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Posts tonen met het label marvel. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label marvel. Alle posts tonen

woensdag 14 januari 2026

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

 Time to work some more on catching up all the missed MCU and Star Wars expanded series and occassional movies, and time it's She-Hulk.
 

As well as some movies, and I ain't be watching them in release sequence, just as I feel like. 
 
But first off, most of the episodes are short, barely hitting the 30 minute mark... but as I had holidays in the final week of last year and the first of this year, some serious binging has been done while recuperating from just to much holiday seasonal food...
 
Now, what we have here is a great fun series, with an excellent Tatiana Maslany in the lead role of lawyer Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, who turned a member of the "green powerhouse family" by an accidental blood transfer from her cousin Bruce Banner.  Except she has better control over her powers.  And Hulk isn't the only character to make the cross-over into this series, as Abomination, Wong, and even Daredevil (nicely tying the Netflix series more into the MCU) also make their appearances.
 

The series also breaks the fourth wall often in a Deadpool style, as Jen comments to the viewers on that this is "her" show, and not a thing to bring back various other characters, even going as far in the finale that she meets an AI called K.E.V.I.N. to discuss how it is written and played out (a wink to MCU head honcho Kevin Feige).  To be honest, this was perhaps just a bit taking it to far to take the series "serious", in how you of course can do so for a bunch of superpowered people smashing each other around.
 
We get a nine episode series as such with a lot of politics as someone called the "Hulkking" is out to bring She-Hulk down, a romance between Jennifer and Matt Murdock in her hopeless dating life, and some hilarious courtroom action as well.  And a great appearance by the most awesome villains of all, The Wrecking Crew!
 

This is definitly one of the funnier Marvel MCU series that they produced, and it might still be that a second season will be made, though no greenlight (no pun inteded) on that one so far.
 
But we sure hope so! 
 
 
 
 
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vrijdag 9 januari 2026

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 So the First Family FINALLY arrives in the MCU, meaning we only are missing the most anticipated team in there... please bring that Doomsday movie forward.
 

Now, this movie didn't do that well at all in the box office, and basically I don't get it, this one was, compared to all previous iterations, actually good.
 
First off, I love the 60s vibe both the technology (The Eclipse, their car,...) gives off, as well as that 60s style theme music.  But what about the casting and the story?  Well, they face Galactus and the Silver Surfer again, like in the older movies with Jessica Alba.  The first thing Noshi noted was that they made the Silver Surfer female, and I had to bring her in the know.  There are more Surfers, some female, but we all are used to Norin Rad, the one we know from most comics.
 

Also a bit of comic knowledge, neutral viewers had on the one hand issues with the "superbaby", and with Reed being significantly older.  Well, Franklin IS the single most powerful mutant in the whole Marvelverse, basically they haven't seen anything yet.  And Reed never was a young scientist actually, being the senior of Susan, who is actually casted on the rather young side in all movies.
 
But that aside, the story is the traditional: Galactus is on course to Earth, and want to destroy it.  The Fantastic Four set out to talk to him, and he notices the unborn baby as his salvation, as it carries the Power Cosmic.  They try to stop him but fail, with Franklin being born in the process.  A plan is hatched to teleport Earth, but is stopped by the Silver Surfer, so using the final space bridge they plan on teleporting Galactus far away.  They nearly succeed, but as he goes after Franklin Sue holds him back, and the Silver Surfer in the end saves Earth to atone for her sins by pushing Galactus in the portal.
 

Now, and then there is the end-scene... a green hooded man holding a metal mask has appeared in the Baxter building, and we all know who that is, as Doctor Victor Von Doom will appear as the main villain in Doomsday.  
 

As will "that team" I talked about in the opening line... and I for one cannot wait this time for an actual Marvel release, and I can say that has been a LONG time. 
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woensdag 24 december 2025

Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special

 A special from Marvel to celebrate the festive season, it features our beloved band of misfits, the Guardians of the Galaxy.



Written and directed by James Gunn before he made the move to DC, it shares continuity with the MCU universe, taking place after Quill lost Gamora.

The Guardians have purchased Knowhere from the Collector, and their ranks are expanded with Cosmo, the spacedog, as their newest member.  They learn from Kraglin how Yondu has ruined christmas for Quill, and this makes Mantis and Drax decide they want to restore the feel for him.  They decide to travel to Earth and retrieve Peter's childhood hero, Kevin Bacon.

After spending time in Hollywood, they track down his mansion and they try to bring him along.  The police tries to stop our heroes from abducting him, but they manage to put them in a trance and bring Bacon to Knowhere.  But there they learn he isn't an actual hero but an actor instead.  

