; I can't remember laughing at all in this bland turd. And it could hardly qualify as a slasher film since the slasher killings don't start until there's about 49 minutes left in the film, and even then, it's barely focused on for the rest of the movie until it's resolved at the end. Skip this and don't let it be anywhere on your viewing block for next Halloween.

And that's it. Those were all 31 of the films I'd seen for the month of Halloween, one for each day. It was quite a venture, but one worth the time if only for bragging rights if not for entertainment (especially since very few of these movies were any real good). So please leave a comment, let me know if you saw any of these movies, if not for this past Halloween, then if you have seen any of these at all, and if so, let me know if you agree or disagree. Until then, here's to better films next Halloween!

*This post has been paid for and sponsored by Silver Shamrock, Inc. When you want quality masks at affordable prices, and a guarantee that they won't unleash killer insects and snakes that will trigger a potential apocalypse, look no further for a Happy Happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

#halloween #halloween films #film retrospective

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aion-rsa · 6 years

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We Are Venom: The Many Characters Who Wore the Symbiote

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From Spider-Man and Eddie Brock to Groot and Sub-Mariner 2099, the Venom costume certainly gets around.

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Feature Gavin Jasper

venom

Sep 24, 2018

Spider-Man

Marvel

It’s fitting that the Venom costume is a liquid entity because the creature and the Venom identity have been used for all sorts of different roles. Spider-Man’s edgy new costume, Evil Spider-Man, violent antihero, corrupt government soldier, rogue government agent, space knight, and so on.

With the big Venom movie coming up, let’s look at all the different heroes and villains that have worn the spidery blob. I’ve split it into three different types. We have the main hosts, such as Spider-Man and anyone who was treated as actual Venom in the mainstream books. Then there are the others, who wore the costume in continuity, but are considered more like footnotes. Lastly, it’s the ones that happened in alternate realities.

SPIDER-MAN (PETER PARKER)

Back in the '80s, Marvel had their big Secret Wars event, created to sell toys and ultimately shaping how Big Two comics would be designed for decades to come. In an attempt to give the story extra importance, they used it as an excuse to change up Spider-Man’s costume into a black and white ensemble with some cool extras like unlimited webbing that came out of the back of his hands instead of the wrists.

Fighting it out on Battleworld, Spider-Man’s red and blue costume got shredded up and he found what he thought to be a machine that stitches new outfits. What he unknowingly got was an alien parasite kept in a prison. It jumped onto him and took to him, wanting to live in a symbiotic relationship.

While later versions of the story – especially in different media – would focus on how it made Spider-Man more aggressive, the big deal was more that it was controlling his body in his sleep and the very idea of it being alive freaked Peter out something fierce. Spider-Man rid himself of the creature, only to be antagonized by it for years.

further reading: The Many Spider-Men of the Spider-Verse

In main continuity, he became the host for Venom during the time when Peter’s body had the mind of Doc Ock. That led to a cool take where he had goo-based octopus tentacles coming out of him. He also had Eddie Brock loan him the symbiote at the end of Dan Slott's Amazing Spider-Man run in order to combat the Carnage-clad Green Goblin. Out of continuity, he became the host in one of the early Spider-Girl issues and in a disturbing What If storyline where it took over Peter’s cocooned body from The Other and transformed him into "Poison."

EDDIE BROCK

When people think of Venom, they mainly think of Eddie and the movie will solidify that more than ever. A journalist, Eddie Brock’s life took a bad turn when he misreported on a masked murderer named the Sin-Eater and got the identity wrong. Acting like the antithesis of Peter Parker, he shifted the responsibility and blamed this tragic mistake on Spider-Man rather than himself or the unfairness of the world. When praying for forgiveness for considering suicide while at a church, Spider-Man’s discarded symbiote jumped onto him.

From there, the two brought out the worst in each other and fueled their mutual hate-on for Spider-Man. Venom became Spider-Man’s cool, new, popular villain for several years, constantly stalking him in his personal life. Then for a time he got over his flawed axe-to-grind and moved to San Francisco to become a murderous vigilante.

Venom’s time as Lethal Protector lasted five years and had a big collection of miniseries that was secretly a sixty-issue ongoing (restarting at #1 whenever a new arc started). As an antihero, Venom was essentially a less-competent Punisher. A monster using his vigilante status to justify his bloodlust, all while seeing himself as Adam West Batman.

Further reading: A Beginner's Guide to Venom Comics Reading Order

Brock went back to being a thorn in Spider-Man’s side, but not for long, as he simply stopped showing up in comics for years. When he did come back, it was for the sake of passing the torch to the next host.

Since then, Eddie’s been given a new lease on life as Anti-Venom and later Toxin. Neither identity lasted too long and he eventually rubber-banded back to being Venom.

PATRICIA ROBERTSON

Ugh. This catastrophe.

In the early 2000s, Marvel was doing their Tsunami imprint and one of the books to come out of it was an eighteen-issue Venom ongoing by Daniel Way. It had incredibly little to do with Eddie Brock and instead was a rather mean-spirited mess of a series that didn’t get referenced again for about fifteen years.

Here’s the gist of the plot and I swear I’m not making any of this up: the biblical story of Noah’s Ark was inspired by a bunch of nanites from space coming down and plotting to wipe out all of humanity. The nanites decided at the last second not to and left, but a handful of them stuck around and didn’t get the memo. So they spent centuries laying low in the form of a man with a bushy mustache, biding their time. Their master plan was to wait for an alien symbiote to be loose on Earth and then use it to cause the apocalypse. Somehow.

In a fight with the Fantastic Four, Venom lost his tongue. A random dude found it and tried to sell it on eBay, but it was immediately stolen away by shadowy government people led by the bushy mustache nanites man. The tongue was used to clone the Venom costume and it was let loose in an arctic lab in a blatant ripoff of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Army lieutenant Patricia Robertson survived the massacre thanks to the help of The Suit, an Agent Smith knockoff with a weaponized smartphone.

He is also made of nanites.

Patricia ultimately became the host for the Venom clone and got jerked around and shit on far more than your average superhero character with absolute zero catharsis. This all led to an abrupt ending where Eddie Brock’s Venom symbiote merged with Patricia’s and the evil nanite man was all, “Heh heh. All according to plan.”

Further reading: 15 Craziest Venom Moments in Marvel History

He was never mentioned again, nor was Patricia. We didn’t see if she died, escaped, or what.

ANGELO FORTUNATO

Angelo did not last long at all, but he came with enough fanfare that he was sort of a big deal, mainly because of the Mark Millar/Frank Cho creative team behind him. Eddie Brock was slowly dying of cancer and decided he just wanted to end it all. Knowing that the symbiote would just find another host, he decided to use that as a final act of goodness by auctioning it off to the criminal underworld and giving that money to charity.

Angelo Fortunato was the lacking son of a high-ranking mobster. The idea was that the symbiote would make a man out of him and he liked the idea because it meant girls would write fanfiction about him.

...Mark Millar wrote this, remember.

As the new Venom, Angelo went after Spider-Man and did pretty well for himself, but the moment Spider-Man was able to get an advantage, Angelo folded and tried to escape. The symbiote – disgusted with his cowardice – removed itself from his body and sought out a new host.

Further reading: Venom, Riot, and the Life Foundation Symbiotes Explained

Angelo was in mid-swing during that decision. He...ummm...he did not survive.

MAC GARGAN

Gargan spent many years as the Scorpion and during the Marvel Knights Spider-Man storyline that introduced Angelo Fortunato, Gargan reappeared as finally free of his green armor. Acting as a henchman for Norman Osborn, he had a non-violent confrontation with Spider-Man and was apparently going to be refitted with a new, better Scorpion suit.

Instead, the Venom symbiote found him. Gargan gladly became the new host, much to Osborn’s initial chagrin. As time would show, Venom would be Osborn’s go-to goon and would serve him as both a Thunderbolt and a Dark Avenger.

