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doamarierose-honoka · 4 months

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SUMMARY

▪️Sega Genesis delivered vibrant graphics and memorable games, including the action-packed Revenge of Shinobi in 1989.

▪️Featuring ninjas, cyborgs, and demons, Shinobi showcased the Genesis power with challenging gameplay and iconic characters.

▪️ Unauthorized appearances of Spider-Man, Batman, Rambo, Terminator, and Godzilla added unexpected fun to Shinobi , with revisions later made.

When it came to bringing hard-hitting arcade action to players' homes in the 80s, few consoles delivered the way the Sega Genesis did. With 16 bits of power displaying vibrant graphics, bass-boosted music courtesy of the Yamaha YM2612 sound chip, and an impressive library of games, the Genesis was a gaming force to be reckoned with. Not only did the Genesis deliver tons of licensed games straight into players' hands, but it also brought many of Sega’s own arcade hits home, too. From Golden Axe to Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog to Altered Beast, the Sega Genesis was simply stacked with blockbuster hits.

Chief among these series was Shinobi, a series of action platformers that helped define the Genesis as an action game powerhouse. Ninjas, cyborgs, demons, and more exploded off screens, demanding zenlike skills to master and survive. So, when players got hold of 1989’s The Revenge of Shinobi, a direct sequel to the original 1987 arcade title, it seemed like a dream come true when they discovered that Marvel’s Spider-Man and DC’s Batman were included in the game, as well. The problem with that, however, was that they (among other licensed characters) weren’t supposed to be in the game at all and were, in fact, very much unauthorized in their appearances.

Sega's Shinobi Is Classic Arcade Ninja Action From Beginning To End

Every Game in the Shinobi Series:

Title: Shinobi

Platform: Arcade

Year Release: 1983

Title: The Revenge of Shinobi

Platform: Genesis

Year Release: 1989

Title: Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi

Platform: Arcade/Genesis

Year Release: 1989

Title: The Cyber Shinobi

Platform: Master System

Year Release: 1990

Title: The G. G. Shinobi

Platform: Game Gear

Year Release: 1991

Title: The G. G. Shinobi II: The Silent Fury

Platform: Game Gear

Year Release: 1992

Title: Shinobi III: Return of the Master Ninja

Platform: Genesis

Year Release: 1993

Title: Shinobi Legions

Platform: Sega Saturn

Year Release: 1995

Title: Shinobi

Platform: PS2

Year Release: 2002

Title: Nightshade

Platform: PS2

Year Release: 2003

Title: Shinobi 3D

Platform: 3DS

Year Release: 2011

Sega’s Shinobi is one of the company’s longest-running and most beloved series of all time. Debuting in 1987, the very first Shinobi game was an arcade-only adventure that put players in the shoes of Joe Musashi, a ninja dedicated to defeating the evil Zeed organization. Blending precision platforming with plenty of action, Shinobi was a tremendously challenging but incredibly popular hit. Two years later, Shinobi received two different sequels, 1989’s Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi and The Revenge of Shinobi. While Shadow Dancer starred an enigmatic unnamed ninja and his faithful canine companion, The Revenge of Shinobi served as a direct sequel to the original arcade game.

Joe Mushashi took up his blade once again to battle the evil Zeed organization, now known as Neo Zeed. To make matters worse, Neo Zeed kidnapped Joe’s bride, Naoko. Fueled by the lethal combination of duty and vengeance, Joe embarked on a truly harrowing quest to save the world and his bride. The Revenge of Shinobi is often considered to be one of the best action titles on the Genesis and for good reason.

Armed with kunai and devastatingly powerful Ninjutsu spells, Joe battled his way through multiple cities across the world, military bases, and Neo Zeed’s mazelike base. With stellar graphics and gameplay, plus an unforgettable soundtrack thanks to the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, The Revenge of Shinobi still stands as a Genesis classic. With such a stacked legacy to its name and an immense pedigree behind it, it only becomes even stranger to see the likes of Spider-Man and Batman randomly appear in the game.

Marvel's Spider-Man And DC's Batman Make Prominent, But Completely Unofficial Appearances

Despite being two of the most famous superheroes of all time, Spider-Man and Batman do not occur as heroes in The Revenge of Shinobi. Instead, the two heroes are actually enemies that Joe Musashi must battle. Specifically, Spider-Man and Batman can be found as the bosses for the sixth level, Chinatown. The battle begins with Spider-Man crawling across the ceiling, shooting webs at Joe. When enough damage is dealt to Spider-Man, he transforms into Batman, who proceeds to fly around and swoop at Joe.

On one hand, it’s an incredibly cool moment to randomly discover the two superheroes in the very last place anyone would expect to see them. On the other hand, it’s a moment that raises the massive question of why the two heroes made their random appearance in a Shinobi game of all places. The answer, very simply, was a lack of communication.

The director of The Revenge of Shinobi, Noriyoshi Ohba, designed the Genesis game to be the ultimate showcase of the console’s hardware capabilities. During development, he sketched a number of enemies he wanted to incorporate into the game. When he handed them to the game’s character designer, Ohba thought his sketches would be modified enough that his obvious depictions of Spider-Man and Batman would be altered. Unfortunately, they weren’t, and the two famous superheroes found themselves thrust into the world of Shinobi. The inclusion of these characters wasn’t intended to be a brazen act of copyright infringement or laziness, but simply due to a little miscommunication between developers. Ultimately, their presence made an already fantastic game even more memorable.

As If Spider-Man And Batman Weren't Enough, Rambo, The Terminator, And Even Godzilla Make Cameo's As Well

Now, as if seeing Spider-Man and Batman in the game wasn’t cool enough, fans were treated to three more completely random licensed characters in The Revenge of Shinobi. The first of these surprise characters can be found in the third level, The Military Base. As Joe battles his way through waves of fierce armed resistance, he encounters an enemy that looks remarkably similar to a popular 80s action hero. With dark military pants, a black tank top, and an iconic red bandanna, Joe found himself face-to-face with Sylvester Stallone’s classic character, John Rambo.

The next character players must battle against is the boss of the fourth level, Detroit. A sinister humanoid robot attacks Joe, a robot that looks incredibly similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger's terrifying future assassin, the Terminator. As 1984's The Terminator and 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part 2 were cultural phenomenons upon their release, it's easy to see why Ohba would quickly sketch characters that so closely resembled the action stars. But it's the final cameo that is the most obvious and one that is impossible to miss. The seventh and penultimate level in the game, New York, places Joe atop multiple boats.

After battling his way into the Neo Zeed container ship, Joe comes face to face with none other than the mighty kaiju himself, Godzilla. There is absolutely no way any player can miss the reference as to who and what Godzilla is in the game. As the end-stage boss, Godzilla attacks with his iconic breath (though it's flames and not his usual radioactive breath). Why and how Neo Zeed managed to capture and sneak Godzilla onto a container ship will always remain a mystery, but it definitely serves as one of the most memorable moments in the entire game.

The Revenge Of Shinobi's Licensed Cameos Could Never Happen Today But Are Still Really Cool And Memorable Accidents

As none of the special cameo characters were ever meant to actually be in The Revenge of Shinobi, four more versions of the game were released to rectify the accidental inclusions. In 1989, Software Revision 1.00 was released that altered enemy colors and specifically explained that Spider-Man and Batman were actually an enemy known as “Metamorpher.” Software Revision 1.01, also in 1989, officially includes Spider-Man in the game, though Batman becomes a generic winged demon monster with Rambo losing his hair, as well. 1990’s Software Revision 1.02 added a new copyright screen to include the license for Spider-Man. 1990’s Software Revision 1.03 changes Godzilla into a giant skeletal robot dinosaur.

2009 and 2012’s Software Revision 1.04 removed the license for Spider-Man and instead dressed him in a pink palette swap. This final revision also alters Joe’s face on the title screen to no longer resemble the actor Sonny Chiba from his role in the TV show Shadow Warriors. Nowadays, it would be impossible for such accidental character inclusions to ever happen in a video game. The legal fallout alone is a deterrent of the highest order to ensure that these kinds of mistakes don’t happen. And if they do happen, a single patch is all that’s needed to rectify the issue instantly and permanently.

Even though multiple reworked versions of the game were subsequently released, there are still physical copies of The Revenge of Shinobi that have the original unaltered characters. The Shinobi series is still alive today with a brand-new entry announced by Sega in the works. Fans shouldn’t hold their breath at the possibility of seeing Joe Musashi fight Godzilla or Batman again, but it’s amazing that one of Sega’s OG arcade franchises is still going strong. For Sega fans who have never played Shinobi before, tracking down a copy of Revenge of Shinobi is a must (even if Spider-Man and Batman might not be in it.)

