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ageless-aislynn · 3 years

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I honestly couldn’t watch Caitlin’s subplot. Like why? NOBODY likes Chillblaine. And honestly Iris and Joe should’ve had the B-Plot instead

Hey there, Anon! Oh yeah, I’m feeling you. 😕

I've been thinking about my dissatisfaction with Caitlin and Frost/Mark in this past episode and I think my unhappiness doesn't actually boil down to They're shipping Caitlin and Frost with my Not-Preferred Persons.

(Whomever could that be? WHO? NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW BECAUSE I'M SO STEALTHY ABOUT MY SHIPPING LOVE. 😜)

ReverseSnow/ReverseFrost/Snowthawne/Frostthawne (and SnowHarry and FrostNash) love aside, though, what made this hard to watch for me was being hit over the head with all of the "tell, not show." We don't get to experience Caitlin and Marcus meeting, getting to know each other, going through all of these awkward moments, maybe some disagreements, etc. You know, all of the things that give the viewer an emotional connection and a stake in the relationship. They just... tell us as a throwaway line in the ep before (I think) from Frost that Caitlin is dating Marcus as if we have an earthly clue who that even is.

Then in the ep itself, we get the one scene that I thought actually did WORK, at least for me: Mark talking to Caitlin about her being afraid to make a commitment, to really go all-in on this relationship. It's one of the few times I felt like they let Mark be an actual character and not a caricature. If we had a stake in Caitlin/Marcus, then that would've been an all-around great scene!

But we haven't even seen Marcus before so why am I supposed to even care if we (and Caitlin) see him again? IMO, they could've at least helped some of this by making this clearly a first date instead of acting like they've been dating off screen for a while.

Back to Mark, though. I actually do like Jon Cor and, when we first met him, I was ready to get on board the USS Frostblaine, lol. I mean, I clearly have no problem shipping my girls with villains...

*coughcoughs in Frosthunter/Snowhunter and Savifrost/Savisnow* 😜

...and the "villain who's transitioning to anti-hero" is one of my fav tropes! Plus, I'm used to not getting the ship I really want, 😒 so I don't begrudge my girls some fun in the meantime, lol. 😉

But. They've really misused his character, again because of the tell, not show. The WORST thing, though, IMO, was how they glossed over Frost deciding to forgive the bad things he's done and start a relationship with him. Caitlin TOLD us (well, she told somebody on the show but it was for the audience). I mean, if I'm going to be invested in a ship, that would've been a great scene to experience myself. It sounds, you know, kinda important and all that? But nope, we're just told about it.

Granted, some of this is because he isn't a full-time character so we're just going to get snippets of them together and I get that.

But back to Caitlin and What's-His-Name, though. 😜 Is he going to be someone we see in future eps or will it just be like Caitlin's our co-worker who's dating some dude we never expect to meet outside of a work holiday party or something? In that case, maybe it's better to not see him, then to get these weird little moments of "Oh look, Caitlin's found loooove again!" with some rando. 😜😉

Anyway, Anon, thank you for writing and for giving me the chance to process some of my feels over this whole situation, lol! 😉

PS - The fact that I can be 1001% emotionally invested in ships that have never even met *points up at Frost and Eowells/Mattobard and Flashpoint!Caitlin and Flashpoint!Eobard* is actually not contradictory. I love the characters separately and I love imagining how a relationship between them might work. But if they’d given me actual canon ReverseSnow, for example, but only as a throwaway line about “Oh, well, now that Caitlin’s dating the Reverse Flash...” then I would be equally unhappy with that. In fact, I’d probably throw hands...

...and then get out of there fast because I’m smol and soft and would cry if I was ever actually in a fight. 😉 But you get my point. “Tell, not show” is a lousy way to treat any ship, even (or especially) if it’s a ship I want to see. 💖

PSS - This doesn’t even address the horrifying second-hand embarrassment I got from Caitlin trying to shred Mark to pieces at dinner. I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t true or even deserved but, c’mon, Caity, read the room! That wasn’t the time for that and, at that moment, he’d done nothing to deserve being verbally filleted like that. It just made Caitlin look like a total jerk and I hated that. Though, I suppose, at least it falls under the category of being a character flaw. It would’ve been worse if we would’ve just later had Frost complaining to Barry or somebody about how Caitlin trashtalked Mark at dinner but we didn’t even see any of it. 🤷‍♀️

#the flash #the flash 8x07 #spoilers #snowells #reversefrost #caitlin snow #killer frost #mark blaine #chillblaine #frostblaine #anonymous #ask #anon #*hugs*#ageless aislynn

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mattelektras · 3 years

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i think the mcu is just trying to hard to make everything like. way too serious or political and its rly my main issues with most of their stuff? a handful of the movies are good/fun and address some serious stuff but most of the scripts do not have the nuance to deal with these topics and it all falls rly flat.

i don’t think marvel as a company wants to be too political either way so they make the most money they can by sitting on the fence like in falcon & the winter soldier we came so close so many times to saying something about the american military, how black heroes are treated vs white ones, the displacement of certain communities etc etc and then at the end we have zemo the nazi just. getting away with it. villain sharon killing people just the same as karli but only one of them gets pardoned and all their government privileges back etc etc like.

they hire directors like taika waititi and chloe zhao who are so GOOD at saying what they want to say with their films and conveying the messages that are important to them and the messages they feel reflect the characters but i think it ultimately comes down to marvel as a studio and as a company not wanting to alienate people??? a full on republican hog can think captain america is for them because it’s very military and war and Mr America Sir just as much as anyone with half a brain because there’s also the… created by jewish people as an anti nazi statement, is descended from immigrants, the complicated relationship with non white ppl and the cap mythos stuff because they don’t lean too far into either. and they make their villains subtly political in a left kind of way like karli and killmonger. or the villain in the last ant man movie i don’t remember her name like just. genuinely not a bad person just someone who’s reacting to ways they’ve been fucked over.

