#apparently the bear parents were based on the original writers who were the exact same age

[thesmokinpossum]

Bruh, I kept seeing that post about mama bear from the Berenstain Bears being 27 years so I went and checked to see if it was actually true…Well, it is but I also learned that papa bear is canonically 39 years old, which wouldn't be that disturbing except for the fact that their eldest son is 10-11 years old (!!!) and now I'm genuinely grossed out

[irinapaleolog]

‘Last Jedi’ Didn’t Undo ‘Force Awakens,’ But ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Retconned Disney’s ‘Star Wars’ Saga

There is a difference between offering unpopular answers to a previous film’s questions and replacing the answers of a previous installment with your own in the next sequel.

Four months after its domestic theatrical debut (not counting Thursday previews), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($515 million domestic and $1.174 billion worldwide) will be our last blockbuster movie at least until Tenet in July. I will use this “once a month” Rise of Skywalker post (which will continue until theater re-open or until morale improves) to complain about Force Awakens editors Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon (specifically Markey) arguing in a Mission: Impossible podcast “Light the Fuse,” stating that The Last Jedi (slight paraphrasing) so consciously undid the storytelling of The Force Awakens. We’ve been having this conversation for 2.5 years. It’s one thing when critics, bloggers, pundits, random folks on social media and the like get into this debate. But when the folks actually working on the movies do, failing to understand what a retcon actually is, well...

Star Wars: The Force Awakens used the narrative backbone of the first Star Wars movie to reintroduce the franchise, including a handful of “original trilogy” characters (Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, etc.), along with new would-be heroes and villains in a crowdpleasing blockbuster adventure that earned $937 million domestic and $2.068 billion worldwide. I felt the film was too slavishly devoted to the structure and character beats of the original film to its emotional detriment, but my dad (who I was able to fly out for the premiere as a 70th birthday present) loved it, plenty of my fellow critics liked it and the new characters (Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, etc.) became instant favorites with fans young and old. It also teased character-specific reveals about its new heroine and its new villains while ending on a big cliffhanger.

The Force Awakens ended with Han Solo having been slain by his own son and Finn in a coma with Rey having realized that she had “Force powers” and tracking down a self-exiled Luke Skywalker. We weren’t told if Rey’s lineage or Snoke’s origins had any bearing on the story, we weren’t told if Finn would survive his light saber battle with Kylo (although we all presumed he would) and we certainly didn’t know for sure why Luke, now looking like an elder hermit, had skipped out on the “First Order versus Resistance” battle and hidden away at the first Jedi temple. It is entirely fine that The Force Awakens left these threads dangling in the wind, and that the film (which was absolutely guaranteed to have a sequel) ended with a glorified “To be CONTINUED!”

Yes, I would argue that much of the speculation and debate over Snoke’s origins and Rey’s parentage was not from the movie but from bloggers and writers who spent the next two years offering what at best were educated guesses. With J.J. Abrams not returning to helm The Last Jedi and Colin Treverrow already signed to direct “Star Wars IX,” we really had no idea A) what Abrams’ answers to those questions might be or B) if those threads really mattered at all to the grand story. It was possible that Snoke was just a political operator, and that Rey’s obsession with her parents was purely part of her “the belonging you seek lies not behind you but in front of you” character arc (personified in Finn and Han risking capture and death to rescue Rey from Starkiller base).

Now it is 100% fair to not be happy with how things played out in Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. The middle flick in Disney’s Star Wars trilogy revealed that A) Rey’s parents were nobodies who didn’t even love her and B) Snoke was merely a stepping stone to Kylo Ren seizing control of the First Order. Sure, maybe you wanted Rey to be a Skywalker or a Palpatine. Maybe you expected Snoke to have a backstory or a reveal as some long-ago Star Wars character (Mace Windu?) reborn as a genocidal dictator. But there is a big difference between “I didn’t like Last Jedi’s answers to the questions Force Awakens posed” and “Last Jedi knowing rewrote or retconned Force Awakens.” Just because the onscreen events didn’t match your head-cannon doesn’t make them incorrect.

The Force Awakens no more gave us answers to its questions than did Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes offer an explanation to its infamous “now the apes rule our Earth too” cliffhanger. If you listen to the DVD commentary to that 2001 “re-imagining” (which was still so disliked that it didn’t spawn a sequel despite earning $385 million on a $100 million budget), you’ll hear Burton specifically stating that he intentionally didn’t offer an explanation for why the Abraham Lincoln statue now resembled Tim Roth’s ape baddie specifically so whomever directed the follow-up could offer their own answers. You can debate whether that was the correct choice, but I would argue that Abrams, again this is not a criticism, did the exact same thing in The Force Awakens.

