Reviewing Monsters: A Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds, Part 1

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

A Link Between Worlds is a bit of a weird one. It's the second Zelda game I've ever completed -- A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening were my first Zelda games, but it wasn't until Twilight Princess that I actually fully completed a full Zelda game. After that, I did A Link Between Worlds, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Link's Awakening and A Link to the Past in one huge Zelda sitting... but ALBW will always hold a special place in my heart due to it being the first '2D' Zelda game I've completed. 

It's a weird sequel-thematically-but-not-directly to one of the most iconic Zelda games, A Link to the Past. And it's... it's odd. The setup of Hyrule is identical to ALTTP, but the gimmicks and items are different, and instead of going to the Dark World, Link in ALBW goes into... "Lorule", a reverse-world version accessible by going through rifts in walls. Again, plot-wise it's typical Zelda stuff, and the gimmick-theme this time around is the ability to turn into 2D paintings in a 3D world.

Going on straight to the monsters!

Crow: I'm going to breeze through a lot of these monsters, because, well, ALBW is a huge homage to A Link to the Past, of which I've extensively reviewed the monsters off here and here. And especially its first couple of areas are a huge homage to ALTTP's equivalent areas, so a lot of the monsters behave more or less the same. Good ol' Crows are one of them, angry birds that peck Link and stuff. 

Rat, Rope & Bee: Let me breeze through some of the 'just an animal' and 'these show up in ALTTP' enemies! I forgot that the Ropes in ALTTP were black, too. Again, these are just simple enemies that hurt you when they poke you, and die when you poke them. Just like ALTTP, Link can later weaponize bees, which is probably one of the funniest weapons you ever have. 

Poe: Another long-standing enemy, Poes also behave identically to their ALTTP counterparts, rising from the gravestones. Again, pretty much a faithfully-rendered 3D version of the original sprite in ALTTP. Without repeating myself verbatim from the ALTTP review, I don't have much to say here. 

Blob & Buzz Blob: Regular 'blobs' don't actually exist in ALTTP, so the Blobs are technically brand-new! They're basically just the Buzz Blob without the electrical charge, though. I've always loved how RPG games go for slimes for their default weak enemy that can kind of show up anywhere, and well, just like ALTTP, the first areas in ALBW are pretty easy to prepare you for the Dark World Lorule. Buzz Blobs in this incarnation are permanently electrified, and don't have any Cukeman easter-egg wackiness. 

Octorok: A Zelda staple! They look a lot more like funny, chunky, land-dwelling octopi compared to previous incarnations, and I love these guys. They run around the Hyrule Fields and shoot rocks at you! This time, their rocks have a hilarious ink splatter effect! 

 

Zora: Or 'River Zoras', as the fandom call them! They still do the same thing of popping up of the water and spitting fireballs at Link. There's a bit of a Zora society with a Zora Queen that Link can interact with. It's an interesting bit of canon-welding across different depictions of Zoras, in that the Zora kingdom in ALBW is technically non-hostile to humans... but the majority of the Zoras that Link meets are hostile. I'm going to assume that all the Zoras that Link fights in the overworlds are just the equivalents to like, bandits or renegades. 

Armos: ...again, another one that's pretty similar to the ALTTP version. I've always loved the 2D games' take on the Armoses (Armosi?), personally. Yes, the 3D Armoses and their varying degrees of abilities are neat and all, but there's something so unsettling about a giant chess-piece of a statue just hopping around trying to squash you. I think I find the fact that the Armos's shield and sword are completely stationary and useless to be pretty hilarious. 

Tektite: These look a bit different, actually. The major details are the same, but thanks to the art-style, I feel like the ALBW Tektites end up feeling like a different breed of monsters altogether. Less jumping bugs with giant eyeballs, and more... giant eyeballs in crab shells with meaty finger-y feet. I guess it's the shape and orientation of the feet -- ALBW's Tektites have them just spread out and pretty fat, whereas the ALTTP Tektite have them folded up close to their body like some sort of leaping insect. As with most 2D Zelda games, a lot of enemies show up in different colour variations. Blue Tektites show up in regular Hyrule, while the more powerful Red Tektites show up in the evil realm of Lorule. 

Popo: I still don't know what Popos are supposed to be. A mass of worms? Plant vines? A land anemone? A plant creature? A Tangela? They still die in a single hit. They are way more aggressive compared to the non-hostile enemy from ALTTP, and will chase after Link. Lorule's more powerful version of Popo are red and yellow -- these don't exist in ALTTP!

Stalfos: There are way more different kinds of Stalfos in ALTTP, but in ALBW we only have two. It's interesting that they have a more realistic bone-like texture, but they look so utterly comical. I think it's those very stylized faces, which look less like a human's skull and more like a Little Green Man alien. The white ones jump around a lot, while the more powerful red ones throw their bombs like boomerangs at Link. 

Soldiers: These are all the soldiers! I think I had all of them? I'm probably missing some sort of different helmet/weapon combination at some point. Anyway, unlike the implicitly human/Hylian soldiers that Link fights in ALTTP, the soldiers in ALBW are explicitly painting monsters created by the dark magics of the main villain, Yuga. I don't really have much to say here, fighting humanoid knights does feel kind of cool after spending a good chunk of time fighting like, slimes and animals. They have a wide variety of weapons. Some throw bombs, some chuck javelins, some use swords and shields, some use bows... they sure are soldiers!

Sand Crab: It sure is a crab! It sure moves sideways! I love the Sand Crab, their expression looks so surprised. As with my commentary on ALTTP, I like the colour palette. 

Rupee Like: We saw some of these guys in other games (but not ALTTP), and they debuted in Four Swords. They're a variant of the iconic Like Like, but with an anglerfish lure that ends in a rupee. The rupees are actually slightly differently-shaded in this game. Not much to say, though, I've spoken about them before.

Bari & Biri: Hyrule (and Lorule)'s resident electrified floating jellyfish monsters return! Again, not much to say here, they behave similarly to how they did in previous iterations. They are electrified, and sometimes the electrification wear off. Ranged weapons are effective. The red and yellow versions, upon death, split into smaller, eyeless Biris. The gray and yellow versions are tougher versions that appear in Lorule.

