Television – Spidey Librarian

Moon Knight Reaction (non-stream) Is Up!

It always takes me a little longer than I’d like, but I finally got my reaction to the new Moon Knight trailer posted to my channel. While I may not be able to respond as quickly to content like this as the YouTube content creators who are doing this for their livelihood, I’m nevertheless happy to be able to make content like this in my spare time and work my regular, full-time job. I can even (slowly) invest in my channel by occasionally purchasing equipment and watching the odd YouTube channel creator video on work time, since I’m actually teaching (a VERY rudimentary) YouTube basics for content creators program at the library.

Getting back to Moon Knight: while he’s not the most well-known Marvel character, Moon Knight definitely has a small but hardcore cult following among Marvel fans. My understanding is that he’s Marvel’s answer to Batman, but with several significant twists, including lunar mysticism and the presence of dissociative identity disorder (DID) that plagues Marc Spector, Moon Knight’s alter ego. He’s fairly “street-level” in terms of his power set, to my limited knowledge, but we’ll see how true that is when the show comes out on March 30.

Moon Knight is also the subject of a really funny meme that may be (until possibly now or very soon after, at least) the main source of his reach among casual audiences. I know it made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it.

And that’s pretty much all I know about him. The show will feature Oscar Isaac in the title role, along with Ethan Hawke as someone who appears to be the show’s main antagonist. Both of those actors are amazing, and I’m eager to see how they bring these Marvel characters to life, and hopefully make Moon Knight and his world a compelling and intriguing addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Come March 30, we’ll certainly find out!

Here’s the link to my trailer reaction. Enjoy!

Moon Knight Trailer! Reaction Stream Tonight!

Television

It looks like Disney Plus released a trailer for its upcoming show Moon Knight yesterday, and while I haven’t streamed a reaction to it yet, you can rest assured that I’ll have a live stream reaction tonight, and an edited video upload of said reaction in the next day or two!

It’s been unusually silent on the announcement end of Disney Plus’s Marvel content, which after 2021, where we typically knew things several weeks–if not months–in advance, feels a little… off. There’s plenty they’re apparently going to make and release this year, but until yesterday, we had no idea when any of it was going to drop. At least now we know Moon Knight will be premiering on March 30 of this year.

And, of course, it’s on a Wednesday. Disney Plus is nothing if not consistent.

I always look forward to new Marvel content on this platform, but what they’ve got in the works will definitely explore some of the less tread-upon territory in the MCU. In addition to Moon Knight, I believe we can look forward to Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, and season 2 of What If…? And that’s in addition to the feature films due out this year: Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

So, there is plenty of content on the way this year! I’d just like to know more about when the Disney Plus stuff will be gracing my small screens.

Anyway, speaking of small screens, keep an eye out for tonight’s live stream, which you can easiest do by subscribing to my YouTube channel! I’ll be mostly gaming, but I’ll also carve out a few minutes to film a reaction to the Moon Knight trailer!

Until then, here’s a stream from yesterday, where I squeeze as much Marvel Contest of Champions as I can into a couple of hours. Enjoy!

Angel‘s “The House Always Wins” and Pissing It All Away

Movies, Self Improvement, Television, Video Games, Writing

Angel, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as so many other good shows throughout television history, still occasionally suffered from the odd episode that was clearly filler and failed to really connect with fans. “The House Always Wins,” the third episode of season 4, was one such installment, but it has one particular plot device that still speaks to me today, which I feel somewhat redeems what is generally regarded as an uneven, bland episode.

The Spin-and-Win, a gambling wheel rigged by the episode’s villain, the casino owner Lee DeMarco, is only accessible by guests chosen by the casino. DeMarco uses Lorne’s ability to read people’s auras and see their futures, and with this information, chooses the ones with the most profitable destinies. They are given a special gambling chip to play the Spin-and-Win, with a million-dollar prize as the lure. When his mark takes the chip, it is imprinted with that person’s future destiny, and when they inevitably lose, they are left virtually mindless, their destiny taken away along with their ambition, and they spend the rest of their lives in a dull haze, listlessly spinning away quarters in the casino’s slot machine.

