The Silzer Project - Part V

And here were are at the end of this mess. I honestly almost deleted the previous entries rather than write this one out, out of a combination of internal cringe over something I wrote in my teens and just not wanting to type this out. But, doing this was intended to be an exercise in getting this all down in one place and putting the ideas to bed for now. Whilst I cannot currently see a way I can realise the Slizer story, having it out there means I may get some feedback, suggestions or even just have the chance to think more myself when I finally go to hit "Publish" and get the eureka moment I've been looking for. Also though, this sprawling story was something I made up in my head playing with Lego growing up, and whilst it's not good and not something I'd really want to properly published, I'm not so down on it that I can't see the good ideas I had and maybe file them away in my mind for future use.

Slizer - Finale

With a new war looming on the horizon, the powers that back the Slizer Team begin to fracture, and a mad scrabble for the control of the Slizers begins. Most of the alien members of the team just bugger off with their Slizers, the rival to Calvin (he had a name with lots of contestants which I don't remember) takes the Ice Slizer and uses it to front a military coup and take over his native government. Now in control, he withdraws from the Slizer alliance and starts reinforcing the border, though states that there will be no aggressive action from their military. Meanwhile, another alien empire is starting to arm themselves with large war machines intended to fight the Slizers. Seeing the writing on the wall, the more insect-like alien race takes full control of the Slizers, though the human pilots and some soldiers loyal to them maintain their own small area of the compound. The insect aliens only have control of three Slizers, Millennium, Blaster and Flare, and the pilot of the Blaster Slizer, Butterfly (the insect aliens take on names of familiar bugs and get surgically modified to be more humanoid when working with other races) is reluctant to push back against the human pilots too hard.

As the insect-like aliens want better control of the Slizers than they have, they build several more and give them to their own pilots. The introduction of the Speed, Justice, Space, Shock, Time and Stealth Slizers swings the war back into the favour of the Slizer Force, at least until the rebel leader finally emerges. It turns out that Calvin has been alive all this time, kind of. You see, the Slizers were always more alive than anyone let on, requiring a symbiotic bonding with a pilot, of which only Calvin met the requirements so far. Now being neither Calvin nor the Jungle Slizer, our hero is leading the revolt of, basically, the working classes of the Century against the Slizer Force and, by extension, both of the alien races that had been backing it. In an classic "the enemy of my enemy" situation, the newer alien empire and Calvin's forces cooperate to keep the traditional power structure on their back-foot. The rebellion are making slow progress until Butterfly and the remaining human Slizer pilots defect over to their side and Calvin makes the choice to focus on the alien race now led by his former rival. This means that the two opposing forces of Slizers are fighting opponents without them and the war progresses in their favour quickly.

As clearly I was watching Anime by this point, the wars get settled by big fights between individuals, usually involving swords and/or mechs. Calvin and his rival have a big duel as the rebellion lay siege to the alien planet, that Calvin wins because he's superhuman at this point. Butterfly and Calvin have started a relationship during this time, with Butterfly steadily modifying herself to be more "human" during this time as Calvin becomes less human the longer he's bonded with the Jungle Slizer. The new alien power finally breaks against the insect aliens and the remnants of the Slizer force and the Century is now a stand off between two groups armed with super weapons. Peace negotiations start, with the main thrust being that time travel must be banned and the Slizers must be destroyed. As Calvin and the pilot of the Millennium Slizer are both part of their Slizers (the latter through deliberate cyborg modification), they decide to settle it in a big one-on-one fight, which Calvin wins, though the Slizer part of him is badly damaged and goes dormant. In order to maintain the peace, Calvin agrees to go into exile in case the Slizer emerges again, Butterfly goes with him and the remaining human heroes travel back in time one last time to ensure that they are locked in a predestination paradox to carry out all these events.

So there we go, that's the story. I'd say something clever, but honestly, I'm pretty over this and glad to be done. See you next time.

Superhero Media: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier

In what is hopefully the last change for a while, Lead Capes is moving to Tuesdays and Saturdays. 

I'll admit that I was a little apprehensive about the MCU moving to a streaming model for some projects, as Agents of SHIELD, the Nextlfix series and The Inhumans had all swung a great deal in quality. For all the criticisms that one can lay at the MCU, "looking cheap" isn't one of them, but television pretty much always looks cheaper than film, and the idea of Anthony Mackie hanging by an obvious harness in front of an obvious greenscreen just wasn't something I was ok with. What I got, however, was a seamless, engaging, exciting geopolitical adventure right in the vein of Winter Soldier and Civil War, essentially another Captain America film, just a little longer and something of a 'soft reboot' for the franchise. Feeling the weight of responsibility on having been handed the shield by Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson opts to remain the Falcon and donate the shield to the Smithsonian, not willing to be the new Captain America. Meanwhile, James 'Bucky' Barnes is working through his therapy and trying to put a life together post-Winter Soldier. Also there's a pseudo-anarchist, pseudo-terror group called the Flag-Smashers who want to return to the world as it was in-between Infinity War and Endgame.

