#also i like how in the middle of a crises bruce ‘remember what ended the era of dinosaurs?’ instead of just yelling at clark to freeze them

[martyrbat]

autistic! bruce wayne being very normal about dinosaurs :) | super friends #2 (2008)

(bonus: boyfriend edition)

[roobylavender]

I was thinking about Koriand’r as one does, and thinking about all the imagery we get when she’s hovering over earth and is in the middle between the lonely stars and the place where there is so much life. And I’m thinking about how earth despite her welcoming it so much into her life and trying to make it her home, like it didn’t love her back. I remember how awful she was talked about when it was announced she was going to marry Dick and how the citizens would call her names or not even really acknowledge her as a person with those kind of rights and she didn’t understand why they said those awful things to her. And I’m thinking about this because I feel like it’s something nobody talks about when it comes to suddenly giving Dick different ethnicities (which is usually to be like see he has it harder than everyone else) like idk… and then I think about how you said that Bruce wanted something for all his children and Dick making hero-ing his whole life. And I think that’s interesting when you compare to Koriand’r because I don’t necessarily think that she would have been upset with that lifestyle because she just wanted to belong to something but she also would have agreed with Bruce with wanting more for Dick because they know him and his needs and she like Bruce had seen him go through different masks while growing up and knows everything he could have. And here she is as his lover and his friend who was willing to follow him, and Dick was clinging to her but didn’t know who to vocalize what he should have and she had abandonment issues. Like what would I have given to have so many of these issues addressed between them and show that yes the love was always there and they were what the other needed but it was just the wrong time. Like it’s all tragic.. sorry if this doesn’t make sense I was going somewhere with it but I lost the plot lol

i am so sorry for letting this rot in my inbox for so long but GOD yeah like with the titans in general i think what wolfman really marvelously created was this group of people all suffering from various identity crises with respect to the place vigilantism had in their life as something inherited whether by way of legacy or circumstance. like all of these new adults were searching for somewhere to belong and permanently stick their roots and it was hard. and like you said for kory that struggle was twofold bc most if not all of her teammates at least had somewhere else to turn to if they failed to find themselves but kory had no one. like where would she go if she failed to make earth home? it's not like tamaran was an option as much as she loved it and had sacrificed herself for it and would do again at the drop of a hat if circumstances called for it. i can't remember what issue maybe it's from one of the later titans volumes where she's like "no matter how long i live on this planet, no matter who i meet, nobody means more to me than dick. more than a friend. more than a teammate. more than a lover. from the very beginning he was my connection to this planet. there was a time when i though we would spend our entire lives together as soulmates" like he was her CENTERPOINT. everyone else had homes or parents or towns to go back to in the event they failed themselves and all she had was HIM. the rest of the titans too by that point obv but we all know with dick it was different. and like you said i can't imagine the kind of emotional damage it inflicted upon her to have finally broken things off and the fact that writers never really bothered trying to explore that vacuum in the aftermath is so frustrating bc it wouldn't only have been about the dick and kory relationship but also about their own weaknesses as people and needing to overcome them and in the end we might have seen them become the people they needed to be when they were in the relationship in the first place. we might have seen them become whole

[northoftheroad]

Hi, just curious but do you think Dick was IC around the time dickbabs broke up in vol2 #80-90s. How he's always living in the past, and being not respecting her boundaries with her disability or like when he was re-making(?) her computer set up I think it was? Or was it Grayson writing him OOC ? The question is mostly about living in the past thing. Cause I vaguely remember a panel in n52 where he feels guilty for "moving on/accepting" his parent's deaths after only a few months or something.

Nightwing vol 2 # 86

The way I see it, Barbara is saying that Dick lives in the present - except when he's with her. Then he reminisces about the good old days.

One thing that, in my opinion, is characteristic of Dick is that he can remember the good things about what he's lost without being stuck in the pain of the loss. Bruce broods and visits his parents grave and the place they were murdered. Dick does something he enjoyed together with his parents. (See panels further down. Though it’s clear that Dick has got a reputation for being able to move on that’s exaggerated. And he probably seldom or never feels he can admit to others that he doesn’t feel as if everything is going to be all right.)

I think what might be going on (But what do I know about what the comic creators intended for us to read? Or how other people read this, for that matter.) is that Dick remembers the past with Babs as Batgirl fondly. But to Barbara, it feels like he longs back to those days, and it is a painful reminder to her. Because she can't easily forget and avoid dwelling upon her losses, as she admits to herself in another book.

Birds of Prey # 71

Also, this was happening in the middle of Devin Grayson's long term arc for Nightwing. He had a period of happiness (a job he liked, feeling that he made a difference, being Barbara's boyfriend, being on good terms with Bruce) and then proceeded to lose it - he lost his job as a cop, Blockbuster targeted him and people he cared for, Barbara broke up with him.

# 86 is in the middle of a heavy downward slope for Dick. He's already lost his job, Tarantula is stalking him and I believe that was a factor when Barbara broke up. So if he's written a bit "off", I think it's a sign that he's not well, not necessarily out of character as such.

(I guess it's not unlike what Tom King wanted to do with 100 issues in his Batman run - making him happy, tear him down, and let him rebuild. Devin Grayson never got the chance to write her story to the end because Infinite Crises got in the way.)

