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chronicowboy · 5 years

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Carol Danvers did not expect to get attached to another snarky on the outside but soft on the inside man when she returned to earth. She was simply told that a person, immeasurable in his importance and loved more than he knew, was stranded in space. There was no hesitation in her actions, she marched outside and launched herself into the atmosphere; something she'd done a thousand times but this one felt different. It didn't take all that long for her to find the ship, a man wasting away in the cockpit. For a terrible, agonising moment she thought she was too late, but his eyes — they didn't flutter, no, that's far too delicate a word for what they did — opened with immense force and she breathed a sigh of relief before pushing the ship back home. It was a strange feeling that hung in the air when she laid the ship down. Anxiety, love, curiosity, anger, sadness, regret and comfort combined in a concoction of suffocating agony. The man, Tony Stark, exited the ship and immediately everyone rushed to his aid.

It was hours before Carol felt it appropriate to check on him. What she didn't know was with one simple step into the room and question of his state she'd find a new friend. Pepper, his wife she'd found out, and James, his best friend, had dozed off after he'd finally woken up. A telling off of her fellow captain even without knowing the history behind it was very satisfying, but exhausting for the man who was dying just moments before. He had woken up a while ago and sent his closest loved ones to slumber safe in the knowledge that their Tony was back home, tiring jokes and all. She poked her head in, waving a hand.

"Hey, Carol, is it?" He asked in a stage whisper. She nodded, closing the door softly behind her. "Thanks for saving me and all. Big fan of that whole photon glow thing you have going on-"

"You don't have to do that." She muttered, knowing exactly what he was trying to; she knew it like the back of her hand. "Look, I'm not gonna ask how you are because I know you'll just say you're fine in the form of some snarky comment-"

"So you're me, if I was blonde, female and an alien?" The sincerity in her tone made him uneasy just as all captains did.

"I'm of the human disposition, unfortunately. Survived a blast from the tesseract, absorbed its energy and here we are." An odd sense of pride settled in her heart when he smirked. "I don't know what went on with you guys," she gestured to the captain pacing outside with Natasha, "but I want you to know that I don't give a shit. That rant, that was fucking satisfying as anything. And I know he deserved it." She settled into the empty seat beside Pepper as he chuckled. "I've seen the tapes. Of you fighting," and Tony was struck with the terrible feeling that he was going to be made to question his morals. "You're a good man. You fight for what's right, anyway you can, but you still take more precautions than the rest of them to preserve civilian lives. I think we'll get along just fine." They sat there until the morning, getting to know each other. Carol heard countless stories of Peter Parker, the brave kid from Queens, and his far too loyal for her own good wife whilst Tony heard about the ever-aging family she can never manage to say goodbye to when she leaves and tales about a young, two-eyed Nick Fury. When she left in the morning, a bond had already been formed.

Over the course of a very long half-decade where the skies were embedded with a thick pall of ash that was formerly living loving things, Carol dropped by every now and then. Her holographic meetings with Natasha, a woman she'd grown quite fond of, were nice but that was the only contact she had with earth. Her days spent on the planet were reserved for one small, broken family. Catch ups with the Starks. Baby Morgan, who got older each time and Carol didn't like it, staring in awe at the glowing lady. Pepper, who's smile lit up the room, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Tony, who still mourned the loss of his mentee, bringing her into bone crushing hugs that got ever so slightly weaker each time.

When he died, Carol was lost. She had Maria and Monica and Nick back, but at the cost of Tony's life. It was all tainted, but she couldn't bring herself to be angry with the man. She didn't get to see Peter Parker at the funeral, only met him once in the midst of their war. He was a kind boy with a strength almost equal to her own. She instantly found herself vowing to protect him at all costs and she knew that'd mean mentoring him when he was ready to be a hero once more.

☆☆☆

It's a year later when Peter finally finds the strength to go back to the compound. May had called up Rhodey a while ago and asked for his opinion on the subject.

"When he's ready, we'll be waiting. He's an avenger, but we still need time after something like this." James regretted that last part when the kind woman's inquiries into his wellbeing brought tears to his eyes and a lump to his throat.

Peter said he needed a little more time. He thought he should be a normal teenager for a while because,

"It's what Tony would have wanted."

When the day came, May was beyond apprehensive. Peter had been more fidgety than usual, somehow, so much so that she could practically feel the sickening vibrations of excitement and anxiety. She drove him to the compound with tensed shoulders and nervous glances at the passenger seat. Peter smiled at her each time, it hurt to go there with the guarantee of no Tony but he was ready to be back to his normal as can be superhero career. May had to resist the urge to walk him to the door with two strong hands on his shoulders. He could practically see her thoughts and took her hands in his when he was out of the car. She walked him in, greeting Happy with a smile as Rhodey pulled Peter towards the meeting room. They didn't say goodbye. Didn't have to.

"Alright, kid. Now, we're gonna ease you back in. Most of us are away on business, but there's somebody who's looking forward to meeting you. Properly, anyway." He held the door open for him and the blonde lady, Captain Marvel he vaguely remembered her being called in the letters Tony had written for him, turned around.

"Hey, Peter Parker." She smiled. He ignored the way his heart skipped a beat at the small flashback of the battle and let the grin tug the corner of his lips up.

"Captain Marvel?" His words dripped with adoration.

"Please, call me Carol. Captain Marvel is my mother." She joked before backtracking at the incredulous look on his face. "No. Um, not really. I was just joking. All human, you see. Just absorbed the energy of the tesseract so now I can do this," she points a clenched fist at the wall and a photon blast leaves a scorch mark.

"Come on, man. I thought we stayed in contact because we're both the only no nonsense avengers." Rhodey groaned.

"We are, but, James, there's a child in the room. Unlike you, I'm great with kids." She replied coolly, bumping shoulders with Peter.

"Okay, one, I'm nearly eighteen-"

"So still a kid." She interrupted, but was swiftly ignored by the boy.

"And, two, your name is James?" He laughed as Rhodey grumbled something about a headache and walked out.

"Carol Danvers at your mentoring service." She bowed, grinning.

"You're going to be my new mentor?" He asked, shaking off the waver in his voice.

"I mean, I know I'm off world a lot but yeah. I don't see why not. I'm the best influence here. You're basically as strong as me and your webs mean you can fly. Kind of. You get what I mean. The only difference is, I can shoot the power of an infinity stone out of my fists." Peter's eyes widened in awe. The beam on his face ached and he thought it was physically impossible for it to grow anymore. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled like this so genuinely. However, the lightness of the air quickly evolved into a serious atmosphere as she sat down and motioned for him to take a seat. He complied immediately, heart freezing in fear of what was to come. "Tony told me a lot about you," and there it was. He sucked in a deep breath and knew his new, out of this world, insanely cool mentor was watching him deteriorate. "Hey, hey. Take a deep breath. Heroes are allowed to be scared. The best ones usually are." She smiled kindly yet sadly. "Do you want me to carry on?" Peter nodded, steeling himself with the necessity of hearing what was to be said.

"I do." He confirmed.

"He told me how brave you are, how strong and kind and respectful. How you'd do anything to please him, but you weren't afraid to stand up to him when he was being stubborn. He admired you more than he'd ever get to admit. Said his biggest regret was not telling you how much you meant to him when you were alive. He loved you, Pete. And, not to make this about me or anything, I knew I would to when you were polite enough to introduce yourself to me whilst holding the doom of the universe in your tired arms." She stood abruptly as her — was that a pager? — pager beeped. "I have to go. Rhodey has your way of contacting me whenever you need me. Whether it's life threatening stuff or you just need to talk, please get in touch." She pulled him into a newly comforting embrace before ushering him out of the door. "I want to meet this 'hot aunt' of yours." He found yet another smile forming on his face.