In a time when Carnage was believed to be dead and Eddie Brock had his own thing going on, it made sense to have Gargan as a brutal, purely evil Venom with no shades of gray. While a bit of an afterthought in Dark Avengers, he did have his own miniseries called Sinister Spider-Man that was absolutely brilliant and featured having a tiny dog thrown into his eye via Bullseye.

With the end of Dark Reign and Osborn’s time in power, the government decided to just remove the alien costume and figure it out from there. Mac Gargan went back to being the Scorpion and nobody’s cared about him since.

EUGENE “FLASH” THOMPSON

Formerly Peter Parker’s high school bully and later his rehabilitated friend, Flash Thompson was reintroduced with a story that showed him as a soldier losing his legs in Iraq. The government decided to make him the new host for Venom, though with enough precautions. He could only wear the symbiote for 24 hours before being separated. As Agent Venom, he did the government’s dirty work while keeping it a secret from loved ones.

As this new Venom starred in his first of two ongoings, they played up his own addiction to Venom’s powers (namely the power to walk) and how it related to his preexisting alcoholism. This is something only vaguely touched in the Brock days, since most times he was separated from the creature and was forced to rebond, he treated it like a recovering addict having alcohol poured down his throat against his will.

Flash’s initial status quo didn’t last too long and he became a fugitive from the law for a bit. By working alongside Captain America and earning Cap’s trust, he ended up getting a spot on the Secret Avengers. Shortly after, he joined the Thunderbolts until Cap asked him to join up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

When on Earth, Flash kept the symbiote in check via drugs and appealing to its nature, but in space, the costume became more erratic. Turns out it just needed to go back to its home planet and Bendis wrote a big pile of retcon about how the symbiotes are called Klyntar and they’re actually quite peaceful, but sometimes they need to be recalibrated. The symbiote got cleansed, lost all memories of most of its hosts, became docile, and started looking like something out of Ben 10. Afterwards, Flash started having solo space adventures as the Agent of the Cosmos.

His second ongoing just ended with him back on Earth, where the two ended up splitting up. Flash has moved on and found a new identity as Agent Anti-Venom.

LEE PRICE

When the symbiote was separated from Flash Thompson, it was hungry, weak, and desperate for a new host. It wanted to do heroic things for the good of humanity, so of course it ended up getting stuck with a man who wanted none of that. Lee Price was a former army ranger with intent to not only be part of the criminal underworld, but to one day run it. Bending the symbiote to his will, he made plans to climb up the ladder and gradually take over New York City.

This Venom seemed short-lived at first as his brand new series was more of a means to reunite Eddie Brock and the symbiote. Lee was put in prison for a stretch until being let off on a technicality. He and his gang captured the Venom sidekick Mania and stole her costume. Lee Price became Maniac and made another go at ruling the world of crime. Even though this led to him having a "final form" of being a giant version of Venom, he was still taken down by the team of Spider-Man, Agent Anti-Venom, Venom, and Black Cat.

SHE-VENOM (ANN WEYING)

Ann was Eddie Brock’s ex-wife. We never got to know too much about their married life, but Ann always held a candle for Eddie and hoped he’d get well. As a lawyer, she became the target of a new Sin-Eater, who put her in critical condition. Venom rescued his ex and took her to his sewer hideout, but her internal damage was too much and she was moments from death.

Eddie coaxed the symbiote into bonding with Ann and healing her. While that was happening, a couple of scavengers broke in and beat down Eddie. Ann, in the form of the voluptuous She-Venom, horrifically tore the two interlopers to pieces. It’s suggested that she was a more violent host than even Eddie. When she split from the alien, she was disgusted by her actions and blamed her ex-husband for putting her in that position.

Ann donned the costume once more and her experiences as the host drove her to madness. She became a total shut-in and Eddie’s intent to patch things up (along with seeing Spider-Man swing by the window in his black threads) caused her to go over the edge and she killed herself.

SCARLET SPIDER (BEN REILLY)

Spider-Man was briefly able to talk some sense into Eddie and convinced him that maybe the symbiote was clouding his judgment. Eddie figured the least he could do was spend some time separated from the costume and told it to get lost. The symbiote let out a sonic howl of loneliness, which accidentally alerted the rest of its race that it was on Earth.

This was many years before Bendis’ take on the whole Klyntar race being good, so instead we got a big symbiote invasion in New York. Coincidentally, Bendis would also write a symbiote invasion in New York storyline that ignored this.

Spider-Man, Scarlet Spider, and Eddie Brock worked together and Scarlet Spider appeared to have a seventh sense about what was going on. They later discovered that although it hadn’t fully bonded to him, the symbiote was posing as his sweatshirt and was feeding him info. Eddie reluctantly recombined with the symbiote and the three went and fought off the invasion.

WOLVERINE (JAMES HOWLETT)

Yeah, so back to that Daniel Way story about the nanites and the Venom clone. After the Thing storyline, the Venom clone was loose in Canada and Wolverine happened to be hanging out there because, you know, Wolverine is everywhere. The whole storyline was peak Wolverine bullshit, since Wolverine had a nuke dropped on him and all it did was knock his shirt off. Then The Suit zapped him and put his super-powered cell phone into Wolverine’s chest cavity.

On the hunt for Venom, Wolverine was ambushed by the costume and was overwhelmed. It took him over with no problem and found itself the perfect host, considering Wolverine’s healing factor and never-ending adrenaline. WolVenom attacked Patricia Robertson, but then The Suit’s cell blasted it from inside Wolverine’s body, causing the costume to evacuate and ultimately attach to Robertson.

Wolverine grumbled, “Can you hear me now?” because we all have to suffer sometimes.

MS. MARVEL (CAROL DANVERS)

Brian Reed really, really wanted to make Peter Parker + Carol Danvers a thing. Just him. When Siege was going on, there was a collection of one-shots about stuff going on during the penultimate battle before the Void became the final endboss. One of these stories, written by Reed, had Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel take on Mac Gargan Venom.

Ms. Marvel beat him fairly easily and simply tore Gargan from the symbiote like she was pulling someone’s towel off. The symbiote then simply attached itself to Carol and took over her mind. What we got was a flying Venom with fiery Kirby dots exploding out her head. Spider-Man fought his possessed friend and freed Carol via kicking her into some power lines.

The symbiote then went back to Gargan and the big battle continued.

RED HULK (THADDEUS ROSS)

Remember the New Fantastic Four? That thing where Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, and Ghost Rider briefly replaced the actual Fantastic Four as some kind of preemptively meta look at how Marvel teams would work in the future? During Rick Remender’s Venom run, they did a storyline called Circle of Four that gave us what was essentially the Dark New Fantastic Four. We had Flash Thompson Venom, X-23, Red Hulk, and that crappy female Ghost Rider that nobody cares about.

They ended up teaming together to fight Blackheart, who at one point fought them with the Bizarro Dark New Fantastic Four. Comics rule.

After our heroes were taken out by Blackheart’s forces, they were brought back by Mephisto. In order to hit Blackheart with everything they had, they went with the most ridiculously awesome idea ever by having Red Hulk possessed by both the Spirit of Vengeance and the Venom symbiote. Too bad there was no easy way to give him Wolverine claws, but such is life.

The pure brute force alone didn’t stop Blackheart, but they ultimately beat him and saved the world. Red Hulk’s upgrades were returned back to their proper hosts and they all went their separate ways. The problem, noticed only by Daimon Hellstrom, was that all four heroes were marked by Mephisto’s demonic magic.

Which brings us to...

MANIA (ANDI BENTON)

Before his space adventures, Flash moved out of New York City and went to Philadelphia, where he became a high school gym coach. Andrea Benton was both a neighbor and a student with a chip on her shoulder. She was also quickly aware that Flash was secretly Venom.

Venom’s arch-nemesis Jack O’Lantern appeared at Flash’s apartment complex to cause trouble and murdered Andi’s father. Venom attempted to protect her from noxious gas, but the symbiote did more than that. It split itself and bonded with her. As Mania, she became Venom’s angry, teenage sidekick.