Nightwing vol 3 # 0

Secret Origins New 52 # 1

Nightwing vol 3 # 17

Nightwing vol 3 # 18

[kiseiakhun]

What are your feelings on Kyle/Jason/Wally. I kinda think it might happen if Kyle had a crush on both. Accidentally tells Wally. Teasing. Jason finding out. Jason and Wally overdramaticly flirting. Dick finds out and Kyle dying from the close proximity of both Jason/Wally Wally/Jason Jason/Kyle Wally/Kyle. And then Flirting/Showing off intensifying. Although I don't really know much about Wally or Kyle. ❤

RUBS HANDS TOGETHER

Hello? This is the greatest ask anyone’s ever sent me. Kyle is a lovey-dovey dumbass who falls in love after two seconds of knowing someone, so like. It’s real. It’s very real. He and Wally would’ve had their thing first? Because of their whole enemies to lovers arc in JL, except - because of that whole dynamic where they started off ragging on each other, I feel like they both would’ve been oblivious to their feelings. Add in a healthy dose of compulsory heterosexuality from Kyle, and yeah... the adults of the League have probably been waiting years for that ship to sail, except the babies just keep being oblivious dunderheads.

(Wally realized in his teen years that he’s not strictly heterosexual, because being on a team with Dick Grayson when you’re male tends to draw out any bent inclinations very, very quickly. It’s just. Kyle is the snot-nosed rookie too big for his britches. He’s a baby? He’s an infant. Wally is not attracted to an infant, wtf.)

And then Kyle goes off on his journey of self-discovery with Donna and Jason. Well, journey of self-discovery for him, because Jason’s ass and body and his devil-may-care tough guy attitude is the culmination of Kyle’s bisexual crisis. Seriously, countdown is basically Kyle going “ugh, that stupid hot sexy asshole is so hot and sexy around Donna, there’s no way she can resist him. Why is he attractive? He needs to stop. I’m going to fight him because he’s TOO HOT.” It’s incredible. If the writers weren’t cowards, countdown would’ve ended with them being in a triad.

Donna’s probably the one who points out that mayhaps... Kyle’s constant mooning over Jason might mean something different... and Kyle’s like wtf, no. And then he actually thinks about it, because Kyle’s one of maybe two (2) men in the dcu who has a semblance of emotional intelligence (idk who the other one is, but I’m sure he’s out there) (edit: it’s Connor. Connor Hawke. Connor is the other man. I was going to say Clark but Clark keeps going to extremes whenever he or his are threatened and. like. he tries, bless his heart, but there’s still a lot of repression going on with him) and he’s like wait. Fuck. Well what do I do with this information!! It’s not like Jason is into guys!!!

To which Donna just looks at him like, how are you so smart yet so stupid at the same time. She remembers how baby Jason mooned over Roy and Dick as much as he mooned over her. She Remembers.

(Also, lbr, Donna’s very experienced by now at dealing with dumb boys in denial about their non-het leanings. See previous statements about being on a team with Dick Grayson. She saw all of it, man. She’s seen so much.)

Cue Kyle, sitting bolt upright in bed after they’ve just wound down for the night and just saying, “Oh my god, Wally.”

And Donna’s just like, yup.

And Jason’s just like ? wtf is that asshole up to now. Whatever, idc, blissfully unaware of Kyle’s bi panic.

Anyway. The world is saved, and they get back to their Earth, and Kyle manages to put it aside because Everything Happens So Much. He’s the Green fking Lantern, okay, he doesn’t have time to deal with sexuality crises, except. Except. It won’t leave him alone?

Like, in his downtime he hangs out with Wally a lot since they’re friends, and oh yes, hello raging crush that he can no longer pretend isn’t a thing, because once Kyle acknowledges his attraction? That is it, man, there’s no turning back from that point. And ik that in canon, Jason threw a snitfit and left Kyle and Donna in the middle of their happy fun space adventure fieldtrip, but let’s say he didn’t have a sudden ooc personality turn because of writer mandate, and he stayed with Kyle and Donna until the end of their journey, and they stayed in touch.

And Kyle realizes, to his horror, that Jason is charming, and funny, and not bad on the eyes, and fuuuuck. This isn’t really helping his stupid dumb crush. Stupid dumb crushes. Goddamn.

(Sometimes Jason even joins him in his Space Adventures because of his new team. More specifically, Kori and her shiny new spaceship that can sustain humans in space conditions, and he is not jealous, shut up, Roy.)

(Roy caught on pretty quickly, because he’s much more empathetic and in tune with other peoples emotions than he pretends to be 90% of the time. Unfortunately, he only uses his powers for chaos.)

Ofc, Wally would start getting curious about Jason eventually because suddenly this kid is fucking everywhere? Dick’s calling on him for intel in the middle of a firefight, and he’s ragging on Roy’s atrocious dress sense, and he’s joking with Donna and Kyle’s giving him the same shit that he used to give to Wally, excuse me. Wasn’t he a villain or something? The last time Wally paid attention to him, he was sawing heads off in Gotham, and now Wally can’t seem to turn without tripping over him. When the fuck did that even happen?

