Movie Review: Alien [1979]

Alien -- Director's Cut [1979]

It's near-impossible to state just how much impact the 1979 movie Alien had on pop culture perception on the sci-fi genre of fiction in general. Both Alien and its 1986 actionized sequel Aliens have, for better or for worse, shaped the sci-fi horror/action genre for decades to come. And while the actual Alien franchise might be hit-and-miss due to the creators pulling the franchise in so many different directions, but for this Halloween, I think it's going to be neat to go back and rewatch this very first movie. 

And now, mind you, this is a movie made nearly forty years ago, so a lot of the moments that made this movie revolutionary isn't really super-impressive anymore. The oh-so-iconic chestburster scene, which, at the point of this movie's release caused people to run out of the cinema and vomit in disgust, is just a "cool, gory stuff!" scene to me. Like, I recognize just how effective that scene was especially compared to the rest of the otherwise slow-paced movie, but it's never going to have the same impact on me as it did to the 1979 crowd. Or, to take another example, in the final climax of the movie when we finally see the titular Alien (or the Xenomorph) in its full glory... it looks utterly ridiculous and is obviously just a dude in a suit. Again, it's not very fair in an age where video games and movies and cartoons and all sorts of media have so much more to work with than the 1979 filmmakers. Likewise, it's hard to think of Alien's plotline as anything unique in this day with the "unprepared crew coming across a mysterious, unknown and utterly deadly organism" trope being sort of done to death, with every second sci-fi piece of fiction out there featuring this plot in some fashion.

And such, while I'll never be able to explore Alien as it was originally intended to be -- a groundbreaking sci-fi horror that did define a genre of its own -- I'll try to look past the outdated practical effects and just focus on the movie as it is presented to me.

(For those keeping track at home, I'm actually watching the Director's Cut, which I have not watched before -- I've watched the original theatrical release in the past prior to writing this review. I'll collect my thoughts about the changes that the Director's Cut did that improve or detract from my viewing experience) 

And it's easy to see why this movie became such a classic. The storyline is perhaps a bit tired now in the 2010's, but very effective, and the way that Alien's dialogue worked, with no cumbersome information-dump that modern sci-fi movies tended to do. Each line of dialogue feels natural and there's no obvious "this is an information dump to tell the audience about the setting" moments. Compare this to, say,  mission briefing scenes in Prometheus or Alien: Covenant. Not knocking those movies off, by the way, because the expository trope, when used effectively, is a way to build a richer world without being vague.

On the same token, though, while it does help to ramp up the tension, the 2-hour runtime is perhaps way, way too long, with a lot of scenes spent on honestly redundant scenes showing the exterior of the commercial spaceship Nostromo, and the climax in particular, I felt, ran too long. I do applaud the decision of keeping the titular Alien as mysterious as possible, as it works in the context of this movie, since, at the heart of it all, this movie is a horror movie. The alien's mysterious, we don't know how it works, if it's even applicable to compare it to the same sort of beast humans are used to dealing with, and add that to the fact that the Alien itself is shown in shadowed, partial cuts, with the few clear shots of him being extreme close-ups showing its now-iconic phallic head or its inner jaw... throw in the extremely bizarre eggs and facehuggers, the general 'bio-mechanical' feel of the adult xenomorph and the utterly disturbing chestburster scene, and we do get a very horrific creature that our heroes are struggling to deal with. It's not a fight against the alien, it's a movie where our heroes are just trying to survive.

And as someone who's played the video games, read some novels and watched most of the movies (I still have yet to watch the fourth one), it's actually genuinely interesting to see just how little the movie gives us. Sure, there's a hint at the (actually unnamed in this movie) Weyland-Yutani company is ordering the android Ash to hijack the alien for their own purposes, but unlike a modern-day movie, that's just an explanation for Ash's actions, and not actually the main driving force that our heroes must face and defeat. There's no huge, overarching plot beyond survival, and there's just something so primal and simple about that. Also, absolutely none of the now-common terms of "Xenomorph" or "Facehugger" or any of the sort ends up being said on-screen, and so much of the actual backstory -- especially the mysterious almost-humanoid alien with a broken chest that was the pilot of the strange spaceship they found (a.k.a. the Engineers for us modern fans). It genuinely builds up a mystique about this creature since our heroes never really find out anything much beyond "we found this weird egg that shot out a weird crab-hand monster that laid an egg that now became a murderous beast.

There is something to be said about world-building and showing more clarity, which movies like Aliens and Alien: Covenant did to their respective preceding movies, but credit where credit's due, the ambiguity here definitely helps to build up a huge chunk of atmosphere to the movie. 

And part of that atmosphere, for good or for ill, is helped by its pretty slow opening sequence -- something you'll rarely see in a modern-day movie -- where the crew of the Nostormo is awoken from their cryo-slumber. We've got the nice heroic captain Dallas, the obstructive by-the-book bureaucrat Ripley, the pair of grease monkeys who just wants to get a raise Parker and Brett, stiff science officer Ash, the ship's resident too-tired-to-give-a-shit other lady Lambert, and, um... first victim Kane. Note that there's really not any singular "THIS IS THE PROTAGONIST!", and, hell, while Ellen Ripley might be iconic nowadays, it's actually interesting to note just how utterly unremarkable she is compared to the other members of the Nostromo cast. Hell, at a point she ends up being cast like a villain to a less cynical sci-fi setting, being the one who's bound by rules and refusing to let the Facehugger'd Kane to be brought into the Nostromo without proper decontamination. Which, of course, is the logical choice considering what happened, but also cold-blooded as hell. 

Anyway, the crew of the Nostromo explores a derelict ship and they make it clear that, no, there aren't actual aliens known to mankind in this space-faring setting. The claustrophobic spacesuits and the exploration of the alien ship on a planet with slightly-hostile weather might be a little low-budget, but the equal amounts of confusion, fear and wonder shown are pretty well-shown. And I suppose there's a bit of exposition, but it's worked smoothly into Ash, Dallas, Kane and Ripley arguing about protocol -- especially considering that they're essentially a group of glorified future space-truckers.

The scene where the crew discovers the mysterious dead navigator of the ship with a hole in his chest, and no other members of the crew, and then the strange, rock-like eggs with placenta inside, with the crab-like, hand-like facehugger jumping out... I've always felt that this sequence is far more unnerving than most of the things that the adult alien does, really. And then we have a rather long bit of the crew discovering the acid blood as they try to figure out just what to do with the-comatose-Kane-with-a-facehugger-on-his-face.

And then, of course, the facehugger ends up letting go of Kane and shriveling up, before a fun dinner where he suddenly has convulsions and the worm/penis-like Chestburster bursts out of his chest in a gruesome fashion, and the rest of the movie ends up being a cat-and-mouse game of chasing the alien, with the crew being picked off one by one. Brett dies next for the mistake of going off alone to look for a cat, and then Dallas, trying to do the heroic thing to get into the vents, gets picked off next -- Dallas's death with the 'jumpscare' is one of the scenes that utterly underwhelmed me, by the way, although the buildup with the rest of the crew only having 'blips' to work with is pretty tense.

And then the movie takes a brief break from the Alien-hunting to have Ripley and Ash argue about objectives, especially when Ripley finds out that Ash has been receiving secret orders to bring the creature back, with the rest of the crew being expendable... leading to Ash trying to... choke Ripley to death by shoving a magazine into her mouth? For a robot that later displays superhuman feats of strength, that's kind of a bizarrely odd scene that I'll genuinely criticize. The subsequent struggle as Parker arriving, and then knocking off Ash's head and discovering that he's an android? I really do love how the cast implies that, yes, they know what androids are, that androids exist... it's the fact that Ash is one that's interesting. And Ian Holm does deliver a magnificent performance, and anyone watching Alien with the knowledge that Ash is a robot with secret orders will actually see a lot of behaviour that does help build this up without letting anything slip. Oh, and it's around this part of the movie when you realize that Ripley's the main character -- although the movie still splits up its screentime relatively equally between her, Lambert and Parker. After a quick interrogation and killing Ash, the remaining three decides to escape in a shuttle and blow Nostromo up...

And then... Ripley splits up, which honestly would set her for being killed, but all she does is chase the cat while the Alien shows up and murders Parker and Lambert. And the climax of the movie is basically Ripley against the Alien, which... which takes way too long, honestly. At this point it's just a bit repetitive as Ripley runs around in the Nostromo trying to activate, prevent and later evade the self-destruct sequence, which honestly felt a wee bit too repetitive. (The Director's Cut adds an extra, formerly-deleted scene of her having to confront the fact that the Alien seems to be trying to reproduce by turning Brett and Dallas into new eggs) And then the Nostromo explodes, and we have Ripley and Jones the cat in the shuttle, with her relaxed and the movie setting up for a calm ending... only for the Alien to reveal that it's snuck onto the ship. And it's... just chilling among the background, which I feel really tones down its scariness, and it's around this point that we actually start to see the full form of the Alien and... it's a lot less scary, although it might just be that I'm fully desensitized? I suppose. And I suppose I'm just used to the far more bestial and skeletal look of them due to other media. Ripley shoots the alien out into space, fries it with the shuttle's exhaust vents, and the movie ends with her and the cat as the only survivors.