As they gift him to Peter, he is horrified by the fact they abducted someone, demanding they return him home.  As Kevin Bacon learns the motivations of the Guardians why they acted that way, and how he was Peter's inspiration, he decides to celebrate christmas with them before being returned home, giving a concert for Peter.  



After the party, Peter reveals to Matis that Yondu actually changed his mind about christmas, and it was him who gifted Peter his signature blasters.  Mantis in turn confides she is actually Peter's half-sister as she is also a daughter of Ego.

This was a fun special for sure, with the usual Guardians of the Galaxy humour abundant.  Worth a watch for the festive season, and definitly beats all those Hallmark christmas movies...
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dinsdag 29 juli 2025

Thunderbolts

 Based on, but very unlike, the comic series of the same name, Thunderbolts is about a team of the most unlikely superheroes.
 

In the comics, it was Baron Zemo who saw an opportunity when he wanted to reform the Masters of Evil to step into the void the Avengers and the Fantastic Four left, presumed all dead, to get to power through public apporval.  And those weren't D-rank villains like the Suicide Squad...
 
But probably to avoid confusion with the DC team of convicts, the movie instead goes to unite some of the side-characters from previous Marvel MCU movies and bring those together.  The "new" Black Widow Yelena, Red Guardian and Taskmaster (also both from the Black Widow movie), US Agent (Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Ghost (Ant-man and the Wasp) and Winter Soldier are brought together due to circumstances.  
 
Bar Bucky and Red Guardian, they are all secret agents working for Valentina De Fontaine, who is trying to cover up evidence for the OXE "Sentry" project.  She sends them all to the same facility in order for them to kill each other, and Taskmaster is shot in the head by Ghost.  They find a guy named Bob there, and make their escape right before the room is incinerated.
 

When her troops arrive to take them out, Bob draws fire and is shot, but seemingly unharmed, before flying high in the air and crashing back to the compound, taken in by Valentina.  Her new headquarters, the Watchtower, is the former Avengers building in New York, where she figures out the Sentry project worked on Bob.   The group, now led by Bucky to stop Valentina and bring her to trial, face her, but are quickly overcome by Bob, now called Sentry.  As they manage to get through to him, his dark alter ego, Void, emerges and starts transferring people to a dark dimension made up of their trauma's.
 

Yelena enters his consciousness by stepping into this void, slowly getting to him and making him come to his senses.  His Void alter ego tries to stop them from getting out, but the others arrive to save them, and with their help Bob overcomes his inner darkness, restoring the city to normal and freeing the trapped people.  The moment they want to arrest Valentina though, she quickly flips it around in a publicity stunt, introducing them as the new Avengers to help protect humanity now as the newest superhero team.
 
In the post credits scene, they are discussing a trademark issue with the Avengers name with Falcon, when a signal from an extra-dimensional spacecraft bearing a large '4' signal comes in... 
 
Apart from the fact Florence Pugh is a joy to look at, this was a fun movie.  You can already feel the Thunderbolts are going to take the role of the Guardians of the Galaxy as the "comic relief" movies in the mCU, and with Sentry an absolute powerhouse has also been introduced into the franchise.  And we all know with that post credits scene who are coming as well... 
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vrijdag 10 januari 2025

Avengers Endgame

 Roight, time to watch the conclusion of Thanos's little snap then, in the second finale movie of the MCU wave 3, Endgame from 2019.



And if everyone that died in the first movie, actually stays dead... because... Marvel.

In 2018, 23 days after the disasterous battle, Tony Stark and Nebula are saved in deep space by Captain Marvel, who brings them to the other surviving Avengers.  They located Thanos on an unihabited planet, and want to use the stones to reverse his actions.  But Thanos has seemingly destroyed them, causing Thor to decapitate him in rage.

Jumping five years forward, Ant-Man escapes from the Quantum realm, where he was when the snap happened and he couldn't get back out.  But for him, it have only been 5 hours instead of 5 years.  They theorize the Realm allows time travel, and decide to try and go in the past to retrieve the stones there in order to reverse the snap.  Stark, Banner and Rocket build a time machine, as the latter then go and recruit a depressed and overweight Thor.  Black Widow enlists Hawkeye, who now goes as a vigilante under the name Ronin after his family had been erased.



As the Avengers scatter through time, they go out and seek the Infinity stones at various places in the timeline, knowing that their actions won't change their line, but create alternate timelines instead.  Banner convinces the Ancient One in the past they will return the stones to their location in those realities after they managed to save their own.  In a past incarnation of Asgard, Thor also manages to retrieve Mjolnir, that was destroyed in Infinity Wars.  But when Hawkeye and Black Widow want to retrieve the Soul stone, Natasja sacrifices herself in order for Clint to get the stone.

