Welcome back to the hippest trip in America! Hey, Soul Train has been off the air for years, and Don Cornelius is dead. Who’s gonna sue me?! Anyway, you know what we do here, and this week was a DOOZY! I saw TWO movies in THEATERS (What?!), and the rest of the pop culture landscape was pretty busy, too. That said, I’ve been thinking a lot about Death lately. Yup, capital D. I’m not trying to be morbid, but it’s just been pretty prevalent in both real life and entertainment. You see, one of my aunts passed away 2 weeks ago, which has been an adjustment for the family. I’ve always said I was raised by “The Black Golden Girls”, and Rose has left the building. Plus, this week marked the one-year anniversary of my mom’s emergency surgery, which no one thought she’d survive (She did, but it’s been a long road *cue Enterprise theme*). So, a lot on my mind, and I guess it didn’t help that my “escapist entertainment” didn’t turn out to be that escapist. But we’ll get to all that.
I would say I saw Thunderbolts* “like everyone else”, but I’m not sure all the folks were too excited for the film. I mean, it’s not like it was Avengers 5 we were talking about here. Or was it? I feel like you either care or you don’t, but let’s go through the motions for those who might be curious, but not enough to go see the film: Thunderbolts* is something of a “clean-up” project, as it stars a bunch of leftover characters from other Marvel Studios productions. You’ve got Yelena, Red Guardian, and Taskmaster from Black Widow, Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, John Walker from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Bucky from, well, everything since Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So, unlike a lot of MCU releases, this one *required* homework, for some characters more than others. Yelena is basically the central character, and you should know her deal by now. But the rest? It would take a 10-minute YouTube recap just to explain Walker (Wait til ya learn about the Power Broker!). I’m no longer an MCU Completist (still haven’t watched Quantumania, and I’ve skipped 60% of the Disney+ series), but luckily I knew enough to be able to follow things. Still a lot of folks have converted to “casual fan” status post-Endgame, so they wouldn’t know that Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina has pretty much been the Nick Fury of the past couple of phases. She would show up at the end of a series or movie, and recruit a character for some unknown mission. In fact, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we discovered that she was the ex-wife of Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross (which makes no sense, and was far less impressive than her being the ex-girlfriend of Nick Fury, as she is in the comics). Anyway, this film was the culmination of her arc.
As the director of…something, holding the government position of….something, Valentina is on trial for impeachment, and I guess things work differently in the MCU, as she seems to think they might actually take her down for what she’s been doing. Sure, she’s cool as a cucumber during the proceedings, meanwhile her assistant Mel has been tasked with destroying any evidence connecting her to wrongdoing. That evidence includes the operatives she’s been recruiting. So, she lures them all to a location, with each one thinking they’re there to bring in the other. So, we get a nice battle royale, where Taskmaster is killed immediately, and exits Stage Left. Thanks for your time, Olga Kurylenko. The check is in the mail, and there’s a fruit basket waiting in your trailer.
Anyway, the disparate group eventually realizes Valentina’s plan, and they have to team up to escape. Meanwhile, they discover a random guy, named “Bob”, who’s also in the facility, and no one can explain why – not even Bob. At this point, I should point out that everyone here is sort of sucking at life. In the post-Blip, post-Avengers world, there’s no glory to be found. They’re all sort of empty, not dealing with their trauma of recent loss. Yelena lost her sister. Walker lost his job as the new Captain America AND his family. Red Guardian lost the pride and purpose he had felt as Russia’s Super Soldier. So, the story basically focuses on them trying to figure out the deal with Bob, while also rediscovering themselves. Meanwhile, Valentina discovers that Bob is actually the lone survivor of a project she oversaw, where she was trying to develop her own super powered being to further her nefarious goals. The problem, though, was that she was foolish enough to think she could control a god. In the end, however, just as the “team” is about to take down Valentina, they unwittingly stumble into a press conference, where she introduces them to the world as the New Avengers. Cut to title card, revealing the asterisk was always meant to stand for The New Avengers.