I'm not going to get too much into the politics of Karli Morgenthau and the Flag-Smashers here, as I have another piece discussing that in the pipeline, but it is pretty cool that a form of anarchist movement aren't immediately demonised and have legitimate concerns the heroes engage with. As they aren't technically affiliated with the American government, Sam and Bucky can work in the grey areas, with Sharon Carter and even Baron Zemo alongside them for stretches as the new Captain America (John Walker) closes in on the Flag-Smashers. "Grey" is one of the best words to describe the tone of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, as every character's point of view, assumptions and personal politics are repeatedly challenged throughout the programme; which is where the real genius of the series lies. Zemo is right, uncontrolled super-soldiers are dangerous and cannot be allowed to proliferate, but he is also a murdering psychopath who uses his wealth as a weapon. Elijah Bradley is correct in that he was used as a commodity by the US military because of his race, but he makes the wrong call about Sam donning the Captain America mantle. Even Sam needs to be open to new ideas and to growth and change in order to get to the place where he can comfortably carry the shield.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier may be, other than Wandavision, the thematically deepest of any MCU production to date. In a programme about super-soldiers chasing terrorists around the globe, we are introduced to basic tenants of contemporary Anarchism, the disgusting treatment of African Americans in the military that continued well into the twentieth century, the dangers of tribalism and partisan politics and even the limits on compassion that borders and capitalism impose. Although Karli and her team are dead by the closing credits, their ideas aren't, and even Sam Wilson, Captain America, is advocating for change to a global system that creates the displacement and massive wealth disparity that drove the Flag-Smashers to revolt in the first place. A truly cynical reading of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier may say that it only exists to set up a new status-quo for the next series of films, which it does, but that seems to willfully ignore all of the meat on those continuity bones. Yes, Sam is Captain America now for the next time the Avengers assemble, but he's a different Cap coming from his own unique place with his own agenda. If this is the quality we can expect moving forward, I'm keen for more MCU.

Miniatures Finished: Unmatched - Hell's Kitchen

I was a little iffy on picking up the Marvel Unmatched sets at first, not that they didn't look fun, but I already have so many games where I can play Marvel characters, you know? However, Hell's Kitchen is kind of perfect. Not only are these three characters kind of a match for each other, they have a reason to fight each other and the entire set evokes a classic Frank Miller Daredevil comic. If I was just going to get one Marvel Unmatched box, it was going to be Hell's Kitchen, for sure.

Daredevil, Elektra and Bullseye, unlike the regular Unmatched sets, the Marvel ones have sculpted detail on the bases.

Superhero Media: Glass

I hadn't heard much good about Glass, the finale of the Unbreakable/Split series, but I almost really enjoyed it myself. Almost. The issue I have with M. Knight Shaymalan's approach to cinema has always floated around my mind, but have never quite managed to articulate before now, is that he's trying too hard to be clever. In terms of construction, Glass is pretty solid, with all three "superpowered" characters (Overseer, The Beast and Mister Glass) bringing their supporting cast members with them and coming together in a fun crossover before it's all inverted and our protagonists end up in the clutches of Sarah Paulson's evil psychiatrist. When things turn out to have been manipulated by Mister Glass all along, well that's just nice work and brings everything back to the 'comics but dialed down just a little' feel of the best parts of Unbreakable and Split. Sadly, there's another layer of Shaymalan twist on top of all that which, yeah, kind of kills the emotion of the film and Glass just ends up playing a little flat. Real shame.

Again, I'm not super happy about the whole "evil yet somehow incredibly gullible" pysch trope, even if I've been a big fan of Paulson since Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, but given that Shaymalan seems to really hate mental health workers for some reason, I was willing to let that slide before the second-to-last reveal of Glass. You see, she's not just some Psych, but a member of an ancient secret society that has, somehow, kept the existence of superhumans secret since the dawn of time or some shit. Now, that's not ostensibly dumber than the Court of Owls or any similar in comics, but it really jars with the tone of the film, especially when the entire organisation is undermined by Mister Glass, from beyond the grave, in the closing minutes of the film. It's a baffling decision, and Glass would have honestly been just as interesting with a more 'traditional' superhero fight ending and dropping the whole Secret Society nonsense.