Happy stopped mid-sentence and looked over May's shoulder. She turned around, fearing the dejected look she was sure to see on Peter's face and the furrowed brow on Rhodey's. Instead, she found her grinning nephew next to a woman who seemed to be glowing. An expression of pure amazement tugging at his face.

"Hello?" May offered her hand. Carol took it, pulling a face of approval.

"You must be the wonder aunt, May Parker. You raised a wonderful boy and the world's safer for it. Thank you." Carol noticed they were still holding hands and blushed slightly as she coughed, retracting her gloved hand.

"Um, thanks?" May asked uncertainly as an inexplicable smile spread across her face.

"No problem. Sorry this has to be an abrupt meeting, but too many planets to save and too little time to save them. Bye, Peter, May." She nodded before retreating to the doors.

"Who's that?" May asked as they watched her shoot off into the sky.

"Carol Danvers. My new mentor." Peter looped his arm through May's and began recounting the wonderfully bizarre encounter he'd just had.

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Young Justice Season Three spoilers

YJ Producers: We have a Muslim superhero this season, look how great she is and how progressive we are!

Actual YJ episodes: Okay so Muslim superhero might be a bit of a stretch since well, if you wanna get technical, she’s actually a sentient piece of alien technology whose soul went into the body of a dead Muslim girl when her original alien tech got smushed. But even though she continually insists that she is not Gabrielle Daou, the Muslim girl whose body this was originally, and that’s the entire reason she chose a new name for herself, she is a completely different person aka a non Muslim, not even human person - she still wears a hijab! Totally counts!

YJ Producers: We always wanted to portray LGBTQ+ superheroes, we’ve actually had one the whole time and you just didn’t know it because mean old Cartoon Network wouldn’t let us show it, now that we’re on our own we can and will be showing LGBTQ+ characters this season!

Actual YJ episodes thirteen episodes into the season: Error 404 Content Not Found

YJ Producers: We’re finally gonna include Cyborg! Victor Stone is in the house, we love and appreciate that character so much, we really wanted to wait until we could do his story justice!

Actual YJ episodes: So see, after getting gruesomely almost-deaded after a huge blowout fight in which we showed Vic has a lot of rage cuz Black Teenage Boys Are Just Like That, that was all aimed at his dad for not showing any interest in his life and for never showing his son he cared until now cuz Black Dads Are Just Like That, well okay, yeah that sucks, but what happened NEXT is really cool - so his dad saved his life, right? Even if it was by using alien tech that every single person he came in contact with kept telling him wasn’t like normal tech, it was sentient and thus yes COULD be bad, which was further demonstrated through the fact that said life-saving tech kept like...hijacking Vic’s own body and turning him into a rage-monster that we could totally show being a Stereotype of Black Teenage Boy Aggression as he remorselessly hunted a terrified Violet but it wasn’t his fault, he was totally powerless to control his own actions cuz of the Evil Alien Tech in his body and like wait, whats bad about that, I forget the question??? Oh right! But stop WORRYING, its all good, see, as long as he stayed around Violet and never went too far from her ever, the woman of color had magic rage-pacifying skills that existed solely to calm down the Stereotypical Angry Black Teen when he couldn’t control himself because Reasons. LOL WHY ARE YOU UPSET, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT, THIS IS A GOOD VICTOR STORY, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED???

YJ Producers: We love and value our characters of color and would never hurt them, we’ve actually taken steps to make sure of that!

Actual YJ Episodes: Violet and Vic are both practically unkillable, see? As proof, watch us violently murder Violet in every single episode in new and creatively gruesome ways, with bonus Vic near-death experiences that allow us to show him just utterly wrecked in ways we’ve never shown a single white character, even in this season when we’re all about showing off how much creative freedom we have now without CENSORSHIP!

YJ Producers: This season is also going to focus on the stress and mental health issues that go along with life as a superhero, and who better to demonstrate this by suffering from superhero-related PTSD than Jefferson Pierce? The guy whose divorce already showed the stress and relationship issues that go along with life as a superhero (since all our white heroes in relationships are still going strong)!

Actual YJ Episodes: Oh, nothing say about this one huh, PUNK? That’s right, we actually did exactly what we said we’d do, see? Just look at how much time we spend talking about how traumatized Jefferson is and how miserable he is after killing a kid, and that’s nothing we’ve ever done (or would ever do - SHH THEY DONT NEED TO KNOW THAT) to a white hero! PLUS, like, he’s definitely getting better though, thanks to the support of the much younger character he’s surrounded by, instead of y’know, turning to his established friends and colleagues his own age for support! AND AND AND don’t forget about his growing relationship with the white doctor lady who is definitely NOT super creepy and NOT likely to betray him and break his heart and/or force him to make painful decisions when choosing between her and the kids he’s vowed to protect at some climactic point later in the season that all of that is super clearly not building towards!

YJ Producers: And don’t forget about Jaime Reyes and Virgil Hawkins and Mal Duncan and Raquel and Karen! They’re all still here too!

Actual YJ Episodes: We’ve definitely forgotten that Jaime Reyes and Virgil Hawkins and Mal Duncan and Raquel and Karen are all still here too.

YJ Producers: Major life events have happened to these heroes offscreen in the time we’ve been away from them, stuff that’s really shaped who they are and who they’ve become by now. All this stuff really matters, its how we’re different from other shows, we don’t pretend these characters stop existing the second they’re off your screens! Looks, Barbara Gordon is in a wheelchair! She’s Oracle now!

Actual YJ Episodes: Why would we bother to explain when or how this happened with even a single line of dialogue when The Killing Joke exists and is available on our streaming service? You sound dumb.

YJ Producers: Kaldur is our proof of how important our characters are to our over-all universe, look how far he’s come! He’s not Aqualad anymore, he’s AquaMAN, he’s one of the co-chairs of the Justice League, right up there with Wonder Woman who he definitely doesn’t need to turn to for approval or oversight of his actual decisions!

Actual YJ Episodes: We’re pretty sure we covered all this in the two minutes of screen time Kaldur’s had all season!

YJ Producers: Look, bottom line, this season, being away from Cartoon Network really allowed us to stretch our wings and flex creatively, we’re doing a lot of stuff with this story that just wouldn’t have been possible before, when we were on a network like CN and had overseers restricting our every move! This season gets a lot darker, a lot more mature, a lot more everything cuz freedom of speech baby! That’s what its all about!

Actual YJ Episodes: In support of our thesis, watch us up the graphically violent content of every single episode and kill lots of people instead of just cartoonishly knocking them out and carting them away to jail! That’s it, that’s everything we wanted to do that CN wouldn’t let us, that now we have total freedom to prove in a myriad of ways! What do you mean, what about *looks at smudged writing on hand* LGB - look we can’t be expected to read what that says when we have graphic violence to depict, fuck yeah!

YJ Producers: Besides, in happier news, its not all doom and gloom this season! Connor and M’Gann got engaged! Now that we’ve completely moved past all the stuff M’Gann did in S2 and don’t consider it worth mentioning, Superboy and Miss Martian are back together, and SB is totally gonna marry the woman who betrayed him in the one highly specific way that goes back to the very source of every trust issue he has and reason he has so many walls pushing people away!