Using a gauntlet that Stark, Banner and Rocket build, they place the stones in it to undo the snap, as Banner is the most resistant to the radiation it will cause.  But as the disintegration is about to be undone, Thanos of the past arrives with his army to stop them, informed by a switched out Nebula.  But the others all arrive, the Wakanda, the Sorcerers with Strange and Wong, the Ravagers as well as the missing heroes that didn't die in this reality.  Thanos tries to use the stones to reset the universe and create a new one, but Stark prevents this, at the cost of his own life.  But his final snap disintegrates Thanos and his army, saving reality from the mad tyrant.



After the funeral of Tony, the Avengers set out to place the stones back where they belong, but Captain America doesn't return.  They find Steve sitting on a bench a short distance away, aged.  He has chosen to remain in the past and live his days with Peggy Carter instead, and now came to this moment in time to pass his shield on to The Falcon to become the new Captain America in his wake...

And so the saga ends, with four dead heroes in the end to go to the new phase 4: Vision, Black Widow, Iron Man and in a way Gamora, though the latter has been replaced by an alternate reality version.  Not as heavy as it was in the comics, but like Civil War, this was a seriously souped down version in the end...

Worth the watch, but by far not the epic conclusion that the MCU fanboys want us to believe.  They should start reading if you ask me...
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donderdag 9 januari 2025

Hawkeye

 Time for some more "catching up" in all the so far missed Marvel, Star Wars, DC, etc movies and series...



... and this time, it's my favorite (comics) Avenger, Hawkeye.
 
Well, actually I watched this two weeks to late, as it is a christmas story.  Albeit one in the trend of Die Hard, but heck, details.  
 
During the battle of New York in 2012, a young Kate Bishop witnesses Clint battling the Chitauri, and decides to become a hero like him.  Current day, and Clint spends time with his children for christmas in New York, while Kate is attending a charity auction with her mother Eleanor and her new fiancee Jack, as Kate's father died in the battle back in 2012.  She stumbles upon a black market auction, featuring items recovered from the Avengers Tower, when the Tracksuit Maffia crashes in (personal note: these guys are hilarious).  Jack steals the Ronin sword, as Kate gets her hands on the Ronin suit, defeating the mobsters while wearing it and giving rise to the rumour the Ronin has returned.



She is cornered by the Tracksuit Maffia who followed her, but Clint intervenes and saves her.  But her appartment is destroyed by them, and the suit is left behind as they escape to Kate's aunt place who is abroad.  Clint gets the suit back at a LARP event, as Kate tries to convince her mom there is something shady about Jack.  But later she and Clint are captured by the Maffia and their leader Maya Lopez interrogates them, Clint loosing his hearing aid in the process.  After escaping, Kate convinces Clint to aid her uncover the secrets of Jack.  But her mother asks him to keep Kate safe, to which he agrees.

Kate deducts that Clint is actually the Ronin, as they discover that Jack seems to be the CEO of a money laundry company for the Tracksuit Maffia, getting him arrested.  As they go after Lopez, Clint is attacked by the new Black Widow, Yelena, who blames him for the death of her "sister" Natasja.



Yelena meets Kate, telling her she is hired to kill Clint, who faces Lopez himself in the Ronin suit, telling her it was a set-up that got her father killed and her vendetta is based on lies.  Yelena texts Kate, telling it was her mother that hired her to kill Clint, and a movieclip of her mother meeting with non other then The Kingpin, who has her in his power.  Clint and Kate make a move to save her mother, but learn that Eleanor was behind it all, and used Jack as an unknowing scapegoat for her cover-up.  In the final confrontation, Kate holds her own against the Kingpin, as Yelena spares Clint after learning the truth of Natasja's sacrifice to save humanity.

Back with his family, Kate is invited along to have christmas as her mother is arrested, and he burns the Ronin suit once and for all, passing on the monicker Hawkeye to Kate...

Now, this was an excellent series, and one I enjoyed the most so far of the MCU series I've seen.  Though this might also have to do with the fact Hawkeye (comic and MCU version) was my favorite Avenger, so I might be a little biased on that front.




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woensdag 8 januari 2025

Avengers: Infinity War

 What do you mean, late to the party????



It's only been what, 6.5 years since this blockbuster came out?  But finally I'm catching up on all the Star Wars, Marvel and other franchise movies and series, for no toher reason then, well, catching up...

Having aquired one of the Infinity stones, Thanos attack the Asgardian refugee ship, killing Loki and Heimdall in the process and beating up the Hulk.  He extracts the Space stone from the Tesseract as a dying Heimdall teleports Hulk to Earth to warn them of Thanos's coming.  Reverting to his Banner form, he warns Strange and Wong of the impeding danger to all life, as Thanos wants to snap out 50% of all life.

