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crazyaboutto · 3 years

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Someone might have done this before, I didn’t check the tags thoroughly but whatever.

I only know Mephisto from a few places so I wasn’t very knowledgeable about him and decided to do research. I plan to do this for Agnes/Agatha Harkness and House of M. Feel free to DM me to talk about WandaVision theories.

Source: Marvel Wikia

What I’ll be talking about?

1. Who is Mephisto?

2. What are his powers?

3. What is his relationship to the characters in WandaVision in comics?

4. WandaVision Theory

The first 3 parts will be taken from Marvel Wikia and summarized.

1. Who is Mephisto?

Mephisto has many aliases such as The Devil, Satan and Lucifer. He is an extradimentional demon. He calls his realm “Hell” in order to exploit Earth human beings' belief in a single being of absolute evil. He is not the actual Satan but he allows himself to be called names that human beings give to their conceptions of devils. Mephisto is continually seeking to add more spirits of sentient beings to his realm by inducing living sentient beings to submit their wills to his. Mephisto apparently seeks primarily to enslave all human souls.

2. What are his powers?

Mephisto is an experienced and highly skilled liar and strategist. He is also a highly skilled sorcerer with near infinite knowledge of arcane and occult subjects.

His powers:

Superhuman Strength, Superhuman Speed, Superhuman Stamina, Superhuman Durability, Regenerative Healing Factor, Immortality, Penance Stare immunity, Medium Awareness, Netherworld Dimensional Power Tap.

§ Shapeshifting:Mephisto is more of a force than a physical being, one that can take any form that he wants. His "normal" appearance is that of male, red skinned humanoid with vampiric aspect and attire. However, Mephisto can appear in any form imaginable, having turning himself into animals, humans of any gender, or more commonly into other demonic forms, ranging from a stereotypical image of Satan to a giant reptilian monster.

§Mystical Deal:Through a Faustian bargain, Mephisto is able to fulfill almost any wish that someone wants in exchange for something that they have - usually their souls. Once the agreement is sealed, it is virtually impossible for the victim to escape compliance.

§ Ensnare Astral Bodies:Mephisto also possesses certain powers enabling him to capture and detain the astral bodies (sheaths of the soul) of recently deceased human beings. Mephisto does not have jurisdiction over all the souls of humanity's recently deceased. It is not yet known what the prerequisite conditions are for him to be able to manipulate a human soul, nor are the precise means by which he accomplishes the feat known. Apparently these conditions require that the human being in question willingly agree to submit to Mephisto's will. It is not known how a human being may free himself from bondage to Mephisto, nor whether Mephisto will forever retain control of the souls he has obtained. Nor is it known whether or not Mephisto "feeds" on the psychic energies of such souls as other demons do.

§Dimensional Entrapment:Apparently Mephisto can entrap a living human being within his realm through sheer physical force, even if the person did not submit his or her will to him.

§Reality Manipulation:Mephisto was able to create the realities Earth-7161 and Earth-71241 by creating a small alteration in the Earth-616 reality.

§Magical Manipulation:He can control magical energy for various effects, among which are the augmentation of his own physical strength, levitation, teleportation, the projection of mystical energy as force blasts, invisibility, matter manipulation, image projection, size transformation of his body or other objects or beings, the creation of temporary inter-dimensional apertures, and so on.

3. What is his relationship to the characters in WandaVision in comics?

Tommy and Billy Maximoff: Mephisto's soul was used by Wanda to give birth to the twins.Mephisto reabsorbed them, effectively ending their existence.

Wanda Maximoff: Mephisto absorbing the twins’ souls drove Wanda mad, resulting in her altering all reality.

Agatha Harkness: Agatha claimed that Scarlet Witch's children were actually fragments of the soul of Mephisto and wiped Wanda's memory of her children rather than fight to free the two from Mephisto when he reabsorbed the twins.

4. WandaVision Theory

So far: We have 6 episodes. The storyline gives off House of M vibes. Agnes seems to be Agatha Harkness from the comics which I’ll be talking about in another post. Dottie who is the key to the town only appeared in episodes 2 & 3 of the show. Director Tyler Hayward is pushing Wanda to defend herself.

THEORY:

Everything up to Wanda’s pregnancy was pushing Wanda to think about children despite no children was seen until episode 6. The whole talent show was “for the children” despite no children being present. Dottie was in charge of the talent show for the children. When Dottie was giving a speech about the talent show, she said “The Devil is the details” and Agnes said “It’s not the only place where he is”. She again said “For the children” during that speech.

Director Hayward first appeared in episode 4 and all he did was to antagonize Wanda. He is outside and he is giving Wanda every reason to stay inside The Hex. He is also painting her as the villain, trying to make others see her as the villain as well. He knew that Wanda would have deflected the bomb he sent into The Hex and that it would just anger her, making her less cooperative. He is also psychologically pressuring Wanda. You might say “He is the regular asshole” but what if he isn’t?

As mentioned in Powers, Mephisto can shapeshift into any form imaginable. Remember that on the people and their real life ID board, we didn’t see Dottie. What if Mephisto took the shape of a former soul he collected? That soul can be old and hence that is why Dottie wouldn’t be identified. The other minor characters were identified and they were shown. If Dottie was also identified then we would have seen her on the board too. Even if she is identified, there is no guarantee that Mephisto wouldn’t take her form. Dottie was the one who organized the event “for the children”, giving subtle message to Wanda for creating her own children. She even said “The Devil is the details” which is normal to say normally but not when the fans theorized Mephisto involvement after it was announced. Agnes, who is likely to be Agatha Harkness who mentored Wanda, said “It’s not the only place where he is”. I believe she, as an ancient being, knows about Mephisto and she subconsciously warned Wanda then. After what Wanda is supposed to do is done, Dottie doesn’t become a main character. Maybe that is the real Dottie in episode 5. Mephisto is done with her after Wanda got pregnant. After that, I think he started to impersonate Director Hayward. As mentioned above, everything Hayward did made Wanda to be more unstable and to want to stay in The Hex. I think Mephisto would want that and he is a perfect strategist. Maybe he didn’t shapeshift into those people but maybe they had a deal with him and he manipulated them into doing his bidding (See:Powers). Additionally, everything that happens inside The Hex makes Wanda stay inside.

In episode 6, Pietro calls “demon spawns” to Tommy and Billy. This isn’t even subtle. I think it is either subconscious warning that Wanda told herself via Pietro. Or it could be Pietro himself since he died once and maybe has knowledge that isn’t aware. Or it can be Mephisto being a little shit. He might have gotten Pietro’s soul when he died. In Powers, it is said that the conditions for him to entrap a recently deceased soul is unknown. He might have gotten Pietro’s soul when he died and now he is using Pietro to manipulate Wanda.

As mentioned in Powers, Mephisto can manipulate magic and reality. I think that is how Westview is affected. The reality inside The Hex is ever changing.

In episode 5, Norm played the pronoun game “Stop her” instead of saying “Stop Wanda”. It wouldn’t make a difference for Vision since he already thinks “she” is “Wanda”. What if that “she” is actually “Dottie”? Norm didn’t say her name because he doesn’t know it. He only knows she is the one doing him harm. This might be the other clue is that Dottie is indeed Mephisto himself.

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Ps4

So in a discussion about ps4 a person said their take. Its one which i think you will have some stuff to say about, It was too long to fit in questions. “

PS4 Peter is so static, he does not grow at all or learn anything by the end of the game. Either because he’s too stupid to learn or because there’s nothing to learn, add to this his continued questionable moral decisions like trapping Sandman in a public space for at least 5 years, deciding to save MJ before a room full of hostages and an incredibly lethal bioweapon, seriously considering saving his aunt over the lives of hundreds and the only real challenge I felt presented to him was physical, not emotional. Other than the ending of course, but even then, that’s the most we see of this Peter’s inner workings. 616 Peter was so in depth we even got to see him question God and his religion, or struggle to find the right path in life. This Peter does not grow at all and that seriously annoys me, even a 25 minute episode of the 90s series or Spec made it a point that Peter would be at least a little more knowledgeable than at the beginning. I really did not like this Peter that much at all. He was fine but nothing Amazing, Spectacular, Sensational or any other adjectives Jameson would describe him as. But this Peter does not fully act out great power or responsibility, he doesn’t seem to be able to shoulder that weight of being Spider-Man or Peter Parker, not because of lack of strength but because of lack of character. On the PS1 game, when Venom forces Peter to choose between the city of New York and MJ, Peter chooses New York because it’s his responsibility as Spider-Man. In 616, MJ nearly doesn’t go with Peter at first because he’s just so driven as Spider-Man and NOT Peter Parker, the person she really loves. But Spider-Man is Peters form of finding redemption, and later, of continuing to live out his own ideal of great power and responsibility. Until events like OMD or most of Slotts run, Peter never ever chose himself or his own needs before the needs of everyone else because it was his responsibility to see his own journey through, to redeem himself for killing Ben and being a bad person, to protect that from happening to anyone else and to become the person he himself needed to be long ago. If you make Peter choose his own needs first, then everything crumbles apart. Then we question why he never showed up to his friends party instead of stopping a petty robbery if he was more devoted to them then to his own redemption, we question why he didn’t do x or y because he fundementally is looking for a way to keep both Spidey and Peter going, choosing Spidey before his own needs if it comes to that. Slott didn’t get that, that’s why his run is so bad. He consistently makes Peter choose his own selfish needs again and again just like he did to kill Uncle Ben. That’s why OMD was bad, Peter refused his responsibility to see the consequences of Spider-Man through, choosing instead his own personal wants over the happiness and even lives of others. That’s what people don’t get about Spidey, he should never choose himself over the greater good. If he does, Uncle Ben dies all over again. Peter is only ever treated as niave and optomistic when he’s a teenager and primarily in Ultimate once he’s grown past being a seflish jerk into a hero. As he grows he becomes more than that. Why is this adult Peter treated the same way? Shouldn’t he resemble his more grown up counterparts? Copy paste a large criticism i wrote a while back abour Peter(edited) In short department, it’s decent.”

“PS4 Peter is so static, he does not grow at all or learn anything by the end of the game. Either because he’s too stupid to learn or because there’s nothing to learn,”

Let’s put aside how Peter changes via his aunt’s death and becoming a mentor. Let’s put aside how he changes to be less protective and more trusting of Mary Jane.

Why exactly...does he NEED to change?

A story doesn’t demand a character have an arc. Dredd, the excellent and underrated 2012 film, doesn’t have the central character of Judge Dredd himself change or develop. We see him in action and we learn about his philosophy and a little of who he is. That performance and characterization within the context of the film was praised by fans and critics alike in spite of the film’s low box office performance.

A story doesn’t DEMAND a character change, it can simply be an exploration of who that character is and what makes them tick. In a sense we can see how Peter will react to the situations the game presents as opposed to seeing him change in response to those. This actually makes a lot of sense for the Big Picture the game is going for. This game was never intended to just be A game. It was intended to be the foundation of a multimedia Spider-Man/Marvel imprint franchise centered around the video games, the Marvel Gamerverse.

To that end spending a game simply exploring who Spider-Man is before getting down to the business of having him change as a person makes sense.

“ add to this his continued questionable moral decisions like trapping Sandman in a public space for at least 5 years,”

Don’t even know what they’re talking about with this one.

“ deciding to save MJ before a room full of hostages and an incredibly lethal bioweapon”

Did that even happen. That’s not how I remember it.

“seriously considering saving his aunt over the lives of hundreds ”

Spider-Man isn’t perfect. He is not a hero because he is above temptation, but in spite of it. It doesn’t matter in context that he considered saving May instead of everyone else, what matters is he did save others in the end.

“and the only real challenge I felt presented to him was physical, not emotional.”

Fighting your mentor and sacrificing your aunt, trying to mentor a kid who lost his Dad and learning to trust your girlfriend aren’t emotional challenges?

“Other than the ending of course, but even then, that’s the most we see of this Peter’s inner workings.”

As opposed to every line of dialogue where to himself where he questions things. As opposed to the texting scene!

“616 Peter was so in depth we even got to see him question God and his religion, or struggle to find the right path in life.”

Learning to trust your girlfriend, making the horrible choice to sacrifice your mother so everyone else can live isn’t a strggle to find the right path?

Also Peter never questioned God outside of that one shitty Amazing Grace comic book.

“This Peter does not grow at all and that seriously annoys me, even a 25 minute episode of the 90s series or Spec made it a point that Peter would be at least a little more knowledgeable than at the beginning.”

Spider-Man didn’t grow as a person in the Kid Who Collects Spider-Man or Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut, or To Have and To Hold. A story need not demand Spider-Man evolve and change, it can just explore who he is.

“I really did not like this Peter that much at all. He was fine but nothing Amazing, Spectacular, Sensational or any other adjectives Jameson would describe him as.”

Spider-Man’s remit is to be a relatable everyman juggling responsiblites and using superhuman will power to sae the day even at the cost of his own happiness.

The game did that.

Therefore it is a good Spider-Man rendition.

“But this Peter does not fully act out great power or responsibility, he doesn’t seem to be able to shoulder that weight of being Spider-Man or Peter Parker, not because of lack of strength but because of lack of character.”

How can you say that when he let May die for the greater good, when he defeated Otto and saved the whole city, when he brought down Fisk and the gangs and did everything else?

“On the PS1 game, when Venom forces Peter to choose between the city of New York and MJ, Peter chooses New York because it’s his responsibility as Spider-Man. In 616, MJ nearly doesn’t go with Peter at first because he’s just so driven as Spider-Man and NOT Peter Parker, the person she really loves. But Spider-Man is Peters form of finding redemption, and later, of continuing to live out his own ideal of great power and responsibility. ”

False.

If being Spider-Man was about redemption then Peter would’ve redeemed himself in ASM #2 when he averted an alien invasion. Sure it was fake but he didn’t know that.

Peter was Spider-Man from out the gate because he recognized through Ben’s death that the powers he had obliged him to use them to help others.

Also Spider-Man and Peter Parker are one and the same, there isn’t a ‘real guy’.

“Until events like OMD or most of Slotts run, Peter never ever chose himself or his own needs before the needs of everyone else because it was his responsibility to see his own journey through, to redeem himself for killing Ben and being a bad person, to protect that from happening to anyone else and to become the person he himself needed to be long ago.”

Again Spider-Man’s story isn’t about redemption, and there were multiple instances for various reasons where he entirely in character DID choose ‘himself’ over the greater good. I say ‘himself’ in quotations because it was really more about his loved ones. He chose to go to Aunt May’s side in ASM #9 to the point where he didn’t even notice a bunch of criminals below him. He chose to skip out on the Goblin attacking the spidey fan club and leave it up to the Torch because Aunt May had fallen sick. He reluctantly chose to leave Smythe’s spider slayer to the authorities because Mary Jane tearfully asked for his help in Pittsburgh. Hell in the Book of Ezekiel he saved MJ from the Guardian Spider creature before he saved anyone else.

He cares about everyone but 9/10 he views his family’s wellbeing as his #1 priority. They’re treating that as no different than him getting good grades or making a date or something, but the game actively shows you that he sacrifices those things for the greater good. He sacrifices his mother for the greater good.

“If you make Peter choose his own needs first, then everything crumbles apart.”

Good thing he never does this in the game then.

“Then we question why he never showed up to his friends party instead of stopping a petty robbery if he was more devoted to them then to his own redemption, ”

For the sake of argument let’s pretend this clown is correct that Spider-Man is a hero out of a need for redemption. By that logic and using the argument he’s going for wouldn’t fighting crime instead of partying with his friends BE an example of him serving his own needs first and foremost. Serving his own need for redemption??????

This guy’s logic is incredibly faulty.

But again, good thing Peter isn’t Spider-Man out of a sense of redemption and he never goes partying instead of heroing in the game isn’t it?

“we question why he didn’t do x or y because he fundementally is looking for a way to keep both Spidey and Peter going, choosing Spidey before his own needs if it comes to that. Slott didn’t get that, that’s why his run is so bad. He consistently makes Peter choose his own selfish needs again and again just like he did to kill Uncle Ben. ”

Uh huh go on.

“That’s why OMD was bad, Peter refused his responsibility to see the consequences of Spider-Man through, choosing instead his own personal wants over the happiness and even lives of others.”

Uh huh go on.

“That’s what people don’t get about Spidey, he should never choose himself over the greater good. If he does, Uncle Ben dies all over again.”

This is mostly accurate, there are exceptions because he is human but mostly accurate. Still not seeing how the game doesn’t depict this.

“Peter is only ever treated as niave and optomistic when he’s a teenager and primarily in Ultimate once he’s grown past being a seflish jerk into a hero.”

Does he though?

I remember him being surely in USM at times and he was a worry wart in Ditko’s run A LOT. There was literally an issue where he comments that nothing is wrong and yet he feels anxious and the narrator/Stan even pities him over that.

So naively optimistic doesn’t really ring true at all.