Actual YJ Episodes: Yeah this is definitely happening. Suck my dick, Connor fans and fans who relate to and identify with SB and his story and think its maybe just not the healthiest to wave a wand and go “Happily ever after!” With, y’know, the guy whose greatest canon fear and paranoia is the sanctity of his mind being violated and being unable to trust that his own thoughts are really his and not just being spoon fed to him in a pod at Project Cadmus or by his telepathic girlfriend when she doesn’t like his opinion or his criticism of her actions and just doesn’t want to fight about it anymore. Look, she said she was sorry, get over it. What more do you want? For Connor to move on and have a healthy romantic relationship with someone who he doesn’t ever have to wonder if his trust in her and second chance is real and valid and not just her making him say and do what she wanted, like the way she definitely has before? For him and M’Gann to rebuild their trust over time, gradually, as friends, with the understanding they can be close again but romantic intimacy between them specifically probably isn’t in the best interests of the guy who will always have to wonder now if his thoughts are really his, no matter whether or not that’s true? Yeah, no, that sounds like a lot of work tbh, and really, we just like Miss Martian and Superboy together, they’re just cute, you know? Sides, we killed Wally and we don’t actually wanna talk about why Barbara’s paralyzed now and like, focus on her as a character, so what other longterm pairings do we really have? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THESE ARE ALL OUR OWN CHOICES AND IF WE WANT BETTER FOUNDATIONS FOR OUR CHARACTER DYNAMICS WE SHOULD MAKE BETTER CHOICES? UGH GET OFF MY BALLS, MAN.

YJ Producers: We’ve got Terra this season, and we’re doing some really cool, brand new things there.

Actual YJ Episodes: Slade’s Apprentice arc from Teen Titans the show and The Judas Contract in the comics, but really aren’t they the same thing? If you think about it, is it even possible to do that in a new way? Look, its not like we could do anything MORE original than that, like what, did you want us to have Tara genuinely be the good and loving sister she was when she reunited with her brother and expressed how traumatized she was by the things she did when she was supposedly being mind-controlled, actually invested in saving other trafficked meta-kids from being used and hurt the way she had been? Like, the way it seemed she was being written before we revealed it was a fake-out and she was actually working for Slade exactly like those other times we swore we were gonna be more original than that? Ugh why are you so unrealistic, dude, you have such weird expectations.

Me: Like dear YJ, you’ve still got me watching, because like a) I’m weak and I need this, b) nostalgia, c) Dick, Artemis, Connor, Jefferson and the chance of Jason and also Violet, Brion and Vic are all still enjoyable as characters even though your treatment of them and your narrative choices are all extremely suspect and also craptastic and also I really wanna punch you for a lot of this.

But goddamn, this was NOT your best work, and after years of waiting only to get this? Like.....so not crash, dudes. Not even a little bit.

#young justice spoilers

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twiststreet · 5 years

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Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #1:

I felt like rambling around about some random comic book or another, since I haven’t done that in a while, and I went with this one..

I read this comic Peter Cannon Thunderbolt tonight--I was pretty irritated by that comic Die the other day. Anytime I get a comic now, it’s a gamble whether a woman’s going to get slaughtered in the pages, but what’s the alternative? Watching A+ movies and television on Netflix? Oh, yeah, that’s 100% the alternative. But anyways, this one got all talked up so what the hell...

It was fine or not or whatever. I don’t really have much of an opinion on it. I don’t really care about any of it-- it didn’t have any characters worth describing, or more than a sentence worth of story to it. The art lands some moments but not others. But it’s fine, you know? It’s fine. Who cares? We’re all dead inside anyways. I might get the second one just so I can get a better idea of what it’s up to, as the first one wasn’t really clear on that point, either. It felt like something meant to engage on a "nerd argument” level more than a “good story about characters you might care about” level anyhow, so.

But yeah, so this is another superhero comic talking about other superhero comics.

I used to read all of those, but I’ve lost track of that conversation now so I probably have no idea how to even understand this one now. As far as I can understand it, so far this comic is daringly asking “What if the Authority except then what if Watchmen?”

I’m not sure if I’m really into that question, but I’m not an Authority fan so that juxtaposition doesn’t mean much to me.

I mean, I can see some people saying The Authority contemplated superhero morality as so too Watchmen did, and as so too did the ultimate superhero story I’d like to talk you about, a story called the NEW TESTAMENT. WELCOME TO MY BOOK CLUB, SINNERS.

But even if we were to say to ourselves “okay, the various pronouncements in The Authority were meaningful and not just chuffah” (which I’m not sure I normally would say that, and I don’t think I believe that, but)...

Watchmen ends with superheros realizing that human rules and human scales of morality don’t apply to them, as their universe is godless. And it presents that as basically being a dark and/or tragic realization (and one in the case of Ozymandias that the final panels suggest that even a godless universe might ultimately punish or might be hubristic).

Whereas The Authority takes that same idea and just repeats it, except presenting it as, like, a woo-hoo power chord. “Human rules don’t apply because human all suck, let’s blow them all up and make a better world, and fuck in their ashes.”

(The “humans are all terrible” shtick, regardless of its truth, was too adolescent to remain interesting very long. I might agree with it but I don’t really care to read it much...)

So, yeah, juxtaposing those two things together just seems... Well, here’s a ukulele cover of Van Halen’s Jump and here’s the 1984-ish(?) video for Van Halen’s Jump. You know? (The better Ellis-riffs-on-Moore I remember as being that Supreme comic Ellis did with ... Tula Lotay? I think that was the more interesting work, but).

I just don’t see what this Peter Cannon thing can drive at that will be that interesting. But I am curious, I guess. (I mean, I think any “well this is one of the the characters that the Watchmen were based off of” talk right now has a secondary meaning among the very worst fans who like to pretend creating Watchmen was some nothing act in order to justify its theft, and so I’d condemn that aspect of the book strongly if I thought that was on anyone’s radar besides mine or some intentional play to holler to those fans. But I don’t really and I’m not really inclined to go off about that so...).

I mean, the only reason to do the comic is if you think you can push that conversation further. I agree with Watchmen that the universe is basically godless so I know that I certainly couldn’t push that conversation further. If they think they can, that’s neat enough I guess....Like, one would imagine/hope they’d have some greater idea. (Though maybe just the juxtaposition is enough for the fans. Fans can talk up just about anything as being deeper than it is, and gussy up any kind of cheap idea with their talk, being fans and all. Who knows...)

I’m coming to it a little disgruntled, though, just from being exhausted hearing about Watchmen again! I love that book but man, who isn’t sick of hearing people grouse on about it this way or that way or the other? Especially after that one Grant Morrison "I’m going to talk back at Watchmen” piece of shit that people talked up. I didn’t think that was shit.

But Morrison at least has some interest in technique... The thing that keeps Watchmen vital for me isn’t the discussion of superheroes, I don’t give a shit about any of that-- it’s the density of the storytelling, the craft in the world-building, craft shit, and those are all areas where the current generation of comic creators just don’t have comparable skills.

Everything techniquewise in this Peter Cannon thing is just so pedestrian. And I don’t mean that in a way to single it out-- it’s no worse in that respect than other comics being made right now. But comics being made right now generally are just ... the craft is uninteresting, nearly across the board-- there’s not that many exceptions to that right now. I mean, and as compared to near-peak Moore?? (From Hell’s peak Moore, but you know, Eddie Campbell...).

Heck, The Tempest right now, the level of technique Moore can still throw out there-- there’s bits where he just can throw layers and layers of information into a panel. And that’s him on the wind-down! (Or after the wind-down, depending on when you think the wind-down started). I don’t know. It’s ballsy to invite comparison to that guy, when you’re... I mean, who has an equivalent toolset?? Most comics are just a bunch of slowwww animated movies now.

(I mean, there are more interesting concepts floating around out there now-- the quality of the idea-work in comics is pretty fucking high right now, maybe as high as it’s ever been. It’s really fun to hear the loglines for comics right now, in that respect. Reading them, I don’t know, I have no idea what that’s like, but the loglines are great...)

I don’t know.