#marvel #marvel comics #spider man #marvel spiderman #dc #dc comics #dc batman #shinobi #sega shinobi #sega #cameo #comics #games

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nerds-yearbook · 6 months

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Appendix: Some Nerd Appearances of David Warner

Teen Titans Go! - The Lobe (2020)

Mary Poppins Returns - Admiral Boom (2018)

The Alienist - Professor Cavanaugh (2018)

The Amazing World of Gumball - Dr Wrecker (2015 - 2016)

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear - Jon Irenicus (2016)

Southern Troopers - Admiral Warner (2015)

Penny Dreadful - Professor Abraham Van Helsing (2014)

Doctor Who - Professor Grisenko (2013)

Wizard - Merlin (2013)

The Evil Clergyman - The Evil Clergyman (2012)

The Secret of Crickley Hall - Percy Judd (2012)

A Thousand Kisses Deep - Max (2011)

Tron: The Next Day - Ed Dillenger (2011)

Graceless - Daniel (2010)

Doctor Who: Dreamland - Lord Azlok (2009)

Hogfather - Lord Downey (2006)

The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse - Dr Erasmus Pea (2005)

Cyber Wars - Joseph Lau (2004)

Cortex - Master of the Organization (2004)

Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde - Sir Danvers Carew (2003)

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - Nergal (2001 - 2003)

The Code Conspiracy - Professor (2002)

The Little Unicorn - Ted Regan (2001)

Planet of the Apes - Senator Sandar (2001)

Men In Black animated - Alpha (1997 - 2001)

Star Trek: Klingon Academy - Chancellor Gorkon (2000)

The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne - Arago (2000)

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - Lord Angstrom (2000)

Batman Beyond - Ra's Al Ghul (2000)

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)

Star Wars: Force Commander - Grand Gen Brashin

Superman animated - Ra's Al Ghul (1999)

Descent 3 - Dravis (1999)

The Outer Limits - Inspector (1995 - 1999)

Total Recall 2070 - Dr Felix Latham (1999)

Wing Commander - Admiral Geoffery (1999)

Toonsylvania - Doctor Vic Frankenstien (1998)

Houdini - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1998)

Fallout - Morpheus (1997)

Spider-Man animated - Herbert Landon (1995 - 1997)

Preversions of Science - Dr Nordhoff (1997)

Freakazoid - The Lobe (1995 - 1997)

Captain Simian & the Space Monkeys - the Glyph (1997)

Privateer 2 - Rhinehart (1996)

Beast Master III - Lord Agon (1996)

Gargoyles - Archmage (1995)

Iron Man - Arthur Dearborn (1995)

Batman animated - Ra's Al Ghul (1992 - 1995)

Final Equinox - Shilow (1995)

Biker Mice from Mars - Ice Breaker (1995)

Mighty Max - Talon (1994)

Babylon 5 - Aldous Gajic (1994)

Lois and Clark the New Adventures - Jor-El (1994)

Adventures of Brisco County Jr - Winston Smiles (1993)

Quest of the Delta Knights - Lord Vultare (1993)

Body Bags - Dr Lock (1993)

Wild Palms - Eli Levitt (1993)

Dinosaurs - Spirit of the Tree (1993)

Star Trek the Next Generation - Gul Madred (1992)

Captain Planet and the Planeteers - Zarm (1992)

Tales from the Crypt - Dr Alan Goetz (1992)

Return to the Lost World - Professor Summerlee (1992)

The Lost World - Professor Summerlee (1992)

Star Trek VI - Chancellor Gorkon (1991)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - Professor Jordan (1991)

Twin Peaks - Thomas Eckhardt (1991)

Spymaker - Adm Godfry (1990)

Star Trek V - St John Talbot (1989)

Worlds Beyond - Ken Larkin (1988)

My Best Friend is a Vampire - Professor Leopold (1987)

Frankenstien - the creature (1984)

The Man With Two Brains - Dr Alfred (1983)

Tron - Ed Dillenger (1982)

Time Bandits - Evil Genius (1981)

Time After Time - Dr John Leslie/Jack the Ripper (1979)

#nerds yearbook #appendix #david warner #scifi

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jellogram · 2 years

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October/Halloween Movie List Inspo by Theme!!!!

I probably forgot or omitted a ton of stuff so please don't get mad lol. Most of the older ones are available on YouTube or Tubi, the majority are in English, and most of the lists are in chronological order. I also avoided most sequels for simplicity's sake. I've seen most but not all of these so no content warnings are listed, so be sure to check accordingly.

🎃💀🎃💀🎃💀🎃💀

The Silent Era:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Nosferatu (1922)

Häxan (1922)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Faust (1926)

Vampyr (1932) (Almost silent)

The Universal Monsters Starter Pack

Dracula (1931)

Frankenstein (1931)

The Mummy (1932)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The Wolf Man (1941)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Best of Hitchcock Horror

Rope (1948)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Rear Window (1954)

Vertigo (1958)

Psycho (1960)

The Birds (1963)

Classic Slashers

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Halloween (1978)

Friday the 13th (1980)

The Evil Dead (1981)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Child's Play (1988)

Candyman (1992)

Scream (1996)

The "Science Fiction/Double Feature" Collection from the Rocky Horror intro:

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Flash Gordon (various serials 1936-1940)

The Invisible Man (1933)

King Kong (1933)

It Came From Outer Space (1953)

Doctor X (1932)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Tarantula! (1955)

The Day of the Triffids (1962)

Night of the Demon (1957)

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Cult Classic and B-movie MegaMarathon

Them! (1954)

The Blob (1958)

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Eraserhead (1977)

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

The Thing (1981)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Clue (1985)

Elvira (1988)

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Birdemic (2008)

Jennifer's Body (2009)

The "I Miss the Old Tim Burton" Watch List

Vincent (1982)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Batman (1989)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Sleepy Hollow (1993)

Mars Attacks (1996)

The Corpse Bride (2005)

Sweeney Todd (2007)

Dark Shadows (2012)

Macabre Musicals

The Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Corpse Bride (2005)

Sweeney Todd (2007)

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

The Lure (2015)

The 90s Nostalgia Mixtape

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The Witches (1990)

The Addams Family (1991)

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Hocus Pocus (1993)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Casper (1995)

The Craft (1996)

Scream (1996)

Halloweentown (1998)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The "God Forbid Women Do Anything" MegaMarathon

Carrie (1976)

Suspiria (1977)

Heathers (1989)

The Witches (1990)

The Craft (1996)

Ringu (1998)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Teeth (2007)

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Black Swan (2010)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

The Lure (2015)

The VVitch (2015)

Raw (2016)

Midsommar (2019)

Us (2019)

Last Night in Soho (2021)

X (2022)

Scary Found Footage

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Rec (2007)

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Cloverfield (2008)

Lake Mungo (2008)

Unfriended (2014)

As Above, So Below (2014)

Creep (2014)

Host (2020)

Dracula Through the Ages

Nosferatu (1922)

Dracula (1931)

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Dracula (1979)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

The Monster Squad (1987)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Van Helsing (2004)

Dracula Untold (2014)

The Film Bro Starter Pack (Spooky Edition)

The Exorcist (1973)

Alien (1979)

The Shining (1980)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

American Psycho (2000)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Get Out (2017)

Eye Candy

Suspiria (1977)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Coraline (2009)

Crimson Peak (2015)

The Love Witch (2016)

The Neon Demon (2016)

Mandy (2018)

Last Night in Soho (2021)

The Munsters (2022)

Movies My Mom Doesn't Realize Are Gay

Rope (1948)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (1985)

The Lost Boys (1987)

Hellraiser (1987)

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

The Craft (1996)

Black Swan (2010)

#long post #Halloween #october #movies #horror movies #halloween movies #horror

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teresiel · 9 months

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Favourite Character Bingo - 2023

Characters I first encountered in 2023 (not necessarily part of media released in that year).

These are intended to be ordered loosely according to genre, moving from classic to contemporary horror, sci-fi horror, thriller horror, on to drama, comedy, then comic/cartoon and fantasy. Naturally, plenty of these don't quite stay in their own prescribed mould and could be considered fitting for another genre, but this is MY PARTY and I make the rules >:(

The hardest thing I've ever done may just be forcing myself to choose only one Baldur's Gate 3 character. If this was ordered by fondness for the characters, Astarion would be up top, but it's not and I'm petty so he's last and least.

As may surprise no-one, the prevailing trends are trickster archetypes, gothic looks, autism coding, and sympathetic or misunderstood status and/or rebellion. Also Billy Crystal is there.

Listing below the cut!

Countess Marya Zeleska - Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Mrs. Danvers - Rebecca (1940)

Lady Sylvia Marsh - The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Nevena - You Won't Be Alone (2022)

Kim Diamond - Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

Brynn AND the Aliens - No One Will Save You (2023) (as an interacting set of characters, not necessarily as interesting actors singularly)

Violet and Corky - Bound (1996)

Andrea "Dre" Greene - Swarm (2023)

Gunther - V/H/S/85 (2023) - Goth boy who saves the day through his prescient lucid dreaming and rebels against being falsely cast as the villain, hell yeah.

Willard - Willard (1971) - would be in the top three if this were sorted by level of favoritism.

Gerd Wiesler - The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen (2006)

Primo - Big Night (1996)

Walter Tattersall - Yellowjackets (2021-) - of call the cast and I fixate on THIS GUY. Got me again, Elijah!

Willie Jack Sampson - Reservation Dogs (2021)

Barabara Howard and Melissa Schemmenti - Abbott Elementary (2022-) - My god these two gripped me. Just give them an entire season. Gregory can be there too.

Gregory Eddie - Abbott Elementary (2022-)

Sally Albright and Harry Burns - When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Raven - Teen Titans: Beast World (2023-) - solely for her design; I am practically floating at the departure from emo/punk Raven and a return to a more whimsical gothic look. Another artist draws her looking like Billie Lourd and I'm into it.

Sharon Apple - Macross Plus (1994/1995)

Spider-Punk/Hobie Brown - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

The Medicine Seller/Kusuriuri/薬売り - Mononoke/モノノ怪 (2007)

Astarion - Baldur's Gate 3 (2023) - He's my best friend, he's my pal, he's my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy, and I've been so excited for you all to see his whole schtick since way back in 2020.

Runner Up's: Shin Hati (Ahsoka), Mirror Woman (The Art of Mirrors) - don't ask, Nearly everyone else form Baldur's Gate 3 but especially all the companions and the Emperor oopsies I'm a sucker, Padraic (Banshees of Inisherin), Mary (Carnival of Souls), everyone from Dungeon Meshi but esepecially Marcille and Senshi, Lorne Malvo (Fargo), Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell), Brigitte (Ginger Snaps), The Harppy (Harpya), Joel and Ellie (The Last of Us; kept out because of the Zionist higher plot), Dracula and Clemens (The Last Voyage of the Demeter), Martin (Martin), Izzy Hands (Our Flag Means Death), Father Amorth (The Pope's Exorcist), Deer Lady (Reservation Dogs), Elora Danan (Reservation Dogs), Adam (SAW), Carl (Skyman), Kris (Solaris), Kurt Kunkle (Spree), Sammi Curr and Eddie (Trick or Treat), Bitch Cat (V/H/S/94),

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earth-18104 · 3 months

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Earth-18104

Since I started getting more into Marvel I made a bunch of Ocs for the media, and with time I created a whole universe to insert them in the stories. So I'm gonna start posting here my personal time-line.