“As he grows he becomes more than that. Why is this adult Peter treated the same way? Shouldn’t he resemble his more grown up counterparts?”

He does. He isn’t naively optimistic as a 23 year old in the comics OR the video game. He can be optimistic at times but not naively so.

Optimism and pessimism aren’t a binary, they’re a spectrum.

“In short department, it’s decent.”

Yeah the above points don’t amount to ‘its decent’ it amounts to ‘it sucks’.

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krumbine · 4 years

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Creative Every Day: One Month Later

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With the start of April, I wanted to challenge myself to work on something creative every day. Here’s how it went.

First, I’m a liar.

I didn’t actually work on something every day because I mostly took weekends off. Also, if I found myself staring into a black abyss of meaninglessness and depression, I ended up taking the weekday off, too.

Creativity’s Unbreakable Rule #1: you can’t force creativity.

So let me tell you how I forced creativity.

A disclaimer: it helps to not have anything else to do. Although I set this challenge for myself first, shortly afterwards I was furloughed from my job as a video editor at Visit Orlando. A lot of people look at unemployment and quarantine as the worst possible time to “finish that novel” and these people are not wrong! I personally dove into the aforementioned abyss, ate a box of donuts, and cried myself to sleep while rewatching old episodes of Psych.

Three days later, I hit peak boredom. This is a brilliant phase of life that precedes an even more brilliant period of creative productivity––a period where you’ve gotten so bored doing every imaginable un-creative thing possible (including sorting and throwing out that pile of old mail and cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen) that you have absolutely nothing else better to do than stare at a flashing cursor on a blank screen.

My friends, peak boredom is one of those massive bean bags that sucks you deeper and deeper into its squishy abyss.

This. Is. A gift.

The rules for my creative every day challenge were as follows:

Work would be split amongst the two categories of writing and video projects.

Writing projects were either short stories or musings. Video projects were split into animation projects, short stories for YouTube (a teleprompter-based dramatic performance of sorts), long-form Behind the Final Cut vlogs, and miscellaneous work (such as my “Creative Wizard” title sequence for YouTube or the animated title cards for my written short stories).

All of this work was meticulously tracked in my production schedule board on Trello––and I’m pretty sure this is a big reason April went as well as it did.

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Friends, it’s one thing to do the work but it is something else altogether to see the cumulative total of all the work. Trello does that for you––especially if you’re like me, a jack-of-all trades creative that loves doing a little bit of everything.

The other component of this challenge was to share a finished project every day.

What did I learn in the first month? Again: I’m a liar.

I think I did an okay job maintaining a 24-hour period, but my typical day isn’t a nine-to-five jam.

(Remember, we can’t force creativity, so we have to figure out ways to hack our lives to make it flow with more ease.)

My best case writing example was, “The Insufferable Silence in Apartment 616”. I spent the day writing this 2400-word tome in a midday and then a nighttime burst. I posted it late the next morning after doing the graphic design work on the title card. So, kinda-sorta within a 24-hour period, with the graphic design caveat.

My worst case writing example was “Red Alert in the Department of Human Asset Management & Existential Mitigation”. Marginally shorter than “Insufferable” but legit took a few days to write.

Definitely not abiding the “share every day” rule, but I still worked on it every day.

To that end, even the days when I didn’t post something, I was still taking notes, plotting, or giving my creative fuel tank a chance to refill.

Here’s what I actually created in April.

Of nineteen total projects, ten were videos. Eight of those videos went up on YouTube (the other two were title sequence/animation pieces).

8. Wizard of Speed and Time Vinyl Unboxing 7. Quarantine’s End Short Story 6. Tiger King Quotes 5. Trello and the Art of Creative Project Management 4. The LEGO Wizard Digs a Fossil 3. Rexzilla! 2. The LEGO Wizard Builds a Car; a T. Rex Stomps a Car 1. Stygimoloch vs Raptor Fetus

The remaining nine projects were in the writing category, totaling 12,614 words. Seven short stories and two musings.

9. The Insufferable Silence in Apartment 616 8. Red Alert in the Department of Human Asset Management and Existential Mitigation 7. Explorers of the Unknown vs the Last Gift Shop on the Left 6. A Sinful Pivot 5. Thoughts on 35: Birthdays in the Time of the Pandemic 4. Karen Finds a Hobby 3. Max Nebula and the Simpering Spark of Hope 2. Quarantine’s End: Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em 1. There’s Just So Much Noise

Here are a few more things I learned:

- I like to write to read. Like, aloud. Firstly, I think it just sounds better in your head. Secondly, one of my video projects is to adapt my short stories for YouTube, so I’m basically writing a video script each time I sit down at the keyboard.

- The screenwriter in me prefers to write (mostly) only essential description. It speeds up the process and, I’d like to think, helps engage the reader. When I offer a short, three-sentence description of Jason in “The Last Gift Shop on the Left”, I’m painting a very broad tough-guy image and letting your imagination fill in the details.

Jeans, t-shirt, leather jacket. Strong features and a stronger chin. He wore his hair long and in a ponytail because manly men have pony tails.

- I’m a big fan of the em-dash. Like, seriously.

- The volume of complications in video work is the fastest way to psych yourself out of doing anything at all. Even when I’m not producing, I’m outlining my stop motion sequences, arranging sets, placing lights, setting up shots.

- There’s a saying that goes, “The hardest part about running is putting on your shoes.” The same is true for any creative work, which is why I spend a lot of time making it as easy as possible to just get started. That’s also why as soon as I have an idea for something, it goes on my Trello board––I’m never casting about for the next thing to work on because I have an entire catalog with ripe ideas waiting to be plucked.

Despite the pandemic outside, despite the unemployment, despite uncertain futures, April was a good month for me. It was good because at the end of the day––hopefully every day––I want to feel like I did something creative.

Mission accomplished.

Stay creative. Stay quarantined. And be gentle to yourselves, my friends.

Krumbine

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jordan Krumbine is a professional video editor, digital artist, and creative wizard currently quarantined in Kissimmee, Florida. When not producing content for the likes of Visit Orlando, Orlando Sentinel, or AAA National, Jordan is probably yelling at a stubbornly defective Macbook keyboard, tracking creative projects in Trello, and animating quirky videos with LEGO and other various toys.

Leave a dollar in the Tip Jar: https://ko-fi.com/krumbine

Short stories: https://bit.ly/2XY5D7I Books on Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/3bsqK5Y YouTube: https://bit.ly/2W41nSG Twitter: https://bit.ly/2VH0Vbu Facebook: https://bit.ly/2VpnylZ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2xnmk1e

http://www.krumbco.com

#krumbine #jordan krumbine #musings #creative #creativity #video production #video editor #writer #short stories #creative process

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agentem · 3 years

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Marvel 616 review.

I thought this documentary series would be more ABOUT the 616 Marvel universe. But it’s really a collection of different documentaries that weren’t long enough to be their own features. Each one has a different topic/creatives and some have wildly different tones. It’s also weird that it’s a series because I feel like some fans would be super interested in one episode but not give a shit about another?

Here is what they are in case you are interested:

1. “Japanese Spider-Man” Kind of what it says on the tin. It’s about the 80s Japanese live action Spider-man. The best parts are in subtitle, when they talk to the actors and stunt man. Lots of Stan Lee worship. Director also did “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, for sense of tone.

2. “Higher, Further, Faster.” This was one I thought I’d enjoy a lot more. It’s about women in comics and has interviews with Sana Amanat, Trina Robbins, Kelly Sue DeConnick a lot of female creators I really admire. I think where it fails is that it can only talk about Marvel comics, and it feels like there are gaping holes. And it does make it seem like no one ever had a big female superhero before Carol Danvers and I would’ve liked to hear more indie comics and DC (Wonder Woman lurks in the shadows). Initial documentary effort by actress Gillian Jacobs (Community).

3. “Amazing Artisans” About two current Marvel artists who live and work in Spain. Both inspiring stories, details of creation of “Miles Morales: Spider-man” and “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur”. Also a lot of subtitles so I got to practice my Spanish. A little self congratulatory about how diverse Marvel is. Later episodes only show white executives.

4. “Lost and Found” Comedy episode. Actor Paul Scheer pretends to be making a cartoon about an unknown Marvel property. Covers a lot of weird Marvel backlist. Then tracks down the creatives behind one, Brute Force, in particular. Cameos from actors and comedians like Jon Hamm, Nicole Byer, and Jack McBrayer who “audition” to do the voices of these dumb characters.

5. “Suit Up!” Tribute to several cosplayers converging on New York Comic Con. I appreciate this because cosplay is kind of looked down on by a certain group of nerds. Old school types. It also made me sad that there was NYCC this year and this about how old this is.

6. “Unboxed” Talks to Hasbro and Funko toy designers about what they do. I wish there had been a bit more focus on toys for kids and not ocollectibles but that’s just me. Includes beautiful photography by Mitchell Wu, some of which I have seen on tumblr.

7. “The Marvel Method” Follows Dan Slott and his team as they work on Iron Man 2020. He’s one of the few creators who still uses Stan Lee’s “Marvel method” of writing, without a full script. Honestly as someone who works in publishing this gave me anxiety. And I kind of wanted them all to stop encouraging this.

8. “Spotlight” This reminded me very much of the Disney+ series “Encore” in that it celebrates high school theater and follows regular people in a school production. Except in this case it is actual teens doing Marvel plays, which I did not know was a thing. There is a production of Squirrel Girl and Ms Marvel (they are pushing Ms Marvel hard). Some of the voice overs sounded scripted but I do like getting to see actual kids become superheroes.

There is no connective tissue between these episodes. So if you care about cosplay and not toy design, you don’t have to watch them all. Which I guess is good? But then why present it as a series?

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katrinapavela · 7 years

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Olivia Pope: When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong (#Scandal S7)

NB: This essay is now available as a free PDF download

Olivia and Mellie had a riot of a scene in “Pressing The Flesh” (702), which I enjoyed, but was not the one that left the most indelible impression. The presidential bedroom scene was filled with pithy quips about the sexist double standards befalling women in powerful positions, and the crucible of expectations in which they are enmeshed. It was also a reminder that being in those spaces does not make them original, just rare. I bring up that scene because the themes it contains are connected to the ones in another scene that impressed me. They are themes which this essay explores: the meaning of success for women in patriarchal institutions; and a denial of feminine values being the price of power in those spaces.

Olivia walks into a male space (the bathroom) with ease, comfortable inhabiting spaces not created with her in mind. She is there to leverage blackmail against President Rashad, should he not wish to comply with the proposed nuclear treaty. For the second episode in a row, Olivia threatens the adolescent family member of a man to get him to play ball. Her father, former Command, spent a lifetime playing this kind of ball, and even once had it played against him. The man she still loves had this kind of ball played against him. Even she has had this type of ball played against her, both as the leveraged ‘object’ (kidnapping), and the leveraged ‘subject’ (S3-5). Having earlier told Mellie that being in these positions of power does not make her original, Olivia, in this moment, lives up to her own words. She believes her end is right, no matter how dark the means, she is justified. There is nothing original about her behaviour in this moment. Chiefs of Staff and Vice Presidents before her have gone down this same road. I’m sure they were all self-righteously convinced. Self-delusion is a heck of a thing. Yet, Olivia imagined that as head of B6-13 and HBIC in the White House, things were going to be different. She would be the key to setting the nation on the right path, and Mellie was her conduit. She, as her father proclaimed of himself, was the lynchpin in making “democracy possible” (302). Now that B6-13 was under her wing (the source of the blackmail), she couldn’t lose. Or could she. She gets called “The Devil”, something her father, Rowan, has been labelled (“Even the Devil Deserves a Second Chance” (507)). Rashad turns Olivia’s own words back to her (like a mirror):

“You’re right, Ms. Pope. Actions do speak louder than words. And this? This tells me your country is still sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong your actions tell me America is still sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.” When Olivia warns President Rashad not to let his pride get in the way of progress (this, too will come back at Liv), He tells her that Ambassador Marashi warned him about her as the devil who threatened his child. This, Rashad says, “tells me everything I need to know about your character”. Rashad leaves. Having failed with this blackmail attempt, a dejected Olivia catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and quickly looks away, hanging her head. She is unable to look at her own image in the bathroom’s mirror:

Destination Syndrome

Olivia: “I am a person. I am not a hen. I am not a prize… And I have a business to run, people to support. A life to lead. A desire to wake up and face myself in the mirror every day. Oh, and oh…once I fixed a presidential election, and I’d like a chance to right that wrong. …This is not about you. My whole life is not about you. I have goals. I have DREAMS! I did this for me. …I have to take care of myself. I have to protect my people. I can’t spend all my time worrying about you. This whole house worries about you: what you want, what you need. It has to be about what I want and what I need.”

Ever since I wrote about the scene above from “We Do Not Touch the First Ladies” (312), I have waited to know what Olivia dreams of (we’ve seen it three times (406, 410, 610). Waited to hear, or see her goals defined (is she there yet?). Waited for the moment she looks in the mirror and feels good about what is reflected back at her. We’re both still waiting.

Two things stick out for me, in the present, from Olivia’s words above: the mentioning of personhood and self-care, as well her relationship with Fitz needing to be about her emotional needs as well. But Olivia has never been able to articulate what she wants, and certainly not to Fitz (while he was president), so fulfilment was not possible in that regard. She runs before she can ever reach that point. Secondly, as I outlined in my pre-season 7 video, Olivia no longer feels like a person to me, nor to some of the characters in the show. She’s missing now, Quinn reminded us in 614, and upon which even self-centred Mellie picked up (“She’s there, but she’s not there” (519)).

Olivia has now helped someone else realize their dream of being the first woman POTUS, but is CoS her dream? Or is it a path she was encouraged to pursue as the only option to take back her power? In many ways, Olivia is still trying to recover some sense of self she once knew, before the original sin of Defiance. The presidential election she colluded to steal, led to two subsequent elections she did not earn. But much like America’s unwillingness to contend with its original sin (slavery) as the root of its continued racial problems, Olivia will never recover some authentic sense of self, or be able to look herself in the mirror until she tackles the ‘why’ of Defiance. The ‘why’, as I have suspected since S2, is not really about her version of loving Fitz (though she did/does). As she says to Fitz in the The Decision (610)’s alternate universe, “[I didn’t agree to fix the election because] it would have destroyed us”. And while that understanding is developed by Olivia after the fact, I cannot help think, subconsciously, that in choosing to Fix the election, Olivia chose power and chaos (a think that stokes the fire of the Popes (512)). The why of Defiance was connected more to Olivia’s lack of self-knowledge and the replacement of that with external goals. Olivia wanted the White House back then, badly. Her life circumstances had not damaged her enough to actually murder for it back then (517, 616). She has wanted the White House since law school (504), so she could impact policy and affect change. This woman does not like to fail when she sets herself a goal. It brings her shame.

Olivia now has the position she has been coveting, one which she complained was taken from her by Fitz (520). To boot, she has inhabited a second position (Command) to ensure that no one can take anything from her ever again. But Olivia has still been taken from herself. Emotionally disemboweled and disconnected, there is no balance to her power in the present. This has been the case ever since her kidnapping, the very purpose of which was to render her an object, not a person (410). With her PTSD having gone unaddressed, Olivia has instead filled her life with a fake world in which she will never feel internally validated, but instead be too consumed with perpetual chaos to ponder this lack of satisfaction, let alone making it a priority to address.

Maya: “You sure do love a problem. You’re so vain. It’s always about you, isn’t it? The problems you create, so you can solve them. The power you wield, so that you can feel important. Did your father and I not tell you you were special enough when you were little? Did we not give you enough hugs? Baby, this uppity fantasy world you’ve decided to be a part of, it’s not real, Boo. You need to come on back down to this planet where the world doesn’t revolve around you…” (You Can’t Take Command, 422)

Olivia has made it so the world does revolve around her, by becoming its sun and moon. Even the men with whom she exchanges sex for stress relief are to revolve around her. Even the new president has a similar charge in Olivia’s envelope filled world:

She’s the boss. She sets the rules.

Olivia may inhabit ultimate positions of power inside the White house, but she does not have control over the White House, it has control over her. Her power in these roles is illusory. But if we stay with the idea that Olivia ‘has it all’, the question now is: upon reaching the peak of this mountain, is there some other destination she is trying to reach? Does she imagine that once she’s done with the go-round at the White House in 4-8 years, that she will suddenly be a person capable of being her authentic self with another, let alone with herself? There will be opportunity costs.

Olivia is brilliant, beautiful and impeccably put together, but she is mostly façade. Happiness and satisfaction are states of being that manifest within, not destinations which one can reach. Wherever Olivia goes, she will always be there. As historian, Thavolia Glymph says, “…freedom is often reified as a ‘thing’ or ‘place’ that one can ‘obtain’ or ‘go to’. But freedom is not separate from the understandings and intuitions of those who seek it”[1]. Claiming the full humanity of her black femininity cannot be relegated to the White House alone. No one in the previous administration found freedom there, except FDR in that pool. But it is gone now, and it makes me wonder if Olivia ever felt emotionally unburdened when she swam. Does she still do it now, or is she too emotionally disconnected to bother. I hope to find out.

