Marvel: Full of Fail

The original West Coast Avengers is probably what inspired Hawkeye having such a strong presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the comics, he was the leader of the WCA, which isn't bad for someone whose superpower is to hit what he aims at.

So, when Marvel brings back the WCA, I figure this is going to be awesome...

Then there's this.

What the flaming Hell is this BS, you ask? This is failure, my friends. Failure at the very core. Let us ignore rebranding it as "a team of young heros"... because that requires that they be heroes.

Let's start with the cover.... because nothing is happening. Nothing at all. Unless this collection of freaks and losers are going to be thrown at the reader, nothing is happening.

And good lord, what is going on with these characters. Well, I'll tell you.

See the lady in the pink / purple body suit? That's Hawkeye. Yes, really. That's what's Marvel has done to one of the more popular MCU characters. He was replaced with a Kate Bishop.

Now, originally, Kate Bishop was part of the Young Avengers, and looked more like a badass.

The original look for Bishop (right) was darker, sleeker, and she's more obviously mature. In fact, it's rather obvious that she's a flipping adult. She has more in common with Batman or Green Arrow than Hawkeye, being the child of a millionaire who shoots trick arrows. And apparently, her inciting incident that spurs her to being a heroine? Rape. Yeah. It's even on the Marvel biography page.

.... Ya know, even Jessica Jones, who started in the Marvel "adult" lines, was a slave of a mind-controlling psycho, and they explicitly stated that she had not been raped. But this is the "younger hero" line?

Anyway, at one point, Bishop was framed as the new Hawkeye... her book lasted 16 issues. Can we say fail?

Now she gets her own comic book. I don' t know where the purple body sock came from, but good God, someone should be taken out to the woodshed over it. Seriously, we go from the Young Avengers look to making her appear to be a rejected extra from the terrible Ghostbusters attempt from a few years back. What the Hell, people?

The one who looks like she's wearing a white body condom is "Gwen-Pool." Because we need a hundred variations on Deadpool, don't we?

The creature with the purple hair is a fellow named Quentin Quire.  He's a mutant, and his powers seem to be ... very lame. (Telepath, telekinetic, and "smart"). Apparently, his hair has always been purple. I don't even want to know whose bright idea it was to give him a makeover in San Francisco chic.

See the blond in the back? That's Clint "Hawkeye" Barton. Yup. The real Hawkeye. No, I don't know what happened to him. He looks like a rejected Archie character.

The person on the left is supposed to be male. At least, that's my conclusion, the artwork on this is so terrible I'm not entirely certain. According to press releases, this is supposed to be Kate Bishop's boyfriend "Johnny." Who has no powers. Why is he on the team? No idea.

Then there's America Chavez .... ugh. From what I can gather, her only characteristic is that she's "gay Mary Sue." Yup. That's it. Her selling point? She's a walking gay stereotype, and so is her author ... that was it...  Are we surprised that her comic book series was cancelled in 13 months? (March 2017 - April 2018).

So just to make this clear, this series has two-- count them, TWO -- characters that couldn't sustain their own comic book franchises and fell apart. The author who penned these failures (two issues of "America" and all of the "Hawkeye" attempt) will be the author of this new property, which is already full of fail, and I'm still just on the cover. They've even made Hawkeye look lame, but he's supposed to be the adult here.

Yeah, this sucks already.

One final observation: this sucks even worse because of the modifications made to the characters. If they tried to treat these characters AS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED, this might have made for an interesting collection of characters. Imagine the original design on Kate Bishop -- wealthy, classy, adult, serious -- then throw together an imperious "I'm smarter than you" mutant (Quentin Quire), a nutcase from an alternate dimension, and .... okay, no, America Chavez would still suck. Maybe it would have worked to try to get these people to work together, see how the personality conflicts result in some fun strangeness, but it's clear just from the cover that they've been made to look universally goofy, and uniformly lame.

This isn't a comic book, this is a still from the gay pride parade as interpreted through negative stereotypes.

Here, I'll give you a book where the men are men, the women are women, and even teenagers try to step up to become the line between good and evil.

While we're here, the Dragons are coming.

If you don't have your ballot filled out already (either IRL or in your head,) here's my list. It includes the lists of other people, so there are options.

Just remember to vote.

Captain America: Civil War, reviewed

Yes, I'm the last person on the face of the Earth to see the ruddy film, so sue me.