Recruiting Tony Stark, two of Thanos's lieutenants arrive to get the Time stone from Strange, causing Spider-Man to come help out as well.  Unable to obtain the Time stone, they leave in their ship with Stark and Spidey stowing away in it.  The Guardians of the Galaxy respond to the mayday of the Asgardian vessel, finding a wounded Thor.  They travel to Knowhere as they suspect Thanos going there to get the Reality stone, whom the Collector possesses.  



While the Guardians go there, Thor goes with Rocket and Groot to seek out the Dwarf king and forge the battleaxe Stormbreaker.  On Knowledge, the other Guardians arrive to late, Thanos having obtained the stone and kidnapping Gamora.  She discloses the location of the Soul stone to save her sister Nebula from torture.  But Thanos sacrifices Gamora, the one thing he truly loved, to obtain the Soul stone.

Wanda and Vision are ambushed by Thanos's forces to retrieve the Mind stone from the android, but are saved by Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon, taking them to Banner and War Machine in the Avengers Compound.  They travel to Wakanda to find a way of removing the stone from Vision without killing him.  Stark and Spider-Man save the captured Strange, but as Strange views multiple dimensions, there is only one where the Avengers win.  Thanos appears, and they engage him, formulated a plan to remove the gauntlet from him.  But as Star-Lord learns of Gamora's death, his enrage causes the plan to fail, and Strange willingly offers his Time stone to save Stark's life.



Thanos's army then invades Wakanda, as the Avengers, Black Panther, Winter Soldier and the Wakanda troops mount a defence, in the hope that Shuri gets to extract the stone first so Wanda can destroy it.  Thor, Rocket and Groot appear to help out, and manage to rout the army, but Shuri cannot extract the stone before the arrival of the mad Titan himself, Thanos.  He reaches Vision and takes the stone, killing him, after he used the Time stone to undo Wanda destroying it.  Thor wounds Thanos, but he escapes as he makes the snap of his fingers, disintegrating half of all life in the universe...

And so the first instalment ends, with half of the heroes now gone, including Nick Fury who did manage to send out a strange signal on a special pager before disappearing.  Time to move on to the second film, and see how it all turns out in the end!
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dinsdag 31 december 2024

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 Well, guess it's time to finally catch up on all those Marvel and DC thingies, and that is a LOT I still need to watch.



So totally at random, I began with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which follows on End Game (and which I haven't watched either).

Six months after receiving the shield from Steve Rogers, Falcon stops Batroc and his terrorist group above Tunisia.  But he struggles with the legacy of the shield, and decides to hand it over to the government instead.  But they use this to announce a new Captain America, John Walker, much to the fury of Bucky Barnes.

As Barnes and Wilson travel to Munich to stop a terrorist group called the Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau, the new Captain appears but the Flag Smashers make good their escape.  He wants to work together with the duo, but they refuse in turn to do so.  Barnes introduces Wilson to Isaiah Bradley in Baltimore, another veteran of the Super Soldier serum, and who fought the Winter Soldier during the Korean War.  As he refuses to give information of other serum recipients, they turn to none other then Baron Zemo instead.



He agrees to help them and escapes jail, to travel with the duo to Madripoor and seek for the Power Broker.  He is rumoured to have hired former Hydra scientist Nagel to recreate the serum, and together with refugee Sharon Carter they learn Karli stole 20 vials of the serum that he made.  The Wakandans also arrive a bit later, out to seek Zemo for the killing of their king T'Chaka and make him pay.  Wilson catches up to Karli, but Walker intervenes as they talk, throwing it all into chaos.  Zemo destroys most of the serum in the ensuing fight, before he is arrested by Walker.  When Walker's friend Hoskins is killed in the crossfire, he enrages on one of the terrorists, killing him with his shield before the eyes of all the people in the street.



As Zemo is handed over to Wakanda, Walker is discharged from his role and the army.  Wilson in the meantime, deciding there can be no black Captain America, retreats home to repair the family boat.  But he changes his mind and starts training with the shield, as the Flag Smashers plan an attack together with Batroc on the GRC conference in New York.  Together with Barnes, Carter and Walker, Wilson, now having taken the Captain America name, stopping the attack.  Carter reveals to Batroc she is actually the Power Broker, killing him.  Later on she also kills Karli, as Walker receives a new uniform and codename after the incident: US Agent.  Barnes makes his ammends as Carter, her identity still secret from the others, receives a pardon from the government, rejoining the CIA.

Not to bad of a series, mostly focussed around the problems Wilson sees should he become the first black Captain America, and the struggles of Bucky for his past acts.  But it wasn't to shabby to get going in these series I guess, onwards to the next!
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donderdag 5 december 2024

Deadpool and Wolverine

 Okay, be prepared for one of the weirdest, yet possibly THE most important movie in the MCU.



