The Marvels movie review part 3: COSTUMES AND CHARACTER NAMES!

Here is the third part of my 3-part review of "The Marvels," focusing on the costumes and charcter names, revealing some Easter Eggs and other details that may fascinate you!

"SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods" first trailer!

  After the positive reviews and reception of the first SHAZAM! movie (not stellar, but positive), we now have the sequel. We still don't see Black Adam in it (Dwayne Johnson is such a big star and the character is so popular in the comics that they decided to give them a stand-alone origin picture before putting him in the same movie with the SHAZAM! family), but instead we have a couple of highly regarded actresses (Hellen Mirren and Lucy Liu) playing ancient gods, a theme of "family" so self-aware that the Fast And Furious movie franchise is even mentioned in the first trailer (with a funny pay-off), the return of the Old Wizard, but in apparently a more "down-to-earth" role, some powerful magic people who might be allies or villains, a dragon, meta-recognition of the Shazam-Flash costume similarities (thanks, Carmine Infantino), super-feats, and some self-doubt and insecurity from the titular hero.

It looks fun, it looks funny, and it could be very exciting. It is always hard to tell with trailers. It could go too far into the comedy, but the original Captain Marvel was never meant to be all dead serious and stuff. The action clips are very short, so we can;t tell how much there will actually be. The progression from insecure hero to fighting evil with the family is not presented at all, so we can only hope that it is a convincing Campbellian hero's journey.

But let's not forget that this is only the first trailer, designed to get the "sizzle" out. We will have to wait for the movie to get the steak.

There is no hint of Dr. Sivana or Mr. Mind (the work from the post-credit scene from the first movie), no emphasis on the tiger motif that was all over the first film (though the cabochons holding his cape still have the tiger face on them), and we only see one shot of the foster parents, but at least we do see all the kids both in and out of their heroic personas.

As a fan and scholar of all characters who have been, are, or will be named Captain Marvel, I am looking forward to this movie and hoping that I am entertained as much as I was by the first one. Though I don't feel the jump=out-of-my-seat thrill I would have liked, there is enough potential between the lines here for me to be positive about it.

IF I have time, I will post up some of the myriad of "reaction videos" that are already out there.

CLICK HERE to watch SHAZAM! from AmazonPrime!

CLICK HERE to watch SHAZAM! with the bonus features from AmazonPrime!

Dwayne Johnson's Farewell to the Crew of "Black Adam" and How I feel About the Movie So Far.

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In the above Instagram post, The Rock...er...Dwayne Johnson thanks the cast and crew of the upcoming Black Adam movie on his last day of filming. We can see his monster physique is covered by a loose tunic that drapes about him like a tent off of those massive shoulders. In addition to his words being very gracious, generous, and thankful towards the crew, it also really sounds like this role is a very big deal for him.

He also posted the following text:  Honored and proud to say that’s an official wrap on BLACK ADAM⚡️

I knew many years ago, the opportunity for me to make BLACK ADAM would be a ONCE IN A CAREER EVENT.

It has been my true honor to go shoulder to shoulder with over 1,000 brilliant and hungry crew of filmmakers and storytellers to bring the antihero known as, BLACK ADAM to life.

This has been one for the ages and easily the hardest labor and toughest grind mentally and physically of my entire career.

Worth. Every. Second.

Love you all.
Thank you all.
And I’ll see you down the road.
Now go have some fun with that $10,000 🤣💰

The hierarchy of power in the DC UNIVERSE is changing.

Black Adam⚡️
#themaninblack 

I recall back in the mid 2000's when an MTV survey asked whether he should play Captain Marvel or Black Adam (rumors had him pegged as either one) he responded to the result (Black Adam) by saying that he would be interested in talking about it (or words to that effect). It was apparent that he was not so familiar with t he character. Here is an article about the results of that poll. Through the years that the project was in pre-production hell, however (repeatedly being delayed with directors and writers being hired and fired), he would talk about the character as being important, and meaningful. When Peter Segal and John August were tapped as director and writer, things were really looking up for the project, and when a comedy that they worked on featuring Johnson was released, some folks were trying to deconstruct it to see what it revealed abut how they would work together for the SHAZAM! movie. Since then, Johnson had become such a big star that it was decided to give him his own stand-alone Black Adam movie. This makes sense, because Johnson's presence in the movie would distract from the lead characters, Billy Batson and his super-hero alter ego. Besides, with two movies instead of one, the DCCU will have more entries into the superhero film realm, and potentially more profits. So I am interested and excited to see this movie. The cast of characters alone is fascinating (Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Isis, particularly) showing that DC is not afraid to put lesser-known, even obscure superheroes in their movie, trusting that the overall popularity of superhero movies, and the specific quality of this movies will be strong enough to overcome the unfamiliarity of the characters.