And you know what? As a movie meant to be a stand-alone horror sci-fi story, this is pretty damn great and tense. It's no wonder that this movie ends up spawning a franchise of its own, and it's arguable, really, which direction is the right way to go, and at this point so many different portrayals of the franchise exists that it's impossible to say that we need to go back to the formula of Alien or Aliens or any of its sequel or peripheral material, especially when you take into account the current average viewer's tastes in media. And to say nothing of us fans that demand perfect continuity and explanations to mysteries (doesn't help that all but three of the new material are all prequels), and whether those mysteries should or should not ever be solved.

Overall, though, while its effects are dated and its pacing and climax might be underwhelming, it's interesting that despite a 40-year-old gap between its release and my rewatch of it last week, the movie still manages to retain an aura of tension, dread and horror. It's classic for a reason. 

Director's Cut Changes:

• I'm not going into pendantic detail on "this long scene was cut" or "this scene got an extra second or two added", just narrative elements that I noticed and felt like it improved/detracted from the movie. 
• The biggest scene, of course, is at the climax when Ripley discovers that Brett and Dallas aren't actually dead, but abducted by the Alien and are being turned into new eggs, and Ripley subsequently flamethrower-ing the half-dead crewmembers, which actually ends up tying into the whole "where's the rest of the crew?" question from Kane and Dallas earlier when they were exploring the derelict ship. It's definitely a contradictory scene for continuity purposes considering the egg-laying Alien Queen in Aliens (although, honestly, you could handwave anything about them with 'alien biology'), but it does add to the sheer wrongness and horror around the ship, and honestly breaks up the otherwise samey "Ripley runs a lot" segment of the movie.
• One of the more interesting alternate scenes added in the Director's Cut is the reaction to the crew after they returned from the derelict ship, with Lambert slapping Ripley for locking them out, and Dallas admonishing her for disobeying orders. Too add into the inter-crew conflict about what should have been done, Parker raises concerns about why they don't just freeze Kane and if he's still even alive -- which I thought adds a lot more of an organic reaction to the heated debate on whether Ripley should open the door to them. 
• Interestingly, the scene where Dallas notes that Ash was assigned to the crew of the Nostromo two days before its departure was removed, which ends up painting the whole movie as one of an unfortunate coincidence instead of being premediated -- although the orders from the Mother computer still does imply that the company wants the Alien, premediated or not. I thought this actually removes the "so what about the company?" thoroughline and makes the conflict boil down to just the crew surviving against the alien and Ash. 
• We get to glimpse the adult alien a bit earlier, when he's looking down on Brett from the chains above. Actually quite cool, and we also get to see Ripley and Parker running into the room to investigate Brett's cries and only getting splattered with blood instead. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E19 Review: Ego Complex

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 19: Emperor Stark

What initially started off as "the new guy's spotlight episode'' ended  up being a pretty dang good episode! The episode starts off with the automatic repairs done to Vision two episodes ago completing, and Vision wakes up... in a world where Iron Man is like supreme overlord of the world? With Avengers and giant Sentinel-esque Iron Man drones patrolling the world? It's an interesting concept, and while it's not Stark's ego that went haywire and merely a mind-controlling villain in Killgrave (known here by his far less cool comic-book moniker, Purple Man), it's still very interesting for Vision to try and figure out how to handle this situation. 

Purple Man's taken over Tony Stark and used him as a conduit to spread his own influence and powers through a satellite, and we get a pretty cool scene where he tells Tony that everything he does is basically a corruption of Tony's own desires for ego, for control, for power... yet it's not Tony that's at the helm, but the Purple Man. With a voice provided by Star Trek's Brent Spiner, the Purple Man is a pretty gloriously sleazy villain. I'm not sure how much of his taunts are true, and at the end of the episode it's the same doubts that end up plaguing Iron Man's head. Sure, there's the whole mind control aspect and Captain America is quick to quash that particular train of thought, but Tony Stark's seen just how out of control his own ego can get, and what's to say some part of him doesn't actually want this?

And while the episode doesn't actually go deep into exploring the deep mental ramifications of Tony's control by Killgrave, the Vision story is pretty well-told as well. Free from the origin story baggage, Vision is free to just be a hero. And while he suffers from the same problem with Ms. Marvel that he's just... a hero without any real specific characterization, we do get a lot of great moments thanks to his more logic-oriented mindset. He ends up facing against Captain America and makes use of Cap's speech from episode 17 about what separates humans and machines to break him free of Killgrave's control.

Next up, Vision and Cap face off against Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel, leading to a pretty badass moment where Cap and Hawkeye argue about allegiances, with Captain America telling Hawkeye that "you've never listened to anyone's orders, now you're going to die because Tony Stark tells you to?" It's a line that really builds up on one and a half season's worth of history with Hawkeye easily being the most independent of the Avengers, and it's at this point where poor Marvel's lack of significant backstory ends up hurting the episode. She breaks free because... she feels bad for killing? That's not quite the history and emotional-driven freeing of mind control that Cap and Hawkeye went through. Oh, and Ms. Marvel ends up succumbing to the mind control again halfway through the climax, just because.

Of course, the Avengers take down the satellite, Iron Man manages to break free of the Purple Man's control at the last second, and in-between it all we get the utterly badass moment with Vision. "I will deal with Thor", he says, stepping out of the Quinjet and then increasing his density a couple hundred times before dropping down like a meteor to meet the charging Thor. Pretty badass sequence.

Overall, despite my complaints, an actually solid episode that I enjoyed the whole way through. 

Arrow S07E02 Review: Quirky Miniboss Squad

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 2: The Longbow Hunters

This episode of Arrow was... all right? I'm still unconvinced about the flash-forwards as a storytelling mechanic, because this episode's flash-forward brings to mind some of the worst habits of the show's less-spectacular flashbacks (the Baron Reiter and Konstantin Kovar ones, in particular) of just giving bits of a smaller story that honestly just feel like a distraction. This time around, Future-William convinces Future-Roy to... return back to Star City after looking at an enigmatic note. Honestly, there's not much for me to say there.

Honestly, with Oliver in the prison, I would argue that it would be enough to tide over the show's love for separate subplot that tangentially affects the main story, and do away with the flash-whatevers. In this episode, Oliver's sort of forced into a tight position because Brick and company tells Oliver to... get rid of the warden in some way. Oliver can't blackmail him, and he straight-up refuses to kill him, and the warden hates vigilantes so he refuses to take Oliver's warnings seriously. With Brick threatening to murder the warden himself (or get someone else to murder the warden), Oliver ends up getting the job done by... making it look like the warden stabbed Oliver, making it so that the warden's suspended or some shit? I dunno. It's all right, I suppose.

The rest of the cast is sort of divided in this duck-and-goose chase with Ricardo Diaz, who actually does some actual fighting in this episode instead of throwing non-combatant women around in an apartment. I still have a hard time that a dude like Ricardo Diaz gave Team Arrow and ARGUS so much problems because in the past six seasons we've dealt with immortal magic men, assassins and terrorists holding the city hostage. Even with a flamethrower on a train, I have a hard time buying into Ricardo Diaz as this super-elusive threat no one can capture. Or, honestly, the Longbow Hunters as being 'better than anyone'... did we not have an entire League of Assassins a couple seasons ago? And the whole Legion of Arrow Enemies bit last season? But, sure, dude with a shield is totally more threatening than Ra's al Ghul or Anarky or Vigilante.

Still, we do get that pretty badass fight scene between Diaz and Diggle on the train, which, again, is pretty damn badass.

Also, Diaz's little quirky miniboss squad, the Longbow Hunters, show up. For obvious reasons the comic-book team is kind of out other than Red Dart, so we get two new characters -- some bloke with a bladed shield, and a lady whose powers is to make a cone of silence, and seems to exist just to counter the Canaries. They're.... they're all right, I guess?

The various character subplots in this episode are done well. We get an argument between Diggle and Felicity, with Diggle wanting to do things by the book and take things slow, while Felicity is way, way too wrapped up in her own personal issues of getting revenge on Ricardo Diaz. I think the episode does a pretty good job of having both characters scream at each other while being mature enough to recognize the other side's argument.

