Ironheart: Season One

In an effort to at least be relevant, I watched this show as quickly as my time would allow, so I could finish before it was spoiled for me. Unfortunately, it WAS, so I won't do that to you. But you come here, my tens of fans, to see what I think. I'll get right to it.

I loved this show. The episodes stuck with me long after they were over and that is a rarity with these shows. This was such a black show and that is probably why. There's unsaid things that we as a people just get when watching something like this. The fact that they got Disney money to do it makes it even sweeter. Per my new format, let me give you my bullet point notes:

• The Ironheart effects looked REALLY good. Most of these Marvel shows try to go above what their SFX budget allows (**cough** She-Hulk **cough** ), but that was not the case here. I was legitimately surprised.
• Riri was complicated and they delve as much as they can within six episodes. I don't feel like she made any moves that were inconsistent with her character. She is handling her grief throughout all of the episodes and you can see that manifest in ALL her choices.
• I loved the unique personalities of the Hood's crew. It was an "anti-woke" person's worst nightmare and I love it. I wish them a terrible day for eternity.
• At it's core in the comics, I think the Hood is a completely stupid character. They tried to ram him down our throats in the comics in the early 00's. He just doesn't work. Here, on a smaller scale he was alright. I liked him as the choice of villain because it sets up this magic versus tech confrontation.
• Picking up on the above point, I liked this magic versus tech throughline. Lord knows, I did not want to see two different people in iron man suits fighting each other again.  Normally I'll bitch about a difference in power sets (re: Captain America: Brave New World), but here I was surprisingly okay with it. Maybe it had something to do with them fleshing out the characters enough to know that their contention was personal, not simply good versus evil.
• The character of Natalie is fantastic and credit to the actress. Her and Riri put in a lot of emotional work.
• I don't know Chicago at all, but I feel like they showed you the black side of Chicago in this show and dealt with it with respect. The city felt like it's own character. 
• As is the way with these kind of stories, the heroes inadvertantly make villains out of friends. I'm not going to defend Riri, her ego set up one of her villains.
• LOVED seeing how they introduced Zora Stanton and I love seeing Cree Summer appearing in this even more. 
• I'm glad the Marvel cinematic universe got over their whole ethos of trying to make things realistic and finally embracing the magic side. I know that WandaVision and Doctor Strange crawled so that Ironheart could walk. I didn't say Agatha because this show was technically filmed long before that, so it couldn't reference anything there. 
• I do enjoy that we get a callback to the very first Iron Man by having another Stane in the show. What do I Mean? Watch to find out!
• I loved the fun way they showed the title card with each episode.

The final point I want to make and I wanted to break it out is the one negative thing about this show. It is not anything that is the show's fault. Everytime a show like Ironheart comes along (Black Female Lead, Black Female Directed, Black Female writers, hell, anyone not a straight white guy), the worst of the worst of the fandom come out to bash a show they didn't even watch. If you ever thought your fandom was free of racism, a show like this is the litmus test. 

In case you missed it, this show was review bombed before it was even released. People that never watched the show were giving it a 1 out of ten across the board and talking about how "woke" it was. First of all, some of these are fake fans. Ironheart has been around for almost a decade now, so it's not like she manifested out of nothing. 

Then there are the toxic-ass comic fans talking about how it's not accurate because she didn't have an A.I. of Tony in her suit, or Tony was able to build his armor in a cave as a way to dismiss what she accomplished. These type of people piss me off because they want their movies/tv shows to be EXACTLY like the comic book source material. I'm here to tell you, 75% of the time, that source material is shit and these shows are fixing some bad choices made back then because the showrunners have the benefit of perspective. I'll come out and say it, Riri is almost unlikeable in the comics. This show goes a long way to giving her some depth. Probably because they finally had a Black person writing for her. But I digress.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I think this show is legitimately good. It accomplishes what it needs to in a nice and tight six episode arc. It's layered, the characters are believable and are not perfect. The season ends on a cliffhanger and I pray to the old gods and the new, that she gets a follow up season. Strong recommendation to watch!

Thunderbolts*

I'm trying to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the kind of movies that exist in my realm of expertise (i.e. Nerd shit), so I was only about a week late on watching the Thunderbolts*. I'm getting better at it.

I'll be honest, this is not a movie I asked for from Marvel. They have been floundering since Avengers: Endgame to come up with something that will catch on. I don't know how much Thunderbolts will actually catch on, but I did enjoy it. In what is a surprising rarity for Marvel movies, it was pretty grounded and street level. If by street level we mean espionage experts that are excellent hand to hand specialists. With the exception of the Sentry showing up, the power levels of everyone remained on the same level.