The original ALTTP versions of the Bari and Biri only show up in the Dark World, but here we have variations that show up in both Hyrule and Lorule. If I'm not mistaken, the Lorule ones will actually discharge their electricity if you kill them while electrified. 

Keese: Most of the returning monsters from ALTTP are more or less identical to the originals, but the Keese receives a brand-new-face with a nose, larger eyes and ears and adorable little vampire fangs. They otherwise behave similarly to how Keeses have always done. 

Bubble: The 'Bubble' equivalent in ALTTP are the ones the fandom usually calls the 'Anti-Fairies'. The Bubbles here still look the same (or, well, the Fire Bubble does, at any rate) but they behave more similarly to their 3D counterparts, actually being enemies that hover around the room and attack Link. There's a rather rudimentary elemental-attack system here, where the Fire Bubble is vulnerable to the tornado and ice rods, while the Ice Bubble (which appears a lot later in the Ice Ruins) is vulnerable to the fire rod. 

Eyegore: Yet another repeat enemy, the Eyegores still behave similarly, being immobile statues until Link comes near at which point it opens its eyes and tries to murder you. I think the red one is the most powerful here, I don't really remember. I still love the pun on their names, and they still retain their vulnerability to arrows. Five of these guys in a dark room end up being a miniboss in the Thieves' Hideout.

Mini-Moldorm: OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE BABBUS. I love just how adorable this game's artstyle makes the Moldorms. The fuzz around their circular bodies look more like fur than just random caterpillar fuzz, and this has the glorious side effect of making ALBW's Moldorms look absolutely like fucking hamburgers. And they have giant cute baby eyes! The brown one is met on the way up towards the Tower of Hera (where the boss is a big Moldorm), while the purple ones show up in some areas in Lorule. 

Deadrock: The Pokemon gym's entrance statue returns. They still turn into stone when you hit them with a weapon. Unlike in ALTTP, though, the hammer in ALBW will absolutely murder these angry-looking jerks when they are in stone-form. 

Lynel: They look goofy! Can you believe this is the same Lynel as the impressive lion-centaur monster from Breath of the Wild? Or, hell, they even look pretty goofy with that grinning snake-face compared to the side-profile they had in ALTTP. Lynels are found primarily on Death Mountain (the black ones are in Lorule's equivalent) and they breathe fire. The Lynels are definitely one of the most punishing enemies for their respective parts of the game. Pretty cute, even if they are kind of goofy compared to the rest of the ALTTP-import monsters. 

Terrorpin: A lot of these are just recurring enemies, huh? Well, I could think of worse things to do than to re-visit ALTTP's bestiary. Terrorpins appear very early in this game relative to AlTTP. They sure are tortoises that can be flipped around with the hammer!

Hardhat Beetle: Oh yeah, these jackasses. They look much less like beetles, and more like squids, don't they? Makes a lot more sense when you realize that their original Japanese name doesn't specify 'beetle' or anything insectoid at all. They're still notoriously annoying in the Tower of Hera, knocking Link off of upper levels and stuff. Hardhat Beetles are one of those enemies that are super-irritating to face, but become trivial once you get more and more weapons. The red ones are the stronger ones. 

Hinox: And this is what I think of when you say 'Hinox'. I'm not sure why I like the ALBW's version of Hinox so much, but this is the first enemy that greets you when you finally unlock Lorule, the 'dark world' of ALBW, essentially being the enemies you really want to run away from until you get better equipment. They're basically the same bomb-throwing cyclops-es that they are in ALTTP, but look at that face! The Hinoxes are so happy to be in this game, and I feel like they look so much more expressive. A bunch of them also serve as kind of a miniboss on a rail-tram-track ride thing. Blue Hinoxes are snow-themed ones with funky sweaters that hang out in Death Mountain (an ice mountain in Lorule) that lob snowballs at you. You'd think snowballs are less deadly than bombs, but they freeze you in place!

Ropa: Oh hey, these guys! These are the creatures that greet you in the original Dark World. They sure are weird anemone-plant things! There are a lot of them. 

Snap Dragon: Another personal favourite of mine! Giant plant monsters with massive fleshy maws and two chicken legs. Always a favourite in ALTTP, and I like that they return. None of these enemies really do anything different, but I do like to see them in 3D form. 

Like Like: Another classic enemy! Of course the Like Likes are only found in Lorule, these evil bastards. I think the implication here ends up being that the Like Like are the 'dark world' counterparts of the Rupee Like? Any shield consumed by ALBW's version of the Like Like is permanently lost. No 'beat them up to recover your item' shenanigans here!

Moblin: As usual, the pig-men populate Lorule's overworld. Three variants exist -- the spear throwing one, a spear-and-shield one, and a sword-and-shield one. Their shields blow up when you use the fire or ice rod on them. It's nice to be on the equipment-destroying side for once! Otherwise, not much to say here. Moblins sure are Moblins. 

Hyu: Lorulean versions of the Poes! Their faces are a lot spookier this time around, looking like someone carved a face into a piece of wood or something. Just like their ALTTP counterparts, they aren't hostile and won't hound Link... but will hurt him a lot if you run into them. They're not limited to the graveyards, however, and will populate the Skull Woods and Thieves' Town. 

Zirro: I swear this is a Mario enemy. It's another returning ALTTP enemy, a mushroom with feet and weird angel-wings. The ALBW model makes the anatomy a bit more clear, and the Zirro has these tiny Oddish-feet. I thought those were mandibles on the ALTTP sprite! They spit explosive spit at Link, and are weak to the Ice Rod. A variant shows up in Death Mountain that shoots snowballs. Not much to say, otherwise. 

Karat Crab: A NEW ENEMY! This is the Lorule version of the Sand Crab, and it's got one oversized claw like a fiddler crab. I like how much more threatening the bright red eyestalks are compared to the Sand Crabs! Just like many Lorule/Dark World monsters, the Karat Crabs are essentially stronger and tougher versions of the Sand Crabs, but it's nice to see that the lowly crabs have a Dark World counterpart after so long. 

Taros: Cow-men! ALTTP always had a large population of beast-men enemies. The more powerful red Taroses wield tridents. The weaker blue Taroses wield... what is that? Pokey-spears? Pokey-sticks? Is that an actual weapon? The Taroses are found mostly in the Swamp area. 