But they have also cast some popular names in the movie as those characters (Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, and Sarah Shahi), meaning that the actors believe in the project and the studio is willing to spend that kind of money on it. It would be easy to say that everything about this movie is just being built around the star power of Dwayne Johnson, but why does he have such star power? Because enough of his recent movies have been entertaining, and he has been entertaining in them. He has proven himself to be likeable, with charisma to burn, and just good enough an actor to pull off most of the roles that he has been given. I saw him as very much an Errol Flynn type in "The Scorpion King," and that franchise has suffered without him. H did well as a villain type in his debut in "Star Trek: Voyager" and "The Mummy Returns," so we will see how he does as the "anti-hero" that DC has developed Black Adam into since his revival in Jerry Ordway's "The Power of SHAZAM!"

As a footnote, there are some interesting possible clues to the movie visible. We don't know for sure if that tunic Johnson is wearing is costume or is hiding/protecting his costume, but a couple of other actors are wearing what could be some kind of fantasy/sci-fi outfits that could be Kryptonian, for all I know. The background is a cyclorama of a cloudy sky with patches of bright white clouds popping up randomly. The actors have cables attached to their back, so this may have been a flying scene. Many of the crew are wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis. I don't know if that is because the scene is set in (or above)Hawai'i or if it was thee party theme of the day.

Mr. Tawny Closeup!

This little article posted on Heroic Hollywood shows a closeup of those buttons/clasps/brooches/whateveryouwanttocallthem on the costume of the hero of the recent SHAZAM! movie. Between that, repeated tiger references, and one particular homeless-looking guy in a crowd scene, I am pretty confident that a talking tiger will come into play in this franchise...

The original Instagram post
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0G9WsphJ69/?utm_source=ig_embed

Mr. Tawny falls strongly into the category of "beloved" among fans of the character. He was a genial everyman, created and written by Otto Binder to represent himself and his concerns and struggles (you can find out more about this in The Fawcett Companion and Bill Schelly's biography of the writer, Words of Wonder). He was loyal and true to his friends, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel and excelled in his job as a tour guide in the local natural history museum.

Despite this, he would often seek something more, something new, something different in life. He would bemoan his boring, everyday life and fall for a get-rich-quick scheme, or try to recapture his lost youth, or gain everlasting fame or great popularity, or attempt to return to the free life of an animal in the wild.

In teh end of each of these comedic adventures, however, he would find that just being himself, a regular guy, was what was best in life and most satisfying for him.

These stories were sopme opf the best-written in the Fawcett run of Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family. the love for the character form the writer was clear, and artist C.C,. beck was at the top of his game. Gwuandanaland recently published a collection fo all of hi sstories, including the very best  C

I made mention of Mr. Tawny references in the movie in my on-the-spot review. In case you missed it, here it is...

Den of Geek has made mention of these disks and their tiger faces, also making the Mr. Tawny connection as part of a pretty thorough rundown on the suit that was designed for the movie.

And on page 2 of this ScreenRant article, the designer himself talks about the tiger imagery on the suit.

Personally, I think that Mr. Tawny is going to turn out to be that homeless-looking bearded guy who was oddly prominent in two shots of the crowd during the "caught the bus" scene. This would be consistent with Jeff Smith's  interpretation in "Monster Society" and the Superman & SHAZAM! vs. Black Adam animated short film.

What do you think?

AVENGERS: ENDGAME review: FRACK YOU ALL! (minor spoilers embedded in the text)

Another short break from the ongoing saga of the many Captain Marvels to cover this rather important movie in superhero cinema history...

Frack you all, you anti-SJW push-backers, claiming that the two most recent Marvel movies would be feminist propaganda! Frack you, those complaining that Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel being the strongest hero in the Marvel Universe would turn her into a Mary Sue and disrespected the God of Thunder. Frack you all for making me have that in my mind as I was experiencing the awesomeness that is Avengers: Endgame!

Frack you all, also, who claim the the movie is just a big pile of contrived fan service. I did not go to the movies tonight to NOT see every hero in the MCU get a well-deserved moment on screen!

The message of the movie is what the Avengers movies have all been about: teamwork and sacrifice. It is about working together to succeed at an objective. It is about finding the right place for each member of a team according to their abilities. It is about being willing to sacrifice everything and fight to the end if you believe in the objective for which your team is fighting. That is the awesomeness that is Avengers: Endgame!

Now some elaboration...

For months, now, folks at Marvel were saying that Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel was going to be the most powerful hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "But what about Thor!?! You are disrespecting him!!!" was the plaintive cry of those who are "sick and tired of all this SJW nonsense in comic books." and claim that the push for "diversity" is killing comics; the "Carl Manvers" haters and Brie Larsen detractors who take offense at being told that a certain movie was not made for "40-year-old white dudes" and just can't get enough of that shot of Don Cheadle pulling away from Brie in that TV interview.

Here is a wake up call and analysis of the MCU and this movie and how Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel fits into it:


The MCU needed a Superman. Thor is not a Superman, because he is too flawed. He had been a flawed character from the beginning, and his journey has been one of self-discovery. Growing up he was so strong and so mighty in a culture that valued being strong and mighty that he could do no wrong. But from his very first movie on, the way to make something a challenge for him was to get him to fall victim to his pride and doubt himself. By the time the story truly begins in A:E, he has truly lost all his mojo because he failed, big time. It was perfectly within his character for him to react that way, and that made him more human, more entertaining, and his recovery more heroic. His heroic story arc is about earning his power by learning humility and overcoming depression.

