One Piece 784 Review: All These New Gear Fourth Attacks

One Piece, Chapter 784: Fourth Gear

Yeah, that was a pretty awesome upgrade. Gear Fourth is basically Luffy inflating his muscles instead of his bones like Gear Third and generally being this super-awesome wrecking machine. I do like how Gear Fourth actually implements Luffy's base rubber powers, which is something neither Gear Second nor Gear Third does after their initial activation. And I do like how each 'Gear' corresponds to a certain part of the body that's made possible by Luffy's rubber-ness: Gear Second pumps the blood vessels, Gear Third inflates the bones and Gear Fourth inflates the muscles.

This chapter is just undiluted Luffy displaying the power of Gear Fourth and laying the smackdown on Doflamingo -- the first time he's actually been hurt other than Law's Gamma Knife (which he ends up annulling by string surgery).

We get a couple of pages just showing all the other people reacting to how Birdcage is shrinking and how the center of Birdcage is Doflamingo and not the town and it really doesn't matter we don't care. Zoro and the two samurai are apparently going to stop Birdcage, but I also really don't care. We get a bit of Law and Cavendish talking about making splashes in the world but honestly it's just a bunch of redundant scenes... if there is one thing that hurts the pacing of this arc the most, it's the relentless back-and-forth between unimportant characters just playing peanut's gallery to everything that's happening.

But we cut back to Luffy doing Gear Fourth, kicking off his sandals and doing Muscle Balloon. Luffy basically inflates all his upper-body muscles and hops around on his normal-sized feet, and his angry face kind of looks like Nightmare Luffy from way back in Thriller Bark. It looks hilarious and badass at the same time. His limbs and eyes are all Haki'd and shit, so it isn't just simple inflation. Like how the Haki on Luffy's chest tapers off like some sick tribal tattoos.

Luffy calls this form 'Bound Man' or 'Bounce Man' depending on the translation, and claims to have actually used this form while training on that island with Rayleigh. He keeps bouncing around, and then retracts his arm kind of like Bellamy's Bane-Bane no Mi... and if it wasn't for his claim that he's used it during the timeskip, I would've guessed Luffy thought of it on the spot after beating Bellamy up. We get a cool visual of Luffy's fist actually being compressed so hard it retracts into this Mega-Man cannon like thing and for once Luffy's gun/cannon naming sensibilities makes perfect sense. Luffy unleashes this Gomu Gomu King Kong Gun that completely sends Doflamingo flying out of the sky and crashing into a building, and this time he's not just laughing the damage off.

Luffy also demonstrates the ability to basically do CP9's Geppo by retracting his feet like the King Kong Gun and just kicking the air multiple times. Is he actually mimicking the abilities of his former enemies? He then ninja-speeds his way next to Doflamingo and does this double spring-kick straight on Doflamingo's face and good lord that looks so satisfying. It's called 'Gomu Gomu Rhino Schneider'. We get some randoms briefly commenting on how Luffy looks ridiculous bouncing around, which is fair enough -- badass as he is, that does look pretty silly.

Doflamingo gets thrown through the city but shoots straight up again, noting how the Busoshoku Haki helps to enhance Luffy's tensile power. Luffy goes into the sky as well and launches 'Gomu Gomu no Culverin', which apparently is translated into kanji as Python Cannon. It misses Doflamingo in the first go, and Doflamingo does 'Athelete' and kicks Luffy in the gut... but apparently Gear Fourth enhances Luffy's bounciness so much that he can just rubber Doflamingo's attack and push him away, before launching Gomu Gomu no Culverin a second time. Doflamingo is surprised that Luffy doesn't retract his arm like the Kong Gun, and this time the muscles actually stretch out and zig-zag mid-air like an actual snake and fucking punches Doflamingo in the jaw. Pretty awesome fight, though I'm assuming it might be extended for another chapter or two.

Overall it's great! Gear Fourth is awesome, and it's nice to see Doflamingo get his ass rightfully kicked. Not really much else to say other than variations of the word 'awesome' and 'fuck the breaks in between chapters.'

One Piece 783 Review: Gear Fourth

One Piece, Chapter 783: In My Way

I’m not promising to catch up on all the manga reviews – I’ll try to get the past issues of the big five I usually do weekly (Bleach, One Piece, Toriko, Fairy Tail and Seven Sins) down, but no promises. I can sneak some bandwidth out of my phone to upload these reviews, so all is good for the moment. Time will tell if I have, y’know, enough time to review everything like Magi and Boku no Hero Academia and Attack on Titan and whatnot.

Anyway, this week’s cover story apparently has Wadatsumi wanting to join up with Jinbe to wherever the hell it is Jinbe is going. Is he going to meet up with the Straw Hats? Was he? I cannot remember at this point.

But the rest of the chapter is pretty freaking awesome. It’s just full-on action between Luffy and Doflamingo, just rubber and string attacks being launched at each other and it’s really epic. Luffy is doing all of these awesome Haki and Gear Second attacks – all these Hawk Whips and Grizzly Magnums and Eagle Bazookas – and actually landing them on Doflamingo, but the fucker is just shrugging all of Luffy’s attacks. After the big explosion from last chapter, Trebol is nowhere to be seen, but Law is in even worse shape. Luffy and Robin gets him out of the battle which leaves the melee to just Luffy and Doflamingo.

Cavendish shows up out of nowhere to help protect Law, and after some silly logic thing going in his weird head Cavendish agrees to stick around and protect Law. Leo and Mansherry are apparently able to use their powers in conjunction to heal Law’s arm – Leo can stitch them together and Mansherry can then heal it. Which is nice. Bartolomeo is still in an fangasmic seizure after seeing Zoro’s gigantic super badass slash. Law wakes up and he acknowledges that while he cannot fight anymore he’s got a thirteen-year-old vendetta and he’s going to share whatever fate befalls Luffy in the fight. Cavendish is all honourable and shit and sticks with Law, while Robin and the rest kind of retreat.