Stal: Lorule's environment is populated with skulls instead of rocks. Some of the skulls are actual living skulls! I feel like they show up a lot more than their counterparts from ALTTP. I love them! They're bouncing skulls!

Slarok: Another favourite from ALTTP, the Slaroks are Lorulean Octoroks. Only instead of being land-bound octopi, they are... slugs with giant eyestalks and four spike-like feet and a weirdly pillow-like body? They sure look naet!

Dacto: These Lorule-versions of the Crow always looked adorable! They look like old-school anime dinosaurs. Having relatively adorable large chibi heads makes them look a lot less scrappy compared to their ALTTP counterpart. 

Ku: Evil dark-world Zoras! They have one eye and one buck-tooth! Unlike the ALTTP versions, though, the Kus actually can climb out of the water to fight Link in some areas. That adds a bit more to what's otherwise originally a pretty bland palette-swap. 

Helmasaur: Again, not too much to say here since everything I can say about the Helmasaur has already been said in ALTTP. That's one of the big reasons why I probably didn't do the ALBW review back in the day -- so many of these guys are identical to their ALTTP counterparts. These guys look neat in 3D, though. 

Light Ghini & Dark Ghini: New enemies! New compared to ALTTP, anyway... the Ghinis have had a long history of showing up in Zelda games, and these guys look identical visually, being one-eyed ghosts with long tongues that lick you. Mechanically, they're kind of the spotlight of the Dark Palace, which now actually has an actual gimmick that relates to the name of the dungeon! Light Ghinis are visible when the room is bright, and die easily... but become invisible if you turn off the light. Dark Ghinis are the opposite, being completely visible when the room is dark, but cannot be seen in the light. Both of the Ghinis can still be hurt if you can guess where they are and shoot ranged attacks at them, but being floating ghosts that can hover over chasms and whatnot, it's obviously a lot more safe to do the light/dark gimmick properly. 

Goriya: They look more explicitly artificial here, huh? ALTTP's Goriyas were never meant to be associated with Goriyas from previous Zelda games, and are in fact a new enemy type called "Copy". Green Goriyas in ALBW will copy Link's movements until they come into eye contact with Link, at which point they charge towards him. The red ones also copy Link's movements, but they can shoot fireballs. Pretty interesting that they made the Goriyas look more... metallic? Clay-like? 

Kodongo: "Ko" meaning small, so these are small Dodongos! Though I don't think Dodongos actually make an appearance in either ALTTP or ALBW. They sure are ceratopsid dionsaurs that breathe fire! Not too much to say here. 

Swamola: Swamolas! Or "Moldworm", in the original Japanese version. The Moldorms here are "Tail". They look so buggy! Again, they're more or less identical to how they looked in ALTTP, except the 3D model allows a bit more clarity at how the details work. I'm not sure if it's biologically feasible for those two mandibles to be attached right onto the bottom of the eyeballs. The Swamolas hang out and burst out of the murky waters of Misery Mire. 

Vulture: Desert Temple area time! Note that in ALBW, just like ALTTP, once you unlock Lorule you can really go into any of the areas as you want. This is just the order that I scribbled down when the enemies show up in my old playthrough. Vultures are basically just stronger versions of the Crow, except they circle around Link. 

Geldman: Yet another returning enemy, the Geldman show up in the desert regions and move towards Link like ghostly elementals. It's more or less the same thing, but the new item original to ALBW, the Sand Rod, can manipulate the sand under the Geldman and cause us, after ten years, to know what's actually under all that. ...it's a pair of legs and a black set of speedos. Obviously as a monster I do like it better when it's just an ominous upper body moving in the sand, but, hey, comedy.

Water Tektite: Or "Hover", they're still weird pond-skating bugs! They have gigantic lips, though, which isn't particularly obvious in the original ALTTP sprite. There's really nothing all too new other than the addition of those antennae/eyestalks. I think I'm still distracted by that pair of massive lips on a bug. 

Kyameron: It sure is a blob of water that bounces around the room. I'm not sure whether to classify this as a 'trap' or an 'enemy', but since we can actually kill it, yeah, enemy seems about right. They're basically infinitely-respawning enemies in the couple of rooms they show up in. 

Bawb: I thought I could get through everything in a single day, but I'm kinda tired so we'll close it off with two new enemies original to ALBW. Bawbs are something equivalent to Bomblings or Bomblets from Twilight Princess, being monsters that can take the place of bombs to solve puzzles before you get the bomb item. Which, in this 'pick whichever dungeon you want to do first', is highly possible. Beyond the fact that bombs will hurt Link, I don't think the Bawbs are actually hostile. Pretty cute, too, having a rather disinterested-looking eye and a bunch of stubby legs. 

Gyorm: What a weirdo! Gyorms are new to this game, and they're... they're Mega Slowbro! Their 'main' body is a spiral-shaped hermit crab shell with spikes, and a propeller underneath to help them move around upright. But its real main body isn't a crustacean, but best described as a mutant seal with a face resembling... a mole, I guess? They are completely invulnerable to anything that's not a hookshot, which will separate the real Gyorm from its shell. The shells remain after you kill a Gyorm, and you need the shells to solve some of the puzzles. Kind of a fun weirdo!
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I was heavily debating on whether to do this or not, because... 80% of this page is just 'oh hey this guy showed up in ALTTP, it sure looks the same, more or less', but... but I wrote words, and if nothing else, it serves as a fun little showcase of the weird range of creatures in 2D Zelda's bestiary. Oh well! Expect part 2 sometime soon. 

One Piece 1034 Review: Ifrit Jambe

One Piece, Chapter 1034: Sanji vs. Queen

This one is a bit more of a simpler chapter... though it's not a bad one! Not at all. After a couple of chapters focusing on the Zoro/King fight, we get a chapter almost entirely focusing on Sanji. Other than a brief scene showing Momonosuke pushing the floating island, it's almost entirely exclusively Sanji and Queen scenes, which is... interesting. Sanji versus Queen is most certainly the less interesting fight compared to Zoro versus King -- we're lacking the mystery behind King and Zoro trying to figure out Enma out. And the fact is, unlike Zoro, there really isn't a point in the fight where Sanji feels like he's struggling against Queen, meaning that it is kind of less tense. Another criticism that I've seen people make online is the fact that a lot of the build-up that we had to Sanji's own crisis of faith -- like the ambiguity on whether he has truly 'lost himself' so much that he would hit a woman -- ends up being resolved very quickly and conveniently. 

