#because Matt has so many interesting love interests in the comics to choose from

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

‘Daredevil’ Star Deborah Ann Woll: Marvel Hasn’t Called Me to Join Disney+ Reboot, So ‘I Am Not Part of It’

By Zack Sharf  Nov 17, 2022 (X) (X)

Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are making the jump from Netflix’s canceled “Daredevil” series to Disney’s upcoming limited series “Daredevil: Born Again,” but their former co-star Deborah Ann Woll might not be following. “True Blood” alum Woll starred opposite Cox as Karen Page on all three seasons of Netflix’s “Daredevil.” Considering Karen was a prominent character on “Daredevil” and Matt Murdock’s primary love interest, many Marvel fans have been wondering whether or not Woll would appear on “Born Again.”

“I can say this: they have not called me yet. So, as of now, I am not a part of it,” Woll revealed on a recent episode of the “Inside of You” podcast (via Total Film), hosted by “Smallville” alum Michael Rosenbaum. “I would be thrilled to get to be a part of it. They know where I am. Like I said, I love the character Karen Page. I love telling that story. I feel like I have more to say. But it is up to them what kind of story that they want to tell.”

Netflix pulled the plug on “Daredevil” in fall 2018 after three seasons. The show never got to resolve its storylines and craft a proper series finale.

“The Marvel series feels unfinished to me because we got canceled when we thought we were going to have more,” Woll said. “There’s a part of me that was like, ‘I had more to say about Karen,’ and I felt I was in the middle of that story.”

Cox has already made the jump to the proper Marvel Cinematic Universe by reprising Matt Murdock/Daredevil in a “Spider-Man: No Way Home” cameo and in a couple episodes of the Disney+ original series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.” In the series, Matt becomes romantically intertwined with Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany), so if he’s going to have any love interest in “Born Again” it might be Jennifer and not Karen.

Disney and Marvel have only confirmed Cox and D’Onofrio (back as Kingpin) for its “Daredevil: Born Again” cast. The series is set to run 18 episodes.

[twilight-deviant]

As a Fiskmatt fan, I like to see Fisk and Matt falling in love, but it seems difficult and illogical to make Matt to love a villain. Have you ever had the same problem?

Oh my god, auuuuugh! Yes! lol.

At times, the FiskMatt relationship does feel impossible given Matt's sanctimony. Some heroes are more morally gray, but Daredevil leans pretty clean. He has horrible anger issues and he'll bend the rules fairly often, but his one constant is "No killing." Which is obviously something Fisk does a lot. A lot, a lot.

So it can be difficult to reckon with the idea he would ever be in a relationship with Fisk— and that it could last if they ever were.

But not... impossible...

[Concessions for Love?]

One ace-in-the-hole I'm always happy to have is Matt's canon relationship with Elektra. She's a morally complex murderer, and Matt loves her anyway. Though he does often grapple with this choice.

[Daredevil #610]

But he returns to her every time. Again and again and again and again and again.

[Defenders 1x08]

[Keep Reading]

Even if certain concessions have to be made.........

[Wastelanders: Hawkeye #1]

People can prefer Matt with other women from the series/comics (more than fair), but everybody knows his soulmate. ¯\_(╹◡╹)_/¯ Matthew Michael Murdock will (figuratively) stare a healthy relationship in the face, then about turn and get back together with Elektra. Again.

[Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (1993) #3]

"I don't know what we are together, and if we have any chance in the future… I don't… But I… I do know that I'm free with you. Like with no one else."

I take this quote from Matt to Elektra in the DD S2 finale and very simply, very easily lay it over FiskMatt. Truly no effort at all.

[Daredevil 2x13]

I absolutely use Matt's decisions in his relationship with Elektra to justify a lot of my FiskMatt shipping. Because he doesn't agree with all of who she is. He even hates significant parts of it. But he loves her, and he'll always love her.

So when I think about FiskMatt, I already have this bedrock foundation of, "Yes, Matt feels very strongly about his convictions and morals. He will also set them aside and be a hypocrite when he cares about someone." At the very least, I believe he'd choose denial over confrontation. In that, if he were in a relationship with Fisk, they could constantly fight about what the man does, or they could choose to not discuss that part of their lives.

I've gone that route in fics many times. And yes, it is absolutely an unsustainable powder keg. But for me, that is part of the appeal of FiskMatt: a volatile combination brought together out of mutual affection that wants the relationship to last as long as possible while knowing that isn't forever. I get so excited at the visual image of them digging their heels into the earth while being pulled to the inevitable, wanting to be together and fighting all the reasons they can't be.

Granted, I have a strong love affair with bittersweet.

⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗

[Fisk Quits]

But then sometimes, I'll write FiskMatt where Matt cannot accept Fisk's criminal lifestyle. He gives an ultimatum that Fisk can have Matt or his empire, but not both. The idea that Fisk would give it all up for love sounds like a lot, but I can think of two instances where he has. (More if you want to get technical.)

[The Amazing Spider-Man #197]

[What if...? #73]

Fisk is a cutthroat villain, but never forget that his center is so gooey soft for those he loves. Apparently, even a relationship with Matt can get him to walk away from crime (granted, the above situation is more of a familial affection).

I think if you cultivated a reality where Fisk really comes to care for Matt, he could be coerced into giving up crime for him. Which would remove a great burden from Matt's ability to love him in return.

Although... with such a direction, you still have a reckoning with Matt accepting what Fisk has done in the past, even if he won't offend again. Wouldn't that be interesting if Fisk gave up crime for him, only for Matt to realize it still isn't enough? He thought he could start with a blank slate, but he can't let go of the past. Or... you lean into, "Well, Matt is Catholic, and a big selling point is that someone's sins can be forgiven, no matter how heinous." Could go either way.

I do like to think Matt could forgive Fisk's past evil though. *gestures at beloved comic page*

[Daredevil #300]

But it is interesting to imagine Fisk giving up crime, Matt realizing it doesn't fix the past, still breaks up with him, and Fisk gets angry. Now he has no empire or love. 🍿👀

⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗

[Compromise]

I also like the allure of a middle-ground. Fisk still commits crime. Matt acknowledge he commits crime. But there are conditions.

And this comes from canon (series and comic) acknowledging that if you remove Fisk from the underworld, the ensuing power vacuum is so much worse and more violent than if you just left him. So you write Matt putting on his big boy pants and admitting Fisk has to be the Kingpin. The notion that there could ever be a crime-free, utopian city is a pipe dream. There's going to be evil. Let the best case scenario control it. Fisk is better and smarter than anyone else in his position. He takes over and keeps down gang wars, etc.

But if Matt were to admit that Fisk in power is the lesser evil, his conscience can't let the actions of it be a blank check. There are conditions. No one innocent gets hurt in the crossfire, so on. People who willingly entered the life knowing the risks? Fair game. That way, Fisk can still control crime with more than empty threats. Granted, I consider even this to be its own powder keg. Matt thinks he can accept evil men dying. The question is how well he actually does whenever that's tested. Maybe if Fisk works hard to keep it from him.

I suppose that goes back to them stubbornly wanting to be together and ignoring why they shouldn't be. In a situation like this though, Matt might appreciate that he controls the man who controls crime. I like in Jessica Jones S1 when Killgrave suggests Jessica stay with him and tell him everything he should do to be good. Delicious. Though I imagine it would weigh heavily on Matt's mind.

⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗⫗

I guess what I'm saying is there are multiple ways Matt could handle Fisk's villainy, and how you approach it depends on personal preference or situational requirement. The answer in one scenario won't work in another. IE: if I write a fic where Fisk has all the power, Matt can't bargain with or leave him. He has to concede.

I think I've written several different options using the above or a combination. It just depends what I want from them at any given time.

But genuinely, Matt loving Elektra despite her darker nature remains one of my greatest justifications for FiskMatt. It really shines a spotlight on the fact that Matt's choices are different than we would otherwise predict. My guy can ignore so much if he wants to.

[roipecheur]

I'd love your thoughts on Frank chaining Matt to a rooftop and trying to get him to kill 👀

This actually inspired me to read the 2000 Punisher run where Frank does this because I wanted to compare it to the NMCU scene. I’d put off reading this run before because I don’t like Garth Ennis, and I also really don’t like the art style. But it turns out it’s only 11 issues long, so I went ahead and got through it in one sitting. 

Garth Ennis, from the little of his stuff I’ve been able to get through, writes Frank like an angrier version of the Terminator, and treats the existence of superheroes and the rest of the wider Marvel universe like a bug he’s trying to push away with a very long stick. NMCU Frank is a more complex and interesting character in terms of actually having a background and motivations that make sense. The current Punisher run, which I have many issues with, does a better job at this than Garth fucking Ennis, so it ain’t saying much.

Also, the 2000 Punisher run is of course a Frank POV story, and the Netflix Daredevil show is of course a Matt POV story. So, to start with 616 Frank in the 2000 Punisher run...

(Cut for comic panels)

This is Vietnam vet Frank circa the year 2000--he explicitly mentions Vietnam in this run. Even if he was 25 when the Vietnam war ended in 1975, he’d be 50 here. Yeah, yeah, comics time doesn’t work the same way as real life time, but he’s drawn with some lines and wrinkles on his face. He’s meant to be older and he’s been doing the vigilante thing for awhile.

This panel is also interesting to me because calling Daredevil “the guardian angel that follows him (Matt) everywhere” implies that he doesn’t know who Daredevil is--I’ll come back to this later.

In contrast to NMCU Frank, 616 Frank has a long history with Daredevil. He knows Daredevil is going to attack him and plans accordingly.

"Fap" lol what was with this sound effect circa 2000.

Frank tells Matt to hit him baby one more time and lets Matt win the first round. This isn't difficult, Frank reflects, implying that Matt is the better fighter and he's a challenge (or impossible) for Frank to defeat hand-to-hand.

But Frank doesn't need to--he's rigged speakers to play an ultrasonic dog whistle, which wreaks havoc on Matt’s ears. Frank uses this opportunity to knock Matt out.

So... we’re going to assume here that Frank doesn’t know who Daredevil is, but he knows enough about what Daredevil can do to incapacitate him.

Then, of course, Matt wakes up chained to the roof and--ok. Just look at the difference between Netflix DD and whatever the fuck 616 Frank was doing

Chains around Daredevil's chest and arms to hold him in place. Unhinged behavior, but sound restraining technique, versus

Frank. My man. Where did you learn this. Why are you forcing him to kneel. Why are the chains 1) around his neck, 2) wrapped lovingly across his chest, 3) not only between his legs but 4) framing his crotch. "What is this" indeed.

The rituals...they are intricate...

So, now that Frank has forced Daredevil to participate in his bondage fantasy, he decides to 'teach him a lesson' by giving him a choice. Daredevil is "not the enemy" and "doesn't deserve to be destroyed", but Frank's getting sick of him interfering. The gun he's taped to Daredevil's hand has one bullet in the chamber, and Frank's wearing Kevlar. Either Daredevil shoots him in the head, or Frank is going to shoot and kill someone else.

(Frank heard the term “predicament bondage” once and completely misunderstood the assignment.)

Again, 616 Frank has been a vigilante for years, if not decades, and has tangled with Daredevil plenty of times before--enough to know his speeches by heart. Frank’s internal monologue also says he can’t beat Daredevil hand-to-hand. As far as Frank’s concerned, every time Daredevil failed to kill him was a time that Daredevil was choosing Frank’s life over whoever Frank was going to shoot next--and they both know Frank will inevitably kill someone else. Frank, on the other hand, shoots Dino and thereby chooses to save whoever that guy might have killed or hurt next. By taping the gun to Matt’s hand, he’s just making the choice more obvious--showing Matt that his decision not to kill people is a choice with consequences, just like Frank’s decision to kill people is.

616 Frank planned and carried this out for Daredevil specifically. We don’t get internal monologue bubbles for NMCU Frank, but I don’t think he could have possibly planned this in the same way. He did have a rooftop and chains ready, but I don’t think they were for Matt. One, this is early days Frank who’d just lost his family, was still trying to kill everyone directly involved in their deaths, and doesn’t even have a skull on his chest yet. Two, this was only his second meeting with Daredevil, the first being when he’d shot Daredevil in the head the night before--he couldn’t have predicted that Daredevil would be there. Three, Frank was there for Grotto and was willing to take on a small battalion of cops all on his lonesome to get to his target. I think Daredevil must have surprised him. So, they fight, and the residual effects of the headshot cause some ringing in Matt’s ears. Frank can’t know what’s going on, but he takes advantage and knocks Matt out. After that, I can only imagine he’s staring down at this guy dressed in a fucking devil suit with the cops closing in and thinking, “Babygirl you might be even more deranged than me. I must study you.” Scooping him up and saving him from the cops must have been an impulse decision. Leaving Daredevil to get arrested certainly would have been easier and stopped him from interfering with Frank’s one-man war.

In both 616 and NMCU, Frank at least ostensibly doesn’t know who Daredevil is, and he doesn’t take off Daredevil’s mask while he’s unconscious to find out. Also in both versions, Frank is trying to kill someone Matt’s been defending. In 616, this is a faceless mobster named Dino--you never even see him, just Frank pulling the trigger. In NMCU, it’s Grotto, someone we’ve seen Matt and co. try very hard to keep safe from the trigger-happy maniac who clearly wants his head on a pike. 

