Sunday, December 21, 2014

Recent History

In June of 2013, this is where I was:



As of this morning, this is where I am:



By either the end of this year, or early 2015, I will have finally cracked this one, and I will have done it for the first time in over a decade:



I am happy, I am scared, and I am alive.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Prediction/Theory RE: Civil War, The Inhumans, and S.H.I.E.L.D.



(THIS FEATURES AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. SPOILERS, YOU BE WARNED MATEY!)

So, Marvel announced its Phase 3 plans today. No Hulk movie. Not going to focus on that though, that's a rant for another day.

Basically, I just wanted to air a bit of a theory/prediction regarding one of the most interesting titles in the list Marvel released. Namely, Captain America: Civil War scheduled for early May 2016.

For those who may not know, Marvel's Civil War event involved two factions of super-heroes fighting over government registration that would force all super-heroes to reveal their identities to S.H.I.E.L.D., and become federal employees rather than vigilantes. Iron Man led the pro-registration side, while Cap was at the head of the rebels.

There were some pretty strong hints that Marvel was laying the foundation for a future Civil War event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Avengers. There's Maria Hill's silent "yeah, whatever" reaction to Fury at the end of the film when he says if the Avengers are needed they'll come back "because we'll need them to." And more than anything there was the instant rivalry between Captain America and Iron Man.

The thing that's kept me scratching my head about this is that there just aren't enough heroes. How can you have a cinematic Civil War with only a dozen or so heroes from which to choose? Even if you throw in the characters from the upcoming Netflix shows and the C-listers popping up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you're never going to get the right numbers. And even if Marvel keeps pumping out at least two movies a year for the next 10 years, you're still not going to have the right numbers.

I'm thinking Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. might be in the process of changing that.


Okay, going to try to be succinct with this. Let's see how I do.

So Phil Coulson, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., was murdered in Avengers by Loki. He was brought back to life and in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first season it was revealed he was resurrected when he was injected with alien DNA. The alien in question had blue skin. One Marvel alien race with blue skin is the Kree. You saw them in Guardians of the Galaxy. Ronan was a Kree.

Later in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Bill Paxton's character John Garrett was injected with the same DNA and he started drawing a bunch of crazy symbols (pictured above). After Garrett's death, Coulson started doing the same and he's continued to do it in Season 2.

In one of the most recent episodes, it was revealed that Hydra has been poisoning somewhat random groups of civilians with something that has been killing them, but Hydra is always disappointed when it kills them. They seem to want something else to happen. There are a lot of hints that they are trying to create people with super powers.

In the Marvel Comics Universe, the Kree are responsible for the creation of the Inhumans, humans with super powers. They used something called the Terrigen mists to change early humans into the Inhumans. In a recent Marvel event called Inhumanity, the Terrigen whatever was released on Earth, and any humans with even the faintest Inhuman ancestry were given super powers.

So, my prediction/theory: Something like the Inhumanity event is going to happen on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And suddenly the world is going to have a lot more people with superpowers. Like, a lot. Hundreds at least. This will cause confusion and chaos, and this will create the circumstances necessary for Civil War.

This may even be how Marvel solves the mutant problem; as in the problem that they can't use mutants in their movies because Fox owns the movie rights to X-Men. This may be how they explain how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch get their powers. It would be fitting too, since Quicksilver has close ties to the Inhumans.

So that's my theory. And if I end up being right, I have proof that I thunked it.



Sunday, October 26, 2014

This IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!: 10 Things about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that bother me just a teeny bit



A small group of friends and I recently started a new tradition: Star Trek Sundays. We watch some Star Trek at one of our places. Usually at least two episodes. Maybe a two-parter. From any of the series. Last time we watched the two parter from TNG when Lor went all cult leader with the Borg. The week before that it was the Voyager two parter that introduced Seven of Nine as well as Borg-stacking aliens from a universe of space juice. This week was at my place and rather than choosing episodes, I showed what is easily still my favorite of the films: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I don't know if this would make us less or more Trekkie-like in the eyes of other fans, but everyone in my Star Trek Sunday group loves making fun of it as we watch. We all love the shows and movies, but we like getting our MST3K on too.