A Witness to Her Life

In a short video, Yours and Mine[2] , Beyonce talks about needing something real in order to make her many accomplishments matter. That without that witness to one’s life, accomplishments fail to validate one’s life. Without something real, people are more compelled toward addiction (chaos). I thought back to 701, when Olivia is having dinner with Rowan. While it was delicious to see the tables turned in some ways, Rowan has never been a witness to Olivia’s adult life. He cannot behold her because his relationship with her is grounded in incessant scrutiny and manipulation. She receives his instruction and dictation about achievement and black excellence, but not emotional support.

Alice Walker, reflecting on a speech she gave, in 1979, to a room of largely Black women, concerning our alarming suicide rates, laments “Not one of them said one word about why young women of colour were killing themselves. They could take the black woman as invincible…, but there was no sympathy for that which ended in defeat. Which meant there was no sympathy for struggle itself—only for ‘winning’”[3]. In The Last Supper (408), Rowan says something similar to Olivia:

Rowan: “I haven't been a perfect father, Olivia, I know that. I want you to know that I know that. I want you to know that I've always wanted the best for you. I wanted you to be the best. Because, to me, you always were. Now, I... I didn't have a... a role model for how to be a dad, and I stumbled. I know that. I got angry when I shouldn't have. I focused too much on how you did rather than how you were doing it. I didn't say enough how important it was to me, when you were trying, that you were struggling, because it was. Because I should've understood because that's what I was doing. Trying. And struggling.”

As poignant as it reads, this, too, is a manipulation of his because this acknowledgment Olivia has long sought is used as a preamble to murder, and proof of his continued need for her obedience. He tells her to never choose another man over him. How can Olivia be the ‘best’ if it is only defined on Rowan’s terms and not her own. He cuts off every path that doesn’t lead to him being right. Though Rowan is the one seemingly under Olivia’s thumb as Command, he is still dictating limitations for her about what she can achieve and who she is able to be. Their relationship is anchored in fear; fear of failure. One cannot see or be seen in such a relationship. One cannot grow in such a relationship.

Jake, too, cannot be a witness to Olivia’s life. He has literally been created by Rowan (518), and insinuated into Olivia’s life as an extension of Rowan, to infiltrate that which a father should not control: his daughter’s sexual and romantic life. (This is the reason for the incest references that proliferate the second half of S5). Olivia cannot keep it real with Jake because he is fake. She doesn’t even know his real name or backstory! From their initial meet-cute in 214, to their short-lived ‘convenient, safe, secure, easy’ (sounds like a Staples commercial) arrangement (701), Jake’s purpose in Olivia’s life has always been predicated on a denial of the real.

Having someone who truly sees you is one of the most powerful things you can experience. This means a person who sees your faults, struggles and inconsistencies and doesn’t use them against you, but, through grace, supports your striving to be better. Supports your efforts to contribute something good to the world, and not just selfishly to their own life. The generosity of such a person can make you feel safe. There is liberty in this kind of safety because it is shelter, not confinement.

We can connect with people on multiple emotional levels, but what matters is the authenticity of those connections. Olivia may no longer be spinning, but does she know the difference between spin and the truth anymore? Whether at OPA or the White House, Olivia’s job is public relations. It is her responsibility to make things seem other than they really are. To mask and evade. Because she fears that which is within (because she cannot control it), she sometimes brings the spin of her public relations to her private relationships. Olivia has no truth in her life right now. Everyone in her life is being kept at arm’s length, and probably in the misguided belief that this is how one conveys authority and power. You know, being a ‘boss’. Even during “family” time with dad, Olivia instructs Rowan to ask her about work. Because, what else is there for her? Her life is busy, but not full.

A consistent criticism I have of Olivia Pope is that she has no friends. No emotional anchors. She shares her life with no one. Everyone in her life is connected to her work. Fitz, as a now ex-president becomes the exception, for the first time. He doesn’t need intervention and handling anymore. We’ll see where that leads for Olivia.

I used to fear that Shonda would make Olivia into Christina from Grey’s Anatomy—a character whose true love was her work. I am not saying that a woman enjoying her work is wrong, or that she needs a romantic other (side note: a woman wanting the love of a man does not make her less strong, or less of a feminist because no one says that about women who have romantic relationship with other women). I realized Shonda likely won’t make Olivia--her first lead black woman character—into Christina, because Olivia’s greatest satisfaction does not seem to come from the work she does, though she finds in it purpose and direction. Besides, Christina did have a witness to her life: Meredith. Shonda has referred to Olivia and Fitz as the Meredith and Christina of Scandal[4]. Theirs is the central, meaningful relationship on the show. It’s real. Olivia’s current world has purpose and direction, but it is one constructed to replace what’s real.

Patriarchal Fear of the Feminine

Audre Lorde, in her work on feminism and intersectionality, frequently talks about women identified women (WIWs). This is not necessarily a reference to lesbianism, or even to feminism. WIWs are women who are connected to and value the feminine within themselves and others. It is also possible, though much more rare, to find women identified males. Far more common are male identified women. A society that values (white) male attributes and (white) maleness as the default of humanity compels women and gender queer people to adopt these values in order to survive, or be valued by society. Some feminist rhetoric, particularly ones lacking an intersectional frame, advocate for a lot of male, patriarchal values to be embodied by women as the path to personal success and liberation. But, in the words of Audre Lorde, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”[5] . Investing in the master’s tools simply ensures that (white) patriarchal values remain primary: profit, property, and violence and domination as stand ins for power.

Olivia is barely a woman identified woman these days. She is primarily a male-identified woman (so is Mellie, for the record). The speech she delivers to Mellie in the Oval (701) is a most recent quintessential example of labelling something feminist because it is said by women in competition with men.

What that speech establishes is Olivia’s domination (as the boss), which requires Mellie subservience as a soldier who carries out her orders (“you do not ignore me”; “I am always right”). This, Olivia, declares is the only path to success for the first female president. Success is manifested in Mellie becoming a statue people can gaze upon. To top it off, both women are wearing pantsuits, which we, as the audience, are supposed to take as a nod to Hillary Clinton. However, the nod to her is aesthetic and superficial because HRC is a woman identified woman. Her definition of success is about the difference she can make in peoples’ lives, not the monuments that would be erected in her name. Olivia used to be focused on giving people second chances (308), but that now seems obscured.

Olivia is disconnected from herself because she has been raised, primarily by a man who, scorned by love and damaged by white supremacy, came to see the rejection of the feminine, through the embrace of patriarchy, as a path of success for black people in America, despite its terrible historical track record. He has even bragged about the fact that he was raising his daughter to feel as entitled to the world as any white man (504). We should all feel that the world is ours instead making ourselves small under dominating structures. To summarize a quote from Crissles of The Read podcast, Black people are not trying to be whit. I don’t want to be a white man, but I don’t want to be punished because I am not one either. Rowan’s way of teaching his daughter to feel this entitlement was to behave in destructive ways like white males, for whom the end always justifies the means. His values, and definitions of power and weakness are an infestation in her life (much like the character Jake in this show):

Rowan: “you can either stand there like a 12-year-old and lecture me about morality or, even worse, rat [me and Jake] out in the name of justice or you can take your cue from us and get yourself some power... Real power... 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue power. You think you have that now, but you're standing on the sidelines, screaming at the referee like a sad, drunk parent at a high-school football game. If you're okay with that, by all means. But I know my daughter as I know my son, and I know that won't suffice.” (It’s Hard Out Here for a General, 510).

Morality and justice are for 12-year olds (the age of Olivia’s arrested emotional development). Running the world is true power. Parenting and other identities are weak. Again, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. For black women to define success in the same terms as white patriarchal men is a means to their destruction, not liberation.

Rowan finally showed Olivia respect when she had gotten into the Oval again (“and you didn’t do it as First Lady” (614)). To him that Oval is the source of real power. It is no accident that it has only been inhabited by men—real and fictional—before Mellie. Previously, he praised Olivia’s ability to fleece power from Fitz when she was in the White House, instead of imagining a situation in which, gee, power is willingly shared. As I have said before: “Rowan’s comments often interrogate Olivia’s black feminine identity (the questioning and manipulation of her sexuality), seeking to have ultimate control over the representation of that identity and those with whom it is associated”. Rowan le Olivia down this path with Mellie (510). And in the absence of any other kind of power, Olivia held onto it like a life raft (“This all has to mean something. Otherwise why did I do this to you [Jake]? To myself?” (605).

Olivia has no female relationships that are not connected to her job, and her primary relationships have been with men. Most importantly (for me), she has no black women in her life. Having been abandoned by her mother, who was kept captive as punishment, by Rowan, it is obvious to me the dearth of Maya’s presence has left a lacuna in Olivia’s life, which has been filled mostly by maleness, to her detriment. She is outwardly successful, but inwardly she’s lacking. The lack of, specifically black, feminine presence in Olivia’s life is directly connected to her fear of real commitment to Fitzgerald Grant.

I know what you are thinking: girl, how the hell you figure that Olivia’s missing black mama has anything to do with choosing some white man? Let me explain.

Fitz as Symbolic of the Feminine

Self-knowledge has been a process for Fitz, and he is still coming into his own. I would not have expounded upon his femininity as a strength a few seasons ago. Though he has always been emotional, in the early seasons, he and the circumstances of the Olitz relationship were often too emotionally intense to sustain. However, his sense of self is no longer tethered to Olivia, he’s in a better position to emotionally support her. Consider this essay a plate of potato salad, from the cookout, that I am bringing to him.

Fitz has grown to embrace the feminine within himself. In a world that values his identity above all others, it is feminine qualities upon which he draws, internally, for strength, support and growth. His rejection of his father’s brute definitions of success and masculinity, as well as his unapologetic emotional centre are evidence of this for me. He cares for Olivia’s well-being, safety and happiness, often the only person to enquire about these things. And he does this even when their relationship was platonic. The giving of Doux Bébé (417) and his rescue attempts during her kidnapping (410-13), thwarting her plans to martyr herself for her father’s crimes (611) serve as just a few examples. As the most consistent feminine presence in Olivia’s life, he has been the only one to penetrate (no pun intended) something real and truthful inside her

Fitz has connected to an erotic power inside Olivia that has little to do with his magic stick. It has to do with the desire for home and a domestic aspect to her life. A place where she can practice authentic love and feel safe. Vermont is a metaphor for that, not necessarily a literal space in which those things will be realized. Wanting those things is not the same as confining one’s life. It is a recognition of the expansiveness of the interior life, and of private identities that are not conjured through public or representational roles. It is a space of retreat and self-determination. In Out of the House of Bondage, historian Thavolia Glymph explains that during Reconstruction, black women “pursued citizenship, land ownership, femaleness (denied through white patriarchy), and private leisure time. ‘Most of all,’ writes Glymph, ‘they claimed the right to determine for themselves what all of this meant’ (Loc. 4105). These acts of reclaiming the self had far-reaching political and socio-economic consequences, the echoes of which are still felt today.”[6] Formerly enslaved women attempted to live and define, in confining political circumstances, full public and interior lives, which were denied to them for so long.

As Audre Lorde tells us, the erotic is our deepest desire, and it comes from a deeply feminine place. It is connected to community, not denial and ascetism. The erotic is not to be confused with sensation, a plasticized version Olivia has tried out in several models (Jake, Russell, Curtis, even Edison). The erotic’s power is so great, that Olivia repeatedly runs from it. It is not accident that a woman raised to prioritize male modes of success would be afraid of embracing this type of feminine power. Olivia has been taught to fear the feminine and devalue it as weak, and it is partly because society sees it as weak. As I said earlier, living in such a society, women are compelled to reject feminized traits, making themselves small or more male-oriented just to survive. In her television interview about her relationship with President Fitzgerald Grant (505), Olivia repeatedly indicates that falling in love with him was a weakness. It disrupted her life and threatened her success.

Of the interview, I commented that “by painting to the public her love affair as an unfortunate failure on her part, Olivia cast herself as a woman who had fallen prey to cupid’s fate. Her resilience, her strength were no match. She’s already wrestled, so please don’t ask her to try again. She’s incapable of not loving Fitzgerald Grant. Loving is the one thing outside her grasp of control. The chink in her armour.”

So, loving is a failure. It is a flaw because it is outside the sphere of Olivia’s control (“You can’t fix the fact that I love you”—Fitz, 220). Olivia’s life is about control, the exercising of which shows domination. And domination is what? A means of showing power. Women are often to ones taught to aspire to love while men are not. hey are taught to acquire property, including women and children. We see a gender role reversal (in some ways) with the Olivia and Fitz character. However, the devaluation of love as a feminine quality, whose value pales in comparison to political power, is still very present. Olivia chose the latter, and so did Mellie. In this world, love isn’t power; it threatens it, as Olivia so reminded Mellie, after some bow chicka wow wow with Marcus (602). I do not blame Olivia for thinking this way. These values have been instilled in her by a man and a society that does not value women, or their feminine traits, except where it helps men: managing the home, bearing children, sex. Olivia was kidnapped, treated as a bargaining chip, threatened with rape, and treated like a problem to be eliminated, all because of love. Since then, Olivia has grown to see loving Fitz as a kind of sacrifice that limits her potential.

Maya and the Black Feminine Absence

Rowan put Maya in a cell and literal hole to contain her, though he supposedly loved her. Once her black feminine presence was relegated, Maya’s absence from the home led to Rowan sending Olivia away, never to live there again (301). Olivia never had a sense of ‘home’ after that. Olivia, therefore, did not grow up to value anything domestic, especially as a necessity from which everyone has benefitted, but few value, including many women. Maya worked and took care of Olivia (306), as many black women have had to do. With Maya’s removal from the home, Olivia lost an important role model at a crucial juncture for transitioning from adolescence (she was 12) to womanhood. Her values were replaced by those of the people inhabiting the fancy white, European boarding schools she was made to attend. Sure, she gained social and cultural capital, but she lost something, too.

First Ladies Problems

I did not want Olivia living in the East Wing when she and Fitz were together in season 5. I thought it was too much, too soon. However, I am also convinced that much of Olivia’s argument with Fitz in 509, and subsequently casting him as the villain in their breakup, was profoundly dishonest in some ways. It still bothers me more than I am comfortable admitting. Then I thought about the immense power fear has over people. Here’s a revolutionary idea: what if Olivia found herself liking some aspects of being First Lady, and was afraid of the threat to who she thought she was, and what she’s been taught she should become? She even said she was good at it. I don’t like being good at things I hate. I go out of my way to be bad at them so no one expects me to do those things (shhhh, don’t tell my wife).

Olivia tells Mellie in 511 that she left the White House (and Fitz) because she was scared. But, she starts wearing dresses after leaving the WH; replaces her bed with a four-poster one like the one in the East Wing; she regales Vanessa, Jake and Rowan about the details of a cake she buys from a bakery (514). These are all influences from her time in the domestic realm of the East Wing. Olivia has fetishized normalcy and domesticity as something she is incapable of, since she pushed Stephen to propose to Georgia (101). She is afraid of her own desire.

Think about it. Rowan mocked and shamed Olivia when she told him Fitz wanted to make her his First Lady (301). He told her that was a useless position, and that Secretary of State or Chief of Staff were much more valuable. Mellie, in typical white feminist form, grew to see it as the seat of her oppression (503), even though she aspired to the position since the age of ten (208). She tells Olivia to expect the same confinement (503), which pissed me off because it assumed Olivia wanted what she wanted. Mellie picks interesting times to assert her difference from Olivia, and her sameness at other times.

In a great bout of irony, now that Olivia is Chief of Staff, she still has to field typical FLOTUS questions because there’s no one in that role. Why doesn’t Olivia, as Chief of Staff, insist on hiring someone to help the WH Social Secretary?

Instead she complains to Cyrus that she has to pick out China patterns. Hmmm, like she was doing here

While it is an antiquated position, my point is that the FLOTUS position is not without importance, but it is devalued specifically because of its association with the feminine. It is the feminine for which women are persecuted, even as men’s self-actualization is tied to this very thing. Perhaps they are simply resentful that not everything is within their control.

Fitz and the life associated with him is but one representation of the erotic. Olivia has to embrace this power within herself before she can engage Fitz as a witness to her life. To get there requires reconciliation of feminine, masculine and queer identity traits as powerful and valuable assets she possesses, not just her intellect. Contrary to the Enlightenment thinkers, mankind is more than a thinking, rational being. She is an emotional one, too.

Reconciliation of the Self

Accomplishments and other people cannot make you happy. That is a job that can only be fulfilled by the self. If happiness is internally derived, and comes from accessing the truth of our feelings, then happiness, too, is a feminized feeling. In a world that values power in terms of domination (‘big dog’ status), violence (blackmail and threats), and the ability to withstand pain (pushing things down with alcohol and sex), it is no wonder Olivia does not value it enough to make happiness a mission she pursues.