These events include stories from the comics, a bit of the cartoons and the movies. Many events or characters have their backstories changed and I will include my ocs here.

It's just a project I do for fun (and has been taking my mind in the last years help). It's not complete. There's still a lot to work but I got the basics.

(This is a rewrite from my other blog :P)

Time-line

B. C - Events

• Okkara and the Enriched

• Birth of Apocalypse

• Hela and the Asgardians

• The Clan Akkaba

A. C. - Events

• Fall of Strontia

• Thanos' birth

• Creation of the Ten Rings

• Fall of Titan

15th/ 16th / 17th Century - Events

• Odin brings the Tesseract to Earth

• Rise of Count Dracula

• Apocalypse and the Army of Darkness defeat Dracula

• Fall of Tenochtitlán

• Creation of Talokan and birth of K'uk'ultan

• Trial of Agatha Harkness

• Apocalypse is sealed by his subordinates

• Selene Essex becomes Lady Sinister

18th / 19th Century - Events

• Mystique's birth

• Victor Creed's birth

• Sanguinária's birth (OC)

• Logan's birth

• Howlett's Tragedy

• Irene Adler and Raven Darkholme meet

• Fall of Akkaba Clan

• Origins: Wolverine I

20th Century

1900 - 1930 - Events

• Origins: Wolverine II

• Wolrd War I

1940 - Events

• World War II

• Johann Schmist finds the Tesseract

• Steve Rogers becomes Captain America

• Bucky Barnes becomes his partner

• Phineas Horton creates the original Torch

• Sgt. Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos

• Foundation of Weapon X by Dr. Abraham Cornelius Truett

• Captain America dissappears and Bucky Barnes is taken by HYDRA

• Logan marries Itsu. Later she is murdered by the Winter Soldider and his son is taken

• Cain Marko and Charles Xavier become stepbrothers

• Wong starts his training in Kamar-Taj

• Howard Stak works for SHIELD

1950 - Events

• Cain Marko and Charles Xavier fight in the Korean War. Marko dissapears after finding the Temple of Cyttorak

• Max Eisenhardt marries Magda

• The original Torch dissapears / dies

• Logan meets Silverfox

• Magda and their daughter dies, Max Eisenhardt changes his name to Erik Lehnsherr

• 1950 Avengers

1960 - Events

• Charles Xavier meets Moira Mactaggert and Gabrielle Haller

• Sabretooth and Wolverine join Team X

• Adam Brashear becomes Blue Marvel

1970 - Events

• Professor X, Magneto, Mystique and Destiny create the first team of X-Men

• X-Men '72

• Adamantiun tests

• Team X breaks out

• Xavier VS Shadow King

1980 - Events

• Captain Marvel

• Ghost Rider

• The Incredible Hulk

• Iron Man

• Ant-Man and Wasp

• The Summers Incident

• Hawkeye and Mockingbird

Age of Heroes - The first famous groups of heroes start to rise, the first conflicts earth went through after FF, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Defenders, Guardians of the Galaxy, Young Avengers, Power Pack and the others formed.

1989 - Events

• The Fantastic Four

• Puppet Master

1990 - Events

• The Avengers

° (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Wasp, Ant Man, Hulk, Mockingbird, Hawkeye)

1991 - Events

• Jessica Drew works for SHIELD as Arachne

• Logan adopts Amiko Kobayashi

• Matt Murdock debuts as Daredevil

1992 - Events

• The X-Men

° (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman and Beast)

• The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

• X-Men VS Juggernaut

• Sam Wilson becomes the Falcon

1993 - Events

• Simon Williams joins the Masters of Evil as Wonder Man

• New Avengers

° (Black Panther, Hercules, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Hawkerye, Falcon)

• Jennifer Walters becomes She-Hulk

1994 - Events

• Sue Storm and Reed Richards Wending

• The Fantastic Four meets Black Panther

• Dane Withman becomes Black Knigt

• Z'Nox attack

• Wade Wilson becomes Deadpool

• Silver Sufer and Galactus

• Alex Summers becomes an X-Man

• Betsy Braddock becomes Captain Britain

1995 - Events

• Mesmero attacks Krakoa. Lorna Dane joins the X-Men as Polaris

• The X-Men and the Okkari

• Patsy Walker becomes Hellcat

• Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man

• Jessica Jones becomes Jewel

• Heroes for Hire (Luke Cage and Danny Rand)

• Norman Osborn becomes the Green Goblin

• Natasha Romanoff leaves the Red Room and joins SHIELD, working alongside Mockingbird and Hawkeye

• Frankie Raye joins the Fantastic Four as Photon.

• The Avengers battle against Ultron and Vision

• Among us stalk the Sentinels! Ororo Muroe and Sean Cassidy join the X-Men

• Frank Castle becomes the Punisher

• Jean Grey absorbed the power of the Phoenix

1996 - Events

• Hank McCoy joins the Avengers

• Greer Nelson becomes Tigra

• Secret Empire

• Avengers / Defenders War

• Flint Marko becomes Sandman

• Second Genesis.

• Hulk VS Wolverine

• Cyclops starts a new team of X-Men

° (Wolverine, Storm, Thunderbird, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Sunfire)

• X-Men VS Erik the Red and D'Ken

• Wanda Maximoff and the Darkhold

• Darren Cross becomes Yellow Jacket

• Wanda uses her magic to create her sons

• Mystique and Destiny start a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

• Kitty Pryde and Alison Blaire join Xavier's Institue

• Dark Phoenix and death of Jean Grey. Cyclops leaves the team

• Kree / Skrull War

1997 - Events

• Days of Future Past. Rachel Summers and Lucas Bishop join the X-Men

• Cyclops meets Madelyne Prior.

• Rogue absorves Carol Danvers powers

• Rhino VS Spider-Man

• The trial of Hank Pym

• X-Men VS the Brood

• She-Hulk joins the Avengers

• Wanda and Vision find out their sons are magic creations of the Darkhold

• Illyana Rasputin is captured and taken to the Limbo

• New Mutants

• The Morlocks

• Rogue joins the X-Men. Logan marries Mariko.

• Beta Ray Bill!

• Venom arrives at Earth

• Hawkeye creates the West Coast Avengers

• Forge joins the X-Men

• Curtis Connors becomes the Lizard

1998 - Events

• Jean Grey returns

• Nathan Summers is born

• Mutant Massacre

• Madelyne is corrupted by the demon N'Astirh, becoming the Goblin Queen

• Asteroid M

• Fall of the Mutants

• Franklin Richards is born

• The Punisher took over the Assassins' Guild, and later became a substitute teacher while investigating drug trafficking at a school

• Wolverine and Jubilee work together against the Hand

• Gambit joins the X-Men

• Genosha X-Tinction Agenda

• Legacy Virus

1999 - Events

• Kree/Shi'ar War

• X–Cutioner Song

• Rise of Midnight's Children

• Maximum Carnage

• Fatal Attractions

• Bloodties. Fabian Cortez kidnaps Luna Maximoff

• Sabretooth goes to the X-Men after he starts losing control of his feral side

• Cyclops and Marvel Girl marry

• Generation Next and Phalanx events. Emma Frosts takes the new mutants as her students. Blink dissapears.

• The Hellions die

• Peter Parker meets Olivia Octavius, who later becomes Dr. Octopus

• Sabretooth escapes. Angel loses his wings

• Ozyamndias comes to warn the X-Men about the return of Apocalypse

2000 - Events

• Jessica Drew joins the Heroes for Hire

• Graydon Creed's assassination

• Apocalypse returns with his Horsemen

• Okkara is revealed to the world

2001 - Events

• Mantis, the Celestial Madonna, creates Adam Warlock using the Mind Stone

• Gamora, Mantis, Drax, Groot, Adam and Rocket become the Guardians of Galaxy

• The Thunderbolts

2002 - Events

• Sepent Crown's arc. Lemuria and Talokan are revealed to the world

2003 - Events

• Jessica Drew returns as a heroes and joins the Heroes for Hire with Cage and Rand

2004 -

• The start of Infinity Gaulent arc.

° Earth's heroes lose the battle to Thanos. Half of the Universe dissapears.

• The X-Men split in Team Gold and Team Blue to defend the mutant kind

2005 -

2006 -

• Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson marry

2007 -

2008 -

2009 -

• Mayday Parker is born

• Power Pack debuts as a new group of children superheroes

° Jack (12) as Zero-G, Julie (10) as Lightspeed, Jack (8) as Mass Master, and Kate Powers (5) as Energizer.

2010 -

• The Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Guardians of Galaxy and Denfenders join forces to fight Thanos once more

• Event Infinity Gaulent ends.

2011 -

• The Avengers rebuilt their base.

• Scott Lang joins the team as the new Ant-Man.

• Charles Xavier re-opens the Academy X

2012 -

• E is for Extinction

• Riot at Xavier's

• Runaways!

• Jean Grey dies fighting Xorn

• Gitfted / The Mutant Cure

2013 -

• X-23 (13) tries to assassinate Logan. She changes her name to Laura Kinney

• Secret Wars

• Winter Soldier returns

• The Gray family is killed by Death Commandos Shi'ar

• Vulcan leaves Earth, deciding to take revenge on D'ken for the death of his mother

• M-Day happens

• Academia X changes the X-Men program

• With the help of rebels, Vulcan escapes from prison and frees Deathbird

• Peter Quill joins the Guardians of Galaxy

2014 -

• The Young Avengers!

° Iron Lad (16), Kate Bishop (17/18), Wiccan, Speed (16), Patriot (16), Hulking (16), Sting (14), Jonas

• The New X-Men

• Hearing about Vulcan's escape, Prestige, Thunderbird, Warpath, Xavier, Darwin, Nightcrawler, Havok, Lorna and Petra leave Earth

° Korvus Rook'shir is freed; Lilandra Neramani loses the title of Empress

• D'Ken wakes up and takes his title and asks Vulcan and Dearthbird to stay by his side

• William Stryker and his Purifiers attacks Xavier's Institute

• Vulcan's royal marriage and coronation as Shi'ar Emperor

2015 -

• Civil War

• World War Hulk

• Birth of the Mutant Messiah

• Kang's Dinasty

° The Avengers and other heroes fight Kang.