Doflamingo and Luffy continue to fight and we get some cool action scenes, and then Doflamingo starts again with the mocking, how cripples and old people and babies are going to die first, and how it’s all because Luffy and company butted into Doflamingo’s business. Not, y’know, because Doflamingo is a psychopath who created the Birdcage to murder everyone. We get Doflamingo calling Luffy a thorn, then Luffy calls him a thorn… and then activates Gear Fourth.

And the manga goes on a break, because that’s how Oda rolls. That was a big WHAT moment. I mean, we all know Luffy is going to win whatever the case, but Doflamingo has been such a fun villain and such a gigantic piece of shit and generally been indestructible that Luffy really needs some serious power-up to bring him down… and, well, who the hell expected Gear Fourth? Okay, probably everybody but did anyone expect it to happen now?

Also what the hell will it be?

It’s a good thing I’m writing this review within days of the next chapter’s release.

The Flash S01E18: in which the Atom and the Flash fight a swarm of bees

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 18: All Star Team Up

A filler episode, this one is. I wasn’t expecting a crossover with Arrow, and I definitely wasn’t expecting a crossover featuring Ray Palmer instead of Oliver Queen. But here we go with the Atom and the Flash hanging out, dealing with Eddie’s love problems and a swarm of killer robotic bees because why the hell not. Barry and Felicity share some pretty great scenes together because Felicity as an outsider is the only real person Barry can talk to about STAR Labs problems. But the Atom really didn’t feel needed other than to, y’know, hang out. He does have some interactions with Cisco and some cool action scenes but otherwise he really kind of feels redundant to the episode as a whole.

I did like the effects for the swarm of bees, and the fact that they were actually able to kill Barry for a few seconds is legitimately impressive and pretty fucking hilarious. Granted I was expecting some kind of bug-controlling metahuman (a non-alien version of the Queen Bee was my guess right until her identity was revealed) instead of a gender-swapped version of the Atom enemy Bug-Eyed Bandit. But other than some impressive visuals with her bee drones – the scene where they come out of the second victim’s mouth was a pretty impressive one – she ends up being kind of an underwhelming villain. And the hacking war between the Bug-Eyed Bandit and Felicity? Boring.

I mean, I know we’re adapting this from DC comics but not every themed villain makes puns around their theme.

I really liked the opening scene with Barry, Joe and Eddie screwing up those car thieves and generally having a ball. That was fun! I can’t really say much about it other than variations of ‘I like it’ and ‘that was fun’.

There wasn’t really anything particularly bad about this episode. Not even the Iris-Eddie romance plot tumour or Ray Palmer’s weird ‘hey guys I’m here to hang out’ thing really bugs me. Or even the unexplained reason to why Cisco would remember the revelations in the retconned timeline when no one else – not Wells, not Iris or anyone – does. It’s just, well, an average episode. And while I enjoyed it, it was just kind of average.

There’s a constant theme of secrets and betrayals – obviously the whole Barry suspecting Cisco and Caitlin to be in league with Wells thing, but also Iris feeling that Eddie is keeping secrets from her (a plot thread that’s done to death in Flash’s sister show) and the Bug-Eyed Bandit being betrayed by her employer, and Joe and Barry are keeping the investigation about Harrison Wells a secret from Cisco and Caitlin. It’s a theme, though they didn’t really do much with it.

But as it slugs through its multiple plot threads in a far more elegant way than I would’ve expected, we’re finally paving a way to the final stretch of the season with everyone fighting against the Reverse-Flash and hopefully we get the Iris bullshit out of the way so it isn’t a gigantic distraction with all the time travel and Harrison Wells and Gorilla Grodd stuff. We did get Cisco and Caitlin’s recruitment out of the way by the end of the episode (complete with a Reverse-Flash jumpscare) and Barry and Joe’s argument on whether to bring them in was valid in both directions. I’m just happy it doesn’t eat up another episode’s worth of screentime.

Again, I’m just a bit confused about the whole Cisco remembering the splinter timeline thing. Who else does? How does splintering the timeline work? Does Wells know? Will it be explained? I sure hope so.

While Ray was kind of wooden, and holy crap how many Superman jokes do we need to make WE GET IT BRANDON ROUTH PLAYED SUPERMAN ONCE SHUT UP, Felicity was fun. Fun the way she hasn’t been for the third season of Arrow. Move shows already, wouldn’t you? I did like the fact that they barely even touched the Barry-Felicity shipping angle other than Felicity remarking that Ray is Oliver and Barry rolled into one. They’re mutual friends who really care for each other without any romantic tension between them and I like that. I’m also waiting until they finally implement the ‘go smaller’ solution that Ray finds in this episode and not just leave the Atom as a cheap Iron Man knockoff and actually, y’know, be the Atom.

Eddie and Iris, though, well… it’s a bit realistic and I don’t fully hate how Iris is reacting to what she considers is a breakdown of their relationship. But honestly why doesn’t anyone tell her anything? Eddie even lampshades how everyone but Iris knows that Barry Allen is the Flash. I thought we are heading to something interesting with how Eddie isn’t happy to play secret keeper and would be the one to reveal Barry’s identity to Iris and open a whole new can of worms, but no. We did get a nice scene of Eddie briefly standing up to Joe, and Barry actually helping Eddie out by trying to brush his weirdness off as being part of police work stuff. But this is approaching the end of the season so status quo will be shattered and Iris is pissed at Eddie. As much as I dislike romantic plot tumours, I thought this was handled rather quickly and suffers really badly by being so compressed. It would probably work better if it was spaced out… but on the other hand I don’t really give two shits either way so. Man, Iris is just kind of messed up, isn’t she? The characters keep her in the dark about the big secret for no good reason, she’s basically useless to the plot other than being part of the love triangle now that all the news stuff is gone.

What else… I was surprised to see dr. Tina McGee return to the show, and other than being the plot device of the Bug-Eyed Bandit’s revenge scheme, she does serve a small plot point by planting the idea in Barry’s head that Harrison Wells is a different person after Tess’s death, which is an important plot point and everything.

I do like how Wells is still passive-aggressively dropping hints about his evilness like in the earlier episodes, but this time Barry actually catches them. Also a fan of how Ray is just grinning like ‘oh wow it’s cool’ at every single thing that happens in this episode. 