Flash later discovered that there was a reason why the symbiote split itself. In order to appease Flash, the symbiote figured it would spit the clone symbiote (from the Patricia Robertson series) back out and onto Andi. The clone symbiote was carrying the mark of Mephisto, meaning it was no longer Venom’s problem. Flash didn’t see it like that.

Venom and Mania remained a team and they even discovered that one of the silver linings was Mania had control over demons. When Venom went to space, Mania gradually lost control. Venom was able to bring her back to her senses and promised he’d find a way to cure her. Eventually, Lee Price stole the symbiote from her and became Maniac. Regardless, Andi retained her demon powers and currently uses them to help keep the peace in Philly.

US AGENT (JOHN WALKER)

Ooooookay. This one is a little weird.

In the beginning of Jeff Parker Thunderbolts run (which eventually became Dark Avengers), US Agent took some serious body damage. He lost both an arm and a leg during the Siege tie-in. Afterwards, he became this badass prison warden who could mess up a room full of prisoners regardless of how much biology he was missing.

During the final arc, US Agent and the Dark Avengers crew were stuck in a rewritten Earth where New York City was split apart by a dystopian superhero gang war. In this world, Hank Pym had been experimenting on the Venom symbiote and effectively lobotomized it. Dark Avengers member and Scarlet Witch stand-in Toxie Doxie used Venom to attach itself to US Agent and grow back his missing limbs, returning him to the status quo.

DEADPOOL (WADE WILSON)

The Deadpool/Venom connection has been done a few times. The first was a comedic series of backup stories in What If comics that showed a reality where Deadpool became the host for Venom. It gave him an evil jheri curl and became a commentary for event comics and...man, it was out there.

In a somewhat more canon appearance, Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars revealed that Wade was actually there for the initial '80s event and everyone forgot about it due to a reality-altering wish from an emotional and heartbroken Wasp. One moment showed that prior to Spider-Man stumbling upon the alien costume, Deadpool tried it on first. It was a brief melding as the Klyntar couldn’t handle Deadpool’s mind. The suggestion was that he probably warped the symbiote’s personality before anyone else.

Cullen Bunn has revisted the idea of Venompool a few more times. Back in Black showed that in-between Peter Parker and Eddie Brock, the symbiote did join Wade again for a short while to help him fight with and against 80s staple characters. They split up due to their disagreements with whether or not to kill Spider-Man and it was revealed that Deadpool convinced Eddie Brock to visit the fateful church in the first place.

Otherwise, the connection was brought up in Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe Again, which was secretly part of Old Man Logan continuity. In it, Deadpool killed Eddie Brock, reunited with the symbiote, devoured Spider-Man, and then told the creature to go away. There was also a Venompool in the Venomverse storyline. Although he was infected by a Poison creature (more on that later), he retained his mind and sacrificed himself to stop the bad guys.

GROOT

As mentioned earlier, there was a Guardians of the Galaxy story based on Venom going back to the costume’s planet of origin. It didn’t make the trip without conflict. Joined with Flash, Venom became more unpredictable until a fight with the other Guardians finally nullified the threat. They kept the goo in a containment jar, which easily escaped when carried by Groot.

Constantly shouting, “I AM VENOM!” the new hybrid alien took on the other Guardians of the Galaxy until being knocked out by Drax.

ROCKET RACCOON

The symbiote left Groot and the others figured he’d just go back and find Flash’s unconscious body. Instead, it leaked onto Rocket from the vents above and took him over, looking like some kind of Venomized Sonic the Hedgehog.

I checked Google Image Search for fanart of that very idea. There’s a lot of it and I’m really not far off.

The possessed Rocket, speaking a bit more clearly than the previous host, insisted that everyone get off the ship ASAP. He admitted that he didn’t want to kill anyone, but he needed to commandeer the ship immediately.

Then it got really interesting...

DRAX THE DESTROYER

Although Quill warned him not to, Drax decided that grabbing Rocket from behind was a good idea. Nope. The costume slinked off Rocket and jumped onto Drax. The issue ended with the cliffhanger image of Symbiote Drax looking metal as fuck.

By the beginning of the next issue, Flash woke up to find everyone unconscious except for the victorious Drax. Smiling madly, Drax basked as they arrived in the Klyntar homeworld. Through Drax, the symbiote said some cryptic stuff about their journey to Flash before leaving Drax’s body.

Drax didn’t take this well and nearly murdered Flash until Quill talked him down.

MERCURIO THE 4D MAN

During Flash’s short-lived adventures as an Agent of the Cosmos, he quickly came into conflict with the obscure Thor villain Mercurio. An interstellar conqueror, Mercurio’s plans were thwarted by Venom a couple times, so he sent a murderous space panda named Pik Rollo to take care of this new thorn in his side. Rollo – blackmailed due to her son being captive on Mercurio’s ship – ended up striking up a deal with Venom, which included a fake back-stabbing. As part of the plan, Venom was captured.

Mercurio stripped the costume from Flash and wore Venom himself. Unbeknownst to Mercurio until it was too late, this was all a trick for Venom to uncover information via bonding. Venom split from Mercurio and viciously beat him down until Flash pleaded with him to stop. Although they successfully tricked Mercurio, being part of such an evil being returned some old habits to the Venom symbiote, as its addiction to rage and violence started to bubble back to the surface.

OLD MAN LOGAN

I’m splitting hairs, but I’m not even sure which sub-list to toss this one. It’s a character from an alternate future thrown into another alternate future, only it’s as a member of a mainstream X-Men team.

Anyway, during The Apocalypse Wars, the X-Men got stranded a thousand years into the future. As always, Earth was a dystopian mess, this time run by Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen: Colossus, Deadpool, a female Moon Knight, and the Venom symbiote.

Using the Fastball Special, Colossus threw the blobby creature onto Old Man Logan. After a couple of issues, Jean Grey realized the secret wasn’t to try and mentally coax Logan, but to mentally attack the alien itself. With Venom purged from Old Man Logan’s body, Iceman froze it in place.

DEVIL DINOSAUR

In the brilliantly titled "Land Before Crime," the Eddie Brock version of Venom found out that Stegron had an army of dinosaur people living underneath New York. He teamed up with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur to stop them, but Stegron had the ability to mentally control Devil Dinosaur. At first, Venom wanted to call it quits, but he saw a kindred spirit in the relationship between Moon Girl and her dinosaur friend and came up with a plan. Venom allowed Devil Dinosaur to eat him as a rope-a-dope. The symbiote attached itself to Devil Dinosaur, undoing Stegron's psychic hold. Venom Dinosaur went on a rampage long enough for Moon Girl to foil Stegron's plans to turn everyone in NYC into dinosaurs.

THE INKLINGS

When Lee Price became Maniac, he gained a new power. By coughing or spitting on someone with his symbiote, he would mask them with an extension of said symbiote and it would put them under his control. He used his mind control to take over various super-criminals. His victims included Black Cat, Scorpion, Hammerhead, Looter, 8-Ball, Killer Shrike, The Brothers Grimm, and the Melter. He also took over Spider-Man for a time. The drawback of his power was that once someone was free of his hold, he could not control them all over again.

When faced with the team of Spider-Man, Agent Anti-Venom, Venom, and Black Cat, Maniac absorbed all of his inkling masks into himself and became a giant.

SPIDER-WOMAN (JESSICA DREW)

After defeating Maniac, the Venom symbiote was finally cured of its mental instability. Venom went back to fighting crime, though chose not to kill the lesser criminals. Spider-Woman didn't see this as a reason to let him off the hook and tried to capture Venom a couple times. At the time, the symbiote was carrying a secret from Eddie: it was pregnant and scared that its child would turn out evil and vicious like its other children. Only with Eddie as a host did it feel optimistic that its offspring could be brought up well. The symbiote briefly joined onto Spider-Woman to show her the truth. Spider-Woman had recently given birth herself and understood to an extent. For the time being, she would allow Venom to roam free.