Most fans feel this is a pretty heavy handed attempt to equate gambling with throwing away one’s future, and while that’s not a completely off-kilter supposition, it’s one I never really connected with gambling in spite of the context. The Spin-and-Win, along with its devious ‘destiny chip’ component, may have existed in a casino, and been in the purview of gamblers and those who loved games of chance, but to me the symbolism went a lot deeper. The trap that the Spin-and-Win represented could take any form, and entrap just about anyone, as long as they obsessed enough about it.

Yesterday I wrote about creation vs. consumption, and how Stephen King’s It both represented that struggle and how it’s helped inspire me to throw off (at least for now) the trappings of consumption so I can create. The image of this thing, the Spin-and-Win, from this episode of Angel, was another of the primary motivators that came to my mind’s eye as I came to this realization. The Spin-and-Win, in my estimation, could be anything to anyone, much like It could take on the form of anything that its victims feared. It wasn’t just about gambling, although I suppose my vice of gaming could easily be argued to have many parallels to that pastime.

For me, the Spin-and-Win represents video games. For someone who loves food too much, the Spin-and-Win represents food. For others, it could be sex, alcohol, television, movies, music. More broadly, the Spin-and-Win represent excess, the overindulgence of an otherwise harmless vice that creeps into your life and steals from you. Time, energy, devotion to otherwise creative or self-improving pursuits. It’s an easy retreat into something that’s comforting, but otherwise and ultimately, pointless.

I admit, “The House Always Wins” is not a great episode of Angel, though I still enjoyed it just fine. But the idea of someone throwing away their destiny because they see an easy (but rigged and unattainable) win in front of them is a powerful one that has stuck with me through the years. It’s always been there, in the back of my thoughts, and I’ve at times wondered why that particular form of that vice stuck when there have certainly been others that may have been more apt.

Now I know why, and I’m sending up that image to pull free of my own tendency to put of creating–writing–with something easy to consume–in this case, video games.

It may not be the prettiest or most eloquent way to break free, but so far it seems to be working out well for me.

Marvel’s Netflix Properties Continue to Shine, Adding to 2017 MCU Content

Television

In case you’ve been hiding under a digital rock for the last week, Netflix dropped Marvel’s Luke Cage last Friday, and the overall reception has been pretty positive, even as some issues have been raised about the narrative structure and pacing. Still, it’s an entertaining and does a serviceable job of depicting race and racial issues through the lens of a superhero story.

There are quite a few compelling women characters, all of whom are related to the actions the central character without being defined by him. It’s beautifully shot, and its R&B and hip-hop soundtrack is very prominently spotlighted, all making for a unique, enjoyable, and ultimately important entry into the Marvel experience.

Luke Cage makes for a fourth full season of Netflix properties that have a connection (however loose) to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the overall consensus seems to be that this corner of the MCU is the most consistently well done so far. Daredevil was so successful that its second season was greenlit within one week of the first season premiering on Netflix, and Jessica Jones explored dark and disturbing themes of control and obsession in a way that clearly resonated with viewers. A second season of this show has also been approved, though it remains unclear as to when it will air.

It will likely be a while, though. At the New York Comic Con, it was announced that 2017 would be a full one for Marvel Netflix, with three shows on the schedule for next year. Iron Fist has had a release date of March 17 confirmed, with The Defenders–which will combine characters from the four preceding shows–likely to release during the middle of the year. Likely at near the end of the year will be The Punisher, whose main character Frank Castle was one of the highlights of Daredevil’s second season.

This is, of course, really exciting news for Marvel fans. With Netflix committing to no less than three Marvel shows next year, that adds to the three MCU films (Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok) that are already scheduled for next year.

There also continues to be talk about more Marvel properties on the way. Cloak & Dagger, Damage Control, and other unnamed shows are in various stages of development or pre-production, though how reliable the information turns out to be are unknown at this point.

Still, it’s impossible to deny that 2017 will be an exciting year for Marvel fans. There are no less than six different properties confirmed to release or premier next year. That averages out to a new experience every other month!