Arrow S03E18 Review: Shado's Twin Sister

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 18: Public Enemy

Well, that was a tense episode all right. There is a lot of action in this episode as the police start to fully crack down on Team Arrow with helicopters and cars and shit, with Ra’s Al Ghul flat-out telling Quentin about the Arrow’s secret identity and that Sara washed up on Lian Yu. And it’s definitely a tense one as Team Arrow is continually held at gunpoint by the policemen, but at the same time… it still kind of felt like something we’ve seen before. Not to mention that, y’know, Ra’s Al Ghul’s big master plan still doesn’t really make sense. Why does Ra’s want Oliver to accept his offer so badly that he’ll go to such lengths to fuck up his city and life?

But it’s still a pretty tense and rather awesome episode, with Quentin taking center stage. He’s kidnapped by Maseo and kind of told those information, and still fuelled by the grief and rage over, y’know, Sara, he tells the entire city about Oliver Queen’s identity. We’ve got some nice continuity nods to when Oliver Queen was last accused of being the Arrow, and some acknowledgement that it won’t work again. And Laurel does confront Quentin several times throughout this episode and the previous one, asking Quentin what exactly drives him – actual desire for justice, or his own personal justice regarding Sara’s death?

I also find it rather interesting that despite all his ‘shoot to kill’ stuff, he’s definitely perverting justice to prevent Laurel from being shot, telling the officers to hold their fire when Laurel is in the scene. And he seemed too happy to grant the rest of Team Arrow legal immunity so long as Oliver is captured, so it’s clear that all he’s gunning for is Oliver, someone who he can blame for Sara’s death. And through his rants to Laurel about being responsible for causing Sara to be lost twice, well, you see where Quentin is going with here.

So, uh, after a brief fight with Maseo (who in this episode and the previous one is really taking on the villainous role pretty nicely) and a bunch of other fake Arrows, they realize that they can’t kill Ra’s Al Ghul without repercussion, which is a nice little development. Ra’s has too much resources that will go wild in revenge if he doesn’t control them, and Oliver has very few choices left, so he hands himself over to Quentin.

Roy also gets a nice little moment here. He’s been the underdog throughout nearly the entire season after the whole ‘I killed a cop’ thing was ended, with his role basically amounting to standing around in his swanky costume and looking cool. Last episode didn’t even bother to acknowledge the poor bastard’s fate after Atom blasted him with lightning bolts. But this episode he actually gets some action scenes shooting policemen and this brings up all the repressed memories about killing that policeman and wanting to be arrested, and this leads him to become the atoner near the end of the episode, hopping down with the Arrow costume and going all ‘you got the wrong man, because I’m the Arrow’ in front of all the policemen transferring Oliver to prison or something.

Nyssa also gets some moments, being pissed off with her father to tell Oliver about some information regarding where to find the League, but also being loyal enough to the League not to actually assist them beyond pulling Laurel’s fat out of the fire later in the episode.

We get some nice little call-backs to a lot of previous events, with Quentin rattling off the names of people who died (who the fuck is Hilton) and all the masked people that showed up (hey, the show remembers Huntress existed) and they bring up some old ways of saving Oliver's identity. I mean, Quentin's point that Oliver was the start of it all kind of fall flat because it came out the same week that Flash showcased the Trickster, a mask active from 25 years ago, but still...

We’ve got a B-plot revolving Ray getting shot through the chest during the attack by the League after the cliffhanger of last episode, and apparently a thrombus went up to his brain which will cause brain damage if operated on. And Felicity is caught between a moral dilemma of whether to take the risk to save Ray with some experimental nano-bots (yay for some actual references to Atom’s powers in the comics). Felicity’s annoying mom comes in with some sage distraction tactics and some relationship advice, basically telling Felicity she has to make a choice. Ray loves Felicity, but Felicity’s heart is with Oliver and I’m just kind of shrugging because all this is pretty messy.

Two episodes ago the cliffhanger in the Hong Kong flashback was that OMG SHADO IS ALIVE. But no, it’s her previously unheard-of twin sister Mei. Which proves to contribute jack shit to the plot because all she delivers is just the fact that Oliver should’ve been honest about Shado’s death in the first place and blah blah and why did we have to have that Shado-is-alive cliffhanger? That was stupid. Maseo and Tatsu come in, kill the bad guys and save Akio. Why did we have to drag it on for so long? Jeez. Kill Akio off, or don’t. The flashbacks this time around was so distracting from the plot since it isn’t even really relevant.

Overall, though, still a pretty solid episode. It’s not the greatest after I thought about it for a while, but it’s still a pretty great development and a pretty action-packed one. I just fear they don’t really do anything interesting with the Big Twist™ in this episode like so many times Arrow has failed to deliver on big twists before.

Arrow S03E17 Review: Diggle's Bloody Honeymoon

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 17: Suicidal Tendencies

Well, there are a couple of things running through this episode. The most interesting bits for me are undoubtedly the Suicide Squad bits with Diggle and Lyla and Deadshot (and I guess Cupid too) which is a real blast. The main Central City stuff with the manhunt for Arrow led by an angry Quentin Lance and Ray Palmer in his brand-new Iron Man suit is a bit less interesting and felt like retreading old ground… though Ray Palmer’s Atom suit is freaking awesome especially when the actually did fight. I don’t particularly give a shit about the little lovey-dovey triangle thing between Felicity and the two heroes though I do appreciate how much Felicity influences Ray’s choices. I also don’t really give two shits about the flashback, which was just weird and distracting in my opinion.

But anyway, Diggle and Lyla get married, officiated by Ray Palmer who stepped in at the last minute as a minister. Also they’ll photoshop in Oliver as best man in the photos after the wedding. And after that they were all like ‘oh no fake Arrow is killing people’ but Oliver tells them to bug off and enjoy their honeymoon… so of course their honeymoon gets hijacked by Deadshot. Waller wants to send off the Suicide Squad to rescue this random senator held in hostage in some random country… and the Suicide Squad’s roster has apparently been reduced to just Deadshot and Cupid. Where’s Bronze Tiger?

