#and of course barton is fixated on him to the exclusion of

[cantsayidont]

Teevee shows:

BLACK DOVES (2024): Keira Knightley attempts unsuccessfully to renew her action star credentials with this violent, very uneven Netflix miniseries from Joe Barton (creator of THE LAZARUS PROJECT). Knightley stars as 40-ish deep-cover spy Helen Webb, whose two little children and dull husband Wallace (Andrew Buchan), an up-and-coming Tory MP, have no idea of her real past, her real occupation (spying on Wallace for a shadowy espionage organization), or the fact that she's been having an affair with a man called Jason (Andrew Koji of WARRIOR, wasted), who's just been murdered. Ben Whishaw (looking like he's been scraped out of a lint trap) costars as Helen's friend Sam, a sardonic gay hitman who is supposed to be watching her back while coping with problems of his own. Set at Christmastime, BLACK DOVES has a weird streak of holiday sentimentality that sits uneasily with Barton's dry black humor (which is sometimes fun) and mean-spirited ghoulishness (which is not). Worse, Barton leaves Knightley flailing in a badly underwritten part that's completely overshadowed by both Sam and the supporting cast — there's never any reason to care about either of Helen's lives, and the script seems reluctant to take her motivations (protect her children, avenge her dead boyfriend) at all seriously. Unlike THE LAZARUS PROJECT, the more interesting character threads also feel divorced from the murky plot, which is convoluted and far-fetched, but short on imagination and never very interesting. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Several, with snotty assassins Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) the show's principal bright spots. VERDICT: Not so much "Ho Ho Ho" as "Oh ho hum," and I was dismayed by how disinterested it is in its ostensible lead. If you want "married mom is secretly a badass spy," try WHO IS ERIN CARTER, which is less gay, but more fun.

HELSTROM (2020): Muddled, dreary Hulu horror-drama based on D-list Marvel Comics characters Satana and Damian Hellstrom, Son of Satan, here known strictly as Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana Helstrom (Sydney Lemmon). In the show, the adult siblings' now-institutionalized mother Victoria (Elizabeth Marvel) is possessed and their father is/was a demonic serial killer, so Daimon and Ana both have powers; Daimon, a college professor in Portland, has a sideline as a demon hunter and exorcist, while mean lesbian Ana is a trader in rare artifacts with a hobby of supernaturally assassinating rich assholes. A late holdover from the era before Marvel Studios TV projects became completely Mouseified, HELSTROM doesn't have the clammy deracinated theme-park blandness of the Disney+ shows, but it's still a wearisome slog. Daimon is boring, and I loathed his self-righteous noviate sidekick Gabriella (Ariana Guerra), but Ana's dead-eyed bitchiness, killer outfits, and silly haircut are kind of fun, at least in the early episodes. It might have worked better with an X-FILES/KOLCHAK-style monster-of-the-week format, but it fails to generate the atmosphere needed for a PG-13/TV-MA horror story, and the indecipherable plot bogs down in reactionary "redemptive power of family" horseshit. CONTAINS LESBIANS? The sole reason for watching, but while the show tells us that Ana is an inveterate womanizer, we never once see her kiss a girl! VERDICT: Ana Helstrom is great, but everything else is tedious and unappetizing. CWs apply for quasi-incest themes, medical torture, parental abuse, and an icky supernatural forced-pregnancy plot.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER (2022– ): Agreeable but very ordinary legal drama, based on the Michael Connelly novels, about L.A. defense attorney Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), trying to get back in the game after a stint in rehab and unexpectedly inheriting the clients of a colleague who's just been murdered. Becki Newton and Neve Campbell costar as Mickey's ex-wives, with Jazz Raycole as his client-turned driver Izzy, who chauffeurs Mickey around in a Lincoln SUV and acts as his sounding board, and occasional guest appearances by Elliott Gould. Created by David E. Kelley and Ted Humphrey, this is an utterly conventional lawyer show, with the usual contrivances and limitations (like recurring bouts of smug whorephobia), and even at his lowest moments, Mickey is much too affluent to really sell the "feisty underdog" shtick. Nonetheless, it's a well-polished formula, buoyed by Garcia-Rulfo's likeable lead performance, and it works better than the disappointing 2011 movie with Matthew McConaughey, although I wish that the show would allow more time for Mickey's smaller cases, which are more satisfying than the big case plots. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Izzy is gay, but it only comes up once or twice a season. VERDICT: Nothing special, but it goes down easily.