(I’m not sure if Wally ever met Robin!Jason. Hm. Were Jason’s guest-appearances on the team during when Wally was pulling one of his stints of... I don’t WANT to be a hero, I want to be a NORMAL BOY who goes to COLLEGE, even though I literally re-created the Flash’s lab accident down to the letter just so I can have his powers and be a hero and save the world? ... ykw, we don’t acknowledge that era of Wally. This was back when he was a meninist incel or something. Ick.)

... and damn, Wally really can trip over him now, huh. Because he sure did grow up big, and strong, and rugged, and haha fuck now Dick is starting to glare at him, too, and not just at Roy, abort, abort.

...... Wally does attempt to subtly ask Roy, later, if there’s any truth to the statements about him and Jason and Kori that Roy says to Dick to get him all riled up. I say “attempt to” because Wally is bad at subtlety. It’s part of why he and Kyle get along so well. Roy realizes what he’s asking and he about has an apoplexy because Wally? Wally? Now there’s a surprise contender he did not expect, tossing his hat into the ring.

But also. Also... hot.

Roy and Kori are watching all of this while munching popcorn like damn, this is better than TV. Because Kyle’s having his crisis, his Love crisis, and Wally’s having his oh my god why do I find my best friend’s little brother hot crisis, and Jason is just happily oblivious to all of this, because he’s too busy angsting over his dad not loving him enough and dismantling trafficking rings and being the big, bad scourge of Gotham to notice Kyle pining after him like a lovelorn puppy, and Wally eyeing him appreciatively like he hasn’t eaten in a whole hour and Jason is a tender piece of marbled steak roasted on both sides to perfection. He does notice the way Kyle and Wally look at each other, though, because he’s only observant when it comes to the positive emotions of other people. And he is not stepping in the middle of that, tyvm, because from what Roy’s told him the two of them have a looooong history and he does not want to get caught in the middle of that crossfire.

Roy and Kori are both like, what makes you think it’s going to get messy, anyway? And Jason, whose real world examples of functioning relationships are 1. Willis and Catherine Todd, 2. Bruce and Selina, 3. Bruce and Talia, 4. Dick and all his exes, 5. Roy and all of his not-exes because he doesn’t date but people keep falling in love with him anyway and he panics and ghosts them because he is Roy William Commitment Issues Harper, 6. Kori and whatever the fuck she’s got going on with Dick and like, an ex? back on Tamaran? who she might still be married to?? what the fuck, 7. Kyle and Donna and their messy breakup(s)(?) (Jason doesn’t ask, because he Does Not Want To Know) (he’s too busy repressing to realize it’s half because of jealousy), is just like, that’s just how things go.

And Roy and Kori, both having mentally run through all of those ^ options while Jason was thinking of a response, are just like. ... yeah, alright, that’s fair enough.

God, every single relationship in DC is a mess.

Where was I even going with this?

Oh, right. Basically, Kyle is pining like a lovelorn idiot, Wally doesn’t know what the fuck he’s feeling and it’s making him confused, and Jason is ignoring his feelings because maybe if he just represses them hard enough, they won’t spill over and punch him in the face. Honestly, I see Wally making the first move, because his inadequacy issues don’t run as deep as Jason and Kyle’s do, and Kyle’s just like :D and Jason’s like, what the fuck. What the fuck? Because it literally blindsides him, even though it’s stupidly, painfully obvious to everyone else around him.

Either that, or Roy gets sick enough of watching their lovelorn pining, and employs Dick’s help to lock them all in a closet, naked, and fuck it out.

(Dick doesn’t actually disapprove of Jason sleeping with his friends, he just needs to get over his mental block of still seeing Jason as a baby)

Anyway. They’re all a whole-ass mess.

[mastcomm]

The Super Bowl Is Problematic. Why Can’t We Look Away?

AUSTIN CONSIDINE Friends: I know what I’m doing Sunday. I know what you’re doing Sunday. As full-time culture journalists, to ignore the Super Bowl would be a gross dereliction of duty. That’s because the Super Bowl isn’t just a game. It’s the halftime show; it’s the ads; it’s the chips and guac. It is sport but also music, dance, costumes, TV production and stage design — a pop culture event greater than the sum of its parts.

Perhaps most important, it was watched last year by roughly 100 million people: In a world of on-demand entertainment, the Super Bowl is one of the last true vestiges of an era when we all watched the same things at the same time.

But I, like a lot of sports fans, have struggled in recent years to reconcile what is beautiful about the game with what is ugly. First, there’s the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits — not only to concussions — which the N.F.L. actively worked to conceal. Then there are the league’s troubles with domestic abuse and race. We could unpack those for days, but let it suffice to note that Tyreek Hill still has a job and Colin Kaepernick does not.

Some fans have learned to tolerate the cognitive dissonance, or to square their free enjoyment with the ostensible free will of the players. Others, like me, have trouble shouldering our complicity with football’s worst elements and have mostly stopped watching. But regardless, fans or not, we mostly show up for the Super Bowl. Why is that?

WESLEY MORRIS Austin, I, too, have consumed less football in the last five years because the hits can be hard to watch, because the punitive, allegedly apolitical stances of the league are themselves paradoxically political. There are many amazing physical achievements in this sport. There’s endless ridiculousness. The choreographed end-zone celebration, for instance, has gleefully migrated to other sports. And the league, in spite of itself, has a muscular charitable wing.