And, in both versions, Frank chains Daredevil up, tapes a gun to his hand, and makes him choose between killing Frank and letting Frank kill someone else. Here’s where the differences get interesting. 616 Matt actually pulls the trigger, but there’s no firing pin. 616 Frank never intended to possibly die--he just wanted to drive the message home. We don’t have 616 Matt’s internal monologue, so we can’t know for sure what he was thinking here. If my quick Googling gave me the correct answer, killing someone to stop them from killing you or someone else is permissible in Catholicism, which otherwise lists murder as a cardinal sin. Given such a clear-cut decision, Matt could have used that reasoning to justify pulling the trigger. Or given his general aversion to killing, he might have been trying to shoot Frank in a way that would hurt him but would not actually end his life--despite Frank telling him earlier that killing him was the only option. Either way, this is a decision Matt makes while Frank takes someone out with a rifle at a distance. It’s a pretty removed act of violence, as far as these things go.

Meanwhile, NMCU Matt has Grotto right in his face, begging him to shoot Frank before Frank kills him. In this version, Matt’s gun fires when he pulls the trigger, but he doesn’t point it at Frank--he uses it to free himself from the chains Frank has him tied up in. Matt gambles with Grotto’s life and loses. Compared to 616 Matt, it’s possible he didn’t try to shoot Frank because he hadn’t been dealing with him for as long--he doesn’t have years’ worth of failing to save people from Frank weighing on his conscience. Or, Matt himself just hasn’t been a vigilante for long enough to know his own limitations and thought he could save Grotto without shooting Frank. Or, he just couldn’t bring himself to kill--which tbh I think is more in line with Matt’s character in general in most universes where he isn’t evil. And NMCU Frank, unlike 616 Frank, gave Daredevil a perfectly functional gun. This is a Frank whose family has just died and is doing all kinds of reckless, crazy shit to avenge them. I think his MO in Daredevil season 2 is that he’s going to kill everyone who had a hand in his family’s deaths or die trying, and this falls under “die trying”.

One last thing 616 Frank and NMCU Frank have in common: they’re both so goddamn weird about Daredevil. NMCU Frank was probably not planning on surviving his one-man war against the gangs of New York and was definitely suicidal, but he still had things to do and people to kill when he gave Daredevil the chance to shoot him. Like, he had possibly decided this guy was worthy of killing him in some fucked-up way--he put everything on hold to give Daredevil a free shot. 616 Frank, after Daredevil tries to shoot him and can’t because of the missing firing pin, says, “Leave the killing to me.” He’s basically saying that he respects Daredevil’s choice not to kill and even in this fucked-up scenario, Frank isn’t actually going to put him in that position. Coming from 616 Frank, especially the way Garth fucking Ennis writes Frank, it’s almost sweet.

Thanks for this ask--I had fun with it! As a bonus, here’s some choice pages showing the NYC skyline as drawn in the year 2000 💀💀💀

NMCU Frank: Yeah I’m a veteran of the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War that all happened because of 9/11

616 Frank: What’s 9/11?

[astromechs]

hey! proud of you for getting back into writing! from one comics nerd (and the creator of the ask game) to another, here's some asks!

1, 6, 13, 18, 23, 31 [you pick], 43, and 47

oh hello!! and thank you so much ❤️ comics nerds unite!

of the ones you've written, which romantic relationship has developed the fastest? how fast is it?

i definitely have had characters fuck in the first chapter more than once LMAO (with, of course, the emotional development taking much longer.) but the answer will probably always be rebelcaptain (jyn erso and cassian andor, for those not entrenched in star wars fandom); their mutual insanity is, like. mutually insane. it's true in canon, it's true in every extension of canon, it's true in all of my aus. they met and were literally instantly obsessed with each other GHFJDSK

6. have you ever started to write a relationship and had it develop differently than you expected? how so?

in terms of a specific story? this au fic i wrote of jyn and cassian having a different first meeting, five years before the events of rogue one, turned out SO incredibly differently than the initial vision i had for it. like they had in canon, i always knew there would be an instant connection and a tension? and yeah, before i wrote this, i knew there would be smut content in it. what i wasn't initially expecting was how gentle and tender this story turned out to be, but — then again, maybe i should have been expecting that! because that's them, really.

13. are there any consistent trends when you write a budding relationship, or does it vary by character? if there are trends, what are they?

i will say, i find myself a fan of what i like to call the "reverse slow burn" — characters in my stories often tend to do something about their sexual tension fairly quickly, but then take a long time to sort out their emotions about it.

18. pick a few characters you've written for (or, for a fun twist, asker chooses). tell me about their relationship in three sentences or less.

for fun, the first character i'll choose is matt murdock, who i've written a lot of different ships with, and here's one sentence that applies to pretty much all of them: it's a trainwreck ghFJDKS

rich rider/gamora/peter quill — sometimes what appears, on the surface, to be years of a messy love triangle is actually polyamory. LOVE WINS.

adrian chase/chris smith (peacemaker) — talk about dicks a lot, but they're actually very sweet? trauma healing.

23. do you think you idealize relationships in fiction, or are your depictions grounded in reality? how often do your characters make mistakes?

at least from what i intend, i do seek to portray both characters and relationships realistically — because character flaws are interesting to me! i also do a lot of work with characters who've experienced heavy trauma and need a lot of healing, and so their relationships are not going to be perfect idealized affairs. a lot of my oneshots may focus on some of the softer moments, but even those i'm really trying to ground in reality.

31. are there any songs that remind you of petermj? Are there any songs that remind them of each other?

ok, i picked one of my oldest otps for this, petermj (peter parker/mary jane watson) — and out of so many songs that remind me of them, i'm going to go with new york by st vincent. "you're the only motherfucker in this city who can handle me" is, like... DEFINITIVELY them.

i've always thought of out of the woods by taylor swift as being from mj's perspective about her relationship with peter. manhattan by sara bareilles has a very early jms run vibe of their relationship, and i feel like it can be from peter's perspective.

43. how do you feel about unhappy endings? unrequited love? major character death?

i think if it fits the story, it's good! i certainly wouldn't have changed the way rogue one ended as a film, for instance. in terms of what i write — generally i tend not to write that stuff because i have other narrative interests? but i wouldn't be opposed to writing it if my story demanded it, and i'm not opposed to reading it!

47. what's the most self-indulgent relationship you've written? are there any particular moments/scenes that you wrote just for you?

out of all the things i've written, probably the wanda maximoff/rich rider ship that i invented wholesale, and wrote this fic about! that was 10k words purely for me lol i also have this ot3 with them and matt murdock that i've invented and... all of that's for me, too.

fan fic couples/relationships ask meme!

[amazing-spiderling]

For the ask game: K N O P W X Y Z

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

I think people often overlook how much comic Spider-Gwen grows over the course of her series, but it's one of the reasons I love that run so much. Okay, she's still kind of schlubby and chronically late for things, but in the course of... three years? She does something that Peter Parker took decades to do (and keeps waffling) which is to reveal herself publicly and face the music for any crimes she committed as Spider-Woman (specifically the death of Peter Parker). I think a lot of superhero books are able to keep running on the same drama because they keep letting the hero *just barely* outrun the consequences of their actions, or if they do, they keep going back and forth on who knows their identity etc etc. If being a Spider-Person is about responsibility, I think Gwen really did the best job of stepping up to the plate.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

For Daredevil: Oh man, you don't even know (ok, actually, you specifically probably do know haha) how much I'd like to see more DD crossover with mutant characters, specifically Nightcrawler. I JUST THINK THEY COULD HAVE SOME GOOD CHARACTER BUILDING MOMENTS, and while Nightcrawler is like... a guy pretty much everyone likes, I think he's under utilized in fanfic. HE'S A GOOD DUDE. And boy howdy his recent comic events have made him a very... meaty character. I'm hoping his upcoming stint as Spider-Man gives people more ideas for stuff to do with him.

Maybe comic edits? Serious ones or funny ones. There are some very talented people out there doing neat things with all this classic art and I'm always in awe. I dabble, but struggle a lot with creating wholly new things as opposed to just cleaning up images. I love show edits, but the problem with pretty much any live action media fandom is that you end up seeing the same clips over and over because there's only so much to draw from.

This is a silly one, but people should do more mattfoggy animatics to dialogue from episodes of House. I don't know why the algorithm started pushing clips of that show to me but there have been so many times I was like "is this not just lifted from like... the Bendis run or something?" haha

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

I went to my 2022 recap and picked the 28th song. It's "I'll Still Have Me" by Cyn which I almost feel is a cheat for me because I'm pretty sure I've put this on prompt lists specifically. This song (about losing your loved one either via death or a relationship that naturally came to its end) is so sweet and sad, and it puts me in mind of Foggy from season 3 of Daredevil when he thinks Matt is dead and is still trying to process it and move on with his life.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Isekai where Foggy gets transported to a magical land where everyone is convinced he's doing to save the kingdom but it's very clear that it's all of his companions (the Defenders etc) who have amazing abilities and he's wondering how he got here and how long he can keep this up.

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

HMM. Hate is a strong word... I just y'know, don't click on things or block the tag but... I usually pass on genderswap fics? Not really out of any strong feelings (I think art can be interesting because I like seeing how costumes are reinterpreted a lot of the time). I just... don't have the interest. One that is sometimes harder to avoid is when someone drops a full ass song into the middle of a fic (a few lines of lyrics are fine) and it doesn't have anything to do with the narrative, the author was just really feeling their girly bop feels that day. It takes me right out of the story and I pass over the lyrics 99.9% of the time.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

It's probably because I live in a place that's roughly as hot as the surface of the sun but I go WEAK IN THE KNEES for any story where character A has been in the cold for too long and character B has to help them get warm again. Can be an actual danger-of-hypothermia situation or a "you really thought a snowball fight was a good idea" situation, it's all good.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

I will send my memes friends for Hannibal, Stranger Things (which I watched and enjoyed, I'm just not in the fandom for it) and the occasional DC property. Things I know just enough about to go "oh that's a funny one".

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

This is silly, but I'm so happy so many buddies are jumping on the Spider-Gwen panel redraw! It's fun to see how people's styles vary and what techniques they use to get a desired effect. Kind of feels like I'm back in art class and twenty kids are drawing the same bowl of fruit, y'know?

[daredevilexchange]

Want to be featured here? Head to this page and fill in the form!

See what this is about here, or if you’re using the app here.

What’s your fannish ID? Mock-Speed

What types of fanworks do you create? Art! I love fitting a moment or a story into one frame — trying to squeeze in jokes or references, emotions. I try to really pack it in. Even in simpler paintings I try and find room for details that would convey something to a careful viewer. Knuckles turning white with stress or fingers really digging in to someone shoulder, a funny pattern showing on a tiny strip of boxers, choosing furniture for the background that I think fits personalities — I try to be deliberate with these things. If I’m just going to fill space I can blob in color, but those decisions are what make painting fun for me. I do write sometimes, but I only really have a few good stories in me per decade I think. “Once in a blue moon” would be overgenerous for the frequency I can write at. 

What are your favourite types of fanworks, when you’re not creating? I love fic, and it’s the primary way I spend my time, but I confess I’m very nostalgic for AMVs. I feel like they’re harder to find these days with YouTube being what it is now. 

What do you like in particular about this fandom? I love how much you can pick and choose your canon! With decades of comics to pull from, there’s nothing to say you can’t just drop what you don’t like, it probably happened your way at some point. I’ve never really read the comics, but I ship Fratt — and I draw Matt with flowy ginger hair (a la Checchetto) and Charlie Cox’s face, and Frank with the physique of a body builder and Jon Bernthal’s face and nobody can tell me I’m wrong. 

Do you like participating in fan events? I love fan events! I’m a big slut for collaboration, so my absolute favorite is Big Bangs, but I love making things for exchanges too. Working within someone’s prompts and trying to figure out just what they’d like is a lot of fun, and I think it encourages you to branch out and grow as an artist! 

What about your creating process? I love expressionism and Impressionism both, which I think helps explains my colors.   For a kid who got into art because I wanted to draw Dragon Ball Z comics, I received a LOT of formal, traditional training in art, and I find it really shows through in my style. I even spent a year in art school, though I eventually decided it wasn’t for me. During that year, my painting professor told me that I did much more interesting things with color when I was working from life/reference. A decade later, I’ve conceded that that fucker was right. So for the past year or so I’ve been working to merge my style when working from life into my workflow when inventing things wholecloth for fandom purposes — I use a mixture of modeling software (magic poser) and tons of reference to get there. It’s still a work in progress though! I also have a soft spot in my heart for working from tiny, heavily artifacted reference. Jpgs that have been jpegged to hell, porn gifs that have been compressed to fit tumblr limits — I find that these lead to strong color choices thanks to all the artifacting as you try to reinvent what the reference has lost. 

Do you interact a lot with other fans? Fandom is pretty much how I make friends — collaborating is my favorite way to get to know someone! I honestly am already drinking from a fire hose here, there’s too many events to do and people to meet. (Because I compulsively signed up for every bang I saw, for a while there…)

Do you have other fandoms you’d like to talk about? I drift from fandom to fandom pretty recently — right now I’m focusing on live action fandoms partially because it suits my art better, but I’ve really been all over the place in the past. 