I liked the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that critics also seemed to like it. The MCU has lived in this weird place where it hasn’t been championed in quite some time, and seems to be chugging along due to a large, devoted fan base. It somehow retains something of an “underdog” status, in that every movie is seen as a commercial failure now if it “only” grosses half a billion dollars. The model is clearly broken, when that’s seen as failure, but MCU productions tend to be commercial, and not critical, darlings. Still, reviews pointed out that it wasn’t just special effects, but that it had a lot of heart and introspection that these films tend to lack. While I’d agree with that, I almost felt like it was heavy-handed praise. I mean, in the scenes dealing with mental health, it was beyond clear they were dealing with mental health. Honestly, it felt organic, yet not quite believable. I’m not quite sure how you effectively tackle the concept of mental health in a movie where the villain is basically fighting his other, evil personality, and is defeated by The Power of Friendship and group hugs. I’m not trying to be cynical, as I liked the movie, but it wasn’t lost on me that A) They didn’t actually *defeat* Sentry and B) This $200 million dollar film ended the same way as most episodes of Full House.
Some folks might not realize it, but there were quite a few recasts in the film. First off, The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yuen was originally slated to be The Sentry, but he left the production due to “scheduling conflicts”. Meanwhile, The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri was originally cast as Valetina’s assistant, Mel, but she also fell victim to those pesky scheduling conflicts. I was more than pleased with who ended up replacing them, but it did leave me wondering what the movie might have been with those original actors.
I’m at the point now where I’m more interested in how each piece fits into the greater whole than I am on individual entries. This was “fun” during the Infinity Saga with Thanos, but I could be playing a losing game here, as I’m not as confident in Kevin Feige’s “master plan” these days. I really hope they’re building to something awesome, but I also feel there’s more course correction these days, when test screenings or dailies showcase something that isn’t getting folks excited. In the early days of the MCU, there was a “Trust us. We know what we’re doing” vibe. Now, however, there’s more of a collaborative “Oh, really? Well, tell us how you’d do this differently” thing going on. Contrary to popular belief, I think they do listen to the fans, and we should know by now that the fans can’t be trusted.
Anyway, the post credits scene was awesome for 2 reasons: 1) it gave us an update to the status quo of the MCU, in that we learn Sam Wilson is building his own, “real” Avengers team, and is about to get litigious against this group, and 2) if you notice how everyone is portrayed here (Bucky’s luxurious blowout, for example), it’s reminiscent of Galaxy Quest. We’re not supposed to take this team seriously (Nor does the general public, as the credits are filled with faux news headlines, like “Not My Avengers!”), and I’m eager to see the “reckoning” when they realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.
This next film is where the “death” stuff came in, as I had to do my civic duty by seeing Sinners. I’m just gonna start off by saying that I don’t feel smart enough to talk about this movie. I wish more people would admit that about things. Instead of saying “I’m afraid I’m not familiar enough with the subject”, they end up saying something dumb and making things worse. I realize there are a lot of layers to this movie that I probably didn’t get. I was telling a friend that you’d need a degree in Africana Studies (which I kinda have), and still wouldn’t get everything going on here. There’s a discussion of race, of passing, of forced religion, of societal expectations, and more. Sure, it seems like a movie about fledgling blues guitarist “Preacher Boy” Sammy, and the wild, vampire-filled night he’d never forget. But it’s also about so much more. When I talked about the trailer, I said then that I was on board til all the vampire stuff started, and that pretty much rang true for the film itself. It’s not that the vampire stuff is bad, but more that I was way more interested in learning about this pair of black twin gangsters who’d clearly done some shit up in Chicago, and were now running from it. Give me Gangster Twins vs The Klan, and I’d have been happy. But that’s not what we got.
It also bears pointing out that, while the twins don’t “survive”, it’s not the Chicago wrongdoing that takes them out. So, it’s almost like “When you fuck with the Devil, he’s gonna get you back, in ways you’d never expect.”