And that is because this movie was made when Disney acquired Fox, and as such all the superhero movies that studio had made, like the Fantastic Four, Wolverine, and of course, the all beloved X-men, opening the path to bring them all to the MCU.

And Deadpool, or the "Marvel Messiah" as he dubs himself in this film, is the one eaking out the path with a lot of cross-over and fourth wall breaking.  So we basically get the first MCU Deadpool movie, which waves off the Fox movies in a really fun and good way.  Like when they meet the original FF4 movies Torch, played by Chris Evans back then.  Deadpool thinks it's Captain America, and when he starts saying Avengers Assemble, Chris yells "Flame On".



The storyline begins with Deadpool using Cable's time travel device to prevent the death of his girlfriend Vanessa, going to the secret timeline of Earth 616 and enlist with the Avengers.  However, he is rejected by Happy Hogan, and returns to his universe and his job as a used cars salesman together with Peter Wisdom.

When they throw him a birthday party, the TVA captures him, taking him before mr Paradox, who offers Wade a future on Earth 616, as Wade's own timeline is detoriating due to it's anchor (old man Logan) being dead.  To bring the anchor back, Wade jumps to various realities to find another Wolverine, including a cameo of Henry Cavill as Cavillrine.  But the one he came on is labelled the "worst of all Wolverine's" by mr Paradox in the multiverses.  They are banished to the Void, where they agree to work together to change the timeline and stop the TVA.

Together with Johnny Storm, they are taken before Casandra Nova, the twin sister of Charles Xavier, and who made a deal with the TVA to oversee the Void and it's "prisoners".  She kills Johnny, but the other two manage to escape.  Guided by a Deadpool variant, Nicepool, they look for a resistance group, which consists of Laura (X-23), Elektra, Blade (I love when Wesley Snipes grumbles that there is only one Blade) and Gambit (bringing Channing Tatum to the fold in the Gambit costume at last, after the planned movie was cancelled years ago, and he steals the show!).



They assault the base of Nova (a huge Ant-man corpse, inciting earlier a comment from Deadpool that "Paul Rudd did age after all") and thanks to the help of the others Logan and Wade get back to their universe.  But Casandra has followed them, and summons an army of Deadpool variants (featuring many cameo's in the costumes) as she wants to get her hands on a Time Ripper device mr Paradox is creating.  But Wade and Logan manage to destory the device and stop Cassandra, as mr Paradox is taken into custody by the TVA and their actions having stopped the detoriation of the timeline.  Logan stays in Wade's world, as the resistance fighters have been rescued from the Void... and the Fox Marvel universe as such closes down.



This was a fun movie to wrap up the parallel Marvel line of movies, and to bring Deadpool and the others slowly into the MCU.  And so the way is open for the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to make their appearance as such (Doctor Doom being confirmed) and please, please bring this Gambit along!
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donderdag 7 december 2023

Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3

 I always likes the Guardians entries in the Marvel universe, as these films where funnier and less serious in tenure then the regular one, so together with Noshi I sat down and watched the final instalment.



But I must say before I do the synopsis, while this is seen as a great farewell movie to the series, it just wasn`t that funny as the previous ones.

Surely it had it's moments, mostly with the Drax one-liners and Kraglin trying to master Yondu's whistle arrow, but overal, it just was more serious and "deep" then the previous films featuring our space-adventuring misfits.

Residing know on Knowhere, the Guardians are attacked by Adam Warlock, a Sovereign warrior that has been created by the high priestess Ayesha.  Rocket gets critically wounded, and the medpacks only endanger him more due to a kill-switch embedded in his body when he was created at Orgocorp, helmed by the High Evolutionary, all those years ago.



Star-Lord decides to go to the Orgocorp and find the override code, as an unconcious Rocket relives his tragic past and how he came to be, as an antormorphic experiment for a new world called Counter-Earth.  He befriends the other creatures from Batch 89, the otter Lylla, the walrus Teefs and the rabbit Floor.  The High Evolutionary was at first impressed with Rocket's development, but took a hating to him when he started to exceed his own, and wants to harvest his brain to see how this came to be.

Rocket wants to free his fellow redundant batch 89 friends before they get destroyed, but in the ensueing fight they are killed as he makes his escape with a rocket ship.  In the present, the Ravagers, with an alternate version of Gamora, help infiltrate the Guardians into Orgocorp, but find the code had been removed from Rocket's files.  They depart for Counter-earth to retrieve the code from the advisor that has it stored in his memory upgrade, but are followed by Ayesha and Adam.  

As they manage to confront the High Evolutionary, Star-Lord questions him and as the High Evolutionary tells him of how dissatisfied he is with Counter-Earth, destroys the planet and it's inhabitants.  Peter manages to obtain the code and restart Rocket's heart as the kill switch goes into motion.  On the High Evolutionary's ship, the Guardians find several genetically modified children, and a rescue mission is staged, including the bringing in of Knowhere itself, before a battle breaks out on the giant headshaped spaceship against the High Evolutionary's Hellspawn.  