Meanwhile, Laurel II (a bit easier to type than Not-Laurel) and Dinah are... sort of barely tolerating each other. Laurel II is actively hunting down Quentin's killer and apparently developed a soul  and apologizes, which is a good moment, while Dinah's angry at her but still vows to protect her. They team up against the silence-dome Longbow Hunter lady, and sort of bond. Or become frenemies. Or something.


Speaking of frenemies teaming up, Felicity goes up to Agent Watson to team up and hunt down Ricardo Diaz more effectively... and honestly, I'm actually applauding Felicity's restraint in her talk to Watson. Because for all of Watson hoo-ha about bringing Diaz down, apparently six months in and her holier-than-thou crusade ended up with absolutely nothing, and vigilantes and ARGUS (whose jurisdiction is definitely not gangsters) have to pick up her slack. Watson easily takes the cake for the most incompetent-competent-character in the entirety of CW.

Overall, though, despite some of my hang-ups with the threat levels or competence levels of some characters, this episode's honestly kind of an okay one. We've got a fun little introduction to a bunch of recurring enemies, some team-ups, and even some character development on some characters' fronts. Also, how refreshing is it for arguments within the team to not spiral out of control into an ill-defined poorly-handled sub-plot that lasts for half a season?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The silence-cone lady and the shield-dude's names aren't revealed yet, but the dart-throwing woman that's part of the Longbow Hunters is clearly Red Dart, specifically the New 52 version of the character, who is a dart-wielding woman that was a member of the Longbow Hunters. Previous versions of the Red Dart have also been Green Arrow villains. 

Black Lightning S02E03 Review: Wacky Pacing

Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 3: Master Lowry

(Okay, I'm not going to type the whole ridiculously long title out in these things. It's tiring.) 

And speaking of which, this episode is... it's not that great. It's not bad, by any means, but it's easily an episode that sort of jumps all over the place with its pacing, especially the back half of this episode. There are many subplots that happen in this episode -- Jefferson Pierce dealing with the kinda-douchey new princpal (but not really, it's just setup); Jefferson Pierce and Henderson trying to make up (but not really, they're still tsundere); a confrontation between Black Lightning and Painkiller (but not really, they just kind of talk a bit); Anissa still going around stealing stuff and this time teaming up with Gambi; Lynn being introduced to the possibly-psychotic dr. Jace; Jennifer suddenly going into an impromptu therapy session with a mind-reading metahuman we've never seen before; and Tobias Whale getting randomly arrested at the end of the episode without much buildup or warning.

Sure, that Tobias thing is probably just all part of his plan or something, all Loki-like, but the rest of the episode just feels bizarrely paced. A lot of the scenes seem to be just... events happening without any real sense of importance beyond the episode waving them in our faces and going "THIS IS IMPORTANT PAY ATTENTION". Like the principal or Lynn's new psycho-doctor coworker. It's like they want to show that things are happening, but don't want to overplay their hand. Which is sometimes a great literary tool in serialized writing... but only if the episode had a bigger plot that all of these smaller plotlines can piggyback on. And I don't really think this episode has that -- the characters just sort of jump around minor subplots in a bizarre montage of subplots that the show knows it's important to show, but not much else.

Like, the scenes are acted well, but at the same time, a lot of them are scenes we've seen before, and it's bizarre why this episode seem to want to cram so much yet tell so little. An entire episode could've been made out of focusing around Khalil while  the Pierce family drama plays in the background. But no, Khalil gets put through the same "jump from one scene to the next" treatment as the rest of the character. Or maybe it's Jennifer with her parents randomly bringing in this random Charles-Xavier-esque therapist lady... but even that is treated as an afterthought, with Perina being introduced quite literally out of nowhere and having zero personality or characterization.

Overall, a pretty weak episode of Black Lightning, honestly, messy and cluttered. I don't mind an episode made up of smaller sub-plots, but none of the ones that take place in this episode are individually engaging enough to make me really care. No doubt new principal Lowry and dr. Psycho or whoever Lynn's new coworker is called are going to be huge players down the line, but this is a pretty poor attempt at introducing them.

My Hero Academia 203 Review: Iida Does Something

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 203: Flexible! Juzo Honenuki!

Brief tentative announcement -- I've begun to watch the Boku no Hero Academia, mostly because I got some of my good friends into watching it. I've been on-and-off about anime reviews, mostly centering around anime that I haven't watched before (Dragon Ball Super and Overlord), or on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a series that I'm pretty passionate about. I haven't reviewed a lot of the other anime series I've watched recently, for the simple reason that I don't think I can do those episode-by-episode, or by default they're just so serialized that I really don't have much to say about the episodes beyond "I enjoy this". I think for Boku no Hero Academia's anime, I'll try and do seasonal reviews? Maybe I should do seasonal reviews a bit more often, I guess? We'll see.

Anyway,  this chapter is... it's another one that feels pretty short. We get a brief scene of Endeavour trying to reconnect with Todoroki, and I do like the balance between not shying away from just how utterly abusive Endeavour is to Todoroki, while at the same time trying to show his character growth. It's definitely something I respect this series for doing -- most manga tend to just frame abusive parents as straight-up asshole irredeemable parents, or to show that all their abuse somehow, through some logic, is actually something that strengthens their children. Or if you're Fairy Tail, you forgive every sin someone commits against you if they feel bad. 

Anyway, we're continuing with the fight between 1A and 1B, and I'm not going to do a play-by-play rundown. It's a pretty badass gigantic ice blast that Todoroki did, and we get to see some of the 1B class members' powers. The huge lynchpin of the team that Todoroki and Iida's group are facing against is Juzo Honenuki, who has the ability to soften anything -- seemingly in a pretty huge area, too. Interestingly, despite his pretty cool Tron-esque getup, he's the dude with the skeletal face!

One of the 1B dudes, Sen Kaibara, apparently has a pretty simple "spin my body parts" ability, and he fights against Ojiro the tail-dude. I really must ask what the school board is thinking, honestly -- unless Ojiro is able to do something spectacular with that giant tail of his, how the fuck did he get lumped into the 1A class when we have people like Kuroiro, Komori, Honenuki or Shishida with their far, far more impressive quirks? 

We also get to see Pony's quirk, which is just... horn boomerangs? Okay. It manages to take out Shouji, in any case. Tetsutetsutetsutetsutetsu fights against Todoroki in hand-to-hand combat, just bullrushing in and trying to cut off Todoroki's ranged attack advantage, while the cliffhanger-of-the-week goes to Iida breaking free from being trapped in the softened ice, because apparently in-between major arcs (and it's been a long time since Iida's been relevant) he's apparently improved his quirk and cut down the cooldown significantly. Okay, then. Overall, it's still more of the same "have you and you fight",  and it's still pretty neat. The chapters do feel a bit shorter than normal, though I'm pretty sure this whole arc is going to be one that'll feel a lot better in tankobon format. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E18 Review: What? Your ANTMAN is evolving!

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2,  Episode 17: Yellowjacket

Another episode that I am not the biggest fan of. We haven't seen Hank Pym in a while since the show sort of writes out his absence in that he's handed over the mantle of Ant-Man to Scott Lang... but Hank Pym himself ends up apparently going more and more crazy until he ends up being a bit of a hermit, trying to sell the idea of an even-smaller micro-sized prison to Tony and Janet... before he gets totally blown up! We get a funeral scene, and Janet ends up going on the warpath in trying to find out who the hell killed the man she loves. And those scenes are actually pretty well done. The Avengers scrambling to, well, avenge one of their own, and trying to talk Janet down from doing something stupid.

Complicating matters is the fact that a new vigilante calling himself Yellowjacket is making waves through town, being popular with the crowd for the decisive and seemingly final way that he deals with villains. The problem here is that Yellowjacket is also hunting down the Serpent Society and seemingly vaporizing them instantly, while the Serpent Society are the main suspects in Hank Pym's alleged death.

Of course, the twist is that Yellowjacket is actually Hank Pym, who's gone so crazy that his mind has fractured and invented everything that Hank is not as Ant-Man. Yellowjacket is brash, rude and picks fights in stark contrast to Ant-Man's pacifism. A superior or more well-planned-out show would actually make use of Ultron's return last episode and maybe tie this in to the Ant-Man/Yellowjacket story, but no, instead we get this honestly pretty sub-par dragged-out mystery where the rest of the Avengers refuse to believe Janet's claims that Yellowjacket is Hank Pym, whereas Yellowjacket is... just kinda fucking nuts. 