TEL-KAR

The Kree and the Skrulls have been warring with each other for so many years and while the Kree pride themselves as being the ultimate military species, the Skrulls have the advantage of shape-shifting. An idea came to acquire that ability for the Kree empire. A warrior named Tel-Kar went to the symbiote homeworld and discovered an outcast. Considering it a perfect choice, Tel-Kar became the first host to wear what would one day be known as the Venom costume. He went undercover as a Skrull, but turned on them the moment he was tasked with killing Kree refugees. Going into a suicide run, Tel-Kar made the symbiote leave him so they could not be captured together. Tel-Kar fought the Skrulls head-on, but survived in the end.

Years later, he'd come to Earth to reclaim his old partner. Forcing the symbiote to rejoin him against its will, it was revealed that Tel-Kar plans on using it to commit genocide against the entire Skrull race.

HULK (BRUCE BANNER)

What If the Alien Costume Possessed Spider-Man told the tale of Peter Parker waiting too long before having the Fantastic Four investigate his animated black tights. By that time they got him under the microscope, it was too late and the creature had already bonded to him. It took over his body completely and escaped, staying under the radar so Reed Richards couldn’t track it down.

After several days, the controlled Spider-Man found the Hulk going on a monstrous rampage. Knowing a good meal when it saw one, the symbiote left Spider-Man behind as it jumped onto Hulk, who could do nothing to save himself. Symbiote Hulk laughed and jumped off into the distance. Peter’s body was so used up by this point that the situation rendered him into an old man who died within a day.

While Hulk may seem like a perfect host, the symbiote was only using him as a stepping stone...

THOR (ODINSON)

It didn’t take long for Thor to come across Symbiote Hulk. While the symbiote insisted that what happened to Spider-Man was an accident and that it was actually helping Banner with his Hulk issues, Thor wasn’t fully trusting and they got in a big fight. Thor won, but the symbiote simply attached itself to him, which was the plan all along.

The two entities battled mentally while hiding out inside Mount Rushmore. Reed Richards sent Black Bolt after them, who was able to overpower Symbiote Thor with one word. The symbiote was then destroyed by Black Cat, armed with a sonic gun.

PUNISHER (FRANK CASTLE)

One of the best What If issues, What If Venom Had Possessed the Punisher, showed a reality where Frank Castle stopped at that one church moments before Eddie Brock. He had Spider-Man on the mind at the time and the symbiote latched onto him. Initially, Frank didn’t think much about the symbiote’s origins. He figured it was some slick SHIELD technology and went with it. He even did away with the webbing ability and had the costume shoot bullets made of symbiote goo.

This comic came out years before Garth Ennis got his mitts on Frank, so while he was depicted as a pragmatic mass murderer, he wasn’t the grindhouse sadist that he is now. In other words, it was treated as a big deal that he was far more gruesome with his kills, such as biting off half of Tombstone’s skull and spitting it out.

The symbiote gradually took over his life. He started lashing out against Microchip and found himself trying to kill Spider-Man against his will. After being hit with a sonic blast, Frank was able to go into a dreamlike state and confront the symbiote mentally. In the end, Frank made it an ultimatum: the symbiote would do what he wanted and get a piece of the violent action Frank’s known for, but if it didn’t listen to his orders, he’d kill them both. The symbiote agreed to the terms and the Punisher escaped capture from the heroes by using the symbiote to glide into the night.

Another version of Symbiote Punisher would show up in Edge of Venomverse. This take was that the symbiote agreed to help Frank win his war on crime as long as Frank would agree to help him commit one murder. That turned out to be Spider-Man. Frank resisted the situation, but never got a chance to fight Spider-Man due to the events of Venomverse kicking in.

VENOM 2099 (KRON STONE)

"Kron Stone! Meet the Kron Stone! Just your average man of vill-ai-ny! From the... '90s future...he’s a man from altered hi-sto-ry!!!!"

Kron was the evil half-brother of Miguel O’Hara and made his debut by killing the family of Punisher 2099 and getting away with it. I mean, getting away with it as much as you can before Frank to the Future stabs you and leaves you dying in a sewer.

Luckily for Kron, the Venom symbiote had been nesting in that sewer for decades, trying to evolve itself. It bonded with Kron and gave him the usual Venom perks, along with acidic touch and a fully liquid body. So, like, a T-1000 made of xenomorph spit.

Hearing that his father Tyler Stone was hospitalized from an assassination attempt, Venom 2099 went to go finish the job, which caused him to cross paths with Miguel, otherwise known as Spider-Man 2099. The two fought it out for several issues, notably causing the death of Miguel’s love interest Dana (which simplified Miguel’s love triangle predicament).

Once Spider-Man 2099 figured out the symbiote’s weakness to sound, the authorities just pinpointed Venom 2099’s location and focused all the speakers in the area on him. Miguel then beat him down and prepared to kill the creature until discovering Kron underneath.

Due to the future’s lack of prisons, Miguel just kept Kron in a tube in his lab and had him separated from the costume.

SUB-MARINER 2099

Late into the Spider-Man 2099 ongoing, our hero fought the future’s Namor counterpart, an Atlantean terrorist. He was also brought in and made a captive in Miguel’s lab.

In the final issue, Sub-Mariner 2099 escaped and the chaos from all the armed guards trying to stop him caused the Venom symbiote to be released. It jumped onto Sub-Mariner 2099, gave him teeth at the end of his tongue, and they escaped into the ocean.

Being that it was the end of the comic, they never followed up on that.

SPIDER-GIRL (MAYDAY PARKER)

In the alternate future of Earth-X and its less-interesting sequels, Peter and Mary Jane’s daughter became the host for Venom and at some point tamed the beast while taking its name. Just one of the many reasons why she and her father didn’t get along.

The symbiote itself factored in very, very rarely in the stories outside of a one-shot called Universe-X: Spidey, which involved the psychic villain Spiders-Man (not a typo!) putting Peter into a comatose state where he lived out his fantasies. Using her symbiote, Mayday attached herself to her father and dove into his reality. She intended to save him, but seeing that his guilt-based fantasy was to have a son with Gwen instead of a daughter with MJ kind of broke Mayday for a moment and she almost beat Spiders-Man to death until Peter woke up and stopped her.

Afterwards, father and daughter bonded via bad jokes at dire situations.

NORMIE OSBORN

Speaking of Spider-Girl, the Venom symbiote had a bit of a Joker in Dark Knight Returns thing going on in the MC2 Universe. It was dormant for years until it found out there was a new spider-person swinging around and it woke back up. It ended up possessing the middle-aged Peter the first time around, creating a Spider-Man/Venom hybrid.

Normie Osborn was the son of Harry and started out as a villain, obsessed with avenging his bloodline and killing the Parkers. Mayday helped him get over these feelings, although he still had a body full of hate-filled tattoos. Normie became a big brother figure to Spider-Girl, but was eventually bonded to the Venom symbiote against his will.

Normie overcame its influence and insisted not to have it destroyed. He became a hero for a while, albeit one with no codename because he wasn’t comfortable being called “Venom.” It was a moot point, since by the time they hit Spider-Girl #100, they ended up killing off the costume. It sacrificed itself to help Spider-Girl defeat the Hobgoblin, playing up that Normie as a host helped reform the creature.

Coincidentally, before leaving Normie, the symbiote’s parting gift was removing all of his tattoos.

HUMAN TORCH (JOHNNY STORM)

In the Marvel Adventures universe, they did their own lighthearted version of the Spider-Man black costume story. In this take, after the Fantastic Four removed the symbiote from Spider-Man’s body, Human Torch decided he’d try it on for size. Upon turning on his powers, the creature freaked out from the fire and escaped.

KULAN GATH

This one’s probably not considered canon, but right now I don’t care enough to argue either way.

Ancient wizard Kulan Gath transformed Manhattan into something more fitting to the Hyborian Age. Everyone started talking like Thor outside of Spider-Man and for whatever reason, Venom (Eddie version) decided that Kulan was totally worth working with as part of his murder vigilante ways. Then Mary Jane became the host for Red Sonja's soul/existence, which included ripping off her dress to reveal her chainmail loin cloth underneath.