Where can your fanworks be found? https://mock-arts.tumblr.com/ is the repository for all my art. 

Thank you, @mock-arts !

banner by @context-is-for-kingpins !

[ID on a white background, four black triangles that look like spotlights from above. Each illuminates one of the Defenders silhouetted in white: Jessica, Luke, Danny, Matt. A hand on the left is holding a pen writing the words Content Creator Spotlight. There is a little Punisher skull on the pen. End ID]

[palmett-hoes]

Hi, I really loved your post with the monsters as Birds of Prey! Was wondering if you had any thoughts on the Foxes as Marvel or Mcu characters? I feel like I could see Dan as Carol Danvers and Andrew for sure is Jessica Jones, idk about the rest.

oh wow old post!!

haha unfortunately i’m not really a comics person so i don’t feel like i can really give the best analysis possible, but i have seen most of the mcu movies and bits and pieces of the netflix show so i’ll try my best. also im using dc characters too bc i want to

1. Dan: I think your instinct with Dan as Captain Marvel is spot-on (at least uhhh,, based on the movie lol sorry comics ppl). Her direct, forceful powers and fighting style are definitely reminiscent of dan’s no-nonsense leadership approach. similarly the themes of overcoming sexism and acceling in a male-dominated industry in the captain marvel movie is pretty much the same as dan’s story establishing herself as the first female exy captain (tho sports is way more valid than the military). plus there’s a lot of emphasis on love and friendship between women that dan is ALL about. also lashana lynch would be a god tier dan wilds fc. Dan could also def have that lawful good Okoye from Black Panther energy. Loyal, disciplined, no-nonsense leader. no powers except discipline. no hair. also danai gurira in 2012 with the dreads and the sword and the cape on TWD was definitely part of my middle school sexual awakening

2. Kevin: Aquaman. this is based pretty much exclusively on the fact that jason momoa is my #1 kevin fc and also that Pasifika kevin is phenomenal and mandatory, actually. otherwise i think he has a decent amount of stick-up-the-ass cyclops energy. or dick grayson nightwing energy but i don’t have any evidence for why. kinda looks like him tho

3. Andrew: andrew gets the most characters bc he’s my favorite. i think ur jessica jones instincts are absolutely correct, both in her storyline (i only watched the first season) and her powers. i’ve seen some powers au and the tendency seems to be giving andrew like,, psychic powers or the like, and i don’t really agree. andrew is a very direct character. he’s pragmatic, he confronts problems head on, and he doesn’t muck about in details. to me this really translates best into physical powers like super strength that help u big punch straight thru all ur problems. also i def think andrew would be not just a solo hero but a mercenary (or a detective) because he’s not altruistic enough to be a standard vigilante. he doesn’t care enough about other people to hang out on rooftops all night waiting for Crime to occur. there’s a price for that.  which brings us to the NEXT andrew hero: deadpool. maybe in personality more of a drugged andrew but the superpowered mercenary is really a perfect fit for andrew. also, healing powers have a decidedly tragic poetry to them on andrew. already he’s self-destructive, if he had a healing factor his concern for his own well-being would be so beyond rock bottom it’d be in the earth’s core. even worse when you remember that with a healing factor, as opposed to indestructibility, you still feel all the pain. which brings us to Wolverine and X-23, who have the same thematic points as deadpool but are much more of a personality match and they have knife hands, which i really think andrew would appreciate. ending that sadness train and onto another tho, andrew’s aesthetic and Vibes fit the Winter Soldier just SO well (just that movie tho, not really civil war or anything past that) and a reinterpretation of the captain america story using the twinyards would be incredibly interesting. and finally, one last hero that would work really well for andrew: rogue, only remove the angst around not being able to touch people, andrew would love that. one touch and their comatose? baller. don't fucking touch him.

4. Matt: Shazam. I didn’t see the shazam movie but my dad and brother did and they said it was very funny and all the trailors looked like it had a lot of fun himbo energy and i really think that fits. in terms of matching himbo disaster energy i think i’ve heard good things about comics hawkeye (not mcu). thor?

5. Aaron: Mr. Fantastic. now this might be a stretch but aaron is a character who uses a skin-deep veneer of anger to cover the fact that he’s actually quite pliant and bends to other people’s wills. and he’s a doctor or w/e. he could alse be like,, antman. he’s smart right? hank pym not paul rudd. katelyn can be wasp

6. Seth: Arm Fall Off Boy. no i will not elaborate.             ..... ugh fine, but i'm using my favorite piece of superhero media of all time: x-men evolution, the one where they're all teenagers in public high school. seth can be lance alvers/avalanche who’s a bit of a jerk and has a lot of issues with authority and has a rivalry with cyclops very reminiscent of seth with kevin, but still there’s the recurring theme that he’s lashing out because of low self-esteem and a bad situation and he’s a surprisingly sympathetic character who i’m very fond of. his power is earthquakes but i think the name makes that pretty self-explanatory

7. Allison: Iron Man. cocky, bitchy, and rich rich rich. sounds like allison to me. then to elevate it a level higher: emma frost, rich bitch extraordinaire. also if allison had telepathic powers she would be unstoppable. plus one more bitchy, morally-gray blonde (but chaotic this time): Harley Quinn

8. Nicky: Okay so I do wanna give a quick shout-out to Northstar, the first openly gay comicbook superhero, who’s a speedster which I’d actually say fits Nicky pretty well. However, if i had to choose a superhero to represent nicky in presence and powers it would have to be Jubilee from x-men (... from what i’ve heard lol. i’ve never actually consumed any of her Media hahaha anyway) she’s a joyful, energetic presence and her powers are setting off fireworks which i think is a good balance of nicky being a supportive cousin-parent AND a chaotic train wreck garbage trash man. also gonna throw in johnny storm for a cheap 'flaming' joke

9. Renee: Thunder/Blackbird from Black Lightning bc she’s a fufkin lesbian lol. (i don’t watch the show but i do follow nafessa williams’s tag). now the fr ones i’m gonna do together because to me they have the same Vibes so i chose them for the same reasons. Wonder Woman and Storm who to me have the same  reserved, impartial, regal energy. honestly ethereal and somewhat otherwordly, and quite literally goddesses. also op as hell.  black widow and her “red in my leger” looking for redemption story also fits thematically.

10. Neil: okay lazy answer first: the flash or quicksilver. get it? because they run fast? and neil run too? yea i like to think i've proven myself to be better than such a surface level interpretation but worth the mention ig. so for srs now, mystique and her shape changing powers would be an interesting interpretation of neil's identity issues, but i wanna push it a step further. nightcrawler would actually be possibly the MOST interesting hero to apply to neil 1. because powers still very movement go fast place to place 2. because of the thematic focus on neil's unusual looks and the lengths he goes to hide them, very much in line with the way nightcrawler will use a hologram-projector in order to look human, yet in both cases it's only a surface-level illusion, and 3. his parentage. here, mary would be mystique, which i also think works very well considering mary seemed to be the far more effective chameleon on the run than neil, and also fits with her place as a morally grey character, as mystique herself is often a villain or an antagonist, with her own agenda and shadowy motives. then nathan matches well with nightcrawler's father: azazel, a literal demon, and also where kurt gets his appearance. it's a shockingly coherent narrative between the three of them. then, to also give neil some powers that aren't contingent on his fucked up geneology and rather on his own merit and abilities, Black Canary and her sonic voice parallel the way that neil began to anchor his identity and take ownership over himself through his voice and his sick roasts

and 1 extra, wymack: batman, on account of his altruism, his dedication to second chances, and his many, many adopted children

---

anon, ik it's been a sec since you sent this, so i hope it gets back to you. i had a fun time with it and it prompted like,,, 7 different au s that i'll never write

[steven-falls]

The Strengths of serialization: A Disenchantment analysis

Note: this is a script for a video I��m making. There are some generalised statements in this script, that will be accompanied with visuals in the final video to help specify what I am referring to.

So, Netflix just dropped part 3 of disenchantment, and with the new batch of episodes came a slew of worldbuilding, lore, characterization, laughs, adventures, and Elfo abuse. But, instead of giving an overview of everything that happened in the season (or part) I want to focus on one specific aspect of part 3 and compare this to parts 1 and 2 and that is, the serialisation of Disenchantment.

In television shows, there are two main formats a show can take: A serialized format and an episodic format. A serialized format has continuing storylines that span over the course of the entire season. Think of pretty much every drama show. By contrast, an episodic TV show presents each episode as a self contained story. Meaning you could jump in at any point in the series without needing much prior knowledge to understand what’s happening. This is the format that most animated sitcoms, such as Disenchantment’s contemporaries, The Simpsons and Futurama, went for.

Disenchantment was an interesting case as it seemed to be going for a mix of both serialization and self contained episodes throughout its first two parts, which made up season 1. The first few and last few episodes of both parts 1 and 2 had a serialized format, where the cliffhanger ending of one episode would lead directly into the opening of the next. For example part 2’s opening episode ‘The disenchantress’ ends with Bean walking down a staircase to hell, which is picked straight back up on again in the next episode, aptly titled ‘Staircase to hell’. It’s required that an audience member watches these two episodes in order, otherwise they would be confused by the opening of the latter.

But then the middle episodes of parts 1 and 2 were stand alone episodic adventures, that didn’t always directly tie into each other. For instance, the heist plot of ‘the Dreamland job’ has little to nothing to do with Derrik’s character journey in the following episode, ‘Love’s Slimy Embrace’. So not much would be lost on an audience member who watched these two episodes out of order. The main throughline between them is Lucie buying and owning the bar. But that’s a rather minor element of ‘Love's Slimby embrace’, it’s not like you need an explanation of why Lucie owns the bar to understand what’s happening in that episode.

Where Part 3 really differs from the previous two parts, is that it sticks to a more serilized format for most of its run. Pretty much every episode develops on something meaningful established in prior episodes. For instance, In the first episode of part 3 it’s revealed that Pendegast has been murdered, so the third episode ‘Beanie get your gun’ is spent investigating what happened to him. They find out it’s the priestess, and chase her down in the next episode, which naturally leads into the steam land sega covered in episodes 4 and 5, and then the boat trip back to Dreamland in episode 6. Even when an episode doesn’t end in a cliffhanger, the events that occurred in the previous episode will still be playing on the character’s mind in the next, keeping a constant narrative flow throughout part 3.

Now, I do not believe that serialized Television is inherently better than episodic Television. There are shows that owe their success to their episodic format.

But I think in Disenchantment’s case, serialization fits the tone and scope it’s going for.

Disenchantment is basically a mystery show, Part 3 opens with several overarching mysteries that are investigated over the course of the season, and Bean literally plays detective in two episodes.

Part 2 also presented several mysteries in its opening episodes, like Bean’s heritage and the secret treasure the elfs are looking for. But this became a frustration I had with part 2, as it felt like it was presenting the audience with several tantalising mysteries, but then avoided expanding on them, in favour of more non sequitur adventures. Take the episode ‘the lonely heart is a hunter’ for example. That episode has a subplot about Bean investigating some old runes that are hinted to have a connection to her mother. But this basically leads nowhere as Bean gets scared and gives up on investigating them. We don’t find out anything about them for the rest of part 2, halting that story in its tracks. What the episode chooses to develop instead is the relationship between Zogg and a bear woman named Ursula, a character who has only appeared in this single episode to date. I do actually enjoy this plot line, I think it’s funny and gives Zogg some decent character development. But when the episode prioritises a somewhat frivolous love affair over expanding on the mysteries it’s already set up, it can be frustrating to sit through, because I’m just waiting for them to get back to that mystery.

There are still some instances in part 3 where they bring up an unresolved mystery or plot line but don’t follow up on it straight away. Like it should annoy me that they mention Leaveos quest early in the season, only for it to not develop any further until the last episode.

But it doesn’t, because there’s a narrative excuse for the other character’s to abandon Leaveo and his plot line. They have the more pressing issue of Dagmar to deal with in that moment, and after that I’m so swept up in the murder and betrayl stuff that I don’t mind them leaving Leavo’s plot thread for a little longer.

Another result of part 3 taking a more serialised approach is that it makes meaningful changes to the Disenchantments status quo

After part 1 ended with several series altering cliffhangers, that seemed like it was taking the show in a radically different direction, I was disappointed by how in part 2 everything reverted back to normal by the end of episode 3. Sure, there were a few status quo changes, but for the most part, part 2 still followed Bean, Elfo and Lucie’s shenanigans around Dreamland, not that fundamentally different from part 1.

But this isn’t a criticism I can level at part 3. For one thing there are no episodes of Bean just goofing around drinking, she’s always trying to get somewhere, figure something out, or face some threat to the kingdom. The constant rising urgency prevents the show from feeling as if it’s in some stagnant status quo.

The only time I was in fear of Disenchantment resetting to a status quo was at the beginning of episode 3, ‘Beanie get your gun’, when Derrik reinstates power to Zogg, the towns people don’t care about Bean supposedly being a witch, and Zogg’s forgotten about Odvals and the priestess’s coup attempt

The characters even comment on how weird the situation is.