Maya: “I could not make you happy because happiness was not the mission”—(Tick Tock, 615)

Olivia cannot define what she wants because wanting is desire. Desire comes from a space of truth within us. It is a spiritual place. Olivia’s self-abnegation means she has pushed that away, thinking it leaves her power open to vulnerability. In addition to telling us that the aspiration to feel nothing is a place of “grave immobility” (it leaves you stuck)[7] , Audre Lorde also tells us that Black women, in America, have traditionally had compassion for everybody else except ourselves[8]. Olivia’s own mother conjured a similar sentiment:

Maya:“Damn shame. I tell you... being a black woman. Be strong, they say. Support your man, raise your man, think like a man. Well damn, I gotta do all that? Who’s out here working for me, carrying my burden, building me up when I get down? Nobody. Black women out here trying to save everybody and what do we get? Swagger jacked by white girls wearing cornrows and bamboo earrings. Ain’t that a bitch? But we still try. Try to help all y’all. Even when we get nothing. Is that admirable or ridiculous? I don’t know.” (Tick Tock, 615)

Olivia still thinks its admirable enough to stake her very sense of self on it. But it will be ridiculous if she doesn’t let anyone else share her burdens and her joy.

I think I know a guy. Facetiousness aside, I also mean this in terms of friendships, familial relationships and the relationship with the self—the most important one.

Let me summarize Mahatma Beyonce again[9]. She says that everyone is not good at everything. Even the great Olivia Pope. Depending on one other is what we are meant to do as humans, for we do not thrive in prolonged isolation. Olivia is not accessing an entire part of herself to which she is entitled. Beyonce goes on to expound that when you grow up, you’re no longer afraid of going to certain places, in your mind and your body, that may make you feel uncomfortable. You’re no longer afraid of the unknown. And it all starts with looking at yourself in the mirror and liking the person staring back at you. I want that for Olivia. I hope she still wants it for herself.

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Enjoyed this essay? You can download a free PDF here:

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[1] Glymph, Thavolia. 2008. Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household. loc. 320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kindle.

[2] Beyonce. 2014. https://youtu.be/x4pPNxUzGvc. Video

[3] Walker, Alice. 1979 “Looking to the Side and Back”. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose. (1983). Loc. 4467-4555. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Kindle.

[4] Entertainment Weekly, September 2015.

[5] Lorde, Audre. 1979. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. 1984. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press Feminist Series. 110-113.

[6] Glymph, Thavolia. 2008. Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Pow, K. 2018. Forthcoming article.

[7] Lorde, Audre. 1979. “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. 1984. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press Feminist Series. 53-59.

[8] Lorde, Audre. 1979. “Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. 1984. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press Feminist Series. 60-65.

[9] Beyonce. 2014. https://youtu.be/x4pPNxUzGvc. Video

#Scandal #Olivia Pope #Fitzgerald Grant #Mellie Grant

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mattelektras · 7 years

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overall thoughts on the defenders?

ok this is gonna be a long ass answer!!!

general stuff:

the plot was a bit cliche at times like really.... blow up the place we’re gonna be in and have a countdown detonator...... is this james bond

and the whole thing with the ‘’’’substance’’’’ felt very....... shoehorned in. i cant say i even fully understood that part of it. it felt like one episode was just the hand being assholes because thats what they do and then the next was... oh no we’re actually being assholes for this now

alexandra was disappointing. i expected her to be MORE, but i feel like sticking with madame gao would have made for a better main antagonst. which i guess she still kind of is, she’s just a behind the scenes kind of deal

but to bring in alexandra as this new character that’s so important and has so much backstory and then not actually give me any reason to believe any of it.... ehhh

danny was slightly more likeable than he was in iron fist. maybe a single iota more mature

danny/colleen just doesnt work as a believable solid relationship when its put up against luke/claire and it just felt out of place

BUT the way the first few episodes bought them together was really fun and took my mind off the fact that nothing real actually happened until halfway through the season

and in general... the plot was okay, the whole feel of it was solid, way more comprehensive than say... daredevil season 2 where the two halves of the season barely meshed

other stuff:

the team dynamic was so easy and so likeable and that is what’s gonna stand out regardless of any issues the show has imo

the luke/danny stuff felt so BAITY i loved it... it felt like one of them was 2 seconds away from saying heroes for hire at all times like it felt like the writers KNEW how important their friendship is in the comics and really tried to start that

and everything luke said to him when they first met about danny having power from the day he was born was so fucking well handled, especially considering all the issues with the show danny had just stepped out of. and luke kept the same values he had in his own show??

LUKE IN GENERAL WAS FUCKING HIGHLIGHT. his conversations with claire, him being the only one a bit worried about blowing up the building etc etc like... objectively the most heroic of the bunch?? the most legitimately altruistic

the right amount of karen page. i nap during her scenes but when she told matt that the problem wasnt the hand, that it was HIM, angels were singing and the world around me was glowing. the character herself acknowledges matt is the problem but karen fans are probs still gonna blame elektra

felt like a lot of side characters were just hanging around doing nothing in a police precinct

malcolm looked fucking good this season

MISTY’S ARRRRRRMMM SHE’S GONNA BE SO FUCKING COOL WHEN SHE GETS HER BIONIC ONE

I DID NOT SEE IT COMING EITHER i was shitposting about how the show would be better if she had it and then she fucking lsot her arm RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES N IVE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED TO SEE A LIMB LOST

and colleen being the one in the hospital with her feels like some daughters of the dragon foreshadowing

matt being with nuns at the end....... mama murdock foreshadowing

the important stuff. the elektra stuff. the otp stuff.

her snapping and killing alexandra and taking over was A JOURNEY. thats when she felt like her to me. she’d been waiting and watching but doing her own thing in private like going to matt’s apartment, and then when she was ready she just fuckin................ did that

im so proud of my girl for looking out for herself an doing what she had to do to protect herself whilst surrounded by a bunch of people trying to use her

the dramatic repression like her 616 counterpart

VERY FALL FROM GRACE. they might not have done erynys but at times it felt like she WAS erynys just not in a separate body, and she was just trying to save herself the suffering of being fully herself again

matt and elektra’s fight scenes were probably my favourite part of the whole thing like anyone who knows even 1 thing about me knows i place a lot of importance on the ‘i spar best with you’ line from 616 and they really proved me right

mat got himself back in my good graces my fucking MAN. after the shitshow ending of s2 where he doesnt even wait for her to be cold yet before he goes and tells karen everything, i didnt have high hopes. but he was SO DETERMINED to save her right from the get go, and he had no intention of leaving her at any point. and that just... captured a lot of things about their comics selves

the two of them not even speaking but both fucking DESTROYING people for fucking with the other???????

THE ENDING..... god i love him so much for staying with her. she was obviously afraid of dying again considering the trauma she was still recovering from the first go around and so far, all she’s had in the mcu is pretty shitty treatment from everyone around her right until the second she died so for her to ‘’’die’’’ again but this time be with the man she loves who loves her and not be alone for once and actually have someone do something SOLELY for her with no ulterior motives is just.............. so good. and it fucking kills me because thats all i want for her in ANY universe so i really am way more contented than i was expecting to be

and elodie yung was............ amazing????? to have to be so silent in a lot of her scenes but still convey all of the above shit

all i was kind of expecting the angsty messy matt show but he had some like.... legitimate growth on his own without having foggy or she who shall not be named around to change for. and him saying that being daredevil IS his life and he so obviously didnt wanna give it up because thats who he is and THATS COMICS MATT THERE HE IS!!! and then to go out the way he did jsut..... felt right

it wasnt perfect but it redeemed a lot of previous issues w them from s2 and it might just be my reading into things, but to finally see a lot of comic aspects of their relationship incorporated into this season made the whole show for me?? to just have..... my absolute!!!! favorite!!!!! character!!!! in her iconic relationship handled WAY better this time......... im at peace and for once not completely full of hate and i really am floored by just how much i love elektra natchios and elektra with matt like they really are...... so important 2 me i never get to see them together in comics but i get this thanks @ god for doin me a solid here

#defenders spoilers obvs #im goin to sleep its 3am but i will leave u w the final notion that................#elektra really does mean so much 2 me on so many fake deep levels and i need to be in a coma for 3 months #to fully come to terms with just HOW MUCH i love my wife #anonymous #q & a

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giveamadeuschohisownmovie · 7 years

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Hypothetical plot outline for the pilot episode of “Marvel’s Ghost Rider”

So just for fun, since I want Marvel to greenlight a Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider TV show, I thought I would outline my version of the show’s pilot episode.

(god, I would really love to work for Marvel’s writing department)

Before we get started, here is the main cast for season one:

1) Gabriel Luna as Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider

2) Lorenzo James Henrie as Gabe Reyes

3) Jose Zuniga as Eli Morrow (returns only through visions, hallucinations, and voiceovers. You’ll see what I mean)

4) Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson / Quake. The in-story reason for her leaving “AOS” is that she was disgusted by SHIELD’s actions at the end of season 5 and quit the organization.

5) Genesis Rodriguez as Lisa Ortega, a law school student and Robbie’s main love interest. She joins Robbie’s team as the brains and strategist of the group.

And yes, in true cable TV drama fashion, there is a Robbie-Lisa-Daisy love triangle.

6) Sophie Wu as Ruby Zhang / All-New Ghost Rider. She was a PhD student who was killed in an accidental shooting at her college. Like Robbie, she heard a voice that asked her if she wanted revenge on her killers, which she accepts.

Although in this case, it isn’t the Devil who turns her into Ghost Rider, it’s Eli Morrow’s ghost. Yeah, Ruby is meant to be a closer adaptation to 616!Robbie Reyes.

7) Ron Perlman as Johnny Blaze / The Phantom Rider, Robbie Reyes and Ruby Zhang’s mentor. He acts as the father figure of the two Ghost Riders.

The episode begins with Robbie Reyes returning to Earth after taking the Darkhold to Hell. Several gangsters attempt to rob an elderly couple but are stopped when Robbie drives through a portal in the middle of the street. He kills all but one of the gangsters, deeming the survivor as “innocent” since he was bullied into helping the muggers.

*insert opening credits, which are the words “MARVEL’S GHOST RIDER” showing up in burning letters*

We then cut to two weeks later.

Gabe, who was staying at one of his friend’s place during Robbie’s absence, is happy to see that his brother is back, even though he’s a bit pissed that it took him so long to return. Robbie gets his job back as a mechanic and at nights, he roams the streets as Ghost Rider.

Meanwhile, we’re introduced to Ruby Zhang. She is giving a speech to several college students, a speech that is visited by Daisy Johnson. Daisy has been laying low since she left SHIELD on bad terms.

After the speech finishes, Daisy confronts Ruby and tells her that she’s friends with Fitz and Simmons and that they’re alive but laying low after SHIELD went underground (again). It’s revealed that Ruby was friends with Fitz and Simmons during their Academy years and was worried that they were dead after the HYDRA uprising. Ruby thanks Daisy for telling her that and the two part ways.

Going back to Robbie, he is working on a car when he is visited by a mysterious man riding a Harley. The man introduces himself as Johnny Blaze. Robbie remembers him as a famous daredevil from the 1990s / early 2000s who went missing at some point. When Robbie asks what Johnny is doing in his shop, Johnny simply says he's visiting L.A. for business.

That night, we cut to law school student Lisa Ortega, who is walking home from work. She is jumped by two muggers who try to rob her but are thwarted by Robbie Reyes in his Ghost Rider form. Robbie is about to ride off when all of a sudden...WHAM!

Robbie is blindsided by a mysterious force who knocks him out cold. The force (which will later be revealed as the Ghost Rider villain Blackheart by the way) is about to kill Robbie when all of a sudden, Johnny Blaze shows up and chases him off. Lisa, left alone, tends to Robbie’s wounds. Before she can call for an ambulance, Robbie wakes up and walks away like nothing happened.

Robbie attempts to leave but Lisa shouts, “Wait, I know you! You’re Robbie Reyes, Gabe’s brother.” We then learn that Lisa’s niece is Gabe’s tutor and that Lisa has seen Robbie once or twice at his car shop. Not sure how to respond, Robbie offers to drive Lisa home. Lisa then promises to keep Robbie’s superhero identity a secret as thanks for saving her life.

*insert heart eyes from Robbie*

Robbie returns to his car shop and finds Daisy Johnson there, chatting with Gabe. The two hug and Daisy tells him all about what went down with SHIELD. Daisy says she wants to stick with the Reyes brothers for a while since she’s a bit aimless at the moment.

Robbie doesn’t mind and lets her crash on the couch. Daisy then says that a weird old man has been watching the shop since she arrived. Robbie, pissed off by this, goes to investigate and he encounters Johnny Blaze, still watching his every move. Robbie asks what his deal is and Johnny reveals that he’s the one who passed the Ghost Rider spirit to him.

In the morning, Daisy, Robbie, and Gabe get a lecture about the Ghost Rider mythology. We pretty much learn everything we need to know (Zarathos, the deal with the devil, etc.). Johnny says that he’s in L.A. to watch over Robbie since he feels guilty about putting the burden of the Ghost Rider on him. Robbie says it’s fine and that he’s up to the task. Johnny then says he’ll stay as his mentor since he wishes that he had someone guiding him when he was the Ghost Rider.

Robbie then asks if he could still transform and Johhny says that he could. There’s more than one Spirit of Vengeance and more than one way of turning into a Ghost Rider (keep that in mind). Johnny says the demon inside of him is different from the demon inside Robbie, which will play an important role in the next few episodes.

Lisa shows up at the car shop unexpectedly and is confronted by Daisy. Lisa says she knows that Robbie is the Ghost Rider and that she needs his help. Robbie asks what the problem is and Lisa reveals that her niece, Gabe’s tutor, has been kidnapped and is being held hostage. Robbie heads out to rescue the girl but before he leaves, Johnny tells him that there’s more to the Ghost Rider than just killing people.

Johnny: “Not everything about the Rider is death and suffering. You’ll know what I mean.”

So the climax of the episode is Robbie and Daisy confronting the kidnappers. Turns out, the kidnappers were working with the same kidnappers who tried to mug Lisa Ortega (this is a plot point for the rest of the season). We get some cool tag team fighting scenes as Daisy and Robbie dispatch most of them.

The last kidnapper, however, gets special treatment. Robbie, remembering Johnny’s words, learns a new power; the PENANCE STARE. He uses the stare on the kidnapper, immobilizing him but keeping him alive.

Back at the car shop, Johnny tells Robbie that he’s proud he learned the Penance Stare and that he’ll help him curve some of the Rider’s more “evil” tendencies”. Daisy and Lisa spark a friendship and Gabe coins the term ‘TEAM RIDER’ to describe the group.

Then, we cut back to Ruby Zhang. Ruby is headed home from class when, all of a sudden, she is gunned down by a member of the kidnapper gang. The gangster mistook her for Lisa Ortega and, horrified by what he did, runs off.

Suddenly, Ruby is brought back to life after hearing a voice that asked her if she wanted vengeance. As a parallel to Robbie’s resurrection, when Ruby gets a good look at who brought her back, it’s not the Ghost Rider.

It’s Eli Morrow! Eli binds himself to Ruby’s soul, turning her into the All-New Ghost Rider. So throughout the rest of the season, Ruby struggles to keep Eli under control while Eli pops up every now and then as a vision that only she could see.

As for the stinger that’ll lead into next week’s episode, we see Blackheart turning into his human form. Blackheart swears vengeance on the Riders before walking off into the night.

Episode ends there.

#agents of shield #Robbie Reyes #Daisy Johnson #quakerider #ghost rider #johnny blaze #gabe reyes #aos #maos #eli morrow #gabriel luna #chloe bennet #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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What's Next for Marvel's X-Men in Dawn of X

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House of X and Powers of X have concluded, so it's on to the future of the Marvel Universe, mutants, and the X-Men!

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This article contains major spoilers for Marvel's X-Men reboot, House of X and Powers of X.

House of X and Powers of X are now complete, and the event, which was billed as a huge reset for the X-Men comics universe, did everything promised. It took a major retcon for one of its characters and used it to reposition the X-Men concept in the greater Marvel Universe, reinvigorating the mutant metaphor and seeding years of stories that changed the past, present and future of the entire world. The changes are dense, and can be confusing, so we picked through all 12 issues to figure out what you need to know heading into Dawn of X.

What Happened in Hosue of X and Powers of X?

The two books took different tacks to lay the groundwork for the X-Men’s big changes. Powers of X looked at four different timeframes on exponential scales: X^0 took place generally 10 years before the present day of the comics continuity; X^1 is present day; X^2 looked 100 years out; and X^3 looked 1000 years down the road.

With one exception, House of X focused on the X^1 timeline, the present day of the current Marvel Universe. That one exception was a doozy, though.

House of X #2 dropped a MAJOR retcon on Moira MacTaggert, until now a human geneticist ally of the X-Men. HoX #2 revealed that Moira was a mutant, and each time she died, her consciousness was transported back to herself in the womb, resetting the timeline, leaving her with perfect recall of her past lives.