Whatever the case, though, Diggle joins up with Deadshot, Cupid and Lyla and they head off to save the senator. We get some fun little talking scenes between Deadshot and Diggle, and Cupid is apparently still obsessed about the Arrow. It’s fun seeing how Diggle and Lyla are talking about their own marriage and Cupid goes all ‘florists are expensive, in my wedding I’ll make my own flowers’ and stuff like that, then Deadshot disses Cupid off for being a stalker. I also do like how Deadshot keeps taking pot-shots at Cupid for being kind of cuckoo in the head.

But when the Suicide Squad comes in to rescue the senator, apparently he’s planned this entire hostage situation so he can use it to kick-start his presidential run by looking like a hero. And when the Suicide Squad barges in, he decides to cut off all the loose ends and kill all the hostages and the Squad. That itself lends to a shit-ton of awesome fight scenes. Diggle and Lyla get to brutally manhandle the mercenaries, and even fucking Cupid gets a couple of completely badass moves to her name, elevating her beyond ‘that creepy stalker villain’ in my head. In the process Deadshot saves Cupid from being shot, and Cupid goes all lovey-dovey for him instead. That was fun.

All this is intercut with flashbacks to Deadshot (which are a lot more concise and effective than 90% of Oliver’s) returning home from war and, well, not taking it very well. His own daughter is terrified of him from the get-go, and he explodes and snaps at his wife in front of his daughter, going so far as to pull out a gun. That’s absolutely heartwrenching to watch, and really puts Deadshot’s talks about how people in their line of work can’t ever find happiness or family into perspective. Deadshot’s always been one of the more likable recurring villains thanks to his weird code of honour, but this one really nails it in that, well, they really do want us to like Deadshot. I honestly half-expected him to put a bullet through his wife’s head but I guess that’s a bit too dark. Regardless he’s all fucked up and once he’s in prison some lady pays bail for him and goes all ‘we have need of someone of your talent, you’re never going to have a normal life anyway’ and we’re led to believe it’s ARGUS until she starts talking about drones and shit and, well, it’s Hive! I nearly forgot that Hive is involved with Deadshot and, yes, Hive’s first target was Diggle’s brother.

We also get some depressing moments with Lyla breaking down at the idea of their daughter losing both her parents in the same day, but they eventually hatch a plan. Deadshot helps cover the Suicide Squad’s escape as they assault the senator’s mercenaries and rescue all the hostages, but has no way to escape the roof and after looking at a photograph of his daughter one last time, blows up with dignity.

Man, Deadshot. Your death was fucking sad.

The ramifications of Deadshot’s death is fully felt as we see just what the Suicide Squad amounted to in the eyes of people like Waller, because Deadshot is set up as the fall man in the news report, painted as the one responsible for kidnapping the senator. This does lead to Lyla quitting ARGUS in disgust, and indeed between the Hong Kong plot and Manhunter and Captain Boomerang, this season seems to be angling to paint ARGUS in a worse light compared to previous seasons. Shitting all over Deadshot’s sacrifice is a pretty dickish move for ARGUS to do.

Oh, and there’s all the other stuff going on with Oliver being the subject of a manhunt, spearheaded by Ray Palmer and his fancy new Atom suit. I do like Felicity being trapped between keeping secrets to and from Oliver and Ray. Ray scans the Arrow with his X-Ray vision (hee hee Superman jokes) and was all like ‘Felicity why didn’t you tell me Oliver was the Arrow?’ while Oliver is like ‘why didn’t you tell me Ray was building a super-suit?’ And Roy is like ‘a super-suit that’s fucking cool’. Roy’s got his priorities down.

We get some generic dialogue blah-blah about Oliver ranting about how it isn’t possible to be a functional human being and an agent of justice and have love and blah blah and honestly it’s been done so many times throughout Arrow’s third season that I kind of glossed over it, especially since this episode did the human connection thing a lot better with Diggle and Deadshot’s respective stories… and both Diggle and Lyla proof that, yes, you can have both sides of the argument.

But anyway, Ray Palmer gets a bit of a douchiness upgrade, especially after he discovers Oliver’s identity earlier on in the episode and gets all jealous and shit. Ray gets shut down by Laurel when he tries official channels, and then goes on his own personal manhunt… and later lured Oliver and Roy with a fake distress call and swoops in with his Iron Man super-suit. He Palpatine-lightning blasts Roy to the ground (no one made sure he is alright even after the fight, poor bastard) and then does some cool flight tricks and robot stuff, but Oliver manages to win by locating a weak spot and shooting it with an exploding arrow. There’s really not much tension because they’re not going to each other, but while it’s a lot shorter than the Arrow/Flash fight from the crossover, it still is awesome to see two superheroes fight. Even if one of them is being a douchebag for no real good reason.

Oliver then gives Ray some speech and tells him to be happy with Felicity and then all is good since Ray and Oliver are buddies again. Until the end, anyway, where Ra’s fake Arrow dude shoots the mayor dead right when Ray and Laurel are trying to call off the manhunt, and then takes a bead on Felicity…

Well, the main focus is on Team Diggle, as well as the love-triangle cast. Thea and Malcolm take the most brunt for losing screen-time, but Laurel does get a few nice scenes her way. She is apparently been training with Nyssa, which is great, and her scene with Ray and shutting him down with legal procedures and snarking at X-Ray vision is an absolute delight which we’ve not seen in a long, long time ever since she decided to go emo.

Overall while the Diggle parts of this episode was particularly strong, I thought the Oliver/Ray bits could've stand to feel a lot less like a 'I'm better than yours' fight and more of ideological differences or something. I still think the Fake-Arrow angle is a bit weak, and kind of m’eh. Ra’s big master plan would kind of fall short if Quentin was still in good terms with the Arrow and I dunno, as far as endgames go, this felt like an unnecessarily convoluted way to force Oliver to bear the mantle of Ra’s al Ghul.

Agents of SHIELD S02E15 Review: SHIELD's Second Civil War

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 15: One Door Closes

Another pretty great episode of Agents of SHIELD, which is definitely nice and refreshing considering how spotty the quality has been prior to the mid-season break. It comes off really strong after the previous episode. This episode really was more of a set-up for a conflict between the two competing SHIELDs leading to a SHIELD War being the possible premise for the second half of the season, while Skye’s Inhuman problems get some exploring as a B-plot. Also running alongside those two plots is the pretty relevant flashback of how Real!SHIELD gets formed during the events of Winter Soldier.