With Bean and Zogg being reinstated it almost seemed like the whole coup subplot had been entirely pointless, especially as the opening of the episode hinted that Pendergast might not actually have been killed.

But the episode’s ending underlines the lasting impact this coup had, by confirming Pendergast’s death and having the priestess become a fugitive from the kingdom, basically writing out two major supporting characters.

On the subject, Pendergast’s death is the first one in Disenchantment that I was genuinely shocked by. Just because of the show’s willingness to kill off a recurring character without going back on it. They have done similar deaths before, like when Jerry was killed. But Jerry was divorced enough from the main cast and the setting of Dreamland that his absence didn’t feel as noticeable. It’s not like his death bared any repercussions on how Dreamland functioned as a kingdom for example. But Pendergast’s death does, you’re reminded of his absence any time you watch a scene with Zogg losing his mind, or see turbish and Mertz without their commander. Even if Pendergast is somehow brought back later, his death was still felt throughout the whole of this season.

Part 3 of Disenchantment managed to capture my intrigue, by taking its story and characters to interesting new places. My hope for part 4 is that everything part 3 built toward gets a decent payoff. By the end of part 3 most of the plotlines have still been left open ended, with even more opening up and others being teased at. In one case it looks like they might be rehashing an older plotline.

My fear for part 4 is that all these storylines are going to trip over each other. That part four has to juggle so many different plotlines that it’s not going to be able to devote enough time to each of them, making their resolutions feel rushed and underdeveloped.

I think its on part 4 to intertwine all these plot threads, so everything comes together to form one satisfying conclusion. Unless they’re planning on continuing the show after part 4, in which case I hope part 4 is a more streamlined and focused version of part 3.

Speaking of satisfying conclusions… I couldn’t think of one for this video! So let’s end off by discussing three times Disenchantment part 3 referenced 3 other Matt Greoning cartoons.

Starting with the most obvious, the ‘Trip to the moon’ rollercoaster seen in the episode ‘Freak out’ is a reference to the second Futurama episode ‘’The series has landed’, where the planet express crew visit a theme park on the moon. In particular the rollercoaster’s moon face bares resemblance to the mascot crater face. Look, it even has part of the rollercoaster going through its eye, just like how craterface always has a beer bottle shoved through their eye. Which itself is a reference to a silent film from 1920 called ‘A Trip to the moon’. Wait actually maybe the rollercoaster is just supposed to be a reference to that.

Seconally, the joke about the kings servants Vip and Vap living in unlawful cohabitation is a reference to the characters Arkbah and Jeff, who are a gay couple from Matt Groening’s comic, Life in Hell. They also share similar character designs.

And finally, I don’t think this was intentional, but Elfo skating on Dagmars oily back reminded me of Bart Simpson skateboarding. Now try and get that image out of your mind! Good night everybody.

[sugaredge]

I miss Frances and Isaiah, they were so cute.

i have conflicted emotions. i was never fond of him when they were together quite honestly, when the news broke they got married i knew it would end how it did, though i hoped it wouldn't. he started dating her when she was underage and he had a whole child. a one year old baby. plus he says frances was the one who proposed and being older (especially with a baby at home) he should've known better. it seemed like he got his in, plus frances was 19 when they were engaged, she was far too young to be a step mother, and after they were married she tweeted she wasnt having kids for many years as she still felt one herself. when they divorced he demanded so much in spousal support and when he didn't get that or the house he kept her dad's guitar to auction off. he caused the family hell.

it's unusual, he dyed his hair the same exact colours as kurt (bright red and light purple) and kept his hair and outfits similar to his. it's much more unsettling looking back. plus ever single tour he was on was through frances' connections (gerard way, frank iero, smashing pumpkins, the used). on his old facebook he admitted his clothes were stolen from goodwill or frances. though he was said to have surprised frances with all these wonderful gifts, it's clear he paid for them all with her trust fund, then claimed she spent too much (though she kinda did, but he also did). everything seemed opportunistic.

however i was on the eeries twitter the other day (it's still up), and isaiah tweeted on there. it's a rare glimpse into his personality, a little goofy with social commentary on misogyny and violence in media. he seemed like a well likeable guy. moreover it's clear he and frances had a lot in common in terms of music, movies, books, comics, tv shows and art. and her friends liked him (though i guess they had too, with the exception of courtney, who despite trying to have a relationship with him was always weary of him). he supported her education, art and music. and photos of them are very sweet. she was very clearly in love. but he turned very bitter with the divorce. if he truly respected her, and if he actually loved her he wouldn't have tried milking her for money. i know he has a child to support but he also has another parent to raise her with, as well as his family, ultimately his kid is his responsibility. he never needed money from her. he never needed to paint her as a crazy rich kid drug addict hoarder that he did everything he could to save. however his attempts to slander her name was shortlived as his refusal to return kurt's guitar made him the most hated guy in america, the eeries twitter was flooded with comments under every post telling him how horrible he is and to return the guitar. i dont think he could go many places without being harrassed by a nirvana fan anymore. he totally screwed himself all for money.

looking back at pics, old facebook exchanges, if you're in the moment it's very cute lovebirds sharing their life together. my old laptop died and i cannot anywhere find the pics of isaiah and frances making forts in their room to stay and read in, things like that are so cute (sometimes i do wonder who was thirdwheeling taking all these pics of them kissing, or in their house or at family gatherings together). but adding any kind of context, rationality or hindsight, it seems totally predatory to me. he didnt even wait for her to be of age he got his talons in right away. it's creepy. eerie is a fitting band name. if he was smart (and if his band was any good) he should've committed to growing his band and having a quiet divorce when frances filed, then maybe he wouldn't be so disliked.

i also often think of how different frances was with him. though she's a very goofy and affectionate person, her twitter made her seem rather misanthropic, then she had a transitional period of indulging in herself, her own interests and building a life outside of him, before dating matt and becoming much more 'wholesome', approachable and having this aura of bubbly, loving energy, she seemed so much more youthful. she's since closed her life off, disabled tagging, disabled comments, deleted social media accounts, no longer opening herself up to the world, which i do respect, though it means i have to post a lot of old content to keep this blog afloat.

isaiah being older perhaps she had to appear much more wiser, mature and standoffish, though it's partially youthful angst, there was this need to prove herself, and she isolated herself so much from everyone else. it seemed to hinder her growth. i also think being a teenager around older couples in their 30s who met their 'soulmate' and had these great romantic stories, of which frances had even tweeted about (gerard and lindsey and the al columbia comic), added to this fantasy that this guy she met at 17 was the love of her life and she had to marry him. i think her friends were good people and trusted her decisions but perhaps they should've told her to slowdown a little.

i think photos of isaiah and frances were cute, and frances gushing over someone she loved was cute. wanting to share that love with the world was cute. i think the situation and how it started and ended, wasn't. it was a naive love. and i'm sorry she has been so troubled because of it. her music seems to be about him. i wonder if those older tracks make the album or if she completely chooses to leave him in the past.

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: How Does My Hero Academia Fit Into Global Superhero Culture?

  In 1989, Batman became the first film to make over $40 million in its opening weekend. In 2002, Spider-Man became the first film to make over $100 million in its opening weekend. In 2007, Spider-Man 3 hit over $150 million. In 2012, The Avengers nabbed over $200 million. And in 2019, Avengers: Endgame got over $350 million. Despite the fact that there have been concerns over “superhero movie fatigue” for literal decades now, it’s a genre that shows no signs of slowing down. As its universes expand on streaming services like Disney+, it’s apparent the age of the cinematic hero might be an indefinitely lengthy one. 

  As Marvel Comics luminary Stan Lee once said: “The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.” In that quote, it seems our destiny is almost sealed — we crave heroes and we crave their stories and we crave their sequels. 

  This is the environment in which My Hero Academia was born.

    My Hero Academia is, first and foremost, a superhero story. One could argue that most narratives of its ilk are superhero tales — anime like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and others are full of good guys shutting down malicious attempts at local or world domination — but My Hero Academia embraces the iconography, both thematic and physical, of the superhero in a way that many other stories don’t. In fact, it might be one of the purest explorations of that kind of universe ever in fiction. It’s a world where heroism is practically currency, where roughly 80 percent of the earth’s population is imbued with some kind of inherent genetic power. 

  Populating your superhero story with powerful people instead of going the typical cinematic route of having one or two supernatural characters with a supporting cast of everyday folk might have been subversive 20 years ago. But in the age of the Avengers, where multiple heroes cross in and out of each other's storylines and the narrative objective was to eventually wrangle them all in one mega-movie, My Hero Academia fits comfortably. That doesn’t render it as uninteresting, though. Instead, rather than build to the issues that will inevitably crop up in a world full of Supermen, these themes are inherent in the story.

    As such, most of the plotlines have to do with the idea of rampant heroism and the backlash that it would create. Plenty of superhero films address this (multiple Batman movies make the case that if there were no Batman there would be no Joker), but in My Hero Academia it is a constant struggle. Overhaul, wearing a variation of a 17th-century plague doctor mask, looks at these “Quirks” as if they’re a disease. Stain is against superheroes using their status for fame. Tomura Shigaraki wishes to destroy society as we know it, hating its values and its borderline divine treatment of figures like All-Might. These patterns are not just repeated in My Hero Academia, but inevitable. They are anime embodiments of that “superhero fatigue” article I shared above, except in this case they hurt and destroy in their attempts to find an alternative to the super status quo, rather than write essays in The New York Times.

  It’s certainly an enthralling formula, though: My Hero Academia continues to be a best seller and has won numerous awards. Its anime has been similarly well-received. Despite the fact that superhero films very rarely have the same box office prominence in Japan as they do in America, My Hero Academia has been able to make an impact. That might be because, at its core, My Hero Academia adapts the ethos found in a hero that many Japanese creators really do enjoy: Spider-Man.

    Kohei Horikoshi, My Hero Academia’s creator, loves Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films. Creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Hirohiko Araki gushed over his love of Spider-Man 2 to director Sam Raimi during an interview. Yusuke Murata, illustrator of One-Punch Man, has done some absolutely amazing work when it comes to posters for Peter Parker’s cinematic adventures. Hideo Kojima, a video game designer whose creations are absolutely inspired by anime, called Into The Spider-Verse a “great masterpiece” and was “moved” by Spider-Man 2. After it became the best-selling game to be developed in the West but funded by Sony since 1998, Japanese game developers voted Marvel’s Spider-Man as their 2018 game of the year. So why the embrace of this particular character? 

  Journalist Kuremasa Uno told the Japanese site Business+IT that it’s because Japanese youth are more accustomed to embracing younger heroes. Since so much of Spider-Man’s Hollywood journey deals with him experiencing problems as a teenager and young adult, he fits in among the protagonists of series like Gundam or Naruto. Hideo Kojima even told Famitsu that Spider-Man is “similar to Japanese heroes,” as he has “worries.” 

    The aspect of youth is particularly interesting, as it’s what often renders heroes like Spider-Man to be the most relatable of all of their peers and rivals. In the comic book world, age tends to warp characters, turning them into beacons of impossible standards rather than troubled everymen. We have little in common with the hulking, aging Batman snapping bones in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. We are enthralled with the story on a narrative level. Even the legendary curmudgeon of the comic book industry, the supremely talented Alan Moore, found The Dark Knight Returns fascinating because it gave a hero a chance to end, rather than cycle through an eternal series of escapades. If you know Moore’s stance on heroes, that’s high praise, but it’s hard to connect with him no matter how cool he looks taking down the Mutant Leader.

  In youth we find common ground. We all grow up, and for the most part, we all experience that mix of angst, desperation, and uncertainty that comes with finding yourself on a bullet train to adulthood. In my interview with Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered The World, the writer/historian affirmed these feelings as especially true in anime: “It doesn’t look at adolescence as a lesser form of adulthood and it doesn’t condescend to the young people experiencing problems.” That is true of My Hero Academia, which treats Midoriya’s teenage problems as valid and worth concern, and is also true to Stan Lee’s affinity for Spider-Man: “He’s the one who’s most like me — nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he’s got a lot of problems and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.”

    So perhaps it is in collecting a cast of characters that, like Spider-Man, are all dealing with youthful problems that Horikoshi found the fantastic formula for My Hero Academia. It’s a world with teachers and Pro Heroes, but there is no real equivalent of a Justice League, no impenetrable class of demi-gods to impart moral lessons on not just younger heroes but the world at large.

  Instead, much like in real-life youth, the characters of My Hero Academia and the class of 1A must discover those lessons for themselves. With that, the reasons for the aforementioned creators’ adoration of films like the Spider-Man trilogy and Into the Spider-Verse seemingly become more clear. Though these films feature a ... ummm ... supportive supporting cast, the integrity must come from the hero alone in the end, no matter how tough their obstacles become. You are born with Quirks, but how you choose to implement them for the good of mankind is up to you. Great power, great responsibility, etc.