He left Luke on an island, put Finn into a coma, turned Poe from a “dies in the first act” cameo to a major supporting character and said “Okay, it’s your ball now, go play.” In a sense, that was generous of him, since it meant that The Last Jedi had more freedom to use that first film however it chose. The problem is that Treverrow essentially got sacked and Abrams came back to helm the third installment. The result was a retroactive retcon of The Last Jedi’s character beats and plot twists. I don’t think Treverrow’s (alleged) script for Star Wars IX is the best thing in the world, but it was at least a “yes, and...” sequel to The Last Jedi. Rise of Skywalker essentially ignored The Last Jedi, to its character-specific detriment.

Rise of Skywalker opened with Rey again being unsure of her Force abilities and lacking confidence in her own powers, Finn pining over Rey and caring more about her than about the “cause,” and Poe regressing to a conventional hot-shot fly boy sans earned maturity from his failed leadership in Last Jedi. Retroactively making Rey into a Palpatine and Snoke into a “cooked in a bottle” clone while bringing a cloned Palpatine back to life not only negated the storytelling of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi but (to a lesser extent) the original Star Wars trilogy. Bringing the Emperor back to “life” negated Anakin Skywalker’s final sacrifice in Return of the Jedi, while retroactively making Rey Sheev’s grand kid, which Luke and Lea apparently knew all along, turns their previous interactions into a mess of contradictions.

It matters whether the people working on the movies know that offering unpopular or controversial answers to a previous film’s mysteries is not the same thing as rewriting or negating that prior installment. The Last Jedi was (somewhat) controversial partially because it gave unexpected (unpopular?) answers to questions teased in The Force Awakens. The Rise of Skywalker was (somewhat) controversial partially because it walked back those reveals seemingly to retroactively retain the answers that Abrams had in his head while making Force Awakens, with “new” answers that A) weren’t terribly popular themselves and B) wasted valuable screen-time which could have been spent on a forward-moving sequel to both Force Awakens and Last Jedi. Last Jedi didn’t retcon or undue Force Awakens. But Rises of Skywalker managed to retcon not just its predecessors but the entire Star Wars saga.

[gigageekmag]

Comic Book Review: Calico

CALICO ISSUE #1

Welcome back GiGa Community; as you all know, at fifteen years old, in 1992, I had an opportunity and pleasure of interning at Marvel Comics in Manhattan, New York; Spider-man office to be exact.  It was during that year that I had delved into the comic book industry, soaking it all in, down to my very fabric of my soul.  I loved all of the intellectual properties, their stories, and the craft; I knew I wanted Comics to be a part of my future life story.   I was a fan of some characters, and ambivalent to others, but never the less, just like family I loved them all (Some more than others of course); the environment moved my soul.  To this day, I still find being an artist to be one of my first loves, and comic books satisfied that yearning.  The culmination of efforts between a writer, penciler, inker, letterer, colorist, and editor was to me, an amalgamation of geniuses at work.  I love and respect the craft.

Sigma Comics

GiGa: GeekMagazine was contacted by Sigma Comics asking for an honest review of their newly released comic series, Calico.  I was unsure of who this new IP was that was entering the competitive arena, so I did superficial research, watched an interview, and a review; it seemed to be worth the read.   The first complimentary comic came and as busy as I am, I opened it and felt the cover art seemed acceptable for a comic book in 2021, but I didn’t have a peaceful undisturbed moment to read it, so I left it on my desk to be ready for the day I found a free opportunity to read it, then write a review.  My family and I left the house for a few hours, and when I returned I went straight to my office and hadn’t realized the comic was no longer on my desk.  A few seconds after I sat down, my daughter calls me, “Papi, look what Ivi did”!

Ivi Snow knew She really did it this time.

Ivi Snow is one of my two white German Shepherds, she is 1½ years old, so I am accustomed to finding “surprises” when we come back home; I thought it was poop again. A minute later my daughter comes to my office holding my complimentary issue of Calico in shreds.  Needless to say I was peeved and Ivi knew it. Then I remembered what the premise of the comic was.  “NYC HAS A NEW ANTI–HERO. Every day millions of animals are abused and killed. Animal rights groups and charities try to help, yet the savagery continues.”  Sigma Comics appears to be committed to fighting animal abuse. I laughed at the irony of this moment and took a picture of her with the destroyed comic, apparently, she enjoyed the comic.  I couldn’t read it, as a substantial part of the first few pages were now gone.  With that above picture attached to an email to Sigma comics, I humbly apologized and requested another review copy, I was willing to pay for it at this point, but the great people at Sigma found humor in the event as well and sent me another. When the next copy arrived I kept it in my safe this time, and that night when I was done with work, I read it before I went to bed.  I opened the cover and this time, I was able to really absorb the content.   I applauded the first impression, it was transparent in showing their allegiance to the cause, “American Humane”, as a parent to two German Shepherds, I was sold. 

