Superhero Media: Mister Miracle by Tom King

I feel it's worth mentioning that this Mister Miracle series is technically an "Elseworlds" book, because I didn't figure that out until the last issue myself. Is that a spoiler? I hardly do these reviews in a timely manner, so for all I know there will have been four Mister Miracle films released that follow this plot by the time this gets through the backlog. Covering a brutal war between New Genesis and Apokolips, Mister Miracale features such epic highlights as drunk Skeets, Darksied eating carrots and Batman killing babies. In a more metaphorical sense, the series is about PTSD and the healing nature of positive relationships that ground us to reality. The very human moments of the series are among the strongest, especially contrasted with the brutal and high-concept warfare on display in other sections. Moments where Scott Free and Barda are lounging on the couch, watching nothing in particular on television and reflecting on their brutal upbringing under Granny Goodness are perhaps the most grounded I've ever seen superheroes and the trauma which drives them.

In Ultimate Fantastic Four, there is a storyline in which the civilisation of Halcyon is at war with the forces of the Resurgence led by Thanos. It's basically an update on the Jack Kirby "4th World" stories from which Mister Miracle and Darksied emerged, and is one of my favourite versions of that "Chariots of the Gods" take on a war in heaven myth; until I read Mister Miracle that is. One of the factors that makes the Grecco-Roman Olympian myths so enduring is that the gods are all about the human emotions writ large, being as wrathful, lustful and jealous as humanity, but with the power to act on all these impulses with impunity. Mister Miracle takes this concept of divinity and runs with it to the extreme when it comes to the New Gods, with Scott and Barda in particular driven to extreme acts of violence by their, very 'human', desire to be done with their abusive families and just live their own lives. Towards the end of the book, there is an extended sequence where one of the couple is at home, looking after their son and the other is engaging in bloody hand-to-hand combat on Apokolips.

There is an interesting art style happening in Mister Miracle, with digital blends and blurs over seemingly random panels, representing Scott's trauma disconnecting him from reality. As an experienced Trauma Psychotherapist, I found a lot of value in this technique, as it reflected both my study and the experiences discussed by my clients to do with their own trauma. Some of the reviews of Mister Miracle that I've read are put off by the visualisation of the protagonist's internailsed trauma, which I can understand, but it is, essentially, the main point of the story, and if the reader is unable to engage with the motif, then much of the story is lost. Can I also just say that this is probably the best appearance of Darksied that I've read? Not just because Darksied eating carrots and cream cheese is an amazing image, but because he his used minimally, doesn't engage in much of the fighting and is just a malevolent force, rather than a big bad to punch. Evidently, a lot of fans hate Tom King's run on Batman, but if he does more work in the vein of Mister Miracle, I'll be sure to track it down.

Miniatuers Finished: The KLF

A friend of mine printed these models, and, as I was already working on some Doctor Who stuff, I couldn't resist grabbing a couple. Naturally, I had to call them the Kaled Liberation Front, or, The KLF. 

If you get the joke, you get the joke, if not, think of them as low-tech Daleks from a regressive splinter faction. 

Superhero Media: She-Hulk by Dan Slott

When I think of the best runs of Marvel comics in history, the Dan Slott She-Hulk is right up the top of my list, usually only a little behind Brubaker Captain America and Lee/Kirby Avengers. Losing her job with the New York DA thanks to too much partying, Jennifer "She-Hulk" Walters is recruited by the firm of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway to practice 'Superhuman Law'. What follows is an enjoyable mix of superhero action and legal drama, showing a side of the Marvel Universe that isn't often seen, but serves to ground all of the cosmic gods, animal-themed villains and assorted costumed nonsense. Just to give you a taste, there is a scene where Shulkie sites precedents including "Plunder v Plunder" and "The People v Thanos", among others. Add to that speedster-couriers, shape-shifting process-servers and Awesome Andy, the intern, and the fantastic blends perfectly with the more mundane legal setting. Of course, there's still plenty of Shulkie smash in the series and lots of guest stars, particularly from the Avengers and the broader Hulk series.

Much like previous comic series I've covered, like X-Factor and Captain America, the poorer bits of She-Hulk are those that are required to interact with the crossover storylines, like Civil War and World War Hulk. This being a She-Hulk story, however, that's just more fodder for the jokes and stories involving lawyers, especially with Jennifer promoting the Superhero Registration Act and doing a lot of the paperwork to get other heroes signed up; in fact, her tie-in issue has almost no punching, which is kind of refreshing for that particular event. There's quite a lot of justifying various "plot holes" in She-Hulk's history in this run, but the sense of fun and playfulness in which it is done just adds to the enjoyment. The concept that a superhero would be sick of their fans pointing out the gaps in their "continuity" is utterly hilarious to me, especially as Marvel Comics are published and widely read in the Marvel universe. No, really.

Stu Westin's (a supporting character in this series) view on comics, continuity and fandom, shown above, is one of the best moments in She-Hulk, and something I pull out pretty often when my more rabid friends get into a nerdy argument. There is a sheer joy to She-Hulk that I just love in comics and is rare in the better-selling Marvel and DC books, this series is unafraid to be fun and silly when it needs to be, embracing the nonsense of earlier Shulkie stories and the twisted continuity and giving the reader a damn good story on top of that. With all of two omnibus volumes (or four trades), She-Hulk is something you should probably own, as it's great and not all that long or tied in to too many other stories. Plus, more people really need to know about Awesome Andy and the Silver Sufer's love of '80s power rock ballads. Grab these books and read about Spider-Man suing Jonah Jameson for defamation, Two-Gun Kid enforcing Bail Bonds and a legal library filled with longboxes, it's a great corner of the Marvel Universe that not enough have seen.