idk what i’m trying to say i think. the individuals working on the movies could do and say so much but they are ultimately bound to the mouse??? it’s similar to how they cover up the wendy racism by making u think it’s about mental health and grief and true love when it’s actually abt a whitewashed and altered to all fuck girlboss who willingly worked for nazis and never suffers any repercussions for what she does. like how the gay rep was gay joe russo in a throwaway line. like. homophobes can just breeze past that it doesn’t offend them but they still wanna get the props for like “gay rights!” ~marvel studios 2019. idk it’s all very insidious they’re very dumb but they’re very smart when it comes to the $$$$$

#q & a #anonymous #however bad they seem at handling stuff like that is a CHOICE is what i think i’m getting at #because their cast and directors are sometimes incredibly capable #they just. don’t have free reign of their own work because money comes first

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theprotagonistdies · 3 years

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Mortal Kombat 2021 Movie Review (w spoilers)

Just wanted to get this off my chest now that the movie’s been released in America. I watched this on 8th April when it was first released in Singapore, and two more times the following week.

So, overall I give the movie about a 6.5-7/10 or C+. Acting: Decent Story: Average at best Action: Above average to Good Gore: Graphic but not as often or much Best highlights: Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Costuming

I’ll be referencing some comments by others about the movie, but this’ll all be my opinions. I reviewed the movie based on my understanding that it’s a low budget film before even watching the movie. I am also a fan of the game (though I do not play, I watched most of the lore)

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When I first watched the movie, I was excited. The intro showing Hanzo Hasashi’s backstory would be something familiar to fans of the game. As expected, his wife and child were killed, but as we know it, they have an extra baby girl who later survives and carries on the bloodline. At this point, I was already ‘eh’ because it was so predictable what happens next. I was already disappointed that they named the son ‘Jyubei’ in the subtitles, when the wife didn’t even utter his name in Japanese. In the game, Hanzo’s son is called Satoshi. But one can say that’s something petty.

Anyways, as it goes on, we meet Joe Taslim as Bi-Han. He’s menacing, he’s cocky and has the presence that fills the screen. Already, I was smitten. While some people were saying the movie is rushed, I’d say this part of the intro felt a little draggy. But, the fight scene after is great, and we see Hanzo and Bi-Han throw hands.

I’d have to say at this point: ALL fight scenes including Bi-Han/Sub-Zero were great. They’re the best. Every other fight scene with the other characters were decent but not great.

Then we get introduced to Cole Young. From the get go, I do not like new characters not in the lore. I’m that type of person who does not like original characters in fanfiction. And his story further made me feel that a lot of time was wasted on him. Mortal Kombat has story elements around family, yes, but it’s not central, and it made the movie too wholesome and not in a way that I feel implemented well. In my opinion, it made the movie a little cringey at times. I like Lewis Tan who plays Cole but unfortunately he’s been given a role that was completely unnecessary.

A Youtube reviewer said it best: Why make up an entirely new character when there’s a plethora of characters to choose from? Heck, if you want him related to Hanzo, you could have used Takeda or something (though yes i know he’s not related to Hanzo, but he could be like a distant cousin relative whatever, with Takehashi on one of this other parents side).

There’s Jax and Sonya - why not just use Sonya? She’s the one gathering all the information. They could have used her.

Anyway, moving on. We also meet Kano. He was good and I see a lot of people loved him. Personally I thought he was okay, but he was too comedic in my opinion and felt underwhelming. While funny quips and mockery are appreciated, he felt like what Liu Kang called him: A small, angry little bunny. Not at all what I’d expect of the leader of Black Dragon.

There was... it that supposed to be Reptile? I honestly do not know, but I don’t believe that’s the Reptile we know from the game, and more of a mindless monster that has Reptile’s abilities.

I loved Sonya in this movie. Jessica McNamee was amazing as her. One - she’s attractive as hell, and Two - she felt far more relatable than Cole Young. From her being a soldier living in her ‘shithole’, to her curiosity in trying to find out more about the Mortal Kombat tournament.

They look for Raiden’s Temple in the desert. This was a little slow and again, I say Kano just felt like a chump here. A try-hard doing his best to appear intimidating but failing.

Liu Kang appears. Kano won’t shut up. Liu Kang’s introduction was interesting and I liked it, but later on his monologues and exaggerated actions were so odd and ‘extra’ to me that I was cringing. I don’t know why they don’t just make him a normal guy who’s a Shaolin monk lol.

Raiden is as cranky as we know him in the game. He’s kinda dull here, but to be honest, so is he in the game, so I don’t mind it. I saw someone compare him to the 1995 version which while I enjoyed and appreciated, did not think he suited the game and movie. So Tadanobu Asano’s Raiden is fine to me! Also, shut up to the people who get on others’ case on the way they pronounce Raiden. In Japanese it’s Rai-den, not Ray-den, like they say in the game. Both are correct, so shut up.

Sub-Zero makes an entrance again, menacingly running down the hall and making me sploosh, and Kung Lao also makes an entrance. Here you can see how poor the CG is. This is where you can tell the budget is low and realise that all the sets we’ve seen so far is pretty small and closed.

The ‘arcana’ thing that they made up to explain their powers was honestly pretty smart and I quite liked it. It then becomes a training arc, which while understandably can be seen as slow, it’s quite needed for the story.

The villains in this story were sadly underutilised. Admittedly I am unfamiliar with Nitara and Reiko, so them being throwaway characters did not affect me. Kabal, while very charismatic, died but I felt it was a decent end. I personally wish they could have included him more. However, for Mileena and Goro, I could see the moment I watched it that people were gonna be mad. I’m not fans of either of them but I understood that they are major characters in the game. So for them to be offed that easily was... tbh very disappointing and quite insulting. I sincerely hope they will bring back Mileena for the next movie, experimented on and brought to life using Kitana’s blood or something.

But best villain? Obviously goes to Bi-Han/Sub-Zero. Honestly I went into the movie expecting to root for Scorpion but I ended up being so in love with Joe Taslim’s menacing and chilling portrayal of Sub-Zero. He’s soooo good. People said he was like a slasher film villain and I think they made a great choice doing so!