Let's continue in my new format that lets me get lazy and just bulllet point shit. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch the movie, you might want to wait to read this. Unless you don't care about that sort of thing.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• I love Florence Pugh as Yelena, the new Black Widow. I'm glad that she is the center of this movie. She is the unexpected heart and she has a personal journey that she goes through. I don't know if this is a hot take, but I like her as a Black Widow more than I ever did for Scarlett Johansen. 
• I am a sucker for team dynamics and while everyone's powersets were similar, I like the personalities bouncing off each other and how they form into a family that they all needed.
• The action was really good and didn't resort to a lot of nonsensical hero stuff (lasers shooting, flying, other super hero bullshit). Just punches, kicks and some bullets. It's why more grounded stuff like Captain America: Winter Soldier stays at the top of my list.
• David Harbour is out here living his best life and his portrayal of the Red Guardian remains fun without ever going too far.
• This movie didn't reach for it's humor like Marvel movies tend to do. They didn't beat us over the head with jokes. These heroes are all dealing with depression and they don't joke around too much about it to undercut that theme.
• They treat this team like a bunch of rag tag failures (like DC's Suicide Squad or Marvel's Guardians of hte Galaxy), but everyone here feels competent which is refreshing. I'm tired of a team full of goofballs that only get serious in the last third of a movie. 
• The movie was a respectable length and nothing felt bloated. It felt surprisingly tight.
• I'm so glad we get more Julie Louis-Dreyfuss. She's a fantastic villain in this and we even get a little more of her backstory too. 
• This movie really did a good job of showing mostly everyone's backstory and motivation so that you can buy it. I do think there was a miss here and I will list that in the next section.

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• Words cannot express how much I mega-loathe the Sentry as a character. When I heard he was going to be in this, I rolled my eyes. They did the absolute best they could. But I still hate him.
• Also, they did what they could, but I also do not like John Walker. He was always an asshole and they do their best. I'll never get past my bias against him. NEXT.
• This movie does NOTHING to explain who Ghost is. If you didn't watch Antman and Wasp, you will have no idea who she is and the movie does not hold your hand. That's certainly a choice. It's hard to buy into her motivations.
• This is nitpicky, but Marvel created this problem, so I will address it. You can't keep making these movies all interconnected and tying into one another and then NOT have no other heroes show up when a big city like New York is attacked. 90% of Marvel characters live in New York, so the fact that we don't get one cameo is a problem. 
• Why are we even bothering with Bucky as a congressman? It's a weird direction for his character at this point and doesn't add anything. 
• Look, did they fumble Taskmaster in the Black Widow movie? Yes. Was I hoping they'd do more with her? Yes. Do they? Nope. She is dispensed early and quickly and that is it. With it dies my hopes of an actual Taskmaster in this universe. To be fair, his comic book version is super goofy and trying to make that work in a movie was a reach anyway.
• I was perfectly fine with the way they called themsleves the  Thunderbolts, but when they pivot to the "New Avengers", I was not down with that. At all. I also don't feel like explaining myself.

Yes, I had a number of bad things here, but I still really enjoyed this movie in spite of my what I listed here. I found it to be surprisingly fun and I did actually enjoy it.

Sinners

I know that this is a comic blog and this movie is not technically a comic book movie. Let me break my own rules with these flimsy connections. Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Michael B. Jordan was in Black Panther. Hailee Steinfeld is in the Hawkeye show and is Kate Bishop that will appear in other movies. Wunmi Mosaku was in the Loki series and the Wolverine & Deadpool as an agent of the TVA. In doing a quick scan of credits, Delroy Lindo was in a tv show, "Marvel's Most Wanted", a spinoff from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. So, you know... a lot of comic book ties. Justification complete!

This movie was fantastic. It was an unapologetically black movie. I'm so proud to see a movie like this doing so well. Gives me a glimmer of hope for the future as this "anti-DEI" bullshit takes a hold and manifests itself in my country. I've been thinking about this movie for days before I finally got it together and put this out. 