Kulan became intrigued by the dark, powerful properties that came with the Venom symbiote and stole it from Eddie in a fight. As Kulan Venom, he...um...I don’t really know. Having a symbiote doesn’t really help out much when you’re a sorcerer. It’s like if Magneto became Venom. What’s he going to do, throw metal around angrier?

If anything, the so-called upgrade was Kulan’s undoing. When Eddie begged the symbiote to return to him, it threw Kulan off and allowed Spider-Man and Red Sonja to defeat him and send things back to normal.

MARY JANE PARKER

In the '00s, Marc Sumerak and Gurihiru did an all-ages miniseries of Spider-Man/Power Pack, a cute story about Spider-Man teaming up with the youthful Power siblings. In the third issue, it showed Spider-Man defeating Venom with a sonic blast gun early on. Although Eddie Brock was taken into custody, the symbiote wasn’t apprehended. Instead, it was taken in by a freshly-fired fashion artist. He had the creature altered in a way that he could monetize it.

Six months later, Mary Jane was one of four models working for said fashion dude. Peter brought Power Pack with him for the fashion show. The models’ outfits were able to morph and all was going well until Mary Jane’s dress sensed Peter nearby. All the models became full-on lady Venoms and mindlessly fought against the heroes.

Lightspeed flew circles around them fast enough to create a sonic boom. That freed the models. Mass Master took over the DJ booth and maxed out the volume to destroy what was left of the symbiote outfits.

Being that it was an all-ages comic, Mary Jane and the others were wearing slips under the skintight symbiotes. That had to chafe.

ENERGIZER (KATIE POWER)

After that fashion show incident, Spider-Man and the Power Pack left. Unbeknownst to everyone, a surviving piece of Venom hitchhiked onto Katie Power.

Soon after, Katie started having nightmares about being Venom and capturing Spider-Man alongside the Sinister Six. Others tried to rationalize the dream, but the truth was that the costume was taking over her body when she slept. They really did have Spider-Man in captivity.

Despite being down a member, Power Pack and Spider-Man had little issue stopping the Sinister Six and a Half. Spider-Man tricked Rhino into running into Electro, who accidentally zapped all his allies. This fried the symbiote and freed Energizer.

Afterwards, she felt guilt over what happened, but Spider-Man reassured her that it was all the costume’s doing and none of hers.

NEST OF PETER PARKER CLONES

Rick Remender’s What If: Age of Apocalypse was an exercise in Remender coming up with ridiculous shit and loosely tying it into a narrative. It took place in a reality where Legion accidentally killed both Xavier and Magneto during his time-travel assassination attempt. In the vastly different present, a team of heroes led by Wolverine and Captain America (armed with Mjolnir) would go through a ton of off-the-wall threats like the most badass Four Horsemen of all time: Namor, Storm, Hulk, and Juggernaut.

At one point the heroes found themselves in a black web where the Venom symbiote had bonded to a nest of Peter Parkers who didn’t seem to have any will of their own. Knowing that they weren’t the real deal, Cap demanded they be destroyed before they moved on to the next bad guy.

T-REX

The Venom symbiote has latched onto various different animals over the course of its history. A husky, a bunch of cockroaches, and even a zoo gorilla. But in the dystopian reality of Old Man Logan, Venom went high up the food chain by taking over a tyrannosaurus.

The story dealt with Wolverine and Hawkeye going on a road trip in a destroyed world where evil won. In one foreboding moment, the Venom symbiote was shown to be watching over them from on top a mountain. Later in the adventure, Venom Rex showed up and gave chase.

Luckily, the heroes were able to outrun him long enough with the Spider-Mobile until they found Black Bolt, who downed the creature with one word. Basically, Black Bolt is the rock to Venom's scissors.

CAPTAIN AMERICA (STEVE ROGERS)

This one can only be assumed, but judging from the weirdness going on around it...

In the alternate reality where Age of Apocalypse happened, Wolverine became infected with Apocalypse’s powers and megalomaniacal sickness. Calling himself Weapon Omega, this darker Logan had his own super team to carry out his orders. The Black Legion featured a lot of odd mashup and altered characters like Iron Ghost (Iron Man + Ghost Rider), Zombie Sentry (Simon Garth + Sentry), Grimm Chamber (Thing + Chamber), and so on.

When the mainstream X-Force team visited this reality, one panel showed that one of those Black Legion members was Captain America wearing the Venom symbiote. No information on him outside of that.

Black Legion was kind of forgotten about in general shortly after that.

Looking less monstrous, a version of Venom America would lead the resistance in Venomverse.

CONRAD MARCUS

With the new, black Ultimate Spider-Man who wasn’t based on a preexisting character, we got a new, black Ultimate Venom who also wasn’t based on a preexisting character.

At some point, Norman Osborn hired Dr. Conrad Marcus to recreate the accident that created Spider-Man. As far as Marcus knew, his attempts were constant failures. Months later, he found out differently when Betty Brant confronted him for a story and helped him piece together that a missing spider created the new Spider-Man. At the time, Marcus was working at Roxxon and his obsession with knowing more led to him releasing the Venom symbiote and becoming one with it.

His first acts were murdering Betty and then blowing up an abandoned Osborn Industries lab. Going by Betty’s false information, Venom went after Jefferson Morales, thinking him to be the new Spider-Man. Instead, the actual Spider-Man – Miles Morales, Jefferson’s son – appeared to fight him. Venom escaped into the sewers, though he succeeded in gravely wounding Jefferson.

He reappeared at the hospital, demanding Jefferson be offered to him. Spider-Man fought him and was briefly consumed by the hulking beast. Miles’ mother Rio, a nurse at the hospital, bought him time to escape and blow up the symbiote from within with a venom blast (fittingly enough). The authorities arrived and riddled Marcus to death with bullets.

Unfortunately, Rio was shot during the fracas and died in her son’s arms.

KINGPIN (WILSON FISK)

Man, the Marvel 100th Anniversary month. I totally forgot you even happened. Everyone did.

In 2014, Marvel did this thing where various creative teams would put together "100th anniversary" issues of various comics. In other words, a series of one-shots that were supposed to predict what certain comics will be like in the 2060s. Honestly, the only one worth reading is James Stokoe’s trippy Avengers story.

Sean Ryan and In-Hyuk Lee teamed up for the Spider-Man issue, which was supposed to be the final chapter of a story arc called “Great Power.” According to the recap, Venom had been biologically upgraded into being the Techno-Symbiote. Eddie Brock tried to become host to it once again, but he and Spider-Man came to realize that it needed to be destroyed. Then Wilson Fisk appeared and shot Eddie.

The actual issue started from there with Kingpin becoming the host to the futuristic symbiote, all while admitting that he had it created. As the new Venom, Fisk not only had the usual bells and whistles, but he could tap into all sorts of technology. He did that to stalk the underwear-clad Parker through New York City for the remainder of the issue.

Finally, the two had their final battle in the woods, where Parker shoved a torch into Venom’s face, tore Fisk out, and sat quietly as the Techno-Symbiote was burned to death.

HAWKEYE (CLINT BARTON)

As part of the 2015 Secret Wars event, one of the various alternate-universe-turned-kingdoms was one where Civil War never concluded. It instead led to two civilizations led by Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, constantly unable to reconcile due to an unseen puppet master.

Mac Gargan was dead in this reality and we’d see a mute Venom working on Captain America’s side. Venom was given just enough panel-time to be treated as a mystery as he joined Peter Parker’s covert mission into Stark’s kingdom. As they faced King Ock (Kingpin’s corpse controlled by Dr. Octopus’ tentacles), Venom quietly appeared behind the threat, created a goo-based bow, and fired Daredevil’s billy club through King Ock’s skull.

He was finally identified as “Clint” and stopped factoring into the story. I guess that would explain why his symbol looked like an arrowhead.