As for Cole - I’m still not a fan of him or his powers. I like they used tonfas, but as some called it - he has literally plot armour which, tru. Hahahhaa.

So finally after all that, we finally get to the last fight.

Sub-Zero is about to kill Cole then Scorpion is summoned. They both fight and actually one can see Scorpion is winning? He got more hits in than Sub-Zero (two stabs, a side slash and a throw from Scorp, meanwhile Sub got one slash and a throw) so I don’t understand why people thought he actually needed help from Cole.

Also, this is another major complaint about the ‘wholesomeness’. Why was Hanzo’s family killed but Cole’s family spared by Sub-Zero? Why couldn’t they just killed them off for extra weight to the story instead of making it so safe? I felt that would have redeemed Cole’s character as more of Mortal Kombat character if they did so.

But I really enjoyed the fight here. As I mentioned all fights that involved Sub-Zero are amazing and people not giving the credit to this fight scene are blind. I also saw a comment that said they were expecting ‘John-Wick level’ of fight. Both fair and unfair comment because: It’s a low budget movie and they are two different styles of movies. John Wick is more realistic while this one is more fantastical. Though for them to call this a Marvel level choreography... I’m not sure bc Marvel put a lot of money, so that means for their budget the MK movie did well? So IDK but I believe the fight choreography was good in this most especially in the Sub-Zero/Scorpion fights.

Fatalities were great, costuming were great and for the sets while small and enclosed they did good.

Story could have been better and I cannot stress how much I find Cole’s role completely pointless. Pacing wise I actually do not find a problem with it. I only wished for more fighting and less about ‘family’.

From the movie overall I understood it as to be a set up, and even before watching it, from the trailers, I somehow knew it was not going to have a tournament so I don’t know why all these people in comments are lamenting about the lack of a tournament. It feels clear to me that this is a set up movie and more are to come.

So while I have a lot of issues with this movie, I do think it’s a fun watch which is why I give it a pretty generous score imo.

Hopefully we’ll have more to come, improving everything in all aspects with hopefully a bigger budget!

#movie review #mortal kombat 2021

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Who Is Taskmaster? Black Widow Movie Villain Explained

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Marvel's Black Widow movie features Taskmaster as its main villain. Here's everything you need to know about him.

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With Marvel's MCU Phase 4 rapidly approaching, it’s almost surprising that it has taken this long for the Taskmaster to show his skull-covered face. Taskmaster has been taking on various Marvel heroes since 1980 and has gone on to star in two miniseries while getting the occasional supporting character role. He’s on that border where it was hard to tell whether he’d show up in the movies or get relegated to TV, showing up as a villain on Agents of SHIELD or something from the Defenders’ neck of the woods on Netflix. But now we know he'll be the villain of the Black Widow movie, and we got our first look at him in the trailer.

Taskmaster first appeared in Avengers #195, created by David Michelinie and George Perez, mainly as a cliffhanger villain to set up his showcase in the next issue. A fifth-rate villain by the name of Pernell Solomon had a rather inconsequential plot involving cloning himself that ended badly, mostly because it exposed the Avengers to the existence of the Taskmaster and his secret villain school. You see, Taskmaster has a special power called “photographic” reflexes. If he sees someone perform an action – as long as it is a human movement – he can do the same on command. He’s essentially a greatest hits mixtape of every great warrior in the Marvel Universe. That shot of him in the Black Widow trailer wielding a bow might tell us that he has encountered Hawkeye at some point, for example.

But seriously, he can’t do superhuman stuff. He once tried to copy the movements of living cartoon character Slapstick and Bane’d himself.

At first he was going to become a superhero, but he realized that being a villain is where the money’s at. Then he came up with an even better and safer plan: keep the mercenary part of the job minimal and instead make money by teaching goons how to fight. If you’re joining Hydra or AIM and you want to know how to fight, just pay the guy who knows exactly how Captain America throws his shield so well and can perform Daredevil’s exact flips. He’d be able to make all that money using his skills while refraining from taking on superheroes head-on.

In his first appearance, Taskmaster easily took down Scott Lang Ant-Man, Hank Pym, and Wasp. He was even able to take on Captain America and Iron Man at the same time. His downfall was when he got in a one-on-one with Jocasta, who had no human movement to play off of, plus she was straight-up out of his league in terms of power. The other Avengers caught up and Taskmaster barely escaped.

In the years that followed, he remained the renowned villain coach while taking the occasional job if the money was right. Taskmaster was driven by greed as he had no trouble working for Crossbones or the US government if they paid up. During the memorable storyline where Steve Rogers was stripped of his Captain America title, the government had Taskmaster train John Walker, the star-spangled replacement who would later go on to be US Agent.

Marvel was weird about Taskmaster’s identity. For the longest time, they never gave him a real name, but they also didn’t seem to mind showing him unmasked from time to time. Like one time the Punisher nearly killed him and Daredevil later visited him in the hospital. Other than some bandages on his head, Taskmaster looked like a completely average white dude, albeit with a history of plastic surgery. We would eventually get some answers on his backstory, but there would be some contradictions.

Taskmaster appeared in the second issue of Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness’ legendary Deadpool run where Taskmaster kidnapped Deadpool’s sidekick/abused best friend Weasel. The showdown was played for laughs as Taskmaster, boasting about how he can read anyone’s movements and can predict your attacks before you even think about it, was completely helpless against the unpredictable Deadpool. Initially, this was supposed to build towards Taskmaster as a major nemesis for Deadpool during the Kelly run where the plan was that he’d start gaining the ability to inherit strategies the same way he inherits movements. That subplot was cut early on.

Regardless, Taskmaster remained a major part of Deadpool’s corner of the Marvel Universe and would appear in countless runs. While at times Taskmaster would be targeting Deadpool, other times, he would be his long-suffering partner in crime. One of their more memorable meet-ups had Taskmaster one of many hired guns working for a mobster against Deadpool and Spider-Man. Taskmaster whispered to Deadpool that his heart wasn’t really in it and offered to throw the fight for old time’s sake.

