Miniatures Finished: Metal Men

A little side-project that I've been slowly chipping away at, The Metal Men, are finally finished. I didn't initally intend to do this classic DC team, but I opened Lead and Tin in some boosters I bought and slowly gathered the rest over the next few years.

Lead, Iron, Gold, Mercury, Platinum and Tin! The mighty Metal Men of Doc Magnus!

Lead, Tin and Mercury, interestingly, these are ranged across Heroclix history, but they still match pretty well.

Gold, Iron and Platinum; all of these were pretty easy to paint with washes and drybrushing.

And, of course, the mighty Alloy! Should be a fun mechanic to work into my Ultimate Alliance games at some point.

Superhero Media: X-Men - Days of Future Past

In my humble opinion, the best team X-Men film is Days of Future Past, it has the best cast, one of the better stories, and some of the best fights in the entire franchise. As well as being the last hurrah for many of the original actors, Days of Future Past sets the tone for what will come after and writes the later films a blank cheque on continuity, which they will use to be great at times. Based loosely on the X-Men comic arc of the same name, Days of Future Past shows a nightmare future where the Sentinels have ground humanity and mutant kind down to a handful of survivors staying alive thanks to the new time-travel powers of Kitty Pryde. Plot convenience means it's Logan that needs to be sent back in time to his younger body to prevent Mystique from killing Bolivar Trask and kick-starting the Sentinel Programme. It's a little disappointing that Kitty is sidelined from one of her few great X-Men stories, but Logan has been the central character of most of the franchise up to this point, so he gets to go. 

Arriving in the 1970s, Logan has to rehabilitate a broken Charles Xavier, free Magneto from prison and track down Mystique before history solidifies and the future dies. It's a solid high-concept basis for a superhero film, which lets Days of Future Past tell a good story, use its actors well and not have to lean too heavily on gimmicks. Yes, the film is set in the 1970s, but unlike First Class, the setting is more about cars, clothes and pop culture references, rather than trying to tie it into historic events, for the most part. The scene where Magneto explains he was trying to save JFK because he was a mutant is garbage, but it's brief and soon forgotten, and I actually like the idea that mutants were used as "Deniable Operators" in the Vietnam War, even if the scene is just an excuse to get William Stryker into the story. While Logan wanders the past, trying to prevent the future, the original X-Men fight the Sentinels to protect Kitty, which means we get a great last send-off for Storm, Magneto, Iceman and Professor X, with the technology finally catching up to make the fight really something special. 

The introduction of new characters, such as Bishop, Blink and Sunspot, is nice, but they never reappear, adding to the list of fun characters in the franchise that don't recur. Then there's Quicksilver, and whilst I'll admit that the sequence in the kitchen is good, the character is really more like The Flash than Quicksilver, and Age of Ultron did a better job overall. Especially considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe Quicksilver was less one-note and didn't overstay his welcome. Again, to my mind, Days of Future Past is the best "team" X-Men film, with the best cast, a last hurrah for many of the original actors and a solid story. What's crazy is that this is kind of half-way through all the X-Men films and that aside from Logan and the Deadpool films, there won't be another good one for a while. Days of Future Past worked, it was genuinely pretty great, but the formula wouldn't work again and Wade Wilson of all people carried it over the finish line to the Disney/Fox merger. Of course, I'll be covering the rest of the series, but if I were just watching these again for fun, I'd probably bail here and jump straight to the solo films.

Superhero Media: Dragon Ball Z - Broly Second Coming

How do you follow up one of the most successful, but not really all that good, Dragon Ball Z films of all time, in Broly The Legendary Super Sayian? By not doing anything the same other than having the same antagonist. I was a little shocked how much I enjoyed Broly Second Coming, especially as Broly himself doesn't get any better, just quieter, but the change of focus to Gohan and the extended Dragon Ball-esque sequence with Trunks, Goten and Videl hunting the Dragon Balls really charmed me and the whole thing was pretty enjoyable. You could remake the entire film with an entirely new villain instead of Broly and it wouldn't lose a thing, but having Kid Trunks pee on Broly's face is almost a meta-criticism on the antagonism of the DBZ fandom for any story that doesn't centre Goku and fighting. It's probably not that, but in my head there may be no better metaphor in the entire series, other than perhaps Vegeta fighting Arale, for Toriyama just wanting to write fun fight manga and the fans being way too into a shirtless man punching other shirtless men. 

Probably my favourite part of Broly Second Coming is that Gohan has to beat Broly by outsmarting him, rather than matching strength. And yes, Gohan does beat Broly pretty soundly, by dropping him into lava; it's not Gohan's fault Broly has ascended fan-fiction OC powers that let him magically survive molten rock. The tableau of Gohan, Goten and Goku combining Kamehamema beams at the end to defeat Broly is pretty nice, however, even if I would have preferred Gohan's much-lauded brains getting to be useful for once. In the wake of Dragon Ball Super, this era of DBZ film is pretty interesting to watch, as it represents only a handful of episodes where we see the characters in-between the defeat of Cell and the coming of Buu, it's almost a different programme in many ways, with the focus more on adventure and comedy, like classic Dragon Ball but with fewer fantasy elements. If there was one Saga I could get more of with a Dragon Ball wish, it would probably be The Great Sayiaman Saga, as it reads like Toriyama trying to branch out into something new and different. 