Star-Lord nearly is killed, but is saved by Adam who came to see the error of his ways after being saved himself by Groot.  In the aftermath, Peter decides to leave the Guardians and rejoin with his grandfather on earth, as the other members pursue their own personal agenda's and a new team is formed with Rocket as it's leader.

And so the story ends for Star-Lord and his excentric group of unlikely heroes.  As I said at the beginning, a great farewell to the team, but alas some more "fun" as especially the first instalment had would have been great!
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woensdag 15 februari 2023

Loki

 The God of Misschief is back in his own Marvel series!



After being killed by Thanos, it turns out he isn't dead after all.  Because somehow before that event he tricked his escape, resulting in a distortion of the timeline.

To that end, he is apprehended by Mobius, an agent of the Tome Variance Agency, who are out to rectify these variants.  This is done by removing them from timelines, in order that it restores itself to it's prime form.

But as a greater thread to the timeline is running amok, they offer him a choice.  Help them out or be erased from the timeline.  He accepts, and quickly finds out it is a female variant of himself, calling herself Sylvie, that is the issue.  As he escapes the TVA together with her, he learns that the agency isn't what it appears to be and that someone or something is pulling the strings behind the curtains.



He goes to look for it, and comes across a whole planet filled with Loki variants, some loyal to each other, others betraying them to get to the throne themselves.  As they are hunted by a monster in the clouds, who takes down several of them, he and Sylvie come to a mysterious mansion at the end of time.

Here they encounter He Who Remains, a variant of a scientist that discovered the whole intertwining timelines, and founded the TVA to prevent history and war from repeating himself.  But being stuck in isolation that long seemingly did have it's effects.



Now Loki and Sylvie must decide wether they believe and follow his reasoning, or will try to change the flow of time...

An amusing series for sure, and Tom Hiddleston remains glorious in the fallen Asgardian.  The series, counting 6 episodes, is a bit short though, but a second season is in production so this fan favorite character still hasn't sung his last notes in the MCU after all.
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woensdag 30 november 2022

Black Widow

 Another superhero movie on the menu doing a lazy saturday night, and this time it's Marvel's Black Widow.



So no matter how good or how bad it might be, at least I have 2 hours of Scarlett Johansson to go.

The movie starts in Ohio back in 1995.  A family of two daughters turns out to be a Russian sleeper cell that has stolen intel from SHIELD, and is forced to flee to Cuba.  Here, the girls are split up and send to the Black Widow Red Room for training.

Years later, one of them, Natasha Romanoff is a succesful assassin that has defected to SHIELD and the Avengers after blowing up her former boss, general Dreykov, and his daughter together with Hawkeye.  The Taskmaster attacks her when she is in hiding from the US Government (this movie takes place around Civil War), as her younger (not real) sister has hidden vials in her car, hoping the Avengers would come to their aid.  When the two assassins meet up, they learn Dreykov survived the bombing and is using his Black Widow programme to influence all the decisions in the world.



They break their "father" out of prison, who is actually the former Soviet superhero Red Guardian, as well as their former mother who is a Black Widow herself.  When they attack the flying red Room base, Natasha learns that Taskmaster is actually Dreykov's gravely injured daughter, and that she can`t attack him due to a pheromone lock in her nose.  This she overcomes by breaking it, and beats up Dreykov, but he can escape thanks to the other Black Widow's intervening.



But her sister comes to her aid, using the antidote and breaking his mind control over them.  As the base comes crashing down, and taking Dreykov with it in an explosion, the two sisters parachute to freedom as SHIELD arrives to take in Romanoff.  A while later, her sister is seen at her grave as she fell during the Thanos events, and gets the assignment to kill Hawkeye from her handler...

Okay, so not to bad of an action movie, but quite a bit below some other Marvel movies in sheer amusement factor.  But heck, it's another one scratched of the backlist at least.
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dinsdag 16 augustus 2022

WandaVision

 Following Avengers: Endgame, Marvel has started series around their characters.



And as we found out revently with Doctor Strange, you kinda need to see them to be able to take in everything in the movies.

Oh well, so Noshi and me sat down for the first of their series, WandaVision.  Now, I still hae to actually watch the two "phase 3 finale movies" but I did know Vision didn`t make it (because, Thanos has the gauntlet, and one of the stones was actually inside the cyborg).

But the series, which starts in black and white in a 50s style sitcom, actually have Vision around alive and well.  It looks at first like a normal series, but slowly the colour red starts showing up, and strange radio messages are trying to get in.