[lexcellence]

BANSHEE???? THE COP?????

look, i went from the available choices, and my vote went to Beto anyway

Let's break these choices down, yeah?

Cyclops - tl;dr There are specific periods of time where Scott is "hot," and the vast majority of the time he isn't! Is he my blorbo? Yes. Do I run a sideblog where the header is his Foxy Grandpa Ass jutting out? Of course. Can I vote him in good conscience? I don't think so.

Colossus - the man spent how much time trying to fuck a fourteen year old? He heard Mutants were moving to a sex cult island and was baffled because his dead pal Jeff was a human. Pass.

Gambit - not even with Rogue's dick.

Wolverine - I only barely believe he can find the clit, and have ZERO confidence he could locate my prostate, and I'm unsure enough about his grooming habits that I wouldn't willingly put any part of myself in any part of him. Pass.

Iceman - Closeted Iceman? Maybe. But out Iceman is an overcompensating baby gay written almost exclusively by straight dudes, and I have a strict policy of never touching white gays who have "BBC" in their search history.

Warren Kenneth Worthington the Third - do you know what happens to Angel's love interests? I'd rather not be hatecrimed by Cameron Hodge for a few sweaty minutes of underwhelming halfhearted bottoming from a princess who provides the own stuffing for his pillows. Keep flying, birdboy.

Nightcrawler - I know, I know, the man is a sex icon, but I'm not getting involved in any of that family drama. If it's not his evil lesbian moms trying to kill me, it'd be his step-sisters trying to get back in his spandex. Not worth it, especially after all that shit in Way of X.

Havok - Matt Fraction's Clint Barton: The Mutant Flavor???? Listen, I adore a broken man who knows his place as much as the next nigga, don't get me wrong, but if I'm not picking Scott, I'm definitely not picking his Luigi.

I do appreciate his commitment to the bit, though.

Banshee - let's jump back to Cyclops for a minute. Without getting into shipping war bullshit, most of the times he's been "hot" are when he's playing off of Emma Frost, right? Emma's tertiary mutation is the ability to make everyone else more interesting just by association, because she's fucking great. I mean I just read an Iron Man book for her, for fuck's sake. Back in the 90's, when she was newly not-evil, she and Banshee were essentially the co-leads of Generation X, a book that, when it wasn't being the New New New Mutants, about two unreasonably sexy people who couldn't stand each other being unreasonably sexy at each other. Even putting that aside (and if you read a few issues, you'll get it), the man's spent decades dedicated to flying around with his tits out due to mysterious clothing damage, amd I appreciate that.

Sunspot - look, I fixated on him when I was nine, as the only character I could find who was like me at all, and that was ignoring all the gay subtext with his best friend even before it turned into outright queerbaiting. I grew up with him, and he's only gotten better since then. He's the only dude in my top 5 muties. He's flawless (give or take bad taste in men and a propensity for being whitewashed), he's perfect, he's hilarious, he's my vote AND yours, he's Sunspot.

Cannonball - in my seminal 2020 fic, "How Many Times Would You Say You've Been In Love," I summed Beto's Best Boy up thusly:

Sam laughed, a quiet, gentle, chuckle that crinkled the corners of his eyes, not that Roberto could bring himself to look at them. Instead his own eyes travelled everywhere else, from Sam's mess of a mop, to his strong jaw, to the gap in his front teeth, his okay-for-a-white-boy lips, the freckles that covered his nose, and ending up… 

Do I love Sam as a character? Absolutely, he's one of the best. But he's not hot, he's a lapse in taste. Love conquers all, they say. 😔

Bishop - as one of exactly two Black men the poll listed, I want to give Bishop his flowers, but I have never read a good Bishop story where he wasn't awful. No baby gays, but no self-hating Black genocidaires, either.