Watching Wrath again with like-minded geeks made me realize just how many faults I find in the flick. They don't take away from my enjoyment. They're just things that have always stuck in my mind.


10. (IN VULCAN)

As far as I know, this is not the fault of the filmmakers, but for some reason when you watch Wrath of Khan on Netflix, there are no subtitles in the scene when Spock and Saavik speak in Vulcan. I tried using the Closed Captioning, but this is all I got:


 Oh wow, thanks, that's really helpful. At least I know they weren't speaking in Elvish.

Actually. There's a chance I would've thought that so, that is at least a little helpful.


9. This IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

So a whole bunch of these little things that stick in my mind all take place in the scene in the cargo container on Ceti Alpha Five.

Now I know a lot of people mention the fact that Khan recognizes Chekov, but that he shouldn't because Chekov wasn't part of the crew when Khan was on the original series. But I don't really care because I just always figured Chekov was on the ship, but he just wasn't command crew yet. Maybe he had a conversation with Khan off-screen where he was all, like, "Yes, I feel very under appreciated here, I would like to have a better job on this WESSEL." And Khan gave him a pep talk using some of the psychotic murderer self-help stuff, and before you know it, Chekov's the f---in' man.

What does make me scratch my head is that Chekov and his new Captain came to Ceti Alpha 5 as part of a scientific expedition, they came to it thinking it was Ceti Alpha 6, and it's Khan who has to inform them that Ceti Alpha 6 blew up almost 15 years ago.


So, upon entering a star system as part of a scientific mission, while a part of a starfleet whose ships compulsively record and catalog the tiniest fart detected anywhere in space, Chekov and his new boss didn't notice an entire g-damn planet was missing, Alderaan-style? Aged Khan of Dokken had to tell them?


8. THE KIRK ALERT SYSTEM


Khan and his buddies were on Ceti Alpha 5 because Kirk left them there at the end of the original series episode "Space Seed". So, you're telling me the Federation doesn't have some kind of alert system in place where if one of its ships enters a star system that is home to a centuries-old self-described world conqueror, the ship doesn't get an alert saying, "Dude, maybe don't go there"? My Google Maps knows when weather is slowing traffic, and I can find out how many sexually adventurous 20-30 year olds are within 5 miles of me on Tinder, but the Federation can't figure out some way to let its ships know that some planets have dickheads on them?


7. SPACE SUIT HANDLES: FOR WHEN SUPER STRONG JERKS WANT TO LIFT YOU




I am very curious about what other possible use there could be to the handles at the front of these space suits, other than for when super strong bad guys want to lift you off the ground. Really seems like the only potential advantage. "This way," the space suit designer said with a clever glint in his eye, "they'll want to lift you by the groin, but their hand will naturally gravitate to the handle instead."


6. YOU LEFT WHAT OPEN?!?!?!

So, okay. Okay, so Khan opens the little tupperware thing they've got the ugly little alien in with the killer ear babies. All right.



Then he grabs the Killer Ear Baby Momma with the salad tongs. I'm with you so far.



He picks the ear babies off and puts them in a bowl. Everything makes perfect sense.



And then he. Wait. No. He's not going to-Holy crap. Dude. DUDE!


DUDE! You left it open! Close it! CLOSE IT!



DUDE! You totally left the tupperware thing open. The tupperware thing holding the alien that killed your wife. Left it open. Gee, I wonder how that thing killed twenty people. You probably gave it their car keys and left it in their beds.


5. RAT


The FUCK did a rat get on a space station?


4. LIFELESS ROCK

So Chekov and his captain were kidnapped and abused and all of the other bad events in this movie happen because the Reliant crew was searching for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis device. Meanwhile the team developing the Genesis device was orbiting Regula 1.


Wow. Look at all that life.