Carol Danvers' story arc is about realizing her power in a culture that does not value women for being strong and mighty, and her independence in a culture that is subservient to the will of an authoritarian dictatorship. Her knock-downs are not blows to her pride, but rather challenges to her might. For dramatic satisfaction, the Superman that this movie needed needed had to be one that was a surprise to Thanos and a surprise to the audience. Who'da thunk that out of nowhere, from the far corner of the universe, would come a woman with the power of a star who can take a punch like no other superhero can?


Now the universe is facing a threat even more challenging than Superman's Doomsday in the DC Universe. Thanos is not only big, strong, and nigh-invulnerable, he is also brilliant, determined and erudite. He also leads a huge army of alien monsters and demons and things. He also has a spaceship capable of raining fire onto the surface of a planet. Even putting every Avenger on the table, along with the combined might of Wakanda, Asgard, and the Masters of the Mystic Arts, is not going to stop that. So they need a game-changing, field-clearing superpower who is super-strong, can fly, and is invulnerable, and does not have the issues of pride and self-doubt that plague Thor whom Thanos has not yet faced and for which he is unprepared.

Besides, we have seen plenty of movies in which Thor gets all thunder-godly and saves the day. It's good to mix it up once in a while. And just because there is a great and powerful female superhero in DC's cinematic universe does not mean that Marvel should not have one. And just because Wonder Woman manages to pull of elegance, style and glamour does not mean that having a butch, kick-ass chick with short hair who wears dress pants to a funeral is a bad thing. My girlfriend loves her, and is making a renaissance outfit styled after her costume. And as a blonde, I like having a superhero with hair like mine.

Having a character with her power-set means that you can have people stranded in space being rescued by a superhero. You can have someone fly through a giant spacecraft to blow it up. You can have someone who Thanos cannot defeat simply by punching in the face.

And she has had powers like that for a long time in the comics. Get over it.

But won't such a character just make the fight too easy? Well, no. Because this character has been off helping the rest of the universe while Earth's Mightiest Heroes have been serving and protecting Earth. Therefore, she is not on the spot when such a character would have solved all their problems lickety-split (which is kind of a shame, because I wanted to see more of her in this movie). Also, Thanos is tough and smart enough to keep it from being too easy for her, even if he is initially taken by surprise.

Furthermore, Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet are more than just a big, strong alien with a weapon, and she lacks certain attributes and abilities that turn out to be the final gag that saves the day and wraps up the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe Epic up in a perfect full-circle payoff.

And just because there is a moment when all the female heroes in the battle assemble and step up to the plate to advance the task at hand does not make this "feminist propaganda," nor is it a "Mary Sue" moment. Every single one of those characters had been established to have abilities, went through heck to get there, and were indispensable for the task at hand.

And is that moment, and every Carol Danvers moment, contrived fan service targeted at the feminist market? Well sure! And why the frack should that not be part of a movie in which every element of every Marvel movie up 'till now gets a moment to be noticed, recognized, and advance the story? There are fans of Marvel movies, of superheroes, of comic books, who like seeing females save the day. There are girls and women who want their heroes to have chromosomes like them, who want to see that women can also have superpowers, that they can play with the big boys if they really want to. Just about every other fan demographic was served in this movie, why not this one?

And besides, only one of these fan-service moments could be the one that saves the day. But even that one could not have happened were it not for every other one making it happen. I am talking now both in terms of story-writing and plotting. The situation was set up so that there was no other way for the heroes to win other than with that one hero doing what he did, and there was no way that hero could have done what he did if the rest of the heroes did not do what they did to enable that moment. Remember, it has been established that there were over 14 million possible outomes, and in only one of them would the heroes win. It only makes sense that it would have to be the one in which every  hero (almost) gets their moment to ante up and pitch in, in which every villain (almost) gets involved in the story to some degree, and we have to revisit every step (almost) that we have taken on this journey with the heroes that got us to this moment.


I m just going to take a moment to digress here...

We are fans of these heroes, much like sports fans are of their favorite teams. We live and die with these heroes, and laugh and cry as they go through their ups and downs. It is fiction, of course, but when the projector is running, and the pages are turning, the "It's still real to me" pro wrestling dynamic.

I am a big sports fan, particularly of my NY Teams, the Yankees, Giants, Rangers, Knicks, and whatever is the NYC team of whatever short-lived alternate sports league happens to be open this week. In 1986, the NY Giants had a dramatic, near-perfect season that took them all the way to the Super Bowl, where they won their first NFL championship  in over two decades.

That Super bowl was an almost perfect game for a Giants fan. It started out pretty even, going back and forth between them and their opponents, the Denver Broncos (with future Hall of Famer John Elway). But Phil Sims had the game of his life,  and everyone on the team had a moment to pitch in and shine. Running backs Joe Morris, Maurice Carthon, Ottis Anderson, and Lee Rouson, tight ends Mark Bavaro and Zeke Mowatt, linebackers Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks, defensive end Harry Carson, wide receiver/kick returner Phil McConkey, nose tackle Jim Burt, offensive lineman Brad Benson, even the punter Sean Landeta and kicker Raoul Allegre (one of three kickers they had that season) and late-season addition safety Tom Flynn got in on the action either in the Big Game or the playoffs. I got total fan service for all my favorite players that day!