Or I really love something like Copra which takes analog characters to express some kind of deeper love for something and a desire to remix something to bring out the qualities that made it special for you. Remixing just to argue with what came before you... I mean, Moore’s done that-- that’s definitely part of the League, too.... though to argue about things like, you know, racism, society being bad and stuff yeah you heard me squares society is bad and stuff. (Moore had a larger worldview than “superhero comics tho” that ... I think was one of many things that rankled about that Morrison Watchmen-riff-- Morrison’s obliviousness to how his own worldview became progressively less and less and less interesting as time progressed, being less political or social, and more, well, just self-marketing, by the end).

League was never my favorite Moore anyways, until Century and Tempest, both of which I think are pretty interesting (Tempest increasingly so! I’m really enjoying the heck out of that one...).

Back when I cared more about superhero comics, I always wished they’d take Watchmen more seriously as an influence in the right ways as compared to the ways they took it, which was like “Oh these books can be no fun now with lots of bad first person narration in them.” But for me the bits that were interesting was Doctor Manhattan towering over Vietnam, or finding out how they effected Richard Nixon’s biography, or how all the cars were electric because of Doc Manhattan creating more lithium or whatever it was he did. Watchmen applied science fiction techniques-- extrapolation!-- to a genre that tends to be, you know, profoundly conservative despite its outward trappings, and especially adverse to extrapolation....

So. I’d wished more people would have chased that, and chased technique (and not just by recreating 9 panel grids). I’m less interested in comics that are making arguments and picking fights over “what should a superhero comic be” for the kinds of fans who confuse fiction with prescriptions for medicine, except for morality. Didn’t the Authority have that too, some JLA comic that argued with The Authority? I didn’t read that shit because who gives a shiiiiiiiiiiit?

A lot of superhero comics, the bit I don’t miss, is all the comics that just wanted to argue about other comics. Perhaps the worst influence of Watchmen on other creators, far more than, you know, Hal Jordan liking to fingerbang sleeping girls or whatever they had Hal Jordan doing there after Watchmen. Green Lantern got pretty loco and Alan Moore blamed himself forever.

But I think the worse legacy is you’d end up reading some Geoff Johns comics where Superboy would be yelling “I’m a DC fan on a messageboard that said bad things about an issue of Geoff Johns’s Flash” and then all the other superheros would beat him up and you’d just sit there going, you know, why the fuck did you need anyone to read this?? Why am I looking at your revenge-soaked spank bank?? And I think that’s part of Watchmen’s legacy too, that you know... We’re all owed an apology.

And....

Shit, that went too long and it wasn’t fun enough to write. Hm. That didn’t go well. Fuck. Oh well...

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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theonceoverthinker · 5 years

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OUAT Rewatch 4x12 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

I hope my knowlEDGE on this episode will make for an engaging review! XD

...Yeah, this was a hard one to make a pun for. I miss the ice puns already.

Anyway, as I said, just below the cut, there’s an honestly fairly short review by my regular standards. If you feel like checking it out, go below the cut!

So, if you’re at all familiar with my reviews, by now you know that I usually post my main takeaways here, but this time, I don’t really have them and what I do have to say is small enough to not need a ton of elaboration. So instead, we’re gonna skip it this time and just go right to the Stream of Consciousness! With that being said...

Stream of Consciousness

-”Tried to impregnate.” Not even one minute in and we get a hentai joke!!! XD I love this series!

-You know, the music that play in the Storybrooke owner sounds like a somewhat harsher version of what is later the happy endings montage in Season 6, as if to say a lot is right, but not everything.

-I would honestly love more Snow and Bird interactions! XD

-Wait, so is Granny’s just closed, or is she babysitting WHILE running a popular diner! This woman is a freakin’ superhero! Also, where’s David?

-I love how Belle actually thinks to reach out to people outside the fairy tale world.

-”How could I have been so weak?” MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.

-”You -- you should’ve been stronger, but you weren’t, and well...neither was I.” No. I love Killian, Belle, but there was a difference between Killian being sort of manipulated (sort of -- the present segment of “The Apprentice” just sucks) and being straight up lied to.

-”I just hope he’s found whatever it is he’s looking for.” Umm, considering when you last saw him, he was looking to kill people and take over the world, you probably shouldn’t hope that! XD

-I repeat what I asked in the last episode: WHY are all of these fairytale creatures living in New York! I love my home state, but it is EXPENSIVE!

-You know, I just feel really bad for Ursula. We don’t see enough of what she did as a villain to hate her in any way and in this world, apparently all she can afford to eat is RAMEN! That is so fucking sad! This woman does not deserve this!

-”What you do is complain.” And what you do is mooch, Rumple! Don’t bitch at the person who is hosting you, especially when she’s pissed! See, the one thing about being a coward (And I am a big fucking coward) is that we’re not confrontative when we don’t have the power! XD

-I love the implication that Cruella just went around our land AND landed a rich husband with the name “Cruella.” XD

-You know, CAN Cruella kill in a land without magic? Because no one else’s magic works, so maybe she’s been free all along! ...But then again, she probably would’ve killed her husband, so I guess it’s more of a reverse Weaver situation. Actually, to serve my point, at the end of the scene, Cruella drives down and like by all means, should’ve killed this guy but instead gets flung back into a bush! The universe is conspiring against her!

-”Aren’t you tired of feeling ordinary?” Please, even in this world, Cruella’s far from ordinary! Besides, for the wham line that this is, Cruella’s problem wasn’t that she was ordinary -- it’s that she couldn’t kill!

-Okay, so apparently Regina has a weakness for root beer! I hate the stuff, but good to know!

-I love how Killian smiles at Belle as she tells them that she did it! He’s so proud!

-Cruella’s power is so fucking cool! She can not only control animals, BUT she can have her commands spread from one animal to another. Like, how did this woman not at the very least take over a whole town with an army of rhinos?

-How come Mal’s staff absorbed the fire instead of just...Mal? She’s a fire breathing dragon! Give her some extra fire!

-Or...CAN Cruella kill? Because Rumple knows she can’t kill, but is still afraid?

-I know that Blue and Regina are far from friends, but it’s weird how much focus is put on their dynamic in this episode. There’s a lot of hesitation whenever they interact and given how little they interact on a regular basis, it’s odd.

-Why wouldn’t Blue not know or even not think about the possibility of the Author working for The Sorcerer, or vice versa?

-When did Isaac have the time to leave these “hidden clues?” And how come neither Merlin nor The Apprentice had anything to say about them if they were rumors?

-”This isn’t our first monster bash.” I honestly love how freakin’ well oiled this town is at times!

-I’m honestly curious what a 4B where the Queens of Darkness do decide to leave Rumple behind would look like. Because Cruella would’ve at least considered it, let’s be honest. I’m not saying I’d have preferred that, but I would totally read a fic of that universe.

-You know, I like the subtle costume details of just how destitute Rumple’s life has become. Everything from his phone to his cane are of poorer quality and his coat looks like he got it out of Goodwill. It a really good instance of costuming telling a story.

-”The sea bitch.” To my knowledge, you and Ursula have never met! Why are you calling her a bitch?

-”Swallows the heart with the darkest potential.” I’m trying to think about this in regards to Emma, the character we’re supposed to believe fulfills that role. I mean, sort of. I can see her intelligence, ability to detect lies, and connection to her family and friends to have potential to be abused to the detriment of others. It’s an interesting concept. And given how life in Storybrooke, while rewarding in a lot of senses, has made her life complicated as all hell, I can see her having a lot of baggage about it.

-David, welcome to the fucking episode! Seriously, was Josh just sick this week or something?