SPIDER-QUEEN

Spider-Island, another Secret Wars tie-in, showed a Manhattan where the Spider-Queen’s plot to turn people into spider creatures under her command wasn’t initially foiled. Flash Thompson as Venom became the leader of the resistance and helped save the minds of other heroes by turning them into different kinds of monsters, thereby giving them back their willpower. Captain America became a werewolf, Hulk became a lizard, Captain Marvel a vampire, Iron Man got pumped up with Goblin serum, etc.

In the final battle, Venom was able to fight through the Spider-Queen’s sonic scream enough to get onto her back. Pleading with the symbiote, Flash convinced it to leave his body and latch onto the queen. Flash got smashed into a wall and took massive internal damage while the Spider-Queen desperately struggled with the symbiote.

Venom sacrificed itself to weaken the Spider-Queen enough to allow an army of dinosaurs led by Stegron to feed on her. As it died, it swore that Flash was more than just a host to it, but a friend.

NORMAN OSBORN

In one of the many alternate realities looked over in Spider-Verse, there was one where Norman Osborn became President of the United States. To help clean out America’s imperfections, he created the Variable Engagement Neurosensitive Organic Mesh for himself and his enforcers.

That world’s Captain America led a protest against the fascist hybrids. President Osborn’s undoing came from Spider-Man, who weakened the symbiotes with punk rock and brained Osborn with his guitar.

SENTRY/VOID (ROBERT REYNOLDS)

This comes from the gnarly multiversal series Contest of Champions. Various heroes and villains from different realities were forced to fight it out as part of a big plot by the Maestro. Amongst the contestants, there was an alternate universe version of Eddie Brock Venom who was driven even more insane after killing Spider-Man. It caused him to start speaking to Peter as if he was there while wearing scraps of the Spider-Man costume around his neck.

Another hero was the Sentry, who had a tendency to slip into his Void persona. While infamously near-impossible to kill, he and Stick were seemingly wiped out by Punisher 2099’s giant future gun. Afterwards, Punisher 2099 separated the symbiote from Eddie and executed them with the same gun.

Unchecked, a remainder of the symbiote bonded with a remainder of the Void. An army of savage creatures called Symbioids appeared in its wake, looking much like Venom while having the raw power of the Void. The army did battle with the mainstream universe’s Ultimates, but Maestro eventually gained power over them in a psychic battle.

During the final battle, Stick revealed that he survived Punisher 2099’s earlier ambush. With the Symbioids nearby, he merged them all together and helped the Sentry break free from within via energy manipulation powers. The experience freed the Sentry of both the Void and the symbiote.

Afterwards, Sentry was instrumental in bringing down Maestro.

SPIDER-WOMAN/SPIDER-GWEN (GWEN STACY)

So, the Spider-Gwen universe. Not really the easiest thing to explain other than Gwen Stacy was bitten by a radioactive spider and everyone else is different from how we know them in main continuity. In one story, Harry Osborn was being turned into a monster via Lizard serum. The Lizard serum was mixed with some of Gwen's essence to create this reality's version of the Venom symbiote. Gwen was quick to tame it, or so she thought. With her father in a coma, she started becoming erratic and went after those responsible. She became wanted by the authorities and although she calmed the creature, the damage was done and she ultimately had to turn herself in.

X-23 (LAURA KINNEY)

Now we get to Edge of Venomverse, which showed a bunch of alternate universe Venoms via one-shots or short stories. This one showed that the complex that experimented on Laura Kinney also experimented on the Venom symbiote. During an escape attempt, she unleashed the creature and bonded to it, making escape that much easier and more violent. She then befriended a handful of homeless youths and helped protect them by giving them pieces of the symbiote. When the government agents went after them, the symbiote pieces pulled back into X-23 and she was unceremoniously teleported out of that dimension.

She was one of the few survivors of Venomverse and returned to her home world.

GWENPOOL (GWEN POOLE)

The self-aware heroine became Venom's host in one world, though it wasn't really explained. Instead, we got an amazing team-up story about Gwenpool fighting ninjas, dealing with her evil boss, and trying to hit on Daredevil...all while her symbiote tries to both help her out and give her advice in the form of, "Kill them." Really fun issue, but Gwen's Venomverse fate wasn't a happy one.

GHOST RIDER (ROBBIE REYES)

Exacting vengeance in a badass muscle car, Robbie Reyes always had to deal with the voice of his evil Uncle Eli in his head, trying to take control. While Robbie tends to have that under control, this version was joined with the Venom symbiote. The three-way war for dominance ended when the symbiote and Eli decided to work together and turned Robbie into nothing more than a "motor." Calling himself "Host Rider," this monstrous entity spent the tie-in hunting down Calvin Zabo and making him suffer with the Penance Kiss.

Host Rider was pulled away to help with the Venomverse situation, but was forgotten about pretty quickly during the main miniseries.

NGOZI

Ngozi was a Nigerian girl who had a promising career as a track star ruined by a bus accident. Resigned to a wheelchair, she was trying to catch a grasshopper one day while ignorant to the Black Panther vs. Rhino fight going on behind her. Whatever it was about, it involved a capsule with the Venom symbiote in it. Said capsule got loose and rolled up to Ngozi's wheelchair. As Rhino killed Black Panther, the symbiote oozed onto Ngozi and told her to run. She instead used her newfound gift to turn herself into a half-woman/half-grasshopper and took down Rhino.

Soon after, she was put through trials and was accepted as the new Black Panther, replacing T'challa as the ruler and protector of Wakanda.

DOCTOR DOOM

Victor Von Doom told the Avengers that he was turning over a new leaf and that he prepared a massive peace accord. Whether he was telling the truth or not was only background as Doom was in the middle of a massive war of willpower with the Venom symbiote. Venom wanted to help him crush his enemies. Doom insisted that, "There is no we." Once the dust settled, the demonic Doom showed himself and revealed that the symbiote was bent to his will. Doom vanished as part of the Venomverse plot, but he'd soon be assimilated by the Poison race.

EVERYONE ELSE FROM VENOMVERSE

The plot of Venomverse was that there was a multiversal threat known as Poisons spreading through the worlds. This race was mostly harmless unless it touched a bonded symbiote. Suddenly, it would completely take over, make them stronger, remove their weaknesses, and absorb the host like they were food. The Poisons attempted to conquer the multiverse, led by Poison Thanos and Poison Dr. Doom. Venom hosts from various worlds would be brought in to help fight them, but many would lose and fall into their ranks.

At the beginning of the miniseries, the resistance included the likes of Spider-Man, Mary Jane, Flash Thompson, Andi Benton, Captain America, Dr. Strange, Old Man Logan, X-23, Ghost Rider, Black Panther, Ant-Man, and Rocket Raccoon. Only a handful of them survived.

As for listing the Poison hosts...yeah, I'm going to pass.

VISION AND REED GRIMM

In an alternate future created by one of Spider-Man and Deadpool's adventures, the Fantastic Four is made up of Valeria Richards, The Last Devil (who carries an Iron Fist's hand on a chain), the rock giant Reed Grimm, and Venom Vision. Venom Vision only seemed to speak in ones and zeroes with only Valeria able to understand it. The team helped the elderly Spider-Man and Deadpool fight a legion of Deadpool LMDs. They were under the control of the LMD messiah Master Matrix.

The Venom symbiote went for a desperation move by leaving Vision for Reed, but it was no use. The Deadpools tore Vision to pieces. Master Matrix singlehandedly destroyed Reed and Last Devil. Then he created synthetic symbiotes to enhance his LMD army. Before being overtaken, Valeria sent Spider-Man and Deadpool back in time to prevent this future from ever happening.

PART IV: HONORABLE MENTION

GALACTUS

Howard Mackie is a writer who likes to come up with sweet, high-concept ideas and then slink away rather than follow up on it because payoff is hard. When Spider-Man was enjoying his 30th anniversary in the '90s, Mackie penned a storyline about Mysterio messing with Spider-Man's head. The whole thing seemed like an excuse to have a splash page where Galactus appeared to him, clad in the Venom symbiote. So it doesn't really fit in with anywhere else on the list, since it's just Peter Parker tripping balls, but it is such a silly and awesome image that I can't help but include it.