Also, I guess this is a way for Sanji to 'win' against his brothers without showing Sanji actually beating up the Vinsmokes since they're more reluctant allies than outright enemies now?

Queen gets to show off for a couple of pages how he has the powers of the three Vinsmoke brothers, being able to use Ichiji, Niji and Yonji's powers, and he's basically super-excited to get Sanji to transform into a Kemn Rider in order to basically beat up Judge's masterpiece with his own creations. It's... it's all right, and the art is nice, but it's also something that I didn't really feel had as much mystique or impact as any of the other major antagonists in this arc. And, again, Sanji is just kind of dominating this fight. He quickly kicks and blows up Queen's tentacle-mechanical arm, then flanchet strikes Queen around.

Queen uses his version of Stealth Black, becoming invisible, and Sanji shows off his own super-speed, moving faster than the eye can see. Queen, chooses that point to attack a courtesan looking for her pet rat, which is the aforementioned bit of the story telling us that, hey, Sanji's innocent from beating up that woman, he's completely heroic, and it's Queen all along. A mite too convenient, but what can you do. 

Sanji has a bit of an internal monologue where he now can combine his super strength, his exoskeleton and his armament Haki to make his flames stronger into Ifrit Jambe, and spends the last three pages just doing through a multi-part "list off the terms to refer to meat parts in butchery" attack. It's cool! It's just that... it's kind of just 'Sanji defeats an opponent', and unless there's a colour change, I don't really think Ifrit Jambe packs as much of an impact visually. Pretty decent chapter overall, though. 

What If, Season One Review (Part 2)

Marvel's What If?, Season 1

The second part of my review of season one of Marvel's What If?, this time covering episodes six through nine. 

Episode Six: "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?"

One of the biggest missed opportunities in the MCU movies is that villains only ever really show up for one movie, and then their story is over. Most of the time, that story ends with the finality of death. With the sole exception of Loki, the villains never really quite got the same amount of long-running screentime or rivalry that their comic-book counterparts have. That's one of the biggest losses of the format. Which is where the 'What If' scenario really does shine a lot. Bringing characters back from the dead has always been a touchy subject, and I'm honestly already a wee bit leery with how they are bringing back admittedly alternate versions of Vision and Loki over in the Disney+ shows. But in the realm of 'What If', of course we can get to see these more minor villains explored a bit more.

And one of the best villains in the MCU? Erik Killmonger, obviously, played by the very charismatic Michael B. Jordan. His story was told pretty well in Black Panther, but people do wonder what things would look like if he survives. Now this episode isn't exactly that. It's not "what if Killmonger won that movie", which would be the obvious What If prompt. No, it's "what if Killmonger fucked around during the events of Iron Man?" One thing that is rather interesting about Killmonger is how easily we could bend him into being a hero -- him and Vulture are two of the antagonists in the MCU that could very easily become a more off-the-law hero kind in the way that Hank Pym and Tony Stark are. 

And in this episode? Killmonger absolutely succeeds. I do find it interesting because in the beginning, it does make it out to be Killmonger basically taking the place of Iron Man in this alternate universe. Killmonger rescues Tony Stark in the opening act of Iron Man, preventing Tony Stark from receiving that huge amount of humility and character growth throughout the first movie. Turns out, though, this is all a sham on Killmonger's part, and he amazingly plays every single character on board in order to engineer a conflict between Wakanda and the United States. This plan involves killing James Rhodes and T'Challa, blaming the other country for the deed, and eventually Killmonger also racks up the deaths of Tony Stark, Ulysses Klaue, and ingratiates himself into the Wakandan royal family after stoking the US military into using the Stark-tech Liberators to attack Wakanda. Ultimately, Killmonger gets what he wants in his movie, albeit through a fair bit more deceit. The episode ends with him victorious, although like the Marvel Zombies one, it does have the brief ray of hope of Pepper Potts working with a young Shuri to expose Killmonger. 

This one is a bit more straightforward, I feel, although it is still pretty fun to see them take a character and just make him super-badass and everything goes his way. Not too much to complain here; I do really like Killmonger and I definitely do like that they keep his ruthless streak very much intact. 

Episode Seven: "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?"

After the previous batch of episodes have been pretty heavy on death and darkness (even if it's dark comedy), this one is just a full-on madness in the style of episode two. Chris Hemsworth's Thor gets reimagined as essentially a cosmic frat boy in this episode, because he never had Loki to bounce off of. Admittedly, part of me is disappointed because I had expected from the title that this was going to delve into some Thor/Nordic mythology. And... and this one was at least fun? It perhaps bordered a bit too heavily on parody at times in a way that I don't think the Star-Lord T'Challa episode did, though. In that episode, I could believe even the more outlandish interpretations of Thanos or Nebula, because the show gives an explanation -- T'Challa being a positive influencce on the two. Here, everyone acts kind of like frat boys for no real reason. And I don't want to rain on the parade of this episode, because it's still very funny all throughout, but I'm pretty sure that this is my least favourite What If episode in this season. 

I really don't have too much to say here beyond that it's pretty fun. There's Captain Marvel being called in to fight Thor around halfway through in a surprisingly well-animated superhuman fight. A whole metric ton of cameos from the MCU, some great comedy mostly from Thor and Darcy, but the 'plot' never really evolves beyond the one-note concept. Perhaps if this episode was around half its length, I would've liked it more? Of course, we got the non-sequitur ending of Infinity-stone Ultron-Vision showing up at the end...

Episode Eight: "What If... Ultron Won?"

...and turns out that there is a plotline tying together the final few episodes. That was a bit of a surprise that caught me off-guard. I was prepared for something like this, of course, something that would tie some of the universes together (or with Loki), but this episode peels back the story of the Infinity Ultron that we saw in episode seven's end. It's a movie somewhat similar to the Killmonger or Hank Pym ones, where the villain just wins full-stop against everything in the world, except Ultron is a lot more comprehensive in his wiping out of the Marvel universe. A truer-to-text adaptation of the comic book version of Age of Ultron, in that it's an apocalyptic future where some of our heroes are trying to survive against the hordes of generic Ultron drones. We do get context to what's going on -- the MCU movie Avengers: Age of Ultron get shown in this scenario where the Vision body turned out to actually be successfully integrated with Ultron's, and he quickly pulls off a Terminator III on all of humanity. In an almost off-handed way, Ultron also kills Thanos and gains all six infinity stones almost immediately. 