Oddly, I would say that Glass does demonstrate that Shaymalan is a talented filmmaker, as the script is solid, the cinematography is amazing and everything just looks great, except maybe the big throwdown at the end. Glass just needs a heavier edit and maybe it could be pretty damn great. For as much as I want superhero cinema to branch out of the MCU space, I would also really like those films to be, you know, good? As homogeneous as they can be (though I'd argue that), the MCU films have a degree of oversight that means stuff like a pointless secret society who exist only to pad out another fifteen minutes would never come to be. I'm not saying that Glass needed to be the start of an entirely new cinematic universe, but if the ending is going to be left so wide open, why not have Mister Glass, Overseer and The Beast, who are the reason butts are in the cinema in the first place, vanish into the aether of the credits to hang sinisterly in the minds of fans? Almost great, a shame the studio didn't have the guts to force it into shape.

Super Something Dragon Ball Pun - Part ?

Recently (sometime June 2023 due to how long these take to come out), the people in charge of the Dragon Ball Z Collectable Card Game FuZion Format changed. When the new crew came in, they made a series of sweeping changes, new bans and floated the idea of shifting deck building back towards how it had been in the Score era. Naturally the community reacted to these changes with calm consideration and polite feedback. Anyway, when the shitstorm died down, some changes stayed, others were dropped and a few were tabled pending the outcome of the big event at Gencon. Faced with having to go through my decks and change them again, for all of a couple of games a year, I kind of backed away and seriously considered selling my decks and leaving the game forever. Thankfully, a friend finally took me up on trying the game out and now it looks like I may have a small play group growing.

Those who actually read these articles, rather than skimming over them because they're not about movies or wargames, will know that I've tried a bunch of Collectable Card games, I currently play Magic The Gathering Commander format most often, but have a Vampire The Eternal Struggle deck and have some Alpha Clash on the way to try out. Whilst card games will never be my favourite kind of table top game, they're fun to break out occasionally and play quickly in a way miniature wargames can never really be. Even back in the RetroDBZ days, I never had a game go over an hour and yes, Commander and VtES can be very long, but there is a lot of interaction that wargames don't tend to have. Also, I'm still waiting on that Jasco DBZ minis game that was promised back in the 2010s, so for the moment, the cards are the best way I have of living out all those fantasy superhero battles I have rattling around my head.

So what I'm doing now is going through the official virtual card sets to see where my current decks can be improved and also looking to see if I can get Trunks Sword and Goku Freeballs back up and running again. I have a Tao Pi-Pi MP stack that is languishing because I already have two Black Style decks and Majin Dabura always felt like something that was worth trying if I could just find enough Red Style cards that get around all the control in the format. Then again, my Sayian Gohan has always felt under-powered, so I should probably get the power level up on that before I go around making more decks that I won't use that often. Thankfully, any changes shouldn't bother me all that much, because I'll take long enough do all this that said changes will have been long-since rolled into the game and a new meta will have emerged.

Superhero Media: The Punisher - Season 2

Ok, I get it now, this is neither Frank Castle nor The Punisher, this is some original character the writers came up with and slapped a skull shirt on to make their contract. Seriously, there is maybe, one or two scenes in the entire series where I was like, "oh hey, that's the Punisher, neat", but the rest of the time I felt like I was watching something else. Once again, far too many episodes are drawn-out conversations about ethics or psychology, which are fine, and some are even well-written, but I'm tuning in to see Frank shoot people, not, yet another, manipulative psych antagonist. Seriously, I may be a Psychotherapist, not a Psychologist or Psychiatrist, but I still find that trope pretty damn offensive, all the more so because it's so common. I think The Punisher wants me to read it as Jigsaw manipulating his psych, Harley Quinn/Joker style, not that that's really at all "better", but the framing is that she falls for her client and forsakes all ethics and training to pursue a relationship with him, even attempting to murder a federal agent for him. Fuck off with this shit. It's not clever, it just increases the distrust people have for therapy and makes my job harder.