The episode has a climax where the absolutely stupid Serpent Society (their dumbass insistence on fighting while the prison is threatening to crush them is pretty silly) and the Avengers are trapped within Yellowjacket's shrink-gun and the micro-prison, working together with Hank/Yellowjacket to get out of the prison. The episode ends with Hank completely subsumed by the more violent and gung ho Yellowjacket persona and, like Vision, I'm unconvinced that the character shift is warranted. Maybe part of it is that I find Yellowjacket pretty dang unlikeable, or maybe because I'm just baffled that the argument is "should we accept him or not?" instead of getting some real psychiatric help for Hank. It's not really a matter of forcing Hank to be someone who he isn't when he clearly isn't right in the head, no? 

Ultimately, the best part of the episode remains Janet. From her frustrations on the first half of the episode, to her desperation to get Hank back... and her final conversation with Tony and her desperate pleas about how she's "always been the happy camper" and she's only ever going to ask for one thing -- to get Hank back... it's pretty haunting and well-written, showing just how desperately Janet misses and loves Hank. But, of course, the show insists on pushing this bizarre secondary personality, which I'm just completely bamboozled about. Not my favourite twist, and if this is a more comic-accurate depiction of Hank Pym's Yellowjacket persona (as I've stated, not the most familiar with Marvel comics lore) I'm actually glad they retooled it for the movies. 

The Flash S05E03 Review: Kinder Flash

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 3: The Death of Vibe

This is an... interesting episode. It's honestly kind of a running gag at this point that every season of The Flash is going to have a new alternate-universe Harrison Wells, allowing Tom Cavanagh to stay as a regular while having a rotating cast... but it's honestly kind of played its part, in my opinion, around the time of H.R. Wells. It's became something that you expect as a running gag, and honestly doesn't quite have the same oomph of Harrison Wells appearing from Earth-2 back in the second season. And after a brief gag with returning minor character Herr Wells (who is a huge, huge Flash fanboy and is hilariously polite to everyone), we get the real new Wells of this season -- Harrison Sherloque Wells, a French detective. And he's... kind of a one-note joke? Don't get me wrong, Cavanagh is fantastic as always, but this thinly-veiled Sherlock Holmes caricature seem to be pretty one-note in joke delivery.

Sherloque Wells is at least a dick, just like most other Wells-es out there, and at least his Sherlockian moniker isn't just for show as he displays in some Batcomputer-level deduction skills at the climax of the episode. I do really feel like this joke well (heh heh, well) is kind of played out, though. Also, apparently Sherloque Wells is... a Cicada expert? Who has went to 37 different Earths and found 37 different David Hersch-es as the alternate identities of Cicada? It's kind of a subtle meta-joke to all of us who expected Adrian Chase to be Vigilante two seasons ago in Arrow, I suppose, but it does end up as part of a "god damn it, time travel" bit, because Nora's time-travel has completely fucked up the timeline and David Hersch is... just a regular dude (fine, a potential criminal) and not Cicada.

We do get some buildup on Cicada, delivered in an actually awesome monologue by Nora, noting that among the villains in the Flash Museum, Cicada is the only one that the Flash never captured nor defeated, and the only thing known about him is the buggy sound he makes -- and not even the Green Arrow or Supergirl or the League (!!!) managed to capture Cicada. And that Nora's manipulation of the timeline seems to have caused him to appear several years early.

Cicada, interestingly, continues to be a major player throughout the episode, attacking Joe West in his house in a pretty tense sequence, demanding that Joe bring out Vibe. This leads to the crux of the episode, that Cicada is obsessed with killing Vibe, while Barry tells Nora the lesson-of-the-week of thinking before you act, causing Nora to basically think up of a plan to fake Vibe's death by teleporting him elsewhere, inspired by Sherloque's initial attempt to run back to Earth-12 by faking his death. It's simple, although it's not flat-out bad. And that's... that's okay. It's some neat buildup for both Cicada and Nora's characters, while introducing what I'm assuming is a new regular character for the show.

I'm not sure if this means that the show will retire Vibe temporarily, which honestly just sounds kind of stupid if they're going to keep Cisco from helping out in the field for the vague reason of "Cicada will think he's alive", but whatever. We also get a brief glimpse of Cicada's true goal, which seems to revolve around a sick, comatose daughter -- which they keep enigmatic, of course. Sherloque also drops a bit of a bombshell, asking Nora why he chose that very moment -- stopping DeVoe's satellite -- to act, instead of any of the other huge moments, and from Nora's expression, it seems that she's actually deliberate in altering that particular part of history. We'll see.

The B-plot in this episode is actually interesting. Ralph, embarrassed when his attempt to stop a silly super-environmentalist robber (who goes unnamed) ends up with the crowd photographing him transformed into a gigantic blob and posting it on the interwebs, and despite being a fellow detective, Sherloque completely showed him up.

Caitlin takes advantage of Ralph's sullenness (something that, interestingly enough, Caitlin herself admits and apologizes for later) to get him to help her in investigating the matter of her dad. I'm actually somewhat invested in this plotline, due to how consistently it's been built up and each episode seems to progress this slightly. This time around, Nora's mom denies all knowledge of the death, and a little break-in ends up with Ralph and Caitlin breaking into her mom's files, finding... a suicide note.

And you'd think that that's it, because that'd actually be an interesting thing and a plausible excuse for Carla to hide it from her daughter, but on the other hand, after a bit of talk with Ralph, Caitlin discovers that apparently his dad coded "come find me Caitlin", a code that can only be broken if you understand the little daughter-daddy-made fake periodic table that only Caitlin understands. It's an interesting mystery, I guess. We'll see. Caitlin Snow has been one of the most problematic characters in this show since the writers clearly have no idea what to do with her (see: seasons two through four), so I really, really hope this season does her character some justice with a proper plotline.  

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Flash Museum is a thing from the comics, of course, first appearing in the future (and where future villains like Abra Kadabra and Eobard Thawne learned all about the Flash). And naturally, it's filled with a whole ton of funky gear. We've got Reverse-Flash and Savitar's costumes, Heatwave's flamethrower and Weather Wizard's wand, among others. 
• Among the superheroes that Nora notes were unable to capture Cicada is "the League",  which, I think, is the first outright reference to the Justice League in the CW-verse. 
• Cicada's first victim is a metahuman named Floyd Belkin, which is the civilian name of minor Legion of Super-Heroes character Arm-Fall-Off Boy. No, I'm not making that up, and yes, that name is exactly what that character can do. 
• David Hersch, of course, is Cicada's comic-book counterpart's real identity. Also, just like in the comics, Cicada's goal seems to bring a loved one out of a coma -- his wife in the comics, and his daughter here. 

Overlord S02E13 Review: Rolled a 20 in Deception

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 13: The Ultimate Trump Card

So the episode does feel a little fast-paced, and I do wonder if this whole 'attack on the Re-Estize capital' battle wouldn't have worked better if they gave it half an episode's worth more of screentime. I dunno. I suppose it does work out to show just how hectic everything is?

We start off with Prince Zanac running around telling people not to be afraid and being inspirational as a member of the royal family that actually takes to the field. Definitely didn't expect it from him -- when Zanac was first introduced, I thought he was your typical "fat asshole prince that doesn't do anything". We also see that the soldiers that go past Demiurge's Gehenna flame are met with these monsters like hellhounds, gargoyle-like things, and "Overeating", who is this big green frog-thing with a sad face that, after eating a human, will cause that human's screaming face to appear on his body like a wart. Yeah, pretty nightmarish. Also Momon one-shots it and acts all cool to rally the adventurers and soldiers.

Meanwhile, as the battle goes on, Brain ends up finding Shalltear, who's... who's dressed up with a wig, a full-face mask, and a genuinely fancy white dress. Honestly, I'm genuinely not sure how Brain identified her. Shalltear acts like she's forgotten who Brain is, and Brain zooms in and does battle with Shalltear, panicking that there are two god-tier demons running around the city... and Brain manages to break Shalltear's nail! The man just straight-up is overcome with joy while Shalltear is hilariously confused with "um... you pass as a nail clipper?" Can't fault Brain for finding just so much joy, though, because, as he said, as  far as he's concerned, he's reached unattainable heights for an instant.

This particular fight ends up being kind of aborted as Brain escapes, ends up next to Climb... and Shalltear leaves the two alone. In the chaos of the fast-paced episode it's a bit hard to notice and you'd be forgiven to think that Shalltear just lost interest, but Demiurge did instruct everyone to not kill a certain person. So that dude is Climb, presumably? So it seems Demiurge is conspirating with Princess Renner, or he's trying to use Climb as an eventual leverage against Renner. Interesting.