3. REMEMBER...



So whatever you do, Spock, right before you die, whatever you do, don't explain to anyone you transferred your soul to Bones in a last ditch effort to save your life. Because that would not only greatly increase the likelihood of the success, but might stop your friends from being disgraced and fired and possibly killed by Klingons and, oh yeah, one of your best friends from going insane thinking he's turning into you.

Ass.


2. AMAZING GRACE


So we're all agreed that we should give our friend from another planet a funeral with Earth religious music right before shooting him into space, encased in a f---ing torpedo? Make sense to everyone else? Awesome sauce.


1. YOU GUYS DO REALIZE, RIGHT...?


Anyone else watch this scene and think that everyone who isn't in the command crew is thinking, "Um, they do realize like NINETY other people died today right? Like, a lot of other people died. Like Bob? My buddy Bob? Yeah, he got sucked into space and exploded. But no, why don't I take a break from my busy day to honor the guy who got to say goodbye to his best friend and secretly transfered his consciousness into a friend he knocked out to ensure his immortality. Cool beans."

Saturday, October 25, 2014

JUSTICE, LIKE LIGHTNING: Who Could or Should or Maybe Will Appear in James Gunn's Thunderbolts (assuming James Gunn's Thunderbolts is ever even a thing, which is totally not even a solid Maybe right now, so whatever)



In the wake of Guardians of the Galaxy's success, there were these quickly forgotten stories about Guardians director James Gunn wanting to bring another Marvel property - the Thunderbolts - to the big screen. According to Gunn, he mentioned his interest to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige while filming Guardians, and Feige responded that if Guardians was a success, Gunn would be able to do whatever he wanted.

It isn't the hottest topic in the Marvel Live Action Universe being discussed right now, but it's been itching my brain, and I guess it's because since their origins in the late nineties, the Thunderbolts have never been a normal super-team and I just haven't been able to wrap my mind around exactly how Gunn or anyone else could adapt Thunderbolts.

The first Thunderbolts series provided one of comicdom's most successful surprise reveals. On the final page of the first issue, readers learned that Thunderbolts leader Citizen V was actually Captain America's old enemy Baron Zemo. The rest of the team were Zemo's underlings in the Masters of Evil, simply given new names and costumes. They were pretending at heroism in order to gain society's trust so Zemo could finally grab the power he'd sought for so long. But as the series progressed, most of the team found they liked being heroes a lot more than they ever liked being villains. After turning on Zemo, they found a new leader in Hawkeye, the Avenger who'd started his career as a criminal long ago.

Since then, the Thunderbolts have changed, and changed, and changed again. The driving force behind the team has always been different, but the common thread between all the incarnations has been that they are usually comprised of villains, reformed villains, and/or heroes who aren't exactly villains but who skirt the moral line the more traditional caped crusaders won't cross.

I guess that's why this has been itching my brain. I've been assuming (maybe incorrectly) that if Gunn wanted to make a movie based on Thunderbolts, then it would not only be a team filled with villains, but with villains Marvel movie audiences have already seen (just as Zemo and his Masters of Evil were already known to the Marvel readers of the nineties; otherwise the surprise reveal would've meant nothing). And the list of viable candidates isn't that long. Certainly not all, but a healthy chunk of Marvel's cinematic super-villains are dead and some just wouldn't fit (Thanos in Thunderbolts = no). But then I expanded my mind a little bit, and remembered a little TV show called Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So here's a list of villains already introduced in the Marvel Cinematic/TV Universe that might make good candidates. I don't do gossip and don't claim to know things I couldn't possibly know. These aren't predictions. They're just "picks" for lack of a better word, based on the assumption (and it is a huge assumption considering, as far as we know, a cinematic Thunderbolts isn't even in development) that at least a healthy chunk of the team will be culled from the villain ranks with which we're already familiar.

SPOILER WARNING: There's really no way for me to do this list without naming spoilers not only from just about every Marvel Studios film, but also from some of the so-called "One-Shots" as well as from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Actually, there will be quite a damn few from S.H.I.E.L.D. especially, so I consider your hiney warned.