This is to say that loving the N.F.L. means putting up with a lot. But its outsize popularity also seems a partial answer to the moral riddle that’s so openly vexed us these past two or three years. How do we enjoy the work of bad, unpleasant, corrupt people and institutions? Of criminals? Does opting into the Super Bowl experience then condone the problems of football? Can spectatorship be anything but an endorsement? It’s the conundrum of a capitalist society to the extent that it’s truly a conundrum at all.

CARYN GANZ Football is the quintessential problematic fave. And like Michael Jackson, it’s too challenging to cancel, too big to fail, too embedded in the fabric of American leisure to rip out. (For now, at least.) The Super Bowl is drama, emotion, identity, catharsis, spectacle, skill, power: It’s nearly impossible to find a viewer beyond its scope. It’s no longer possible to keep up with everything happening in television, movies, music and digital media, but the Super Bowl is one of the last gasps of the monoculture. It’s a given and a gimme: It has almost no barrier for entry — one network channel, one block of time when nobody is expected to be doing anything other than watching the Super Bowl.

And as for the ethical conundrum, ethics are under siege in every corner of our society: on social media, in Washington, in college admissions, on the music charts. In an era of “LOL nothing matters,” where does football rank on the scale of horrors? Even if your answer is “quite high,” there are 100 million other viewers willing to share the shame.

CONSIDINE Still, let’s be cleareyed: If you watch the Super Bowl, you are financially and ethically supporting the N.F.L. And yet, I rarely hear these issues surface when we talk about the Super Bowl as pop culture. I wonder why we’re so deferential? Has any Super Bowl happening or halftime show made a truly lasting cultural impact?

GANZ Oh yes, they have. Part of the power of the halftime show is its sheer reach. Music (like sports) is a powerful uniter, but so much of the way we experience it now is in isolation: via playlists shaped by our personal listening habits that are beamed directly into our headphones. A live stadium show allows 100,000 people to share an experience; the Grammys attracted 18.7 million viewers to its live broadcast. With the exception of the Eurovision song contest (which was watched by 182 million people last year), the Super Bowl is as big as it gets now for live music.

Few people (other than me) may recall which songs Madonna played during her set in 2012, but her halftime yielded a landmark pop culture moment: M.I.A. extending her middle finger on national TV. In the past decade, halftime’s meme-able mini-events have become almost as memorable as who won the game: Adam Levine’s bare torso (2019), Lady Gaga’s leap (2017), Beyoncé’s fierce “Formation” (2016), Left Shark (2015), even Bruce Springsteen’s crotch slide (2009). And we could talk about Prince’s Super Bowl all day long.

MORRIS Caryn, don’t play. You know I know Madonna’s set list from that night.

I also remember how the emotional properties of the Boston bar where I watched that game completely changed as her halftime show began. The Patriots were about to lose another Super Bowl to the Giants, and even though they were up (by a point) going into the second half, that woman and her friends seemed to lighten the mood. Men were mouthing along to “Open Your Heart.” But they were also happy to partake in the spectacle of a 53-year-old imposing her sexual-identity gender circus (a phalanx of beefcake transported her to the stage) upon a sport whose stated orientation points, non-negotiably, one way.

This is to say that the halftime show can be received multiple ways at once. It’s an event complicit in all that dismays us about American football as a whole and the N.F.L. especially: players’ physical and mental health; compensation and exploitation; the sanctioned conflation with the league and our military; the names. Kansas City’s excellent Super Bowl team is the Chiefs; and when fans are feeling confidently vicious, half the arms in the stadium begin to tomahawk chop. They’re not the so-called Redskins, and yet the team brings with it many centuries of terrible history anytime it plays — anytime its “merch” is sold.)

But the halftime show is also an event wholly outside the problems of the sport. Its stars have been imported and occasionally seem eager to practice subversion, as Madonna and Beyoncé have; to practice an exuberant nothing, as Katy Perry has. It is what its stars fight for it to be. I’m enormously excited to see what J. Lo and Shakira have fought for.

We are, though, at a really fascinating place now. An aspect of the culture is asking these entertainers to consider what it means to partake in an event that could feature any number of problematic figures. (Tyreek Hill is a star Chief.) And on Madonna’s night, in 2012, Aaron Hernandez scored one of the Patriots’ touchdowns. Six months later, he shot and killed two men.

GANZ Halftime may hover in a space outside the problems of the sport, but it has its own crises related to football’s troubled racial and gender dynamics. Consider how the Super Bowl completely reshaped Janet Jackson’s career. Jackson had five No. 1 albums and was known as one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, but less than three seconds in 2004 — so-called “Nipplegate,” when her bare breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake during the last moments of their performance — rewrote her entire history, plunging her into years of purgatory. It only briefly affected Timberlake’s, since he has the luxury of being white and male. (Remember, he returned to headline halftime in 2018.)

CONSIDINE Does making Jennifer Lopez and Shakira the halftime show headliners — a first for Latinas — feel like a transparent scramble by the N.F.L. to virtue-signal? To be more charitable, it makes sense that the league might simply want to pay tribute to the Hispanic heritage of this year’s host city, Miami. But wasn’t the N.F.L. probably compelled to do something a little extra after the outspoken way in which multiple artists last year turned down the opportunity in support of Colin Kaepernick? And after Rihanna did the same this season?