It was through that Deadpool connection that we got the brief “UDON Taskmaster” phase in the early '00s. The art studio UDON was drawing the Gail Simone run of Deadpool while also taking care of Ken Siu-Chong’s Taskmaster miniseries. The connecting tissue of this was mainly Sandi Brandenberg, a love interest to Taskmaster and secretary to Deadpool. But also, Taskmaster changed up his appearance, going from “albino Skeletor” to “street-wise Skull Man.” He was more gun-based than sword and shield.

The miniseries went deeper into his abilities, showing that he can remember every moment of his life with 100% clarity. He can also amp up his powers by watching fight footage in fast-forward, which makes him move at super speed at the cost of his body breaking down if he does it for too long. There’s also a neat anecdote about the pitfalls of his powers, as when he was a kid, he watched someone perform a perfect dive, copied it, and then almost drowned because he didn’t know how to swim.

Also, they finally revealed that Taskmaster’s real name is Tony Masters. Of course it is.

The miniseries and the cancellation of Deadpool coned into a new series called Agent X, centered around a scarred-up amnesiac named Alex Hayden who had Deadpool’s powers and personality and appeared months after Deadpool’s supposed death. Taskmaster was a major part of the series, taking time to be annoyed by Hayden’s antics, pining for Sandi, and being an all-around badass.

read more: Agent X: The Strange History of the Other Deadpool

While the UDON Taskmaster look showed up here and there, he was back to his original appearance by the time he was going after Moon Knight. He ended up getting more play thanks in part to Civil War and its aftermath, going from a member of the government’s pro-registration force to training cadets in Avengers: The Initiative. It was there that he became friends with one of his students, Eric O’Grady, the Irredeemable Ant-Man.

Once Norman Osborn took over the superhero wing of the government, Taskmaster briefly joined Osborn’s inner-circle of top villains, otherwise known as the Cabal. Taskmaster ultimately hated being Osborn’s whipping boy and secretly worked against him, eventually escaping and laughing when Osborn’s empire came crumbling down.

In 2011, Fred Van Lente and Jefte Palo joined together to create another Taskmaster miniseries, which was not only fantastic, but it added a few twists and retcons to the character’s backstory. It showed that Taskmaster answers to a higher power called the Org that calls him and gives him orders. Also, Taskmaster has a mental problem where he can only retain so much knowledge, so his brain tends to dump information that isn’t based on physical survival. In other words, he can fight in countless ways, but he can’t remember who he is or really anything about his past. Just a nagging feeling of unforgiveable guilt.

In this story, he protected a diner waitress named Mercedes from all sorts of assassins, only to discover that not only is Mercedes his Org handler, but she’s also his wife. Taskmaster is in fact a SHIELD agent who took a special kind of Super Soldier Serum that gave him his powers, but forces him to constantly forget the woman he loves. Hence the endless guilt.

There's also the thing that he's been unwittingly working for SHIELD all these years.

While that take on Taskmaster was eventually forgotten about (how fitting), it did lead to Avengers Academy member Finesse. Finesse is an Audrey Hepburn lookalike with powers exactly like Taskmaster’s who may or may not be his illegitimate daughter. When she tracked him down and fought him, it was heartbreaking to Taskmaster, as she only fought with copied movesets and he’d never be able to remember her for being her.

Since then, Taskmaster has shown up here and there, usually working alongside Black Ant, who is a robot duplicate of the Eric O’Grady Ant-Man. He tends to pop up whenever Marvel needs a throwaway villain and they’re tired of calling in the Wrecking Crew.

Outside of main continuity, Taskmaster’s shown up in a handful of alternate universe stories. One thing I find amusing is how there’s a What If issue based on the whole “John Walker as Captain America” storyline that has Taskmaster explain his powers by claiming to be a mutant because back then, nobody at Marvel thought too hard about how he got his skills. Then there’s House of M: Avengers, where Taskmaster does the same for the sake of fitting in with the high-status mutant community.

read more: Marvel Movies Release Schedule: Complete MCU Timeline

Taskmaster only showed up in the Ultimate comics towards the end of its run, but there wasn’t much to him. The only thing memorable was that they made him black.

The series Deadpool MAX reimagined Taskmaster as a grizzled and horny woman assassin who turned Wade Wilson into a killing machine and groomed him in the sexual sense. It's probably better that they didn’t go with this version of the character for the movie.

Taskmaster has shown up on several cartoons and in some video games. One of the more memorable is the recent Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 where he acts as a bonus threat, serving a similar purpose as Riddler in the Batman Arkham games. In a look that merged his classic appearance with his UDON appearance, he stalked Spider-Man through the city and came off as more of a knockoff of Deathstroke.

No wonder he and Deadpool keep crossing paths.

Lastly, I can’t help but mention Taskmaster’s appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Not just because you get to play as him and pull off sweet moves stolen from Hawkeye, Captain America, and Black Knight. Not just for his charming Brooklyn accent. Instead, it's for his rad-as-hell theme song.

Hopefully we'll hear this when he goes into action in Black Widow. I’m pumped for anything after listening to that song.

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and feels that if Taskmaster was more realistic, he’d be doing way more breakdancing. Read Gavin’s other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

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Dec 3, 2019

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samanthasroberts · 6 years

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6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

You would think that every pop culture creation would come about one of two ways: as the result either of sudden inspiration from a creative genius, or of a laborious corporate process involving dozens of designs and focus groups. But in reality, famous creators have ideas the same way the rest of us do: via random thoughts, laziness, or last-minute desperation. For example …

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Snake Eyes, the silent ninja commando from the G.I. Joe series, has been a fan favorite ever since his debut, because children love characters who wear cool helmets and never say anything. And hell, look at him!