Moira’s first two lives were uneventful: she lived a happy life, not realizing her power activated at 13, and died surrounded by family, and then died again after figuring out she was a mutant.

read more: Key X-Men Comics to Read for House of X and Powers of X

Her third life was spent trying to cure herself of her mutant gene, and right as she succeeded, her lab and lab partners were blown up by the Brotherhood. Destiny, Mystique’s precog partner, saw what would come of the cure - weaponization by humans - and she saw Moira’s power. She also saw that Moira’s cycle would end if she died before her power activated, so she told Moira to stop trying to fight mutants and had Pyro burn her to death to make sure she remembered.

Her fourth life was spent trying to help: she married Charles, and X-history progressed about as it did in the 616 before ending in a sentinel massacre. Life five saw Moira push Charles into an isolationist pose early, but that one ended in robotic hellfire too.

Moira’s Sixth Life

Moira’s sixth life was depicted by the X^3 timeline in PoX. She and Wolverine lived for a thousand years, with the robots somehow figuring out that she needed to be kept alive or she would reset the timeline. They lived in a wildlife preserve, maintained by a new branch of human evolution: Homo novissima, a fusion of humans and machines.

The Librarian, our POV character, is part of a society trying to ascend to join the Phalanx, an intergalactic machine intelligence so dense it’s about to collapse into a singularity. If they do collapse, that would make the machines knowledge of this life separate from space and time - when Moira resurrects, they would know and be there - winning the war for the machines forever. However, before the ascension is complete, Wolverine stabs the Librarian in the face, then kills Moira so she can reset.

read more - The Best Episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series

Her experience in the sixth life radicalized Moira - she’s certain if the war even starts, the mutants always lose. She spent life seven going full Rambo, killing every Trask she could find before they could create the Sentinels. Unfortunately, AI is like fire - a discovery, not a creation - and she died at the hands of a wild jungle Mastermold. In life eight, she convinced Magneto to go to war with the humans, but she died after he was stopped by an army of superheroes.

Moira’s Ninth Life

The only major mutant figure Moira had yet to ally with by this point was Apocalypse, so she awakened En Sabah Nur early in her ninth life and went to war. This life was largely depicted in the X^2 timeline, and bore a strong resemblance to the Age of Apocalypse: many of the traditional Marvel heroes along with Xavier and Magneto were defeated early on by Apocalypse. Apocalypse and Mister Sinister used rampant genetic engineering to create a mutant army, but they were still losing.

Because of her experience in her sixth life, Moira had flagged the emergence of Nimrods as a paradigm shift in the war with the humans - Sentinels “bought the humans years,” as the Librarian told her, while “Nimrods bought [them] decades.” So to prevent this from coming to pass, Apocalypse’s crew stages an assault on a machine data storage facility to get precise knowledge of how Nimrod came to be. Having that data, it was given to Moira, absorbed immediately, and she was killed by Wolverine so she could be reborn.

Moira X, or the modern Marvel Universe

Moira went to Charles again for her tenth life, which covers the X^0 and X^1 timelines. This time, she said, they would try something different: all mutants together. The X^0 scenes in PoX looked at Charles and Moira recruiting Magneto, and then Magneto and Charles recruiting Sinister and Forge to their new mission: finding a way to put all mutants together in their own fortress, and a way to keep mutants from ever dying.

They bring all mutants to Krakoa, their new fortress (ALL mutants - heroes like Marvel Girl or Cypher; villains like Apocalypse or Gorgon; even dead ones like Xorn or Sophie Cuckoo). They use Krakoan fauna to create three drugs - to cure most illness, heal mental trauma, and extend human life by five years - and then use those drugs as leverage to gain UN recognition for the island and amnesty for any mutant in the world.

read more - Pryde of the X-Men: The Animated Series We Almost Got

The mutant island’s formation triggers the Orchis protocols: a gathering of human scientists with the goal of creating machine defenses for humanity. They’re joined by Karima Shapandar, the Omega Sentinel and erstwhile X-ally, as they repurpose an old Iron Man dyson sphere to build a Mother Mold - a Sentinel factory that builds other Sentinel factories. Charles and Magneto believe this is the moment that Nimrod emerges, so they send a team to destroy it before it comes online.

That raid turns out to be a suicide run: Penance, Cyclops, Archangel, Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Mystique are all killed ejecting Mother Mold into the sun as it wakes up.

But they have a way to cheat death, as well. They die in horrible ways in space, but are almost immediately brought back by The Five:

- Goldballs, a mutant introduced in Brian Michael Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men run with the power to...shoot gold balls out of his chest. In House of X #5, we found out they’re actually eggs.

- Proteus, the reality warping child of Moira and Joe MacTaggert, who would tweak the eggs to match the bodies of the deceased mutants. He was a big X-Men villain from right before the Dark Phoenix saga, who now uses husk clones of Charles as fresh bodies when his power burns out the old one.

- Elixir, an Omega mutant from the Academy X days with the power to heal completely (or kill) with a touch.

- Tempus, another Bendis creation, with the power to manipulate the flow of time who could age the bodies to their peak age.

- And Hope Summers, the first mutant born after the Scarlet Witch depowered 98% of all living mutants in House of M, with the power to mimic other mutants and smooth out the application of their powers in themselves.

After the celebration of their resurrection, a ruling council is named: Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, Marvel Girl, Nightcrawler, Storm, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Exodus, Sinister, and Mystique. The series ends with a Return of the Jedi-style celebration on Krakoa.

The Unanswered Questions of HoXPoX

One of the most impressive things about HoXPoX is the sheer volume of ideas dumped into the books that are left for Dawn of X titles to eventually pick up and run with. It’s reminiscent of classic X-Men stories: when the comics first became the cultural juggernauts they grew into, plot threads were left dangling for years, even decades, for other creators to tease out in their own books. This interconnected continuity made X-Men fandom a community in ways other comics didn’t ever manage to pull off. What follows are some of the ideas on the table that caught my eye.

Omega Sentinel and the Real Path Forward

Karima Shapandar is on the Orchis base and helps the humans kill Cyclops and Mystique, but she is clearly uncomfortable with her role there - when Nightcrawler runs into her on the base, she’s almost bitter about how she’s being excluded from Krakoa. Moira’s plan for the mutants is “everyone together,” but the one thing they haven’t tried in all her ten lives is allying with the machines. This feels prominent.

read more: X-Men Movies Watch Order

Nimrod

Mother Mold came online as Wolverine was hacking off its supports to drop it into the sun. It regaled Logan with a speech about how the humans and the mutants were both failures, and the machines will burn them both. This tracks with Nimrod and Omega’s attitudes in life 9: they fight the mutants, but they have a powerful dislike for humans as well. The point here is that Nimrod is almost certainly online.

Arrako and Apocalypse’s History with Krakoa

Powers of X #4 gave us a brief history of Krakoa - it was originally one island, Okkara, that was split in two by an invasion from what appeared to be Limbo, a realm of demons. The demons were repelled by Apocalypse and his first horsemen, and Krakoa was left on Earth, while Arrako and possibly the first horsemen were sealed away in another realm, with the first horsemen standing guard in case of another invasion. With Apocalypse now on Krakoa, this almost has to be addressed.

Chekhov’s Mutant

The first act of the Quiet Council was to set out the three baseline rules for living on Krakoa: respect the island, make more mutants, and no killing humans as they can’t be resurrected. Sabertooth was convicted of violating the final law for the murders he did, specifically against Magneto’s orders, in the heist in House of X #1 to steal data about the Orchis base. His punishment was not death, as that would have placed him in resurrection protocols. Instead, he was swallowed by Krakoa to be kept in stasis for an indefinite period of time.

Cypher’s Arm

Doug Ramsey’s first appearance in the series had him sporting a fancy, techno-organic arm. His best friend in New Mutants was Warlock, a mutant technarch and member of the race we now know as the beings who sweep up organic material for the Phalanx to power their ascension. When he first visited Krakoa, his T-O arm brushed Krakoan fauna, and it looked an awful lot like he infected the island.

Sinister

Sinister betrays mutants in every timeline. Every single one.

Namor and Atlantis

Namor was long considered the first mutant (until the various Apocalypse retcons started pouring in). He’s also the king of Atlantis, the country that exists undersea and thus, beneath Krakoa. He declined Charles’ invitation to join them on Krakoa, but he’s still out there lurking. And he’s got a long history with powerful blonde women.

The Red King

There’s one seat on the Quiet Council of Krakoa left unfilled. The Hellfire Club’s table has a space reserved for a Red King (with Emma Frost being the White Queen and Sebastian Shaw as the Black King). The identity of that Red King has been teased, but not detailed yet.

The Tarot Cards

Powers of X #1 introduced us to a tarot card reading for Moira that happened early in the X^0 scenes. The three cards she drew were the Magician, “a metal metamorph” with a “great sword and the girl with one foot in two worlds;” The Tower, a “pillar of collapse and rebirth;” and The Devil, “the red god and the lost cardinal of the last religion.” The Tower’s meaning is obvious - there was tower iconography throughout the two books, in all four timelines (on the various islands in X^0, on Krakoa in X^1, Nimrod’s base in X^2, and in the preserve in X^3). The Devil and the Magician are also clearly Cardinal and Rasputin from X^2, but there’s a strong implication that at least Rasputin will be showing up in the current timeline. That’s because…

Singularities

Powers of X #6 confirmed that data that goes into a singularity exists outside of space time. Rasputin died in X^2 when she took Xorn’s helmet off, unleashing the singularity in his brain. Cardinal was also caught in that singularity. Can that transfer them to the current timeline? What else came through? Does that mean that the Xorns, who we clearly see in the background of HoX #1, exist like Molecule Man did in Jonathan Hickman's Avengers books and events, as consciousnesses that span multiple time periods?

Krakoa needs more pylons

The undercurrent of most of House of X is, in a very nerdy and specific sense, one of resource management. There are five Cerebro backups in the world. The Five who perform the resurrections are the only ones capable of doing that job, and so far, Charles is the only one who can drop the backup souls into the bodies. Omega Mutants are flagged as Krakoa’s most important resource. What happens if one of the five is unavailable? How fast can they get Jean or Emma or the Cuckoos trained up on Cerebro? Who guards the backups? The answer to the last question is likely to be answered in X-Force, but the rest are very open questions.

read more: The Many Different Versions of the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga

Franklin Richards

Franklin Richards is an omega level reality manipulator and the child of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. He’s specifically called out in House of X #1 as important to the mutants. He’s also the one who, according to Hickman’s Secret Wars, the one who recreated the multiverse from nothing. This is DEFINITELY important.

Wolverine and Moira X

Logan and Moira have a close relationship in at least two of her lives, spending centuries together over the course of her 2000-ish years of consciousness. This relationship ended with him killing her, because “this is what [he does],” in both lives we see. Expect this to be explored.

“There can be no precogs on Krakoa”

Mystique’s condition for joining the ruling council of Krakoa is Destiny’s resurrection. Moira is adamant that this cannot happen - she is worried about precogs seeing the future and blowing up their whole plan, or even killing her again to reset the timeline. Charles and Erik basically spend this entire discussion yes-ing Moira to death. I can only speak from personal experience, but when I do this to someone, it means I’m going to do whatever the hell I want, and one of those things that I want is to end the conversation as quickly as I can.

Legion

One of the most uncomfortable things about Moira’s big retcon is how it changes her relationship with Joe MacTaggert, Proteus’ father. He was an abusive bastard and Proteus was the product of marital rape. Powers of X #6 specifically addresses this, in a way, as being part of Moira’s plan - her diary mentions that she was looking for a partner for her to have a child with to create an Omega Mutant. It also says that she was doing this for Charles, and his own extremely problematic child is Legion, David Haller, an Omega Mutant with the power to have an infinite and varied amount of powers. I’m almost certain that one of those powers was precognition, and if it wasn’t, it certainly can be without too much imagination required. He’s not accounted for in these books, but flagged in the Omega Mutant data page in House of X #1.

Moira’s 11th Life

Destiny tells Moira that she sees 10 lives, “maybe 11 if [she makes] the right choice at the end” for Moira. We’re in the middle of life 10.

In some of the promotion for the relaunch, other writers privy to Hickman’s plans mentioned that, to paraphrase, he was building out his ideas modularly, stuffing the book full of big ideas but with a way to close off this relaunch if it didn’t resonate with readers. Moira’s theorized 11th life feels like that reset button, set out on the table and ready to be pushed when it’s needed.

What's Next for Mutants in the Marvel Universe?

Dawn of X is the umbrella covering the first wave of post-HoXPoX X-Men comics, and now that we’re through the introduction, we can see an outline of what those books will look like moving forward.

X-Men is the flagship book, written by Hickman with art from a rotating team that includes Leinil Francis Yu and Powers of X’s RB Silva, at least to start. This is the book that looks to be the main story of the mutants, with a rotating cast of X-Men taking on the new world.

Marauders, by Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli, is the story of the Hellfire Trading Company as they smuggle Krakoan drugs around the world. Kitty Pryde, Storm, Bishop, Pyro, Iceman are the main cast manning the ships, while Emma and Shaw do their thing manipulating things behind the scenes. It sounds like they will be, in addition to the main distributors of Krakoan drugs, also smuggling them into countries that have refused to acknowledge Krakoa (like North Korea or Wakanda), and smuggling mutants out of those countries.

X-Force will be written by Ben Percy with art from Joshua Cassara. They are positioned as Krakoa’s CIA, with an intelligence team and a wetworks squad. Sage, Black Tom Cassidy, Beast, and Trinary are the intelligence leads, with Forge running a wetworks shop deep within Krakoa, and Quentin Quire, Marvel Girl, Colossus, Wolverine and Domino as the field team. One of their mandates seems almost certain to be confirming mutant deaths to initiate resurrection protocols.

read more: The X-Men Movies You Never Saw

Excalibur by Tini Howard and Marcus To will deal with mutants and their relationship to magic. Psylocke is taking over as the new Captain Britain, and she’ll be joined by Jubilee, Rogue, Gambit, Rictor, and Apocalypse, and with all of his new backstory floating around, this is one of the most exciting new books on the schedule.

New Mutants will be cowritten by Hickman and Ed Brisson, with art from Rod Reis. This book will feature traditional students - original New Mutants like Karma, Wolfsbane, Cypher, Sunspot and Magik; Generation Xers like Mondo and Chamber; and newer classes like Glob Herman - as one group welcomes new mutants to Krakoa, while the other heads off to Shi’ar space to bring Cannonball home. A “spoiler variant” cover for one of the HoXPoX issues has Sunspot sitting on the throne of Chandilar, the Shi’ar homeworld, and could follow up on ideas introduced in Moira’s ninth life.

Fallen Angels is drawn by Szymon Kudransky and written by Bryan Hill. It features Kwannon, Cable and X-23 out in the world. With the announced additions of Husk and Bling to the cast, this book seems like it will be dealing with mutants with body autonomy issues in their past who are uncomfortable with what the Krakoan mutants are doing.

And finally, announced at NYCC, a Wolverine solo series is coming in February from Percy and legendary Wolverine artist Adam Kubert. Little detail was given about this book, but it’s reasonable to speculate that this might be about Wolverine freelancing instead of following orders from his X-Force compatriots. This would also be a logical place to examine the Wolverine/Moira relationship in greater detail.

Why Does HoXPoX Matter?

Aside from the continuity implications (which are huge), the biggest thing that HoXPoX accomplished was truly astonishing: for the first time in probably twenty years, it really felt like all of the superhero comics reading public was united in their glee from these books.

Superhero comics fans are a large group with a lot of strongly held opinions, but what HoXPoX showed was that we’re united in our desire for X-Men comics to be big and fun and meaningful again. The X-Men line suffered a devastating wound from House of M, and when they were (seemingly) shuffled off to the side once the MCU got big, comics felt a little smaller, a little less meaningful, almost a little meaner.

HoXPoX gave us a big, sweeping, fascinating story and paired it with utterly stunning artwork from pencilers Silva, Pepe Larraz, and colorist Marte Gracia who all did career best work on these books. And they made comics a ton of fun to talk about again. If you don’t believe me, go check out the #XSpoilers hashtag for three days after each issue dropped. I’ve had a pull list for a decade, and have been reading single issues as often as I could grab them for longer. I’ve never had this much fun reading a comic as it came out before. I can’t wait for what’s next.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Jim Dandy

Oct 11, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

from Books https://ift.tt/318D1Xc

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daresplaining · 7 years

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The Defenders Trailer #1 Analysis

Here’s our analysis of the first Defenders trailer... just in time for the second one! (Right, Marvel?)

To start, one detail we really like is that they’ve managed to maintain the distinct color palettes of the different shows. Jessica’s shots in the trailer are purple-tinged, Luke’s are yellow, Matt’s are red, and Danny’s are green. The scenes in which all four characters appear together are either very colorful (e.g. the restaurant where they have their team dinner, later in the trailer) or colorless (the stark white hallway scene). The dedication to these color motifs is very cool, and from what we can tell so far, it seems to work without being jarring or obtrusive.