I've run out of things to say about Broly Second Coming, so I'm going to use this space for something else. Does it bother anyone but me that Gohan is set up as being, by far, the most intelligent member of the Z Fighters, but it's never a factor except for two brief moments in DBS? Gohan is a Professor in DBS, meaning he's undertaken at least a decade of post-secondary study, and whilst it doesn't seem to have been in Military Theory or Martial Arts Anthropology, surely his critical thinking skills must be of some use? Hell, after considering the trajectory of his own life critically, Gohan elects to go back to training for the benefit of those he cares about. Man, Gohan is just such a more interesting character than Goku, what with having an actual personality and complex wants and needs, rather than just wanting to be stronger because. Ok, only one more Broly film to get through before I get to a DBZ film I really enjoy.

Miniatures Finished: Who's Doctor Who?

In an attempt to keep my painting on theme, I decided that I really needed to paint the last of my current batch of Doctor Who characters. I need to get the rest of the classic Doctors I'm missing and a few more companions so that I can start running some games with these.

Grimjack: Not strictly a "Doctor Who" figure, but I couldn't find a 6th for this post. Also not a character I'm huge on, but I've actually had requests for him in games since I started doing this, oddly enough. Minifigs

Absolom Daak: A character originating in the comics, Daak is the universe's greatest Dalek hunter, part machine and all violence. It's actually a tad odd for the series, but once I saw that I could actually buy him as a miniature, I had to have one. Minifigs

The 4th Doctor: I've had this miniature since 2013, but have put off painting it because the scarf was too intimidating. One evening, I just sat down with a sharp brush and a lot of colours and got it done. I'm not sure of the make as I bought it second hand, but I suspect Harlequin or even Games Workshop.

Death's Head: Did you know that cult Marvel character Death's Head appeared regularly in the 1990s Doctor Who comics? Well now you do. I'm not sure what scenario I'll be using him in, but he may also appear in some Sci-Fi skirmish games as a Bounty Hunter/Mercenary. Heroclix

Doctor Who: From the 1960s "Dalek" films, as portrayed by Peter Cushing, this version of the character is a human inventor, rather than a Time Lord. This was another case of me deciding to buy a figure when I found out it existed. Minifigs 

Romana 1: A lucky find at a swap meet, this first Romana incarnation is an excellent addition to my small collection of companions. Though only useful for 4th Doctor games, I really like the character, so it will probably see some use. Unknown manufacture, I suspect Games Workshop.

Superhero Media: Avengers Infinity War

Part of me just wants to write "fuck yeah this was awesome!" and leave it at that, but as time moves away from the pop culture "moment" that was Avengers Infinity War, the discourse around the film has become so polarised that I feel I have to say something. Even if you're not a person who enjoys the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, or superhero films in general, you have to acknowledge that Infinity War is a momentous achievement, the culmination of 18 previous films in a sequence of serial storytelling pretty much never before attempted by a major studio. Given how Marvel Studios practically bent over backwards to make all of the films accessible to a broader audience, I don't feel that Infinity War being "for the fans" is all that big a crime, and if you were a fan watching it opening week and seeing the ending, it was a powerful moment and one not soon forgotten. Watching the film again for this article, I experienced a lot of the same emotions as the first time I saw it, but will admit some slight tainting of those responses when I considered it in the light of Alt-Right Thanos Stans, the narrative of abuse as love and even Endgame and how that changes the function of Infinity War. 

Man, don't you wish you lived in a world where talking about a superhero fight movie didn't have to involve Internet Nazis clamoring that Thanos, one of the biggest bad guys in comics history, had a point, actually? His name is literally Death! Sadly, these days seeing someone post a "Thanos was right!" meme means they may actually be in favour of ethnic cleansing, rather than just being an immature shitbag looking to start a fight for fun. The message that Thanos is a selfish person who can't see past his own hubris is made plain with a single line of dialog; "I finally rest. And watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills." Thanos cannot conceive that his actions can possibly be harmful for him, personally, which is why he takes his sacrifice of Gamora for the Soul Stone so hard. Thanos assumes he'll be fine, so has no problem making other people take risks for him. Hell, if he'd been a little less impatient, he could have gone to Earth himself and not lost The Black Order. This isn't secret film graduate and/or comic fan knowledge, this is the literal text of the film. Want it more obvious? Captain America fought the Nazis in WWII and now he's fighting Thanos at personal risk to his own freedom. 