The main plot of the episode involves Coulson finally confronting Mack about the fact that he has actually been suspecting him for a while and has actually set up a bit of an ambush to get Mack to talk about who he is working for… except Coulson didn’t count on a second traitor. Bobbi manages to grab hold of Fury’s toolbox and manages to kick off a blackout and whatnot, and while we do get a pretty awesome girl-fight between the two superspies May and Bobbi, the blackout does happen and I do like how Bobbi and Mack are loose in Coulson’s base, and we don’t exactly know who is informed about what.

And Bobbi gets fucking deceived by Simmons of all people, who acts like she usually does, fangirling over Bobbi and kind of taking her off-guard by looking for some technical stuff and then zapping Bobbi into submission by handing her two little cylinders. Shame it doesn’t last, because Real!SHIELD launches dendrotoxin through the vents and armed forces come in something fierce through a hole in the wall and kind of arrests everybody. We do get a little argument between Coulson and Gonzales about the state of SHIELD. I personally don’t really see a big problem any why both SHIELDs can’t just hang out together and pool their resources, beyond the fact that Gonzales just hates aliens and hates the idea of Fury’s legacy carrying on.

They do have the point about how Coulson is a literal creation of Fury, and how they needed a democracy to decide how things go instead of just blindly following the orders of one man. And the flashbacks are actually pretty effective in showing just what led people like Mack, Bobbi and Gonzales (and Hartley, who makes a surprise appearance) into creating Real!SHIELD. I’m not really sure what claim they have to the name of SHIELD beyond, y’know, having more people. They basically suspect Fury of stockpiling metahumans all over the globe and they want to crack Fury’s Toolbox to get to them, and first on the list is re-acquiring Skye. Except, y’know, Gonzales is more than likely to want to lock her up in a cage instead of letting her hang out in wooden cabins and slowly control her powers, and that really is the only strike against them.

We also get some nice little dialogue between Weaver and Fitz-Simmons, who kind of blame each other for following ‘the wrong SHIELD’, but put away their differences when it comes to helping out the injured Mack. None of these SHIELDs are bad guys, they’re just good guys at each other’s throats because Coulson has no idea Real!SHIELD exists (and he makes it clear to Gonzales he’s been trying to look for a majority of the good people hiding out in Real!SHIELD) while Gonzales is just short-sighted about anything regarding Fury.

There are also some nice little character moments here and there. Mack tries his level best to shield Fitz from an explosion. Fitz and Simmons have a little reconciliatory moment of hand-holding when they huddle after Real!SHIELD invades. Simmons and Skye have a nice little talk and while Simmons really wants to cure Skye, she also respects Skye’s choices. Bobbi, while hell-bent on bringing down Coulson’s SHIELD, is also unwilling to harm Skye and defends her when Gonzales was bad-mouthing metahumans. Also we’ve got some talk about how Agent Weaver apparently fended off an Enhanced unleashed by Hydra all by herself, so that’s an awesome off-screen moment there.

The flashback is pretty simple but relatively awesome, showing Mack, Bobbi, Hartley and Gonzales meeting up during the big SHIELD war in the helicarrier (or is it just a normal aircraft carrier?) with some awesome super-dangerous cargo that needs to be kept out of Hydra hands. Which I’m betting will come up sometime down the line. We see Mack watch a good friend of his executed in front of him, while Bobbi has her own mission to rescue just Gonzales, and then sink the ship to kingdom come… all while other SHIELD agents are still fighting, trying to take back the carrier. They eventually decide to say fuck it and defend the ship nonetheless and evidently does take it back from Hydra. It’s a nice scene, and I do like how they keep reminding each other that they have their orders, but at the same time all the faceless SHIELD mooks have manned turrets, are fighting back, et cetera. Gonzales is awesome. He’s all like ‘I’m still the commander of this ship’ and that last stand of the four of them against a shit-ton of Hydra agents? Awesome.

Bobbi totes distracted that Hydra agent by throwing a goddamn iPhone through the door crack, which is awesome. Hartley is also not a slouch. Her unexpected reappearance, her fighting people with a knife… also apparently she’s also a mole from Real!SHIELD, which doesn’t really change much since she’s, y’know, dead without really contributing much to the show, but she is awesome in this flashback so yay.

Meanwhile, Skye tries out Simmons’ glove-thing which ends up being super anticlimactic. It does apparently cancel out her powers, but beyond giving her some nausea there aren’t any apparent side effects either so I dunno. More interesting on the Skye front is that she gets paid a visit by Gordon after a bit of a horror show – also apparently Hulk had stayed in the cabin before judging by the metal plating and the dents… is this the same cabin from the end of Incredible Hulk? Can’t remember.

Gordon gives Skye the whole ‘you should accept your powers’ spiel, but unlike the more pushy Calvin Zabo, Gordon relates to Skye and talks about changes inside him, talks about his own change, tries to explain her powers regarding vibrations and whatnot instead of Cal’s more psychotic approach. Gordon doesn’t force Skye’s hand either, only wanting to bring Skye along if she needs help. Gordon makes the offer, then leaves. Between that and his adorable attempts at making jokes regarding his lack of eyes (which actually horrifies Skye more) I do think Gordon is a nice fellow. Skye also manages to show finer control of her powers, turning the water tap into spirals and shit.

Shame it all goes to hell soon enough, though. May manages to escape the gassing of the base and is skulking around, giving her enough time to warn Skye to get the hell out of dodge, and then break Coulson free. She turns herself in, but that’s enough of a spanner in the works to allow Coulson to rebuild their own SHIELD… hopefully without too much of a bloodbath.

And Skye? Well, she manages to beat the fuck out of a random SHIELD mook even without her powers, so all those fighting lessons with Ward and May definitely paid off. Shame Calderon is a xenophobic piece of shit, backstory notwithstanding, and he pulls a real gun on Skye… who panics and unleashes this beautiful shockwave that knocks both Calderon and Bobbi back like ragdolls and completely obliterates a bunch of poor trees. Neither Calderon nor Bobbi are killed, though Calderon is bleeding from a shoulder wound, the jackass, but it does freak Skye out to call for help, and Gordon zooms in to teleport her away.