° Sam Wilson becomes Captain America

2016 -

• The mutants move to the new Utopia

• War of Kings. Inhumans, X-Men, Starjammers and Guardians of Galaxy against Vulcan

° Lilandra dies during battle; Rachel Grey avenges her family; Black Bolt defeats Vulcan

° At Lilandra's funeral, Kallark becomes majestor

• Reed Richards founds the Future Foundation

° Alex Power (19), Dragon Man, Moloids Tong, Turg, Mik and Korr, Bentley 23 (10), Artie Maddicks (20), Leech (19), Julie Powers (17), Jack Powers (15), Kate Powers (12), Valéria Richards (9), Franklin Richards (13).

• The Skrull Invasion takes place on Earth

2017 -

• Dark Reign

• The Inner Circle attacks Genosha

• Hope returns as the Messiah

• Annihilators

• Hank Pym opens the Avengers Academy

• Young Avengers: Children's crusade

• Generation Hope

• Attack on the Mutant History Museum

• Sabretooth becomes the Invisible King of Asia

2018 -

• The Schism between the X-Men happens

• Fear Itself

° Thor becomes King of Asgard

• Apocalypse Solution

° Warren Worthington III becomes heir of Apocalypse

° Genesis, clone of Apocalypse, wakes from his chamber

• Logan opens the Jean Grey School For Higher Learning

° There's a room where the light won't find you (Watxm fanfic)

• Miles Morales (13) becomes Spider-Man

• Sabretooth and his goons kidnaps Genesis

2019 -

• The Phoenix returns

° Hope Summers fixes the mistake made during M-Day, sacrificing herself.

° Rachel Grey becomes the new host of Phoenix.

• Rage of Ultron.

° Hank Pym sacrifices himself to defeat Ultron once for all

• Terrigenesis Mist Arc

2020 -

• Khamala Khan (16) becomes Ms. Marvel

• Jean Foster is diagnosed with cancer, later she becomes an Valkyrie

• Moon Girl (9), together with Devil Dinosaur, tries to become a superhero

• Riri Williams (15) debuts as IronHeart

• Robert Reyes debuts as the new Ghost Rider

2021 -

• Dead Man Logan

° Logan dies and is buried in a secret place in Canada. Storm becomes the new headmistress at JGS.

• Ms. Marvel, Nova and Spider-Man create the new Champions

2022 -

• Strange Academy

2023 -

• The Mutants create Krakoaland

• Empyre Event: Kree Alliance - Skrull

2024 -

• Mayday Parker becomes Spider-Girl.

#x men #marvel #avengers #power pack #fanfastic four #original universe #Earth-18104 #citruswriting

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albertserra · 2 years

Note

i know you hate the g*nchar*v joke but you always bring up such an interesting selection of movies when making lists, so which actual gangster movies with homoerotic subtext would you recommend?

'gangster' is a little hard and vague let me just do crime films in general. where the criminals in question are the gay ones

mikey and nicky

bad genius

l'amour braque

sexy beast

loot (1970)

the criminal (1960)

cast a dark shadow

heat

le trou

the league of gentlemen

the killer 1989

the sting

compulsion 1959

#asks #anonymous #this is kinda all over the place sorry my head isnt working

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haveyouseenthishorrormovie · 6 months

Text

Stats from Movies 1101-1200

Top 10 Movies - Highest Number of Votes

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) had the most votes with 1,168 votes. The Old Dark House (1963) had the least votes with 338 votes.

The 10 Most Watched Films by Percentage

Silence of the Lambs (1991) was the most watched film with 78.1% of voters out of 691 saying they had seen it. Stalker (2022) had the least "Yes" votes with 0.4% of voters out of 471.

The 10 Least Watched Films by Percentage

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) was the least watched film with 79.1% of voters out of 611 saying they hadn’t seen it. Kraa! The Sea Monster (1998) had the least "No" votes with 6.8% of voters out of 381.

The 10 Most Known Films by Percentage

Silence of the Lambs (1991) was the best known film, 0.7% of voters out of 691 saying they’d never heard of it.

The 10 Least Known Films by Percentage

Kraa! The Sea Monster (1998) was the least known film, 91.9% of voters out of 381 saying they’d never heard of it.

The movies part of the statistic count and their polls below the cut.

Mother! (2017) Ma (2019) What We Do in the Shadows (2014) Swallow (2019) Suspiria (2018) Nothing But Trouble (1991) Chernobyl Diaries (2012) Return of the Living Dead II (1988) Pyewacket (2017) Hellbender (2021)

Gwen (2018) Lake of Death (2019) Leptirica (1973) You Are Not My Mother (2021) Censor (2021) You Won't Be Alone (2022) Stalker (2022) Berlin Syndrome (2017) Mandrake (2022) Raven's Hollow (2022)

Outpost (2022) Violation (2020) Unwelcome (2022) Brooklyn 45 (2023) Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023) They (2002) Honeydew (2020) Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) Alone (Pandemic) (2020) Alone (2020)

Dark Was the Night (2014) Animal (2014) White Zombie (1932) Venus in Furs (1969) Umma (2022) Renfield (2023) Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Earth vs. the Spider (1958) Wicked City (1987)

The Uninvited (2008) The House That Jack Built (2018) Viy (1967) The Pope's Exorcist (2023) Winchester (2018) The Ruins (2008) The Old Dark House (1963) The Shrine (2010) The Head Hunter (2018) Under the Skin (2013)

The Lure (2015) The Sand (2015) Emesis Blue (2023) Where the Devil Roams (2023) The Deeper You Dig (2019) The Hatred (2017) Tokyo Gore Police (2008) Teddy (2020) The Night Stalker (1972) Wishmaster (1997)

DeepStar Six (1989) Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) The Monster Club (1981) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) The Tingler (1959) Obereg (1991) The House That Cried Murder (1973) Scalpel (1977) Out of Darkness (2022)

Reincarnation (2005) Howling Village (2019) Suicide Forest Village (2021) The Forest (2015) Don't Look Up (1996) Kaidan (2007) The Dinosaur Project (2012) Exists (2014) Spook Louder (1943) Death Kappa (2010)

Red Dragon (2002) A Bucket of Blood (1959) Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) Kraa! The Sea Monster (1998) Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (2001) Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011) Wake Wood (2009) The Resident (2011) Sweet Home (1989)

The Silence (2019) #Alive (2020) Lord of Misrule (2023) The Day of the Beast (1995) Rigor Mortis (2013) Bloody Chainsaw Girl (2016) Freaked (1993) Demon Seed (1977) Raging Grace (2023) Safe (1995)

#recap #not a poll

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daydreamerdrew · 7 months

Text

Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

the Wolverine stories in Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #72-75

These stories were published across January 1991 to March 1991, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. All of the stories were 8 pages. This was the beginning of the revelation of Logan’s backstory at Weapon X.

The story in issue #72 opens with Logan just getting by and not remembering his past. At first I thought his experience at Weapon X hadn’t happened yet, but then it becomes clear that it has but he’s haunted by a traumatic experience he can’t remember. He’s staying at home for fallen Christians called The Prophecy, and one of the other men staying there tells him, “Prophecy is part of the apocalypse.” Logan thinks that he’s, “Nowhere… ‘cept the edge… of the dark! An’ the dreams… of death… in the shadowed rooms… of The Prophecy.” There are panels of gore interspersed into his mundane life. He sits on the floor of his room in silence of images of being operated on, his flesh regrowing around his claws, the cold eyes of the technician just visible with all the equipment he was wearing, then being outside amongst fences and shocked from above like a dog on the ground. He looks outside his window and the rain hitting it is reminiscent of the sight of the splattered bits of his body hitting the glass of the test tube he was once in.

The story in issue #73 covers Logan being captured, interrupting a life not unlike the one he has in the story in issue #72, and the beginning of the experimentation on him. The story in issue #74 concludes the physical experimentation of his body and has him wake up and kill one of the workers.

In the story in issue #75 the language used to discuss Logan is reminiscent to me of how he was talked about when his mutation first emerged when he was a child in Wolverine: The Origin (2002), creating a cycle where he is dehumanized again. He is called “a wild beast that was once a man,” which is pushed back upon by saying, “that this ‘infernal thing’ is what Logan has always been.” Going forward in the upcoming stories, the goal is to brainwash the “mindless murdering animal” into a controllable weapon.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes (1963) #13

This issue was published in October 1964, according to the Marvel Wiki. It was written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers. It was the special issue where the Howling Commandoes teamed up with Captain America and Bucky. For context, The Avengers (1963) #4, which was the issue that revealed that Captain America was alive and had been frozen for 2 decades and that Bucky was dead, was published in January 1964.

I enjoyed this story more than any of the other WWII Captain America and Bucky comics I’ve read that were published in the 60s, but it was still a disappointing to me because I was expecting a full issue of Cap and Bucky and the Howling Commandoes on a mission together. Instead the Howling Commandoes and Cap and Bucky were in separate places for most of the issue, with the story switching back and forth between them until they met up towards the end, but the Howling Commandoes had been losing members the entire time so it was only Nick and Reb who actually worked with Cap and Bucky. I would have liked to have seen them all interacting with each other. There was also a scene at the beginning of the issue were Nick and his girlfriend were at a movie theater and a newsreel played about Captain America and Bucky, and then Nick and his girlfriend were at a bar and Nick intervened when Steve was getting bullied (Bucky wasn’t there), but Nick and Steve didn’t actually talk to each other during that scene.

DC Comics:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #1-5

These issues were published across October 1989 to February 1990, according to the Grand Comics Database. All were written by Dennis O’Neil, penciled by Ed Hannigan, and inked by John Beatty. This was the “Shaman” storyline.