I thought it was pretty interesting that the movie bypassed the Klan as the main villain, and went in a completely different, but also just as realistic, direction. Here, the villains are in the guise of Irish folk singers, and what they’re offering isn’t that farfetched. They tell the twins that they’re offering TRUE FREEDOM – an important theme, given they had earlier told Sammy that the North is no different from the South, in terms of life for a black man, other than you’ve traded fields for tall buildings. From a sociological perspective, the Irish weren’t completely “white” at the time of this film. This wasn’t that long after the “Irish Need Not Apply” era, and they were basically a notch above blacks. By aligning themselves with this vampirism, they had found a power greater than any that had been denied them. And they were offering this to the black folks present at the juke joint. Sure, their souls would have been corrupted, and there would have been a dark side to it, but what they were being offered was purportedly better than what they’d be giving up. So, you could see how something like that, given the time period, and given our characters, might seem attractive.
You know I can’t get through these things without being “Will”, so 2 things stuck with me: 1) When Smoke went to visit Annie, it wasn’t immediately clear what she was to him. I mean, “black don’t crack”, so it was hard to gauge her age, but she was also sort of…”stout”. I’m gonna be honest with y’all: I thought it was his mama til she started rubbing up on his meat piece. 2) In the mid-credits scene, I really wanted Buddy Guy to smash his guitar, and stake those vamps with the shards, like he probably wishes he had 60 years prior. But he’s in his 80s, and it would have ruined everything that had happened in the movie.
Listen to the reviews. Listen to your friends. It’s an excellent film. Periodt. I’ll never look at little Hailee Steinfeld the same after that.
Will Around The Web
Nope, we’re not done with C2E2 content yet! My buddy Carlin put together a great video recap of the weekend, which I am excited to present to y’all:
Run The Numbers
So, I’m doing a little better here. Last week, I totally forgot I had read a 6-issue Daredevil miniseries that I hadn’t added to the tracker. Plus, I’ve started reading Claremont’s X-Men Forever series, and I totally blame the After Lunch guys for that. But we’re not talking about any of those today. No, still on the Death theme, I read Tim Seeley and Mike Norton’s Revival, in compendium form.
Revival is a series I’d heard about, and would always find random volumes of the trade paperback, yet I didn’t know enough about it to have formed an opinion. Launching in 2012, it’s a 47-issue series that focuses on the town of Wausau, Wisconsin following “Revival Day” – a freak occurrence, where roughly 23 dead residents mysteriously came back to life, and tried to resume their regular lives. The main character is single mother/police officer Dana Cypress, who’s lived in Wausau her whole life, and went through a rebellious stage as a teenager before becoming a cop and working for her father, the sheriff. When the series starts, Dana is selected as the departments liaison to the CDC as it investigates the cause of Revival Day. The situation becomes more personal, however, when Dana discovers that her younger sister, Em, was murdered the night before Revival Day, and she’s one of the “Revivers”. So, you’re left with two concurrent mysteries: What caused Revival Day? and Who killed Em Cypress?
As you can imagine, the small town becomes something of a powder keg, as various interests get involved. The outside world believes the Reviver flesh has restorative powers, so there’s a black market organ trade going on. A Bill O’Reilly type media figure comes to town, and broadcasts live to his audience, about how the government is keeping secrets from the American people. Evangelical Christians believe the town has healing powers, and they’re constantly trying to bypass the checkpoints so they can sneak in and experience what they believe to be “God’s Salvation” for themselves. Meanwhile, the town is placed under quarantine, so none of the residents can leave, though more and more folks show up, with some sort of angle or plan for the area.