The episodes progress to sitcoms of later era's, and we learn wanda has actually created a hex around the village, cutting it off from the outside world and trying to live a life of peace in there with her family.  But small events start to make it unravel, and on the outside, SWORD is trying to get in themselves to free the people, and some other mysterious reasons.

Wanda's neighbour Agetha though reveals herself to be a witch herself, and out to get the power of Wanda.  This causes Wanda to have to relive the things that brought her to the point of taking over the village, ending when she snaps at seeing the body of Vision being disassembled and stripped.  A second, white Vision appears as well, a weapon build by SWORD's director Hayworth in secret using the gained tech from the original one, but as Vision vs Vision and Wanda vs Agatha unfolds, reality in the village unbinds.



In the end, Wanda is forced to give it all up and free the village, but in doing that losing Vision and her children as well... and becoming the Scarlet Witch in the process.

A dramatic climax for sure for what wasn't to bad a series at all.  Now to catch up with the movies I missed, and with the other series, and we are back on track I guess.
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woensdag 27 juli 2022

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

 The latest Marvel movie, and we watched it on Disney+ at the brother in law a while ago.



And even though Marvel movies aren`t my must watch flicks, they are usually just highly enjoyable, and this one was no different.

A girl called America Chavez is fleeing from a huge demon, together with Doctor Strange, in a weird dimension.  But when Strange seems unable to lock it away, he wants to take the power of the girl.  This results in his demise, and Chavez portalling to our world as it seemed at first it was a dream.



The demon appears again while Strange is attending a wedding, and after he and Wong defeat it they learn she is a dimensional traveller.  As Strange recognizes strange hexes, he consults with Wanda, but it turns out it was she that is behind trying to capture the girl.  She wants her powers to have her children with her in this dimension as well, and Strange and Wong try to keep her safe in the wizard city of Kamar-Tai.  But their combined powers proof to be no match for the Darkholdt empowered Scarlet Witch.

They flee to an alternate universe, Earth 818, where Karl Mordo is the Sorcerer Supreme.  He captures them, and soon they find themselves in front of the Illuminati, a gathering of the strongest heroes.  The Scarlet Witch, possessing the Wanda of that reality, attacks, and makes short work of them however.  Trying to take the Book of Vishanti, an antithesis to the Darkholdt, Wanda destroys it though.  Taking over Chavez's mind, she throws the others to a dimensional incursioned realm.  Defeating that reality's Darkholdt corrupted Strange, he uses it's power to dreamwalk into the corpse of the first alternate reality him, buried on Earth 616.  Together with Wong, he frees Chavez from Wanda's capture, and encourages her to use her power, managing to bring the Scarlet Witch back to her senses.  She sacrifices herself to bring down Mount Wundagore and destroy all copies of the Darkholdt across all universes...



Strange devellops a third eye though as a result of dreamwalking in a corpse, and is soon visited by another sorceress asking him to join in the Dark Dimension, to face an incursion he has created...

This was a good MCU movie for sure, with some nice effects and cool wizard battles.  I kind a liked it, and perhaps it is time to finally start watching the various Marvel series as well, and shame on me, the ënd movies" of the Avengers at last as well...
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donderdag 9 december 2021

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 Saturday night movie night, and this time it was the new Marvel film (though I miss quit a few in between, I for one haven`t seen the "finale movies" of the previous phase), Shang-Chi.



Now, I must confess, I barely knew the character, and I read A LOT of obscure Marvel B and C lister comics in my days (Excalibur and Alpha Flight where my favorites).

But what Black Panther took from African culture, this does so from the Asian culture.  Shaun (Shang-Chi) is the son of the Mandarin, who lived for centuries thanks to the power of the Ten Rings, and his mother who came from the mythical land of Ta Lo.  But after his mother died, his father, a former crimeboss, returns to his former ways, out to take revenge.



Shang-Chi was trained as a child to become an assassin, and together with his sister he is captured by his dad, who needs their pendants to find the entrance to the lands of Ta Lo.  A voice is informing him his wife is being held captive there, and he plans to use all his means to get her out.  Shang-Chi and his sister, together with stage actor Trevor (Ben kingsley is back after his fake Mandarin from Iron Man) and a creature called Morris, they enter the land and rally the defences to face his father, and learn the truth.

In days of old, soul eating monsters where locked away in the Dark Gate, and they use the voices of beloved ones to lure and free them.  As the Mandarin attacks, and manages to open the gate, Shang-Chi awakens his inner powers.  Together with the Great Protector, a dragon, he manages to overcome the monster that in the process had claimed his father's life and soul.



This is actually a good movie, and to be honest, not even a Marvel movie to my feel (bar that mid-credit scene).  If you take a look at the asian action movies on Netflix, this one could perfectly fit in that category instead, which isn`t critique at all.  On the contrary, I felt it rather refreshing from other movies, a bit like the first Guardians of the Galaxy was in the days.