Not to mention, of course, that I got the ultimate in fan service: A Super Bowl victory that paid off a decade and a half of disappointments as they went from hapless to hopeful and back again year after year.

This movie is the Super Bowl of superhero movies. It is the championship game, the big kahuna, an all-the-marbles, blow the works, shoot the moon, no-tomorrow, apocalyptic blowout in this ever-gun-brought-to-bear, every-trick-in-the-book-played, nothing-left-on-the-table-or-in-the-gas-tank, finale, and only after every possible option is explored and every opportunity taken, do we finally get to the one last, best, but only hope, and that could only be the most perfect conclusion that the past 12 years of movies have set us up for.

It would have been interesting to see more of how society was adapting to the sudden drop in population. The bar for how to do multi-character superhero battles in terms of clarity, drama, and pace was set in Captain America: Civil War, and for all the epic scope and fan service, it is not matched here, though it is still exciting and awesome and not to be  missed. Some of the CGI is a little distracting, looking a little unreal, as if they needed to take another few passes with it to look real next to real-life actors. I do want to mention that it was great to see that Jim Starlin, who created Thanos, get a little cameo, that Stan Lee's cameo is awesome, and that it was interesting seeing which characters had their creators acknowledged and which did not in the credits.

So, in sum, frack the critics and haters, if you want to see the championship game of superhero movies, go see this!

Oh, and for those who are counting, here is a breakdown of screentime for most of the major characters from https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1119712/Avengers-4-Endgame-okoye-screentime-poster-danai-gurira-black-panther-2:

Iron Man: 1hr 2mins

Captain America: 1hr 6mins

Thor: 45mins

Hulk: 40mins

Black Widow: 33mins

Hawkeye: 37mins

War Machine: 35mins

Ant-Man 38mins

Nebula: 41mins

Rocket: 36mins

Captain Marvel: 15mins

Valkyrie: 8mins

Wong: 6mins

Okoye: 6mins

About the amnesia in Marvel's "Captain Marvel" (Carol Danvers) movie (Part 3 of 4 about the movie)

Having covered the plot of the film and many of its references, symbolisms, and messages, it's time to address just a some specific issues in and about the film.

The Amnesia Thing
From the very beginning of this movie, Vers/Carol Danvers has a memory problem. She cannot remember anything before she was rescued by the Kree from a crash site a few years ago. Overcoming that amnesia was a key plot point, and a motivating factor in her actions the closer she got to her past.

In the comics, Carol Danvers actually had quite a bit of experience with memory failure, so making amnesia a key characteristic of her character in the movie is not completely out of...character.

The Carol/Ms. Marvel Split Personality
The first time she had memory issues was right when Ms. Marvel first appeared in 1977 (Ms. Marvel #1). Here came this new superhero, beating up bank robbers and throwing cars around, but she had no memory of her past or who she was. Then Carol Danvers showed up at the offices of the Daily bugle to start work as the new Editor-in-Chief of Woman magazine. But then at some point she would pass out, and the next thing you knew, Ms. Marvel was beating up the Scorpion or some other super villain was throwing her around by her scarf while she was having existential discussions with that villain about her identity.

It turned out that Carol Danvers had developed a split personality. This was supposed to represent the dichotomy of the female/feminist experience, ad the Modern woman tried to reconcile the desire for equality with the female identity.

But having a super-powerful, schizophrenic, feminist superhero did not go over too well. The letters pages showed a lot of sentiment against this concept. So writer Gerry Conway, despite crediting his wife with a lot of assistance, was replaced by Chris Claremont, who guided the stories to a reconciliation and unification of the two personalities before even the belly cut-out on her costume was patched over (I mean, a feminist icon with her belly button showing? Really?)

There is, then a parallel (if tenuous) between Carol Danvers getting super powers and losing her memory. When she was a Kree hero, "Vers" had no memory of a past life as an Earthling, just like how Ms. Marvel, a product of Kree science and DNA, had no memory of her Earthling self. I wonder if that is where the writers got the idea? I have to track them down and find out.

Rogue
The second time she lost her memory was was when she ran into the mutant Rogue. This was before the character became an X-Man and the action originally happened off-camera (it was later drawn up and seen in a quarterly anthology book and the Ms. Marvel Essential Edition and Mrvel Masterworks Ms. Marvel #2).


Rogue's mutant ability was to absorb people's memories and super powers by physical contact. The trouble is, if she holds the contact too long, the transfer becomes permanent. That's what happened here. This is why in the comics, Rogue can fly, is super-strong, invulnerable, etc.

But this left Carol in a powerless, infantile state. She was rescued by Spider-Woman, who then took her to Professor X (founder of the X-Men) who helped her rebuild her memories. She stayed with the X-Men for a time, joining them in an adventure in outer space, in the course of which, new powers literally exploded out of her.