Meanthile, Momon, Nabe and Evileye face off against "Jaldabaoth" and his minions, the masked battle maids, and we have the most adorable non-voiced bit as the battle maids are arrayed against the adventurers and Entoma just raises her kimono hands angrily. Not even any creepy bug noises or centipedes or spider legs or anything, it's just her frilly kimono sleeves in a grr grr posture, and Yuri Alpha has to put her hands on her shoulder going "not now".

Also hilarious is Momon's yell of challenge at Jaldabaoth. "Come at me Demiu- DEMMoon yes demon!" That's funny.

And as the great adventurer Momon and the demon invader Jaldabaoth fights off and creates explosions all around, "Nabe" fights three of the maids, while Evileye has to face off against Yuri Alpha and CZ Delta. (Pronounced "Shizu", apparently)

The actual fight scenes are pretty fun, if short,  with more shots of Ainz and Demiurge clashing in their guises, as well as the genuinely cool crystal walls and blasts that Evileye summons, while Yuri Alpha just bashes through everything with her giant cactus gauntlets and... and CZ Delta just has... a god-damn fucking gun. Not a dark-ages "we have just discovered gunpowder" gun either, a straight-up futuristic space rifle.

Um...

Um....

Okay, yeah, I mean, sure. Why not? Apparently robot maids with machineguns are a thing in Yggdrasil. It's not just an average fantasy RPG, because apparently you get paramilitary cyborg maids with laser machineguns. CZ is the one maid that I don't think ever got any screentime at all -- all the others have been prominent or at least name-dropped.

Yeah, why not.

Meanwhile, we cut away to Gazef Stronoff arriving and using his sixfold martial arts skill to slice up another Overeater. Gazef and his troops are supposed to be the guards of the king, but apparently the king took a page out of Zanac's book, and decided to ride into the battlefield itself so that Gazef and his forces has an excuse to "protect the king". Considering we haven't seen much of the king, it's a pretty badass move for sure. Oh, also, Gagaran and Tia are resurrected off-screen, but with huge penalties to their current fighting capabilities. In D&D terms, level losses.

Meanwhile, in a pretty badass and well-done moment, "Momon" and "Jaldabaoth" take their fight to another part of the city, and explosions totally rock the town thanks to Mare manipulating the earth, giving the impression of a titanic battle taking place.

Ainz and Demiurge now sit face to face, with Ainz once more trying to bluff his way past Demiurge's plans. And Demiurge, for his part, just seems smug instead of actually mocking Ainz although who knows? The man has two expressions -- smug smile and smug smile with teeth. It's hilarious to see how Ainz bluffs, too. Demiurge says that he has four objectives, and Ainz immediately goes "Oh? I thought there were only three, you have exceeded my expectations" "Ufufu you are too kind."

Demiurge describes the goals as first stealing the funds from the Eight Fingers (which we saw two episodes ago), to cover up the fact that Nazarick forces are attacking several parts in the city (which they were ordered to do so by Ainz to save Tuare), and to provide a narrative and a cause for "Jaldabaoth's" attack, Demiurge is going to pretend to fail to obtain a powerful demonic artifact that he's going to leave behind in Eight Fingers' possession, thereby implicating them even further.

The item in question, by the way, is an actual powerful demonic artifact, Armaggedon Evil, a powerful weapon that Demiurge's creator Ulbert had made. As smart as Demiurge is, why would you leave that in human hands? Ainz gives Demiurge a failed, inferior prototype that Ulbert made way before then, which ends up looking like this huge boon to Demiurge, allowing him to keep the precious item that Ulbert left to him. (Maybe don't use that precious item for what amounts to a cover story, then, Demiurge?)

Demiurge then continues with the final stage of his machinations, which is to take all the humans within the Gehenna flame wall, and kidnap them for the good of Nazarick. In a pretty cold line which really shows just how Ainz is actually starting to slowly lose his humanity, Ainz tells Demiurge that he has no affinity for humans if they die for Nazarick's benefit -- just as long as Demiurge doesn't make them suffer. So is Ainz slowly becoming the mask of this undead overlord, then, instead of trying to change how Nazarick's people behave? "Where's my soul" indeed.

And then, of course, Demiurge and Ainz notes that there's now another advantage to their little plan -- the great evil Jaldabaoth that threatens humanity can be driven away by Momon, increasing the reputation of Ainz's human adventurer guise.

Cutting back to said adventurer's partner, "Nabe" is actually just hanging out with Lupusregina, Solution and Entoma behind some rocks and gossiping. Among them, apparently Lupusregina don't mind humans all that much (she is assigned to Carne Village, right?) while Solution actually remembers human names (is that before or after Tuare?). Entoma's voice shocks the other three maids, so they've apparently not heard it before?

And then "Momon" and "Jaldabaoth" shows up again, with a lot of badass sword-throwing, spellcasting, jumping, including a scene where Jaldabaoth melts a huge chunk of Momon's sword... and then Momon pulls out Frost Pain? Poor Zaryusu! Apparently this display of icy magic causes Jaldabaoth so much "distress" and I thought that for someone who's actually been acting pretty well throughout this arc, Demiurge's "we are making our retreat, yes? Retreat! UNFORTUNATELY WE LEFT AN ITEM BEHIND." bit to be hilariously transparent if Evileye isn't so intent on fangirling over Momon.

The next couple of scenes is just a little victory montage for the adventurers and soldiers of Re-Estize for bringing down Eight Fingers and driving out a mighty demon... although they did lose a whole lot of civilians (it's implied the only ones they managed to save is the warehouse Climb found). Momon gains the thanks of the kingdom's nobles, and Evileye is totally in love with Momon and we get to see her full vampire face. So this was what she meant when she told Climb to not give up his humanity, then?

Far more unsettling, though, is the revelation of what Mare and Aura have been doing to the Eight Fingers leaders. We last saw Mare breaking the leg of Hilma, and apparently in the meantime, Mare tortured Hlima with some dude called Kyohokou who continually ate Hilma from the inside out, causing her to sell out the other remaining leaders of the Eight Fingers... and thus putting them all under the mercies of Aura and Mare. There's just something about seeing two kids merrily threatening people with horrendous, "eat your innards" torture and bending them to their will that's just so wrong compared to when it's Demiurge or Ainz that does it.

We get a couple of scenes showing a couple of scenes, like Climb reporting to Renner in such an innocent scene. We have Tuare being trained as a maid under the cares of Sebas and the dog maid Wanko, we get the requisite scene of Ainz sitting on a throne presiding over Nazarick's residents, with all aspects of his rule being made stronger after this whole Re-Estize arc (while possibly losing even more of his humanity? Is that going to be the huge theme of this series?).

And then we get the final scene being this Roman-style Emperor talking to his advisor, an old Gandalf-esque character with a huge beard, presumably the rulers of the Baharuth Empire, investigating both the adventurer Momon and the mysterious mage Ainz Ooal Gown. Season three teasers!

The whole "Battle in Kingdom's Capital"  definitely could've been paced a lot better, I think, and I'm not sure if we needed so much Evileye in it considering she essentially doesn't do much other than her action scenes. I do understand the importance of having another high-level adventurer that can at least pose a challenge to Ainz's minions, but after beating Entoma, she ends up being a one-note joke delivery system for being a fangirl to Ainz. Also, for being such a prominent character in the previous arc, Sebas's storyline ended up with a pretty bland little sidequest where he just walks in, kicks Zero and it's over. Still, it is a pretty exciting arc where most of our characters got something to do (poor Albedo, though) and I, for one, enjoyed myself.

Perhaps the biggest and most fair criticism for Overlord II is how little Ainz himself is in it, but I think that's the whole point of the season. How the world views Ainz, the main who is supposedly this untouchable Overlord (with no one aware of the true mentality of the human soul from the 'real' world). We get to see Ainz from the viewpoints of the denizens of this world being oppressed and conquered by him during the Lizardman arc, we get to see Ainz from the viewpoints of his retainers in the Sebas arc, and in this arc we get to see how his other guise, Momon, is viewed by other adventurers. And simultaneously have this whole "oh my god, you're such a better conspirator and master planner than I am" bit from Demiurge. It's an interesting writing style to focus on how others perceive your main character, and I have to say, I do think that for the most part it works out. Next up... Overlord III!

Legends of Tomorrow S04E01 Review: Made On Drugs

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 4, Episode 1: The Virgin Gary

The third season of Legends of Tomorrow ended with the sequel hook of "defeating Mallus unleashed mystical, magical threats into the world", opening the possibility of a fourth season that deals primarily with magical threats that may or may not be based around Hellblazer's mythos. Of course, that same episode also had the season-long villain be defeated by a goddamn giant trademark-friendly Furby. 

So... yeah. Legends of Tomorrow is a bizarre beast of a show that is basically the live action superhero TV's version of 2003's Teen Titans cartoon. Far more intent on doing its own bizarre wacky shit instead of actually being epic and stuff. And it's okay! It's good for a laugh.