And in a super-cosmic way that the MCU has been shying from in previous movies, Ultron just ends up seeing every facet of the universe, and end up using the powers of the stones to plan to invade other planets and realms. Pretty badass, and the episode is paced quickly enough that we get to see Infinity-Ultron do something cool but it doesn't overstay its welcome. Lots of planets fall to Ultron's cosmic invasion. But after wiping out most life in the galaxy, Ultron just becomes... confused about his purpose. It's something that's low-key present in Ultron's debut movie, but we obviously didn't get to explore that part because Ultron is still obsessed with his original function during the plot of that movie. The voice actor they got to replace James Spader is... adequate, but there's admittedly a missing sense of manic-ness in Ultron's voice compared to Age of Ultron. Or that might just be the lack of synthetization effect on Ultron's voice. 

However, the meta-plot here isn't that it's just going to focus on the surviving heroes fighting against Ultron, because throughout the episode, Infinity Ultron does the same thing that Strange Supreme did a couple episodes ago, and actually becomes aware of the narrator, Uatu. Unlike Strange Supreme, Ultron does actually interfere and talk to Uatu. Uatu, having been a detached narrator all this while, ends up actually becoming horrified and panicked, which is something that I felt was done exceedingly well. Uatu, himself working with his own clause of non-interference, puts his hope into the Black Widow/Hawkeye storyline going on Earth. Some great voice-acting on Uatu's part as he observes the two mortal heroes and goes into a bit of a panic when Clint's desperation causes him to nearly overlook the all-important file about Arnim Zola in the KGB archives. And then we get a fun split of the episode where Infinity Ultron fights Uatu, while Hawkeye and Black Widow try to upload Arnim Zola's virtual consciousness to combat Ultron. Watching these 'What If' episodes with multiple alternate versions of everyone does make me a bit apathetic to the fates of these specific characters, but Hawkeye does get a very well-drawn final shot. 

Uatu and Ultron's discussion is kind of interesting, too -- a being who wants to bring peace to the universe through 'silencing' the voices, and a cosmic being who has to watch all the suffering in the multiverse but forbidden to watch. I guess Uatu's oath is flexible enough that he can don that fancy Kirby armour to fight Infinity Ultron for a bit, though... pretty fun visuals, and we get the ending: Uatu calling for help from Strange Supreme, and, I bet, the other heroes/villains we've seen throughout the season as well. Neat stuff. 

Episode Nine: "What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?"

And so What If ends, with a crossover between the alternate universes it has set up. Uatu acts as a cosmic Nick Fury, plucking Captain Carter, Party Thor, Star-Lord T'Challa, Killmonger the victor, Dr. Strange Supreme and a version of Gamora that wears Thanos's armour to form his own cosmic Avengers to fight Infinity Ultron. Admittedly, last episode's transition to this one isn't the most smooth... but you know what? It's pretty par the course for these sort of crossover what-if alternate continuity stories. The Gamora presumably came from an episode that wasn't produced? Or maybe it's just a wink at how many other different universes are our there in the multiverse... and, of course, the Thanos-killer Gamora just happens to have a plot device that can destroy Infinity Stones. 

There s a neat nod to how we wrap up some of the cliffhangers hinted in these other What If episodes, with Star-Lord T'Challa saving Peter Quill from Ego, or Shuri and Pepper Potts overthrowing Killmonger... but all this is interrupted by Uatu plucking these heroes out of their respective home universes and plopping them in Strange Supreme's bubbled-up dimension and creating the Guardians of the Multiverse. Ultimately it's just gathering these badasses up and pitting them against a threat -- a story idea that's been done many times before even within the MCU. None of the characters really have too much of a development here as we go straight from exposition to some gags before we get the action. 

And, admittedly, the action is pretty good! What If isn't really a show that's particularly spectacular as far as action scenes go, but these last three episodes certainly got the bulk of the special effects budget. Combining powers in weirder ways -- like that multiplication spell on Mjolnir, or the visuals of Strange Supreme summoning demons from his shadows, Ultron's slow-time zone, giant-Ultron vs. Cthulhu-monster-Strange... and at one point even tossing the literal Marvel Zombies universe on top of Ultron's head. Resistance Black Widow from episode 8 joins the team around the halfway point. The action is pretty neat and appropriately chaotic as everyone is just piling on hits on Infinity Ultron to distract him long enough for the stones to be destroyed...

Except the convenient plot device turns out to not be able to work with the Infinity Stones from another universe, but the previous episode's Arnim Zola hacker-arrow turns out to be able to take down Infinity Ultron long enough... for, surprise-surprise, the explicitly villainous Killmonger to create an Infintiy-Ultron-monger suit for himself. I mean, sure, okay. Killmonger and Arnim Zola both fight over the stones, then Strange Supreme and Uatu set up the same dimensional shield.

Everyone gets returned to their home dimensions; Widow gets returned to the 'dead Avengers' universe from episode three (which I didn't catch during my first watch-through) and we get a random mid-credits scene of the Steve Rogers from Captain Carter's universe being basically her timeline's equivalent of Bucky. 

This episode is overall pretty tightly-plotted, but kind of predictable and far more focused on action scenes than anything. Infinity Ultron kind of gets reduced to a pretty one-note antagonist, and for the most part, only Strange Supreme, resistance-Widow and Captain Carter really got any sort of character moment beyond witty one-liners. Even Uatu himself doesn't end up developing beyond his cryptic 'I watch but I cannot interfere but I care' bit -- not even a token explanation as to why his oath is important. All that said, a finale like this is kind of necessary, otherwise the whole season would end up just feeling like an exercise in continuity nods. 

_________________________________________

Overall, the ending two episodes are... interesting. "Fanwanky" is a term I try not to use because it sounds so dismissive, but it's a tone that fits the premise of the show. It's not the perfect final episode -- not in the way that Avengers: Endgame was to the first three phases of the MCU -- but I did feel that this whole season ends up being a pretty fun series overall.

Kamen Rider Revice 12 Review: Love Cobra

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 12: Weakness is Strength? The Invincible Jeanne!