These powers were drawn from the energy of a "white hole," (a theoretical but thus far undiscovered cosmic thing that is in some way the opposite of a black hole) giving here the ability to use and focus the energy of a star, including space flight and photon blasts. This was much like what we see from Carol Danvers at the climactic space-battle scene in this movie.

These powers were released as a result of experiments done on her by an alien race called the Brood, followed by a moment of extreme physical stress, and thus there is a connection to the movie. We don't know how much was actually done to Carol Danvers when she was picked up by the Kree, but she does have an inhibitor device on her neck and she is told to keep things under control. It is when she gets rid of the inhibitor and is plummeting to the Earth that her full power potential is finally awakened.

The Psyche-Magnitron Tumor
As we should all know by now, the original source of Carol's super powers was Kree DNA m passed from Mar-Vell to her when he tried to protect her from the radiation of an exploding Kree machine known as a psyche-magnitron (this origin story has been retcon-tweaked to add the fact that her mother was Kree, but that was not published until the eve of the movie's release, sand is irrelevant to this point).

Before production started for the movie, there was a storyline in the Captain Marvel comic book in which it was discovered that there was a fragment of the machine in her brain, creating a tumor that grew as she used her powers. Unfortunately, villains from her past kept popping up, forcing her to use her powers more often. It turned out that this was a plot by Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell's old rival in the Kree military, who had been disgraced and defeated by Mar-Vel in the incident that led to the aforementioned explosion.

In the climax of the story, Captain Marvel saved the day by flying up to stop a Kree city from landing on New York. The effort she expended caused the tumor to rupture, damaging the memory centers of her brain. This gave her complete amnesia again.

By this time, Carol Danvers had gained the friendship of Kit Renner, the daughter of her neighbor, who had the nickname of "Lieutenant Trouble." She helped her gain back her memories by sharing with her the story of her life, which she had written and drawn into a book herself.

In the Captain Marvel movie, "Lieutenant Trouble" was Monica Rambeau, the young daughter of Maria "Photon" Rambeau, Carol Danver's best friend and fellow fighter pilot. She had been very close with Carol before the event in which she lost her memory and was taken in by the Kree, and helped her in accomplishing the mission she set for herself to climax the movie. this is consistent with the relationship between Carol and "Lt. Trouble" in the comics.



Coming soon:
Thoughts on the character of MAr-Vell in the Comics and the movie, and about the female and feminist issues.
ALSO: we will resume our Blog History of the many Captain Marvels with SHAZAM! The New Beginning!

SHAZAM! MOVIE REVIEW VIDEO! (extempore, no spoilers)

Here is my on-the-spot review of the movie SHAZAM! I will probably write something more thorough with spoilers later.

We will finish up our Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) movie review first.

Marvel's "Captain Marvel" Carol Danvers movie review (Part 2)

           

You can find Part 1 of this review at http://captainmarvelculture.blogspot.com/2019/03/marvels-captain-marvel-carol-danvers.html

Let's see, where were we...Oh yes, talking about the gender-switch of Mar-Vell.

There is a very important message in the film that the gender-switch enables, but there was another, non-gender-specific change to the character. I will cover later these later, as they are important factors in evaluating the film as a whole.

Vers breaks free from her imprisonment and proves to be a kick-ass badass. Though her hands are encased in giant cuffs that are blocking her photon blasts, she used the cuffs themselves as weapons, punching and kicking her way through a platoon of Skrulls.

In the course of her escape she crashes to Earth, landing through the roof of a Blockbister video, and the 1990's nostalgia and Easter Eggs begin. The very name of the store, of course, evokes what this movie will be once it goes to video. In the store she happens to pick up a box for the movie The Right Stuff obviously evoking her space travelling personae, referencing her Air Force test pilot past, and suggesting that she has the...you know...to be a hero. But behind her right shoulder we see the movies First Knight (which must be a reference to her leading position in StarForce) and Hook (which might be a reference to her forgetting, and later remembering, who she was when she was younger).

The loudest symbolic metaphorical element of the scene, however, is her blasting the head off of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a True Lies standee display. As we find out by the end of the movie, there are several layers of deception going on, and Vers has to peel them back, one by one, to find out who she is.

BTW, feel free to take a break from reading and enjoy this awesome little video that helped me remember which videos were in the store :)

Once outside the store, Vers meets with a local security guard, where we find out she has a "universal translator" and that she does not yet know that Earth (referred to by an alpha-numeric code designation) does not know that the Kree or the Skrulls exist. Moments later, we find out that she can use items found in a Radio Shack to turn a pay phone into an interstellar communications device, just like the extra-terrestrial in E.T. (which is technically a 1980's reference, but we still remembered it in the '90's).

Enter Samuel L. Fury.