Meanwhile Coulson manages to bug off to this random beach bar, and meets up with Hunter of all people, who Real!SHIELD wasn’t doing a good job of tracking. Granted Hunter did disable the GPS and everything… but Hunter makes his loyalties to Coulson pretty clear at the end of the episode after dicking about cocktail umbrellas and stuff, so it looks like next episode we’ll be seeing Coulson and Hunter try to take back SHIELD… or something? Real!SHIELD aren’t villains until proven otherwise, after all. I’m definitely more interested to see how Fitz, Simmons and May will be treated by Real!SHIELD, as well as just what will the Inhumans teach or do to Skye, which is the biggest question everyone has. This show has definitely grown a lot stronger, I must say.

Agents of SHIELD S02E14 Review: Not Nick Fury. Or Maria Hill.

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 14: Love in the Time of Hydra

So having wrapped up some outstanding side-plots – Calvin Zabo and the rest of Hydra – we’re finally focusing on two main things for Agents of SHIELD, namely Skye’s condition as an Inhuman, as well as the whole ‘Real SHIELD’ deal with Mack and Bobbi. Both this episode and the next are really focused on these two plots, and really benefits from it as compared to the rather ADD hodgepodge of plot lines (Hydra! Diviner! Grant Ward! Skye’s family! Alien writings! More Hydra!) that the first half of the second season had.

Well, this episode has an unexpected partial focus on Grant Ward and Agent 33, and while I think it’s a bit distracting, the rest of the episode does have enough content to carry its own weight. The little side-plot with Ward and Agent 33 was pretty fun and tugs at the heart-strings as Agent 33 keeps trying to find some way to repay Ward’s kindness – at one point transforming her face into Skye for some sexytimes – while Ward just wants to help her get through this confused phase of herself that Ward himself has been through. It’s some nice little character development that doesn’t make Ward any less sympathetic. Ward still goes around killing people and forcing torture on poor Sunil Bakshi, but he at least seems to have a soft spot for broken birds like him.

Also the Skye-Ward ship seems to have sunk something fierce.

Agent 33’s nanomask has been upgraded so she can change her face into basically whoever she scans. It’s a nice little upgrade to her powers and no doubt lets the makeup team breathe a sigh of relief. She and Ward break into General Talbot’s military base and I do like how Talbot, while not managing to capture Agent 33, was at least competent enough to make sure his soldiers know to shoot him if he’s not where he’s supposed to be, and was savvy enough to round up all female personnel and while he’s still a jackass he makes it clear that he knows his personnel in his own way. And he’s even wary enough to demand his wife get on the ground when it’s not clear if she’s the infiltrator. While that last bit was hilarious as hell, I do like that we make fun of Talbot without really undermining his competence – Ward and 33 are just that good.

I also do like how Agent 33 gets some closure, and we get to revisit poor Bakshi who is now strapped into the hypnotizing machine of compliance or whatever. I do like how that scene played out. Ward and 33 are all like ‘this is going to be a long night’, seemingly indicating possible ensuing of sexy times, but apparently they’re planning on torturing Bakshi.

While all that happens, Skye’s shipped off by Coulson to a nice little cabin (which according to Coulson is where Steve Rogers himself stayed after defrosting) to keep her remote. I do like how Coulson isn’t sugaring up the fact that she’s being kept away from society, but makes it clear that they’re all watching out for her and she’s not exactly a prisoner. That speech about how Lola, at her heart, is still a Corvette even if she can fly and whatnot, is a pretty apt description of Skye-with-powers and I do like how Coulson really acts like a fatherly figure. And gives Skye candy. Candy is great.

At the very least, though, poor Skye is being taken off the team, which is a shame but what can you do. Simmons have made Skye a pair of fancy sci-fi gloves that will apparently take away her powers with some ‘side effects’ that the show kind of skits around actually saying what specifically. I want to see how this’ll play out.

We get Fitz and Simmons arguing about Skye as well, with Simmons comparing Skye’s powers rather unfavourably to that of the Hulk’s, some discussion about the Avengers and whatnot, while Fitz delivers a pretty damning ‘you suck’ speech to Simmons saying how she’s so afraid of Skye and Fitz changing that she herself has changed as well. I do like how Simmons isn’t turned into some kind of super-anti-metahuman bigot and still pretty visibly caring of Skye. Still not really sold on this new direction they took with Simmons, that’s for sure, and the show’s still kind of confused on what direction they want to go with her. Fitz on the other hand is basically nearly mostly healed other than the odd stutter here and there which I don’t think is particularly realistic but I like Fitz so I don’t care.

The main meat of this episode is the revelation of the Real SHIELD from last episode’s stinger, and they want to have a transparency (despite employing, y’know, double agents) instead of all the compartmentalized secrets that the old SHIELD had. And I do like that while they’re definitely antagonizing Coulson’s group, they are still the good guys. I do like how this actually almost justifies the ridiculous influx of new characters earlier this season. I still think they could’ve handled the introductions a lot more smoothly, but at least they’re going somewhere with it. Having the mercenary Hunter be our POV to having ‘Real SHIELD’ explained is also really nice since Hunter has a mostly neutral view against both SHIELDs… though this episode makes it clear that he prefers Coulson a lot more – sure, Coulson has his problems and he hogs karaoke night (hee hee) but I do like how a nominal mercenary and loose cannon like Hunter actually sticks by his guns and defends Coulson.

Also he’s rightfully pissed off at Bobbi, and by the end of this episode manages to escape on a submarine pod or something. Bobbi at least is keeping true to her word that she specifically won’t be stopping Hunter, but everyone else will be. Thought the little argument about their relationship as opposed to the fact that she’s hiding a second SHIELD is a bit wonky, but I do like Hunter more and more as this season goes on. Such an asshole, but what an asshole.