    My Hero Academia and Spider-Man are not a 1:1 comparison as, again, the basics of its world and the attributes of its cast fit it more firmly with late-term Avengers films where dozens of heroes interact in a spectacle created by the sheer existence of their number. My Hero Academia rarely feels as lonely as Spider-Man tends to be. But in capturing the relatable qualities of adolescence and focusing on the “quirks” of what is essentially high school life, it does manage to hit some of the same high notes, notes that I imagine contributed greatly to its popularity.

  Does that mean All-Might is an Uncle Ben character, with his “Now it’s your turn” point to Midoriya serving a similar purpose to the “Great responsibility” speech? Eh, a little bit. But in relating it to the superhero genre that currently forms an entertainment monolith around the world, especially when it has to do with the character of Spider-Man, we start to unlock some of the reasons why My Hero Academia has been such a powerhouse series over the past few years. You can see just as much of Midoriya in Peter Parker as you can in guys like Naruto or Asta — characters that aren’t relatable simply because they’re young, but because we connect to their experiences of youth, experiences that are somehow both deeply specific and also beautifully universal.

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[disneydreamlights]

Celeste because she's bae, and Annalee because Daughter Time nwn

ASH THERE’S SO MANY CONCERNING THINGS ABOUT THAT FIRST STATEMENT.

Full Name: Just Celeste. She did at one point have a last name but she abandoned it, seeing it as unnecessary. She also sometimes goes by Astra.

Gender and Sexuality: Cis girl and this is the one question my answer is “I don’t want to know”

Pronouns: she/her

Ethnicity/Species: human

Birthplace and Birthdate: Sumaru City. Her birthday is June 8th.

Guilty Pleasures: So I have to preface this that this is not normally a guilty pleasure but due to the fact that she thinks she has to abandon everything she once was to lead her cult properly, her attachment to her drawing and the comic she’d planned on making before she discovered Yaldabaoth are both guilty pleasures.

Phobias: Nothing she would admit. ;) (Also snakes)

What They Would Be Famous For: In an ideal world? It’d be for her art skills and comic since she’s really good. But uh...leading a cult is kinda...yeah.

What They Would Get Arrested For: HMM...it’s almost like she psychologically tormented people to recruit them to a cult I wonder...

OC You Ship Them With: no

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Of my own ocs Luca would like to strangle her in her sleep but let’s be real it’s Matt.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Superhero

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Not a cliche but in general the generic YA Dystopia novel genre and all the cliches associated with it tend to leave a bad taste in her mouth.

Talents and/or Powers: She’s great at art, and whether or not it’s good or not she is gifted at manipulation and making people see things her way.

Let me put it this way: Matt may have been the reason the Holy Grail grew so exponentially, but she’d still managed to recruit a good amount of members before she had him and there’s a reason for that.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Once they honestly get to know her if they do they’re probably too wrapped up in her beliefs to stand against her. It’s the only reason somebody could like her. She’s manipulative, abusive, and kinda a bitch.

Also I guess there’s kinda the people who don’t know she’s a cult leader who know her online like Luca, ig he likes her because when she’s not trying to recruit people to a cult she’s not a complete monster.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: See the above.

How They Change: Her character arc is definitely a fall from grace. She starts off as a young and aspiring comic artist who moves to Shibuya for a chance, has some bad luck, and just when all seems shit, she winds up in Yaldaboath’s distorted world but unlike everybody else there, she can see him right away. And the words he says make sense. Shibuya is rotten to the core. People don’t need free will, they’d be happier without it. When he dies, she resolves to bringing him back to awareness in the human subconscious so he can rise again and control Shibuya from below with her as his enforcer and the one spreading his word, and bit by bit she starts losing every aspect of herself until all that’s left of Celeste is a dedicated follower of Yaldabaoth and leader of a cult.

Why You Love Them: She’s an interesting character study for sure and her fall from naïve, struggling comic and fanartist to cult leader who’s entire identity and life’s goals are based around bringing back a false god who wants to take away all individuality and control the world and that’s interesting as hell. She’s interesting as hell.

-x-

Full Name: Annalee

Gender and Sexuality: Nonbinary, aro/ace

Pronouns: she/her or they/them. No real personal preference so it’s whatever other characters choose to use. (I use she/her in narration only because those were her initial pronouns since that’s one of the details that’s changed over the years.)

Ethnicity/Species: Unversed (It’s Complicated, and if it comes up in the profile I’ll explain otherwise nah)

Birthplace and Birthdate: Scala ad Caelum and N/A but when asked she insists it’s July 3rd

Guilty Pleasures: Every manga she ever read. She’s read some bad ones.

Phobias: Abandonment is probably her biggest fear but she’s got a pretty big list and some terrible anxiety.

What They Would Be Famous For: I know back when I used her for a DR rp she was a violinist so probably that but realistically for a lot of reasons (anxiety, discovery of her true nature, etc) she would choose to avoid the spotlight so...

What They Would Get Arrested For: I had to give this a lot of thought and more than likely? She completely ran away from something and her father “arrested” her as a cover to get her back home so as not to destroy world order or anything.

OC You Ship Them With: N/A

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Realistically if she loses the ability to maintain her rationality and her true form, Sky, Marina, or Landon could all be likely to take her out, probably Landon.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Rom Com Mangas (i.e. She’d love Fruits Basket) followed by adventure stories.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Love triangles (”I don’t get it why are they introducing another character she won’t end up with anyways! It’s stupid!”)

Talents and/or Powers: As a Keyblade Wielder Annalee has the standard array of ability to use Keyblade and everything that comes with it.

Because she is an Unversed given human form (tl:dr Vanitas experiences a happy emotion and creates an Unversed that’s powerful enough to maintain a human form when she so chooses, and she does often) she also has standard array of his powers. She can create or summon Unversed and have them help her in combat. If they or she get too hurt, she can no longer sustain them and they vanish instead to sustain her. (Her favorite is her Archraven)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Well first of all she’s honestly adorable in her naivety, and she tries incredibly hard to be liked. Her heart is always in the right place even despite the darkness that makes her up and she’s kind. Insanely kind.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Well for one Vanitas is like her pseudo-father so anybody with a grudge against him...there’s also the fact that if she loses control or gets too much darkness exposure she’ll turn into her true Unversed form and go on a rampage. And also her social anxiety does make her panic often or say the wrong thing.

How They Change: In character, she becomes more confident, self assured, and better at controlling her darkness to the point that all transformations are at will.

But honestly tracking her ooc changes is more fun because full confession, she was originally a Vanqua love child I had no choice but to back off of because of some things in the rp I first used her in and I liked the second version so much I decided to keep it.

Why You Love Them: She’s one of my oldest ocs, and I’m very proud of how far she’s come as a character. Also I’m not gonna lie I may look at some of the Unversed stuff and go “wow other KH fans will probably find that cringey” but I’m having fun with all of it and I think above all else that’s what matters.

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Captain America: The First Avenger

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Are Continuing Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

Where Today We Are Looking At The First Movie With The First Avenger, Captain America...

When I Saw The Trailer For This Movie, I Had No Idea Who Captain America Was, I Had Seen The Original Movie With Matt Sallenger When I Was Younger But I Had Absolutely No Memory About It Whatsoever And After Watching The Nostalgia Critic's Review Of It, I'm Glad I Don't...

So I Went To The Comics And Bought An Omnibus Of Captain America Comics With The First Few Issues, And I Liked It To The Point I Couldn't Wait To See The Film In Theatres, However, When I Saw The Captain America Costume I Started To Not Hold Out Much Hope For The Movie As It Didn't Look Like Captain America From The Comics

And The Idea Of The Human Torch Playing Cap Instead Of Someone Who Hasn't Been A Superhero Just Added To That But Luckily, When I Saw The Film I Absolutely Loved It But Is It As Good As I Remember It?...

Let's Find Out As We Watch Captain America: The First Avenger...

The Film Starts In The Arctic, As 2 Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Are Taken To A Ship That Has Been Uncovered By A Russian Oil Team, Lasering Their Way Into The Vessel, The 2 Agents Find The Vessel Iced Over. Discovering What Looks To Be A Red, White And Blue Shield Covered In Ice, One Of The Agents Tries To Contact Nick Fury, Saying That He Has To Know About What They Found...

But Before We Can Find Out, We Go To A Flashback In Norway In The Year 1942, As A Hydra Tank Barges Into A Church, So The Leader Of Hydra, Johann Schmidt (Played By Hugo Weaving) May Enter With Soliders To Find The Tesseract...

(Imitating Agent Smith From The Matrix) Mr. Anderson...

Searching A Tomb, Schmidt Finds Something That Looks Like The Tesseract But As Schmidt Points Out, The Tesseract Was The Jewel Of Odin's Treasure Room And It's Not Something Someone Buries...

Asking The Caretaker Where The Tesseract Is To The Point Of Threatening To Destroy The Entire City, The Man Points To A Big Wooden Wall Carving Of Yggdrasil, The Tree Of The World, Which Is Where Schmidt Finds It...

With The Caretaker Telling Schmidt That He Contol The Power Of The Tesseract And He Will Burn For It, Schmidt Kills The Caretaker Before Walking Out...

Meanwhile In New York, We Go To An Army Enlistment Center Where Steve Rogers (Played By What's Left Of Chris Evans After Playing This Character For Many Movies) Attempts To Join The Army Only To Not Get In Due To His Bad Health..

Going To A Movie Afterwards, Steve Gets Mad At A Guy Who Doesn't Care About The Newsreels And Wants The Cartoons To Roll Which Leads To A Fight Outside Between The 2 Of Them...

Saved By His Best Friend, Bucky Barnes (Played By Sebastian Stan) Who Got Himself Enlisted And Is Shipping Out Tomorrow So, That Night Him And Steve Take 2 Girls (One Being Possibly An Ancestor Of Clara Oswald) To The World Of Tomorrow Expo Where They See A Science Demonstration Done By Howard Stark (Played Here By Dominic Cooper)...

Going To An Army Recruitment Center At The Expo, Bucky Tries To Stop Steve From Enlisting Again (As He's Been Lying On His Enlistment Forms And That's Technically Illegal) But Not Willing To Sit On The Sidelines Anymore, Steve Tells Bucky That He's At Least Got To Try No Matter What The Cost...

Telling His Friend To Be Careful And To Not Do Anything Stupid, Bucky Leaves, Overhearing His Conversation With Bucky, Steve Is Confronted By Dr. Abraham Erskine, A Scientist Who Works For The SSR Who Offers Steve A Chance To Get What He Wants...

Meanwhile At Hydra HQ, Johann Schmidt Has Arnim Zola (Played By Toby Jones) Work On A Machine That Will Transfer The Power Of The Tesseract Into Weaponry For Hydra....

Activating The Machine, Arnim Zola Is Cautious When Raising The Energy For The Transference But Schmidt Is A Patient Man And Places The Machine At Full Power Which Causes A Interesting Effect But It Works...

With The Energy They Have, Zola Tells Schmidt That It Could Not Power All Of His Designs But Change The War As Well As The World...

A Few Days Later At The SSR Base Camp, Steve And A Bunch Of Other Guys Are Briefed By Agent Peggy Carter (Played By Hayley Atwell) And Colonel Phillips (Played By Agent K Himself, Tommy Lee Jones) Who Tell Them About The SSR And How They Will Be Choosing A Man To Be The First In A New Breed Of Super Solider...

Cue The Training Montage!

Well, I'll Admit Steve Isn't Mulan But He Got The Flag!

With Erskine Deciding That Steve Is The Right Man For The Job, Phillips Fights Erskine On It As He Believes That Steve Is A Loser And That A Man Named Hodge Is Better Decision As He Passed All Their Tests, But Looking For Qualities Beyond Physical For This, Phillips Decides To Throw In A Dummy Grenade Which Steve Gladly Takes For His Fellow Soldiers, Saying That He's Still Skinny, Phillips Walks Away...

With The Experiment Happening The Next Day, Erskine Pays Steve A Visit In His Bunk Where He Asks Erskine Why Him? This Leads Erskine To Tell Steve How He Was Recruited By Adolf Hitler Himself To Join The Nazis But Telling Hitler That He's Not Interested, Hitler Instead Sent Schmidt Who Shares A Passion With Hitler For The Occult And Myths...

However Unlike Hitler Who Believes It To Be Fantasy, Schmidt Believes It To Be Real And That There Is Some Great Power Left By The Gods Waiting To Be Seized By Man. Hearing About Erskine's Formula, Schmidt Could Not Resist Taking That Power For Himself, But When Schmidt Took It There Were Unfortunate Side Effects...

Saying That The Formula Amplifies Everything That Is Inside Of The Person, With Good Becoming Great And Evil Becoming Worse, He Says That That Is Why Steve Was Chosen Because A Strong Man Who Has Known Power All Of His Life Will Lose Respect For That Power Where A Weak Man Knows The Value Of Strength And Compassion...

Before Tomorrow, Erskine Has Steve Promise Him One Thing, That He Will Stay Who He Is, Not A Perfect Solider But A Good Man...

Back At Hydra HQ, Schmidt Tells Zola That His Men Have Located Erskine And Tells Zola To Give The Order To Kill Him...

Taking Steve To The SSR's Hideout, Peggy Takes Steve Into A Lab Where The Experiment Will Happen...