GANZ Sports and music are two arenas in which the stars are mostly young and black but work in a structure still largely controlled by older white men. The idea that some of the most powerful players in the music industry shunned halftime last year is a compelling one. (Maroon 5 agreed to perform and paid some sort of karmic tax.) This year is the first under the partnership between Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and the league, an attempt to smooth over tensions and bring a crumb of social-justice work to the game. And it’s interesting that this year’s headliners are both Latin pop stars, and neither black nor rappers. The halftime show hasn’t had a black headliner since Beyoncé in 2013; the closest it’s come to a hip-hop headliner is the Black Eyed Peas. If football fans are perceived to be so conservative they’d switch the channel rather than watch rappers, why hasn’t country music ever been very welcome at halftime? Its last appearance came 17 years ago with Shania Twain.

CONSIDINE The dearth of country music at halftime is interesting when you consider that the singer most associated with the N.F.L. in recent years has been Carrie Underwood — and before that, Hank Williams Jr. For that reason, I suspect that country music wouldn’t actually be unwelcome by most football fans at halftime. I’m also interested in a reverse question: Why has non-country music always been welcome?

My guess is that with the exception of one Trump-fueled moment in which some conservative fans skipped a game or two, the league knows it has that demographic locked down, no matter who performs at halftime. The billing, then, is a chance for the N.F.L. to snag some extra eyeballs, and pop is a surefire way to do it.

In racial or political terms, I’ll wager many of those fans who objected to Kaepernick’s knee-taking fancy themselves quite open-minded — or at least magnanimously indifferent — regarding the race or style of the performers, same as with the players. If I’m right, then the N.F.L. risks little in ignoring those fans’ musical preferences for 15 minutes. Intolerant people make low-stakes claims to tolerance all the time. But that tolerance reveals its limits when, say, a black man takes a knee.

MORRIS Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett and their fellow protesting players knelt for ideals that I, too, believe in. Pleas for justice and equality are controversial coming only from black athletes expected — hired — to run, throw, catch and dunk. But the culture has moved past the protests. Kaepernick still has a sports job of sorts. He works for Nike. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl remains this idyllic vestige of who we thought we were. It’s Americana that like lots of Americana is built on a cemetery of sorts. We flock to it as we do because it’s a spectatorship department store — sports, ads, music.

A lot of us remember the alleged simpler times when it was easier to pretend that entertainment was all it was. On one Sunday, we can pause Everything Else and just enjoy a miraculous helmet catch or a commercial for a job-finding company. It’s also a stable structure. We all know it. We know it will never change and therefore never challenge most people to confront more than their losing team. There’s no M.C. to be urbane or smug or real. Setting aside the violence at its center, it’s safe, a haven from so much. History in the making but also passionately ahistorical. Americana on the one hand, sure. But also just America.

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[larissaloki]

Walking Avengers 8

Lightning flashed in the not so far distance as the group pulled up outside a house on an seemingly empty street. It brought back memories of Thor to Tony who wondered often how the God was. Was Thor trapped on Asgard? Did he deem the human race doomed and turned his attention onto another realm? So Many unanswered questions running around his head.

Sighing softly, Tony urged Peter up as the other car pulls up behind their car, the rest of the group joining them. He had spent the rest of yesterday in a bit of a mess after what happened at the housing construction site. When they settled for the night in the town he pulled himself together, Peter needed him to continue being strong for him.

If Tony fell apart, how would that reflect onto Peter? His son looks up to him for protection and guidance. He blames all this on being so close all the time to Dom’s, affecting his hormones causing them to fluctuate most likely! Yeah…Tony was going to go with that. There had been studies that prolonged exposure to Dom’s could affect Sub’s.

This morning upon awaking, Tony had pulled up his metaphorical bootstraps and put his emotions back into check. Keeping Peter close and taking down any Deado that got within 10 feet of him and his Son. He was continually Snarling at Steve to back off, as he had taken to hovering right at Tony’s elbow since the incident. Quick to try to push Tony and Peter back or trying to keep Tony outside of the shops incase of Danger.

It was ridiculous, as a group they had decided they needed to split to gather more food as they had none left. The last of it eaten yesterday and this morning for breakfast.

The search also helped delay them to give Bucky time to catch up, so everyone was content to spend the whole day scavenging the town and the supermarkets. Taking the cars so to make quick getaways and also easier to carry everything they do pick up. Tony had even found a few books on guns and bullet making to keep around. He himself already knew how to make the bullets obviously, but he was pretty sure the others weren’t as well versed in weapons making as he was. So having a few books on hand should they find a suitable facility, would be useful should for whatever reason, he was unable to make the bullets himself.

Pulling his mind back to the present, Tony ushered his tired prodigy towards the back of the car to begin transferring some of what they got into the house they cleared last night. Happy to ignore the chatting behind him.

“How diid your guys search go?” Steve’s voice is a low rumble, at any other time Tony would have found soothing and pleasant. Right then he just found it irritating after the long day.

“Not to bad, we found some tins and water. But mostly we found some better clothing that would protect us better and some camping gear should we need it, you know out in the middle of in the middle of nowhere.” Clint quipped from the back of the truck. Grabbing some stuff some it along with Sam.

By Steve, Natasha rolled her eyes a bit but nods in agreement to Clint’s remark. “That’s pretty much what we found.”