I may not be at NYCC this weekend, but I’m just as stoked about these announcements as the attendees!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Three Seasons In

Fan Culture, Television

As the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. officially kicks off tonight, I figure it’s timely for me to give voice to the things I love–and don’t really love so much–about this show. It has the distinction of being the only broadcast television show I follow faithfully, and its status as a Marvel Cinematic Universe property may have more than a little to do with that. Everything else I watch is usually either Netflix (hello Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and soon Luke Cage!), some other streaming service, after the fact, or some blend of the three.

So why is it that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gets this extra effort from me? Is it that I’m an MCU junkie, who just doesn’t care what it is, as long as it has the Marvel IP attached to it? Do I strive for interconnectivity between the movies and the shows, despite how little of it we actually see? Have I actually grown attached to some of these characters and storylines, many of whom are not born from the comics?

If you couldn’t already tell, the answer is a little bit of all three.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. got off to a bumpy, if charming start, banking on the likability of its characters as much as Phil Coulson’s “connection” to the films. People tuned out after a couple of episodes, and the main complaint at the time seemed to be its lack of utilizing flashy, powered characters from the comics that weren’t being used in the films. I remember seeing more than a few commenters upset that Mike Peterson didn’t turn out to be Luke Cage during the first episode, for instance.

While I understand the desire for this from comic book fans, I don’t consider it a very legitimate criticism, as S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been a spy organization first and foremost. The premise of this television show was therefore primarily a spy drama. How non-powered people handle life in this reality should be, and I feel has been, a primary thread of exploration in this series, even when the show doesn’t always acknowledge it.

I will admit, during this initial stretch of episodes is when the show seemed to be at its weakest. The pacing was sometimes slow, and there seemed an over-reliance on why Coulson was still alive, and was dragged on longer than it needed to be. Still, the group dynamic between the characters, from orphaned protagonist Skye to stoic badass Melinda May to the bantering British duo of Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, made for a fun enough ensemble that I cared enough to keep following their evolution as a group and a team.

Then, those of us who did stick around learned something important about season 1: it was, by necessity, hamstrung on what it could explore in relation to the movie studio to which it was connected. Even so, there were glimpses and flashes of what the show could be in some of the earlier episodes, such as “Eye Spy.” When Captain America: Winter Soldier blew the lid off the first season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. became a lot stronger and more action-packed in its storytelling, and I would argue has maintained a compelling narrative ever since.

The end of season 1 brought about some revelations, as these kinds of shows tend to do, and we got to explore them in the second season. Skye, we find out, is (and has always been intended to be) Daisy Johnson, a character from the comics known as Quake. Her origin has been changed from a mutant (mutants don’t exist in the MCU due to Fox having the film rights to them) to an Inhuman, and her Inhuman origins are explored. Several new characters and arcs are introduced, including one of my personal favorites, Mack, who proves both instrumental in helping Fitz adapt to his new condition, and a member of a splinter S.H.I.E.L.D. group that nearly takes Coulson’s group down.

Some of the elements in this season could have been handled better. More showing instead of telling, for instance, about the Inhumans, their history, and their abilities. Coulson’s need to draw alien symbols also could have benefited from a stronger explanation that wasn’t dragged out for as long as it was. And don’t get me started on how they handled Fitz’s injury and eventual recovery from season 1. It was entirely too quick and clean, and ultimately should have been one of the few things that took significantly longer than it ended up taking.

On the other hand, there are plenty of strengths to this season. Daisy (not Skye anymore!) meets and ultimately has conflicts with both of her parents, leading to a final showdown that is both heartbreaking and memorable. Bobbi Morse (Mockingbird!) is introduced, and is wonderfully played by Adrianne Palicki, as is Nick Blood’s character Lance Hunter. Mack and the “other, real S.H.I.E.L.D.” storyline was also memorable, particularly as well as actor Henry Simmons played his scenes. And the Inhumans situation is brought to a head at the end of the season, setting up a good portion of the themes in season 3.

Season 3 had more good points than not so good, in my opinion, but its exploration of the history of Hydra and its link to the Inhumans (and the Kree) was front and center here. We finally get to see the traitor, Grant Ward, die (twice!), and the fifth episode, “4,722 Hours,” stands out as quite possibly my favorite episode of the entire show so far. Coulson starts working with a legitimate arm of the U.S. government, and eventually begins a romance with its head, Rosalind Price. Her sudden and cruel death was one of the moments I disliked most about the season, as they’d done a good job of making her likable, and Coulson’s reaction to it had all the classic signs of Women In Refrigerators that we see in comics so often.