Meanwhile At Hydra HQ, Schmidt Is Visited By Some Of Hitler's Generals Which Leads To Him Showing Them The Results Of His Work By Saying That Hydra Is Developing An Arsenal To Destroy Schmidt's Enemies In One Stroke Including Germany, Which Leads To Him Wiping The Generals Out With One His New Weapons...

I Guess We Can Change The Name Of The Musical To Springtime For Red Skull...

With The President Retasking The SSR To Go After Hydra, Steve Wants In But With Erskine's Death, Phillips Considers The Project A Failure As Erskine Promised Them An Army Of Super Soliders And That Just Having Steve Is Not Enough To Win The War.

However, A Senator Believes Different After Both Him And The Country See Steve In Action And Offers Steve Another Opportunity To Serve His Country...By Selling War Bonds....

(Start At 0:22)

And What Can I Say About This? I Absolutely Love It! There's Only One Other Thing That Could Top It And That's If They Played This...

Doing A Performance At An Army Camp That Goes Horribly, Steve Runs Into Peggy Who Reminds Steve That Erskine Wanted Better For Him Than To Just Be A Performing Monkey, Seeing Wounded Soliders Come In From The 107th, Steve Remembers That That Is Bucky's Troop Which Leads Him To Talk With Phillips About If Bucky Survived And Phillips Makes It Look Like He Didn't...

Asking If Phillips Is Planning A Rescue Mission For The Ca, Phillips Tells Steve No As They're 30 Miles Behind Enemy Lines That Are Heavily Fortified And They'd Lose More Men Then They'd Save, But Unable To Accept That Steve Plans A Rescue Mission With The Help Of Peggy And Howard Stark, Who Takes Steve Into Enemy Lines On Board Stark's Airplane...

Parachuting Into Enemy Lines, Steve Boards A Truck That Takes Him Into Hydra Base, Once Inside, Steve Rescues The Missing Soliders Including The Howling Commandos (With Two Of Them Played By Damien Dahrk And Spider-Man's Principal?)...

(Start At 0:31)

With The Soldiers Fighting Hydra And The Base Exploding Around Them, Steve And Bucky Go Up Flights Of Stairs Only To Be Confronted By Schmidt...

(Start At 0:30)

Back At The SSR Camp, It's Believed That Rogers Is Dead But...Yeah, Steve Survived As Well As The Soliders From The 107th Including Bucky...

Meanwhile In Washington, Steve Is About To Get A Medal For Valor By The Senator But Of Course He's Not There...

Stan Lee Cameo!

Returning To The SSR's Headquarters In London, Steve Shows Peggy The Locations Of The Hydra Bases That He Saw On Schmidt's Map While Bucky Tells Them About The Weapons Factories However, Hydra Has Shipped The Parts To His Main HQ Which Is Not On The Map...

Phillips Tells Carter To Coordinate With MI6 (Which Makes Me Wonder If Captain America And James Bond Have Ever Teamed Up) To Look For Schmidt's Main Base, While They Send Rogers To Deal With The Other Bases...

With Phillips Putting Together A Team To Help Steve, Steve Already Has People In Mind Which Leads Him To Recruit The Howling Commandos And Bucky To Help Him...

The Next Day, Steve Goes To Meet With Howard Stark, But While He Waits, He Talks With Margaery Tyrell Which Leads To Her Kissing Steve (And Who Wouldn't Want To Kiss Her) Only For Them To Be Spotted By Peggy Despite Steve Thinking That Her And Stark Had Something Going On...

When Stark Talks With Steve, He Tells Him That There's Nothing Going On Between Him And Peggy Before He Shows Steve Some New Shields Until Steve Finds A Prototype Made Out Of Vibranium...

(Imitating Black Panther) Wakanda Forever!

Which Will Work...

(End At 2:02)

Not Happy With What Is Going On With His Bases, Red Skull Tells Zola To Finish His Mission Before Captain America Does Or Else...

Attempting To Get Zola Back To His Headquarters As Quick As Possible, Zola Ends Up Boarding A Speed Train That Unfortunately Passes By Where Cap And His Crew Happen To Be...

Using A Zip Line, Cap, Bucky And The Other Howling Commandos Board The Train Only To Be Confronted By Hydra Soliders With Major Weaponry...

Major Weaponry That's Powerful Enough To Burst Open A Wall...

After Dealing With The Soldiers, Another One Enters And Blasts Bucky Out Of The Train Only To Leave Him Hanging By A Handle, Attempting To Save His Best Friend Steve Tries To Reach For Him But Unfortunately The Rail Breaks And Bucky Just Falls To His Death...

But In Good News, They Capture Arnim Zola...

Phillips Interrogates Zola Who Doesn't Say A Damn Word Until Phillips Gives Him A Letter That Shows Him That The Red Skull Has Turned On Him And Believes Zola To Be A Liability Which Leads Zola To Spill His Guts On Red Skull's Plan...

Finding Steve In A Cafe That Him And His Friends Went To Before It Was Destroyed, Peggy Finds Steve Having A Few Drinks To Try To Dull The Pain Of Losing Bucky But Like The Flash, Due To His Powers He Can't Get Drunk...

But Peggy Tells Steve That It's Not His Fault And If He Believed And Respected Bucky Then He Should Honor His Decision. Understanding That, Steve Swears To Go To Go After Schmidt And Destroy Hydra...

Steve, Peggy And The Howling Commandos Fight Hydra's Soliders Off, But Eventually Steve Catches Up With Red Skull Only To See Him Take Off In His Massive Plane, But When Phillips And Peggy Commandeer Red Skull's Car, They Attempt To Catch Up With It...

(Captain America) You Remember The Little Red Button?

(Phillips) You Don't Have To Tell Me Twice!

(Pushes Little Red Button)

Catching Up With Red Skull's Ship, Steve Kisses Peggy Goodbye, Before Hopping On Board...

As Steve Sees Missiles Targeted For Every City On The Planet, More Soliders Appear To Fight Steve, With Him Defeating Every Single One Of Them, Before Facing Off Against Red Skull...

(Start At 0:28)

With Peggy Contacting Steve On-Board The Plane, She Tries To Direct Him To A Site To Land But There's Not Enough Time And He Has No Choice But To Force The Ship Down...

Peggy Talks With Steve For As Long As Possible Till His Ship Crashes....

We Get A Montage Of What Happened After The War Including A Scene Where Howard Stark Finds The Tesseract In The Ocean And Peggy Keeping A Picture Of Steve Before Cutting To The Future! As Steve Wakes Up Years Later In A Hospital (That Looks Like It's In The Past) By A Woman (Who Is Supposedly Sharon Carter Except Instead Of Emily Van Camp It's Amanda Righetti From The O.C.) Who Is There To Tell Steve What's Going On...

However, The Game Playing On The Radio, Is A Game Steve Went To Years Ago...

(Start At 1:17)

After The Credits We Get A Sneak Peak Of The Avengers Before The Movie Ends...

And That's Captain America: The First Avenger And I Absolutely Love This Movie...

The 1940s Setting Is Fantastic, I Love The Story, I Love The Characters, I Love The Villain Despite Everyone Saying That He's Lame And Honestly I Have No Idea Why Hugo Weaving Did Not Want To Come Back For A Sequel As Red Skull Is Such A Good Character And A Great Villain In This Movie, I Love The Effects In The Movie With The Hydra Weaponry, The Costumes Are Great And It Is One Of My Favorite MCU Films And I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke Saying That Next Week We're Tackling The Avengers!

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hello ! I just saw your reblog of a daredevil gif and, do you have an head canon on wether or not Matt and Karen would have been back together and how , if the show had been renewed ? Thx !

hey, anon!

i will admit that few things in television baffle me as much as the way the defendersverse powers that be approach romantic pairings.

don’t get me wrong: i generally like the love stories told in this fictional universe. 

i just also don’t know exactly what to make of them.

usually, even without possessing any foreknowledge as to how each individual ship will pan out, i can still be relatively certain as to whether or not a given story world “believes in great loves.” 

but with the defendersverse, i’m not quite sure. 

that so, my short answer here is: i don’t know whether or not karedevil would have gotten back together, had daredevil been renewed. on the one hand, i feel like they were kind of set up to be endgame from the beginning. but on the other hand, i feel like as the wider defendersverse developed, there were also other viable options introduced for the both of them. 

ultimately, i think it would have come down to how the powers that be conceived of the story universe overall—and whether they were interested in telling structured, trope-compliant love stories or not.

more discussion if you click the “keep reading.”

___________ 

a big part of my uncertainty regarding how the defendersverse treats romances stems from the fact that its shows end mid-story, skewing my perspective of what’s there. 

none of the shows has more than three seasons to their names, and all were cancelled abruptly, without really affording the writers a chance to implement final conclusions. they all suffer for having loose strings, never to be tied.

consequently, it’s hard to tell which broken-up ships of the defendersverse were actually broken-up for good and which ones were just at a midgame impasse and might have later reconciled, had they only been given more time and narrative space in which to do so. 

however, another obstacle to making this determination is not in the circumstances but in the storytelling itself, as the defendersverse powers that be tended to be fairly indiscriminate in how they used romantic devices surrounding their ships, which means that a lot of the usual “midgame” vs. “endgame” signposts in this story world are blurred. 

in the first seasons of both dd and jj, the defendersverse powers create deep and compelling romantic relationships for their respective main characters, playing to all kinds of familiar “this relationship has long-term significance” tropes.

you want the jaded female superhero who’s given up on both love and the world, who then meets a guy who’s both so good and so good for her that she has to reevaluate her priorities? check.  

you want the male superhero who rescues the girl-next-door in body, only to have her rescue him in soul? check again.

there’s all sorts of smiles, talk of “before you, i never allowed myself to think about this kind of stuff,” heartfelt sacrifices, expressed vulnerabilities, etc., etc., etc.

in a story world that “believed in great loves,” no one who watched these seasons could be faulted for thinking that jessica jones would be endgame with luke cage and that matt murdock would be endgame with karen page.

the question, however, is, “is the defendersverse actually a story world that believes in great loves?”

in my mind, the evidence is ambiguous.

at most, the defendersverse powers only allow these relationships to progress for one or two seasons before dismantling them—but whether they mean to dismantle them temporarily or permanently is difficult to say.

the characters lead such complicated, dangerous, and ethically fraught existences that whatever happiness they experience in love is generally and perhaps unavoidably short-lived. 

as secret identities are revealed, moral stances compromised, trauma experienced and assessed, and heroic stakes raised, their relationships inevitably crumble under the pressure.

this crumbling could perhaps speak to this fictional universe being one in which all loves come with an expiration date printed on them, with none being given special narrative priority over any of the others.

however, the crumbling could also be a story component.

maybe the writers planned these breakups, knowing full-well they were temporary and that eventually the couples would get back together in the long term. maybe they’re just a midgame detour en route to the final endgame.

so cut to the next leg in defendersverse development, when tptb reshuffle the pairings between their main properties, sending character a from show 1 to be with character b from show 2. the process then continues and multiplies as more properties are added to the ‘verse, with characters spinning off into new shows and coupling in new and increasingly intricate permutations with one another.

of course, the truly interesting thing is that once these reshufflings take place, the new relationships created often prove just as deep and compelling as the relationships which preceded them and are marked by just as many typical endgame signposts.

matt murdock is willing to die for elektra and very nearly does so.

karen page repeatedly throws caution to the wind to choose frank castle over public opinion, common sense, and even her own well-being.

there are indicators to suggest that these new pairings could be endgame, just as there were with the ones before them. there’s deep connection. there’s ride-or-die stuff. there’s cuteness. there’s even potentially destiny. 

so, as a trope-savvy fan, one is left thinking, “well, okay, if the first pairing wasn’t endgame, then maybe the second one will be,” but then by the next season, the second pairing has often been dismantled much in the same way that the first one was previously.

a salient example here would be claire temple’s various relationships: in s1 of dd, her involvement with matt murdock ends because his vigilantism and masochism drives a wedge between them. after their falling out, she eventually starts dating luke cage. while she and luke are devoted to each other through much of lc s1 and the defenders miniseries, their relationship crumbles at the end of lc s2, when luke’s attitude toward “justice” prompts claire to ask him for “a break.” her second relationship within the defendersverse thus ends much in the same way that her first one did: with claire stepping back from her man because she finds his intense approach to heroism unhealthy.  

by the point of cancellation, the net effect is that because all of these relationships have in some ways been treated as “sacred,” none of them feels sacred overall, or at least not definitively. 

i can’t really look at them and say, “karedevil is the endgame; mattlektra is the midgame”—and especially not when elektra keeps miraculously resurrecting after she’s killed—because both ships have been set up in ways which suggest lasting significance.

i also can’t look to the comics as a cheat sheet, because while most of the relationships depicted in the defendersverse do have some basis in comic lore, the shows themselves don’t strictly adhere to that canon—and, in some cases, actively go against it.

in the new avengers comics, jessica jones and luke cage get married and have a daughter, but in the defendersverse, their relationship is pretty thoroughly trashed in the aftermath of jj s1.

still, where things get truly complicated is in the way that these various relationships interact with one another within the wider defendersverse.

if luke cage is jessica jones’s great love, but he is also claire temple’s great love, then someone is bound to lose out, right? and since the audience should in theory be sympathetic to all three characters, who are we supposed to be rooting for? likewise, if matt murdock ends up with karen page, then she can’t be with frank castle, you know? so does that mean matt has to be with elektra? but what if elektra dies (and for once stays dead)? then what?

the writers are playing “musical chairs” with their ships, but, as per the game, it would seem that someone is going to be left standing at the end.

so.

all of this discussion is a very long way for me to say that i genuinely have no idea what the defendersverse powers intended for romantic karedevil.

they are initially set up using many of the same tropes and storytelling techniques that would be used for an endgame pairing—but that framing only matters if the defendersverse is one where “endgame” is actually a legitimate thing that the writers are actively working toward.

it could be that matt and karen were meant to be a slow burn endgame, but the writers got cut-off midway through telling their story, before they could be romantically reconciled after their midgame falling out.

however, it could also be that, whether they were initially interested in creating a karedevil endgame or not, by s3 of dd, the writers had moved on from the possibility of romantic karedevil altogether, being more enticed to pair karen off with frank due to deborah ann woll’s unexpectedly good chemistry with jon bernthal.

of course, maybe endgame karedevil was never even on the table at all, either because it was always meant to be a midgame ship OR because this isn’t a fictional universe that is geared toward endgames, period.