“We found similar stuff, only Tony raided a book store and a pharmacy that miraculously had some things left.”

Frowning Sam paused by the two talking, “Books? Why would you want to stop by a book store?”

“Tony wanted to get a few medical books and some on weapons and bullet making. I have to admit, they could come in handy should we find ourselves without someone that’s an expert in both areas.”

Conceding to that argument, Sam carried on in behind Tony and Bruce with Clint bringing up the rear.

Steve waited til they were all inside before opening his mouth again, “Any sign of him?” He look at Natasha hopeful, any sign would be welcome right now. He felt lost without his best friend/perhaps lover. His shoulders sagged though as Natasha shook her head no, her out down turned at the corners in worry.

“Not even a footprint. We checked any and all buildings we thought Bucky may of taken shelter in. Nothing.”

“Damn it Bucky, if you got your ass killed I’ll kill you..” grumbling to himself, Steve grabbed his own bags and a few left in the back of the car.

- - - -

Blind panic. That was all Bucky felt as he scrambles backwards after tripping over. His eyes glued on the fast approaching horde. Rotting teeth and greedy hands snapped and reached for him. Each Deado’s jostling to get to him first.

His back hits a wall, meaning he needs to get up fast. Gritting his teeth he gets up wincing as his ankle hurts, must have twisted it as he fell just a moment ago. Doing his best to ignore the horde not far from him he pushes one dead that’s gotten near, back to hit and trip up some. It’s a dead end, he can’t really run in any direction as the horde surrounds him.

“Fucking great…” Gripping his knives in his hand tightly he raises them up ready to fight. If he’s going down, he may as well as take as many of these things with him as possible. Steeling himself he prepares to lash out at the nearest one.

A blinding flash forces him to squeeze his eyes shut and shrink back ducking down to cover his head. A boom reverberates overhead, a crack snaps above and the snarling in front is drowned out. He waits for the inevitable hands to grab at him to start tearing at his flesh. However, he instead’s smells something putrid burning. The sickening scent burns in his nose making his eyes water and gag.

Memories of the war flash through his mind suddenly. Swallowing bile that tries to climb up his throat, Bucky tries to force the traumatic memories away. His body shaking at how vivid they are. The flash of the bang grenades. The smell of burning bodies in the fields. With tremendous effort he pulls himself out of his head and shoves everything to he back of his mind. Compartmentalizing Natasha would call this. Shutting away thoughts and separating them to be able to deal with the present.

The flash seems to go as quick as it appeared. Hesitantly, Bucky peeks out through his hair that had fallen in front of his face. Shocked, Bucky lower his arms to look at the very much barbecued Deado’s that littered the floor.

“What the hell…”

Movement from his left catches his attention, head snapping in that direction Bucky brings up his knives again. Upon seeing who it actually is, he falters and lowers them again.

“Thor?”

Baffled Bucky walks towards the Asgardian prince, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head. They had thought that Thor wouldn’t be coming back ever again. Yet here he was! The Asgardian in question looked pretty much the same as before. Long golden hair Half pulled back out of his face with only a thin wisp that hangs loose. A short beard covers his chin that gives him somehow an endearing look. His leather hide like armor and long red cape that are exactly as he remembered, completes the look.

“I didn’t think you would be coming back! No one did!” Grinning in relief he clasps hands with the thunder god, patting his other shoulder. “Am I glad to see you though, always in the nick of time huh?”

Grinning Thor greets him back, “We came as soon as possible my friend!”

“…We?”

“Oh right! Loki came with me!” At that Thor turns and points up on top of a building where indeed, the younger sibling lounged on an ac unit. Idly inspecting his nails.

“Thor, why isn’t he in prison?”

“We kind of had a planetary crises ourselves. Loki helped me!” Beaming happily up a his brother, Thor walks towards the building. “Loki come down! It’s friend Bucky!”

“Riveting, don’t mind me while I contain my excitement…”

“Still as charming as ever Loki I see” A smile is the only reply he gets when he suddenly remembers the kid in the car. “Wade!” Turning around, Bucky runs back to the car wrenching open a door in his panic to make sure Wade is ok.

“Kiddo, you ok?!” Leaning in Bucky peeks further in to see where Wade is hiding and exhales heavily in relief when his head pops up from the foot well.

“Bucky! Is it safe now?”

“Yeah kiddo, they’re all gone now, Thor got to us in time” Grinning he helps the kid out of the car.

“Thor?! You mean god of thunder Thor?!” Jumping excitedly, Wade peers around the sides of Bucky, eyes wide with wonder and awe when he spots the god. “It’s Thor!!” Pointing erratically, Wade tugs at Bucky to go towards the god. Chuckling good naturedly, happy to see the kid happy finally he allows himself to be pulled along to Thor.

“Calm down kiddo! He’s not going anywhere,”

Thor grins as he sees them approach and look down at the young kid, patiently waiting for him to get control of his excitement.

“Oh my god you’re really Thor! You are awesome! Is that Mjolnir? Is that Loki? Can you fit your fist in your mouth?”

“Oooookay there kiddo, one question at a time once we get moving ok? We best get in the car and start moving on, who knows what your lightning will attract.”

Nodding Thor looks bemused by the kids motor mouth as they head to the car once Loki finally joins them. “‘Tis would be the best course of action, tell me friend Bucky. Where are the others?”