This story primarily takes place six months after Bruce became Batman, but was set in motion by the events of a flashback well before that, when Bruce was still traveling the world, training in preparation to become Batman. It’s been a bit since I read the “Batman: Year One” storyline, but the specific references to it, the revisiting of the famous scene of a bat flying through Bruce’s window, of course, and the mention of Bruce having helped save Gordon’s baby, were familiar to me. I don’t remember if the scene of Bruce and Alfred inspecting what will later become the Batcave is pulling from something specific from that story. Ordinarily I think rewriting events from a famous, well-received story wouldn’t work well for me, but I didn’t have any issue with that Bruce seeing that bat fly through the window, which inspired his secret identity, also made him think of the Shaman’s story of the bat and the raven. I would say I overall liked the story, even though I was not that particularly personally compelled by the recurring ideas in it- Bruce’s view of religious faith/indigenous culture, the difficulty of trying to put his money to good works and knowing what the real impact of that will be, the symbolism of the story of the bat and the raven, the idea that Bruce is uniquely marked, and that cold is the enemy. The part of the story that I liked best was how at the beginning of the story in the flashback, a killer Bruce was fighting is accidentally pushed off a mountain, seemingly to his death, and Bruce thinks, “I didn’t mean for him to die,” but doesn’t dwell on it, both because he has to focus on trying to survive in that cold environment and because the cold makes it hard to think or care. And then at the end of this story, after Bruce has learned that this man is still alive and they’ve fought again and he was accidentally fatally injured, Bruce tries to comfort him as he’s dying and says, “Rest in peace.”

All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (2005) #1-10

These issues were published across July 2005 to September 2008, according to the DC Wiki. All were written by Frank Miller, penciled by Jim Lee, and inked by Scott Williams.

I genuinely largely liked this book. At the beginning I thought that the relationship between Batman and Robin was interesting, but that the world the story takes place in being portrayed as so extreme detracted from it, because that minimized the aspect of it that was Bruce bringing Dick into his fucked-up world when that was really the world they both lived in, which the world being more like the regular DC universe but being perceived by Batman to be extreme wouldn’t have done. By the end I was also interested, in addition to Bruce and Dick’s relationship, in how living in such a dark, edgy world would affect a person and was more willing to engage with it as it was, but unfortunately I think the execution of that is inherently weakened by the way women were written in this book. I know that this book has been poked fun at for being ridiculous, and it seems clear to me that it’s meant to be ridiculous and readers aren’t intended to think Batman is as cool as he thinks he is, but similarly I also think the writing of the women was played too straight for that to entirely land.

Bruce’s interest in making 12-year-old Dick his sidekick is portrayed as nefarious from the get-go, as it began before Dick’s parents even died, with Bruce suspiciously saying in issue #1, “I’ve had my eye on him for awhile.” In issue #3 he cites that Dick is “Top of his CLASS in just about every SCHOOL his roving circus life TOOK him to. Made BLACK BELT a few weeks before he turned NINE,” in talking about how he carefully chose Dick to be his sidekick. It’s not great that Bruce knows all that about Dick. In issue #4 he claims, “I’d have waited YEARS before RECRUITING him. At least until he was old enough to SHAVE. I’d have waited YEARS. But some soulless SLOB with a GUN changed the whole EQUATION.” This attributes the change in Bruce’s plan to a human action. But when Bruce sees Dick see his parents die in issue #1, he thinks, “The boy has entered MY world. And he’ll never leave it. There’s no way out of it.” And in issue #4 Alfred gets upset that Bruce is putting Dick through horrible conditions that Bruce chose to put himself through as part of his training and tells him, “You chose this life,” which Bruce argues against, “And it has chosen him.” This frames Dick’s journey as something fated, and therefore makes the specific actions that Bruce takes in making Dick like him not Bruce’s fault. I would say that Dick becoming Bruce’s sidekick is in a sense fated, considering that this is one story published decades after these characters were established as superhero and sidekick. Bruce also thinks in issue #4 that Dick being orphaned happened “On my WATCH. I was THERE. Grayson’s my RESPONSIBILITY.”

When Bruce got to Dick in issue #1 as Batman he addressed him as “soldier” and told him, “You’ve just been drafted. Into a war.” The idea is that after seeing your parents killed in front of you, there’s no path available other than to become Batman. This sentiment isn’t unique to this story, for example the “Shaman” storyline in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) I also read this past week had the idea in it that Bruce was “marked” by his childhood traumatic experience. But what All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder is doing with this idea is explicitly portrayed it as false and superheroing as a crutch to avoid dealing with your feelings. This is further emphasized by the manic way Bruce’s outings as Batman are written, the extreme joy he gets from inflicting violence. Bruce has a brief moment of realization in issue #2 that he’s torturing a poor traumatized child when he hits Dick for questioning what’s going on and expressing distress, but he manages to convince himself that, “It’s the only WAY. If I don’t keep the PRESSURE up, he’ll find time to GRIEVE. I can’t let him GRIEVE. GRIEF is the enemy. […] GRIEF turns into ACCEPTANCE. FORGIVENESS. GRIEF forgives what can NEVER be forgiven.” In issue #8 Bruce has another brief bout of realization: “From out of NOWHERE I start thinking about the KID. About whether I’ve SAVED his life- or WRECKED it. I’ve never been all that good with people. But I can’t THINK about that right now.” This is because he’s too busy dealing with another superhero thing.

In issue #2 Bruce says, “The world I’m gonna wake you up to will be no better than the world you already know- but it’ll make a lot more sense than that one did- Once I’ve put you through holy hell, it will.” He says, “Holy hell. Or the next best thing.” Bruce seems to me to want Dick’s company because he’s lonely and to desperately need the validation of Dick becoming like him and feeling similarly. Though there are moments where they’re aligned, they are also notably disconnected at others. For example, during a police chase in issue #2 Bruce manically laughs and tells Dick that he’ll enjoy this, while Dick thinks about how much he hates the experience and Bruce.

Bruce hits Dick again in issue #9, when Dick nearly accidentally kills Hal Jordan during a fight Bruce arranged, once to intervene in the fight and once again out of anger towards Dick. Significant context is that Bruce is absurdly, extremely cruel to Dick throughout this entire book, including in this situation, specifically here he threatens to break the kid’s neck if he pukes in horror. But later Bruce thinks, “I blamed it on HIM. I was WRONG. It was ON MY WATCH. He was IN MY CHARGE. […] I RUSHED things. I DRAGGED him into MY world. I was RECKLESS. I RUSHED it. I BLEW it. I had YEARS- YEARS to learn my path. […] I had YEARS- to GRIEVE.” He takes Dick to his parents’ graves and they hug, the first bit of genuine comfort in their relationship, and Bruce thinks, “We mourn lives lost. Including our own.” What’s significant here is that Bruce is finally recognizing that has he been grieving all this time, he just hasn’t been acknowledging in, that Dick needs something different than he does at this earlier point in his life, and that what happened to them both is genuinely tragic. I think it would have been stronger if the book had ended there, on that dramatic note, and left open the question of what Bruce and Dick’s partnership would look like going forward, if it even would. Instead issue #10 depicts Batman and Robin’s partnership casually in one scene while also beginning new plot threads that’ll never be resolved, though it did portray that Bruce is still thinking about and is still disturbed by Dick accidentally almost killing Hal Jordan.

On Dick’s end, he has a realization in issue #1, after Bruce gets annoyed with him and nearly hits him again: “He goes all SAD. CONTAINED. BOTTLED UP. It’s like he’s the only PERSON in the whole world. I have to PINCH myself to make sure I still exist. […] I’m in another WORLD. HIS world. He’s that LONELY. He’s all alone.” In issue #4, after Dick’s parents’ blood still being on his clothes reminds Bruce too strongly of his own parents’ blood being on him, Dick notices, “His VOICE is a CROAK. Like he’s about to CRY or something. Then he does his best to make his voice go COLD again.” He is the only one able to view Bruce in this way, even Alfred seems to view Bruce flatly, though that’s incredible understandable given the way Bruce acts. Also notable to me was that in issue #9 there’s a point where Bruce is genuinely very concerned about what Dick thinks of him, “His EYES almost bore the SKIN off my face- but he doesn’t ask any QUESTIONS. Me, I pray for a SECOND CHANCE. A fresh start.” I think the extremes in this book are easy to poke fun at; but they serve to make a dramatic point, to make definitive that Bruce is unhealthy and that his relationship with Dick is abusive, but I found the relationship in its full context with the extreme abuse and complicated feelings interesting.

The Bruce Wayne aspect of the character, and Dick Grayson as his civilian ward, is almost entirely absent from the book. Dick only learns that Batman is Bruce Wayne incidentally in issue #9, having been stuck in the Batcave for much of the book. I think the deprioritization of the Bruce Wayne identity is an intentional choice, but the ultimate lack of portrayal of what Dick’s civilian life looks like after all this leaves a hole in this criticism of Batman. I also don’t think that the Alfred question, of if Bruce being Batman is bad then how does that reflect on Alfred having raised Bruce and supported that behavior as an adult, was handled well. Alfred expresses concern about if Bruce has gone mad, though he clearly did a long time ago, and insists on his right to provide Dick with the essentials he needs to survive while he’s stuck in the Batcave, but notably he only does just that. He doesn’t actually rescue the child his boss has kidnapped by taking his out of the Batcave. This isn’t inherently bad for the story, but not as it’s presented here as an aside where Alfred’s perspective is briefly addressed; we would need to spend more time with Alfred to show how he’s maintaining this business-as-usual attitude where he’s so much like the normal DC universe Alfred while Bruce is so significantly different.

Superman (2023) #11

This issue was published in February 2023. It was written by Joshua Williamson and drawn by David Baldeón. Bruno Redondo is the primary artist of this book, and I would usually prefer his art style over Baldeón’s, but Baldeón’s is more expressive and I think that was well-suited for this issue, which principally followed teenager Lena Luthor, who is also the character I’m reading this book for.

