Month: March 2021

WandaVision Sets up Mutantkind and the X-Men #MCU #WandaVision #mutants

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We all know the rumor: WandaVision was supposed to set up mutantkind and the X-Men in the MCU. However, other than the one annoying thing in the show, the misdirect of Evan Peters, not even a meta-connection exists. Instead, we’ll have to wait until Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for that connection.

Or will we?

Someone over on Facebook stated that he wanted the X-Men to remain a separate cinematic universe from the MCU even though Disney has taken it over. HIs thought is that the MCU heroes are people the common folk look up to, but the X-Men are feared. The two don’t go together in terms of tone. Though we occasionally see heroes portrayed as “bad guys” in the MCU (especially in Captain America: Civil War), overall that’s not a bad point. We never saw someone actually fear, for example, Paul Rudd 🙂 after he was established as a reasonably well-known hero.

However, as far as I’m concerned, Wanda Maximoff is now an anti-hero, and one the average person fears. Perhaps this is the direct connection to the introduction of mutants that we were positing. It represents an important shift in tone, which Marvel has stated is going to occur in a big way in Multiverse. WandaVision was the way to ease us into that shift. We may look back and see WandaVision is the first few steps on that bridge over the tonal gap.

Yeah, that metaphor could have been stated better.

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Mythology and Fiction Explained @MythsExplained #MythologyMonday

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As I said last week, I’m going to start doing mythology posts on Mondays for Mythology Monday, which is a new thing to me. Or at least, I’m going to try. Today, I’m pointing you to a YouTube channel I like, Mythology & Fiction Explained. This guy does his research right down to justifying his pronunciations. As the name suggests, he also goes beyond folklore and mythology, covering literature such as the Cthulhu stories of H.P. Lovecraft. If you’re into any of that, you’ll probably find some of what you want at that channel.

One word of warning. I have YouTube premium, so I don’t get commercials when I watch it. However, it appears that the channel was demonetized. That wouldn’t surprise me because the speaker will occasionally (though rarely) make a gratuitous political statement. You may not agree with his statement, and I know political disagreement often turns people away from speakers regardless of the actual topic of conversation.

I had no idea that the Harpies were feminists.

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A Wizard’s Near Death Experience #DnD #RPG

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Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I provide one wizard’s near death experience.

May be a Twitter screenshot of text that says 'Roleplaying And Rollplaying @RRollplaying Wizard, waking up: What happened? Cleric: We revivified you. What's it like over there? Wizard: There's ..this table with people sıttıno around it...with dice...and I was a sheet of paper with numbers on it... Cleric, laughing: That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard! Posted in r/dndmemes by u/Goblynne24 reddit'

Never believe the nerdy bookworm.

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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)

Just How “Strongest Avenger” Is Thor? @chrishemsworth #Thor #Avenger #MCU

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Almost a year ago, I made the argument for why Thor is the strongest Avenger. I stand by that argument but must admit I didn’t complete it. I needed to quantify exactly how much more powerful he is. I think this does it.

Honestly, that’s being a bit generous to the other Avengers. In any case, you must admit he had the most powerful individual entrance.

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My TV Viewing Habits #TV #movie #streaming

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The pandemic has completely changed the way I watch TV. Before we were all quarantined, I watched one or two shows at any given time regularly, but otherwise used TV as nothing more than background nosie. As a result, there are many mainstream and classic movies I’ve never seen despite their repeated small screen runs. All that’s changed in the past year. Right now, I have Purple Rain, Heat, Scanners, season 2 of Solar Opposites, and a re-watch of Avengers: Endgame planned for this weekend. There’s no way I’m going to accomplish all of that, but that’s the plan.

The thing is, I now have a much greater appreciation for the small screen than I ever had since I was a kid. The only time as an adult that I watched TV to any significant degree was the mid-90s when I got HBO (which means it was still about movies rather than TV shows). I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that the pandemic would have this impact, but I don’t think it would have been so severe if streaming services hadn’t proliferated.

I’d write more about this, but I have a schedule to keep.

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A Scotsman in Hell @StarTrek @StarTrek #comic #StarTrek

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Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a mash up of one of my favorite comics and my favorite intellectual property.

It’s just another day at the office for a Scotsman.

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R.I.P. Yaphet Kotto #RIP #YaphetKotto

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From Rolling Stone magazine, Yaphet Kotto, Star of ‘Alien’ and ‘Homicide: Life on the Street,’ Dead at 81. And let’s not forget Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Well, on second thought ….

Yaphet Kotto had a long career and did some very good work. He was a Bond villain (Live and Let Die), a prison trustee (Brubaker), and a Ugandan dictator (Raid on Entebbe). However, for some reason, the first thing I think of when I hear his name is an episode of the otherwise-forgotten Alfred Hitchcock Presents called Prisoners (1985). Kotto played an escaped convict who broke into a woman’s house to evade the cops, and he kept her hostage so that she couldn’t rat him out. The way he was caught (spoiler alert!!!) was he coached her when she answered the phone, allowing her to carry on a conversation with a friend on the other end of the call. That tipped off the friend that something was wrong because the woman (hostage) was deaf. She’d been reading Kotto’s lips the whole time, and his character didn’t realize it. The show had a bit of a twist to it, which shouldn’t surprise you considering its namesake.

Yaphet Kotto, 'Alien' and 'Homicide: Life on the Street' actor, dead at 81 - CNN

RIP, Mr. Kotto.

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