Still, this episode sort of really attempts to ramp up the laughs to a perhaps absurd degree. Sure, we've got a couple of standard subplots. Sara and Sharpe have a one-note subplot about trust and relationships. Constantine and Sara have a conversation about trust and how Constantine really needs to join their team. We get Ray making excuses for apparently releasing Nora Darrhk between seasons. Nate has this whole mini subplot about his distant parents. But all of these subplots, combined, barely take up five minutes of the screentime, tops. 

But hey, this fourth season premiere opens with the revelation that after a quick, truncated bit of stopping a British invasion from killing the Beatles, the Legends have finally fixed time and finished capturing all the aberrations! Maybe they can settle down haha no. This time around, they have to deal with MAGIC time distortions, which they track to a huge hippie convention in 1969 where apparently a unicorn goes around killing people, eating their hearts with uncomfortably razor-sharp teeth and also shoots out hallucinogenic rainbow glitter-goop from its horn. Because. 

Honestly, I can't believe that drugs weren't involved in the creation of this episode. 

Instead, the episode basically revolves on a demonic CGI unicorn, a random assortment of historical characters, some John Constantine magic circles, and, of course, a shirtless Gary acting as bait and getting his god damned nipple chomped off by a demon drug-spewing horse. All the while we get some hilarious jokes that border on fourth-wall breaking, wacky scenes of our heroes tripping balls, and maaaaybe the hint of something far more epic when Constantine gets possessed by a demon as the final shot of the episode.

But seriousness? In this show? Preposterous. Honestly, this show is just fucking crazy and I wouldn't want it to change. We'll see how this insane ride goes. 

Titans S01E02 Review: Love Triangles

Titans, Season 1, Episode 2: Hawk and Dove

Definitely a pretty strong episode, even if I'm honestly a bit unsure of introducing guest stars this early, especially when we haven't even gotten through introducing all of the main characters yet. Oh well, maybe Hawk will be a main character? I certainly would welcome it! Both Starfire and Beast Boy sit out this episode entirely -- not even a cameo -- and it's definitely a welcome lack of distractions.

The episode's fight scenes, by the way, is nothing short of phenomenal. The DC comics fan in me is screaming pretty loudly at how, no, Dove should not be causing blood to spurt out of her victims, but the big action scenes in this episode between Hawk, Dove and Robin against the random goons are definitely done and choreographed amazingly well. The body armour suits definitely do look amazing and a huge notch above most of other TV superheroes, and as much as I would like to say that visuals don't make a TV show, damn, I would be lying if I wasn't geeking out at how good these three looked.

There is one weird point in the episode where the chronology isn't exactly clear,  when Robin showed up to help Hawk and Dove and it's not immediately clear that it was a flashback to one of their first meetings as opposed to Robin showing up at that point, but that's fine.

But more than anything, I'm definitely pleased that they cared a fair bit more about the characterization of these heroes. We're first introduced to Hawk being captured and threatened with genital mutilation, when his partner Dove shows up and saves him. These two are clearly veteran heroes -- or at least, people who have been doing this heroing for a long time. They're also clearly lovers and are planning to do one last big heist before retiring from good. The episode does a pretty great deal at showing the sheer amount of physical and mental stress that Hank Hall is under, and that's without counting his... performance issues. There's a scene later on where Dawn lists the amount of injuries Hank has, and it definitely sounds pretty painful.

Meanwhile, Dick and Rachel are drinking coffee in a random cafe somewhere as they take a drive to the Hawk-and-Dove apartment, with Rachel still trying to come to grips with the fact that her mother's dead, and she probably has some weird, demonic force within her. Throw in that brief moment when Rachel is left alone in a room and the (absolutely hilarious) Bird-computer fold-out laptop suddenly prints out the face of Raven's victim from the pilot episode, which screams in her face. Man, I'd be traumatized too if I saw that.

Dick ends up driving Raven and showing up at where Hank and Dawn live, and it's clear that these heroes have history behind them, even without Raven touching Dawn's hand and realizing that she used to sleep with Dick. There's a significant bit of semi-sexual tension between Dawn and Dick, and some really, really pent-up angry tension between Hank and Dick.

As much as Dawn ends up being a positive influence on Rachel, bonding over Game of Thrones and shit, Dawn also notes how Dick can't just... foist all responsibility of Rachel to her and Hank. One of Dick's plans in this episode is calling Alfred and sort of getting a fund set up in order to leave Rachel behind, despite Rachel's continued pleadings for Dick to not abandon her. Throw in some good old-fashioned mistaken love triangle, and the conflict between everyone in the apartment is deliciously high. Raven manages to break up the fight between Dick and Hank (and break up the kitchen), but it's not until a quieter moment that Rachel manages to tell Dick that he does want to help Hawk and Dove, and it's okay to want to help them. In a sense, Rachel is to Dick what Robin normally is to Batman -- the bright one that contrasts the dark, brooding one.

Hawk and Dove ends up, of course, being ambushed, just as Dick was trying to warn them... and then Robin shows up and unleashes a whole ton of brutality upon the thugs, including stabbing some dude's dick with garden shears (to be fair, the fucker was planning to cut off Hawk's dick), and embedding a shuriken into some poor schmuck's eye. It's a huge, huge bit of brutality that is contrasted well with Dick's far more jovial and non-lethal fighting scene earlier in the episode, and even Hawk is disturbed.

Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Dick's partner Amy is investigating the Acolyte's "derancinated" body (new vocabulary!), but Amy gets assaulted and presumably killed by a quartet of creepy people. A dad, a mom, and two children, who we previously saw in the episode playing Monopoly and injecting themselves with blue fluid -- this is the Nuclear Family, and we'll see how much of their comic-book backstory they keep. But they're clearly villains. They kill Amy, and interrupt an argument between the Titans as everyone piles on Dick for attempting to hoist Rachel on Hawk and Dove and abandoning them all.

The attack on them is brutal. Rachel gets abducted, Hawk gets beaten up, Robin nearly gets thrown off the roof, and Dawn actually gets thrown off the roof. It's a pretty great cliffhanger as Dawn may or  may not have died from that fall (knowing the comics, I won't be surprised, honestly). I really wished that they had actually spent more time building up Hawk and Dove -- maybe take two episodes to tell their story instead of one -- but at the same time, I do applaud the amount of work they managed to put in in just a single episode for these two characters and making them feel like they matter a lot, while still building up the Dick/Rachel dynamic. Of course, Hank is definitely one-dimensional, but he's going to have a chance to make up for it in the episodes to come. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Hawk & Dove are a pair of teenage superheroes that obtained superpowers (mostly just increased strength and endurance, although it varies) from the mystical Lord of Chaos T'Charr and the Lord of of Order Terataya. The mantles have been passed down over various different incarnations of the characters, but the show adapts the first Hawk (Hank Hall) and the second Dove (Dawn Granger), both of whom were partnered together for a relatively long time after the death of the first Dove, Hank's brother Don. Most incarnations of the Hawk-and-Dove teams have often had an on-and-off association with the Teen Titans. 
• The Nuclear Family is a group of supervillains that fought the Outsiders in the comics, a group of super-powerful nuclear-powered androids that, when not doing sinister deeds, are programmed to go through the lifestyle of an old-school family. They were also more recently featured in the Justice League Action cartoon. 
• Alfred Pennyworth is, of course the Wayne family's faithful and ever-competent butler! Definitely a man that doesn't need an introduction. 
• Dove wears a faded Superman shirt at one point, implying, perhaps, that while they might not appear, the Titans show does take place within a broader DC universe. 
• Hawk briefly calls Dick "Boy Wonder", one of Robin's more common nicknames. 
• Among Dick's contacts are Bruce Wayne, Lucius Fox, Dawn Granger, Hank Hall and Donna Troy. All of the other names in the contacts are apparently people who worked on either the show or on the various Titans comics. Lucius Fox is the business manager of Wayner Enterprises, and a longtime supporting character of Batman comics. Donna Troy is the civilian identity of the first Wonder Girl, and one of the founding members of the Teen Titans. 

Iron Fist S02E07 Review: This City Has Failed You

Iron Fist, Season 2, Episode 7: Morning of the Mindstorm

Another honestly slow episode of Iron Fist, although one with far, far more development and character moments than the previous, clunky one. We start off with a scene of Danny in a hospital with a leg brace attached -- I do like the show simultaneously acknowledging that we live in the same universe that Misty Knight can just get a robotic arm, but at the same time still acknowledge that Danny isn't going to do any fancy martial arts moves especially with the dual blow of losing his mystical Iron Fist powers and the mobility of one of his legs.