Back in issue #9 we saw Lena note that she could ask the AI at Supercorp any question. Issue #10 opened with scene of the supporting characters discussing that Superman had gone missing, before spending the rest of the issue with Superman, ending with him returning to Supercorp and immediately being confronted by Lena, who pleads with him to flee, right before he’s captured by the villains who have presumably already captured everyone else. The teaser referred to the next issue as “Lena Luthor vs. the Revenge Squad,” which I thought would mean the issue would pick up from there with Lena being the only one not captured. Instead, issue #11 flashed back to Lena asking a question to the AI, then followed her learning that Superman had been captured and starting to help in the efforts to find him, the group being interrupted by the Revenge Squad, Lena escaping from them, running into Superman, and then continues the second half of the issue from there.

The question Lena asked the AI is “Who is Lena Luthor?” The information given is largely affirming what we already know or confirming what was suspected because it was true about the original version of this character from the 90s and early 2000s. Notably that “Lex Luthor gave his daughter to Brainiac 13 in exchange for advanced technology from the future. Lena was raised in the future and was forced to be an avatar for Brainiac 13 in the present day.” Lena reacts to the phrasing that Lex “gave” her away, but doesn’t seem surprised by it; she actually expresses disappointment that her father’s files didn’t have more on her. Significant to me was that the phrasing of “Lena was rescued by Superman and returned to Lex Luthor” and that “Lex purged Lena of all connections to Brainiac” before she was “sent to live on a private island with her grandmother” doesn’t include any references to Lena’s age. In the original storyline she was a 1-year-old baby when Lex traded her, she reappeared working for Brainiac 13 as a young woman, and then was reverted back to a 1-year-old after Brainiac 13’s defeat. Lex was raising baby Lena, but she was dropped from continuity shortly after, so we never saw that version of her interact with her father (when not Brainiaced) instead of just being talked at.

Lena’s grandmother interrupts Lena’s disappointment over her father’s file on her and says, “The reality is… you scare Lex. And not just because you represent his greatest sin… But because you are so much smarter than my son.” When it’s revealed that Lena’s grandmother is one of the villains of the Revenge Squad, the shadowed figure in one of Lex’s suits from the end of issue #10, she explains her actions as, “I’m taking back what is mine, Lena.” And she complains about how Lex “sent me to some island to babysit his little brat. The least he could have done was kill me.” None of this is interesting to me, and it doesn’t stand up well in comparison to the writing of the dialogue in the stories Lena was previously a part of. Also, later Lena pleads with a corrupted Superman to not kill her father, demonstrating that she does still care for him. Since she presumably won’t have a relationship with her grandmother after this issue, maybe Lena’s relationship with her father will be more interesting going forward. Overall I was impressed with how she conducted herself in this issue.

Fawcett Comics:

the Captain Marvel stories in Whiz Comics (1940) #86 and Captain Marvel Adventures (1941) #73 and The Marvel Family (1945) #12

In this batch of 8 stories I read the Captain Marvel appearances published in June 1947, according to the issue cover dates. The stories ranged from 7 to 11 pages.

The story “Captain Marvel and the Kingdom of Ulysses” (creators unknown) in The Marvel Family #12 had Captain Marvel go back in time to help Ulysses at the end of his famous journey in The Odyssey, when he’s trying to reclaim his home. The way this happens is that Billy wasn’t feeling well at Station Whiz, so he went to lie down, and then the Wizard Shazam summoned Billy, which from his perspective made it look like everything around him was dissolving into clouds, so he panicked and said Shazam. Then Captain Marvel appeared at Mount Olympus. At the end of the story Captain Marvel returns to Mount Olympus and transforms back into Billy. The Wizard Shazam says he’s sending Billy back to his time, Billy seems to dissolve, and then he’s back on the couch at Station Whiz. This reminded me of the way Billy and the Wizard Shazam’s communication was portrayed in Jerry Ordway’s era writing the character, beginning with the origin story The Power of Shazam! (1994), where Billy could see visions of the Wizard or mentally travel to the Rock of Eternity, or similarly be magically physically transported there. When we’ve previously seen the Wizard Shazam contact Billy in Fawcett’s comics, it’s been in roundabout ways; for example, in “Captain Marvel Battles the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man” in Captain Marvel Adventures #41 Billy opens a letter from the Wizard that he was instructed to open 4 years after he became Captain Marvel, which tells him to visit the Wizard in his underground cavern to learn about a new enemy he has to fight. Also, in the final panel of this story, when Billy was giving his concluding radio broadcast about the adventure, he said, “Captain Marvel enjoyed the adventure! But, frankly, I’m just as happy to have been able to come back to the present and bring you the story on my daily news broadcast,” which I thought was charming.

The story “Captain Marvel Meets Billy Batson” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Constanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #73 has Zeus’ aim with the lighting bolt be off for a day, meaning that other people mistakenly get hit with it after Billy says Shazam, allowing Billy and Captain Marvel to meet physically face-to-face. This isn’t the real drawn of the story, however, since their interactions are brief. And it isn’t as though this is the first time they’ve been able to talk to each other since, though they don’t did it often, they’ve been portrayed as able to appear to each other as astral projections since the story “Mystery of Marvel College” in Whiz Comics #11. Though I did like how seriously they took the abnormal situation of Billy Batson and Captain Marvel existing in the same space, with Captain Marvel saying, “I better change back, Billy! Both of us can’t-er- go around together! So- Shazam!” The real draw of this story is that since him transforming into Captain Marvel is suddenly unreliable, Billy and a group of boys from the Captain Marvel Fan Club largely had to stop the bad guys by themselves. I liked seeing Billy have to physically fight. I was also intrigued by that Billy originally gets involved in the situation when he overhears a police officer dismiss the Captain Marvel Fan Club boys’ report as only their imagination (itself a surprising portrayal of a police officer for a Fawcett comic), but when he doesn’t initially find evidence of the criminals he also suggests it was only their imagination.

The story “Captain Marvel Gets a Hobby” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Costanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #73 shows Captain Marvel getting into rock collecting. He had been approached by a reporter wanting to do an article on his personal life, who asked him what his hobby was, raising to Captain Marvel’s attention that he didn’t have any. Later he thinks, “Billy has hobbies, such as stamp collecting and photography. Why shouldn’t I have a hobby? Let me think… Should I collect bird’s eggs? Raise white mice? Get autographs? Or what?” Then Captain Marvel has to rescue a man that got trapped in a rockslide while looking for rare mineral specimens. The man tells him about how great rock collecting is, and shows Captain Marvel his collection at his home. Captain Marvel says, “Say, this looks interesting! I’m sold! I’m going to collect minerals too!” And the man gifts Captain Marvel a rare mineral to start off his collection. Later Captain Marvel says, “Yes sir, this is fun! I’m sure glad Robert Smiths started me off on this new hobby!” And, “My hobby is instructive, as well as being fun! I’m learning all about the different rocks and minerals that exist on earth!” He’s drawn sorting and labeling rocks on his desk in his and Billy’s shared office. At the end of the story Billy says, “Of course he’s got our office so cluttered up with stones now, I can hardly move around! But I don’t mind! We all know what fun a hobby is!”

Ahoy Comics:

Dragonfly & Dragonfly-Man (2019) #0-5

These issues were published across May 2019 to March 2020, according to the League of Comic Geeks site. All were written by Tom Peyer. Issue #0, which was a Free Comic Book Day special, was drawn by Russ Braun. And the rest was drawn by Peter Krause (who I know from him having penciled most of The Power of Shazam! (1995)), except that Juan Castro and Leonard Kirk finished some of the art of issue #5. This book was a prequel to The Wrong Earth (2018), in which Dragonfly and Dragonfly-Man accidentally get sent to each other’s very different universes. In this book we’re just seeing parallel stories taking place separately on each Earth. Considering that there was definitively higher emotional stakes in one of the stories, it’s impressive that it wasn’t a frustration in the reading process when the book left that world for the other, though of course the Earth-Alpha sections worked really well to emphasize what was going on in the Earth-Omega parts.

That said, I don’t think I’ve ever imprinted as hard as quickly on a character as I have Earth-Omega Stinger. I am legitimately emotionally-gripped by him- I thought he was written so well. I’m deeply compelled by his overall mental state and the disconnect between Dragonfly and Stinger’s perspectives, with Dragonfly not realizing how much Stinger is hurt by what he says. I also thought this dynamic fit in well with the book’s sharper look on superhero comic tropes, and that this aspect of it could have but didn’t come across cheaply. In issue #1 when Dragonfly dramatically begins thoughts but doesn’t finish them while they examine a crime scene, Stinger thinks, “Just stop talking like I’m not even here. Why bother consulting with me?” When Dragonfly sets off to their next location without telling Stinger where they’re headed- another tactic for creating suspense for the reader- Stinger thinks, “Don’t tell me, I’m just the sidekick.”

I don’t not believe Chip when he said he thought Richard was evil, but it’s notable that and I was also impressed with how directly he spoke to Richard by the end of the book. While he had issues with Richard before and even openly argued with him, the experience of having to fight brainwashed-Dragonfly gave the negative feelings Chip already had a much stronger form and made him think that this was someone he needed to get away from. But it’s clear to both of them that Chip isn’t in immediate physical danger with Richard, he’s able to insult Richard and tell him to his face that he can’t trust him and Chip doesn’t feel the need to hide that he’s moving out.

I think ideally Richard would have processed his feelings about their relationship blowing up in some other way than (or in addition to) torturing Devil Man to death, and would have started to work towards being able to interact with Chip in a less aggressive and demeaning way. I’m aware that by the time of The Wrong Earth (2018) Earth-Omega Chip has committed suicide. My current assumptions for his life are that he did eventually choose to return to Richard, that their relationship remained unhealthy, and that Chip ultimately committed suicide while living with him rather than run away again. But it’s possible that his mental health continued to spiral wherever he ended up after leaving Richard. I really want to learn more about how these two met and the very beginning of their relationship and I hope future comics explain that.

Earth-Alpha Stinger’s life is absurdly positive. The whole freaking world loves him. Dragonflyman never has anything negative to say to him. He has a fan club. He gets awarded free ice cream for life in this story. I remember Dragonfly becoming very attached very quickly to Earth-Alpha Stinger and wanting to maintain his idyllic life. I can’t imagine that there’s really anything naturally in Earth-Alpha that would disrupt it. In this book Earth-Alpha Stinger gets defeated by henchmen, but isn’t really injured in a lasting way from this (I assume they, like Eve, were holding back with him because he’s a kid), and later is purposefully hit by a car, but is fine after rolling with the movement like Dragonflyman taught him. I remember Dragonfly really wanting to protect Stinger from even this level of cartoon violence.