A very fun episode! Sakura's story, I feel, has been handled and paced a lot better than Daiji's -- probably because it wasn't stretched for so long, and Sakura actually has the agency to grow as a person whereas Daiji's story is more 'save him from his evil alter-ego'. 

After the cliffhanger from the previous episode, Daiji and Ikki quickly drive off the Deadmen, but turns out that dr. Haitani (that's the name of the evil doctor!) and his Planarian Vistamp allows  him to basically duplicate his Vistamp and create contracts on his victims, while he himself remains able to transform into the Planarian Deadman at any time. Sakura, of course, bears the brunt of not only Daiji's admonishment, but also her own disappointment at her lack of strength. 

Among the Deadmen, dr. Haitani basically formally joins them, but rubs Aguilera the hell of a wrong way by saying how he could maybe replace Giff. Aguilera goes off to talk to Sakura again, and the dynamic between the two of them is so interesting! Aguilera continues her rant about how Sakura is weak, and how the weak has no place to talk... while Sakura keeps flashing back to how her younger self has her ultimate goal as being 'unbeatable'.

While the Planarian Deadman fights against Kamen Rider Demons and Live, Sakura sulks on a playground. After a bit of a talk with his parents, Ikki goes off to talk to Sakura and proves why he's the big brother of the bunch -- he clearly understands Sakura enough to know how to get through to her. He tells Sakura that he's not there to stop Sakura from fighting -- he's there to stop Sakura from fighting half-assed, basically. Ikki kind of pinpoints Sakura's problem, in that she refuses to admit her own weakness and just insists on saying that she's strong instead of, well, being strong. 

 

There's some huge battle against the Deadmen going on in the background, certainly, but we do get some pretty well-shot and well-acted scene of Sakura continuing to try her belt in her dojo and failing to do anything. I'm never a big fan of flashbacks, but here they are used very effectively to show how everyone, from Daiji to Aguilera to Sakura herself has been putting her down... before she literally breaks down and starts sobbing about how "I'm weak". This acknowledgement is what causes her inner demon to materialize, and later she walks into the battlefield with a badass entry, giving a huge speech about how she's accepted her weakness and she transforms into Kamen Rider Jeanne. 

What follows is a pretty damn cool sequence of battles. And... and the director of this episode most certainly really like Jeanne a lot, and she has such a better debut than Live, essentially soloing the massive Deadman horde. While all of this is going on, we get to see the true form of Sakura's demon, which has been exclusively shown as an ominous shadow and it's... Lovekov, this adorable giant plushy with stubby hands, sad snake eyes, and she just makes "rabu rabu" noises. I love this thing, it's freaking adorable. Lovekov spends basically the entire battle getting beaten up by the Deadman goons, and it falls to Vice to run around and make sure she doesn't get herself killed. 

A very, very great episode as far as action scenes go. They gave Jeanne a very, very long extended action scene, and I think a good part of why it's so fun to watch is that we don't get the CGI-abomination 'remix' forms that I've been tuning out for the past 11 episodes. (Olteca and Julio also show up to give Revice and Live cool opponents). 

Sakura does her finisher kick on Saeko, burning through her contract and saving her. And while dr. Haitani gets away for the moment, he and Sakura does share a mutual glare, and I do hope that the next couple of episodes builds up on this antagonism. Speaking of antagonism, Aguilera none-too-subtly hints at how she's happy that Haitani fails. 

The three siblings finally end up resolving their conflict, with Daiji apologizing to Sakura and... well, him convincing Fenix to pay for Saeko's child's medical bills probably helps a lot, too. The episode closes off with Vice bonding with little Lovekov, who is absolutely adorable... especially when she breaks her rabu/kobu Pokemon speech to insult Vice. 

Random Notes:

• Interestingly, while I had thought that it's George that gave Sakura the driver, he absolutely goes super-duper ballistic and angry at the appearance of a driver that he destroyed.
• Hiromi randomly delivers his backstory -- that he's bullied as a kid. As a Kamen Rider, it seems that his fate is also to be bullied by the monsters before the Igarashis show up. To be fair, though, in this episode he basically knocks himself up trying to use multiple Vistamps at once.
• Aguilera also gives us her backstory, being essentially someone who's raised in the Giff cult, but I'm not sure how reliable this account is. 
• Planarians are flatworms that are infamous for being able to regenerate its entire bodies after being sliced into small pieces, hence why dr. Haitani is able to duplicate the Planarian Vistamps.
• I have been wondering if any of the non-Revice riders are based on any specific previous riders, but turns out that between Evil, Jeanne and Demons, they fill up the 'spider, snake, bat' trio of classic Kamen Rider enemies.
• Jeanne has a pretty cool-looking ponytail that she uses as a spinning whip.
• It's honestly kind of understated, but I think this episode shows off the family dynamic between the five Igarashi family members the best.

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 956-965

Another batch of Wano episodes! The Oden flashback starts!

If I had been looking forward and looking at episode numbers, I'd have cut off the previous batch of episodes at 956 instead of 955. Oh well!

Episode 956:

• I completely missed the hilarious visual gag of Big Mom drinking Oshiruko just like how Kaidou is drinking alcohol. 
• Dropkick!
• I completely forgot that Tenguyama shows up here to hand over Enma and Ame-no-Habakiri to Momonosuke. 
• Momonosuke immediately declining Ame-no-Habakiri does fit in nicely with how Momonosuke's big character arc in the Wano arc is him slowly, very slowly, developing confidence. He had the Udon prison scene as of now, but that's clearly not enough. 
• So Zoro does know that the blade from earlier in the arc is the Nidai Kitetsu. Hmm! 
  