They’re apparently led by Agent Robert Gonzales, who seems to be an experienced and mostly nice fellow if a bit harsh. There’s also this token douchebag Tomas Calderon who we didn’t see much off this episode, and rounding up the council are Anne Weaver (the headmistress of SHIELD-Hogwarts that went AWOL during the whole Hydra-is-here from season one), as well as Bobbi and Mack. I do like the inclusion of Weaver because I was wondering what happened to her for a while. But Gonzales gets the most screentime and I find him really likable. Really, the only real fault that ‘Real SHIELD’ has is that it’s not ran by the characters we all know and love, and they have some fantastic racism regarding Skye’s alien powers and especially Coulson’s alien-assisted revival. And while Bobbi and Mack are kind of biased on Coulson’s fixation on the alien writings, they kind of left out the fact that, y’know, Whitehall and his Hydra buddies are also gunning for the alien stuff.

There really isn’t much more to say about it, the revelation of a second SHIELD is a pretty neatly done twist and one that kind of feels fresh. Both SHIELDs are clearly good guys, so it’s a nice break from ‘let’s fight evil organizations’ that is feeling a bit stale after we pulled the Hydra card twice. Also the fact that it isn’t just Nick Fury again, or Maria Hill (which was what I was betting on) was also a welcome twist. Overall it’s a pretty solid episode with some excellent revelations, and some nice moments for secondary characters – Ward, 33, Hunter and Talbot all get some great screen time and they rarely do get development lately.

The Flash S01E17 Review: One Helluva Trick

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 17: Tricksters

I have caught up with all three superhero shows, except, y’know, writing reviews may take a bit more time. But let’s talk about the Flash first, because that’s the only show I make a point to watch as soon as is humanly possible while the others I usually wait until weekends. Or the weekend after. This episode is called ‘Tricksters’ and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s going to be just a filler-y episode focusing on the two Tricksters, something that’s been hyped for quite a while, and we’re going to have a break from the heavier time travel and Reverse-Flash plots. But no, naturally, we don’t.

We do take a break from Barry’s exhausting love-life, though, and that is an absolute plus.

The two main things running along this episode are the absolutely hammy Trickster plot in the present day and an Arrow-style flashback of the night where it all went down. Naturally the circumstances on how Eobard Thawne and Barry Allen went into the past is still unexplained, but we do see just what happens to Eobard Thawne and we get some unexpected explanations regarding the Reverse-Flash’s origin.

Also, while I have never watched the 90’s Flash TV show, this episode apparently is a gigantic homage to it. Not only does Henry Allen (played by the actor who played the Flash in the 90’s show) appear again after an extended absence, we also get him in a bonding moment with Barry and we have Barry straight-up reveal his identity. And Henry takes it really, really well and acts all proud and happy and stuff. The older Trickster, James Jesse, is played by Mark Hamill, who played the same character in the 90’s show… we even have stills from the old show to represent James Jesse when he was first caught by the police some 25 years ago in-universe! And to round it up, apparently the actor playing Mayor Bellows, introduced in this episode, played a character with a similar name from the 90’s show. Apparently there are several more subtle lines and props that are nods to the older show, but they are things that work even if you’re unfamiliar with the old show so they aren’t just ‘we referenced the old show, eh, geddit?’

And Mark Hamill’s Trickster? Oh lord the Trickster was a glorious hammy bastard. He’s definitely channeling a bit of the Joker, but he does make the Trickster distinctive enough so that he becomes his own character. This Trickster is a bit of a psychopath, but he’s also portrayed as this villain who holds his legacy in great esteem and is absolutely enraged and horrified that someone is masquerading as a cheap-rate knockoff of him. And indeed it does really seem to be playing up to the Flash siccing the older Trickster on the younger one… which was, by the way, something that actually happened in the comics – the younger Trickster was a psychotic loose cannon of a manchild as opposed to the first Trickster, who actually did beat up Trickster II.

But no, halfway through the episode we find out that Trickster II (who’s as much of an annoying hyperactive manchild as he is in the comics, except less orange) is actually working with Trickster I, and they are actually working together the whole time! It’s a bit of a twist for me, definitely, since I wasn’t expecting that. Hamill’s performance put me off the track, especially his angry ranting and sudden switching-off of the psychopathic ranting in the prison when Barry and Joe showed him about the pretender.

I also wasn’t expecting James Jesse’s sudden revelation that Axel Walker is his son. Yes, Mark Hamill does say ‘I am your father’. That was a glorious scene, even if it’s a bit on-the-nose.

Other than that, though, Trickster I was hilarious! Trickster II was just unstable and mostly just wallpaper, really, but Trickster I was fun. Breaking Bad jokes. Knowing when people come with candy (Trickster eats the same candy that Coulson offers Skye in this week’s Agents of SHIELD, incidentally). And I do really like that while they mention all the time that Trickster I killed guards and they had to shove cable TV into the prison to keep him docile, while Trickster II dropped bomb balloons on children, they don’t really feel dark and gritty at all and they really felt fun

The fact that they kidnapped Barry’s father out of all the people in the prison felt like too much of a convenience to me and a way to get Henry Allen to meet Barry without the excuse of a prison break.

I also did find the big ultimate plot, namely poisoning a bunch of reach people in a gala and blackmailing them to send money, to be a bit underwhelming especially since there are two Tricksters now and they were teasing ‘big bomb that will explode the city’ a while back… but that does serve as a key to bring in the kinetic bomb – something taken from the JLA comics as a countermeasure Batman prepared should the Flash turn evil, and that’s your DC comics trivia of the day. And the kinetic bomb does serve as a tutorial for Harrison Wells, er, Eobard Thawne, to tell Barry about how to embrace the Speed Force and actually vibrate his way through an object. A power which the Flash abused to no end in the comics and cartoon, and I was honestly waiting for when they are going to show it in live-action. And I must admit, it does look pretty great, as much sense as that makes. The terms ‘Speedster’ and ‘Speed Force’ are being dropped like there’s no tomorrow in this episode too. Way to embrace the comic book lingo, TV show people!