-”What made you choose yellow?” I love how Regina asks this as a means of not freaking the fuck out that a Chernabog is chasing her! It’s a very Regina thing to comment on and it’s hysterical because of it!

-I like how Emma points out the hypocrisy at play with her parents not trusting these two lower tier villains.

-”Not as horrible as I once was. And if I deserve a second chance, so do they. How can I sit here looking for my happiness and deny two others a chance at theirs?” This is a FANTASTIC Regina speech. It really shows how Regina’s grown to be more self aware and better equipped to help redeem other villains.

-I kind of wish Rumple had more of a scared reaction to the possibility of not being let into Storybrooke. Like, the rest of his life depends on this.

-”Make friends, build relationships.” And NONE of this ever happens! XD

Favorite Dynamic

The Queens of Darkness and Rumple - These guys are the main dynamic and they really do provide the most entertainment value. First, I want to point out how cool it is that Rumple is the one with power (both actual and figurative) in the past segment while the queens are in the present. That’s just interesting storytelling. Second, what I love about them in the present is that they get just as exasperated as we do about how frustratingly vague Rumple often is and that they use their power in the situation to get him to fucking stop to some degree. Their frustration slowly but noticeably builds up in the episode as Rumple continues not really saying anything and finally explodes and that is honestly really cathartic to watch. For as much as I love Rumple for how cryptic he can be, its a quality of his character that can easily be overdone and in a meta-sense, this was pointed out in-universe and almost prevents him from losing his own plan of revenge.

Writer

Adam and Eddy start up our half season with a solid start. Again, there’s not a lot to say here because while these two episodes have stories, they’re not so much rooted in something like theme which can be analyzed. The characters are all in solid form, and Regina’s in particularly great form. I will say though, there is a clunkiness to a lot of the lines. Sometimes, it’s a matter of people giving weird exposition or explaining things in a way that characters shouldn’t be able to understand (Ex. The entire middle of Killian and Belle’s discussion, Rumple telling Ursula and Cruella about being the Oxford professor).

Rating

10/10. I feel like there’s a singular word to describe this episode: Utilitarian. It’s all setup and a bit of tying loose ends up with a really basic ‘working together is good’ storyline in the past and sort of present. That’s not to say that it’s bad -- far from it. It just means that there’s not a lot of story to comment on. But this is a good version of setting up a story and biting off a loose end of two. There’s a lot of fun and interesting dynamics, it’s great to see all of our main heroes working together, and the queens get to show off the bulk of their charisma and intrigue.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

Captain Swan - I love the bits of domesticity we get with Emma and Killian here. You can see that they’re really gotten the most out of these six weeks and have integrated themselves into each others lives. Like, the sequence at the beginning of the episode implies that this is a normal morning for the people of Storybrooke and Emma and Killian are literally part of each others routines! That shit is just too fucking cute!!! I’mma also plug my fic “Hero,” which is based around this episode. It’s one of my better work in my humble opinion and deals directly with Killian’s doubts in his own heroism that he displays in the hallway scene. Speaking of which, I do like the hallway scene. While I don’t like Emma giving Killian a total free pass, I do think that with the fairies, it’s warranted and deserved given how he very clearly didn’t want to go through with it.

-----

Thank you all for reading this pretty relaxed review. Sorry for all the delays lately, but I’m hoping I can pick up the pace from here.

Also, shoutout to @watchingfairytales and @daensarah. See you all next time!

Season 4 Total (105/230)

Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (34/60) Jane Espenson: (20/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (30/50) Andrew Chambliss: (14/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30) Kalinda Vazquez: (14/40) Scott Nimerfro: (14/30) Tze Chun (8/20)

Operation Rewatch Archives

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#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 4x12 #ouat rewatch #jenna watches ouat

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shieldagentscully-blog · 6 years

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SAS 8: Avengers - Textbook Narcissism

(So this bears a passing resemblance to a thread I have with @imnottheherotype - as it should because it is based off the same OOC conversation! But it’s not the same storyline, however, I jotted these stories in a series and wanted to include it. Let’s say that RP @shieldagentscully is likely going to have a lot more productive conversation with Tony in RP than this one in which she shoots her mouth off. Sorry, Tony.)

2012 - SHIELD Offices, New York City

Make no mistake, SHIELD paid Scully much better than the FBI ever paid her, she recognized this. But there were days, particularly this one, in which she realized that they certainly did not pay her enough for the job she sometimes had to do.

“Subject is identified as a ‘Chitauri’, a race of alien beings as identified by...Thor Odinsson of Asgard, a planet off of this world.” Scully rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of that statement, refusing to name his as “Thor, God of Thunder”. The advanced recording system in the lab began taking her dictation as she made her visual observations.

“My analysis will be, obvious, very rudimentary as this is the first time a subject such as this has been observed by human scientific methods.” She cleared her throat, unsure of where to even begin. After all, it was an alien, a real alien. Absolute proof that there was not just one type of creature outside of themselves living in the universe, but several. She didn’t even know where to begin with it, nothing in her entire background had prepared her for anything like this.

“So is this your first alien autopsy?”

The question was followed by a slurp that caused Scully to spin on her heels, startled out of the quiet of the high-tech lab to stare at the intruder. It only took her half-a-glance to identify him as he leaned over one of the other lab tables, a cup of what looked like vanilla ice cream in his hand, blissfully sucking on the end of a bright pink spoon. If the distinctive goatee didn’t give it away, then the glowing blue light in the middle of his chest just under his Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt certainly did. At least she could appreciate his taste in music.

“I was warned you would be around here, Mr. Stark.” She turned to her subject again, heartily wishing he wasn’t. After all, her autopsy was going to be challenging enough, and now he was going to be in the back as her personal her peanut gallery?

“I’m glad to hear my reputation precedes me, Agent Scully….Doctor Scully...Agent Doctor Scully? When you are doing this, are you still an agent or are you officially a doctor?”

“I don’t see how one precludes me from the other as long as I’m licensed to practice.”

“But is it practicing if the subject is dead to begin with?”

“Are you here for a purpose, Mr. Stark, or just come to be annoying and puerile?’

“I see fancy words came with that fancy degree from Stanford, and yes, I do know what ‘puerile’ means. We weren’t complete ingrates at MIT.” He sauntered to the table where the specimen lay. “Can’t imagine they had too many of these at Stanford, though, but you know the FBI may be hiding one or two…”

“If your want to be of assistance, you can sit over there.” She gestured to a stool by a keyboard connected wirelessly to a glass screen on the far side of the lab. Stark merely scooped up a large spoonful of vanilla and chocolate, sucking on it petulantly with large, brown, puppy dog eyes that had utterly no effect on Scully.

“Fine! See if I share my ice cream with you.”

She pointedly ignored him swaggering to where she indicated as she continued her oral examination. “The subject seems to be semi-humanoid in structure, though it’s appearance is perhaps more analogous to reptilian than homo-sapien.”

“Do you think the Chitauri would agree with that?”

She glared across the body at Stark, who pointed at creature with his spoon. “I mean, I suppose that it goes without saying that they likely don’t have what we assume are ‘reptiles’ on whatever rock they live on. They just are what they are, and yet here we are putting labels on them that make no sense outside of a human context.”

“Since I have no other context to use in the study of them, what do you suggest I use?”

“I suppose ‘creepy ass nightmares’ isn’t a properly scientific term?”

“Maybe it is at MIT, but certainly not Stanford.”

That earned a snort and smirk out of Stark. “Touché, Agent Doctor! Well played! Tell me, how do you think that they all could move like they did, communicate like they did, swarm like a hive?”

“Since I’ve obviously not even gotten a chance to do a medical examination on the body yet, I can’t begin to speculate.”

“But there are answers you could conjecture, right?”