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

G.I. Joe started as a comic, but it wasn’t long before toy company Hasbro’s profit senses started tingling, and they began to belch out action figures in a stream of screaming plastic vomit. But soon, the toys would come first, then were inserted into the comic as characters — they were simply a bunch of generic soldier designs painted different colors and hastily given names and backstories, because children don’t give a shit.

The most impressive thing about Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line was their dedication to maximizing their profit margins, and nowhere is this more evident than the design for Snake Eyes. To save money, they didn’t even paint the toy. It was churned out entirely in the same shade of black as the plastic that came out of the vat. Their explanation? Oh, he’s a ninja or something.

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact his creation took less effort and imagination than putting a cape on a potato, Snake Eyes went on to become one of the most beloved characters in the Joe franchise. “He’s so dark and mysterious!” Sure, kids. Oh, and look, here’s his “invisible motorcycle”! Vroom!

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Most fans know that Harley Quinn, one of the most popular characters in the Batman universe, did not originate in the comics. Her first appearance was in Batman: The Animated Series, in one of the rare examples of an adaptation that donates a character to the source material, sort of like how Norman Reedus was created for The Walking Dead TV show and gradually began to appear in other movies.

But in case you think that Harley Quinn was brought about by some stroke of creative genius, think again. Her creators never had anything significant in mind for her. She was made solely because the show’s writers needed the Joker to have a female henchman in order to make one gag in a single episode make sense. And then they didn’t even wind up using the joke.

Or her original design, thankfully.

Quinn’s first appearance in the series came in the 1992 episode “Joker’s Favor.” The idea was that the Joker would make an attempt on Commissioner Gordon’s life at his birthday party by having a girl with a gun jump out of a giant cake, effectively ruining the Commissioner’s big day. Harley Quinn was created to be the person in the cake. You may recognize this as the same role Erika Eleniak played in Under Siege.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

But while the episode was already in production, the writers decided that it would be funnier to have the Joker himself pop out of the cake rather than some ditzy dame, so they changed the script to make that happen. Rather than go to the trouble of removing Harley Quinn completely, since they’d already written her into the script and everything, they diminished her role to that of a background member of Joker’s gang, fully intending to never use the character again.

To everyone’s surprise, viewers loved Harley Quinn, so the writers brought her back for future episodes, and her popularity grew to the point that DC comics made her part of the official Batman canon. Granted, the official Batman canon also includes Batman turning into a weretiger and the Joker becoming an Iranian diplomat, but still.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

The Shredder, the eternal nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a scowling Japanese man dressed in spiked metal armor like Road Warrior Hawk and/or Animal. As best we can tell, he never takes this armor off, even when he’s just hanging around the Technodrome in between battles. When you think about it, there’s nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that doesn’t sound like it was inspired by a late night of pizza and beer. Every aspect of the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird can be boiled down to a conversation that begins with “Hey man, wouldn’t it be funny if …”

Lots of beer.

The Shredder is no exception. According to Eastman, the inspiration for the character came to him one night when he was washing the dishes. There’s no word on how astronomically high he probably was at the time, but while washing one of those flat cheese graters with a handle, he gripped it like a wrist guard and remarked to Laird about how cool it would be for a character to wear them as part of a costume.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

“We could call him the Grater,” Eastman suggested. Luckily, Laird was either less stoned or generally more level-headed, and came up with “the Shredder” instead, which sounds more like a villainous ninja and less like an irritating shift supervisor. The two then went ahead and wrote a villain into their comic who wore cheese graters all over his body, and a pop culture legend / impossible-to-find action figure was born.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Back when video games were first invented, brainstorming meetings resembled an insane game of Mescaline Libs — which is like Mad Libs, only played with 100 percent more mescaline. “A plumber who gains strength from mushrooms and dodges barrels thrown at him by a gorilla at a construction site? Sure, why not? Kids’ll buy any goddamn thing we tell them to.” Any random object that a programmer saw in their day-to-day life could become the central component of a video game pitch, and Pac Man started in that exact way.

Back in the ’80s, Namco employee Toru Iwatani sat down to eat a delicious pizza. Upon removing the first slice, Iwatani remarked on how much the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth. Anyone else would brush off this casual thought with the realization that sometimes stuff kind of looks like other stuff, but Iwatani’s mind started racing about the potential for a video game in which a pizza runs around a maze eating dots (see “mescaline,” above).

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

Quickly, this spark of inspiration ran through the usual hamster wheel of increasing absurdity until it became the story of a sentient pizza man eating his way through a maze while being pursued by vengeful ghosts. Iwatani pitched the idea as “Pakkuman” — “Pakku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. When the game was brought to the west, it became “Puck Man” (because “Chomp Man” would’ve sounded ridiculous and we are a nation of sober adults) and eventually “Pac Man.” And so, one of the most iconic characters in video game history was born — insofar as Pac Man can be called a “character.”

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

Back in the 1960s, DC writer Bob Haney noticed that basically every major superhero on the company’s roster had a teenage sidekick, and thought it would be interesting to have them all team up. The idea became Teen Titans, and it initially starred Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, who somehow had neither drowned nor been swallowed by a whale at this point. However, Haney eventually decided to rope in the rest of the Justice League’s abandoned plus-ones, including Wonder Woman’s lesser-known sidekick Wonder Girl.

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

But Haney apparently didn’t actually read the comics that featured Wonder Girl. Otherwise, he would have realized that she wasn’t a sidekick at all. Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman back when she was a teenager. This would be like drafting a team of Back To The Future characters and treating old Marty and young Marty as two separate people. See, in the ’50s, DC put Wonder Woman in a bunch of bizarre paradoxical time-travel adventures in which she teamed up with two younger versions of herself (one as a teenager and one as a baby) and her mother, and they fought dragons and swordfish, because these are comic books and not gold-leafed tomes of literature.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Haney evidently only glanced the covers of these issues, because he couldn’t be expected to read a comic about a bunch of women. Consequently, he wrote Wonder Girl into the Teen Titans as a completely separate character. Infant Wonder Woman (named Wonder Tot, because comic books excel at being comic books) missed out on a Teen Titans membership card for some reason.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

However, fans of Wonder Woman quickly pointed out this bizarre blunder, and DC was forced to hastily retcon Wonder Girl’s backstory. It turns out that this Wonder Girl is a different person after all — a girl named Donna Troy who developed Amazonian powers and decided to take on the mantle. Because in comics, there’s no corner out of which you cannot write yourself.