From The Archives - 22

And now, the epic conclusion of "In the Lair of the Mutants", starring Kill Team Aesir. A solo-play Kill Team '18 game I ran years ago.

https://ludusbellorum.blogspot.com/2020/07/in-lair-of-mutants-part-iii.html

Probably not the most exciting thing to read many years after the fact, but I'm trying to get all my stuff linking back to here.

Superhero Media: Wandavision

If you're Marvel Studios, what do you do after releasing one of the most successful films of all time, leaving an impact on popular culture so large people are still talking about it and having your longitudinal plans scuppered by a global Pandemic not seen for 100 years? Well, you put together a television series that is somehow true to tone, explores deeper content than you ever have before and encapsulates the global mood brought upon by that same pandemic. Fuck Marvel Studios knows their shit. After the events of Endgame, Wanda finds herself living in a, literally, sitcom-perfect small New Jersey town with Vision and they move through the decades of broadcast television, even raising a family; but something is off. The first half of Wandavision, inspired by David Lynch and possessing an altogether stranger and darker tone than many Marvel Studios productions, is something to behold, and whilst I can understand the disappointment some felt that the programme reverted to standard MCU fare by the end, I still believe the complete product to be excellent.

Marvel Studios are easily the best in the business when it comes to fan management, which Wandavision handily demonstrates at both ends of the fandom spectrum. Quite a few fans picked Agnes as Agatha Harkness before the first episode aired, but rather than scramble and make a last-minute change, Marvel trusted in the strength of their narrative and delivered a compelling antagonist that people really responded to. The YouTube 'response and speculation' industry found clues in Wandavision for everything from Squadron Supreme to the High Evolutionary, but the studio kept to their guns of keeping the MCU oddly grounded for a setting which includes magic, aliens and robots. That is, at least, as things stood at the time; staring down the barrel of Avengers Doomsday certainly puts things in a different light. 

Look, I'm a comics fan, I'm all for alternate timelines and multiverses. Even my "Equalisers" setting has a multiverse and evil-universe doppelgangers, so I'm not against the concept. But. I don't think the MCU has been improved by moving out of the one reality, sorry, but I really don't. Remember, the MCU is the simplified, accessible version of the comics stories, like the old Ultimate Universe, so adding in all that extra crap has only alienated the broader audience that don't read the comics. As much as I kind of want to see characters like Maestro, the Council of Reeds and Ravage grace the big screen, I'm perfectly happy to continue as things are for quite a wile longer yet. Especially if we're going to get programming of the caliber of Wandavision. Though I couldn't get the phrase "Monica Rambeau, leader of the Nextwave squad, lies all the time" out of my head while watching.

Miniatures Finished: Daleks

A little "circut-breaker" painting project, I'd had these Warlord Games Daleks undercoated for ages before finally getting them done. I used a spray of Tamyia Aluminum and GW Contrast paints to get the bulk of the work done, only using traditional paints for the finer details.

Except for the lack of variation, this is a nice kit and even painting the bumps wasn't too bad with a sharp brush and Contrast paint. You may have seen these back in an old AAR, because I tend to jump them up the publishing order of the blog.

Superhero Media: Men In Black International

After three films, the Men In Black series finally attempts to capitalise on the best premise it had; but it just doesn't quite get there. Personally, I found International to be the best film in the series since the original, but my opinion seems to be in the minority on that. I'd like to believe that the reason isn't anything to do the protagonist being a woman of colour, but hey, that's the world we live in sadly. As a child, Agent M encountered an alien and the Men In Black, starting a lifetime of obsession and attempts to uncover the truth of the agency and to join them. Convincing Agent O, M is sent to the London branch and soon finds herself partnered with the legendary Agent H to solve the murder of an Alien diplomat. It's all pretty standard, really, which I feel is actually the strength of the film, as the drama of the series has always been downplayed as typical for the characters living through it. Of course the Men In Black have to "babysit" alien diplomats, because the whole series leans on the notion of aliens be foreigners.

Nominally, Agent H is the core character of Men In Black International, but unlike many other superhero films that focus on the 'wrong' character, the choice here is clever, with M the audience point-of-view character for the heroic but flawed H. I get the feeling that H is a stand-in for J, though I can't imagine how a broken and failed J would have played with audiences, probably not well. I can see in the film attempts to build a franchise, or perhaps Cinematic Universe, which also appears often in criticisms of International, but if that's something that turns you off a film in this day and age, I wonder how you are able to enjoy media at all? The enemy turns out to have not only been inside the MIB for years, but was, in fact, using the internal secrecy and bureaucracy of the organisation to its advantage, which I can't prove is a criticism of the CIA and American Military Hegemony, but that sure is a reading I'm going to keep making.

If anything is responsible for "letting down" Men In Black International, it would be the script, specifically the dialogue, which is, frankly, bland. I don't get a feel for any of the characters by what they say, only by how they're presented, which makes them seem shallow, as if all are in shorthand, rather than real people. It's a shame because Tessa Thompson, Chris Hemsworth, Liam Neeson and the rest of the cast are all strong actors, but just have nothing to work with; add to this the heavy-CGI and you have a team of excellent actors doing their best to make bland lines compelling while talking to a greenscreen. As much as I've said that Men In Black has plenty of potential in the past, I'm really hoping that International is the end of it for the foreseeable future, because it's only worked the once in all these attempts. Let a few years pass, then bring in a new crew and try for a different sensibility, maybe then we could see an interesting take that moves away from J and the Will Smith shadow over the franchise.