Outside of the political aspects, there’s a lot of introspection in the story. What does Life mean in the absence of Death? How great a cost is Immortality worth? One of the main characters grew up a devout Muslim, but has since drifted from the faith. While in the town, working for the CDC, he finds himself in search of…something, which leads him back to the religion of his youth. The Cypress family, plagued by tragedy, find themselves growing closer as the word around them falls apart.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. Hell, I could barely put it down. When I went into it, for some reason I thought it was only 37 issues. So, I powered towards the end, yet got really confused when I got to the end of #37 and it ended on a cliffhanger (I was reading it digitally, so it’s not like I had a hunk of pages in my hand to betray the secret). No, it’s 47 issues, so I still had 10 more to wrap things up. I’ve got to say, though, these long-form sagas always leave me feeling bad for the folks who read them monthly. This 47-issue series took 5 years to complete, and it REALLY starts to drag around #30. There isn’t exactly a reboot, but most of the characters we’ve come to know are either gone by then, or they take a backseat to a slew of new characters who become the new stars of the show. Tonally, it’s a different book, with familiar characters who don’t quite fit the new tone. As for the dual mysteries, I wasn’t really satisfied with the answer to either. It’s one of those things where I could probably re-read the series, and notice things I didn’t notice the first time around, but the overall mystery felt both rushed and not fully explained, while the murder mystery just went somewhere crazy. Similar to how I felt about Sex Criminals, I’m not entirely sure the creators got to tell the entire story they’d set out to tell, and 47 is such an odd number on which to end that I don’t totally believe that was the planned final issue number.
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- Next week are the network upfronts, where they debut next season’s new TV shows. But for them to live, some must die. The following shows were canceled this week: The Equalizer (CBS); Young Dylan (Nick); Night Court (NBC); Rescue: HI-Surf (Fox)
- It’s not all bad news, though, as some of your favorites might have been renewed this week: Animal Control (Fox); Dutch (Fox); Law & Order (NBC); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); The One Chicago franchise – Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med (NBC)
- As for new shows, CBS is developing another Yellowstone spinoff, this one called Y: Marshals, following Luke Grimes’s Kayce Dutton character. Meanwhile, Peacock has ordered an animated Ted series, set after the films, with voices from Mark Wahlberg and Amanda Seyfried. The live action Ted prequel series will also continue.
- Comcast announced that the name of its cable network spinoff company will be Versant
- Rihanna is pregnant with her third child. Congrats and all, but we’re still waiting for that next album!
- In a podcast interview, Marvel writer Jonathan Hickman confirmed that the current Ultimate Marvel books were originally to have been written by Donny Cates. Hickman took over when Cates had to step away from comics, and explained that his new role is to sort of craft the structure of ideas that other writers can come in and pick up, without having to start their books completely from scratch.
- The 5th Descendants Disney Channel Original Movie was confirmed, which will be called The Descendants: Wicked Wonderland. The movie will introduce Luis Madrigal, the son of Luisa Madrigal from Encanto. You remember Luisa. The sister who’s probably really good at fast-pitch softball, just bought a new Subaru, and lives with her roommate of 25 years…
An American pope. I never thought I’d see the day. Earlier this week, I was saying that it’s crazy this will be the 4th pope in my lifetime. It feels like the turnover has been pretty frequent since the days of John Paul II, who held the position for 27 years. Since then, it feels like there’s a conclave as often as there’s Olympics games. But who thought the new one would hail from America?! The Land of the Free (until tariffs are applied)! American Cardinal Robert Prevost did a henshin into Pope Leo XIV!
I’m not Catholic, and I didn’t watch that movie you’re all pretending you watched. Seriously, y’all weren’t watching how they choose a pope when The Rock surely had a movie in theaters at the very same time. You ain’t foolin’ nobody! But it’s not every day an American gets such a prestigious appointment. In fact, prior to yesterday, it was NO day, as Leo is the first American chosen in the history of the papacy. I’ve gotta say that I was hoping for a longer conclave. I heard that, in the 1200s, there was a conclave that went on for TWO YEARS! I like some showmanship in my ceremonies. Anyway, I’m gonna have to say Cardinal Robert Prevost AKA Pope Leo XIV had the West Week Ever. With all this thinking about Death, maybe he can talk to The Man Upstairs for me. Tell Him I’m sorry for upsetting all those D-list celebrities back in the Twitter days!