So, the premise of Civil War begins with a mission in Nigeria that goes sideways and wipes out some civilians. The UN sees this as a good excuse to shackle the Avengers to their whims. US Secretary of State General (ret) Thunderbolt Ross is in charge of the arm twisting.

Meanwhile, a little grey man named Zemo is manipulating things from behind the scenes. First, Zemo attacks the UN conference for the Avengers agreement, framing Bucky "Winter Soldier" Barnes for the attack, making the world a suddenly much smaller place for him to hide.

And then, we're off to the races.

Now let's look at this for a moment, shall we?

This isn't even everybody.  There were twelve characters on screen. And, much to my surprise, each and every one of them had a character moment. They had screen time that made their appearance worthwhile. Some of these people were only on screen for about 5-15 minutes (sorry I'm vague about the time, but I didn't look at my watch once during the entire 2:30 running time).

And keep in mind, they introduced two new heroes. We'll get into both of them in a moment, but think about how much work had to be done here. This wasn't a Captain America film, this was an Avenger movie. And the best part is, there was no SHIELD, no Infinity Gems. And the bad guy was more of a MacGuffin than an antagonist.

The Russo brothers proved that they can take over for Joss Whedon's seat as the directors of Phase 3 of the Marvel universe.

About the villain: I am surprised that they changed the character of Zemo from the comics. He was not at all affiliated with Hydra. I was thrown by it. I was also thrown by the fact that, after a bombing, he did very little in this movie. It was all about thinking, and chess, and playing people. And people were played very well. It almost makes me wonder if he planned the opening scene as well, just to set the events in motion. He was a spymaster. Just a grey little man with nothing special except a plan. It was like George Smiley versus the Avengers, and he almost won.

Team Cap

And the bit players. Yeah. They were fun. Hawkeye didn't steal large parts of the show again, but he came close for a few scenes. Vision and the Scarlet Witch had surprisingly good chemistry on screen, even if, well, he's a robot dressed in a sweater (yes, really). Sharon Carter contributed nice little moments, but didn't feel shoe-horned in. I expected her to have a larger part of the film, but maybe later.

Also, notice, this had Ant-Man. I even liked Ant-Man. There was some good bits of business with him which boil down to spoilers. So moving on.

By the way, remember in Winter Soldier when Peggy Carter brought all the feels? She kinda does that again.

Black Panther And .... 

Meet prince T'Challa of Wakanda. He made his introduction into the MCU with this movie, and he was done surprisingly well. When he is brought into the situation, he is driven by vengeance, and he's also obviously royalty. He carries himself like a king, and you will respect him like one, or he will rip your throat out.

Interestingly enough, at the end of the day, he was the sanest one on the battlefield. I look forward to him having his own movie.

Of course, the other one people talk about is ....

Yup. Back to Spider-Man. Sony and Marvel studios came to an accord after they badly mishandled Amazing Spider Man 2.

However, I can say with all honesty, I like this one. Especially scenes where he's bantering with Tony Stark.

Marissa Tomei as Aunt May is probably more realistic (consider the ages for a moment, you'll see what I mean. Aunt May should be 46, watching after a 16 year old. Not much older. Rosemary Harris, while accurate to the comic, was probably older than she should have been).

Also, this exchange.

Parker: You know that really old movie, The Empire Strikes Back?
War Machine: How old is this kid Tony?
Stark: I don't know. I didn't carbon date him!

I'll take it.

At the end of the day, this was a totally character-driven film. There's plot, but this one relies heavily on the characters. It is the end result of multiple movies coming to fruition. And it never slowed down. And I never looked at my watch once.

Best Marvel film to date. Hands down.

And props for making certain that this image was in the film.

SPOILERS

Now, a few things: Last time I had this conversation, after Age of Ultron, I called a few things. Some things weren't that hard to guess. That they brought up Bucky killing Stark's father is not a surprise. I didn't even believe that they made it a "twist" in the film. Was anybody surprised by that?

Blowback happened from the Hulk's rampage in Age of Ultron. Also not surprising.

And of course, the Disassembling of the Avengers. Called it. But then again, not surprising either.

Tell me that last note to Stark wasn't a note from Chris Evans to Marvel fans. "If you need me, call"? Pretty much what Evans said about retiring ... except for Marvel films.

Fisking Tor's Strong Female Character

Oh, Tor.com, how I have missed your endless douche-baggery. You have once against decided to talk about Strong Female Characters.  Considering how you nimrods totally botched women in military sci-fi, I suspect this will not end well.

Every now and then, I come across a blog post or an article about Strong Female Characters. (Sometimes several come along at once.) 