I’m wondering if the idyllic-ness of this world will ultimately create a disconnect between Dragonfly and Earth-Alpha Stinger, who gets the great life that Earth-Omega Stinger didn’t even get a fraction of and has a really different personality as a result. I’m sure it’s really significant for Dragonfly to get essentially a second chance with Stinger, but I imagine seeing this Stinger have such a positive life would also be emotionally difficult because he would remember how his original Stinger had much more difficult circumstances. And I imagine that it would ultimately be difficult for him to truly understand someone who is so unrealistically perfect, though maybe understanding Stinger isn’t the most important thing to him.

#comics read this past week #my posts

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tygerbug · 10 months

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DOCTOR WHO: The Star Beast (2023): It's great to have David Tennant and Catherine Tate back on Doctor Who. That's enough to give this a good review; little else matters. It's a return to form (or format) for the series, and should delight fans of the 2008 incarnation of Doctor Who. The things that are bad about it were also bad in 2008, and might seem nostalgic by now. Tate and Tennant have funny and touching moments, and are still a great team. It's like they never left. It's also about as subtle as a croquet hammer to the face. This is not necessarily a complaint. This is Doctor Who, after all.

It's the 60th anniversary of the venerable British sci-fi series, which follows a sort of Sherlock Holmes from space, a hyper-intelligent Time Lord from Gallifrey, travelling in his blue police box, the TARDIS, on adventures through time and space, battling monsters and saving the day. Originally running from 1963 to 1989, the series was revived by Russell T Davies in 2005. Series star Christopher Eccleston left after one series. He is a man of strong principles, who had a terrible first shoot as the producers and directors were still figuring the show out (and putting the cast in mortal danger quite by accident). Perhaps he disliked the producers, and their phony praise and positivity. Perhaps he disliked the sex criminals in the supporting cast, John Barrowman and Noel Clarke. Or maybe he couldn't see himself as part of a franchise selling action figures.

Eccleston said later: "I could not get along with the senior people. I left because of politics. I did not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn’t agree with the way things were being run. I didn’t like the culture that had grown up around the series … I thought to remain, which would have made me a lot of money and given me huge visibility, the price I would have had to pay was to eat a lot of shit … My face didn’t fit and I’m sure they were glad to see the back of me. The important thing is that I succeeded. It was a great part. I loved playing him. I loved connecting with that audience. Because I’ve always acted for adults and then suddenly you’re acting for children, who are far more tasteful; they will not be bullshitted. It’s either good, or it’s bad. They don’t schmooze at after-show parties, with cocktails."

The revived series was a hit, which became a culture-shifting phenomenon in the UK during the tenure of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. There were endless toys and spinoff series (including The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, and Doctor Who Confidential). Steven Moffat took over as showrunner in 2010, for series with Matt Smith (and later Peter Capaldi). Matt Smith's series got a big promotional push in America, but in the UK, viewership peaked during David Tennant's later series and specials (including his guest appearance with Matt Smith for the 50th Anniversary special). By viewership figures, David Tennant was the Doctor for a generation. Russell T Davies had also cultivated a female fanbase who enjoyed this more romantic take on the Doctor, and who didn't connect quite as much with Peter Capaldi's Doctor later on.

The series has its issues, its weak points you can criticize it for. Almost all of these involve the writers. None of these problems involve the lead actors. Doctor Who is a meaty role for any actor to play, and every actor has given an interesting and unique take on it. David Tennant, however, cast a longer shadow than most. He felt like the actor that Russell T Davies had been writing for the whole time. Arguably, Christopher Eccleston and Peter Capaldi based their portrayals on Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor. But Matt Smith and Jodie Whittaker were interpreting what David Tennant had done.

Russell T Davies' tenure was criticized for its lack of subtlety, with loud music by Murray Gold and over the top emotional content. Plus whatever was going on in Torchwood, the sex pest spinoff of Doctor Who. There was a hint of sex pestery in Steven Moffat's Doctor Who as well, along with misogyny, and it wasn't nearly as clever as it pretended to be, a problem which affected later seasons of Sherlock (with Benedict Cumberbatch), and that 2007 Jekyll show. These shows presented complex puzzle-box mysteries that the writer had no actual answers for, and then openly called the audience stupid for asking for those answers.

In spite of these issues, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat produced a lot of excellent television during this time and are some of the best and most consequential writers the show ever had. It has been said that every Doctor Who writer has one Doctor Who story within them, that they are going to rewrite over and over again, and that the show needs to switch writers and lead actors every few years in order to avoid repeating itself. The Davies and Moffat years eventually did repeat themselves, and needed to move on to something new.

The series has suffered declining viewership since its heyday around 2008-2010, even taking the years of 2016 and 2019 off for budgetary reasons. There were long stretches between new episodes, and social media was not as interested in the series as it had once been. Chris Chibnall's tenure as showrunner, beginning in late 2018, and starring Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor, was not as much of a cultural force as the show had been a decade earlier. There wasn't much press coverage, and very little merchandise. In Tennant's day, every minor character seemed to get an action figure, even a "Faceless Grandma" and the metal frame that previously displayed minor villain "Cassandra." This time round, only the Doctor and a few of her friends got toys. There was even an incarnation of The Doctor that didn't get a figure- Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor. It also caused a civil war within the older Doctor Who fandom that the lead character was now played by a white woman, and a black woman. Most of the older fans on social media came out as openly racist, sexist and transphobic, declaring that the show had lost its soul and had been ruined by "wokeness."

Meanwhile, other Doctor Who fans, who are not raving bigots, struggled with this incarnation of the show for other reasons. Personally, I found it rather dull. While Jodie Whittaker herself is a delight, writer Chris Chibnall was less so. He introduced more women and people of color into the cast, and gay themes, but the result was hardly explosive. As a white Doctor Who fan, he wrote these characters as if he was afraid to break them. Canonically, Doctor Who becomes a woman and has a lesbian romance with a woman of color, and that should be more interesting than it is. In practice, the love interest is a police officer with no character traits, and the two barely hold hands, or show any affection toward one another. At one point, Doctor Who, herself, has more sexual tension with a frog on a chair. Many scenes consist of one of Doctor Who's friends telling another friend how wonderful they think the other friend is. This was the introvert's Doctor Who.

Chibnall wrote with subtlety during his first year, not wanting to bring back classic villains, and preferring to let this incarnation of the show have its own vibe. For the second year he attempted to be Russell T Davies and bring all the villains back. Then he did whatever Flux was. There's a big, overarching story where they retcon the Doctor's lineage, basically to fit the backstory hinted at in novels in the 90s, and in some of the last stories before the show was cancelled in the 80s, where The Doctor is a more ancient figure than suspected. It's nerdy, and a bit "woke," as Doctor Who often is. This was a little controversial and they leave that plot thread hanging. It's unresolved by the end of Chibnall's tenure, making me wonder what the point was. Oh, and Chibnall has clearly watched the Russell T Davies episodes but not the Steven Moffat ones, so for anyone still paying attention, the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey gets destroyed and restored and destroyed and restored and destroyed and etc, because the writer has lost track of the series lore. I guess 90s lore from novels when the show was cancelled was more important than the last few years of actual episodes, which normal people would have watched.

This incarnation of the show wasn't bad, exactly, but it wasn't enough either, at least not for me. Doctor Who has always been a silly show, and it's allowed to be good or ridiculously bad, as long as it's interesting. There's not much room for bland subtlety, and Chibnall didn't do "over the top" all that well. The Sacha Dhawan version of The Master, for example, could be a bit much at times.

"Come back, Russell T Davies, all is forgiven?" There is no such subtlety in Russell T Davies' interpretation, for better or for worse, and I'm thankful for that. Russell has invited Steven Moffat to return, and I wouldn't be surprised if he brings Chris Chibnall back as well, to get the three flavors of current Doctor Who. For all the bigoted fan complaints about Doctor Who becoming a black woman, and the show becoming "woke," Russell T Davies' writing here is about as "woke" as the show can manage. Yes, the Doctor is a familiar white man again, with a familiar white woman as his supporting player. But the supporting characters are basically just talking into the camera and giving speeches that boil down to "Trans rights," "Queer rights," "Nonbinary rights" and/or "rights for the disabled." There's a good-guy UNIT soldier in a turban, and women have a particular superpower. It is as subtle as a croquet hammer to the head.

Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Well, politically it's a good thing. Transphobia has taken over every newspaper in the UK like a disease, and the average British journalist has a position on trans rights indistinguishable from that of Adlf Htler. So it is important to say these things without equivocating or "listening to both sides," since in the UK this is the great civil rights battle of our time. (The US is having a similar battle, but not one where the bigots control the newspapers entirely, and pretend to be left-wing feminists. In the US, wanting to exterminate the queers Dalek-style is generally considered to be a right-wing position, rather than a feminist one.) At one point, back in the day, Russell T Davies wanted to do a David Tennant Doctor Who story guest-starring Joanne Rowling. Guess that's not happening now. That would be scarier than the Daleks.

In practice it's a bit clunky, and the characters of Rose Noble (Yasmin Finney) and Ruth Madeley (the wheelchair-using Shirley Anne Bingham of UNIT) end up feeling underdeveloped, like day players saying political slogans, as if they're in a commercial. At least they're pleasant enough, and in a Doctor Who context one welcomes the lack of subtlety. But I'd have also welcomed a few rewrites. Who is Rose talking to, when she's saying this? Doesn't firing a gun cause kickback that would send someone on wheels flying backward? Is no one asking these questions? As has often been said about Doctor Who, a Doctor Who writer needs someone to stop him, someone to say "no."