Man, I can't even talk about The Punisher now, I just hate that trope so much and it's a major narrative in the programme. I call the character Jigsaw, but fans of the comics will barely reconise what is presented, with minimal scars and a simmering hatred for Frank Castle that barely causes anything to happen in the story. In fact, Jigsaw is already dying when Frank Kills him, having been shot by the female agent he was sleeping with in the first season and I can't believe she's even in this season as well, seriously, she has nothing to do other than KEEP FUCKING TALKING WHEN FRANK COULD BE SHOOTING PEOPLE! What's worse than that is that Jigsaw's arc, involving turning disillusioned veterans into a fearsome organised crime syndicate, is actually really interesting and would have been great in any other programme, but here is just an excuse to have someone who's not Frank shoot people. Oh, remember back in my Garth Ennis Punisher review how Frank had to be clever to work around his own moral code to fight Delta Force tasked with his capture? Well, here Frank just shoots and kills fellow veterans, because heaven forefend we actually have something engaging and clever happen.

Oh wait, Frank's friend who runs group therapy for veterans, something I have done myself, by the way, is also ok with killing his former clients, except for this one scene which just kind of derails the shoot-out Frank is in at the time. Look, as I've said before, I'm not a violent person, I'm all for complicated narratives with superheroes and some of my favourite Punisher comics confront the reality of the mass-murder Frank Castle commits, however, this series does none of that well. The writers have plenty of clever ideas, but they come too thick and fast for any of them to really land and the result is a blur of bland scenes and too few gunfights for a series about a character known for gun-play more so than just about any other in comics. The veteran mafia, Pilgrim and his mission to protect the homosexual secrets of a Republican Senator, Frank trying to protect one young woman as a form of redemption, all of these are great ideas that would work with The Punisher as a protagonist, but none of them coalesce, leaving an unsatisfying ending that thankfully will never lead into another season. I really hope Frank Castle comes back to the MCU, but I also hope it looks nothing like this series, as there is so much that can be done with the Punisher that has yet to be explored in this medium.

Miniatures Finished: Unmatched - Cobble & Fog

Cobble & Fog was the first Unmatched set I bought, as it was available at work and the characters looked like a fun combination of Victorian Literary figures. All of them play quite well too, which means the box is a fun stand-alone as well as good to mix with the others. As discussed before, I'd be very happy to have another in this series from Unmatched.

The Invisible Man, Doctor Jekyll, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes.

Superhero Media: Super

"From the twisted mind of James Gunn"; man, do you remember when James Gunn was a Troma alum known for shock horror and penis monsters? I mean in terms of his film work, instead of being known for an infamous Twitter dogpile attack orchestrated by internet Nazis as a dry-run before they targeted the head of Lucasfilm, just in case you forgot that's why Gunn was taken off Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for a few months. Anyway, calling Super a deconstruction of the Superhero genre would be reasonably fair, but also misses quite a lot. I imagine that there are almost as many takes on Super as there are those who have really written about it, as it is the kind of film which allows interpretation of the themes and message, if there is really one there. Is Super and indictment of violence, white male rage and/or cinema culture? Perhaps. Is it a reaction to the proliferation of overly sanitised and homogenised superhero cinema in Hollywood? Probably not, but I could see someone making that argument. Or is Super a commentary on drugs, mental health and the failings of policing? Well, that's more in my lane, isn't it?

Frank Darbo is a put-upon everyman who has caught precisely one break in his life, meeting and falling in love with is wife, Sarah. Despite being unattractive, put upon and having a rubbish job, Frank isn't actually all that angry, as far as this kind of film goes, certainly not to the absurd levels of Joker or Taxi Driver, when Sarah falls into the sway of a local drug kingpin, his initial response is despair, not rage. Frank's drift towards being the Crimson Bolt is framed as being divinely inspired, quite literally, as a godlike being speaks to him and tells him that some are chosen. As I progress further in my career as a Psychotherapist, I'm finding more and more that depictions of mental health issues in media are getting to me. Frank clearly needs help and has never gotten it, same with Libby, aka Bolty, and whilst there are plenty of people with delusions who live happy lives, both Frank and Libby are led to shockingly extreme behaviour by their untreated issues. I have to admit, I almost stopped the film after watching Elliot Page having to act mounting and sexually assaulting Frank.

Thankfully, Super comes back around in the conclusion. After the expected, and somewhat cathartic, orgy of violence in the third act, where Frank rescues Sarah and has his hero moment, the tone changes and something really interesting happens. In a voiceover and montage, we see that Sarah leaves Frank, finds someone new and raises a happy family. Rather than be angry, Frank is accepting, seeing that Sarah is the chosen one, not him, and he learns to accept the good in his life for what it is. I'm not going to lie, if not for that last segment, my review of Super would be pretty harsh, as the film it pretty easy to read in the same alt-Right vein as Joker or the like. "If your wife leaves you for another man, shag a teenager and buy a lot of guns" is equivocally NOT the message of Super, in fact, it makes a strong point against violence. It's still a little "Liberal" for my radical tastes, but the idea of not doing harm because it harms people as the central ideology for a superhero certainly has potential. I don't know, my friend who loaned me his copy of Super certainly didn't get the same reads as I did from it, so maybe there's not all that much to it and all I'm seeing is my own reflection.