Of course you do. You're Tor.com. Don't you guys write half of them?

Often with the capital letters, usually decrying a simplistic reading of strength. True strength, these articles argue, goes beyond mere skill at arms and a sharp tongue. True strength encompasses so much more than shallow kickassery and badass posturing.

Um ... you know that those at least help, right? Emma Peel pulled that off with style.

And "shallow kickassery" ... so, what? Because Krav Maga is simple and straight-forward, it's shallow? How about something overly complicated and flowery like Tae Kwon Do.  Are you being anti-Semitic, since Krav is an Israeli self defense system. Are you against Israel now?

I joke, of course ... we all know that Tor.com thinks that all kickass bits of business is shallow, because true strength comes from understanding the rapist and the ax-murderer, right, fellas?

Well, you know, I’m not likely to argue with that case. 

Of course you're not. After all, you schmucks went after Joss Whedon, trying to call him a sexist.  We know that Tor is shallow.

Strength, and courage, and virtue—notwithstanding its very manly Latin etymology—encompass more than surface-level traits. 

Um, one, you had to have a disclaimer on virtue? Really? Why not issue a disclaimer on the Cardinal Virtues too, while you're at it.

And how nice, you think that virtues exist.  Wait, you mean they're not subjective, cultural, completely anthropological?  Or are we just going to go into Lefty virtues?  Any bets? Place your bets, folks, place your bets.

But I do find it interesting how this argument is almost always applied to female characters. How many posts and articles decry the shallow sorts of strength of the thriller hero—seldom sketched in more than two dimensions—a strength that can generally only be demonstrated by his competence with violence, his willingness to defy authority, and his occasional ability to make entertaining banter? 

Funny, I'm reasonably certain that the Tor article that slandered Baen authors pretty much did exactly that. Also, that stupid article on SFCs from a few years back -- for example, dismissing James Bond as a pure psychopath (which I'm not arguing, I like Bond less and less as time goes on). Come to think of it, half of the NY Times articles are highly, highly dismissive of thrillers, thriller authors and thriller characters.

Guest post: Joss Whedon, Sex, and Monsters: A Fan's response.

Marina Fontaine is a friend of mine. We ran into each other on Facebook, and I think she might be one of my bigger fans.  When the stupid hit the fan with Joss Whedon last week, Tor joined in on the stupid, because, well, Tor. 

As Tor is one of my favorite punching bags, I considered bouncing up and down on them like a trampoline.  

When Marina said "I'm so tempted to fisk this article," I said "Want me to host it on my blog?"  

And so, a guest post, fisking yet another stupid Tor Article.

****

First, a word from the dark side...


Avengers: Age of Ultron is about a lot of things. The film is a conversation about monsters, gods, what is right, what is wrong. Ultron is a monster, by our standards, but he thinks of himself as a god. Is Tony a monster for creating him? Will Steve ever be able to leave the war behind? Will Hawkeye ever finish the dining room?

So far so good. We want our stories, especially those told in the form of blockbuster movies, to be about a lot of things. We want big ideas, something to think over and discuss long after the end credits roll and the bucket of popcorn is emptied. And if some of those big ideas are intercut with personal quirks of the characters, so much the better. Best characters, those that stay with us, are portrayed as complete human beings, whether or not they happen to have specialized skills or super powers.

The biggest question that my friends and I have been discussing, however, is what we’ve all already started calling “The Black Widow Monster Scene.” There are several ways to interpret the exchange between Natasha and Bruce, all of which seem valid, in my opinion. But I specifically want to examine how this scene functions in the context of Joss Whedon’s overall work, and the popular perception of Whedon as a feminist writer. Simply put: let’s look at how often Whedon has relied on this trope of a woman’s power or uniqueness or, yes, monstrosity, being inseparable from her gender and sexuality—why, in Whedon’s stories of women’s power, does their strength and talent always need to be bound to their bodies and biology?

Well, now. Thank you ever so much for allowing us to interpret a scene in several ways, but you in your infinite wisdom will now tell us what we SHOULD think anyway. Personally, I think anyone claiming to divine an artist’s intent, especially in context of work from decades ago, is stretching literary analysis well beyond its limits, but hey, it’s a free country (for now). Examine away.