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and wonders what kind of horrors would occur if Rogue became Venom. Would she just absorb it and turn into some kind of flesh-colored ooze? Read Gavin's other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

from Books https://ift.tt/2O39kEs

#aion-rsa #Books

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pipelinelaserraygun · 4 years

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youtube

SPIRITUAL Avengers, assemble!

REQUIRED VIEWING‼️

This is ABSOLUTELY critical information that you aren't going to get, from lamestream news.

You are NOT being told the whole story: we are living in an era of surveillance, where amateur footage SWINGS a PENDULUM BOTH WAYS.

youtube

Vice President Mike Pence ADDED to the momentum on Day 3 of the Republican National Convention.

NEVER rely upon sound bites.

This is outright satanic, when law-abiding citizens are being punished in order to legitimize LAWLESSNESS.

vimeo

👑👰 Mrs Christ has LONG been a ray of sunshine 🌞, on the streets of Skid Row.

By their ripe or ROTTEN FRUITS, you shall know who they are, and who they are NOT.

Please send Financial offerings: HOURS were spent, putting together ⬆️ charitable bundles for the AUGUST monthly benevolence redistribution.

EACH of the 80 care packages contains:

1) a Bible

2) reading glasses

3) travel toothbrush

4) sanitary face mask

5) Bible verse bracelet

6) water

7) snacks

youtube

REQUIRED VIEWING‼️

Participation in God's plans, by WALKING THIS OUT, can be a perilous journey. When you're NOT making a difference in this world, 👿 the world's common enemy satan pretty much leaves you ALONE. It's only when you start bringing about hands-on changes for the better, THAT'S when you are UPGRADED to superhero status!

youtube

These people have short-term memory LOSS, when it suits THEIR agenda!

Under the hussein/biden watch: "Ferguson unrest", ALSO called UPRISING in Ferguson, Missouri, involved protests and riots that started on August 10, 2014, the day AFTER the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson.

obama's 8-year Administration did NOTHING, in the aftermath.

youtube

We are days away from the start of the fast, and yet in my opinion the fasting preparations have ALREADY begun creating disturbances, within enemy camps.

God is taking an uncharted approach with how these cities are going to be taken back, by Law Enforcement.

If there are going to be suicides, they will be POLITICAL suicides self-inflicted by demo-🐀RATS.

youtube

Christ's Bridal Party will be rolling out some 🕊️ Holy Spirit RECON, in the days leading up to the November elections.

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manmanloi · 5 years

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Reflection on Comics Production

As a MLitt student, taking the Comics Production module was a challenging yet meaningful experience. For starters, I have never learned how to draw nor how to use visual editing tools. I did not take the Creating Comics module in the previous semester nor any course on scriptwriting. In other words, I am just a beginner to the comic scene. Therefore, I was thrilled when the module started.

On the first day of the semester, we were given the task to write our own script entry for a 2000AD competition. I did not expect the first thing I do for this class was to produce a story independently, with no prior sessions on how comic scripts work or how to write a comic story. Upon learning about the project, my classmates started to discuss on their ideas right away while I was still worrying about how to make a story. Taking the direction of science fiction, I began to look for inspiration…

Back in December, I went to Denmark and visited a science fiction exhibition in the Brandts, an art museum in Odense. The exhibition content was richer than I thought, ranging from the themes of dinosaur, earth’s core, under the sea, space, Egypt myth, alien, cyborg, superhero, utopia/dystopia, etc. It showcased re-imagined props, models, landscape designs, books, and movie clips. I found them intriguing and useful for brainstorming and visualizing some early ideas for the comic. The exhibition showed how much potential the science fiction genre can offer to widen the scope of storytelling. I really like the idea of robots are evolving and blending in our lives. It makes me question the difference between humans and machines. I decided to include robotic characters that disguise as humans in the story.

Picture from The Painted Skin (2008).

Picture of K/DA Ahri from League of Legends by Riot Games.

I had the idea of modernizing a Chinese folktale, The Painted Skin, as a monster disguises herself as a beautiful woman to lure men and rip their hearts out as her meals to maintain her façade. Similarly, Ahri, a character from my favourite game League of Legends, is a nine-tailed fox from the Asian folklore who also has to absorb human essence in order to stay in her mortal form. In the game’s alternate universe, Ahri is part of a virtual music group “K/DA” made by Riot Games to promote a set of in-game skins. I was hoping to create an intergalactic band like the “K/DA” that travels across the planets to perform, but they are actually robots that have been sucking out the happiness from their audience to become more like humans.

Whenever they perform live, their music would absorb the enthusiasm from the crowd, leaving them depressed and lifeless. However, their music is not strong enough to manipulate strong and deep emotions. As a literature student, I believe that only humans are capable of writing literary pieces that can truly move the others. Therefore, I introduced a poet as the main protagonist who goes around with his poems. One day, a band member took the poet’s collection and decided to turn his poem into a song. In the end, when the band performed it, the song was so genuine and powerful that it drove the audience crazy and killing themselves. This would grant the robots so much “human energy”.

In mid-February, Monty dropped by the studio to give the class some advice on the project. I showed him the synopsis and he pointed out that the protagonist does not really have a motive. He suggested me to write more about the poet and his active investigation into the band. He explained this would allow the readers to attach and follow the poet around to participate in the discovery of the truth together. By the time the secret is revealed, it will have a bigger impact.

However, I could not think of any legitimate reason for a poet to wander around the band to do investigation. And I do not have any poetic verse on my mind to put into the lyrics to show how “powerful” these poems are. Therefore, I realized this character is not suitable for my comic anymore. I changed his character to a detective which I believe it has a more reasonable motive to get suspicious over the band and can carry out some form of investigation.

I amended the synopsis to the following:

“Following a detective who connects the mystery of increasing depression rate to the intergalactic music band Soulstealers, he investigates before the band is going to perform on his planet. During his talk with the band members, he leaves his poetry collection to them as they are interested in it. After a surreal experience at the concert, he is diagnosed with depression as well.

“At the clinic, he is told an ancient folktale of the Painted Skin, where a monstrous creature had to consume human hearts to maintain its disguise as a beautiful woman. He becomes determined that the band is going to threaten the galaxy with their music, but no one believes in him.

“The band releases a new song in the final planet of their tour which results in a mass suicide of the audience. The members are impressed with the effect of the new song as they acknowledged the poetry collection as their inspiration to produce music that can suck out the most human emotions possible. Unzipping their skins in the backstage, they reveal themselves as robots, who are trying to become humans.”

As my plot was becoming a sound story, I began to work on the scriptwriting and drawing thumbnails. I honestly had no idea on how to start writing a script and what a thumbnail is. All I knew about script is the Courier font. I felt helpless – there was no workshops or lessons on planning out a story or putting pen to paper. In a desperate move, I decided I would try to learn them by myself. I went to the library to look for books on writing comic scripts. I found a book by Peter David called Writing for Comics & Graphic Novels which I thought would be perfect to helping me out!

In the book, I have learned about the Marvel style and the full script style. I have learnt that the speech balloons are mostly kept “anchored” (148). When naming the characters, the book suggests linking up words associated to the characters, to find some cultural references related to these traits and to create some social scenarios to build up their personalities (on how they would react). I named the two of the band members Maria and HALi, which are references to Maria the robot from Metropolis (1927) and the HAL the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Following the guidelines, I wrote the first page for my comic and doodled some thumbnails alongside with dialogues, so I could pair them with the right amount of words in each panel:

In mid-March, the class had a meeting at the studio where we got the chance to let our instructor, Phil, to check on our works. Besides approving my story, Phil commented that the formatting of my script was not very common as I named each panel by alphabetical order like the book did. Therefore, I updated the script in the correct format and started to draw the thumbnails properly. With the rundown of the story in mind, I drew the thumbnails, then updated my script on top of that. In this way, I could make sure each panel can include the right amount of information.