The first page was gripping, showing an example of the atrocities committed upon animals and the visualization was almost too tough to bear, but I was roped in, I had to read on.  We get our first glimpse into the soul of our Anti-Hero on page two, with tears running from angry eyes, the penciler, inker, and colorist nailed the conviction this character was driven by, and we’re then introduced to Calico “A one-man arsenal of destruction in constant pursuit of justice for the smallest and weakest among us…” 

In his apartment he works his frustration on a double end bag, his thoughts speak poignant commentary as to the nature of life being nothing but conflict in every facet of existence and we see where his psychological state dwells; he’s scared and/or resentful of life and bitterly expresses this in his own twisted way.  The Boxing Gym advertisement on page 5 could easily be dismissed as fictitious until a little research clarified that it is indeed a real business; as an ex-fighter boxer, martial artist, and ex-body guard myself, I respected that blurring between fantasy and reality as it was perfectly in line with the tale that I was uploading to my brain.

The writer then takes the reader on a journey through the life of Calico, recalling childhood memories of being bullied.  This alludes to post traumatic damage; he hates bullies and had long since made the decision to suffer them no longer.  We next accompany the protagonist from his apartment to a local boxing gym where he trains and prepares for an upcoming tournament, and while there, he loses himself in the art of combat.  His thoughts become louder than spoken words; he’s a fighter with unfortunate luck, struggling skill, and lots of animosity.  Here is where the reader learns this character has no reservation about the thought of condemning the abuser to death and that animals were his only friends since his youth.

Page 8 we’re given a full frontal nude of the hero in the shower after leaving the gym, even in the shower he’s consumed by antipathy as conveyed by more flashbacks of the same bully from his youth; he’s never recovered from those years.  This memory was different, ironically, it was in this recollection where he was impressed by an alley-cat that scared off the bully and his dog, which serves as a perfect transition into revealing his super-hero outfit emblazoned with a black cat’s profile in front of what appears to be a moon.  He also has a flying robotic AI assistant named Bumble that is a metallic sphere with one camera eye. Then, we’re back to his childhood memories, this time he evokes the very first time he inflicted pain by punching that bully in the face before fleeing the scene.  Page 13 is where things escalate quickly, so I won’t spoil it for interested readers.

So here’s my honest review and rating:

Comic book Production:   I feel the writing could have been more impacting and/or expansive; a name would have been nice to have, but it served its purpose; The art is what communicated the story the most.  Lettering was great, the penciling and inking were acceptable as well, but gets a little hard to understand what’s happening during the murder scene.   

The Character: His real name is never revealed, but from how Calico was insultingly called a “Dominican York” translated from Spanish, he is likely Latino. I think the character is less anti-hero and more of a deranged, sociopathic, villain with post-traumatic stress. He’s fed a list of targets by an unknown accomplice, he intends to kill, (and/or violate) which to me is the modus operandi of a serial killer. I couldn’t see the word “Hero” being applicable to this guy in anyway.

The full frontal nude, to me, was unnecessary, but being a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta I’ve drawn male nudes before, so I respect the art, 100%.  That scene only became awkward after the second penis comment. Which helped me to get a better understanding  of the mind of the protagonist as portrayed and communicated by the writer. I think the outfit really is too similar to Black Panther.

As per the multiple male phallus related comments and insults, along with, what I found to be excessive homo-erotic language, it seemed in my humble opinion, as if there’s other unresolved issues besides being bullied that Calico has never addressed.   In one scene, I had to look at one scene under better light to understand that Calico actually violates or rapes his victim with a red hot pipe, all while making references to size; he says to his victim, “Relax! It’s only one-inch thick pipe. In penis size its only four-inch girth. You got this”.  the last unnecessary thing I read that really nailed the coffin shut for me was the statement, “F*** em. Hard. in the @ss. With no vaseline”.

Concept: I personally, don’t think the character could have longevity, and if so possibly as a novelty act; appropriate for an 8-Issue Series. He possibly may develop a fan base, but with a very niche market.  He is not a “Deadpool” type of anti-hero, I’d say this brooding character is damaged psychologically which easily could bleed over into villainy. I couldn’t see the Dark Knight tolerating this character, or working with him in any way, and would probably bring him to justice.  In comparison to other anti-heroes, such as Hulk, Ghost Rider, Blade, or the Punisher, I’d say even Frank Castle wouldn’t see his motivations, means, or ends as acceptable.  I see a more deviant sociopathic “Joker” kind of weirdness from Calico minus the smiles and laughing.

Conclusion:  It’s a comic book, it fits the criteria. I wasn’t left feeling like I want to read more, but I am only one man, with one opinion worth 2 cents.  I endeavor to say it could have been written for a broader appeal to a wider audience; for me, I feel the niche-aspect will leave some put off or uninterested.  But somehow, I’m sure this will pull the targeted audience it was meant for.  In the end, Sigma successfully this debut is a great accomplishment for the creators and production team and for that I salute and respect their creative vision, hard work, and love for the craft.  I’d give it 3 out 5 Stars ★★★☆☆ ~Jack~

Image Sources: > https://sigmacomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/sigma-comics-large.jpg > https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry_id/1_gapzb7c1/def_height/800/def_width/520/version/100011/type/1

Comic Book Review: Calico was originally published on GIGA: GeekMagazine