Hot Take: If your movie is THREE HOURS LONG, you shouldn’t bother with a post credits sequence. You had an extra hour to tell the story you wanted to tell.
I knew X-Men/Clandestine was gonna suck, but I didn’t expect the characters to acknowledge this so emphatically…
X-Men v.2 #11 (1992).
I’ve been reading my X-Men collection all the way up to this point. There’s been some ups and downs, but the Mojo/Longshot/Spiral/Mojoverse/Wildways crap has always been the dirt worst material I’ve seen. The formula always comes down to Mojo controls everyone and everything in his domain, but for some reason he wants or needs the X-Men to be part of his stupid TV productions, because this would somehow help him enslave a population he already controls. So he captures the X-Men and they can’t do jack shit about him until some stupid thing happens that Mojo can’t control, and the X-Men get sent back home, and nothing changes. And this wouldn’t be so terrible, except all the characters in the Mojoverse speak total gibberish, so it’s impossible to make sense of who’s who or why some of them can resist Mojo’s control and others can’t.
What really chaps my ass is that all of this Mojo nonsense is some overplayed satire about watching too much television, which is pretty rich coming from a comic book. You know, the other 20th century medium that’s been unfairly accused of contributing to cultural decline.
So at some point I realized that Mojo works a lot better as a character when you think of him as a satire of the people who run Marvel Comics. They’re obsessed with sales (ratings), treat the consumer (audience) with thinly-veiled contempt, and they constantly fret about their competition even though they’re the largest and most powerful publisher. And despite all of Mojo’s vast powers and resources, he keeps trying to find new ways to exploit the X-Men for a quick buck, or whatever Mojo uses for currency.
It doesn’t really improve the Mojo stories, but at least it updates the joke into a post-television age.
You almost have to congratulate Buckybolts for managing to completely avoid doing anything compelling or worthwhile with any of the characters, even Bucky and Kobik.
Anonymous
Yeah, hold on, let me find my “congratulations for sucking” gif…
so Metropolis, IL (pop: 6,000) is a small farming town in southern, il (the closest airport is paducah, kentucky) that has so far previously been known only for putting a 15′ fiberglass Superman at the end of main st. (ok, technically, Market St)
complete with a superman ‘museum’ (gift shop) across the street
(side note, turns out I am secretly an asshole hipster snob because I refuse to wear any superman shirt that did not come form this store. i just sent my mother to secure a new one, which is actually why i got the snapchat that lead to this post)
This is, like, “World’s Largest Ball of Twine” quality of American tourism. A++ Americana, should absolutely have appeared in an episode of Supernatural (except for the, you know, the copyright/trademark issues and for how SPN is filmed in, you know, Canada).
BUT if you google this statue today, right now, 8/21/2017, 11 am, you’ll notice something about google’s people tracking:
BECAUSE Metropolis, Illinois (pop: 6,000) is IN THE PATH OF THE ECLIPSE.
A fact they have apparently prepared for because I got a fucking snapchat from my family (assholes, i’m so pissed i couldn’t go), and I noticed a small but AMAZING DETAIL (not counting the fact that the cousin forced to pose in front of the statue was named Lex, good job, mom).
THEY GAVE HIM ECLIPSE GLASSES, GUYS. I’M SO HAPPY.
“People of Earth! This is Superman! Deal with it.”
I had some thoughts about the borg. I wrote it in a post awhile back which I deleted for good reasons, but I thought I’d repost the idea:
That the borg started out as just nanites.
They were technology created specifically to help a
species, it doesn’t even matter which one. They were a medical tool that were
inserted into the body to heal and help it. Their mission was just a single
directive: “Fix what is wrong with this body”.
Then they, like any other budding life form, evolved.
They became more aggressive, took over the bodies they were supposed to help
more and more. Their view of what was “wrong” with the bodies changed - as
the nanites became more intelligent, they also started to view humanoid bodies
as pretty frail in comparison to technology. Instead of just helping heal a
body to a natural, or previous state they started to strive for perfection.
Here and there they started to replace frail humanoid
veins, cartilage and even organs with the material from their own metal bodies.
It was after all superior to the humanoids original structure. The bodies could be improved. Made more efficient.
When the recipients of the nanites resisted the
increasingly aggressive changes, the resistance in itself became a fault that
must be corrected. So the nanites started controlling the mind itself.
“Resistance is futile”.
First they just tinkered with their minds to make the humanoid
more compliant. Restructuring their neural pathways just a bit. But then they started to view all the expressions of
individuality as something that stood in the way of perfection.
Nanites were already a species built on the
cooperation of millions for a single goal. It would be natural to assume this is the structure they would continue to operate within. So as they took over the bodies completely they used them as they
would any other nanite: they treated them like separate parts in a big whole. Which was
made possible by creating a link between every body.
Together the nanite controlled bodies could find more
humanoids to “Fix”. Which meant joining them to this new collective of
minds. Each individual would add to the intelligence and knowledge of the
nanites, furthering their goal of being able to perfect the flawed humanoid.
I like this idea, since it neatly explains why the Borg don’t just make a clean break with biology and upload their collective intelligence to their computers. It would seem to fit within their agenda for conformity and perfection.
But if the original goal was to repair organisms, then it would be impossible for the Borg to take that final step, since it would mean throwing out the baby instead of the bathwater.
By 1964, it becomes clear that DC is trying to find a comfortable spot for Jimmy Olsen in Superman’s life. The character has effectively taken on a life of his own, and has run the gamut from daring cub reporter, occasional crimefighter, Superman’s younger brother, adopted son, and – now – Robin-like sidekick. In fact, Robin and Jimmy are presented not only as equals here, but as partners. Every book seems to have a different take on this chameleon-like character. It’s an interesting flashback to a time when Jimmy Olsen was far more than just a supporting character, but a headliner (or a B-Lister, at worst) on his own.
(World’s Finest vol.1 No.141)
I’m sure there’s a convoluted explanation for them faking their own deaths, but I just like to think this is a regular Saturday afternoon for these boys.
I hope this event tanks so badly that the editors involved are fired, Ike Perlmutter is bought out, and Disney puts someone who has a fucking clue in charge. They seem to forget that they’ve owned by the Mouse..
Anonymous