Many reviews call this a "buddy cop" movie. There are actually quite a few "buddy" teams in this movie, each with a slightly different dynamic. It is almost as if this entire movie is about "buddies." These two-fers include:

Vers/Yon-Rogg
Carol Danvers/Wendy Lawson
Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Carol Danvers/Monica Rambeau
Nick Fury/Goose the Flerkin
Talos/"Science Guy"

But the characters that spend the most "buddy" time together are Vers and Fury. They seem to have a sort of professional connection, being as they both have military experience and are employed in a combination military/law-enforcement capacity. This has to go a long way in explaining why they stick together for the rest of the film, otherwise, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they do.

But then, there are a few bunches of things that don't quite make sense in this movie. Or do they? In the course of the film, Vers rides a motorcycle, finds an internet cafe and uses Alta Vista to search for something, reads road maps and secret government reports, looks up files, and does other things that you would not expect someone who needs a "universal translator" to be able to do on Earth. But then, we haven't gotten to the big reveal yet, have we?

Vers, having landed on Earth in her Kree Battlesuit, swaps it out for a leather jacket/jeans/Nine Inch Nails T-shirt ensemble (I am sure someone more familiar with that band can share the symbolic significance of that shirt). She and Fury hit the road, have a bunch of exposition in which we learn a whole lot of backstory (that we might not have expected unless Wonder Woman had her lasso of truth around him) and wind up sneaking around an underground S.H.I.E.L.D. base finding secret reports that show that "Dr. Wendy Lawson" was working on a special space-plane and died in a crash. They also find that Maria Rambeau, whom Vers had been seeing in her dreams, was involved in the project, and that Vers herself had been there, too.

This gives us the plot turn that gets us to the biggest "fan service" that is unique to Marvel's Captain marvel in their cinematic universe: Monica Rambeau.

In the comics, Mar-Vell dies of cancer in a graphic novel published in 1982 some years after exposure to a toxic gas. This meant that the "Captain Marvel" trademark now had no character to hold it.

By this time in America, if any group of five or so portrayed in the media did not include least one woman and one black person it was extremely behind the times. Marvel did not have many female superheros and even fewer black ones, and only one who was both, and she wasn't even American. So it was decided to make the new Captain Marvel an American black female.

This is Monica Rambeau's place in the Captain Marvel history. The fourth superhero of the name, the second one in the third company to publish a Captain Marvel. She was a strong, smart, beautiful black woman whom even Captain America trusted enough to make leader of the Avengers. She kind of got screwed over later, being replaced as leader of the Avengers and essentially forgotten as the name passed to another character and she changed her superhero name to "Photon."

Lashana Lynch's connection to Monica Rambeau had been made apparent from promotional photos showing her in the cockpit of a jet fighter displaying the name and callsign Maria "Photon." Rambeau. The assumption that she was Monica's mother was quickly and correctly made by the fan community, and speculation arose as to where Monica would fit in.

After a fun chase-and-fight scene that revealed that Fury's boss (Ben Mendelsohn) is really a shape-shifting Skrull, and that Vers can fly a "quad-jet" (presumably a precursor to the Avengers' Quinjet), Fury and Vers make their way to the home of Maria Rambeau and her daughter, Monica. It is in this act of the movie that Vers gets to deal emotionally with the issue of having been Carol Danvers and having had a life on Earth. Maria was a very close friend, and Carol even used to call her daughter "Lieutenant trouble," (a not to a character in the recent Captain Marvel comics written by Kelly Sue Deconnick in which there as a young girl given that nickname by Carol).

It is also in this act in which we get to know the Skrulls as surprisingly human and vulnerable people. Talos and his "Science Guy" show themselves as a flawed team of semi-competents and that there is a boatload of Skrull refugees hiding out somewhere, trying to get to a safe planet.

Oh, and BTW, Fury met a cat named "Goose" at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base who tags along with them, and the Skrulls call it a "Flerken," a thing of danger.

After a little bit of 90's nostalgia of waiting for a CD-ROM file to load, Carol finds out that Mar-Vell's research was in part to help those Skrull refugees and overall to make a new lightspeed engine out of the power of the teseract that could end the war between the Kree and the Skrulls. Vers has the necessary flashbacks to remember her life before she was a test pilot, that an explosion of Mar-Vell's experimental engine had bathed her in radiation that gave her super powers, and that Mar-Vell was shot by Yon-Rogg.

This reveal both pays tribute and turns on its head the comic book origins of Marvel's Captain Marvel and Carol Danvers as a superhero. It also finally gives Yon-Rogg what he always wanted but never achieved in the comics.

Yon-Rogg's jealousy of Mar-Vell was the guiding motivation in all his actions while Mar-Vell was under his command as a spy on Earth. He tried to kill him, either directly or by proxy, on a regular basis. It was practically the plot device of default for the first year of the character's existence. But he never succeeded, eventually sabotaging his own career. In an issue of Marvel's What If...? Yon-Rogg not only threw away his career, but his life as well trying to do away with his rival for Medic Una's attention and and honor and recognition from the Supreme Intelligence. But in this movie he managed to get the upper hand on Mar-Vell, both by killing her and by stealing her friend/protege and making that person a Kree soldier/weapon.