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Ordinarily, if you pitch a children’s book about a little boy getting stranded on an island filled with gigantic, grotesque monsters, international law requires you to phone Roald Dahl and ask for his permission first. Also, your mind’s eye will probably conjure up an image that is more H.P. Lovecraft than Richard Scarry. Author Maurice Sendak turned this concept into the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are — which, incidentally, is full of illustrations that look like H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Scarry got into a fierce doodling war on the same cocktail napkin.

Lovecraft won.

But in Sendak’s original vision for the book, the titular “wild things” weren’t monsters at all; they were horses. He originally pitched the idea to his editor as Where The Wild Horses Are, and was given the green light to write and illustrate it. Unfortunately, several months into the project, it became increasingly obvious that Sendak couldn’t draw a fucking horse if it were the ransom of the Universe.

Eventually, his editor stopped tearing her hair out and asked “Maurice, what can you draw?” The answer was, obviously, horrific inhuman monstrosities. They decided that was going to have to do, considering the amount of money they had already pumped into the project, and Sendak was given the go-ahead to draw whatever the hell popped into his mind, changing the title to Where The Wild Things Are, because “things” could be anything.

Including repressed family trauma.

The idea of trying to endear a platoon of nightmare creatures to children could have been a disaster, but it became one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature, and one of the most successful last-minute audibles in history.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/26/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

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mana-burns · 7 years

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Blade Runner 2049 Critique

A few days ago I noticed a throbbing pain on my forehead.

It was at work when I first felt it—or rather, it first dawned on me that what I was feeling was discomfort. Not just a headache from staring at a screen all day, but a more epidermal pain, like a pain in the face rather than the head.

When I got home, I looked in the mirror and realized why; there was a whitehead looming under my left eyebrow, standing at attention like a soldier, driving a red throbbing pain down under my skin and toward my skull.

I examined the blemish in my bathroom mirror, inspecting a region of my body that I had never really looked at that closely ever before. It forced me to see myself in a novel way. I took inventory of every individual hair making up my brows. I counted the thin bristles bridging the gap between the two thicker, prominent bushes of hair above my eyes. For the first time in my life, I counted each hair and examined these features closely, all in service of combating this new and unwanted blemish above my eye, a blemish that caused me great discomfort and pain, and not just out of a sense of vanity.

Blade Runner 2049 implores its audience to examine their flesh critically, the same way that a blemish might. It is a soft reboot of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film about androids and the humans who hunt them, but unlike that film it does not concern itself with the dichotomy of man vs. machine. Instead, it is a story of populated almost exclusively by automatons.

There are machines who are more ‘real’ than others, because they are made of synthetic flesh instead of columns of light, and we are forced to consider how appropriate it is to make this distinction. This eventually evolves into a subplot that will remind audiences of Spike Jonze’s Her, a subplot that ultimately feels somewhat idiosyncratic with the rest of the film. The protagonist, a Blade Runner named K (and later Joe) is in love with his household hologram assistant, an AI that lives in a handheld device and chirps out the opening stanza of “Peter and the Wolf” every time it is booted up.

This subplot feels like a critique of smartphones and how they’ve paradoxically isolated us from one another while building a false sense of community. Some critics have interpreted it as a critique of the male gaze as well, but of course, like most cinematic critiques of the male gaze, it still indulges in the pleasures of that same gaze, leading its audience to wonder if it is truly saying anything novel about the topic at all.

There are a few humans in the film. Most of them die. The human who survives is the creator of these machines. As a viewer, I would have been happier if he had died to the machines, because he is a cruel and despicable man. Though he’s made of flesh and blood like I am, I feel far more connected to the machines than him. Ultimately, that’s the greatest triumph of the film—Villeneuve successfully creates empathetic characters who we know are not human.

Sympathy for the synthetic man in fiction generally comes with some caveat—Satan is cast out of paradise for his arrogance, Frankenstein’s Monster is a murderous sociopath, the parts of Darth Vader that remain human are weak and pale, et cetera. Even the original Blade Runner looked down at the enslaved and subhuman Replicants.

But Blade Runner 2049 loves its Replicants. They have consciousness, thoughts, feelings, desires. They like and dislike. They love and hate. We’re not told this, but we see it. Just like Her, 2049 passes no judgements on its subjugated artificial class. This too, is a triumph.

Finally, it’s daring that Blade Runner 2049 hinges its entire plot on the ambiguous final note of its predecessor, but it’s worthy of praise; like The Force Awakens, it's clearly a film made by a fan, because it poke and prods at the corners of its predecessors’ vision, instead of diving deeper toward the original’s focus. Villeneuve realized that the Replicants were always infinitely more interesting and relatable than the humans in Blade Runner, and so he goes all in on building them as sympathetic outsiders.

At the same time, he capitalizes on their intimidating strength to create a compelling, terrifying villain. The difference between this villain and the sympathetic Replicants is that she is fiercely loyal to her human creator instead of her own kind. A loyalty to a corrupt system of power is the only trait separating her from the heroes. The villain is a traitor who strives to be great in the eyes of the Other, in this case her creator, instead of sympathetic toward her peers.

The original Blade Runner is a juggernaut of mood and atmosphere, a bloated and beautiful tribute to the techno-paranoia of the 1980s. It’s home to some incredible world-building, which is one of the great strengths of science fiction as a genre. I’m reminded of the William Gibson quote regarding Escape from New York and how it influenced Neuromancer:

"[I was]....intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake, 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best science fiction, where a casual reference can imply a lot."

But Blade Runner is a very slow movie and its entire plot could be summed up in a single sentence: A man kills robots, but he might be a robot himself.