Ward’s “evolution” into the character Maveth made for a legitimately world-ending threat, pressing S.H.I.E.L.D. to its limits as they finally broke out the Secret Warriors. Several excellent Inhuman characters comprised this team, including Joey Gutierrez, who can melt metals, and Elena Rodriguez, a speedster. When that threat is finally taken care of, Hydra seems to finally be obliterated, and the focus of the show may seem to finally shift from Inhumans to… Ghost Rider?

As we head into season 4, I’m as excited to see Robbie Reyes’s Ghost Rider as a number of people are upset that it’s not Johnny Blaze’s motorcycle-riding demon. I think their use of a newer character with less history to “stick to” opens up a lot of narrative possibilities that could make for great storytelling. I’ve not read any of his comics, yet, but I’ve heard good things about it, and have been pleased with the glimpses of the character we’ve seen thus far.

I’m hoping I’ll be hooked enough on him to start looking for his comics. I’m hoping this season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with its new time slot, proves to be its strongest yet. If it goes darker, as I believe it will, I think we’ll have another strong base from which to improve an already good show.

If you haven’t watched Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.–or even if you watched it at first and dropped off soon after–give it a watch this season. I’m more convinced than ever this show is going to be a great (ghost) ride! (no apologies for the pun!)

The One-Sided Nature of Marvel Studios’ “It’s All Connected”

Movies, Television

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m a big fan of the MCU that Marvel Studios started back in 2008 with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. I love the interconnected nature of the movies, and how they reinforced the notion that these were characters whose actions would affect the plots and developments of others that came along. It was a brilliant way to conceptualize and bring together a movie franchise, and it was so uniquely a Marvel opportunity, that I knew their film The Avengers was going to be a huge hit, even as far back as Iron Man, when it was only being hinted at.

With the ever-present phrase “It’s all connected” a seeming mantra of the entire universe, it seemed a no-brainer that there would be plenty of connections, however tenuous, between the films and the shows that emerged on ABC and Netflix. And as far as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been concerned, they’ve made plenty of references to the films to show they’re connected, from having some of their stars (Thor‘s Jamie Alexander, The Avengers‘ Cobie Smulders and Samuel L. Jackson, and Captain America: The First Avenger‘s Haley Atwell jump quickest to mind) appear on the show, to having episodes and plot arcs made in direct response to the events of the films. Netflix shows Daredevil and Jessica Jones have made small, oblique, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them references to the films, but thus far have mostly kept to themselves in terms of really connecting to anything else.

Where there has been the least amount of connection in terms of acknowledging properties outside its own wheelhouse, however, has been with the films. And that is a major, ongoing source of disappointment for me.

Now, I realize that making movies is way different from making television shows, and I know it’s unlikely, and maybe even impossible, to really work the characters, plots, and developments of television into a film in any substantial or meaningful way. Movies are planned out years in advance, whereas television can turn on a proportional dime as needed. I get it–we probably won’t see any television characters in the films anytime soon, if ever.

But I think it’s criminal at this point that the word “Inhuman,” as used in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has yet to even be uttered on screen in any of the MCU films. I find the studio’s indefinite suspension of the previously planned Inhumans movie to be off-putting and disingenuous in light of it’s mantra.

As best I can tell, the only reference I’ve seen from the films to anything not originated in the films has been the Theta Protocol, which even then involves the Helicarrier that was first seen in The Avengers. Even then, also, I’m not sure the name itself is even mentioned in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In any case, my point in all of this is that, as the originating medium of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films should be doing more to cross connect to the other content that’s out there. And again, I realize we may not ever see Daisy Johnson or Mike Peterson or Melinda May, or even (though I really hope I’m wrong here) Matt Murdock or Jessica Jones or Luke Cage in the films.

I still think, however, that including a throwaway line about the Inhumans emergence or the chaos going down in Hell’s Kitchen would be something manageable.

Come on, Marvel Studios. Would it really be that hard for you to do that little?