But then the episode cuts away to Davos, and finally shows him doing something beyond just fisting gangsters in the chest. After a fun, unexpected showcase of martial arts from Davos's new buddy Chen, Davos essentially recruits Rhyno's gang -- the random bunch of stray youths that Colleen interacted with several times earlier this season -- and wants to turn them into what's basically his personal army. We get to see a bit of Davos's training and ethos later on, telling them that "the city has failed you" and that he's going to help them become strong to fight the "putrefaction" of the city. Oh, and the inevitable "break" that even Chen finds is going too far comes with Davos killing a bunch of carjackers unaffiliated with the triads. That's... that's not as brutal as I thought it was going to be, but okay. Sure.

Also, a little bit of a revelation that I didn't think I noticed was the fact that Davos was specifically noted to be able to light up both his fists, whereas Danny only used one. I definitely remembered Davos using both his fists in episode 6, but I genuinely never realized (or forgot) that Danny was only able to use only a single fist. Proof that Davos is legitimately more worthy than Danny? We'll see.

Meanwhile, we get some neat little check-ins with the rest of the cast. Misty Knight is unable to secure any help from captain Pike, the local police chief,  who's actually just waiting for Davos to wipe out all the triads regardless of the bodies that pile up. Misty also ends up going on an unnecessarily long side-quest to investigate the bowl used in the ritual, talk to Joy, then to Mika Prada, all to get printouts of the ancient ritual scroll. That felt like a huge time-waster, if I'm being frank. Likewise, the Ward storyline -- as entertaining as Tom Pelphrey is -- feels largely redundant and a huge, unnecessary distraction. It's not even interesting, because Ward getting drunk in a bar isn't super interesting, and the revelation that he got his sponsor pregnant is more of a "did we really need this?" moment than a huge revelation. Joy... Joy continues to doubt and wonder where her real loyalties lie, and after a talk with Mary, goes off to basically try and sabotage Davos in her own way, while pretending to be his ally? Eh.

Danny, meanwhile, gets into a brief, well-done conversation with Colleen comparing Bakuto and Davos, with Danny noting that he still wants to redeem Davos, as fucked-up as that sounds, whereas Colleen notes that despite everything Bakuto has done to her, she still finds it in her heart to care for him. It's a thin line to walk, whether we should cut off all toxic people from our life, or if we should not stop having hope, but this interesting train of thought goes nowhere as, bizarrely, the Danny/Colleen dynamic is shaken up by... Danny insisting that Colleen train him in martial arts from the ground up, and Colleen somehow going straight into the extreme of "if I become your shifu, I cannot feel emotions for you"? That genuinely feels forced, although it's definitely an... interesting change in dynamics. Both characters could certainly afford to be less dicks about it, but eh.

The other big storyline going is Mary, who... who's interesting, but at the same time feels underdeveloped. Joy, desperate to get Walker back out, decides to... back off, but also tells Mary to "be well" and remember how Walker protected her? And then we get brief, vague flashbacks to how the Mary and Walker personas were apparently born in a horrible prison, and now Mary decides to record a message to Walker and transform back into her other identity? It's all so rushed, and I genuinely don't buy that a single conversation from Joy is able to suddenly touch on so many points on Mary especially considering how little we've seen of Mary.

Overall, a more interesting but still very clunky episode.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mary Walker apparently hails from (or at least was imprisoned in) Sokovia, the fictional nation that was the setting of Avengers: Age of Ultron, a rare bit of continuity nod to the live-action movies. 

One Piece 922 Review: King of Beasts

One Piece, Chapter 922: Beast Pirates Governor-General: Kaidou

After the huge HOLY SHIT reveal at the end of the previous chapter, you'd think that this chapter would try and establish the status quo. Maybe Kaidou will give Jack some orders, maybe he'll take out some of  the stronger characters as a show of force, and then bug off. But certainly at the bottom of my list of "things I expected will happen for this chapter" is... Luffy punching Kaidou in the head. Honestly, at this point it's a coin flip on whether Luffy is just super-confident in his strength and is uncompromising in his own weird code of justice, or if he's just a moron. Probably the latter. I'm honestly not particularly liking the Moron!Luffy we've been seeing for a while now, although at least this time around he has a bit of a more justifiable reason to lose it.

The first half of the episode is just everyone reacting to the huge dragon that is Kaidou, as well as a brief recap from Law and Kin'emon about how much they've fucked up by not keeping a low profile since Kaidou really, really hates the Straw Hats and Heart Pirates due to the whole Dressrosa arc.

And then we get to see a bunch of two-page spreads of Kaidou just coiling in the sky, and apparently the dude's drunk? It's kind of the silly thing you'd expect from a One Piece character, although this time around it's not quite as hilarious as, say, Pica's voice or whatever, beyond one panel of Kaidou making a dumb-looking face. We also get confirmation that Shutenmaru fought Kaidou in the past, probably lending credence to Shutenmaru being Ashura-Doji like it's implied in the last chapter. To which... yeah, whatever.

Meanwhile, Hawkins tells Kaidou that the conspirators are at the ruins of Oden Castle, and I'm not 100% sure if Hawkins was telling the truth in that he's just trying to make up a conceivable lie to stop Kaidou's rampage and to get rid of potential rebels,  or if he actually does know. 

Kaidou does unleash a gigantic fire blast that completely annihilates the entire castle and a chunk of the mountain, while apparently a good chunk of our cast is there. Judging by the laws of narrative telling, they're obviously still fine and probably managed to escape from one way or another...

But the thought of half of his crew dying in one show managed to cause Luffy to get so enraged that he jumps to the sky and unleashes an Elephant Gun straight onto Kaidou's forehead. And, well, Gear Fourth or no Gear Fourth, I honestly don't buy Luffy being able to take down Kaidou at this point, not when he barely managed to hold his own against Katakuri, who is a mere son of Big Mom. We'll see, though -- Luffy immediately revealing his existence and presence to Kaidou, and even picking a fight with the dragon, is definitely not something I expected to happen so early, so I'm definitely excited and curious to see what's coming next. 

Overlord S02E12 Review: Bluff Checks

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 12: The Final Battle of the Disturbance

The penultimate episode of Overlord II, and we start off with a bang. It's pretty clear that neither Ainz nor Demiurge really understand fully what the party is doing, but also quickly recover and play-fight each other to keep up the illusion of "Jaldabaoth" the evil invading demon and "Momon" the adamantine-class adventurer and protector of the land. All for the benefit of Evileye. All the while, Evileye is kind of crushing pretty hard on the heroic Momon that swoops in to save the day and bravely challenges this mysterious, masked demon in a dapper orange suit.  The fight scene is pretty neat, with some quote-unquote "villain monologues" as Jaldabaoth proclaims his goal -- to recover a mighty item that can summon more of his kind. And while it's clearly Demiurge trying to sort of proclaim his cover story, Evileye actually ends up assuming that Momon is just that good at gathering information from the enemy. Credit where credit's due for Demiurge to play along with the "yes, brave adventurer, I, Jaldabaoth, am a great demon lord and you have forced me to retreat temporarily!" bit.

The fight scene is pretty neat, too, with Demiurge's claws, Ainz's giant swords and Evileye's crystal spells all being pretty neat, and I kind of find the moment when Momon picks Evileye up and she gets this hope spot of "kyaa I'm being picked up like a princess", only for Momon to just grab her like a piece of luggage to be funny. Evileye herself is sort of a flat character through all this, mind you -- definitely not my favourite character in all of the happenings.

Meanwhile, we get Brain, Climb and guest party member Lockmeyer (one of Marquis Raeven's adventuerer mercenaries) going into the Eight Fingers facility to rescue Tuare, only to be blocked by Zero. And apparently the "Tuare" they rescued is apparently... Succulent in a maid's outfit! That's hilarious. We get a couple of neat scenes, like Brain figuring out that Tuare is an impostor due to how "she" keeps trying to get behind one of them. Climb ends up fighting Succulent, and with the aid of some gas bombs from Lockmeyer, Climb ends up showing off a trick he learned from Gazef...  a kick while swinging his sword... straight in Succulent's balls. That's pretty goddamn hilarious!

Meanwhile, Brain does battle against Zero, who's revealed to be a monk. Brain unleashes his "Field" and prepares to fight Zero, and the two change taunts, with Zero scoffing at Brain's declaration that Sebas has already killed the other members of the Six Arms. Actually a bit of a shame that Brain and Zero doesn't actually get to fight, because the effect of Brain's "Field" is pretty cool and I kinda want to see him do a badass attack on Zero... but I guess he's got character development instead?