“endgame” is a concept somewhat antithetical to how comic books work, as there’s always going to be another iteration and another series and another run, and the details will change, depending on who’s doing the writing and which universe the story takes place in; maybe the defendersverse was working on a similar model, where while matt murdock has history with many women, including claire temple, karen page, and elektra, he’ll never be tied one woman forever; his love life will always be a revolving door, depending on what suits the purposes of the story.

or maybe nothing had been decided yet, one way or another.

maybe the powers were more writing from season to season, keeping their options open, seeing what was available to them.

after all, there were a lot of moving parts in play across the wider ‘verse. 

who’s to say what might have happened had some of the defenders shows been cancelled but not others? who’s to say what might have happened due to the changing availability of various actors?

prior to the cancellations, rosario dawson had decided to step down from playing claire, a decision which would have undoubtedly sent ripples across the entire defendersverse, romance-wise.

up until the point when netflix pulled the plug, all sorts of possibilities were still open. there were still so many ways the writers could have chosen to swing things.

as for my personal headcanon (regardless of writer intention or what might have been), i should preface my thoughts by saying that while i enjoy karedevil, they’re not my number #1 preferred ship for either matt or karen, so i would have been perfectly happy with them as a midgame romantic ship that eventually reverted back to a platonic baseline, as per the end of dd s3.

that said, i can definitely see a road that leads to them getting together in the end.

my thoughts are these:

by the end of dd s3, matt and karen are back to being friends again after having been “fallen out” for a long time. since s2, karen has known matt’s secret identity, but now matt likewise knows about karen’s past, meaning that, in a way, the playing field is level between them.

still, their relationship is somewhat fragile. 

for the first time in their history, they’ve been honest with each other, and now neither one of them can “hide” in the ways that they used to. they’re both highly aware of this new vulnerability, and neither one of them wants to screw things up. they’re still sussing out what it will mean for them to work together again.

they don’t want to leave foggy caught in the middle of things like before.

so with that in mind, i see their romantic reconciliation as a slow burn process.

of course, they’ve always had a palpable connection, and that connection would be there from the start, even when they were working hard at “just being friends.” 

gradually, that connection would grow stronger and more impossible to ignore. 

there would be moments when they were working late nights together (after foggy had gone home to marci) when they’d stumble on a lead in their case and start talking excitedly, finishing each other’s thoughts, drawing closer and closer together, until suddenly they realized that there was only an inch of space between their faces and had to pull back, awkward and businesslike once more.

there’d be times when their clients would mistake them for a couple, and they’d laugh and try to brush it off but both be blushing too much to truly convince anyone that they were unaffected by the suggestion.

eventually, they’d start testing the waters—matt purposefully saying flirtatious things, karen touching matt more than she had reason to.

at some point, they’d have to broach the subject.

maybe matt would have taken to walking karen home after work, and one night, after a lot of laughter and arm-holding, she’d stop on the top stair and turn back to him and say, in that breathless, incisive way of hers, “i know you can hear how fast my heart is beating. is yours beating fast, too?” 

but, of course, since their relationship doesn’t exist in a vacuum, matt would probably be on the trail of bullseye or some other villain by this point, and, inevitably, these other story factors would come into play. 

i don’t know exactly how everything would go down, but my sense as a storyteller is that something would have to impede karedevil’s relationship; the path to reconciliation would, by necessity, have to be a long and wending one for them.

maybe for whatever reason they’d decide not to risk their friendship by pursuing a romance.

or maybe they would pursue a romance, only to have that relationship endangered by whatever villain they’re up against OR to have some of their past interpersonal issues resurface.

(for example, maybe as matt gets deeper and deeper into whatever case he’s working, he starts to emotionally shut karen out again, or maybe karen starts to distrust matt because he’s being evasive; etc.)

hell, maybe elektra turns up in hell’s kitchen, flipping their dynamic on its head.

after all, elektra’s body was never found after the destruction of midland circle, and karen has never gotten to talk to matt about finding elektra in his bed in s2; the potential for angst would be huge.

in any case, i imagine that things would deteriorate for a while—maybe to the point where, if they were already together, karedevil might once again break up.

but, ultimately, something would happen that would remind them of the depth of their feelings for each other—one of them would be hurt or captured or undergo another near-death experience; matt might end up fighting elektra to save karen; or karen might do something to help matt, even though they’d been on shaky ground before.

i don’t think karen would ever make matt give daredevil up completely—because she understands his thirst for justice and even his recklessness, to some degree, and she doesn’t begrudge him those parts of himself—but i think that in the end, matt would have to change; he’d have to become less self-loathing and not compartmentalize his feelings to the extent he always had before. he’d have to start to care more about his own life and well-being than he had in the past so that karen didn’t have to worry about him committing passive suicide via superherodom.

dying for a cause is one thing; dying just because you can and because you don’t value your own life enough to take self preserving actions is another.

karen would also have to learn to trust that matt and not to hide things from him. she’d have to learn to be truly emotionally intimate with him, which would be difficult for her at first, considering that she’s spent her whole adult life holding back important parts of her person.

(one of the interesting things about karedevil is that even though they have this deep, implicit understanding of each other, for most of their relationship, they’ve not really known each other, as both of them have been hiding significant secrets.)

i can see an endgame for them where matt is daredevil with karen’s help and blessing, and she provides him grounding and solace, while he proves to her that, despite her prior experiences, not everyone in her life is going to reject her and send her away; he knows her, and he knows her past, and he’s staying for as long as she wants him.

of course, in all fairness, i can also see many endings for these characters that don’t involve them being in a romantic relationship with each other; this is just one of the possibilities.

anyway,sorry i can’t give a more definitive answer, anon! thanks for the question.

[tshepiso-reads-books]

My Favourite Books of 2019

I had a pretty good reading year in 2019. Formulating my favourites list this year was definitely harder than it was in the past couple of years. This list has changed and shifted drastically as they year went by (if you’d like to know my favourites in the first half of the year check out this post).

I agonized for weeks trying to rank my favourites and eventually had to give up entirely. I read so many different books this year across genre and form and it was absolutely impossible to rank and compare them. So this year I’ll be talking about my favourite books from four categories: fantasy, science fiction, comics and contemporary. This is going to be a long one, so gird your loins.

Fantasy

2019 was a fantastic year for adult high fantasy. I finally dipped my toes into this category after years of hesitancy and discovered stories filled with rich worlds, pulse-pounding plots and fantastic characters.

The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin

If I had to choose a singular favourite book of 2019 The Fifth Season would definitely be it. Every single aspect of this novel was done to perfection our characters were fully rendered, the plot was absolutely gripping, and the worldbuilding so fleshed out and unique. This book was so perfectly realized and is truly a feat of master craftsmanship.

Circe · Madeline Miller

Even after all these months, Circe is still a stand-out story. Miller’s prose was breathtaking and cutting and our main character, Circe, so all-encompassing and well explored. The lens through which Miller views greek mythology was fascinating and the way she explored characters we already had preconceived notions of was fucking brilliant.

Jade City · Fonda Lee

This book was the perfect blend of inciting action, gripping family drama. The multi-layered and ever-changing landscape of the plot of Jade City kept me flipping the pages of this book, but the strong interpersonal relationships between the family at the center of this book kept me connected to every single plot point.

The Diviners · Libba Bray

The Diviners is the only YA fantasy on this list and I think it truly speaks to the heights that this book reached. What stood out most to me about this book was how politically relevant it was. Bray’s focus on the bigotry and hatred in America in the 20’s time felt pointed and relevant today. With fantastic characters, atmospheric writing and engaging mystery to boot The Diviners was a truly great story to read.

Foundryside · Robert Jackson Bennett

Foundryside was a genuinely fun time from beginning to end. I was gripped by Bennett’s unique magic system which I can only describe as “coding… but magic”. The great character work and entertaining character dynamics added to my absolute enjoyment of this story.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Sci-Fi

I got really into sci-fi for the first time this year and absolutely adored so many of the stories in this genre. I glad I dove into this genre more in 2019 because I discovered some fantastic stories.

The Wayfarer’s Trilogy · Becky Chambers

The Wayfarer’s trilogy was like a warm blanket to me this year. Every time I picked up a new book in this series its themes and messages filled me hope and joy. Chambers is really writing the sci-fi we need in 2019. I loved every book in this series, but I wanted to shout out A Closed and Common Orbit in particular because it was definitely my favourite.

Ninefox Gambit · Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit was a late entry into my favourites, but damn did it hit with a bang. It was certainly one of the most challenging books I read this year, but the reward for sticking through it all was just priceless. Lee crafted such an intricate world and delving deeper into it as I kept reading was enthralling.

Sleeping Giants · Sylvain Neuvel

It took me a while to fall for Sleeping Giants, but once I did I fell head over heels. Neuvel weaved in an interesting story through the interview format he utilized. I’m awed by his ability to capture the scope of the world and create a heart-pounding plot and intriguing mysteries exclusively through interviews.

Time Was · Ian McDonald

Time Was was an excellent novella. It captured everything I adore about time travel stories and historical science fiction. In a few pages, Ian McDonald sold me completely on every aspect of this story. I loved the sweeping romantic atmosphere imbibed into the story.

The Calculating Stars · Mary Robinette-Kowal

Another historical science fiction made its way into my favourites list and it truly deserved to. The level of detail poured into The Calculating Stars is amazing; Mary Robinette-Kowal delved deep into the space program and her accuracy to the time is astounding. Her ability to make me care about the minutiae of daily life is a credit to her character work because the protagonist of this book, Elma, was so charming and real that I couldn’t help but be invested in her story.  

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Comics

I read comic books for the first time this year and absolutely loved most of what I read. I discovered some fantastic authors and artists telling amazing stories and hope to only increase my comic reading in the coming year.

Nimona · Noelle Stevenson

What more is there to say about Nimona. I raved about it so much both online and in my personal life. Noelle Stevenson is writing the kinds of stories that sink their way into my heart and stay there. I adored every single panel of every single page in this story and encourage every single person to pick it up as soon as humanly possible.

The Vision · Tom King & Gabriel Hernandez Walta

I don’t even know what to say about The Vision other than, wow. This dark, psychological, tragedy affected me so deeply. It’s one of the three books I actively cried while reading this year and to this day I can’t eloquently express why I adored it so much. King really makes you care about the family at the center of this story which makes the tragic outcome of the story and the inevitability of that tragedy all the more painful.

Hawkeye · Matt Fraction & David Aja

I love Clint Barton with my whole heart and Hawkeye is the reason why. Fraction and Aja demonstrated a true understanding of Barton as a character and through their three-year run, they crafted what I believe is the best story about him out there.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Contemporary

This year was pretty light on contemporaries both in number and quality but I did discover amazing stories that spoke to me deeply.

Radio Silence · Alice Oseman

Radio Silence is a book that directly spoke to an exact moment in my life. I read this at the start of my final exam season of high school so the failure of the education system really resonated. Oseman managed to capture the rat race that is school. This book was deeply affecting and emotionally resonant which is probably why it’s one of the books that made me cry in 2019.  

Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell

I’m kind of cheating by putting a re-read on this list, but I found rereading fangirl this year to be so impactful and moving that it would feel a right shame to leave it out of any ‘Best of 2019’ list. Fangirl spoke to me so much harder in 2019 than it did when I first read it. Rowell perfectly captured the reasons we go to fandom for solace and community and the struggles Cath faces in this book are all the more relatable with time.

Autoboyography · Christina Lauren

YA contemporary captures the melodrama of teenagerdom in a way other subcategories of YA never really do. Autoboyography distils the essence of what it feels like to be a teenager so well. And not only does it do that it also contains a beautiful love story at its center.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Honourable Mentions

I read so many fantastic books this year and this list would feel incomplete without some honourable mentions. All of these were so close to making it on to my final list but sadly didn’t make the cut.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

So, that was my extensive favourites list for 2019. I had such a good reading year in 2019 and I want to bring that energy into the new decade. I’d love to hear about all your favourite books of the year in the comments below so please feel free to share them.