Anyways, lemme get to my new format to let me get my thoughts out better.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• I want to start with the music. Music plays a very important part in this movie and it is all really good. I forgot that I liked Blues until I heard good blues music in this movie. The music in many scenes is purposeful and fits the moment in the story. I'm going to buy this soundtrack. I felt it in my soul.
• This is a gorgeous movie in the way that it's shot. Coogler had a very specific visual narrative and style to this movie that I appreciated. It made it feel classic, but also new. There is a beautiful scene in the movie where Sammie is playing his guitar and the shot swirls in and out of the dance floor. You'll know it when you see it.
• The cast is spectacular and there were no weaknesses here. I will give my flowers to Michael B. Jordan (pulling double duty), Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo and so many others I didn't name. There was a chemistry between the cast members.
• While the main antagonist, Remmick, is a vampire and technically the bad guy, he wasn't mustache twirling evil. He was kind of charming and he was kind of winning me over with his logic. I liked that his motivation was mostly animal instinct outside of trying to capture Sammie.
• While we're talking about Remmick, this movie dared to pose something interesting. The setting is the 1930's Jim Crow South and when Remmick poses to our main characters that they'd be better off in the post racial society of the Vampires, it made me pause. His reasoning was, humanity is not treating you well, black people, two of my new flock were actively plotting against you, so why not join us. I mean, given that offer, I might have taken him up on it.
• I Love that this took place all in one day and the stakes were just with our characters. There wasn't some grand save the world plot. Let's just make it through the night.
• I also loved that Vampires are a thing, no one spends time asking about it and they just roll with it. There wasn't some big lore dump about them. The movie doesn't treat us like we're stupid.
• As the story unfolds, Smoke and Stack have equally tragic stories and I was caught up in both of them. Yes, they wanted to make money, but they also wanted to take care of their own. As this movie showed and history taught us, no way that was going to be allowed to last.
• This movie had a slow burn with it's tension and that made for true horror. In the way that Get Out built to something, you feel that here. You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop and this movie makes you wait for it. 
• I guess Riverdancing is the dance that is used for a post racial society, huh? You know what, I'm down with that. If you've seen the movie, you'll know the scene I'm talking about.

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• This is so nitpicky. I wanted to see more of the magical herbs and spices play out in Wunmi Mosaku's character, Annie get a little more time. I was hoping she was a witch that would help fight the vampires, but it wasn't meant to be.

Don't be like me and wait too long on this movie. It is an experience and I don't use that term lightly. 

Daredevil: Born Again

Wow, it's been two months since I posted? Life has been lifing hard, so it has taken this series, to break me out of my slumber. Let me tell you, this took me back to those Netflix Marvel days in a good way. Daredevil was always the strongest show of that bunch and seeing the majority of the cast back has filled me with joy.

Before you go any further, yes, I loved the show. Now, let's get into the reasons as to why. I'm going to do this a little differently. I tend to ramble and I want to at least break out my points so you can take them in bite sized chunks, my tens of readers. 

Also, these are my OPINIONS. I want to be clear about that. But if you want to argue with me about any of this, my watch says I always have time. This should be easy to follow, so let's go.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• The hand to hand fighting in this series has always been unrivaled. Even with all these shows that Marvel has done since going to Disney plus, this series beats all of them hands down. 
• The acting is always top tier. Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio are acting as if this is the last time they'll ever work. They're leaving it all out there. I know Kingpin's verbal ticks and mannerisms are always mocked, but if you watch the show, you know how unhinged and calculating he is.
• I can't explain it, but I've always loved the gritty look of the show. The production values are slick and even though I don't know anything about New York, it feels to me like this is authentic.
• Admittedly, the slow burn this show takes in ramping up, but man does it pay off. I also like that this season is the first arc of a larger story, so they didn't wrap things up quickly. I was afraid they would once we got to episode 8.
• There is something to the chemistry that Matt Murdock and Karen Page has that shows they are so good together. AS FRIENDS. Because Jesus, a man can be a friend to a woman without wanting to get in her pants.
• I liked the new supporting cast (for the most part) In this show. Specific shout out to "Cherry", the guy that knew Matt's double life and was a sounding board and moral compass for him.
• Geniune shocking moments. 
• Part of me wanted more of Muse, but I also am glad they wrapped him up pretty quick. He was a terrifying villain but doesn't have staying power.
• Bullseye is a menace. That fight in the first episode between him and Daredevil is what I'm talking about with my very first bulllet point. 
• They finally just call him Daredevil and not "The Vigilante". Cause seriously, New York is flush with Vigilantes. You need to be spceific!
• Even if it was short, I loved seeing a reference to White Tiger in this show and setting the stage for more. (I'm purposely being vague)

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• I love the Punisher in this show and I'm happy when he shows up as a foil to Daredevil. But damn, cartoony, excessive violence follows him and it is too much.
• Characters like Cole North, Krysten McDuffie are name checked for long time fans, but they serve no purpose here.
• Matt's relationship with Heather just felt off. I was never buying it or fully invested. She makes some questionable ass choices.
• For a show called Daredevil, we sure did have to wait a long time to see him in costume. There is a tipping point for how long you can draw out "anticipation" for a thing. This show crossed that line. 
• To follow up on the above point, I KNOW the point of the show is for him to get back after an extended time. They did a full year time jump, that's good enough. You don't have to make the audience suffer TOO.
• I've watched a lot of violent stuff over the years and to an extent, I'm desensitized. But this show (episode 9 in particular), when it wants to go hard, it goes way over the top. The fact that I mentioned the specific episode, you know what I mean. Gruesome, yes. But come on. I don't want to see that.