Since this show is only going to be eight episodes long, and has four main characters, we’re very curious to see how much screentime the massive number of secondary protagonists are going to get. It’s a relief to see that Misty will be tied to Jessica’s investigative activities, since that means we’ll likely see a reasonable amount of her.

Massive kudos to everyone involved for recreating this scene from Alias #3 almost panel for panel! We love that Jessica and Matt meet this way, and are thrilled that they pulled directly from the source material to give us the live action equivalent.

This also answers the question of whether or not Matt is still doing legal work.

Here we have our first glimpses of post-prison Luke-- including his renewed romantic relationship with Claire. Having escaped from under the specter of being an escaped convict, he now has the freedom to live and work and exist in the world the way he chooses, and we can’t wait to see his efforts to rebuild his life, and the choices he makes from here. Clearly, he has permanently owned his identity as a superhero and public figure, which means he has likely completed the process of accepting his powers as well. Having been forced into the superhero situation in Luke Cage, he is now actively making the choice to continue helping people. The big question now is: what form will this help take? We feel like they could have pulled off making him a hero for hire in his solo show, but we understand why they didn’t. There are all sorts of ethical questions it would have brought up (many people accused him of being heartless and only in it for the money in his early comics appearances), which would have gotten in the way of the story. However, now-- being jobless-- there’s a chance he could consider it. But since he’s going to be pretty busy in this show, that might not come up in any concrete form until Luke Cage Season 2.

It will also be interesting to see what his attitude is toward the team-up. He might actually enjoy it, barring any potential awkwardness with Jessica. And hey, the Hand doesn’t have Judas bullets.

...Probably.

Given that this only takes place a month after Iron Fist, we’re guessing that Danny and Colleen will have only just returned from the Himalayas by the time the show starts, or will return in the first episode-or-so. Finn Jones’s comments about Danny having vital information about what the Hand are up to suggests that, beyond the revelations about the group in Iron Fist, he and Colleen may discover something new while investigating K’un-Lun’s disappearance between shows. We’re wondering if this new information could have something to do with the “lost city” mentioned in this NY Bulletin article:

(Here’s a theory we’ve been playing with: Alexandra and the Hand are connected in some way to the eighth Capital City of Heaven from Immortal Iron Fist.)

Colleen is another secondary protagonist who-- thanks to her close ties to the Hand and shared storyline with Danny-- will likely be integral to the main plot. Jessica Henwick provided a little hint of Colleen’s character arc in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

“We pick up with Colleen not in New York — which is crazy, as all the shows have been predominantly in New York. We find her a month after we left her. [...] She hasn’t been able to deal with the emotional trauma she dealt with in Iron Fist, so it builds to a head and she explodes in Defenders.”

This is more strong evidence that both Danny and Colleen will still be out of the country when the show starts. We found Colleen’s shortage of character development to be one of Iron Fist’s few weak areas, so we are excited for the rest of the fallout from her falling-out with the Hand, and to see how she handles the extremely personal nature of this show’s plotline. We’re expecting some reappearances by Bakuto, and probably from some of Colleen’s former students. It’s gonna hurt...

Finally, we love Danny’s modern era comics-style haircut! (Colleen, this is your cue. Red hair dye. Stat.) We don’t need an in-universe reason for a small change like this, but we wonder if there will be one.

This is one of the most intriguing shots in the trailer. The weapons lying all over the place make it seem like this is a Hand base, but we’re interested in the containers on the far left. Drugs? Something connected to the blood harvesting project (which may or may not be Black Sky or resurrection-related)? IGH? If we keep saying the Hand is connected to IGH, it’ll end up being true, right?

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We have waited so long, and we’re finally getting a live action Power Man and Iron Fist adaptation! (Please... if you haven’t read Power Man and Iron Fist Volume 1, do yourself a huge favor and get that into your life.) They’ve been teasing the heck out of this most beautiful of friendships for a while both in the actual shows and during promo events, so it’s a thrill to finally have reached this point. It will be interesting to see how their dynamic evolves, since there are some key distinctions between 616 Luke and Danny and MCU Luke and Danny. To start, MCU Luke’s personality is markedly different from that of his comics counterpart. In the comics, he’s a loud, aggressive guy, known for violent tendencies and a short temper. When he first meets Danny, he is in a particularly nasty emotional uproar because he is being blackmailed, and his loved ones’ lives are in danger. However, in the MCU they’ve mellowed him down to a considerable degree-- likely to avoid invoking the “big angry black man” stereotype that’s present in the source material.

In Danny, we see the opposite change. 616 Danny is a very angry, serious, emotionally confused guy in his early appearances, having just left his home behind in order to commit murder. However, through connecting with Colleen and Misty and orienting himself in his new life, he calms down, and has taken on the gentler, friendlier persona he’s best known for by the time he meets Luke. In the moment of their first encounter he’s not exactly in a great mood, because Luke has just punched out his best friend and his girlfriend, but he’s reasonably quick to forgive once he gets a sense of the situation. However, given the brilliant scrambling of his revenge quest in the show, MCU Danny has not had the chance to settle down in this way-- and has actually gone through the opposite character progression. Over the course of Iron Fist he has his optimism and kindness stripped away, leaving him angry and frustrated and on-edge by the final episode. We can’t imagine the revelation in the very last scene of the show did much to help this emotional turmoil, so it will likely transfer over into at least the first few episodes of The Defenders.

Will having a calm Luke and an angry Danny instead of an angry Luke and a calm Danny make a difference in their relationship? It’s hard to say. However, one thing we do know is that it’ll result in something that’s a priority for us: a big knock-down, drag-out fight! This is the nature of their first encounter in the comics as well, and we consider it to be a very important bonding experience for both of them. Danny punches Luke through several walls and drops a building on him, Luke gets right back up and keeps fighting, and by the end of the confrontation they are both extremely impressed with each other. In an ideal world, the live action version would be just as wild and building-destroying, but what matters most is that the bonding fight happens. We’re eager to see what will cause it in this universe, since that will directly affect how long it takes for them to become BFFs afterward.

This is a beautiful shot.

Tell ‘em, Danny!

We mentioned this in our Iron Fist commentary, but one gap in the MCU’s rendition of the mythos is an explanation of the “immortal” epithet. We love that Danny uses it, because of the geek-out factor, but it still needs to make sense in-universe. In the comics, it refers to the fact that K’un-Lun and its citizens are immortal, and also to the fact that the Iron Fist position will (in theory) always be around. This may be the reasoning in the show as well-- but it’s something we feel they should explain, because to non-comics readers it probably seems kind of random. Maybe it’ll come up in The Defenders.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that Claire is the person responsible for bringing Luke and Danny together-- finally reaching her full capacity as the link between shows. She may be the one who sends Matt to help Jessica as well.

Luke and Danny, sizing each other up. Unstoppable force meets immovable object.

...Now hug.

There have been quite a few shots like this in these shows, of characters studying themselves in mirrors. It’s generally meant to imply self-reflection and contemplation. This specific variety-- in which a character stares into a fogged-up bathroom mirror after taking a shower-- contains an added element of vulnerability and implied regret, and usually indicates that they’ve just been through a traumatic event. Sure enough, Danny has a nasty-looking slice across his chest.

Logic suggests that he probably got it from Elektra-- though if this show goes for maximum trauma, which it might, we could guess it might be from Colleen somehow...

But probably Elektra.

Exhibit A: Jessica Jones drinking alone in a closed bar, during what looks like the middle of the day.

We know three key things about Jessica’s current state of being: she is still operating as a P.I., except now (in theory) she has more emotional support in the form of Malcolm and Trish; she has become semi-well-known and popular thanks to her fight with Kilgrave, and isn’t sure how to handle the fame; and she’s still struggling with the trauma of everything that happened in Jessica Jones Season 1. Getting pulled into a team-up is not going to help with any of this-- apart from allowing her to reconnect with Luke, and introducing her to more people who might possibly serve as a support network, whether she wants one or not. She and Matt are the two people who we imagine are going to be most hesitant about the team-up, and Jessica will likely be the most open and loud about not wanting to be involved. In fact, since Malcolm and Trish will both be appearing in this show, we wonder if they might have a role in convincing her to help out.

We can't wait to see how she reacts to the magic ninjas. She’s going to have some great reactions to the magic ninjas, we can guarantee it.

Okay, listen.

Can uh... can we please just call him ‘Daredevil’? He’s Daredevil. That’s his code name. Never mind showing respect for the source material, etc., etc.-- he’s been Daredevil for two years in the MCU. “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” was all well and good (well... not terrible, anyway) as a semi-believable build-up to him acquiring his actual name, but it’s a silly-sounding mouthful and there’s no reason for anyone to still be using it. All of the praise we’ve given to Luke Cage and Iron Fist for owning the superheroic/non-grounded elements of their comics is completely negated by this utter unwillingness to use Matt’s actual dang superhero name!

Sorry. Just had to get that out of our collective system. Moving on...

Hooray, a nice look at Matt’s costume (which looks pretty much the same as it did last season)-- including a great close-up of his billy clubs. We can’t wait to see him use the grapple line some more in this show, and we’re still holding out for someday getting the double-Ds.

The hero we need.

Our guess is that Luke’s time in prison won’t extend beyond the first episode. This could even be his introductory scene. We would love to get a long, drawn-out plotline in which his name is cleared, because that’s a vital step in his story, but we highly suspect that there won’t be time for it. In many ways, it would have been nice to get Luke Cage Season 2 before The Defenders, so that this plot point could be properly developed. As it stands, we’re expecting maybe one or two scenes to cover Luke being at Seagate and then getting released.

(Cue some long, gratuitous gushing about how good the Iron Fist looks. ...And the Chi of Shou-Lao looks nice too. *Rimshot*)

Sorry. Anyway. We are absolutely psyched to see Stick interact with Danny. This is partly because, as Stick fans, we enjoy seeing him interact with anyone and everyone. But mostly, it’s because we cannot wait to see what the Chaste’s relationship with K’un-Lun and the Iron Fist is like in this universe. As two major forces that have been battling the Hand for centuries, it would make sense for them to be aware of each other. But at the same time, the intel discrepancy between the Chaste and K’un-Lun indicates that they may not be in regular contact with each other-- or possibly have never even interacted before now. (For more details, see this post.) How does Stick feel about Iron Fists? Madame Gao, despite her Hand affiliations and understandable disregard for most people, showed a small degree of respect-- sometimes veering slightly toward kindness-- for Danny, likely due to his rank. Stick doesn’t really respect anyone-- at least, not to their face-- but we’re eager to see what kind of relationship he and Danny will have.

Guess who’s baaack!

We’re not sure what to make of this, though it would make the most sense to assume that it’s part of the Black Sky’s power set. It also reminds us a bit of Madame Gao’s telekinesis-like trademark move, only on a much larger scale.

We finally have our first serious glimpse of Alexandra. She’s still very much a mystery, but Stephanie Maslansky, the head costume designer for the Marvel Netflix shows, let this slip in an interview a few weeks ago: “...She’s the head of an ancient organization, which is grounded in the comics. [...] I hope that her wardrobe reflects that kind of ancientness.” It feels almost too obvious for her to be leading the Hand, but that’s the direction all of the evidence seems to be pointing. The “ancient organization”, if not the Hand itself, could possibly be Snakeroot, the group at the heart (palm?) of the Hand that deals with Beast-related activities. And it seems likely that, as with Madame Gao and Nobu and likely Bakuto, she’s probably functionally immortal.

We can already tell we’re going to love this scene! It’s always awesome when Matt fights in civvies. In fact, he’s out of costume for nearly the entire trailer-- and even when he is shown wearing the suit, he has his mask off. In the restaurant scene later on Alexandra sees his face, which-- coupled with her “the more connections you have, the easier it will be to break you” line-- is worrying. Why is he being so careless?

Is too much to ask for Matt to be driving this car? We need to get a scene of Matt driving at least once in these shows. It’s an Iconic Daredevil Thing(TM).

Also, this is the same restaurant as the one in the following clips, meaning this crash may be part of the same scene.

(Maybe the rest of the Chaste are driving the car. The Chastemobile.)

This is clearly a giant, pivotal moment in the show, as it involves team bonding (as we see later in the trailer), Stick, and even Alexandra. A big thank you to the people who pointed out that Stick seems to be missing his right hand-- or possibly his entire arm-- in this scene (which uh, gives us high hopes for Misty...). While Stick appears alongside the team in a separate scene in this trailer, our guess is that his decision to stagger into the restaurant and get them up off their butts takes place after a big development-- possible after he and the Chaste have been thoroughly stomped by Elektra and the Hand. This would explain the arm situation, and his renewed interest in getting help despite having judged Matt to be unready for the war.

Also... Matt has his glasses off in this scene! Either he’s grown extremely comfortable around everyone really quickly (which is possible, but... doubtful), or something’s happened to them. They were cracked in a few of the leaked set photos, so they may get completely destroyed at some point.

Presumably Elektra (this is the same sword she’s carrying a few shots later, during the hallway fight), giving off some major Darth Vader vibes.

This is very exciting. There was a sad shortage of leaping off rooftops in Daredevil Season 2, so we’re relieved that there’ll be some in The Defenders. There’s a balance that’s necessary for these types of scenes, and we don’t think they’ve quite found it yet. One of the important lessons the DD Netflix show learned from the movie is that you cannot replicate comics Matt’s extreme parkouring in live action in a way that looks good. (Or at least, it’s very difficult, and the movie didn’t manage it.) It needs to be dialed down to something slightly more realistic and, well, physically possible for someone without a building-hopping power set. However, we think they went too far. Matt’s parkouring in DD Season 1 was a lot of fun, but it was very... safe parkouring (if there is such a thing). He’s called Daredevil, after all (...Aha! Maybe this is why they’re so hesitant to call him Daredevil! Mystery solved?) and taking risks is his signature thing. Danny’s daredeviling scene in Iron Fist Episode 3 was great, and we’re hoping for something closer to that level of risk-taking-- at the very least!-- in Matt’s future.

It’s funny-- these were the original subtitles, and then they must have realized the mistake and changed them.

It’s pretty clear at this point that the rest of the team is going to learn Matt’s secret identity. We also know that the four of them run into each other for the first time at Midland Circle-- so this may be their first-ever team-up. That’s a record for secret identity leakage, even for Matt. They also find out that he’s blind, meaning they probably know about his powers-- which is a much more significant secret to Matt than even his secret identity. We can’t wait to see how that reveal happens.

The banter between Matt and Jessica in this show is going to be amazing. They’re both snarky people with loud opinions and iron wills, and all evidence suggests that they are going to bounce off each other in really entertaining ways.

We’d guessed in the initial teaser that he was wearing Jessica’s scarf, and we love it. She also wears that thing all the time, and we know she doesn’t do much laundry, so... good luck, Matt. This is why you need a costume that fits under civvies.

And of course, we’re getting the Ultimate Hallway Fight-- clearly part of the same scene as the elevator ride from the teaser. While we have semi-mixed feelings about this having become a recurring thing (the original hallway fight in Daredevil Season 1 served a very specific purpose, which has been lost in most of the subsequent versions), we mostly think they’re super awesome, so we’re excited about this. We mentioned the colors in this scene earlier-- how the whiteness of the hallway doesn’t integrate any of the character-specific color schemes. This creates an alienating effect, in which all of our heroes seem out of place and isolated. It’s also a callback to the coding in Daredevil Season 1, in which bright white spaces embodied themes of inhumanity, greed, and corruption. Clearly, Midland Circle is corporate-style bad news... but of course, we already knew that.

A few details we particularly love:

-The fact that Luke, Danny, and Jessica are tearing through people in the front, and Matt’s in the background just beating on that one guy. Keep on keeping on, Matt.

-The fact that Elektra is just strolling along behind the action, watching them tire themselves out. It’s terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

-Danny’s yellow shoes! We doubt he’ll ever wear the little yellow slippers in this universe, so we appreciate this nod to them.

Finally... this is a very strange hallway. What’s with the glass panels?

Hooray! Welcome back, El. Obviously, we have a lot of questions about Elektra in her new status as a recently resurrected person and (presumably) fully-activated Black Sky. Iron Fist gave us some great information about the former, at least. In the comics, those brought back from the dead by the Hand fall completely under their control. This would have been an easy explanation for how Elektra might become an antagonist in this show-- but as Harold Meachum’s efforts to fight the Hand (even after coming back twice) demonstrate, it doesn’t seem to be true in this universe. Instead, the resurrection results in a loss of humanity, which depletes the victim’s capacity for love and empathy and turns them violent.