Oh, but these are not questions for a Saturday Doctor Who. This is nit-picking a family adventure show which was never designed to hold up to such scrutiny. The onscreen representation is saying "Trans and non-binary and disabled people are good," and there are just enough little human moments here and there to make that feel lived-in and relevant. These characters were designed to be cosplayed. Rose faces bullying from her schoolmates, and Donna gets most of the good lines about it. Maybe the problem is that these characters aren't Doctor Who or Donna Noble. We don't know as much about them, and they're not allowed to be as funny.

Because, hey, have we mentioned, David Tennant is Doctor Who again, with Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, fifteen years later? Tate was a television comedian and they're still a funny team together, returning to these roles as if they never left. Tennant's glee at being back in the role is infectious, and seems to multiply tenfold in his scenes with Tate.

Tennant had returned for audio plays by Big Finish, with both Billie Piper and Catherine Tate, and the Tate ones are better. Billie Piper, as Rose Tyler, was really the star of Doctor Who for its first two "new" series. She's good, but it pushes Tennant into a romantic role, almost as a supporting character, which is tougher to play. Tennant was more secure in the part by 2008, and he and Catherine Tate have great chemistry as a comedy team, something they also did onstage in "Much Ado About Nothing."

The character of Donna Noble was originally a one-episode celebrity guest star, having a terrible wedding. Donna proved too memorable not to bring back for a full series. There's something honest and real about Donna, and Tate's performance. Russell T Davies seems to delight in writing bitchy middle-aged women. Incidentally Jacqueline King is back as her mother Sylvia.

Donna Noble also has unfinished business here, and Russell T Davies is all too happy to finally undo her bittersweet ending. (Whether Martha Jones will even get a mention is still up in the air. The poor girl ended up with Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith, and Torchwood, a nasty fate indeed.)

Rachel Talalay is also back in the director's chair, after doing several excellent episodes with Peter Capaldi's Doctor. Murray Gold is also back, doing his usual loud job on the music. Bombastic and overpowering, but memorable. They've done something different with the theme tune! It's kind of weird! But it's fine! It has chewing noises!

The Star Beast is also the first onscreen appearance of Beep the Meep, a creature who first appeared in Doctor Who comics (starring the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker) in 1980 (and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, who is credited here). A practical character enhanced with some CGI, Beep the Meep looks very impressive onscreen, and instantly becomes an iconic Doctor Who creature. Miriam Margolyes is the celebrity guest voice. (Stuntwoman Cecily Fay also performs the character.)

Yes, it's a return to form for the series, as it was intended to be. It feels like a 2008 episode, apart from the murky, dark, contrast-free, cinematography which has infected most television these days. (See: any Disney+ event show.) The show has struggled with budget and cultural relevance lately, and bringing back a popular Doctor for three specials feels like exactly the right move for its 60th anniversary. They've partnered with Disney+ for this run of episodes, a move that I hope they don't regret. And you see it in the budget, including an astoundingly large TARDIS set, which Tennant's Doctor visibly loves running around.

Davies and Tennant already did a five-minute comedy scene for the Children In Need charity this year, where we see Davros, creator of the Doctor's evil arch-enemies The Daleks, without his famous mutation and disabilities. Oh yes, it's the "woke" agenda again - Davies felt it was in bad taste to show an evil disabled character alongside an appeal for disabled children, and will apparently present the character this way going forward (at the cost of his familiar design). Since The Doctor is always meddling in time, any continuity errors between stories in the show's long history can technically be explained away by the timeline changing. And for example, the James Bond series has a long history of associating disability with villainy. There were complaints about the change, of course. The short is funny and cheeky, playing off of older Doctor Who lore while demolishing it at the same time. "I am allowed to do this," Davies and Tennant seem to be saying to the viewers, "and I am having fun doing it." Well, as long as you're having fun.

Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who didn't get as much press coverage and merchandise, nor did Capaldi's, and maybe this is the shot in the arm the show needs to be a cultural force again. This is not a knock against these actors, who did good work in the role despite my nitpicks.

The original anniversary specials for Doctor Who involved bringing back the second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, whose layered and mischievous performance inspired every Doctor that followed. Bringing back David Tennant, the second Doctor Who of the New Series, feels very similar. It worked ten years ago, for a special in 2013, and it certainly works now.

This is an attempt to get the general public to say, "Wow, Doctor Who is back." It's big and silly in a very specific way that you'll remember from 15 years ago.

And yes, Doctor Who is back. Oh, and this isn't David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It is, somehow, David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor. Older and unshaven, The Doctor remembers being female very recently, and it has changed the character's perspective on things.

Some of the ending sucks, and some of the middle involves Tennant doing schtick apparently written for Tom Baker, who is a different actor than David Tennant is. (The 1980 comic was adapted for audio in 2019.)

I believe that two more specials will follow, followed by a series starring Ncuti Gatwa as Doctor Who. This promises to be extremely "woke" and "queer," if we're lucky.

Neil Patrick Harris will also be playing The Toymaker, an incarnation of Michael Gough's famous villain from a now-mostly lost 1966 serial, who was always teased to return, but never quite did. An 80s version, "The Nightmare Fair," has been recorded for audio. The original serial is so old that the character has slightly racist Asian undertones, and the N-word is said by a supporting player. It's not a great serial, but Gough is good in it, as a seemingly all-powerful puppetmaster, playing deadly games. The show considered writing (an ailing and cranky) William Hartnell out of the program here, using the Toymaker's powers. The Doctor would "rejuvenate" instead in "The Tenth Planet," later established as the "regeneration" powers of a Time Lord, which cause one actor to become another. Convenient. It's also the crucial reason why the show has lasted as long as it has. The show's format is fairly repetitive, but it can switch out lead actors and headwriters at will, and interpret the character in a different way, every few years.

Oh, but we miss them when they're gone. Most of the actors who have played Doctor Who and his friends have come back for audio dramas presented by Big Finish (and, occasionally, the BBC). There has also been the occasional anniversary special. But David Tennant coming back as the current Doctor is something a bit different, something unprecedented. They should do this with the other actors as well. They won't, but they should. Especially since Paul McGann and Jo Martin never actually got to do series as the character.

In the same week, we saw two special presentations. One was 2013's "An Adventure in Space and Time," made for the 50th Anniversary and starring David Bradley as the first actor to play Doctor Who, William Hartnell. For this rerun, dialogue from the first story "An Unearthly Child" has been cut, as the son of credited writer Anthony Coburn is currently having a months-long racist shit fit on Twitter, claiming that the BBC killed his father and is "woke" and gay, and withdrawing rights to that classic first adventure. All of classic Doctor Who is now streaming as part of the online "Whoniverse", but not that story, due to Coburn's meddling. A lot of the series is also streaming on Pluto TV. Ah well, you can still get the old DVD, which also includes the unaired pilot for the 1963 series. (About 100 early episodes are missing and only exist as audio. Many have been animated.)

The 2013 film has also been cheekily updated for this airing. A scene in which William Hartnell imagines seeing 2013's current Doctor Who, Matt Smith, has been reshot to involve Ncuti Gatwa. This fixes a small continuity error, as the background for Matt Smith's greenscreened closeup was identical to his medium shot. Maybe they should shoot one of these with Tennant, Capaldi, Whittaker, and Martin as well.

Meanwhile David Tennant, and presumably Ncuti Gatwa, become the latest actors to remind viewers to subscribe to the official Doctor Who Youtube channel, in what is becoming a tradition, or at least a meme.

(The 2013 film spends a lot of time on the production of the first episodes of the series, but gets sketchy toward the end, having very little time for the later episodes of the series, and the "replacement" actors that William Hartnell was less keen on. A cameo by Reece Shearsmith as Patrick Troughton is unconvincing, and Mark Gatiss was also onset as Jon Pertwee, as a joke. This was elaborated on later, with Bradley reprising the role for Big Finish audio dramas, and the Peter Capaldi episode "Twice Upon a Time." Scenes from Hartnell's final story "The Tenth Planet" were reshot for this episode with Bradley, as a flashback, but largely cut from the final product.)

The week's other special presentation is "The Daleks," the second ever Doctor Who story, which has here been colorized and reedited to be much shorter, in a "feature film" edit with new music and voice work. It's a bit of a hack job but gets the point across. Back in 1965, this was also adapted into the first of two color feature films starring Peter Cushing, and intended for a younger audience. Bernard Cribbins turned up in the second, decades before appearing as loveable grandpa "Wilf" in the 2008 Doctor Who. Cribbins is expected to appear in these specials somewhere, having taped an appearance before his death, and this special has Tennant's Doctor giving a heartfelt tribute to him.

There's also the matter of "Tales of the Tardis," in which some of the past stars of Doctor Who return for brief segments inside the TARDIS, introducing and reminiscing about their past adventures. It's a nice excuse to involve actors who would be hard to shoehorn into these specials otherwise. They've returned for audio plays from Big Finish, and in-character trailers for the Doctor Who Collection series of Blu-Rays, and even the final Jodie Whittaker special "Power of the Doctor." But this goes a step further, and is designed to feel like catching up with old friends. It also accomplishes what the first series of "Doctor Who Confidential" did. That was a series about the making of Doctor Who, whose first series also spent time talking to the stars of the classic series, and attempting to sell the classic series to young viewers who might not be familiar with it. You could get something similar by watching the classic Doctor Who DVDs, but presenting them alongside the making of the new series really gave a sense of perspective, and made Doctor Who feel like the long-running cultural icon it is, rather than some cruddy low budget relic. "Doctor Who Confidential" (and its kids counterpart "Totally Doctor Who") did a lot to sell Doctor Who as a cultural phenomenon, past, present and future, to audiences in 2005, and that sort of hype has been conspicuously missing as the series has gone on. Oh, they've got a "Making of Doctor Who" show again? Yeah, I'm thinking they're back.

It looks like Doctor Who fans have a lot to be happy about this year. And Doctor Who fans have a lot to write about, and worry about. And complain about. Doctor Who fans are very good at complaining. The Star Beast isn't perfect, but what Doctor Who story is? It is good fun, and a return to form for the series. And a lot of so-called fans will hate it. And that's a very good thing.

#doctor who #the star beast #david tennant #catherine tate

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