When visualizing the idea, I took inspiration from a newly-released Netflix sci-fi anthology – Love, Death + Robots. In one of the episodes, Good Hunting, it involves a nine-tailed fox/ “huli jing” (wicked fox lady in Chinese). The setting is in a steampunk colonial Hong Kong, which is my hometown. In the end, the fox lady infused her ancient magic with modern technology and became a robotic nine-tailed fox to hunt men. This is a perfect source for my story as it also references to the fox folktale and having charming performers revealing themselves as robots. I just thought the episode is stunning and amazing and see so much potential in my story as well.

Picture from Good Hunting in Love, Death + Robots (2019).

My classmate, Thanos, told me he would scan his hand-drawn thumbnails and edit them on Photoshop. I do not know how to edit drawn images on Photoshop. Therefore, I used the Comic Life 3 software that my professor has recommended me, to make my own framing for the panels. I printed the frames out, and drew on top of it by hand, then scanned them in again to become my final thumbnails. I have also shown my thumbnails to the MDes students, to see if they could understand my instruction through an artist’s perspective. Tony gave me some suggestions on the speech balloon placements and reading orders.

After updating the script, I have sent my work to my fellow MLitt students in the course, so we could cross-check each other’s work and exchange feedback. One of the advices from Thanos was to add a defining font for the band in the comic so to act as a branding and leaving visual hints of their robotic natures. Story-wise, they told me to add more clues, foreshadowing and explanation that the band has to consume human emotions gathered from their live performances. In terms of writing, Holly suggested me to proofread on my grammar as I sometimes describe the scene with present tense but sometimes with past tense.

After receiving feedback from my classmates, I moved on to finalizing my script. I ran through my work to Cam Kennedy when he dropped by the studio. I was so glad and relieved when he said that my story was well-presented. Encouraged by his words, I referenced the formats of my classmates and did one last amendment to the script and added the synopsis in the cover.

Looking back on the project, I am quite satisfied with what I wrote, given that this is my first time writing a comic script. When writing for each panel, I just knew how much contents to include. I realized that this could be a difficult step as my fellow classmate Holly had to cut down some exposition. I think this might be something that I am good at and should focus on improving this skill as my strength. On the other hand, character design, formatting and grammar are something that I should pay more attention to. I am grateful for Monty’s advice about the character’s motive and Holly’s help on proofreading the grammar of my writing. I wish I could have spent more time researching for comic scripts in the archive so to catch up with the script formats.

The second project in the module began as we were invited to the V&A Dundee during the second week of the semester. The class visited the V&A exhibition together and I felt like we were on a field trip which was very fun. Until we were told to make our own webcomic for the V&A website, in which they did not provide any “MLitt exception” like the scriptwriting option for the 2000AD project. I was devastated and felt helpless once again. I suggested to write an article by interviewing my class when they are producing their webcomics. Chris then suggested: “how about you make a comic on making the comics!” Phil also suggested that I can incorporate real life photos with the comics by visual editing tools. I began to ask my MDes classmates if they would be willing to help me to do some extra drawings and interviews.

A week later, the V&A Dundee staff came to listen to our ideas. My idea was to interview my classmates on making their webcomics at different stages of the project. When I told them my plan, it sounded very vague because I did not have any visual support to visualize the comic. Phil told me about a software called Comic Life which provides templates and visual aids for making a comic. The V&A staff reminded me to make the contents accessible to everyone – by explaining the context of the project and using easier phrases instead of comic jargons. After that, I tried out the programme and made the decision of making four issues of comics consisting of four panels each.

In order to give a sense of what it would look like, I mocked up two issues for the presentation. I edited my personal photos and placed them on some photos I have taken at the V&A and the DJCAD studio as the background. I wanted the photos to look like they were “drawn” so I processed them with different filters. Here are some slides I have presented:

After getting the approval and some advice for the presentation, I began to have small talks with my classmates and checking on them in the studio. I tried to take notes of who has material that is suitable for each of the issues, hence allocating them in different issues and reaching out to ask them for one piece of cartoon-style portrait of themselves. I was a bit worried if they would reject me since this means taking some of their extra time to draw and interview for me. Luckily, they were all on board and excited to see the idea comes to life.

I dropped by the studio for a week after the class is done with the 2000AD project so I could interview my classmates and took photos of their working areas. One of the difficulties for me was paraphrasing my classmates’ answers as I did not want to fill the whole panel with words without stripping away the gist of their words. I was worried about not following the unspoken rule of keeping each bubble under 25 words. However, I realized that the nature of this comic is more like a comic essay, so it makes sense to have more words.

The rest of my work was rather simple: I just had to wait for my classmates to submit their drawings to me, process their works and edited them to match the composition of each panel. I decided to unify the colour format of the comic to orange and blue which was inspired by the V&A Dundee website’s colour scheme.

When the V&A staff came by the studio for a final checking, they told me to amend the branding by using the full title of “V&A Dundee.” Phil asked me to adjust the speech bubbles so the words would not get so close to the edges. I tried to change the shape of the bubbles from circles to squares and changed the font from “Antihero Intl BB” to “Digital Strip.” By doing so, the gaps in the bubbles were widen while not covering up too much space of the overall panels. However, during the final presentation, Phil reminded me that this issue was still very visible and told me to use Photoshop to edit the lettering properly. Rayne kindly took me to the library and showed me how to do the work as I worried that it would “squeeze” the words as I resize them. Apparently, if I hold “shift,” I could adjust the size of the words in proportion which was a very helpful tip!

While working on this project, I really tried to capture all the important bits of the process and show the readers what it is like to make a comic. I wanted to do justice for all my classmates who helped me – to let them show their efforts and brilliant ideas behind each panel and to keep my webcomic as a record for the class to remember. Collaborating with the V&A Dundee was a really big deal and would look great on my resume so I wanted to give all I can offer to this project. There were many first-times in this project and seeing my comic coming together as a whole really surprised me for how far I have come. I have learned the spirit of “never say no” and be brave to give everything a try – luckily, my classmates were kind and patient to teach me through my mistakes and instructors gave me some helpful advice along the way.

The third project is the logo design which marks my first time of using Illustrator. I did not plan to make my own brand, so I did not have anything on my mind for a logo. The only thing I had been working on for this module was the blog so I decided to make a logo for the blog – Man Man Loi. It is a Romanized English for the Cantonese words 漫慢來 with the literal meaning for each word being “comic,” “slow,” and “come” respectively. I named my blog this way to symbolize my journey through this module – taking small steps in learning new skills and progress as a comic student. The phrase can mean “take it slow” in English. I believe in the attitude of “patient work makes a fine product” which comes from a Chinese idiom. If I ever take this brand to my work in the future, I would like it to represent my attitude in working as an editor with this belief.

Since the phrase is related to “taking steps,” I wanted to use stairs as the shape of the logo which symbolizes stepping upwards to the goal. Since reading English text is from top left towards the right hand side, the original line up of the words would read in a descending manner which did not match the concept of stepping up. Therefore, I changed the starting point of the words from the bottom left. There were also scrapped designs of a stick figure walking up the stairs or the dot of the “i” bouncing upwards. However, they looked ridiculous with my ammeter Illustrator skills and did not really help to signal the motion of going upwards. Therefore, I decided to keep it simple and only showed the English and Chinese words on a pink staircase. For the Chinese words, I struggled between placing the words on the stairs or on one side vertically so I asked my friends and they all prefer the latter one.

All in all, I cannot believe that I have made it through this module. Every task was a new challenge that sounded so impossible for me in the first place. Everything was very over-whelming for me and I had a tough time adapting to them. I remember something Phil told the MLitt students in the beginning: “Don’t let your limitation limits you.” These words pushed me forward to accept these challenges and I have come to realize that my limitations opened new ideas for me as well. For example, if it was not for the “no MLitt exception” in the V&A Dundee project, I would not have thought of making a comic about making comics! These experiences encouraged me to try new things and not be afraid to ask for help. I kept asking my classmates along the way and they were all very nice: doing an extra drawing for me, spending time to do an interview, teaching me on how to use different programs, reviewing my works etc. I have realized that my classmates are my biggest assets and I am forever grateful for that.

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