“Sure! There are animals in nature who can do what you suggest, insects, birds. They use a combination of pheremones and patterns of behavior to be able to communicate in a way to make that possible.”

“What about more complex life forms?”

“I don’t know, a bee is a fairly complex being.”

“I’m sorry, Agent Doctor, I didn’t nearly get killed fighting a giant bee, so I’m asking more on the level of a creature who is large and sentient enough to form an army for a megalomaniacal deity with daddy issues.”

Scully took a deep breath and counted to ten, releasing it in a low, slow sigh. “Till I’m able to cut into one and do a proper examination, I’m not going to know anything. If you let me do a bit of dissection, maybe I can tell you something. My best guess, if it’s not natural then maybe it’s enhanced. maybe technology is used to keep them all in line. I don’t know.”

“Right.” He nodded thoughtfully, his attention already somewhere other than her. He returned to his cup of soft serve as Scully ignored the growling in her own stomach and returned to her notes. “The subject appears to be between 6.5 and 7 feet tall and weighs around 375 lbs.”

“I’d have not seen that one coming. Rather heavy for that frame, don’t you think. Course, could just carry the weight well.”

Scully ignored him as she continued. “The subject’s build indeed seems to not quite match its weight as presented. This could be attributed to a difference in bone and tissue density or any modifications that have been performed on the subject during its formative years.”

“Nice, I didn’t think of the bone and tissue density. I suppose, being human, I just assume since we are mostly water everything else is.”

“The subject seems to display symmetry of bodily development, displaying four limbs, both anterior and posterior and symmetrical facial features, including eyes, what appear to be nostril cavities and a mouth.”

“And a face only a mother could love, assuming they have those.”

“Do you mind?” She snapped across the space at him as he paused in his ice cream contemplations to blink at her.

“My pardons, Agent Doctor, the habit of brainstorming out loud.”

“Do you need to brainstorm here?”

“I’m curious about your work.”

“Then let me do it!” She snatched a scalpel from the medical tray beside her, wrapping one gloved hand around the cool stainless steel. “I will begin with a standard Y-incision.”

“Are you sure you want to start there?”

“Mr. Stark…”

“Tony, please, and frankly I have to say while it’s a little hot seeing you just carve into it like it’s a Thanksgiving turkey, I’m just saying you don’t know what you’ll find in there. I mean, treasure hunting is fine and all, but I do have some medical equipment I could loan SHIELD that might help the process, let you get a sense of what you are dealing with.”

“You have medical equipment that can do a full body scan workup the likes of which we need without me having to cut up an alien entity for 7 hours?”

“Yep!” He popped the last “p” as he scooped up the drippy dregs of his downed sundae.

“And you haven’t thought to offer it until now.”

“Well, you know, was rather preoccupied with defending us all from alien invasion, nearly dying because of it, and cleaning up my hometown after it got demolished, but I got around to it.”

Scully gripped her scalpel tighter. “Would you be so kind to offer it to SHIELD for their use?”

“Sure! I’ll have my boys upstate send some stuff down. In exchange, you share your results with me.”

“I plan to make them open to give a full report to SHIELD.”

“Ahh, but I want them all, unadulterated and complete, and SHIELD is not me! I am many things; an engineer, superhero, sometimes businessman, often late, and Romanoff said I was a textbook narcissist.”

“Wonder where she got that idea,” Scully breathed, tossing her scalpel on the tray.

“You barely know me, Agent Doctor! I’m hurt!”

"Hardly the first time, I imagine, judging from your impeccable social grace and long history of emotionally stable relationships. But, please, tell me how to do my job, a woman whose been in field work for twenty years and has seen more weird shit in her career than you could imagine before breakfast. I'm sure your Masters' Degrees in building erector sets will be endlessly useful in telling me how I get it wrong!"

Where in the hell had that come from?

She turned wide eyes on Stark, as stunned as he was that she even said it. For long, horrible moments, nothing but silence reigned between them. When it broke, it was him clearing his throat as he quietly scrapped at the bottom of his little, plastic container.

“I don’t know, Agent Doctor Scully, after the last week, I can imagine a lot of weird shit before breakfast.”

Right now would be a great time for the earth to open and Scully to be swallowed up. She doubted her prayers would be answered, though, as Stark rose, tossing his empty container into the bin nearby, not-so-quietly wondering where Fury got these red-heads he kept bringing into the building.

#shieldagentscully #tony stark #avengers #mcu #ice cream #foot in mouth

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clarkgreggreporter · 7 years

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The Reddit MarvelStudios AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Clark Gregg, May 16, 2017 (click here to read all the questions)

A: (out of sequence, so no question): Well, this week I'm really missing Bill Paxton and Powers Boothe because we lost them and they were both such excellent guys.

A: Missed a few questions there. I'll try to answer some. I love the MCU and love watching the movies and I miss my friends in those casts. That said, I am really proud of where we've gone with Agents of SHIELD and I love this bunch of actors and writers (and crew) as much as any I've ever worked with.

Q What upcoming MCU property are you looking forward to the most? Tahiti is a magical place! A: Anything with Adam Warlock and that may have just been teased in GOTG2

Q Do you have any stories and/or favourite memories of working with the late Bill Paxton? Thanks! A: So many. Just the big grin he'd show up with every day and say, "Bud-dy..." Just a great guy and a wonderful actor/filmmaker with more stories than anyone I've ever met.

Q: What is your favourite MCU movie? A: Pretty damn psyched for Captain Marvel especially with the amazing Brie Larson

Q: Hi! Thank you so much for being SO awesome. In Avengers, when Coulson has been stabbed by Loki and gets to shoot him with the massive gun, he says "oh, that's what that does". What do you wish that gun had done? A: Gone off on its own a minute earlier.

Q: Hi! Thanks for doing this. What's your favorite hand? And if you could have any new hand for your character, what could it do? Thank you! A: The SHIELD attachment does not suck

Q: Hi Clark! Thanks for doing this AMA and everything you've done for the MCU. Love your portrayal of A.C. (Daisy needs to bring that back imo). Have you had any input or influence on the development of Coulson? A: I have some input but most of the great stuff on our show is straight from the writers. Dream storyline involves saving the Defenders and the Avengers and the Guardians and the Royal Family and everyone in Legion when they get themselves in trouble with Thanos. In a musical episode by Lin Manuel Miranda. (Hamilton)

Q: u/70astralaxe wanted to ask you those question but he coudn't so I'll Phil in [sorry for the pun...] Favourite Star Wars movie. Favourite MCU movie. Whether he had any "holy shit" moments during script-read/when filming a scene. What he wants for the future of MCU/SHIELD. If he is planning on doing non-MCU stuff anytime in the near future. Favourite Ice-Cream Flavour. Favourite Holiday Destination. A: I'll pick 2. Empire and that coconut something from Ben and jerry's

Q: Clark, it was great seeing you at Denver Comic Con last year. I was the one who told you I loved Choke as well as the intro you wrote for Avengers: Endless Wartime. My question though, do you have any projects coming up that you are writing/directing? Choke was 2008, and Trust me was 2013, so I was hoping we were due for something else soon. Thanks, love your work. A: Writing a film and a sci-fi pilot. Hope to make something next hiatus.

Q: When Joss called you up about Much Ado About Nothing, what was your reaction? Did you get any say in your role? Have you done any other Shakespeare? Thanks for doing this AMA today! A: I was terrified when Joss called, but excited because I had just had a dream I was doing some Shakespeare and it felt ordained. And I love Joss.

Q: Have you watched GOTG Vol. 2 yet? A: Yes. Laughed my ass off.