The explosion in question, in the comics, was of a Kree device activated by Yon-Rogg called a "psyce-magnitron." Mar-Vell rescued her from that explosion, protecting her with his body, a move that was later retroactively explained as allowing Kree DNA to be absorbed into her body (This is called "retroactive continuity" or a "retcon" in comic book fan/historian parlance). It was a secret device, retconned into having the power to enable people to realize their desires. In the movie the explosion was of a cosmic power source harnessed into an engine by Mar-Vell, activated by Carol Danvers shooting it to prevent Yon-Rogg from getting his hands on it t Mar-Vell's urging.

This places the event that gave Carol her powers the result of her own action and an act for which only she can take responsibility. It was not an accidental incident. Though she had no way of knowing what would happen, she could have chosen not to pull the trigger on her gun. She could have run and tried to not get killed or captured by the approaching alien (Yon-Rogg, whom she had not yet met). She could have chosen not to take Mar-Vell (whom she only knew as Wendy Lawson at the time) up on the irregular, unauthorized test flight. She could have chosen to give up the Air Force Academy when it looked like she couldn't take the training. She could have chosen not to join the academy, not get up when brushed back by that pitch in Little League, not driven the kiddie go-kart so fast. But that is not her. She gets up, she fights back.

This is consistent with her character in the comics. The reason she still exists as a superhero, and what makes her important and a good choice for a character to lead the surviving Avengers in the battle against Thanos, why she is (finally) a good female role model, is that no matter how bleak things have looked for her (and things have been pretty darn bleak, believe me), she somehow, eventually, came back took responsibility, and did something about it.

I don't have time to go point-by-point on the many setbacks of her life and career, but believe me, you would be hard pressed to find someone who has taken the type of risks and come back from as many and as deep personal low points as Carol Danvers. So maverick-ly helping a ground-breaking scientist and blowing up a secret energy source are not the toughest things she has ever done.

But it does take Mar-Vell out of the equation as a direct source of her powers. She is an indirect source, as Carol would not have been in that predicament without her, but she does not protect her from the explosion, rather drives her to the act that causes it. Yon-Rogg gives her more than that, directly. A transfusion of his blood was given that may have saved her life (hence the blue blood she bleeds through the movie). The Kree soldier becomes the mentor/trainer/superior officer to the young female amnesiac he "rescues" from that explosion, in the process becoming a big, fat, liar. He used her to try to find what Mar-Vell was hiding, what she was doing on Earth. It was definitely a long-term game (taking 6 years of Earth time) but in the end, in the movie, as in the comics, his plot backfired. "Vers" (the name given to her because that part of her name was all that was visible on the fragment of her Air Force dog tag that the Yon-Rogg found) became a super-powered, highly trained warrior who decided to defend the Earth and help the Skrull refugees.

The rest of the movie is a series of reveals, including the location of the Skrull refugees (in a hideout that had a remarkably, ironically, symbolically metaphorical collection of American pass-time devices, from pinball machines to jukeboxes to super-soakers) collection, the plots and plans of Yon-Rogg and Ronan the Accuser, The truth behind the Flerken, how Nick Fury lost his eye, the origin of the Avengers Initiative, the fact that the device on Carol's neck was an inhibitor, not an enabler, and the full extent of Carol's powers.

The emotional payoffs to all the setups is worth it. Maria and Monica and Carol have an emotional reunion of sorts when Carol's memory returns, Maria gets to go into battle with her old, returned friend. Monica gets to help Carol decide on the colors for her Kree Battlesuit (paying fan service to other Captain Marvel costumes in the process), and Yon-Rogg gets his comeuppance from the final final defiance of him by Carol.

A few final thoughts about this movie will come in the next post...

For those of you who want to see a whole bunch of Easter Eggs and references in once convenient, fast-paced video, check this out...

ScreenJunkies News breaks down "Captain Marvel" box office conspiracy theories!

I am going to go there right now and say that I believe that the world will not end because Marvel's Captain Marvel" happens to send a positive feminist message. I believe that the folks who are screaming from their YouTube channels about how Marvel is "forcing a feminist agenda" down our throats with this "SJW feminist propaganda" are betraying a reactionary agenda and bias.

Apparently, many of these people have been saying that the movie would bomb, then that the great opening weekend was rigged, then that the downturn on Monday, and then the following weekend, proved that the movie and its message was not popular.

ScreenJunkies (who did not give the movie a stellar review) decided to do the research and figure out if there was any truth to these report of Disney doing things like buying out theaters and scheduling the release to maximize ticket sales to make it look like a successful movie when it would not be, among other things.

Without further ado, let's hear what he has to say...

...and on a note relevant to this blog, this is just one more piece of evidence that there is a Captain Marvel connected to EVERYTHING!

Marvel's "Captain Marvel" Carol Danvers movie review (Part 1)

After all the fuss and sturm und drang regarding this movie, let me say: This movie was not what you feared. It is a good, exciting, superhero movie/'90's nostalgia film that you can enjoy without even having read any of the comics or seeing any of the other Marvel movies.