LOKI

Now, the Thunderbolts have always - as far as I know - pretty much been an Earth-based team in all of their various incarnations. Because of that, Loki might not make a lot of sense at first glance. Three things though. First, he's just disgustingly, ridiculously popular. Second, he's possibly the most sympathetic super-villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the notion that he might actually change teams is something the filmmakers love to dangle in front of the audience (even though we all know it'll never happen). Third, if Gunn decides to go with the villains-disguised-as-heroes route, Loki would make the perfect replacement for Baron Zemo considering his illusion powers and how they facilitated the surprise ending of Thor: The Dark World as well as a Chris Evans cameo.


ABOMINATION

I don't think the Hulk's evil twin would go willingly into a super-hero team. I think he'd be more like a leashed pit bull. But I could see him involved in something like a Thunderbolts flick. And as much as Marvel Studios, at first at least, seemed ready to let audiences forget possibly its least lucrative film, there've been quite a few Blonsky name-drops on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was even used to explain the discrepancies in Incredible Hulk's final scene in the Marvel One-Shot The Consultant. The only problem I see with his involvement is that he's a big green guy who smashes things, and that's kind of been done in a super-hero team movie.


BLIZZARD

Donny Gill isn't exactly the most well-known villain in the MU, but out of every villain to appear so far in Disney's live action stuff, he's one of the few who actually was in the comic book team (the, uh, I don't know, third incarnation of the team? The fourth? I don't know. He was in New Thunderbolts, right before Civil War dropped). As an ambitious but lonely student at the S.H.I.E.L.D. version of Hogwart's, Gill was misguided but far from bloodthirsty, and would be perfect for a team of villains struggling with its morality. Of course, he died in his second appearance on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but as to whether or not death is as fluid in the Marvel Live Action Universe as it is in its comic book predecessor, I will say two things. First, when he died Donny Gill's body was encased in ice and dropping into the ocean, and those two things have proven numerous times to be part of a life saving technique in the Marvel Universe. Second, Tahiti is a magical place.


SCORCH

Again, a villain who appeared and died on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and this time it's a fire guy. Scorch is a fire guy and Blizzard is an ice guy, and you know if they had both on the same team they'd have to have a fight. Or a duel of tricks in the classroom to get into Anna Paquin's pants.


HAWKEYE

As I mentioned earlier, Hawkeye took the original Thunderbolts team under his wing after they rebelled against Zemo. And it wasn't until I started thinking about all of this that I realized we know very little about his character in the MCU. We know he worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., we know he has some kind of strong bond with Black Widow, and we know that when he sees Thor wrestling in the mud, he develops a soft spot for him. Considering everything though, it isn't difficult to imagine he had a criminal past before working for Nick Fury. Not to mention that he may very well carry the guilt of all the people he killed and helped kill while working as one of Loki's "personal flying monkeys." Redemption may very well be something Hawkeye's hunting, and that might even make it easier for him in some ways to relate to a super-villain than to a living legend draped in a flag.


BLACK WIDOW

Now we know a thing or two about Black Widow's past, and we know she's got red in her ledger (and, judging by the scripts, so did every Marvel Comics writer for about a year after the release of Avengers, because they were all legally bound to use that phrase in every other panel of her comic book appearances). Deleted scenes from Captain America: The Winter Soldier show a Black Widow somewhat hesitant to release the information about S.H.I.E.L.D. to the general public because she know all of her black deeds will be as naked as Hydra's. If James Gunn's Thunderbolts ends up being about redemption, Black Widow could easily find a home in the roster


DEATHLOK

When he exited the stage at the end of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first season, Mike Peterson stated plainly that he planned to make up for the evil he'd done at the behest of Hydra. So again, a team of former villains looking to change black hats for white would be a perfect fit for Deathlok. And as a fan of all things related to Buffy, I'd be psyched about J. August Richards getting a shot at a major motion picture.