Meanwhile, as all the Trickster plot is going on, Barry is starting to show his suspicions to ‘Harrison Wells’ in snide, sarcastic remarks. I did like that scene where Barry makes a sarcastic comment about the STAR labs explosion and we cut to this hilarious expression of Harrison Wells going ‘um’. And him mouthing ‘oooh’ with a wince when Cisco googled James Jesse’s old leotard costume was hilarious too! But I digress. Anyway, we’ve got both Barry and Wells having a ball with dropping subtle, sarcastic remarks all over the place which is really fun.

We’ve also got Iris investigating Mason’s disappearance, and near the end of the episode Joe and Barry bring Eddie into the fold and reveals Flash’s identity to him. Why not reveal Flash’s identity to Iris and tell her to slowly back off, I don’t really know – even if they don’t trust Iris to write a news story about it, I’d think that they would prefer Iris be aware of the facts so she doesn’t go snooping without them knowing. Eddie doesn’t really take it well, though.

Also, they suspect Harrison Wells even more because there is no way Harrison Wells can give such an awesome in-depth tutorial on how to utilize the Speed Force. Which also ties in well with when Henry asked Barry about how it feels running at super-speed.

The flashbacks are a bit heavier compared to the lighter tune of the episode. We get to see a bit of a replay of the fight fifteen years ago, with some brief slo-mo fighting between Flash and the Reverse-Flash. That was cool. And we see what happens from the Reverse-Flash’s point of view. He loses speed and contact to the Speed Force thanks to the long time-travelling jump, and there was an actual Harrison Wells and a wife. So Eobard Thawne (played by a different actor) engineered the car accident that killed the real Harrison Wells, then used some weird face-snatching machine to melt the real Harrison Wells and reconfigure his own face to become Harrison Wells. I do like the thematic choice of having this little trick by Eobard Thawne shown in an episode showcasing the two Tricksters, because this is one big trick of his own as well.

And he’s definitely not trying to preserve the future, because he mentions that the particle accelerator should be created in 2020 but he’s moving the time-table forward for his own ends. Well, Eobard Thawne definitely have fucked up the timeline more than we know. It also neatly explains why the blood at the crime scene doesn’t correspond to Harrison Wells… because Eobard Thawne the Reverse-Flash is different than Harrison Wells.

Overall a pretty low-key, but still fun, episode. As far as I know we're on the home stretch of this season and I absolutely cannot wait.

One Piece 782 Review: Trebol's Paramecia Fruit

One Piece, Chapter 782: Evil's Champion

The cover story of this chapter is people having a party as is requisite of any One Piece arc ending. Except, y'know, the cover story isn't really that interesting and honestly kind of confusing. But that aside... this chapter was pretty good. It's still largely just fighting, and we've got an unexpected focus on Trebol. The first half of the chapter is just Luffy fighting Doflamingo in an awesome Haki melee, but the second half has Trebol join in the fight again and not be completely shitty. He still goes down kind of like a bitch, but that isn't entirely unexpected. We also get a short flashback of how Doflamingo meets the four executives which has been hinted at before.

We get a pretty awesome 'clash of Conqueror's Haki', as Trebol can somehow identify, which happens when Luffy and Doflamingo's legs come into contact with each other. Trebol then flashes back to when he first meets Doflamingo, explaining Conqueror's Haki to a young Doflamingo, presumably after he knocks out the people trying to kill him. Trebol then gives Doflamingo his Devil Fruit and his trademark gun, starting off his path of darkness.

Trebol then continues to commentate on Luffy's fight against Doflamingo, talking about how he's cut from a different cloth, his birth caused his madness, his fate caused his rage, and how he's this Yaksha demon thing and whatnot. We then get a pretty cool melee of Luffy just spinning around and launching blow after blow at Doflamingo who blocks them and takes them like a boss. Luffy then uses a new attack: Gomu Gomu Eagle Bazooka, which, as far as I can tell, is a combination of Gear Second and Armament Hardening. Not that it does anything, because Doflamingo dodges the attack and kicks Luffy with 'Athelete Thread', a kick with strings running from the tip of his feet that sends Luffy flying into the distance..

Right into Trebol's lap. And as Doflamingo goes off to smash Law's skull in Luffy keeps trying to beat Trebol up (no idea why he doesn't punch Trebol in the jaw) but is unable to do so, because apparently Trebol, like Pica, is not a Logia but rather a Paramecia. Law then talks shit about Trebol, causing him to shoot a bunch of snot bullets at Law. Trebol then moves towards Law and apparently tells Doflamingo to just 'step back'. Trebol then begins ranting about how the four executives (including a young Vergo as the heart seat) found and took a young Doflamingo and groomed him into 'evil's champion'. They kind of bow down to a young Doflamingo and go all 'we pledge our loyalty to this king' and 'we're his family' and whatnot.

The four executives act like Doflamingo's enforcers. Some thugs attacked Doflamingo? Trebol guns them down. Doflamingo trips on a street? Fuck the street, they'll raze the town to the ground just to get revenge on the street.

That last bit cracked me up.

Trebol is about to burn Law alive by setting his mucus on fire, but Law then goads Trebol, talking about how Doflamingo is just controlling everyone like puppets on strings, and how for all his talk of being Doflamingo's faithful servant and an equivalent to a family, he's nothing but a pawn. This pisses Trebol off so much and despite Doflamingo's warnings Trebol moves in for the kill. But Law gets his room up, talks about how he's a captain of his own ship and can't let Luffy steal all the glory... and summons his sliced-off hand from earlier, still holding a sword, and has it stab Trebol and slice him up with 'Sterben'.

After a pointless distraction of the Tontatta talking some random commetary, we see that Trebol is this skinny, decrepit old dude who's just hiding under a huge layer of goo all the time. It's a nice subversion of Logias and Paramecias, and this causes Trebol to light himself on fire, intending to blow everyone up.

Well, there goes Trebol, at the very least. Don't think Law can do much more either other than maybe one or two things towards the end. There's some nice arguments about whether Doflamingo truly cares about the executives he calls his family, or if Law's speech about Doflamingo simply thinking of them as puppets is the actual truth. He does seem rather concerned about Trebol when he moves in for his suicidal attack, but that could easily be interpreted as disappointment too. And he definitely cares for Vergo...

Eh, we'll see next week, I guess. Pretty great chapter, and we're going to have the big final battle between Luffy and Doflamingo soon.