To begin at the beginning, in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Buffy’s role as the Slayer is immediately sexualized, as Merrick explains that her terrible menstrual cramps are an early warning system that vampires are nearby. (And this is why Slayers have to be female.) Whedon’s film script was heavily rewritten, so it’s entirely possible that this was not one of his original plans for the character, but since it flows so well with the rest of the Buffyverse wrestling with sex and death, I’ve always felt it was probably one of his ideas. This concept was mostly dropped in the show, but the connection was reflected and echoed in other moments: it’s Buffy’s loss of virginity that triggers the return of Angelus; Willow explicitly compares her PMS to Oz’s monthly lycanthropy in “Phases”; and Faith tends to celebrate a successful slaying session with random, somewhat violent hookups—which later causes some emotional fallout with Xander.

I have to admit that the original Buffy movie is not fresh in my mind. Menstrual cramps reference never made it into the show, and one would think that if Whedon really loved the idea, he would have worked it in somehow. After all, he had seven seasons to play with ideas, new and old. Be that as it may, my first reaction as a fantasy fan is, “Hey, this is pretty clever. Take something that is biologically already there and is normally somewhat of a handicap and use it as an additional power to give the Slayer.” Also, I don’t know about you, but when I think about menstrual cramps, sexualization is pretty much the last thing on my mind. But, whatever floats your boat.

Moving on to the other points, and now I will get a little nit-picky, which I think is fair, considering the source.

The return of Angelus is triggered by the fact that Angel has sex with Buffy and achieves total bliss. Said bliss is not caused by Buffy losing her virginity, but by Angel engaging in passionate, satisfying sex with the woman he loves. Later on, Faith tries to seduce the good-again Angel to bring back Angelus. (On the spinoff Angel show, he is eventually able to have sex that is less passionate and not quite as satisfying with a woman he just kind of likes, with no adverse effects.) Personally, I think Whedon is simply using a tried and true horror trope of “sex=trouble” rather than anything much deeper. But in any case the big payoff involves Angel losing his soul, and if one wanted to make social commentary there, it might as easily have been “for men, bliss equals sex; how very primitive of them.” If anyone is defined and controlled by sex or lack thereof, it’s Angel, not Buffy.

Willow’s comment to Oz is part an awkward joke and part her trying to show empathy (hey, I know how you feel!). Willow is still in her suppressed, shy stage at that point, and this is the best she can do. In other words, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Faith, at least the version of Faith we first meet, is a gloriously amoral creature, and of course it shows in her sexual conduct. She takes anything she likes, be it shiny things or sexual pleasure, with no inhibitions, proudly and gleefully. It’s mostly a shorthand indication that we’re dealing with someone lacking inhibitions, with sex being only a consistent part of the overall character. We are back to my “complete” characters comment at the beginning. Whedon does that. It’s a good thing.

Marvel After Age of Ultron

UPDATE 2: Every time I look around, there are more characters.

UPDATED: The Cast of Civil War has been confirmed and tweaked accordingly.

So, what's next?

Yes, we've got the upcoming movie list, but what can we expect to see, given what's come out thus far?  Obviously, there will be SPOILERS from Age of Ultron, so if you're like one of three people who haven't seen it yet, this blog post is NOT FOR YOU.

THE RETURN OF DOCTOR ZOLA

Yeah, remember him from The Winter Soldier?  When last seen, the former Swiss Hydra scientist was stuck in a 1970s supercomputer.

In the comic books, Arnim Zola was in his own mechanical body, usually appearing in a giant television screen. If only there was a way to put electronic brain patterns into a robot body....

Oh, wait.

I think that some of the Marvel movie people might be able to fit that in.  Somehow.  Just a guess.

For those people who have said that Zola was blown up in The Winter Soldier ... you're new to comic books, aren't you?

CIVIL WAR IS COMING

For those of you who have read my disasters to Marvel at, you know that the Captain America: Civil War storyline and the movie will have little to nothing to do with each other. There aren't nearly enough heroes to pull that off.

In a post-SHIELD and post Age of Ultron universe, superheroes aren't going to be the most popular people in the world.  Thanks Tony, for pissing off the planet.  Hulk trashed Wakanda, so he's not too popular either.  It shouldn't be too hard for the "World Council" (who gave SHIELD orders to nuke Manhattan in Avengers, and seemingly wiped out in Winter Soldier) to convince world governments to pass something against superheroes.

HOWEVER....

It is far, far more likely that the majority of the "Civil War" elements will be between Captain America and Tony Stark.  Why?  Because it was implied in The Winter Soldier that Hydra killed Tony's father. Who, exactly, was doing all of Hydra's wetwork at that point?

Oh, yeah.  Captain America's good and dear brainwashed friend, Bucky, the Winter Soldier.