“We got separated by a horde of those things you bbq’ed a moment ago. I found this kid while on the run.”

“Hmmm, we must find the others. Safety in numbers and all that…”

“I think I know roughly the direction they could of gone in. We may be able to still catch up.” Bucky slipped into the drivers side, Thor in the passenger side as the other two got into the back.

“Loki, do you have a spell we could use to find the direction of the others?”

“Finally you ask brother! Yes I do actually but we need a safer place to stop for me to perform it.”

Grinning Bucky starts the car and drives off, heading back to the main road to look for a safe place to stop for a bit. Silence settles over the group for a few moments when Loki leans forward to speak to Thor.

“So out of curiosity, can you fit your fist in your mouth?”

[mastcomm]

The Super Bowl Is Problematic. Why Can’t We Look Away?

AUSTIN CONSIDINE Friends: I know what I’m doing Sunday. I know what you’re doing Sunday. As full-time culture journalists, to ignore the Super Bowl would be a gross dereliction of duty. That’s because the Super Bowl isn’t just a game. It’s the halftime show; it’s the ads; it’s the chips and guac. It is sport but also music, dance, costumes, TV production and stage design — a pop culture event greater than the sum of its parts.

Perhaps most important, it was watched last year by roughly 100 million people: In a world of on-demand entertainment, the Super Bowl is one of the last true vestiges of an era when we all watched the same things at the same time.

But I, like a lot of sports fans, have struggled in recent years to reconcile what is beautiful about the game with what is ugly. First, there’s the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits — not only to concussions — which the N.F.L. actively worked to conceal. Then there are the league’s troubles with domestic abuse and race. We could unpack those for days, but let it suffice to note that Tyreek Hill still has a job and Colin Kaepernick does not.

Some fans have learned to tolerate the cognitive dissonance, or to square their free enjoyment with the ostensible free will of the players. Others, like me, have trouble shouldering our complicity with football’s worst elements and have mostly stopped watching. But regardless, fans or not, we mostly show up for the Super Bowl. Why is that?

WESLEY MORRIS Austin, I, too, have consumed less football in the last five years because the hits can be hard to watch, because the punitive, allegedly apolitical stances of the league are themselves paradoxically political. There are many amazing physical achievements in this sport. There’s endless ridiculousness. The choreographed end-zone celebration, for instance, has gleefully migrated to other sports. And the league, in spite of itself, has a muscular charitable wing.

This is to say that loving the N.F.L. means putting up with a lot. But its outsize popularity also seems a partial answer to the moral riddle that’s so openly vexed us these past two or three years. How do we enjoy the work of bad, unpleasant, corrupt people and institutions? Of criminals? Does opting into the Super Bowl experience then condone the problems of football? Can spectatorship be anything but an endorsement? It’s the conundrum of a capitalist society to the extent that it’s truly a conundrum at all.

CARYN GANZ Football is the quintessential problematic fave. And like Michael Jackson, it’s too challenging to cancel, too big to fail, too embedded in the fabric of American leisure to rip out. (For now, at least.) The Super Bowl is drama, emotion, identity, catharsis, spectacle, skill, power: It’s nearly impossible to find a viewer beyond its scope. It’s no longer possible to keep up with everything happening in television, movies, music and digital media, but the Super Bowl is one of the last gasps of the monoculture. It’s a given and a gimme: It has almost no barrier for entry — one network channel, one block of time when nobody is expected to be doing anything other than watching the Super Bowl.

And as for the ethical conundrum, ethics are under siege in every corner of our society: on social media, in Washington, in college admissions, on the music charts. In an era of “LOL nothing matters,” where does football rank on the scale of horrors? Even if your answer is “quite high,” there are 100 million other viewers willing to share the shame.

CONSIDINE Still, let’s be cleareyed: If you watch the Super Bowl, you are financially and ethically supporting the N.F.L. And yet, I rarely hear these issues surface when we talk about the Super Bowl as pop culture. I wonder why we’re so deferential? Has any Super Bowl happening or halftime show made a truly lasting cultural impact?

GANZ Oh yes, they have. Part of the power of the halftime show is its sheer reach. Music (like sports) is a powerful uniter, but so much of the way we experience it now is in isolation: via playlists shaped by our personal listening habits that are beamed directly into our headphones. A live stadium show allows 100,000 people to share an experience; the Grammys attracted 18.7 million viewers to its live broadcast. With the exception of the Eurovision song contest (which was watched by 182 million people last year), the Super Bowl is as big as it gets now for live music.

Few people (other than me) may recall which songs Madonna played during her set in 2012, but her halftime yielded a landmark pop culture moment: M.I.A. extending her middle finger on national TV. In the past decade, halftime’s meme-able mini-events have become almost as memorable as who won the game: Adam Levine’s bare torso (2019), Lady Gaga’s leap (2017), Beyoncé’s fierce “Formation” (2016), Left Shark (2015), even Bruce Springsteen’s crotch slide (2009). And we could talk about Prince’s Super Bowl all day long.

MORRIS Caryn, don’t play. You know I know Madonna’s set list from that night.