This, layered on top of Elektra’s skills and predisposition for killing, would make her massively dangerous, but wouldn’t necessarily result in a willingness to help the Hand. She rejected them in Daredevil Season 2, after all, and getting skewered by Nobu probably didn’t make her any more enamored of them. The one factor we don’t know anything about is what effect becoming a fully realized Black Sky will have on her. Maybe it involves some form of mental numbing or brainwashing, and demonic possession is still a very real possibility. She’s clearly doing the Hand’s bidding to a certain degree here, and the details of how that happened are still ripe for speculation.

Look! A handy metaphor for Matt’s mental state once he discovers what’s happened to Elektra.

It seems pretty clear from this shot that Black Sky Elektra has super strength. It’s also notable that she decides to just hit Matt, rather than gutting him with her sword. This, coupled with how long she waits before even entering the fight, suggests two possibilities to us: that she’s been told to keep them alive, or that she’s fighting whatever control she’s under.

Also, we’re digging her new costume. The red is visually striking (and is both a reference her new Hand alliance and her 616 outfit), and the loincloth-style flappy bits actually look kind of cool, since she’s wearing *gasp* pants underneath them! Well done again, costuming team. Our only nitpick is that having her hair loose and in her face makes no sense.

Danny being extremely enthusiastic about the team-up, and Jessica being extremely unenthusiastic about the team-up, is spot-on and hilarious. Jessica is not at all a team player, while Danny is desperately searching for a purpose and for somewhere to belong. These two are going to have a fascinating dynamic, and we can’t wait to see how it plays out. Jessica and Danny have a bit of a bumpy start to their friendship in the comics, and while they do grow very close (they essentially become family, and Jessica and Luke name their daughter after Danny), they have also been known to have a difficult time reading each other because they have such different personalities. Since both of them are at much more unsettled points in their character arcs in the MCU than when they meet in the comics, we’re expecting a lot of friction between them-- which is going to hurt to watch, but should also lead to some interesting interactions.

“...Flying alcoholic?”

There is a lot to be excited about here. Three more months, and counting!

#Defenders spoilers #Netflix Defenders #Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Jessica Jones #Luke Cage #Iron Fist #Danny Rand #Elektra Natchios #Stick #Alexandra #Commentary #Set photo

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maximustherad · 7 years

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Skype Liveblog of Guardians of the Galaxy S01E12 “Crystal Blue Persuasion”

@thecorteztwins

[1:06:12 AM] Cool Dadneato: I found me an episode of the Guardians of the Galaxy show with Inhumans in it and if it's good I'm gonna liveblog

[1:06:21 AM] Cool Dadneato: or even if not

[1:06:25 AM] Hexiva: -chinhands-

[1:06:26 AM] Cool Dadneato: LIVEBLOG

[1:08:11 AM] Cool Dadneato: so Peter Quill is trying to teach his friends baseball, which sounds like an inherently awful idea

[1:08:58 AM] Cool Dadneato: they are trying but I don't think they even get the concept, much less the rules

[1:10:38 AM] Hexiva: I'm not sure I get the concept or rules

[1:11:48 AM] Cool Dadneato: ... I was going to side with the rest of the team here, BUT NOW I SIDE WITH PETER, BASEBALL IS VITAL KNOWLEDGE TO SHARE

[1:11:59 AM] Cool Dadneato: Lockjaw just appeared on board

[1:12:23 AM] Cool Dadneato: Rocket greets dogs by insulting them, I guess

[1:12:30 AM] Cool Dadneato: get off this ship

[1:13:01 AM] Cool Dadneato: why does Lockjaw have crystals stabbed in him

[1:13:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter, Gamora, and Lockjaw just teleported

[1:14:17 AM] Cool Dadneato: Rocket is not even perturbed

[1:15:04 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter is chasing Lockjaw through Attilan

[1:15:28 AM] Cool Dadneato: Lockjaw stole his baseball and Gamora is yelling to forget it

[1:16:09 AM] Cool Dadneato: forget you, Gamora, I've rped a lost in space Earth dude, this shit is important

[1:17:56 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter is yelling now about how he doesn't even care about the ball, now this is about how he feels like nobody ever listens to him

jeez, Peter, this is only a few minutes in

[1:20:21 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "So who's in distress?! There's nobody here but a giant, slobbering BASEBALL THIEF!!" -dramatic point-

[1:20:29 AM] Cool Dadneato: I want a gif of this

[1:21:16 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter is being so fucking sarcastic to this dog now omfg

[1:21:29 AM] Cool Dadneato: who teaches these people dog manners

[1:22:48 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "You see, on Earth it's totally hilarious."

Gamora: "I see why you don't go back."

[1:25:35 AM] Cool Dadneato: omfg, Lockjaw led Peter to some cryogen chambers and he opened one and it's Medusa and Peter said "aw it's like a princess" and made like he was going to kiss her and Medusa woke up to kick his ass

[1:26:13 AM] Cool Dadneato: kill him, Medusa

[1:26:30 AM] Cool Dadneato: feed his baseball to Lockjaw

[1:26:51 AM] Hexiva: MURDER HIM

[1:27:19 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa: "My husband would have words with you!"

[1:27:37 AM] Cool Dadneato: multiple ones? it's on then

[1:28:18 AM] Cool Dadneato: does she wait to say things like that

[1:31:43 AM] Cool Dadneato: meanwhile, I guess Groot, Drax, and Rocket finally decided to go look for Peter and Gamora

they seem very unrushed for people possibly doing rescuing

[1:32:02 AM] Hexiva: they're like "whatever he got himself into, he probably deserved it"

[1:32:29 AM] Cool Dadneato: yeah, they are all clearly thinking that

[1:33:54 AM] Cool Dadneato: they just tried to muss with crystal statues in the city, the crystals attacked

[1:35:33 AM | Edited 1:35:44 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa asked Peter if he's Kree and that's a surprisingly valid question

[1:35:57 AM] Hexiva: Kree rather than half-Celestial?

[1:37:31 AM] Cool Dadneato: Kree given the Inhuman context and that some Kree are white

in the 616 Peter is half Spartoi

[1:37:45 AM] Hexiva: What's a Spartoi

[1:37:56 AM] Cool Dadneato: and his dad once flirted with Medusa

[1:39:22 AM] Cool Dadneato: Spartoi look pretty much human but they are related to the Shi'ar somehow

[1:40:01 AM] Cool Dadneato: they come from Shi'ar space and share some common ancestor

[1:40:16 AM] Hexiva: what's their deal

[1:41:33 AM] Cool Dadneato: they have an Empire that's allied with the Shi'ar

[1:41:47 AM] Cool Dadneato: that's basically their thing

[1:41:49 AM] Hexiva: oh good, more douchebag empires

[1:42:11 AM] Hexiva: Aren't the Kree . . . like . . . blue . . .?

[1:42:12 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter's dad is J'Son, their emperor

[1:42:50 AM] Cool Dadneato: Kree are usually blue but they have a large white population

[1:43:08 AM] Cool Dadneato: like Mar-Vell and Noh-Varr

[1:43:14 AM] Hexiva: oh

[1:43:16 AM] Hexiva: that's weird

[1:43:20 AM] Cool Dadneato: yeah

[1:43:25 AM] Cool Dadneato: weird af

[1:43:29 AM] Cool Dadneato: why

[1:47:58 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus: "Cease this senseless attack, Alpha Primitives! Oh! This has all been a TERRIBLE misunderstanding! Oh, I'm SO very sorry about all this... I was expecting someone else."

omfg on a scale of 1 to A Steaming Pile of Filthy Dramatic Improv he's scoring a perfect Irving Braxiatel

[1:49:03 AM] Hexiva: DOES ANYONE BELIEVE YOU, MAXIMUS

[1:49:30 AM] Cool Dadneato: "I am Maximus... the Magnificent, Supreme Leader of the Inhumans."

[1:49:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: who let him out of the house

[1:51:56 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa and Maximus are giving their respective back stories for the Inhumans to their respective audiences and it's hilarious

[1:53:08 AM] Cool Dadneato: and yet I think the best part of all is that they are both delivering the same biased story

[1:53:30 AM] Hexiva: with the same biases?

[1:53:37 AM] Cool Dadneato: yes

[1:54:02 AM] Cool Dadneato: Inhumans are superior, peaceful, and did no wrong

[1:56:21 AM] Cool Dadneato: oh jfc, Medusa just informed Peter that they were escaping a plague on Earth, and she pulled back a sleeve to show crystals growing out of her skin, apparently Inhumans are suffering from some slow Terrigen death thing

[1:57:11 AM] Cool Dadneato: that explains all the crystals sticking out of Lockjaw

[1:59:13 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus is describing the plague to the others very dramatically, apparently it completely changed the slave caste, -dramatic fists- THEIR STRENGTH INCREASED A HUNDREDFOLD

[2:00:59 AM] Cool Dadneato: "Unfortunately, for the rest of us-- " -DRAMATIC PAUSE IN FRONT OF FROZEN BLACK BOLT- "It will prove quite fatal!"

[2:02:13 AM] Cool Dadneato: question, Mad Max, why is your esteemed dramafullness totally fine, you look the least sick of anybody and I call bullshit

[2:03:28 AM] Cool Dadneato: "Fortunately, I have found a cure! Soon, I'll have enough to save the rest of my family!"

sounds fake but okay

[2:04:25 AM] Cool Dadneato: "Even Black Bolt, my poor, mute brother."

aw, even him, in this fake story

[2:06:01 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa: "Since it was the Kree who created the Inhumans, we hoped they'd find a cure."

really? and how's that working out for you?

[2:07:26 AM] Cool Dadneato: for the record, the Inhumans are a race of slave WMDs to the Kree

[2:07:56 AM] Cool Dadneato: that doesn't sound like a place to start negotiations on

[2:10:12 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa: -GASPS- "My husband, the king, is missing!"

-checks the chamber next to his- "And so is his rat of a brother, Maximus!"

[2:10:25 AM] Cool Dadneato: :.) this fam

[2:20:39 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa: "What have you done with my husband, the king?!"

Rocket: "I thought you was the king."

Maximus: -ULTRA DRAMATIC SPIN- "By right, I should be! I isolated the Terrigen plague! I found the cure! While this one said nothing! DID NOTHING! UNTIL HE HIMSELF SUCCUMBED TO THE THREAT! Black Bolt is unworthy of the crown! Maximus is the true savior of the Inhumans!"

Rocket: "Okaaaaay... Well good luck with that."

[2:21:09 AM] Hexiva: that third person

[2:21:55 AM] Cool Dadneato: no time for theatre

[2:22:36 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa and Maximus are going to continue this without Rocket

[2:22:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: the show must go on

[2:25:12 AM] Cool Dadneato: "BEHOLD!"

Maximus, what am I beholding, will you please stop this bullshit if we put you on the Genetics Council with a cute title

[2:26:06 AM] Hexiva: why would you let that guy on the eugenics panel

[2:27:32 AM] Cool Dadneato: what damage can he possibly do there besides suggest terrible marriages

[2:27:43 AM] Cool Dadneato: "COMPLETE AND TOTAL MIND CONTROL!!!" -WILD LAUGHTER-

[2:28:09 AM] Cool Dadneato: okay fine, lock this fool up again

[2:31:08 AM] Cool Dadneato: "OBEY ME, BROTHER! DESTROY THEM! DESTROY THEM ALL!"

ho, they were such a decent audience

smack him in the mouth, Drax

[2:31:31 AM] Hexiva: maximus why

[2:32:16 AM] Cool Dadneato: Drax got his ass beat by mind-controlled Blackagar

[2:32:51 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus is looking through the hole in the wall

[2:33:05 AM] Cool Dadneato: AND LAUGHING AGAIN

[2:35:01 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus: "Finally! One of you will listen to what I say!"

I honestly wouldn't be shocked if that's what this is about

bitch needs attention

[2:36:13 AM] Cool Dadneato: Groot just got asskicked

[2:37:46 AM] Cool Dadneato: Gamora just got asskicked

[2:39:02 AM] Cool Dadneato: Rocket just got shrugged off because he's using an energy weapon and that's non-effective against Black Bolt

[2:39:54 AM] Cool Dadneato: my god Maximus is doing a little dance in the background

[2:40:06 AM] Cool Dadneato: while laughing

[2:42:02 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter decided to use Lockjaw to teleport behind Maximus and MAXIMUS BITCHSLAPPED HIM

[2:42:09 AM] Cool Dadneato: EMBARRASSING

[2:42:27 AM] Cool Dadneato: DEFEATED BY MAXIMUS

[2:42:35 AM] Hexiva: GOOD

[2:45:43 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "Don't... Make me open this box! Inside it is a weapon that can destroy the whole city!"

Maximus: "Oh?! This I must see. Open it!"

called

[2:48:07 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "No, you don't understand! We'll all be vaporised! Instantly!"

Maximus: "How exciting! Open it! Now!"

called again

[2:48:37 AM] Cool Dadneato: this isn't working Peter

[2:52:21 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter gave up and opened his box and there was a cosmic cube inside and the flash of light still managed to blind Maximus and make him lose control of Blackagar

[2:52:45 AM] Cool Dadneato: embarrassing, Maximus

[2:53:46 AM] Cool Dadneato: Blackagar immediately ran to Medusa and Maximus ran the fuck out

[2:56:24 AM] Cool Dadneato: they also found out the cube accelerated the crystal plague the Inhumans are infected with

[2:58:17 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "That's AWESOME!!"

Drax: "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

[3:00:40 AM] Cool Dadneato: RONAN THE ACCUSER JUST SHOWED UP

[3:01:22 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus: "Ah, see, I told you I was expecting someone else."

[3:02:22 AM] Cool Dadneato: yeah how does selling out your species feel you evil fuck

[3:06:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: Medusa: "Maximus! What. Have. You. DONE?!"

Maximus: -mimicking her tone- "Just. What. You. Wanted! I have formed an alliance with the Kreeee!"

[3:13:01 AM] Cool Dadneato: "I give them an invincible crystal army, and in return Attilan becomes part of the Kree Empire, with myself as Supreme Leader, of course."

you negotiated Attilan's unconditional surrender? you truly are our hero

[3:19:39 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter: "He can't do that. Ronan's an outlaw even among his own people."

Rocket: "You cut a deal with the one guy in the galaxy who's crazier than you!"

-Maximus' facial expression is beautiful-

[3:23:31 AM] Cool Dadneato: Ronan: "Get out of my sight, you filth."

Maximus: -pathetically- "But... I don't understand... !"

[3:24:40 AM] Cool Dadneato: jfc, Ronan just curbstomped Maximus

[3:26:11 AM] Cool Dadneato: who was already sitting on the ground looking pathetic

[3:29:18 AM] Cool Dadneato: Ronan plans to destroy the city, he is absolutely not impressed with the tribute army

[3:31:34 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus says this is fine, he rather die than bow to his brother ever again

[3:32:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: he threw a tantrum, destroyed the cure, and ran off

[3:34:31 AM] Cool Dadneato: does Maximus ever get bored of hearing himself

[3:34:47 AM] Hexiva: NO

[3:35:39 AM] Cool Dadneato: that is rhetorical

[3:38:00 AM] Cool Dadneato: he loves hearing himself

[3:39:02 AM] Cool Dadneato: Maximus: "Bravo! A front row seat for the apocalypse!" -LAUGHS MANIACALLY-

[3:45:58 AM] Cool Dadneato: omfg, this episode rapidly escalated to its dramatic ending

[3:54:52 AM] Cool Dadneato: Peter Quill uses the cosmic cube to cure the plague, Black Bolt destroys the Kree warship (leaving Ronan to shout that he will have his REVENGE!!! from within the shielded pieces of the Kree bridge)

cut to Maximus chuckling and talking to himself from where he's chained in a dark, windowless dungeon

Maximus: "Hahaha, oh the irony. Defeated by the great Star-Lord, who can't find what sees with a map, which he holds with both hands; the further he goes, the farther away he gets... !"

-starts laughing until the Inhumans click a mental dampening device in place and his expression goes blank in surprise and he's cut off abruptly-

[3:55:59 AM] Cool Dadneato: and then everyone happily goes home, except Peter wishes he knew what that weirdness was all about

#thecorteztwins #out of character

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wingheadshellhead · 7 years

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Hi, I love your blog! So I've been reading a lot of 616 stevetony lately, and I've noticed that in both canon and in a lot of fiction, Steve seems to really dislike Extremis (even before superior iron man). Why do you think that is? Even without looking at this with shipper goggles (which I always am), I think it's really strange that Steve has so much disdain for something that essentially saved one of his best friend's lives.

(THIS HAS TAKEN ME 5 BILLION YEARS BUT HERE IT IS FINALLY)

i used to be in the same boat and automatically assumed steve’s dislike of extremis was one of those fandom headcanon things that was so commonly accepted it’d basically become fact, but it’s really, actually, all 100% canon. but the comics that deal with it happen right before civil war so i think many ppl have simply forgotten or skipped over that part of tony’s timeline.

execute program is the 6-issue arc that comes right after extremis and it’s the main thing i tell everyone they have to read if they’re putting themselves thru the ringer that is 616′s civil war. it is so so important to understanding tony’s headspace and where he’s at before the events of civil war occur.