• God damn the anime studio really loves Zoro. Look at how badass his purple demon aura and all the water splashing on him is. 
• I don't think I've seen too much of it other than Master Roshi from Dragon Ball Z, but I do kind of like the twist that Luffy's trainer, Hyogoro, is utterly outclassed by Luffy in terms of strength and power... but Hyogoro knows a lot about Ryu'o and Haki and can instruct Luffy in technique. It is admittedly kind of annoying that for the past dozen episodes, Luffy and Hyo just basically has their training scenes as filler, but that's besides the point. Thankfully, in this episode, it's over. 
• I don't think that extra scene of Zoro fighting with Enma is in the manga! But it definitely is, I feel, kind of important to emphasize that it took a bit of time for Zoro to master the sword. 
• Oh, right, Shinobu's brother (whose name got revealed in the SBS) shows up for a grand total of one scene here, looking at the prisoners in the Flower Capital. 
• So Tama is the one who made the badass kasa hats for the Scabbards! That's cute, and a great little tie-in with the Ace stuff. The Wiki tells me that this scene is original to the anime, so good job, people in charge of the anime!
• The foreshadowing is a bit more obvious here, but this is where Kawamatsu tells the other Scabbards information that Hiyori is alive... and at the end of this episode, Orochi gets that information.

Episode 957:

• 
  Outside-of-Wano scenes! Fujitora! The Reverie! Garp! Big News Morgans! Dragon! Blackbeard! I had a whole paragraph typed in here, but it's basically a great adaptation of the outside-of-Wano scenes chapter, which is always very hype-inducing. Pretty interesting, too, seeing how smooth the Wano team's art is for these non-Wano characters are.
• Morgans beating up the Cipher Pol agent isn't like, super-extended or anything, but it's extra epic and they added some Epic Anime Eye Glows to our favourite Big News albatross. 
• Wait, isn't like, Impel Down a place to torture prisoners? Why the fuck does Doflamingo get newspapers?
• Having Drake contact Coby in the 'let's see the world outside of Wano' episode/chapter was always a very, very cool and thematic little choice of scenes. 
• Seeing the past Shichibukai animated in the new style as the narrator talks about the half-dozen past Shichibukai are obvious filler but it's pretty good filler, isn't it? Just to see the shots of these characters animated by the new studio? That transition with Blackbeard gura-gura shattering the screen or us zooming into Doflamingo's sunglasses are pretty smooth. 
• How badass is Hancock's delivery of "we became the Shichibukai because we were strong!" as we cut away to all the other Shichibukai getting ready for battle? Still one of the highlights of this whole sequence. 
  

Episode 958:

• I love that this episode isn't even 'let's look at the explosive events around the world' like last episode, but just Sengoku sitting in a room talking and delivering some massive lore revelations to a bunch of nameless marines. But it's all huge bounty reveals and storytime about he legendary Rocks D. Xebec, and it's one of the biggest episodes/chapters of One Piece. 
• SENGOKU'S GOAT! SENGOKU'S GOAT! SENGOKU'S GOAT! SENOGKU'S GOOAAAATT! 
• I do find it interesting that both Sengoku and Akainu are basically 'we have no time or resources to put to Wano', considering some still-developing recent revelations in the manga...

Episode 959:

• I've always found it fun that we start off the flashback (kind of) with Oden as part of the Roger crew. And... we kind of really only know four or five members of the Roger crew well, but I'm pretty sure the Vivre Cards revealed the names and personalities of all the other background members. 
• Of course we start off act three with another shamisen sequence. It even segues into the real scenes of the performers doing a performance for the Fire Festival! 
• I don't think anyone back in the day really thought that the Straw Hats and the Scabbards' allies were really dead, but between the art and the music, they really do a good job at highlighting how desperate Kin'emon's group felt at the moment. 
• I do like how Ashura Doji is the most pessimistic of the group, instantly going 'look, even the weather shows we are abandoned by heaven'. Considering his backstory during the timeskip? Yeah, can't really blame him. 
• Luffy, Brook and Chopper do look pretty good in those kabuto samurai armour. 
• Sanji and Zoro dicking around about bounties and casually slicing off another chunk of the cliff is hilarious. 

Episode 960:

• I know I've been commenting on how Oden's completely-dark-and-silhouetted body has been shown in 'lightly shaded' all throughout the various flashbacks, but, uh, in this episode Orochi just vaguely imagines Oden and we get to see his un-silhouetted, un-shadowed full design. Not going to lie, since we're going to get the flashback revelation literally ten minutes later in this episode, it's a bit of a strange choice. 
• Oh, right, Okobore Town got burned alive. I completely forgot about that! Or, rather, I think that back then I handwaved it as 'they wouldn't really do it'. 
• I love that just for the sake of exposition, Oden's own father and one of the Kozuki retainers randomly decides to 'let us recap Oden's life from the beginning'. 
• We actually get to see Oden's feats when he was young -- like diverting the river -- animated in full glory as the retainer talks about them. That's neat!
• I keep forgetting past-Kin'emon was blond.

Episode 961:

• That Togen Shirataki attack that Oden used to slice up the Mountain God was awesomely animated. It's like something straight out of a mecha anime like Evangelion or something, only instead of a laser beam slicing across the screen causing a delayed explosion, this is a goddamn sword slash cutting down a kaiju-pig. 
  
• This flashback is really great at re-contextualizing lesser characters like Ashura Doji and Yasuie. We already know who they are from the present-day scenes, but seeing them in the past, or seeing where characters like Kin'emon and the other retainers started out, really does a lot at setting up the rich backstory of the Wano characters. 
• I love that Yasuie quickly realizes that 'Oden would've stolen the money openly'. 
• How bizarre are Kanjurou and Raizou's backstories? Kanjurou just hung around a graveyard and cut people's hair to make brushes? Raizou got rejected by a kunoichi and is now an outlaw? 
• I like the offhanded foreshadowing about how Kanjurou 'suffered persecution in the past'. 

Episode 962:

• Pretty obviously, the mostly-offscreen fight between Oden and Ashura Doji and his Kuri bandits is an actual scene in this episode. Oden even gets a new anime-exclusive named attack, 'Shimi Daikon'. It's another oden-ingredient pun! 
• Some really beautifully animated armament haki activation on the part of Oden.
• Love the transition from the full-colour shot of Oden and his retainers posing in front of a restored Kuri, and how it goes into a more stylized, period-accurate brush-drawn black-and-white painting in the Wano newspapers. 
• I guess it's because they're cartoon animals, but baby Kawamatsu, baby Inuarashi and baby Nekomamushi are adorable! The most adorable shot is Kawamatsu chomping on the spilled oden after Neko does his cat-tongue thing. 
• Oden just casually beat up the people trying to burn the minks with one of the giant kois he just caught in order to make oden soup.
• I also love the little explanation about how Oden is already aware about the Minks' existence because of the Kozuki/Zou treaty of the past. 
• I really do like the little training montage. Little Kiku teaching Ashura Doji to read; the sequence of everyone doing quick-draw exercises; Denjirou being the tutor of the group...
• Great use of music, using partial black-and-white colouration, and shadows to make the Akazaya Nine actually look fucking badass when they stride into town. 
• I always love that people who pay attention to the background characters of Whitebeard's massive fleet can spot the younger versions of characters like Whitey Bay, Rakuyo or Epoida among Whitebeard's crew here. They don't really do anything, but it's nice consistency. 