Not bad for a superhero movie at all, and all the asian legendary creatures in Ta Lo was a nice visual spectacle!
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donderdag 19 november 2020

Black Panther

Very slowly, I'm catching up on all the MCU movies I missed the past years, the latest being Black Panther.

Starring the late Chadwick Boseman, this takes us to the highly technological country of Wakanda and it's inner turmoil.

Thousands of years ago, five African tribes war over a meteorite containing the metal vibranium. One warrior ingests a "heart-shaped herb" affected by the metal and gains superhuman abilities, becoming the first "Black Panther". He unites all but the Jabari Tribe to form the nation of Wakanda. Over centuries, the Wakandans use the vibranium to develop advanced technology and isolate themselves from the world by posing as a Third World country. In 1992, Wakanda's King T'Chaka visits his brother N'Jobu, who is working undercover in Oakland, California. T'Chaka accuses N'Jobu of assisting black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue with stealing vibranium from Wakanda. N'Jobu's partner reveals he is Zuri, another undercover Wakandan, and confirms T'Chaka's suspicions. 


In the present day, following T'Chaka's death, his son T'Challa returns to Wakanda to assume the throne. He and Okoye, the leader of the Dora Milaje regiment, extract T'Challa's ex-lover Nakia from an undercover assignment so she can attend his coronation ceremony with his mother Ramonda and younger sister Shuri. At the ceremony, the Jabari Tribe's leader M'Baku challenges T'Challa for the crown in ritual combat. T'Challa defeats M'Baku and persuades him to yield rather than die.

When Klaue and his accomplice Erik Stevens steal a Wakandan artifact from a London museum, T'Challa's friend and Okoye's lover W'Kabi urges him to bring Klaue back alive. T'Challa, Okoye, and Nakia travel to Busan, South Korea, where Klaue plans to sell the artifact to CIA agent Everett K. Ross. A firefight erupts, and Klaue attempts to flee but is caught by T'Challa, who reluctantly releases him to Ross' custody. Klaue tells Ross that Wakanda's international image is a front for a technologically advanced civilization. Erik attacks and extracts Klaue as Ross is gravely injured protecting Nakia. Rather than pursue Klaue, T'Challa takes Ross to Wakanda, where their technology can save him. 


While Shuri heals Ross, T'Challa confronts Zuri about N'Jobu. Zuri explains that N'Jobu planned to share Wakanda's technology with people of African descent around the world to help them conquer their oppressors. As T'Chaka arrested N'Jobu, the latter attacked Zuri and forced T'Chaka to kill him. T'Chaka ordered Zuri to lie that N'Jobu had disappeared and left behind N'Jobu's American son to maintain the lie. This boy grew up to be Stevens, a U.S. black ops soldier who adopted the name "Killmonger". Meanwhile, Killmonger kills Klaue and takes his body to Wakanda. He is brought before the tribal elders, revealing his identity to be N'Jadaka and claim to the throne. Killmonger challenges T'Challa to ritual combat, where he kills Zuri, defeats T'Challa, and hurls him over a waterfall to his presumed death. Killmonger ingests the heart-shaped herb and orders the rest incinerated, but Nakia extracts one first. Killmonger, supported by W'Kabi and his army, prepares to distribute shipments of Wakandan weapons to operatives around the world.

Nakia, Shuri, Ramonda, and Ross flee to the Jabari Tribe for aid. They find a comatose T'Challa, rescued by the Jabari in repayment for sparing M'Baku's life. Healed by Nakia's herb, T'Challa returns to fight Killmonger, who dons his own Black Panther suit. W'Kabi and his army fight Shuri, Nakia, and the Dora Milaje, while Ross remotely pilots a jet and shoots down planes carrying the vibranium weapons. M'Baku and the Jabari arrive to reinforce T'Challa. Confronted by Okoye, W'Kabi and his army stand down. Fighting in Wakanda's vibranium mine, T'Challa disrupts Killmonger's suit and stabs him. Killmonger refuses to be healed, choosing to die a free man rather than be incarcerated; T'Challa takes him to the waterfall where they fought, where Killmonger dies peacefully. 


T'Challa establishes an outreach center at the building where N'Jobu died, to be run by Nakia and Shuri. In a mid-credits scene, T'Challa appears before the United Nations to reveal Wakanda's true nature to the world. In a post-credits scene, Shuri helps Bucky Barnes with his recovery. 

Often considered one of the top movies of the MCU so far, I thought it not that bad at all, but I found it lacking one thing compared to some of the movies I really like (Ragnarok, the Guardians,... ) and that is humour, something often incorperated in Marvel comics as well. 

So it definitly wasn't bad, but for me it is NOT one of the top movies of the franchise though...

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