Blade Runner 2049 is not a slow movie, though it is exceptionally long. Its plot is a gordian knot of twists and turns and complications, all culminating in an action scene with, imagine this, quiet power and dignity. The final confrontation in the film feels like high-budget Hollywood fisticuffs shot on an abandoned set from Ugetsu.

The original Blade Runner’s final confrontation happens on a rain-slick rooftop. There is a diluvian connection between the two films’ conclusions, and any film student would tell you that rainfall in cinema frequently signifies a rebirth. This surface-level interpretation of Blade Runner 2049’s ending is a serviceable explanation, but I don’t buy it; I think the film’s conclusion happens where it does and how it does because it is clean and satisfying, unlike the world in which the film is set. Things are wrapped up quite nicely, but enough is left ambiguous for the audience to imagine their own version of a happy ending. There are open doors, but not necessarily the echoes of franchising. Combine that with 2049’s failure at the box office, and a sequel seems fairly unlikely.

Blade Runner 2049 rose from the swamp of Hollywood’s nostalgia-rush, of course, made to capitalize on a beloved property. Despite its critical success, it’s been unable to stand toe-to-toe financially with Star Wars or Marvel. Anyone could have told you that would happen.

It would be futile to compare this film with either of those franchises, because it tries to accomplish something else entirely. But I will say this: Marvel’s Tony Stark puts on a suit of armor to look like a robot so he can stand among gods. Blade Runner’s K puts on a suit of artificial skin so he can stand among humans. In the end, the latter is more compelling than the former can ever be.

#blade runner #blade runner 2049 #Film Review #film #Film Criticism #film critique #denis villeneuve

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adambstingus · 6 years

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6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Or her original design, thankfully.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

Lots of beer.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Lovecraft won.

Including repressed family trauma.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173336373617

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allofbeercom · 6 years

Text

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Or her original design, thankfully.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

Lots of beer.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Lovecraft won.

Including repressed family trauma.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

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daleisgreat · 7 years

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2016-17 TV Season Recap Part Four: Bonus Summer TV Edition

Previous TV Season Recaps – (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 1 (Gotham, Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow) 2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 2 (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Legion, Riverdale) 2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 3 (24: Legacy, South Park, Horace & Pete, Stranger Things)

I did not anticipate there being so many new shows to keep up with this summer, and the last summer shows just wrapped up over the last few weeks in time for season premieres of the shows I am currently following. When I reflected back on the summer, there ended up being six seasons of shows I wound up devouring throughout the summer, and it felt like plenty to warrant a quick blog with my thoughts of the summer of television. A few of these shows I covered in prior TV Season recaps, but their premieres got pushed back a few months to the summertime instead of their usual spring debuts, and a few other shows caught my eye too, so let’s get to it! Glow - For those unfamiliar with GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) it was a edgy women's wrestling league that ran from 1985-90. The Netflix series focuses on a new cast of fictional characters with some based on personas of the former wrestler's in the promotion. Glow centers on one Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) who has been looking to catch her first break in Hollywood and took up a role in GLOW because it was the only thing available. The 10 episode season introduces the cast of the dozen or wrestlers and builds up to the season finale which is the shooting of the pilot episode. Obviously, the wrestling nut in me is really biased on this, but I feel safe in saying it is a legit good show and you do not need to be a wrestling fan to dig it. Only about 30% of the show deals with wrestling while the rest is fleshing out the rest of the cast. Wrestling fans will dig a few cameos from former WWE/Impact stars peppered throughout the show. The episodes are roughly a half hour each and with only 10 episodes it made for a quick and entertaining watch. Grade: B+

Defenders - This is the equivalent to the Netflix Marvel Universe to what the first Avengers was to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Defenders is the team-up show of the four heroes introduced in past Netflix Marvel shows over the last few years featuring Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones). I loved seeing Daredevil, Jones and Cage back again and kicking ass, especially once they all start teaming up in the back half of the show. Another positive is this season is only eight episodes compared to the usual 13 of previous Marvel Netflix series so there is a lot less fluff. On the negative however, Defenders doubles down on nearly everything I loathed on the Iron Fist show. I am not a fan of the villains known as ‘The Hand’ at all as they come off as meaningless cannon-fodder, but Marvel went all in on them this season by unleashing Elektra (Elodie Yung) as their leader. She kind of gives The Hand a smidge of an edge, but I was never much of a fan of Elektra either so that did not really help. Like most of the Internet, I was not big into Iron Fist also and it is unfortunate that Iron Fist is the primary focus of the four heroes in most episodes as he plays a pivotal role in trying to vanquish The Hand. By the end of the show I still was not swayed to be a fan of either Iron Fist or buying into The Hand as a formidable antagonist, but at least I can take solace in enjoying how Daredevil, Cage and Jones all played off each other along with each show’s periphery characters in each episode so the season was not a complete waste. Grade: C-

‎American Grit - The first season of American Grit was a guilty pleasure of mine and I am glad it returned along with host John Cena for a second season. It is a Survivor-esque reality show where a bunch of people are divided into four teams in a military themed camp with a former military veteran as their leader and compete in challenges each week that leads to someone going home each week until there is one left to win a million dollars. This season mixes things up a bit by having a 50/50 mix of contestants consisting of athletic builds and everyday Joes/Janes and all have a theme of trying to find their grit. That means a part of each show features a little bit of everyday drama of the competitors having a big personal moment revealing their past personal struggles and why they entered the show. There is also a little bit more of a focus on the team leaders this season too and watching their turmoil bubble over throughout the season resulted in some entertaining animosity. I usually try and avoid most reality TV but naturally I made an exception for this show because it involves the charismatic beast that is John Cena and I got a kick whenever he appeared to shed some wisdom to the entrants or gossip with the military veterans. The challenges are also fun to watch for the most part and consist of a unique boot camp style variant so I was always looking forward to what challenge they cooked up each episode. The ‘finding your Grit’ theme resulted in several emotional moments throughout the show of the cast spilling their guts about their past and for a handful it looked like they legitimately came out of the show changed and finding out something new about themselves. Grade: A-