READ EXECUTE PROGRAM. a) bc it’s absolutely crucial to tony’s side of civil war, b) the follow-through from the extremis arc is just… amazing, virtuosic. i really genuinely think it is a fascinating, excellently-written arc, c) when it gets gay it gets very gay. truST ME you do not need your shipper goggles for this at all bc guess which of the following things are canon: the sound of steve saying his voice being the only thing that snaps tony out of (likely a dissociative episode) trying to murder a villain that nearly kills peter, dyeing his hair blond when he’s going on the run, tony stopping his heart to save steve’s life. all of them !!! all canon !!!!!!

extremis is, basically, terrifying. to the average human being, hell even the average superhuman. it’s p much unfathomable the sheer level/magnitude/scope of extremis. extremis allows tony to access and control any piece of technology on earth and even in earth’s atmosphere, he can hear satellites. it’s like having the singularity as a superpower.

so part 1, iron man vol. 4 #7 (2006), opening issue and we have tony stopping a villain with lethal force, all while counting down the milliseconds and bidding on priceless artefacts.

now, avengers don’t kill. and tony doesn’t, he stops the man’s heart, then restarts it, basically performing defibrillation.

and then we get this conversation:

and after tony jets off leaving the new avengers to sort out the aftermath, we get this disturbing reminder:

a proper reread might prove me wrong but i don’t think the writers ever clarify whether this transformation in tony’s personality is due to extremis or outside manipulation (which is the culmination of execute program’s arc as i’ll go into in a bit). but when your brain is literally a machine and you Have Become more machine than human, this is the natural progression of tony’s humanity – the aspects of compassion, empathy, etc. – fading into the background to accomodate for extremis.

extremis brings out everything about tony that steve (and possibly the world) fears most. it makes him cold and calculating, and with a brain like tony stark’s elevated by the superhuman capacity to think and react at the speed of a machine, he’s unstopppable.

part 2, iron man vol. 4 #8, we have tony nearly straight up burning a man alive for almost killing peter and laughing about it.

he’s so deep in Destroy Mode that he doesn’t even register steve’s warning, and here i think he acts entirely out of instinct –– like extremis is thinking for him rather than his brain prompting him to do this.

extremis is also the cause of tension between tony and the newly-formed new avengers (one of my favorite line-ups!!), he almost gets into a fight with logan and jessica has to break them up. it turns out tony is missing time in his memory, which is extremely worrying for someone w/ his level of power…

what’s so fascinating about extremis, and why we have so much to thank warren ellis for (the writer of the extremis arc), is that it is the perfect and the most logical climax of the modern iron man story. tony’s worst villain, as we’ve known since the very beginning really, has never been anyone else but himself. and in the case of extremis, it’s a highly technologically advanced version of himself that can do and be everything he’s ever dreamed of being able to achieve vs. him.

the question extremis asks is at what cost? at what cost does technological advancement, bleeding-edge breakthroughs, and the spirit of human innovation come at? how far would tony go to become the Ideal version of himself that he sees as superior in every way? what would he sacrifice for that?

extremis represents basically the pinnacle of sci-fi tech in iron man comics, it’s why even god awful superior iron man used a 3.0 version of it as the foundation for tony’s sins. it’s the farthest point he’s ever reached, and it’s also the lowest in terms of the damage and fallout that comes from it. because ofc, tony stark can’t have nice things like this, but also bc the hubris + nature of extremis allowing its host to play god can’t exist without there being negative consequences. really b ad consequences.

huge respect to danial & charles knauf, the authors of execute program, too, because they find a way to perfectly bring the arc full circle as ellis did with his extremis. the central villain plot revolves around ho yinsen’s son. the kid hacks extremis and uses it to control tony, sending him to subconsciously assassinate a bunch of people on his kill list, i.e. a list of all the men involved in yinsen’s death. i mean like, HOLY SHIT, an iron man plot where a literal ghost from tony’s past – a direct victim of events tony was involved in, the son of the man that sacrificed his life so iron man could be born and so tony stark could live – shows up, weaponises tony’s own body + technology and uses him to murder people who are scheduled to participate in a peace summit despite the blood on their hands and the human cost of their involvement in the weapons industry.

DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN YINSEN’S LIFE’S WORK AND TONY’S LIKE DEATH AND DYING WOULD BE KINDER. again bc of my memory or even regardless due to constant retcons + reruns of the iron man origin story, i don’t know if it’s ever been explicitly stated before that yinsen also got into the weapons industry in order to get the funding necessary to support his other revolutionary work. but his son literally conflates yinsen with tony here, blending them into one + the same with that final panel and it becomes very obvious that at least a small part of him blames father for entering into weapons design. if he hadn’t, he might never have been captured by the the terrorist group that wanted him and tony to build them missiles.

also, yinsen + villains involving yinsen are a recurring theme in iron man history but can we talk abt the fact that tony has never ever let himself forget the man bc jesus christ

yinsen’s kid is killed by a SHIELD sniper, activating the dead man’s switch and unleashing all the peackeeping units tony built that are now compromised. now, tony’s no jean grey or wanda maximoff but if this arc shows anything it’s not to underestimate him bc intentional or not (lmao) if he put his mind to it there’s literally no limit to the damage he could do.

we see various heroes fighting off the peacekeeping units, and the new avengers are at the peace summit fighting a hulkbuster.

and here it is people !!! the 23989485th time tony kills himself so steve can live.

JUST. THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. AND THEN THIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF HESITATION:

so, yes. extremis was traumatising for pretty much every single person involved. steve has extremely good reasons for HATING extremis, even in the early stages or even if a fic is taking place before the events of execute program.

if you read the full arc, you’ll see tony running himself into the ground with his new abilities (world’s greatest multitasker can now multitask 192483958 things at once? ofc he’s going to use and abuse and exploit that), you see him spiralling and losing his grip on reality (mainly because he’s actually having dissociative episodes and losing time due to being remotely controlled to assassinate ppl but also bc of the Effect extremis is having on him). i brought up wanda and jean earlier as a casual reference but like, to put it in that kind of perspective, people just weren’t made to have this much power.

on a smaller scale, apart from eating up all of tony’s time and attention and mental health in a really bad way, it just Distances him from everyone. especially from the team. it’s Isolating, having this much going on in his brain and no one else in the world to fully understand it.

and on steve’s side, you also have the fact that tony’s genius is both one of the things he loves and lowkey resents most about him. he has this deep-set anxiety about tony with all his brilliance and intelligence leaving him behind in the dust, or worse, laughing at him and how outdated and dim-witted he is in comparison. this is steve’s version of tony’s “i’m never going to be good enough for him”, a sentiment summed up in a quote from him as early as tales of suspense vol. 2 (1995): “yes, tony stark, a man of today and tomorrow is the man i’ll never be.” he’s so afraid of being abandoned + alienated by tony’s mind and the future that tony’s worked so tirelessly to build that might render him irrelevant. he’s scared of a future where he has no purpose, but more or just as importantly, he’s scared of becoming obsolete in tony’s life, of not being needed by tony anymore. one of the things that endeared him so much to tony, and which laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship, was the fact that from Day One (1), tony made him feel At Home. he never let him feel ashamed or isolated as The Man Out Of Time, he actively worked to make steve feel comfortable and to give him the things he needed to acclimatise and to fit himself into this brave new world.

extremis undoes all of that. it propels tony so far and so fast into the future that it makes tony untouchable to steve. all of the ‘i can hear satellites’ stuff renders steve helpless and even more out of his depth than usual. it presses all of steve’s secret buttons and then some.

to sum this all up, and to finish my extra rambling abt tony bc u asked me about extremis and i couldn’t not finish with this:

here we have, ladies and gentlemen, everything u need to understand abt tony going into civil war. and it’s not on any of the official civil war fucking reading lists which really pisses me off because whether or not they did it on purpose the knaufs basically wrote all of execute program as the perfect precursor and characterisation groundwork for an antebellum tony stark.

a tony stark who was just very recently manipulated against his will into assassinating people and causing a world-threatening incident that could have resulted in the deaths of thousands, including his own friends and teammates (and the love of his life), is a very different tony stark to the one ppl see in civil war #1.

what happens in stamford was an accident, too. no one meant for that to happen. tony knows first fucking hand what that means and what it feels like to carry that responsibility and guilt. his position in civil war supporting the SHRA is not only to protect the potential lives that could be lost in another stamford incident but also to protect superhumans and superheroes from ever being exploited against their will by villains to kill and hurt and destroy.

superheroes are inherently susceptible to being used, it’s just part of the narrative convention –– a superhero is brainwashed or mind controlled or otherwise forced against their will to do something awful. and even if it’s not their fault there needs to be accountability for the victims. both the victims that suffer directly because of superhuman incidents but also the superheroes that become victims of ppl who abuse their powers. it’s abt protecting superheroes not just from civilians but from themselves. and if u’ve read a single comic u kno that this kinda shit happens way too often and way too easily.

sO YE S T hIS iS W HY. AND IT Ex PL AINS SO MUC H AND i j UST WISH P PL WOULD GODDAMN REA D THIS. LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO SAY ANOTHER A GODDAMN THING ABOUT TONY STARK IN CIVIL WAR NEEDS TO FIRST READ EXECUTE PROGRAM FIRST OR PAY ME $10

anyway…………… one last time, i’m so so so sorry this took forever to get to. hope the wait was worth it!

#mod: answer #averageapplepie #stevetony #stony #extremis #text: meta #universe: 616 #comic: iron man v4 #original: meta #i'm so sorry u had to wait so long like #i should warn ppl that ever ask me a meta question that i might take half a yr to reply #......not to deter u tho bc i promise that my answer will be as well thought-out and in-depth as i can make it

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

Text

Ghost Spider #2 Thoughts

Sigh...more of the same...

This premise gets worse the more you think about it.

I mean let’s talk about the most obvious thing that didn’t occur to me before. So Gwen needs to pick her entry points back and forth from Earth 616 carefully because her powers don’t work immediately after exiting a portal. To this end she chooses a spot she knows will lead to a bill board with poles jutting out she can grab onto before her powers kick in again.

...why not just open a portal on the ground?

Then you have the utter lack of world building.

It’s fair enough to presume that audiences are familiar with the world building of Earth 616. It’s been around for donkey’s years and it’s the basis for just about every media adaptation of Marvel ever, including the movies. Even if it’s far from a 1:1 similarity it is close enough that even comic book virgins can jump in and not be at too much of a loss. That’s particularly true for a Spidey series where the premise is to be relatively normal, the only fantastical elements demanding world building being the spider powers (which everyone on earth is aware of) and the villains, who often speak for themselves or are famous enough that you can presume knowledge from the audience.

But when it comes to alternate universes like Earth 65, which are specifically alternative to Earth 616, you do need to flesh some things out. And so far beyond Gwen is a super hero and not dead, nor is her Dad and Jameson’s son is an evil gangster not much world building going on.

More problematically is the fact that basic questions are never raised nor answered. Gwen says in Earth 65 she’s going to be late for a class in Earth 616. Is time synchronized though between universes? That’s a pretty basic question when dealing with parallel universes. In the Doctor Who episode ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ that question was answered almost immediately upon entry to the parallel Earth of that story, and the series at that time was trying to be baby’s first science fiction!

It’s not an unreasonable question to ask either given how from Spider-Man’s POV Spider-Verse (where he first met Spider-Gwen) was years ago but the first sentence of the recap page of this series states Gwen got her powers mere months ago.

Playing in the same ballpark as the bad world building is the ignoring of established continuity in regards to the Jackal. Now look, I could buy that Warren has gone so far off the deep end that he considers turning Gwen into a furry like him a good idea.

But...doesn’t Warren effectively consider his clones of Gwen as the real thing? Isn’t that the entire reason he cloned Gwen in the first place, why he set up the original clone of Gwen with a clone of himself to in a weird way live out his fantasy?

So why is he obsessed over this new version of Gwen, a version that for all he knows could just be another clone? In fact if you are Miles Warren wouldn’t that be the first thing you presume? It’s not like she has given any genetic samples he can test to confirm if she is a clone or not.

On the other end of this relationship I just realized how asinine it is that no one recognizes Miles Warren, especially at ESU. Sure once upon a time Warren’s identity was secret. Even after his presumed death in the 1970s Clone Saga his identity was a secret. But that all changed in the 1990s Clone Saga when he was arrested and sent to Ravencroft. At that point his identity became public knowledge. There were like SWAT teams after him for god’s sake! And it’s very difficult to believe that ESU, the place where he worked for years and then randomly disappeared from wouldn’t have heard about one of their staff members being a super villain. Especially a super villain who

a) Became a player in gangland activities

b) Was targeted by the Punisher...three times!

c) MURDERED one of their other staff members!

d) Was majorly complicit in an event that turned everyone in New York into spider monsters!

e) Attempted global genocide!

f) Seemingly died very publically

Those last two by the way? They happened on site of the Daily Bugle newspaper!

This isn’t even addressing how he was last seen Marvel Team Up 2019 where he was again arrested at ESU itself! This issue does nothing to explain how he went from that situation to this. Which I’m actually okay with as that was handled by a different editorial office. If you like that was Ms. Marvel continuity and this is Spider continuity.

Normally I’d let the other continuity errors slide but most of them are stories that are major major appearances by the Jackal and define his relationship with Gwen Stacy in the first place, which is the thing this whole arc is built upon.

But no. He changes his last name, and literally nothing else, and he goes unrecognized. Unrecognized in a school where Peter Parker is a teaching assistant (still don’t know when or where that happened)!!!!!!!!!!!!! How on Earth is he going incognito? Does he just make sure to stay 10 paces behind Peter at all times??????? Hell Curt Connors is working there too and he has to know that, he just saw Connors in Clone Conspiracy! In fact GWEN saw him in Clone Conspiracy, she saw multiple clones of him looking just like he did in issue #1 why was she not reacting to that?

My God it gets dumber the more I think about it because in Clone Conspiracy we last saw Warren blowing himself up and that was 100% confirmed to be the real Warren not another clone so who is this guy? Not to mention that story also depicted Warren wearing a Jackal costume not actually transforming into a human jackal monster.

Now me personally I think nowdays the latter idea should be the norm for the character. It never made sense for a middle aged man to get the better of Spider-Man, but his 90s Joker/Matrix look was just terrible. Having him transform back and forth though is a great compromise. But again how did we get here????????????????

It’s all just so poorly thought through!

Going back to what I said last issue about the lack of information given to new readers, this story goes along with that as far as the Man-Wolf is concerned. His treatment very much plays out as the latest issue in a run which would be fine if this was merely Ghost Spider #51-52 as opposed to ALSO being Ghost Spider #1-2. To treat this character who’s affecting subplots the way he is as though readers should just know who he is doesn’t make sense with a major relaunch. We haven’t even SEEN Man-Wolf in this series but we’ve talked a lot about him.

Remember show don’t tell?????????????

The same applies to the ramifications of his actions. He’s responsible for a bomb. What bomb? He almost killed Harry? Who is Harry? Gwen tells some thugs to leave her friends alone but its not until panels later that we confirm they are Man-wolf’s thugs, played initially as it was that wasn’t clear.

All of this is a non-issue if you read the older run but if you haven’t then it’s confusing and alienating.

And unlike what certain people might say it’s beyond unacceptable to demand that readers do homework to enjoy a comic they already paid for.

Lets change things up and talk about the two positives I have. The art continues to be nice, I especially like Benji’s look because it is very reminiscent of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane! And, as was common back when I was reading Spider-Gwen regularly, George Stacy continues to be the best character in this. The short scene in the kitchen was the best scene of the whole book and was genuinely endearing.

Okay back to the justifiable complaints.

So Gwen comments that she has to be subtle in order to keep her identity on Earth 616...but then towards the end of the book she enters a portal from Earth 65 into Earth 616 unmasked. This is stupid in general but extra stupid considering she knows her powers don’t immediately work upon exiting portals. So even if she wasn’t immediately spotted by someone or a CCTV camera she wouldn’t even have a spider sense to warn her of danger for a few precious seconds! Someone who’s life was upended by her identity being revealed (and was a public enemy before that) would be naturally wary of something like this. This isn’t even accounting for the fact that she knows she DIED in Earth 616 because one lunatic discovered Peter’s identity! Also if she can exits portals on roof tops why does she ever need to risk her neck over at that billboard?

The only other problem I spotted was that the colourist seriously screwed up Peter’s look as he has black hair instead of brown.

Besides all that the inherent problems of the premise from last issue still apply. Peter being a regular character. Gwen endangering her friends on Earth 65. The division between the supporting cast.

Ugh....this is gonna be a slog of a series isn’t it...

#Spider-Man #Spider-Gwen #Ghost Spider #Gwen Stacy #Peter Parker #The Jackal #Jackal #Miles Warren #George Stacy #Captain Stacy #Clone Conspiracy #Curt Connors #Clone Saga #Lizard

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