BUCKY/WINTER SOLDIER

You've probably sensed the whole redemption theme, so if you've seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier, then I really don't have to say anything more here. But, let me say that a Thunderbolts movie could have Bucky. It could have Deathlok. It could not have both. They are both cybernetically enhanced super-soldiers presumed dead and coerced into assassination by Hydra now free from their former masters. Thematically, Bucky and Deathlok are the exact same guy. Since I'm guessing Bucky will be getting plenty of screen time in any future Captain America films, if it were a choice between the two, I'd rather see Deathlok in Thunderbolts.


BATROC THE LEAPER

Considering his few lines and brief appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I don't think it's a stretch to assume mixed martial artist Georges St-Pierre was chosen for his role because of his physical prowess rather than his acting talent. I guess it's precisely for that reason that I find him appealing in my imaginary Thunderbolts movie. He's an absolute blank slate. All we know about him is that he's a criminal who likes kicking. Gunn could do whatever he wanted with him.


AGENT WARD

As any avid S.H.I.E.L.D. watchers know (this is one of those spoilers I was talking about), Agent Grant Ward winds up being a turncoat working for Hydra. His devotion to Hydra stooge John Garret was matched only for his twisted love for Skye, and so he remains in the series, all Hannibal-Lectered in the basement, having this very creepy he-thinks-he-found-Jesus-but-you-know-he's-full-of-shit aura about him. My guess is they'll want to keep Ward around for at least another season or two, and maybe making him to the Thunderbolts what Phil Coulson was to the Avengers would be a way to keep him around.


LORELEI

The Thor villain I always mentally refer to as "Enchantress-Light" appeared on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an escapee from Asgard's prisons due to the events of Thor: The Dark World. Now Lorelei is a longshot, particularly because last we saw her she was being transported back to Asgard. But if Loki were a part of the team, Lorelei would be a natural addition. I don't see her as someone seeking redemption though. I think a good team of Thunderbolts would need a healthy mix of those seeking to make up for their past, some who didn't care either way, and some who were just evil mofos. Lorelei would be one of the latter.


TREVOR SLATTERY

Yeah, I know, I know, I know. There didn't end up being anything particularly super about the man who was supposed to be the Mandarin. But, am I the only one who keeps thinking that this guy's playing possum? That maybe, just maybe, we're going to see Trevor reveal himself to be much more than the airhead acting hack he appears to be? At the very least, I would love if that were the case. I would love to see Marvel give us a few more cameos, maybe another one-shot or two, and then somewhere along the way we learn this guy actually has more up his sleeve than a few dimebags.

Plus, he's hilarious. COME ON! You know you want to see him again.

You know, as I've been writing this and thinking more and more about it, I've come around to the idea that a Thunderbolts TV show would have about a million times more potential than a Thunderbolts film. The very nature of the thing would lend itself to season-long mysteries of who the bad guys are, who the good guys are, who's really trying to be a good guy but just can't hack it. We could see cast members from Marvel's other properties funneled right into Thunderbolts. And since we're talking about villains, and Marvel's already working with Netflix, we could see a much darker side of the Marvel Universe than what we're used to.

Of course, no matter what Thunderbolts team Gunn forms, if any, and regardless of whether it's on the big screen or the flat screen, there remains one unavoidable truth.

Hulk could totally kick all of their asses.

No seriously he totally already did. A few times.

Hulk's totally better than everyone. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that.

Fyi.


Monday, June 02, 2014

NED STARK LIVES!!!!!! (maybe (though probably not (but maybe(though, yeah, probably no (but maybe)))))



So, before I go any further, let me be clear: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

I underlined, bolded, and italicized the goddamn word, so you've got not excuse.

If you only know George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series through the Game of Thrones TV series and you do not want to be spoiled with potential future plot points (I say "potential," because who knows what will be changed), don't read any further.