Ballers - The Rock continues to impress as sports financial manager extraordinaire Spencer Strasmore. I always relate Ballers as a sports-themed version of Entourage for those not familiar with it. The theme of this season is Spencer’s agency trying to expand and make it big by landing a deal to be the owner group in charge of moving an NFL team to Las Vegas. Rock continues to play off well with coworker Joe (Rob Corddry) as the two continue to party way too hard to impress potential clients. I also dig the athletes on this show as they face popular NFL controversies such as dealing with concussions and suspensions over failed drug tests. I will also give a shoutout to the Dolphins scout, Charles (Omar Miller) and Dolphins GM Larry Siefert (Dule Hill) as I have always dug their love/hate dynamic and they continue to steal the show with a few unforgettable scenes including a dinner scene that goes all kinds of wrong just like the average WWE wedding. There are a couple clunker episodes, but for the most part this was another must-see season. Grade: A- Leftovers - I have no idea where to begin on this show that deals with living in the aftermath of the Rapture. The first season had a little bit of a standard plot structure, but last season and for this final third season, The Leftovers went off the rails in all kinds of unpredictable ways where I stopped trying to guess what happened and went along for the ride. The primary plot point for this episode is the cast worrying about a second, far greater Rapture occurring and the cast going to insurmountable lengths to prevent it. Some of those lengths feature crafting a new version of the Bible, the wildest boat ride in TV history and finally getting the payoff to what happened to the 2% of the population that vanished in the original Rapture.

It is hard to recommend this show as I stopped questioning what they were doing early on in the second season and am just accepting whatever they throw in my face, except for almost anything relating to the Guilty Remnant cult. It appears the writers heard our dissatisfied pleas and the Guilty Remnant are laughably written off early in the season with a throwaway line of dialogue and have a minimal presence this season. I take that back, I do like Guilty Remnant member, Liv Tyler getting her overdue comeuppance this season in a glorious manner. The series finale delivered like few other series finales before it and I will never forget conversing with a friend for nearly a half hour breaking down the entire season in a way I do with no other TV shows. Grade: A+ Game of Thrones - After many brief teases and minor skirmishes this is finally the season of Game of Thrones that goes all in on white walkers/zombies. It is impossible for me to give this show a fair breakdown in just a paragraph or two because it has such a huge cast and I am awful at remembering almost of all their names. I will say I liked the setup to capture a living white walker and bring it to Castle Black. Those two episodes really stood out the most where Jon Snow and his motley crew put their lives on the lines into the icy wastes to capture a white walker. The confrontation with the walkers surrounding Jon Snow on that island lead to him and his men laying it all on the line in a EPIC showdown that had me buying into their fates until an unexpected ex-machina transpires and had me popping huge at the TV.

I loved how Game of Thrones built up the big negotiation session between Snow and the Lannisters as a dramatic TV event for the ages and that episode delivered in a big way with meaningful payoffs. I do echo what a majority of the online feedback that the pace of travel is amped up far too fast compared to previous seasons. I recall prior seasons where certain characters spent an entire season getting from one location to another, but in this shortened season characters would leave one location, appear on another side of the world later that episode and make it back to their home region by the end of the same episode. I get it, the show is winding down with one more season to go so they need to fast track some of these story arcs, but after setting a precedent for the five prior seasons it is difficult to make that adjustment. There is still so much more I want to touch on including Arya being a badass assassin, dragons, zombie dragons, that grayscale-sickness seeming to be a little too convenient to cure, the awesomeness of Hot Pie and the cowardice of Theon, but I am already pushing 2000 words here and need to wrap this up. Suffice it to say, Game of Thrones continues to amaze, and I am gratified that I am finally caught up and cannot wait for the final season next year. Grade: A Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9 Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld Final Season Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television

#tv/web series #glow #game of thrones #leftovers #ballers #defenders #american grit #liv tyler #the rock #john cena #allison brie #rob corddry #charlie cox #krysten ritter #michael colter #finn jones #omar miller #Dule Hill

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Who Is Taskmaster? Potential Black Widow Movie Villain Explained

https://ift.tt/2YTRS7v

The MCU might finally be introducing one of Marvel's coolest villains in Black Widow. Here's what he's about.

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With Marvel's MCU Phase 4 rapidly approaching, it’s almost surprising that it has taken this long for the Taskmaster to show his skull-covered face. Taskmaster has been taking on various Marvel heroes since 1980 and has gone on to star in two miniseries while getting the occasional supporting character role. He’s on that border where it was hard to tell whether he’d show up in the movies or get relegated to TV, showing up as a villain on Agents of SHIELD or something from the Defenders’ neck of the woods on Netflix. But now it appears that he'll be the villain of the Black Widow movie, which is coming in 2020.

But seriously, he can’t do superhuman stuff. He once tried to copy the movements of living cartoon character Slapstick and Bane’d himself.

Also, they finally revealed that Taskmaster’s real name is Tony Masters. Of course it is.

read more: Agent X: The Strange History of the Other Deadpool

There's also the thing that he's been unwittingly working for SHIELD all these years.

read more: Marvel Movies Release Schedule: Complete MCU Timeline

Taskmaster only showed up in the Ultimate comics towards the end of its run, but there wasn’t much to him. The only thing memorable was that they made him black.

No wonder he and Deadpool keep crossing paths.

He's appeared in the trailer for Marvel's Avengers, which is pretty perfect, considering it will come out right around Black Widow, when the mainstream will presumably care about the skull-faced merc.

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Hopefully we'll hear this when he goes into action in Black Widow. I’m pumped for anything after listening to that song.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and feels that if Taskmaster was more realistic, he’d be doing way more breakdancing. Read Gavin’s other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

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Feature

Movies

Gavin Jasper

Jul 18, 2019

Marvel

black widow

from Books https://ift.tt/32zDd3x

#aion-rsa #Books

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