Q: Hello, What's your favourite MCU movie? Also, what does RDJ smell like? A: I'm a big fan of the Avengers and anything with Cap. Or Stark. Or Thor or the Guardians. Or Strange. Let's face it, I'm a Marvel slut. Robert smells like warm beaches and babies laughing and a freshly washed thong.

Q: What kind of changes in perspective on your character did you work on to bring the 3 different versions of Coulson to life this season? We've had Agent Coulson, Robo Coulson, and Mr. Coulson. What was the most fun about doing that? Also, minor question, do you happen to know what brand / model of glasses you were rocking in the Framework? (I tweeted @amandalynnriley, but alas no response). A: It was fun to have new takes on Phil. Amazing work by the writers. Especially geeking out teacher Phil with his soap. The glasses are called Barton Pereira (sp)

Q: What would like to do for a living if you weren't an actor, besides dominating in lip sync battles? A: Music something. probably not very well. But I loved being in a band. A lot.

Q: Hi Clark! Awesome for you to do this before the big season finale. How do you think your character has changed between now and the beginning of Iron Man 1? In other words, do you think your acting of Phil Coulson has changed that much in 9 years? A: Ah, jeez, I don't know. The character has been through a lot and gotten older, so maybe he's less innocent and a little darker, but I probably am too. I don't know about the acting. I try to forget that's what it is.

Q: Do you read your fanmail? If so, what's something cool a fan has sent you? A: I do. I get amazing stuff and try to answer it all. I've been sent crocheted blankets and lola pillows and maybe some underwear.

Q: Thank you for putting your all into Coulson. He's my favourite character in the entire Marvel universe. As for my question, how much of Clark has gone into the role? Specificially the frequent Star Wars references... is that your input or does it come purely from the writers? A: The writers and I love Star Wars and couldn't imagine Coulson wouldn't as well. There's a bunch of me and then some stiff that's verrrrry different from me.

Q: More serious question: One of the things I love about AoS is how men and women fight each other as equals. But I've wondered if that took the male actors a little getting used to, going all out punching and kicking female actors. Did you find that awkward at first? A: Definitely. Really did not like punching May or Daisy even though neither was a real punch.

Q: Hey Clark! Huge fan of your work in the MCU. My question. Did you know that when you died in the Avengers that you would be brought back for SHIELD? Thanks! A: I did not. Neither did they. #CoulsonLives gave them the idea. So thanks.

Q: What's the weirdest thing a fan ever asked you to do? A: Sign a boob. But it was a big boob so I wrote my full name and then Agent Coulson.

Q: With the amount of time Coulson has been spending in the field in AOS, it has become more and more unlikely that the Avengers wouldn't know that Phil is still alive. Do you personally think any of them know? A: I really wish I had a good answer for that, but I don't. Some day.

Q: Yo Clark! I'm sure you're gonna get a bunch of marvel questions and that's awesome. But I know you're a basketball fan so this is my first question. Who ya got winning the finals? And secondly: Any advice for someone who's dream is to work within marvel either on the tv side or movie side? A: Warriors look soooo good. To work for Marvel it helps to love comics and marvel and then just try to be really good at what you want to do there.

Q: Hey Clark! Read any good books lately? A: Yes. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Mirukami

Q: What was it like meeting Melissa Benoist for the dubsmash battle? And have you met any of the other CW heroes? A: I think she's amazing. Loved her in Whiplash. And the fact that she took part in that for charity made me love her even more.

Q: I've been marvel fan since my early childhood, having been born without half of my right hand, my parents and superheroes have always been the biggest source of inspiration. Even in my wildest dreams, i couldnt have predicted these last 10 years, what MCU has achieved and how popular these stories would become all around the world, in that way im living my childhood dream- to see it all done well on the silver screen. What is even crazier- I wouldnt have predicted that the Son of Coul, a shield agent from phase one movies, would start his own show- his own team. Over the years, Aos became , in my humble opinion, the best that superhero tv shows can offer right now, and most recently, even a better source of fun than some of the MCU movies. Past week, i have been buzzing, that we re getting another season. Mostly, i want to say THANK YOU, to everyone who helps to make this show what it is, a source of inspiration and fun to look forward to almost every week. Thank you Mr. Gregg, for breathing life into this awesome character, and also for motivating me in my own studies, and career. I just wanted to express my gratitude, and ask, recently, the Ghost Rider, LMD and Framework arcs have cemented the greatness of this show. When you got first approached to make a shield show, did you think it would end up as such a compelling characters, stories, effects and going for 5 seasons on a small screen? Did you have any doubts? Was there ever a moment when you got a script/shot a scene, where u said to yourself : "Wow, this is amazing" ? Thank you, wish you and the whole cast/crew all the best in making another successful season. A big fan, all they way from Slovakia A: This made my day. Thank you.

Q: What did you think of Iron Fist on Netflix? Do you think it deserves the criticism? What would you have done different if you were the showrunner? A: I love Iron Fist. Both seasons. (then...another reply) Oops. I meant Daredevil. Didn't sleep too well.

Q: Do you remember your time on The Shield well? Great performance. Any fun stories from the set? A: My friend David Mamet directed and the character was so uhinged I felt wrong afterwards. Also, Billy Gierhart who has directed the most eps of AoS was the cameraman on that ep.

Q: As a big fan of What Lies Beneath and Choke, can we expect to see you work behind the camera on Agents of SHIELD any time soon? A: I may direct an episode in season 5. if I don't pass out from exhaustion just thinking about it.

Q: Jed Whedon recently made his directing debut in SHIELD's episode Self Control, which is probably my favorite episode of the show now. What was it like having him direct? Do you think we can look forward to more episodes helmed by him? Great job this season by the way! Coulson's speech a few episodes ago rocked, Captain America would be proud A: jed was amazing and that may be my favorite too. He better direct some more or we'll drag him down to set and make him.

Q: Hey Clark! Thanks for coming by! In about a year we'll be coming up on Iron Man's 10th Anniversary, which means you'll have been playing Coulson for 10 years. How does that feel? And, if you could have Coulson appear in any Marvel-related property, what would it be? A: Wow. Ten years. I feel very lucky. I could have been stuck that long playing a character I didn't love in a world I didn't care about. #Grateful

Q: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has been renewed for a fifth season, but does not appear on ABC's Fall schedule. Obviously, it will start later, but we've been getting mixed signals. Do you know if Season 5 will be a full, 22 episode season or has it been shortened? A: Yes. Full season after the 8 eps of The Inhumans. Then we do our whole run. Could be cool that way.

Q: Can you tell us anything about today's AoS finale? A: Coulson will change.

Q: This is also a question from my girlfriend, who is at work and can't ask herself: Do you think Phil and May will have a happy ending? A: I won't touch that one.

Q: How would coulson react to meeting the defenders? A: He would geek out. But who knows, maybe they would too.

Q: Two questions: first, I'm currently binge watching the West Wing and I have to ask what it was like working with dialog written by Aaron Sorkin? Second, are we ever going to see your wife, Jennifer Grey, on AoS? A: Aaron's dialogue is like no one else's. I did Sports Night, TWW and A Few Good Men on Broadway. So I'm lucky. He did a lot to put me on the map.

Q; Hi Clark! Thank you for doing this! I can’t wait for tonight’s finale. Can you take us through what it was like auditioning and successfully getting the role of Coulson? Did you ever imagine that the role would develop and expand like it has over time? A: Never auditioned. Got an offer to play a part that was two scenes in IM. Then they added more and more scenes. Cut to Phil nine years later about to walk into the season 4 finale where he will finally (REDACTED)

Q: Clark, you all have been doing such a great job over the last few years. Why do you think Agents of SHIELD has resonated with so many fans around the world? A: Because thanks to the cast, crew, the writers and Marvel the show keeps getting better all the time. That's very rare.