That being said let's get into this. SPOILER ALERT! This is going to be a full-service review/analysis, so if you are one of those "Don't tell me! The introductory paragraph to this post was too much already!" people, stop now and read my "Spoiler Free" review at http://captainmarvelculture.blogspot.com/2019/03/spoiler-free-marvels-captain-marvel.html

Captain Marvel follows the story of an alien Kree warrior named Vers (pronounced "veers") as she discovers her true origin and power when she spends time on Earth.

If you knew nothing about the character, and that this movie was part of the Great Marvel Cinematic Universe, that would actually make for a pretty good movie. A few little things could have been left out, but they were mostly amusing in context.

But such is the way with Marvel superhero movies, and part of the fun of them is to see them in context and get all those little references. But even so, even with those little things, there should be a good movie behind it, and this is a good movie. It is even a good superhero movie, and it has an important, if not unfamiliar message. But this message has not been spelled out quite this obviously and relateably as in other superhero movies yet.

But aside from being a superhero movie, the other big, important characteristic of this movie is that it is a 1990's nostalgia piece. As such there are many 1990's references made, but to the movie's credit, those references (for the most part) enhance the themes, plot, mood, and characters of the movie. There are a few throw-away jokes as well, but at least they fit within the scope and parameters of the film-making.

The story begins with us getting to know Vers (Brie Larsen). She is a warrior with a strike team of the Kree intergalactic empire who has mysterious dreams that are probably about her past, which she can't remember. The Kree have a thing called "The Supreme Intelligence," which seems to be the consciousness of the ruling faction of the empire. It might be some sort of psychic artificial intelligence, because one communes with it by being connected to blue organic wires that tap into your body, and you speak to an avatar that is supposed to be someone you feel you can trust, or something.

She is being trained and led by an officer named Yon-Rogg (Jude Law. The character's name is not mentioned until well past the halfway mark of the movie). He keeps on telling her to control her emotions in many different ways as it seems she has some kind of superpower of "photon blasts" she can shoot with her fists. They appear to be enabled by a gadget stuck to the back of her neck.

In the course of a military extraction operation gone bad against their mortal enemies, the shape-shifting Skrulls, she gets captured and her memories are tapped, revealing a life growing up on Earth, constantly being told that she cannot do things, from kiddie go-kart races to obstacle courses in Air Force training. But these dreams also reveal who Mar-Vell (Marvel Comics' first Captain Marvel) is: a Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning), a Kree in disguise on Earth as a jet plane researcher/designer for the US Air Force and/or S.H.I.E.L.D.

At this point it is important to start pointing out the differences between the movie and the comics.

Movie adaptations of comic books and comic book superheroes always have to make changes because the media won't tell the same story to the same effect. Some such movies are direct adaptations of specific book (like Watchmen, 400, and Sin City), and others are stories of characters that have had a long history in the comics (Superman, Batman, the X-Men, Etc). This is one in the former group. In such stories, their origins have probably been told multiple times in the comics by different writers and artists and with different focii, emphasis, dialogue, and sometimes even with details being changed. They have had years of adventures, battling against a variety of adversaries, with an ever-changing and evolving cast of background characters. Even their costumes/uniforms have doubtless changed over time.

This means the the producer/director/writer team has to decide what the essence of the character is, how best to portray that on the screen, and how to make the hero relevant for today to draw an audience of both the loyal fans and those in the mainstream who are unfamiliar. This may mean changing elements of the origin story, combining, changing, or replacing certain background characters, changing the superpowers, even adjusting the costume.

Sometimes these changes work, even brilliantly. Making Rogue be the introductory character of the first X-Men movie, for instance, gave the audience a hero whose very power (the uncontrollable ability to absorb someone's memories and  superpowers, if they have any) drove her away from her loved ones, a perfect metaphorical parallel for the experience of homosexuals and other outcasts for which the X-men served as identifiable characters.

Sometimes these changes don't work, or are simply irrelevant, like making Red Skull Italian in the 1989 Captain America movie. I mean, come on, the greatest foe of Captain America in WWII, Italian?

In the comics, Mar-Vell was male, and Yon-Rogg was his superior officer. Yon-Rogg sent him to Earth to spy on humans to determine if they should be wiped out. While it may yet be revealed in a future movie that this was the true reason Mar-Vell was on Earth, there was another aspect to his character that making her female completely swept away: Romance.

Captain Mar-Vell's girlfriend on the Kree ship orbiting Earth was Medic Una, and Colonel Yon-Rogg had eyes for Una. He was also jealous of Mar-Vell for his popularity and success. Thus he wanted to get rid of him. And when Mar-Vell was on Earth, he won the heart of Carol Danvers for rescuing her from various monstrous threats. They made out numerous times, and each time Yon-Rogg would make sure Medic Una saw it, in the hopes that she would forsake him.

Much as I can only imagine someone in the world might want to see Annette Benning as a lesbian cougar getting it on with Brie Larsen, and Jude Law as some sort of jerk who gets turned on by lesbians, or perhaps that the Kree are not so hung up on gender preference as us humans, making Mar-Vell female and eliminating Una in a Marvel superhero movie totally eliminates any romantic angle in the relationship between these three characters. On the other hand, it does serve a certain message of this movie that I will get to later.

TO BE CONTINUED...