Happy reading!

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine: The Funnies

 Spoilers, obv.

 I suspect this will lean a little shorter than usual, partially because it’s more an editorial, sitting back position than any other issue of WicDiv and partially as DIE is out tomorrow, and there’s a lot of plates I’m keeping spinning.

 But let’s see, eh?

 Last year, when we did the Christmas Special, doing a comedy special was the other option. We decided to keep that in the can, simply because I was trying to visualise what on earth it would be like. Would I ask people to write stuff? Would I write it all? Could I somehow get The Wicked + the Canine to fill the whole issue? We went for Jamie’s idea (which required less conceptual engineering, so was easy, despite being more actual writing work) and saved this for the end.

 Which is nice. End of school party, right?

Jamie/Matt’s Cover: Jamie and I have a piece of performance twitter, where I make puns and he pretends to hate them. Okay, that’s not true at all. He hates them, as is only right, as they are designed to be hated. When we have Skype calls, and Chrissy and I sit beside each other, when I drop a pun, Chrissy makes a face which… well, Jamie’s wants to grab it as a gif. It’s quite the thing.

 Anyway – a variety of responses to puns. The pun is, I suspect, the best one I’ve dropped on twitter. One day I’ll write an essay on What I Do With Puns. But not today. It didn’t get a ludicrous number of retweets when I dropped it (and deleted my whole stream, as I do sporadically – don’t worry, I store everything before I do). It had an afterlife though being reblogged on tumblr (I think last time it was about 130k interactions), used in big websites’ pun round-ups, put on T-shirts and straight up stolen and tweeted by other people.

 So let’s stick it on a cover, and show the variety of responses to it. Of course, Baph would like it.

 I really like what Matt did with the colours here as well.

 Margaux Saltel’s cover: Margaux is great. I got to know her distantly when C was editing superfreaks, and actually got a chance to hang properly at this year’s thought bubble. She’s got a real playfulness to her art, which this fascinating design sense. Adorable big dog staring at the reader was the first thing I thought of when planning this issue, really.

IFC

Intro page to explain what’s going on, with pop-comic design by Sergio, headlines courtesy of C. If you haven’t read it, give it a scan, because I big up all our collaborators.

How did we decide how to ask? Far too many options. Our comic friends are very funny. We tended to ask people as it occurred to us, see how many pages they wanted to do, and then work out how many pages we had left

The Wicked + the Canine

I lured Erica into this by basically promising her to draw six pages of as many dogs as she liked. Write for your artist.

The pun was basically to amuse Chrissy, and grew into a story. I thought it could be longer (and it could have) but realised it’s best to cut it short – the backbone of Ananke as trainer, and the dogs as untrainable pups, is basically the core of it. Plus the big kick in seeing everyone done in dog form.

I threw some ideas into the mix of how the dogs could be differentiated (For example, Sakhmet as a cat and Woden as clearly-not-a-puppy in a cone of shame) but really left it to Erica to draw whatever dogs she liked. I actually suggested they all be Labradors, but Erica wanted to stretch and play, and it’s all wonderful.  The worry is in terms of race-coding the dogs, which is something we avoided.

I think my favourite is Baphopup.

The white-background and “get in the sack” is a wonderful bit of cartooning. How the lack of background stresses it all.

That it was basically done to make C laugh means that it’s part of a history of my dog based comics, which also includes the Christmas issue of Journey Into Mystery, where Loki has to give away seven hell-hounds. I think Thori is the character I co-created for the Marvel Universe who has had the longest life in terms of being used by other people. Adorable sweary murderous puppies can’t go wrong.

I’m pleased that people seemed to like it. That it’s a six page story where the joke is “Evil old lady doesn’t throw trusting pups in the river” is not exactly family comedy special material. I suspect if you’ve stuck along with WicDiv this far, you know what we’re like.

This is also a story which implicitly spoils the book, in terms of Ananke being a shameless manipulator of the pups. A lot of the stories are similar, which means this is a comic designed for relief of those who came along for all the issues.

The Wicker + the Divine Lizz Lunney is one of my favourite British cartoonists, and whole fierce scowl has petrified me for the decade or so I’ve known her. Lunney hadn’t read much of WicDiv before, so we lobbed her the PDFs, and found something fun to mock in terms of how ludicrously call-back-y we are.

Go support her stuff. She’s great.

The Lost God

Chip’s just a phenomenon, and his rising career across the last decade has been basically the most delightful surprise in the period. Immediately I have to swallow the urge to do the usual “Because he’s rubbish” chip-baiting joke, which says a lot. Chip is so much fun. That he’s both one of Marvel’s biggest, most interesting writers now and half of one of the most popular and definitive indie comics of the period is something else. Like, he’d be a legend if only for his internet jokes. That’s a footnote now. Amazing.

Anyway – we meet the first Kieron and Jamie version. Chip’s one is delightful – the over-tortured pun is on the money, but the real joy is Jamie McKelvie’s Hellboy-esque hyper-developed single arm. Every time I look at that, I laugh. Plus the accent. Marvelous.

“Wossat?! Time paste this nob, innit?” is just poetry.

Gentle Annie Vs The World

Talking about poetry…

Chrissy is WicDiv’s editor and also a poet, and has done some indie comics before – as well as co-editing the anthology Over The Line, which is an introduction to Poetry Comics. This isn’t that. This is her just channelling her loathing of Gentle Annie’s obfuscatory nonsense, and I love it so.

Clayton and Dee step in on the art duties. It was Clayton’s idea to drop in the Scott Pilgrim parody Annie at the top, which is very cute, and implicitly shows the modes he can work on. The realism of each scene, and the sense of place is great. Also, the Banshees poster in the doctor’s office is hilarious.

Making A Difference

This is fun. Romesh is a proper famous comedian, and digs WicDiv, so thought it’d be fun to write for the medium. As his script was coming together, I thought of Julia Madrigal’s Giant Days issue, and realised it’d fit well. She had to do it on her trip to Japan, which involved some hilarious jetlag.

Dee’s doing some powerhouse things here with the purple-white lighting too. That’s hyper-strong.

“Fresh Prince of Baal Air” is a hell of a line, in passing, and I think this may have the prize for the darkest punchline of the whole issue.

5 Things Everyone Who’s Lived With Sakhmet Will Understand

I loved Hamish’ Pantheon, which is a playful but entirely accurate retelling of Egyptian myth. Hamish also won this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, so clearly should be doing something else rather than being talked into playing around with us lot. Thankfully, he didn’t.

I think my favourite moment is Persephone’s glance up as Sakhmet walks across the keyboard.

18 Go Made In Wiltshire

Kitty and Larisa have done a bunch of stuff, but I have to put a special plug for where I first met them – TAYLOR SWIFT GIRL DETECTIVE: SECRETS OF THE STARBUCK LOVERS. It’s illustrated prose, and utterly delightful, so was honoured to have them along.

This is all an accurate and extensive skewering of what we’re doing, with a not-perfect Scooby Doo mash-up. I did try to talk them out of including all the characters, as that’s so much work, but they could not be stopped. This meant that working out speaking orders was the main formal issue to worry about.

Now, there’s lots of mockery of me in this issue, but reducing Laura down to “Everyone is so hot! Let’s make out with them!” was absolutely the I Feel Called Out Right Now moment. She’s more than that, right? Right?

While the “WicDiv is a scooby do plot” complete with “Evil old man reveal” is lots of fun, the bit which makes me laugh every time I flick through is the “I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling ki—” “Oh, fuck off.” Oh, Lucifer, Never change.

Enquiring Minds Want To Know: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure Song

Cover-artist Margaux joined by the irrepressible Kate Leth. I’m really into how the two play together – Kate wanted to cut things tight, and the “Short moment” illustrated with Margaux’s warmth is fascinating. Like, have the two other Norns ever looked more delighted and engaged than they are at the end of page six?

In terms of Kieron and Jamie baiting, Grumpy Jamie in full Captain Marvel Gear and me trying to write an essay in any given space is fun and mean (which is how we like it). And I’ve just realised that writing more about this script would only be underlining Kate’s point, so I better stop.

Secret Origin

I wrote it, and offered it to Jamie. Really, the point of the specials is to create a space in the schedule so Jamie can get ahead, but he couldn’t resist this one. It’s cathartic closure, at the least.

Choosing the puns was tricky – I realised it had to be a chain, so chose this one which amused Katie West, which was tweeted when visiting them in Edinburgh. So I was in range of punching.

As always, this is Jamie expression masterclass, and a little self-mocking of my tendency to go full clockwork in my story universes is fun. I hope so anyway.

28 pages of comics, which is quite the thing. I don’t suspect we’ll be making much (if any) money from this issue after paying everyone, but that’s fine. It’s a party, innit?

Oh, it was nearly 2000 words. It’s never short, is it? It’s never short.

WicDIv 40 is out tomorrow (December 5th), which starts our final arc, “Okay.” Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading.

[daresplaining]

Some Musing on Muse

    Soule created quite a few new characters for his run, some more long-lasting than others but most of them pretty neat. One of my favorites was the gruesome artist Muse, who originated in the “Dark Art” arc (#10-14) but maintained a presence in the comic up until his death in #600. While I wish he’d lived on to continue his artistic vision, I appreciate how great he was while he lasted.

    In interviews leading up to the start of his run, Soule talked about wanting to bring a horror element to Daredevil. For me, Muse was his strongest work in that direction. He is profoundly creepy in concept, behavior, and appearance (I can’t get enough of his character design), while also feeling fresh and unique among the ranks of DD villains. Muse is unpredictable, and operates based on his own carefully-constructed internal logic that, when you remove it from the context of all the murder and mutilation involved, makes sense. He is passionate about what he does, and feels it is right because it’s done with artistic integrity. He is the concept of wild creativity taken to a horrific extreme; an artist who draws inspiration from working in one specific medium-- which, unfortunately, happens to be people.

Sam: “You... you don’t have to do this... you--”

Muse: “Wow, man-- don’t you think I told myself that? After that first one... it was a woman, just someone I picked up. I made her into something... abstract. Told myself I shouldn’t. That it was wrong. But it didn’t feel wrong. The truth is, kid, when I’m creating, when I’m making, I’m strong. I am right. But people don’t really understand what I do. They object to my preferred medium, if you get my meaning. I only have so much time to work before someone manages to stop me. I need to use every moment. So yes, Blindspot, I have to do this. If I don’t... who will?”

    While Muse would be horrifying/fun (which is, uh... the ideal combination of traits for a villain, right?) in any context, he is particularly engaging as a Daredevil antagonist because he is... a visual artist. Thus, while Matt is aware of how horrible Muse’s behavior is, and is subjected to the hypersensory nastiness inherent in encountering brutalized corpses, he is still spared the full gruesome effect of the “exhibits” because he doesn’t have to look at them. There’s irony in Muse asking Matt, at the end of #11/beginning of #12, “Do you like my work?” Muse wants sincere artistic engagement with his creations, and while obviously no superhero would have given that to him, it is funny that he picked one who is actually incapable of doing so. 

Matt (caption): “Blood. Overpowering. It even tastes like blood in here. Radar sense can pick up the body and... what is he holding? A paintbrush. But that’s all. I can’t... There’s something on the wall, but I’d have to touch it to understand it, and I can’t. Not yet. It’s a crime scene.”

Matt: “Blindspot. Tell me what I’m seeing.”

Sam: “It’s a painting. Huge, like a mural. Covers the whole wall. Some kind of war or something. It’s all different shades of red. I looked at it, up close-- I think... I think it’s painted in blood.”

    Conversely, the one person who is repeatedly faced with the full horror of Muse’s crimes is Blindspot-- and in many ways, Muse is his antagonist more than Matt’s. 

Muse: “Ah. You’re still alive. I really thought you were dead just there. I suppose we can call this the latest exciting twist in the saga of Muse and Blindspot, eh? I’ve got another one for you. Imagine the tension if we put off the final battle for another day. You defaced my work... but I’m willing to let that go, just for tonight, in service of the greater story. Blindspot vs. Muse... one for the ages! Why not keep them waiting? Tension can be a powerful artistic tool. No? You’d rather climb up here and hash this out now? I can make that work.” 

    Muse takes an interest in Sam from the beginning, and personally invites him-- and only him-- to his first “opening”. Even after that, once Matt has gotten involved, Sam almost always seems to encounter Muse first. Muse gives Sam the first defining personal challenge of his career by blinding him. And it is through his interactions with Muse that Sam is first confronted with many of the questions all superheroes inevitably face, and is driven to figure out what kind of hero he wants to be. 

Sam: “I need to understand, Muse. I need this to make sense. Why do you do what you do? Why do you hurt people? Why do you kill? Why?”

Muse: “You know why, Blindspot. It’s the same reason you want to kill me right now. It makes you better it makes you strong it shows them your power it says something it means something it solves your problems it gives you control you’re big they’re small it’s art it’s art IT’S ART!”

    Sam refuses to kill Muse, but Muse chooses death anyway, burning alive in a characteristically dramatic fashion. But given the effectiveness of his character-- the strength of his voice and the visceral creepiness of everything he did-- I would love for him to be revived someday.