"The truth is often a surprising thing", Sebas says as he shows up, and he's apparently already rescued Tuare off-screen. Refusing to believe Sebas is that strong, Zero unleashes various buffs that channel the power of animals, and unleashes a mighty punch... that leaves Sebas completely unscathed.

And then Sebas just brings his leg down to Zero and squishes his head. Well, the opening lies, they don't go to a hand-to-hand combat! Still, pretty badass on Sebas's part.


Anyway, as Evileye and the adventurers "Momon" and "Nabe" watch while Demiurge unleashes a gigantic wall of flame, the Gehenna Flames, that sequesters a good chunk of the city. It's actually a pretty neat scene when Evileye offhandedly notes how she and her allies totally beat up that bug monster, causing Ainz to clench his fist and honestly, I totally buy that if Evileye had actually succeeded in killing Entoma, Ainz and Narberal would've killed Evileye then and there. Of course, things get straightened out pretty quickly, allowing Narberal and Ainz to play along as adventurers again.

Meanwhile, as the adventurers and other assorted Re-Estize troops all get ready to fight the huge hellfire wall, we get a fun bit of Ainz's monologue. While he tells Narberal to make contact with Demiurge, we get a brief flashback to Ainz's version of events. He's just called in on request to slay the Eight Fingers on request from Marquis Raeven (alongside many other high-ranking adventurers) and it's just sheer happenstance that he dropped in between Demiurge and Evileye. Hell, he jumped off the floating force-carpet thing out of simple excitement!

Meanwhile, Evileye is trying so hard to impress Momon and hang out with him through all this -- something that Momon tries to worm out of (and he actually suspects that Evileye is suspecting his real identity) while Narberal totally knows what's up.

The rest of the episode is the Re-Estize forces preparing to breach the flames of Gehenna (which are false flames, apparently). Highlights here includes Gazef giving Climb a ring that he got from some old lady that believed in him -- presumably the same old lady in the season prologue that is buddies with the dragon. Oh, and while Zanac and Raeven question Renner if she's alright with sending Climb into such a dangerous mission where he might die, we get the full scale of Renner's psychopathy -- she's completely fine with Climb dying, because, hey, that's a good way for him to go, she's going to resurrect him while he's all weak, and he's going to be even more dependent on her. God damn Renner you're scary.

Overall, we've got a couple of different plotlines running around in this episode, and the whole Sebas/Tuare/Brain/Climb/Zero subplot ends up being sort of played out as kind of an "eh, okay, good guys win" shrug. The highlight of this episode is clearly just what Demiurge's real end-goal is, and just how Ainz/Momon is going to be able to improvise and make it look good for both Ainz Ooal Gown as the overlord of these bad guys, while simultaneously also look good as Momon the adventurer. Overall, it could've been framed better, I think, but it's not bad at all. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E17 Review: Creating The Thing You Dread

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2,  Episode 17: Ultron Unlimited

So this is an episode that basically adapts Vision's change of heart from being a minion of Ultron into an Avenger. It also has to deal with the return of Ultron from the first season... and it's... serviceable, I suppose. The episode begins with Ms. Marvel being taken out by a bunch of fake "Synthezoid" Avengers, who then proceed to attack Captain America and Hawkeye, with Captain America infiltrating these fake Avengers. It's a standard cartoon episode plotline -- one that doesn't really offer much of a surprise, but has enough moving parts to last the episode.

If nothing else, at least the episode jumps around enough to actually sell Vision's confusion at his directives, unlike Vision's original debut. Vision first breaks through his programming when he accidentally shoots Janet in the shoulder, despite directives to abduct her unharmed, and he starts to show anger and frustration. Again, none of these scenes are particularly super-awesome as far as sci-fi robots gaining sentience go, but it's serviceable.

We also get the handwaved return of Ultron (he just happens to reassemble himself after season one or something), who... wants to transfer Janet's consciousness into a female robot body, Jocasta, because... creepy reasons that I'm not really going to ruminate about a lot? Janet does lampshade that Ultron himself is becoming more human by desiring a "girlfriend", and then we get the team-up of Captain America being revealed as the real deal, while Vision struggles with morality. We get the Captain's huge speech about how "I'm not here for myself, I'm here for my team" and how a mere machine can't understand it. This episode and the previous one really doesn't do Vision's heel face turn any real justice, though. Other than Ultron being a dick to Vision once or twice, there really isn't any proper reason that that particular line would sway Vision to the side of good. 

But, of course, because the comic book demands it, Vision ends up turning against Ultron, being the only one who can phase through Ultron's Adamantium body, allowing Thor to beat Ultron's head off,  and then gets rescued by Captain America. Vision ends up giving a speech about how perfection, in his mind, means becoming more human. Again, all the actual lines are well-written, but neither this episode nor Vision's previous outing really ends up selling the fact that this is a character who have changed because he was inspired by the Avengers. Individually it's an okay episode, but ultimately a bit of a miss for me. But hey, a new member joins the party!

Black Lightning S02E02 Review: Truth Hurts

Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 2: The Book of Consequences, Chapter Two - Black Jesus Blues

The second episode of Black Lightning's second season is... interesting. The pretty small scale of the story that the first season attempted to tell caused it to flow at a pretty great pace, revolving almost entirely around the Pierce family and Tobias Whale. This episode, on the other hand, works a bit more like a more traditional superhero show. There's a breakout among the many tube-babies that Lynn is working on. Some dude breaks out, vomits out light before dying, which in turn activates the metahuman-of-the-week, Wendy Hernandez, a confused and mentally-troubled girl with destructive wind powers. Throw in the fact that Gambi apparently captured her some 30 years ago, and in addition to waking up with powers and a mental illness, poor Wendy has to deal with the whole displaced-out-of-time deal.

We get some action scenes out of the fights with Wendy, but at the end of the episode, Black Lightning manages to talk Wendy down (albeit with the aid of some well-placed lightning bolts), befriending her and managing to convince her to go back into the pod, at least until a cure is found.

Wendy's psychosis might be a writer's trick to handwave not having to develop her too much beyond causing the audience to sympathize with her, but the other metahuman-of-the-week, Isa Williams, introduced in the season premiere, also figures out greatly, and I do really love how they made him feel like a real child. It's the same argument that Lynn has with the shady government agent she's forced to work with, where they just sort of drag Isa around with a bag on his head.

Lynn, in contrast, manages to befriend Isa by treating him like a human, even bringing him to their house. Granted, Lynn does feel secure in that two out of the four people in her hosuehold are accomplished superheroes, but still... Isa's truth-causing ability manages to raise some mean words to be spoken amongst the Pierce household, but interestingly enough it's Jennifer that ends up befriending Isa the most and makes him realize how to control his power. Although, really? No one realized it's eye contact that triggers the power? In any case, Isa ends up choosing the other choice available to metahumans created by Green Light, who have unstable genes... he chooses to instead live the rest of his potentially short life with his family, instead of going back into the pod.

Speaking of other metahumans and choices, the episode focuses mostly on Anissa, among the Pierce family. Anissa is basically pretty happy about everything that's going on, riding a high and posing for photographs and the adulation of the crowd. This ends up translating to her civilian life as well, where she goes around sleeping with some singer, much to her chagrin of her ex Grace. This leads to an argument with Jefferson when Jeff basically has to deal with Wendy Hernandez on his own. This showboating combined with the illegal stealing she did last episode, this is probably not going to end well for Thunder.

Khalil, meanwhile, gets pretty brutally abused by Tobias via a chess game, noting how he's reckless and his recklessness caused the death of Syonide. Khalil then attempts to talk to Jennifer, who pretty hilariously just pushes him over the side of the rooftop. It's a neat contrast between the situations of these two people -- Khalil makes it clear that he has no choice to do what he did at the school because Tobias will kill him otherwise, while Jennifer has a very good support system in her family.

Tobias himself is seen several times in this episode, wrapping up loose ends regarding the murder of Alvin Pierce, including a bit with Marcellus, clearly a mentor figure that Tobias is fond of. It's... it's pretty brutal, shall we say, although at least Tobias made it quick. It kind of feels like padding, honestly, although Krondon is a great enough of an actor to make the scene nice to watch.

The Jefferson Pierce subplot in this episode is... m'eh? He resigns as principal, and has an argument about Napier about the replacement, a "white saviour", Mike Lowry. It's a repeat of "do what is best for the school, not for Jefferson Pierce" plot of the previous episode, although that final scene at the school assembly is cheesily sweet.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Wendy Hernandez isn't a character in the comics, but she seems to be inspired by Wendy Jones, a wind-manipulating metahuman called Windfall who was a member of a group called the Master of Disaster that fought the Outsiders, a team of whom Black Lightning was a member. Windfall would later renege from the group, assist the Outsiders, and found work in the Suicide Squad.