Miniatures Finished: Unmatched - 2-character boxes

Been painting my Unmatched figures as a little break from other projects, they're nice for board game figures, but not quite as nice as some others on the market.

Little Red and Beowulf, both strong characters with interesting play styles, Little Red is the first time I can recall having to paint wicker.

Robin Hood and Bigfoot. I'm a big fan of playing Bigfoot, he's powerful and pretty damn mobile for a character that strong.

Superhero Media: The New Mutants (2020)

So where the hell was this languishing for years? Seriously, The New Mutants is probably one of the best films in the "Fox" X-Men series and it was almost forgotten the instant it came out, despite several years of hype and re-edits. The New Mutants is pretty much exactly what I picture when I promote the idea of smaller, more nuanced, often cheaper, superhero cinema on this blog. There are maybe, ten actors in this film? Yet it manages to be more engaging, exciting and character-driven than many of the bigger ensemble films, especially in the X-Men series. Barely escaping some kind of supernatural attack, Dani Moonstar awakens in a mental hospital with four other teenage mutants, Rahne Sinclair, Ilyana Rasputin, Sam Guthrie and Roberto de Costa. Or, you know, Moonstar has been thrown in with mentally unstable versions of Wolfsbane, Magik, Cannonball and Sunspot. Now, I've never been a big X-Men fan, so I'm only passingly familiar with any of these characters, but I have to say I empathised with each of them pretty quickly and any changes that were made played to the strengths of the story, as far as I could tell.

Being a tight ninety minutes, The New Mutants doesn't waste much time trying to make the Essex Hospital (because references) seem at all innocent, with super-technology drops and strong supernatural horror beats pretty quickly. The links to the main X-Men films are pretty thin on the ground, which I like, because the last thing The New Mutants really needs is a Wolverine cameo that goes nowhere. Although there is almost no telling how much of the "original" film survived the various edits and re-shoots, the version of The New Mutants that's on my DVD copy really seems to trust the young actors with the material, and whilst the emotions are writ large, as suits both teen drama and comic books, the feelings read as genuine, and I can see plenty of adolescents connecting with this film just as I did with X-2 back in my day. Also I love that the queer characters are just kind of there, and their sexuality has nothing to do with why they are being hunted by nightmares, its just who they are.

Where the edits and reworking hurts The New Mutants the most is in the third act, where Dani is pushed to the background by Magik, because, by then, Anya Taylor-Joy had become famous through Peaky Blinders and The Queen's Gambit. I have mixed feelings about Taylor-Joy, as I suspect she's a pretty decent actor, but is constantly sexualised by the camera, so I simply cannot tell; a lot like a young Scarlet Johanssen, actually. Now the shift in focus in the film is not overly jarring, and there is an attempt to tie a "friends as surrogate family" narrative in at the end, but I wonder what a version of The New Mutants where Dani stayed in the fore would have looked like. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Fox X-Men has wrapped up and won't be continuing, but The New Mutants is a high note to go out on and I really hope it gets some cult love at some point, as there is a lot to like, and not just for angsty teens. I know that I'll be going back to this long before others in the series myself, now that I know what's there.

The Slizer Project - Part IV

When I stared on this, I thought it would probably take three articles of reasonable size, not what's now looking to be five somewhat longer ones. Now we're getting to the part of the story I really remember better, not only because I was a teen when I was thinking it up, but also because it started to occur to me how far the story had come since it started. A group of friends traveling through time, having adventures, had now become an interstellar war over the control of alien super weapons. Yes, it's juvenile, but I was juvenile, literally and figuratively, at the time. To this day, I still like when stories progress to a point far beyond where they started, when such progression makes sense each step, but leads to a journey of wide scope. Think Dragon Ball going from an adventure to find some mystic orbs to a multiversal battle for survival. Anyway, on to the next step.

The story continues, our heroes having been victorious against the Razors, but only barely, the decision to introduce four more Slizer units is made; Millennium, Blaster, Spark and Flare. The shadowy alien forces backing the project put more of their own in the larger and more "powerful" units, shuffling Calvin's friends around to lower places in the hierarchy. This causes friction in the team and with 12 Slizer units in the field, the humans find themselves most often under alien command and split up across multiple deployments. Meanwhile, a rival concern in The Century offers a new weapon to the Slizer team, a new and more powerful biomech; the Toa. Yeah, look, at this stage, Bionicle was a thing and I was trying to fold that story into my own and it never really worked. Basically, it was a set up for a tournament arc (can you tell I was watching Dragon Ball Z at the time too?) where the Slizers faced their opposite number in the Toa. It wasn't the best idea, but it led into the next arc, where things really kick off.