Last Words From Clark: Thanks so much of the great questions. Sorry I couldn't answer more of them. Acting in an independent film today so I have to run. Join me on the twitter for the S.4 finale tonight. Love you all.

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medproish · 6 years

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SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead if you want a completely spoiler-free experience going into “Avengers: Infinity War.”

“Avengers: Infinity War,” a.k.a. “What If Marvel Threw a Superhero Party and Everyone Came?,” feels like a movie that the American Entertainment State had to get out of its system. It’s the 19th entry in the Marvel Comics Universe, but it’s the first to push to the wall, to the max, to the ultron the notion that the MCU really is a universe: a vast intermeshed thicket of comic-book icons, destined to be an army that’s greater (in theory, at least) than the sum of its parts. If, for decades, the metaphor for propulsive blockbuster filmmaking was the “ride,” then watching “Avengers: Infinity War” is like going to a theme park and taking three spins on every ride there.

Set in deep space, and in half a dozen lands (New York, Wakanda, Titan, Knowhere), the film presents a galactic battle for the fate of the universe that throws together the six original Avengers; the follow-up wave of Marvel superheroes who’ve only recently been given their own origin stories (Black Panther, Dr. Strange, the rebooted Spider-Man); the Guardians of the Galaxy; and a sprinkling of other figures who’ve been there on the fringes. (I had to scratch my head to remember what Vision’s powers are, but he remains the coolest shade of Revlon.) The movie is a knowingly gargantuan Marvel mashup, so jam-packed with embattled uber saviors that you may feel, at times, like all that’s missing is Dwayne Johnson, Jesus Christ, and the cast of the last two “Star Wars” films.

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So is the movie a jumbled, top-heavy mess of cynical franchise overkill? Sort of like the bloated and chaotic “Avengers: Age of Ultron” taken to the second power? Far from it. It’s a sleekly witty action opera that’s at once overstuffed and bedazzling. The directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, as they proved in the two “Captain America” sequels, are far more stylish and exacting filmmakers than Joss Whedon, who made the first two “Avengers” films. “Infinity War” is a brashly entertaining jamboree, structured to show off each hero or heroine and give them just enough to do, and to update their mythologies without making it all feel like homework. At the same time, you may begin to lose hold of what made each of these characters, you know, special.

Early on, a donut-shaped alien spaceship lands in midtown Manhattan, allowing the effete Continental sadist Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), who’s like a kick-ass version of the Ghost of Jacob Marley, to ring-lead some FX street mayhem. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), after trying and failing to match Ebony in wisecracks and firepower, gets sucked into the ship, and it’s up to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to rescue him, with an assist from Spider-Man (Tom Holland), a pop-culture geek who wonders if he’s in the middle of an “Alien” film, and who Tony outfits with anti-gravity armor. Once Tony and Strange are thrown together, you can’t help but notice that both are imperious quipsters with matching goatees, and they razz each other exquisitely, the main difference being that Strange keeps forming those light circles that look like they’re made out of sparklers. Tony, of course, has his zippy metal power suits, but a number of the other characters do, too, including Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who after the opening fight spends the entire film trying and failing to call forth his inner Hulk.

“Avengers: Infinity War” can, at times, make it feel like you’re at a birthday party where you got so many presents that you start to grow tired of opening them. But taken on its own piñata-of-fun terms, it’s sharp, fast-moving, and elegantly staged. It also has what any superhero movie worth its salt requires: a sense that there’s something at stake.

The urgency derives, in this case, from the film’s villain, Thanos, the malevolent Dark Lord of the wrecked planet Titan, played by Josh Brolin (in a supremely effective motion-capture performance) as a towering armored walking-statue demon with a chin sculpted like Abraham Lincoln’s beard, and a demeanor of soft-spoken Nietzschean intelligence. He’s like Hellboy, the Hulk, Darth Vader, and Oliver Stone rolled into one eloquent sociopath. Thanos’ master plan could hardly be simpler — and neither, despite its gushing river of characters, could the film’s storyline. Thanos is on a mission to gather all six of the Infinity Stones (candy-colored gems named for Mind, Soul, Time, Power, Space, and Reality), several of which are in the hands of our heroes (Vision, played by Paul Bettany, has one of them embedded in his forehead). If Thanos succeeds, it would allow him, in a mad instant, to destroy half the beings in the universe.

This seems like the most dastardly of plans, and is. Yet Thanos thinks of himself as a genocidal humanitarian (sort of like Chairman Mao). The universe’s resources are limited, and he intends to slice the population in half so that what remains of it can thrive. Brolin infuses Thanos with his slit-eyed manipulative glower, so that the evil in this movie never feels less than personal. It also feels like a force that might just require 20 superheroes to stop it.

At a few key moments, the war really does get personal, as when Thanos is reunited with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the adoptive stepdaughter he rescued as a girl in the midst of wiping out her planet. She won’t give into him now, even when he’s got her android half-sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), suspended and torturously stretched into her metallic body parts. Saldana, in a ripely emotional performance, plays Gamora like a raging refugee from an abusive home, and the resolution of her conflict with Thanos gives “Infinity War” the (rare) moving moment it needs.

Gamora’s fellow Guardians, meanwhile, are off doing what they do: saving the cosmos (to the tune of the Spinners’ “The Rubberband Man”), but never letting that endeavor get in the way of their ability to take the piss out of each other. The two Marvel franchises come crashing together — literally — when the bloody, barely sentient Thor (Chris Hemsworth) bumps into the windshield of the Guardians’ ship. There is much mooning over his muscles (Drax: “It’s like a pirate had a baby with an angel!”), which is funny, and so is the rivalrous back-and-forth between Thor and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), who in contrast to the stentorian stud of Asgard has never seemed more of a dude. He feels like he’s got to lower his voice just to keep up with him.

The Guardians split into two factions, with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and the sulky, video-game-playing adolescent Groot (Vin Deisel) heading off with Thor, who refers to Rocket as “the rabbit.” Then, just when you’re sure that the film has more than enough spinning subplots, along comes Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans in a beard that, frankly, is less becoming to his role than the one sported by Thor. Hemsworth wears his facial hair as a sign of the character’s battered-but-unbowed soul, but in Evans’ case it looks as if it’s not just Rogers but the actor who has grown a bit depressed at the prospect of being Captain America. The team he’s leading — he’s got Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) in tow — feels like the least exciting, and the most extraneous to the main action.

“Infinity War” brims with tensely spectacular combat sequences, even if the question of who’s going to win each one has that extravagantly arbitrary could-Mighty-Mouse-beat-up-Superman? quality. Luminous daggers get plunged into bodies, to no effect. Thor, after meeting with his weapons guru (Peter Dinklage, acting very Shakespeare) and bracing himself against the burning force of a star, gets a new super-hammer — an ax, actually — which is presented as an ultimate tool until it fails, at a crucial moment, to do what we think it’s going to do. (The weirdest thing about superhero movies is that they’re bombastically physical…and metaphysical. Which often doesn’t make sense.) The climax is set in Wakanda, where T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) doesn’t have much to do besides orchestrate a battle against an army of squishy alien beasties. It isn’t until the arrival of Thanos that the sequence takes off not just visually but dramatically.

Of all the things that have ever happened in an MCU movie, there will be much chatter about the ending of “Infinity War.” It is dark and spooky and, in its way, chancy and shocking. Do any of our beloved characters die? Well, yes. But, in fact, the ending is so audacious that you realize it’s all an elaborate card trick. Despite what it shows us, these movies are rarely about more leading to less. Count on the sequel — due one year from now — to demonstrate that more, in the MCU, will lead only to more.