I also remember how the emotional properties of the Boston bar where I watched that game completely changed as her halftime show began. The Patriots were about to lose another Super Bowl to the Giants, and even though they were up (by a point) going into the second half, that woman and her friends seemed to lighten the mood. Men were mouthing along to “Open Your Heart.” But they were also happy to partake in the spectacle of a 53-year-old imposing her sexual-identity gender circus (a phalanx of beefcake transported her to the stage) upon a sport whose stated orientation points, non-negotiably, one way.

This is to say that the halftime show can be received multiple ways at once. It’s an event complicit in all that dismays us about American football as a whole and the N.F.L. especially: players’ physical and mental health; compensation and exploitation; the sanctioned conflation with the league and our military; the names. Kansas City’s excellent Super Bowl team is the Chiefs; and when fans are feeling confidently vicious, half the arms in the stadium begin to tomahawk chop. They’re not the so-called Redskins, and yet the team brings with it many centuries of terrible history anytime it plays — anytime its “merch” is sold.)

But the halftime show is also an event wholly outside the problems of the sport. Its stars have been imported and occasionally seem eager to practice subversion, as Madonna and Beyoncé have; to practice an exuberant nothing, as Katy Perry has. It is what its stars fight for it to be. I’m enormously excited to see what J. Lo and Shakira have fought for.

We are, though, at a really fascinating place now. An aspect of the culture is asking these entertainers to consider what it means to partake in an event that could feature any number of problematic figures. (Tyreek Hill is a star Chief.) And on Madonna’s night, in 2012, Aaron Hernandez scored one of the Patriots’ touchdowns. Six months later, he shot and killed two men.

GANZ Halftime may hover in a space outside the problems of the sport, but it has its own crises related to football’s troubled racial and gender dynamics. Consider how the Super Bowl completely reshaped Janet Jackson’s career. Jackson had five No. 1 albums and was known as one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, but less than three seconds in 2004 — so-called “Nipplegate,” when her bare breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake during the last moments of their performance — rewrote her entire history, plunging her into years of purgatory. It only briefly affected Timberlake’s, since he has the luxury of being white and male. (Remember, he returned to headline halftime in 2018.)

CONSIDINE Does making Jennifer Lopez and Shakira the halftime show headliners — a first for Latinas — feel like a transparent scramble by the N.F.L. to virtue-signal? To be more charitable, it makes sense that the league might simply want to pay tribute to the Hispanic heritage of this year’s host city, Miami. But wasn’t the N.F.L. probably compelled to do something a little extra after the outspoken way in which multiple artists last year turned down the opportunity in support of Colin Kaepernick? And after Rihanna did the same this season?

GANZ Sports and music are two arenas in which the stars are mostly young and black but work in a structure still largely controlled by older white men. The idea that some of the most powerful players in the music industry shunned halftime last year is a compelling one. (Maroon 5 agreed to perform and paid some sort of karmic tax.) This year is the first under the partnership between Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and the league, an attempt to smooth over tensions and bring a crumb of social-justice work to the game. And it’s interesting that this year’s headliners are both Latin pop stars, and neither black nor rappers. The halftime show hasn’t had a black headliner since Beyoncé in 2013; the closest it’s come to a hip-hop headliner is the Black Eyed Peas. If football fans are perceived to be so conservative they’d switch the channel rather than watch rappers, why hasn’t country music ever been very welcome at halftime? Its last appearance came 17 years ago with Shania Twain.

CONSIDINE The dearth of country music at halftime is interesting when you consider that the singer most associated with the N.F.L. in recent years has been Carrie Underwood — and before that, Hank Williams Jr. For that reason, I suspect that country music wouldn’t actually be unwelcome by most football fans at halftime. I’m also interested in a reverse question: Why has non-country music always been welcome?

My guess is that with the exception of one Trump-fueled moment in which some conservative fans skipped a game or two, the league knows it has that demographic locked down, no matter who performs at halftime. The billing, then, is a chance for the N.F.L. to snag some extra eyeballs, and pop is a surefire way to do it.

In racial or political terms, I’ll wager many of those fans who objected to Kaepernick’s knee-taking fancy themselves quite open-minded — or at least magnanimously indifferent — regarding the race or style of the performers, same as with the players. If I’m right, then the N.F.L. risks little in ignoring those fans’ musical preferences for 15 minutes. Intolerant people make low-stakes claims to tolerance all the time. But that tolerance reveals its limits when, say, a black man takes a knee.

MORRIS Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett and their fellow protesting players knelt for ideals that I, too, believe in. Pleas for justice and equality are controversial coming only from black athletes expected — hired — to run, throw, catch and dunk. But the culture has moved past the protests. Kaepernick still has a sports job of sorts. He works for Nike. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl remains this idyllic vestige of who we thought we were. It’s Americana that like lots of Americana is built on a cemetery of sorts. We flock to it as we do because it’s a spectatorship department store — sports, ads, music.

A lot of us remember the alleged simpler times when it was easier to pretend that entertainment was all it was. On one Sunday, we can pause Everything Else and just enjoy a miraculous helmet catch or a commercial for a job-finding company. It’s also a stable structure. We all know it. We know it will never change and therefore never challenge most people to confront more than their losing team. There’s no M.C. to be urbane or smug or real. Setting aside the violence at its center, it’s safe, a haven from so much. History in the making but also passionately ahistorical. Americana on the one hand, sure. But also just America.

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