During the fight with the Toa, Calvin and the Jungle Slizer disappear. The green Toa is found defeated and mutilated, but there is no trace of what happened. For a while, the team is looking to recover their missing teammate, or rather, Calvin's friends are looking for him, while the aliens want to recover the Jungle Slizer before it falls into the wrong hands. The leader of one faction of the aliens, called "Mantis" by the humans because they can't pronounce his clicking name, pilot of the Millennium Slizer, was badly injured in the battle with the Toa and whilst he recovers, he becomes more antagonistic as time goes on and there is a major fracture in the Slizer team, with the human members even being kept from their Slizers unless a mission is happening. This starts to cause problems when a revolt of workers living in The Century begins to get violent and the various factions that fund the Slizer operation start to disagree over how to handle it, with one faction even leaving and taking the Ice Slizer with them. The stage is set for a possible civil conflict with our human protagonists caught in the middle. Meanwhile, rumors of something like the Jungle Slizer being spotted in conflict zones begin to circulate.

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.

Force S5 - Part I

It all began with the Philadelphia Experiment, that's when they noticed us, and the first mistake most people make when they start thinking about this. Everyone seems to think it was the atomic bomb, and they're half right, as the Trinity Test was what sealed our fate, but once humanity broke the time barrier on October 28, 1943, they were already here. Visitors. The Fifth Kind. Aliens. Whatever language works for you, but that's what they are, and their first experience of humanity was Nazis and the dying days of the Second World War. Those in power noticed the visitors, how could you not, but at that stage only the Americans and the Nazis had the resources to start doing anything about it. Well, also the Mexicans, but that's a story for another time. The Nazis, believing themselves superior to even these new creatures, started to reverse engineer the technology where they could, at their secret Antarctic and Brazilian bases, as well as Poland and Germany herself. You may have heard of Die Glocke (the bell), an early attempt to weaponise anti-gravity fields, but, then again, all of is is something you probably "heard" here or there.

And that's the trick; leak just enough of this into the broader culture so that no one believes it when they see or hear something real. Again, the Philadelphia Experiment is the perfect example, when the details start to work their way out, release a low-budget film that's close enough to the truth, but bad enough to be ignored, and anyone trying to enlighten you looks like a kook from then on. That was the general strategy for the Americans for a while, weponise Hollywood against the general population, foster ignorance and don't worry about the strange lights in the sky. It worked for decades until it started being used against them, ever hear of John Carpenter? Jack Kirby? Tom DeLongue? The pushback is a multimedia project, so yes, you can stream the revolution, on demand. The other big mistake everyone makes is to think of all of this as a conspiracy. You should be thinking CONSPIRACIES. You think the Antarctic Nazis, CIA, Reptilians, Star Children, To The Stars, Shadow People and whoever else are all working the same agenda? Don't be naive, this thing has more sides than you could possibly imagine when you first step through the door. Earth is the sandbox for a war most people will never even see being fought.

So what can I do about it, you ask? How do I fight back? Can we protect Earth from the scum of the universe? Well the bad news is that this whole thing is much bigger than you or I and they have all the money and power we don't. The good news is, there's already someone out there, fighting the good fight, and yeah, you probably heard of them. Forget all the nonsense you've read about the Secret Space Program, "Above Majestic" is Alt-Right propaganda designed to obscure the truth, no kids are being taken and "Pizza-gate" was idiotic. No, Force S5, the Superhuman Soldiers of the Secret Space Service aren't what you think, but they may be the only real way humanity has of forging its own destiny without alien interference or falling to traitors from within like Nazis or the CIA. There's precious few of them, and making more may not even be possible, but that's getting ahead again. You sure you want to go down this road? Last exit before crazy town, make up your mind. Past this point, nothing is as it seems and everything can be questioned; trust me, you'll never look at a can of Fanta the same again. Ok, strap in, we're on a rocket to the stars where aliens exist and you'll spend the rest of your life chasing shadows. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Superhero Media: Star Vs The Forces of Evil

Back when I was last working in a High School as a Counsellor, one of my students was delighted to discover that I was a fan of Gravity Falls and suggested that I may enjoy Star Vs The Forces of Evil on similar merits. At the time, Disney+ didn't exist and I tend not to pirate things, so I said if I came across it I'd give it a go and left it at that. Star Vs The Forces of Evil is pretty damn amazing in the same way that programmes like Adventure Time and Gravity falls are, though it lacks some of the polish that would come later with the new Ducktales, the story grows and characters change in very organic ways and there is a lot for even a jaded adult like me to enjoy. Star Butterfly is the princess of the Mewnian kingdom, who, on her fourteenth birthday, inherits the magical power hereditary to the Queens of her line, but is too impulsive to control her abilities, so is sent to Earth to live with Marco Diaz, a lonely boy who does Karate and is good at school.