If you have read the books, but have not yet read A Dance with Dragons and you do not want to be spoiled, don't read any further.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's get something else out of the way. This a theory I've harbored for a while and, yes, it comes mostly from wishful thinking, but it may not be total BS. I am hastily typing up this theory for you because I had an impulse and ran with it. As such, I'm not going through the books to find precise facts and quotes. If I get something wrong, I get something wrong. I'm sure I'll be called out on it.

So, with the caveats all out of the way, here's the theory:

The most recently published Song of Ice and Fire book, A Dance with Dragons, opens with a scene north of the wall. We meet a wildling warg and through him we learn about the ability wargs have to throw themselves into a beast before their death. If they manage this, their human body dies and their spirit/essence/mojo/force/whateverthefuck stays inside the beast. However, eventually their spirit is absorbed by the beast and they become all animal.

The interesting thing about the scene is that, as far as has been revealed thus far, this particular character has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. So why did Martin decide the scene was so important?

In the books, we learn a lot more about the connections between the Stark children and their dire wolves. Jon Snow and Bran, we know, are both wargs. It seems pretty damn likely that Rickon is a warg. Throughout the books, Arya Stark experiences dreams from the perspective of a wolf; in most likelihood the wolf she chased away in order to save its life, suggesting that Arya may also be a warg. Sansa's wolf died too early for us to learn about any particular connection between them (symbolically fitting because Sansa is arguably the Stark most "lost" from her family in more ways than one). Robb clearly had a strong connection with his wolf. The attack on the head of the Umbers proved that if nothing else, however we never see anything from Robb's perspective in the books, so there's no way to know for sure.

So, if all, or most, or even just a few of the Stark children are wargs, what's the chance that neither of their parents were wargs? And if one of their parents was a warg, wouldn't it probably be the one from the north?

I'm not saying Ned Stark was a warg who kept his abilities secret from his family. I'm saying he was a warg and had no idea he was a warg. Think about it. Would any of the Stark children experience any of these abilities/visions if they hadn't happened upon the dead mother dire wolf and her pups? We are told a dire wolf south of the wall is almost completely unheard of. So, assuming he was a warg or had warg-like abilities, Ned wouldn't have necessarily had the opportunity to discover it.

If he was a warg, then I think it's possible he "jumped" into an animal or possibly even another person - as Bran is able to do - just before his decapitation. I don't think he would've done this on purpose. I think it would've been kind of like when the young Magneto bends the bars of the concentration camp in X-Men: that his imminent death shocked his abilities awake and acted for him before he knew what the hell was going on.

Now even if I'm not talking out of my ass, it would raise some difficult questions. First of all, if he did jump into an animal, wouldn't his spirit have been absorbed by the beast long ago? Second, let's say he jumped into a person (which most wargs are not supposed to be able to do, but which Bran is able to do with Hodor). And let's say the rules for jumping into a person don't work the same. Maybe if he jumps into a person before death, his spirit isn't necessarily absorbed. That would beg the question, what the hell is he waiting for? Why hasn't he revealed himself and kicked some ass?

But, I think it's a possibility, and more than anything I'm intrigued by the fact that Martin bothered to open A Dance of Dragons the way he did. I'm thinking it may have more to do with what happens with Jon Snow in Book 6.

So that's it. That's my theory. Rip it to pieces.


Monday, January 20, 2014

So I figured I should mention...


I don't think this blog is in any danger of suffering a massive backlash from its millions of readers, but I figured I should let anyone who does stop by know that while I am NOT closing the doors on this blog, right now my energies are directed elsewhere.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been blogging at Mick Martin and The Hunger. It's not a comic book or geek culture blog. The blog is more like, I guess, memoir maybe? It's personal. And if you read it you will learn personal things about me. Maybe more than you'd want to know, honestly.

So that's what I'm doing right now. If you're interested, please feel free to visit the new blog. If not, cool beans. Like I said, I don't want to say I'm not writing about comics anymore so NYAH because I've done that so many times, and eventually broke my promise, that saying it just feels ridiculous. But for now at least, writing about my life feels much more fulfilling to me. So that's what I'm doing. And stuff.