A few, brilliant, critical pieces, most notably from "Movies with Mikey" (YouTube) addressed the issue that Thanos has a clearly abusive relationship with Gamora, who he considers his daughter and someone he "loves". There is a very real issue that little is done to resolve this representation, and it can be read as legitimising family violence. Now, I really can't disagree with that reading, it's valid and I really hope anyone in an abusive family situation wasn't too badly traumatised by seeing it in their favourite superhero film. Thing is, and this is my final serious point before I get to the fun stuff, promise, the resolution of this abuse and how it is a thing that cannot be tolerated does come, only in Endgame, three whole films later. Now, that probably isn't ideal, in a objective viewing of the films, but the world in which Infinity War existed without Endgame also existing lasted only 12 months. For all the impact, good and bad, which Infinity War had, it only existed as a stand-alone film (of a sort) for one year. The only way in which I can experience the feelings of watching Infinity War for the first time is to do so vicariously, through others that aren't aware of the whole story, because I already know what is coming in Endgame and beyond. 

Ok, despite the, occasionally toxic, discourse around Infinity War, I fucking love this film. It's a series of brilliant moments strung together by a fight narrative that culminates in a series of emotional gut punches, but somehow it comes together and is amazing to watch. This article could have easily just been a list of awesome moments from the film and it still would have been completely honest. Peter getting the Iron Spider armour. Iron Man facing down Thanos. Captain America pushing back the Infinity Gauntlet. Scarlet Witch and Vision being in a relationship. Scarlet Witch having to kill the love of her life, only to watch it be undone and him being murdered in front of her. Surly teenage Groot finally standing for something and becoming part of Stormbreaker. Thor, Rocket and Groot arriving in Wakanda and Bruce Banner saying "You guys are so screwed!" Bruce being shocked that there is both a Spider-Man and an Ant-Man. The fact that Thor studied Groot as a language elective at university. The new, even more punched-up "Avengers" theme that slips into minor key for the credits. The hype is real, Infinity War is amazing, and probably always will be.

Superhero Media: Mighty Med

As I pretty much only watch three things on Disney+, being superhero content, Muppet content and Duck Tales, my "suggestions" are pretty homogeneous most of the time. When Mighty Med popped up as a suggestion, I did a quick IMDB check and decided that I would give it a go, even if it wasn't strictly my kind of thing. After stumbling, by accident, into a secret superhero hospital, Oliver and Kaz, two comic loving high school students, are recruited to help out, "Saving the people who save people". As a concept, Mighty Med (also the name of the hospital) is pretty solid, and it works well for the most part, but the programme is a Disney XD tween sitcom at heart, and rarely rises beyond that level of writing and acting. Not that the actors, especially the younger ones, are anything but competent, but the shticky writing and groaner jokes place a limit on how "high" the programme can reach. There is a particular critical mindset that "Disney Child Actors" tend to be of a certain, lower, quality, but I can say that Bradley Steven Perry (Kaz), Jake Short (Oliver) and Paris Berelc (Skylar) do well with the martial they're given and Cozi Zuehlsdorff (Jordan) is a fucking brilliant talent and she deserves much better than her career has given her so far. 

Setting the series in Philadelphia was a stroke of genius for Mighty Med, as the city is plain enough to not be iconic, and tends to be a pretty "dead" area in terms of superhero fiction. So as much as the world of Mighty Med is self-contained (to an extent, we'll come back to that), it could easily be dropped into any number of superhero settings, if you wanted somewhere for your players or characters to be able to go to get patched up. Whilst having two comic book fans working with superheroes sounds like it could be exhausting, Mighty Med doesn't go to the well of obsessive knowledge of continuity being the answer too often, making the times it does surprisingly satisfying. Also makes me wish My Hero Academia used that trope better, but now's not the time to complain about that again. In terms of characters, Might Med does well enough, but there's not many I'd want to adapt across other than Oliver, Kaz and Skylar, with many of the heroes being pretty generic and uninspired. Patton Oswalt, of all people, has a twice recurring role as "The Exterminator", a retired villain, now just "an exterminator", which is funny, but probably not worth watching all 50 episodes for. 

Despite it's flaws, I don't think I wasted my time watching Mighty Med, it's good enough for what it's trying to be and enjoys the occasional moment of transcendence. Without the strong core cast, it's doubtful that it would be as good as it is, but if you've already got Disney+, checking out a couple of episodes is probably worth your time. The characters continue in Lab RATS Elite Force (the follow-on to Lab RATS as well, which enjoys a crossover with Mighty Med), which I may cover at some point, but given that only Berelc is doing much these days, could we maybe get a new series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Hear me out on this one, get back now adult Caz, Oliver and Skylar, do some hand-wavy retconning so that it was always in the MCU, only now they're in college as Medical Students. MCU Scrubs. Though hopefully without the problematic sexism and homophobia that Scrubs had. Do a 10-episode run for Disney+ and see how it goes, it could well have legs if done right. And if you can't work Zuehlsdorff's character back in, give her her own show, she could be the next Anna Kendrick with the right vehicle.