Whilst the story starts out with heavy "fish out of water" and "monster of the week" tropes, Star Vs The Forces of Evil soon demonstrates that it has a lot more going on than the initial pitch. The villains change each season, culminating with Star and her friends having to decide the fate of Magic itself. I'd love to wax lyrical about every little shift and how new villains come and go, as Star Vs The Forces of Evil does some of the best world-building and escalation of any television series made for tweens that I've ever seen, but what I really want to talk about is Hot Marco. At one stage, Marco is dragged into the nether-realm of the demon Heckapoo (weird names is a thing in this programme) and spends fifteen years becoming a techo-barbarian warrior legend, who sets the teenage Star into pubescent lust pretty damn hard. Now, I've done a fair amount of Psychothreapeutic work with adolescents, and honestly, about the only programme that covers how they develop romantically and sexually is Big Mouth, but damn if Star Vs The Forces of Evil doesn't come really close in some moments.

Why is it important, or impressive even, that this Magical Girl/DBZ/glitterpunk/My Little Pony mashup engages with sexuality and relationships in between Narwhal Blasts and Ponyhead antics? Well because the relationships, desires and attractions portrayed in Star Vs The Forces of Evil are healthy, and that's pretty damn rare in media for young adults and tweens (Twilight, anyone?). So when Star gets 'revved up' by Hot Marco, or Jackie Lynne discovers her queerness or Eclipsa sacrifices everything for her husband, it feels real; often more real than other soapy superhero fare like Arrow or Gotham. If there is one real issue I have with Star Vs The Forces of Evil, it would be the ending, which feels rushed and leaves things oddly hanging, just in the last few seconds of broadcast, frustratingly enough, so I have to 'headcannon' this one a little. That said, check this series out if you can get past the cutseyness and glitterpunk, it's a damn fun watch and I'm already scouring minis ranges for an approximate Star and Marco (maybe also a Hot Marco) to slip into future Ultimate Alliance games.

Miniatures Finished: Cybermats

Just a quick little addition to my Doctor Who collection that I knocked out, some Cybermats!

Nothing too fancy here, just some of the Warlord Games Cybermats on bases with a splash of silver paint. Sometimes a quick little project like this can get me back in the mood on a project I've sidelined for ages.

Yeah, these aren't too exciting, but I'm glad to have something else done.

Superhero Media: Inspector Gadget 2

One of the most read "Superhero Media" posts on this blog is for the 1999 Inspector Gadget, a little nothing film I reviewed mostly as a joke, not expecting it to do anything. Most of the review doesn't even cover the film, but discusses what would later become a "The Pitch" article about a gritty reboot of the franchise, an article almost no one has read. I mean, no one really reads my blog, in the broad sense, my most popular articles have fewer than 1000 views, and I don't care as I do this for fun and to keep my writing hand in, not for some kind of internet fame. Inspector Gadget 2 picks up essentially where the previous film left off, only with a new cast and a much lower budget. French Stewart is in the lead and pretty much every supporting character is an Australian actor, so I'm guessing this was filmed in Queensland? Seriously, everyone I know from '90s Aussie television gave me some serious whiplash.

Like, sure, get Bruce Spence in, if you're making a vaguely science fiction or horror film in Australia, you're pretty much contractually obligated to use Bruce Spence, but Mark Mitchell and Sigrid Thornton? Is this a reunion of everyone who didn't get crazy famous off Seachange? The film is about as 'good' as one may reasonably expect, with less money to do the slapstick scenes, sets and special effects, large sections of Inspector Gadget 2 look like an Adam West Batman episode, including goons in anachronistic costumes. There seems to be an attempt to move closer to the animated series than the first film, with Klaw using elaborate traps and harebrained schemes to stop Gadget and the latter lucking into winning each encounter. I guess in strict terms of adaptation, Inspector Gadget 2 is 'better' than the previous film, but I maintain that the animated series is not great to begin with, so it should come as no shock that the only reason I go through this film was because I was playing Super Mario Galaxy as it was on.

Given the backlog and that these only come out weekly, you may or may not have noticed that I'm trying to complete series in these reviews. Obviously, series that are ongoing, such as the MCU and DCEU, it's more trying to keep up than finish, but as it stands I still have The New Mutants to round out Fox X-Men, and Men In Black International is in the pipeline. Inspector Gadget 2 was an attempt at this completion, even if it seems only I bother to care about it's existence. You won't be seeing a 28mm Inspector Gadget on my gaming table anytime soon, and I really can't recommend the film to anyone who didn't grow up watching Wonderworld on Aussie television, but if, like me, you really need a break from all the Spider-Man cartoons on Disney+, there are worse things to have on in the background while you paint some miniatures.

Miniature Finished: Great Ape Vegeta

Sometimes I do some odd little projects for my own edification, usually model kits or little terrain flourishes that I don't post here because they don't relate to the overall project. This one, however is pretty much bang-on.

I picked up this Ozeru Vegeta at a games store for around $30, which I thought was a steal. I cleaned it up, removed the maker's mark, gave it a wash and glued it together with lashings of thick superglue. I filled in the gaps with plastic putty, attached it to a base and undercoated it, hoping it wouldn't get sticky as this plastic sometimes does.

And lucky me, it all turned out great. From the beginning, I planned to use the alternate Vegeta colour scheme from his first few appearances, so I used some of the luridly bright GW Contrast paints to get the base colours in, then went in with a hand brush. As Vegeta doesn't go Great Ape until the end of the Vegeta Saga, I had to make some guesses on things like hair colour, but I think it came together pretty well.

As well as being an intended entry for the Australian Plastic Model Expo, this model is pretty nicely scaled for my 28mm Supers games, being able to hold my 28mm Goku in his hand neatly. So overall, I'm pretty happy with how this minor investment turned out.

Superhero Media: Batman - Hush

Ok, here's a question for the Batman fans in my readership, is Hush actually a good Batman story? There are a lot of good elements in Hush, to be sure, and there are so many iconic Batman characters and locations that the story certainly "feels" big, but is it really? At the start of Hush, Batman is basically where he will be at the end of the story, despite the monumental events that will take place between those two points. Although I keep a copy of Hush on my shelf, I'm finding that each time I go back to it, I come away a little more frustrated than the last, and I may be giving the book up at some stage. Starting with a rescue of a young boy held for ransom by Killer Croc, right at the end of his being a criminal and not yet a cannibal monster phase, Batman has a great moment where he tells the boy to lie about it being Superman who saved him, but soon ends up chasing after Catwoman. The relationship between Batman and Catwoman is the heart of Hush, but it gets sidelined at time for assorted Batman nonsense, and sadly, doesn't continue past this story.

What I like most about the romance in Hush is that it truly grows Batman as a character, a point even discussed, though somewhat obliquely, by Alfred and Nightwing throughout the story. Batman having to negotiate the relationship, even dealing with Catwoman's being unwilling to follow his lead in a manner of another Robin or Batgirl, lift the story out of the pre-adolescant world of the caped crusader and show genuine growth in a character that rarely sees it. The rest of Hush is mostly pretty good, but as I hinted above, tends to run as something more of a highlight reel of Batman than a cohesive story. There's that scene where Batman almost snaps and kills Joker, before being stopped by Jim Gordon, and it is tied into the plot, but you could cut Joker out and drop the scene and not really lose anything. I'm not kidding that Hush hits most corners of the Batman universe at least once, from the League of Shadows/Assassins (I'm not sure which they're called in this particular instance), Batman's friendship with Superman and even a maudlin aside from Alfred.

The titular villain, a childhood friend of Bruce's, warped by years of resentment into hunting down Batman and... making his life confusing for a couple of weeks? The details of Hush's actual plan are pretty nebulous, as Batman's life doesn't really change all that much and all of the new characters are dead. Hell, Huntress goes through more of an emotional journey, in that she ends up somewhere different to where she started, rather than Batman continuing on as he did before. Probably the only 'lasting' element of the story, in that it lasted until the next reboot, was the reveal that Riddler had figured out Batman's secret identity. I like this because it places Riddler on a similar intellectual level to Batman, with now only his compulsions keeping him from winning out over the Caped Crusader. The hand-waving over why Riddler doesn't capitalise on the knowledge is a little disappointing, as that would have been a story I was interested in reading, and would have given Riddler a role in the story other than delivering exposition. I'm really keen to know if other people have the same experience with Hush as I do, does it hold up, or does each new reading lessen the narrative?