Episode 963:

• I love how the Oden flashback is structured -- they show him initially filled with wanderlust and a desire to set sail before taming Kuri and gaining his retainers... but even after maturing, he never quite lost his desire to set sail and see the world. 
• Kin'emon dyed his hair black at some point before this episode. 
• Oden and Whitebeard clash! It's pretty well-animated, and it splits the ocean. I do like the little purple aura that settles over the characters as Whitebeard senses Oden running towards them. Really love the scenes of Whitebeard and Oden running towards each other, too. 
• The clash of the two named attacks, and Whitebeard's subsequent cracking of the air as his eyes glow green... superb. I could just go on and on about how cool the animation of these fights are. 
• I like how one of Whitebeard's reason for rejecting Oden is how 'people with big egos don't get together well on a ship', citing the Rocks crew. A neat way to tie in a newly-revealed fact! 
• Whitebeard and Kin'emon fist-bumping in unison for not letting Oden leave Wano is hilarious. 
• So Marco does have his phoenix fruit at this point in time. I don't think Marco taking Izo on-board the ship was actually shown in the manga. 
  
• Toki does really look like Hiyori, doesn't she? 

Episode 964:

• 
  I love how "he's annoyed!" ends up becoming a running gag only in this flashback arc. 
• Karma! I like Karma. He's an octopus! I also like that the anime make it a point to note that Karma would later join the Whtiebeard pirates, since he sort of disappears from the flashback after this. 
• Whitebeard calls Oden as a 'little brother'. Wonder why he's not considered a 'son'? Is it just his age? 
• The perfect way to extend the episode a bit is to actually extend bit-by-bit to show Oden's bizarre adventure, showing more of the wacky islands of One Piece that the Whitebeard Pirates landed on. For example, Whitebeard actually beat up that one random giant that they meet. 
• I love how Marco, Jozu and Vista are basically going 'd'awww' on the side as Oden and Toki are flirting. 
• I also really like how Oden learns about the greater world outside of Wano through this journey, learning about the organization that governs the world, or the fact that Wano is still a free country. 
• I think it's intentional that "Sukiyaki" and his voice acting is actually kind of stilted -- particularly his coughing -- in the scene where he names Orochi as his successor. 
• The birth of the division commanders! 
• Blackbeard joining the group is actually somewhat extended! 

Episode 965:

• The Orochi episode! They do prolong Orochi being hunted down and persecuted as a child in the opening sequence, and... and if I didn't know what kind of a jackass Orochi becomes as an adult, I might almost feel sorry for him. 
• Grandma Kurozumi is scary. 
• They meet the Roger pirates! I really like how little Shanks is just casually wearing the straw hat. 
• Scopper Gaban! He dual-wields axes!
• Really like the cheeky grin Roger gives Rayleigh and Gaban when he runs past them to fight Oden. 
• Roger's 'Divine Departure' one-shotting Oden into a mountain isn't that impressive, all things considered. The clash between Whitebeard and Roger, on the other hand? With the lightning and thunder and the blades not touching each other? The zoom-in to their eyes? The cube explosions? The brief scenes of black-and-white? Damn!

___________________________

That's ten episodes this time! I think we'll get through the entirety of the Oden flashback in the next batch of episodes. 

What If, Season One Review (Part 1)

Marvel's What If?, Season 1

I really didn't care all that much about this show when this was mentioned, let's be honest. It's an MCU project, but it just... tells standalone tales about weird 'for want of a nail' fanfiction moments? I've always been a low-key fan of these sort of standalone stories, admittedly, and have read my share of 'what if' timelines in DC and Marvel comics. But as part of the MCU, I had originally thought that it was a bizarre usage of a 'slot' in an honestly ever-increasingly hard-to-keep-up fictional universe. We used to have a couple of movies ever year, now we have that and multiple TV shows? And it's non-canon? But that's just me being a sourpuss, because this show was definitely a lot of fun. 

But then, being standalone also has the benefit that the contents of What If? is completely optional and there's no rush for audiences to go and watch it or they'll be missing out on some subtle thing or other for the next big MCU project. And, more importantly, when trailers started to really come out, the fact that a majority of the roles are going to be the MCU actors reprising their characters... it's definitely pretty interesting! It's not just 'lol let's see this character be that character' all the time, because in some of these episodes we get to see some characters who died a bit too early in the MCU movies actually be brought up into... well, a what-if scenario, for lack of a better term. 

As a side-note, each and every episode is narrated by the cosmic entity Uatu (voiced by the excellent Jeffrey Wright), a familiar face to most Marvel fans. Uatu himself doesn't really have too much of a role beyond being a narrator, but having a narrator is definitely important to contextualize some of these episodes. The animation is very crisp for being cel-shaded CG models, and while some of the faces admittedly do look a bit weird, the show as a whole is nice. The voice-acting... not all of them work as well, and I suspect it's because some of the live-action actors aren't as used to working in voice-acting; but there's nothing too jarring for me to point out. There's also a metric ton of Easter Eggs in every single episode, whether it be references to MCU movie events, random props or minor characters popping up here and there, and stuff. This'd honestly be the place to do it. If I was still doing episodic reviews, I probably would've had a field day with this show. 

It still took me a while to watch through them, and I wouldn't really call them all that necessary to the whole proceeding of things. This will cover the first half of the season -- I intended it to have every episode on a single page, but turns out that, well, I ramble a lot. 

Episode One: What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?

The first episode isn't particularly a creative concept for me, mostly because, well, as I mentioned above, I do consume a fair amount of superhero material, and with that also includes Elseworlds/What-If stories. Peggy Carter becoming Captain America isn't even strictly new -- a bunch of video games (admittedly mobile games) have done it, and we've gotten a bunch of different female Captain Americas over the comic-book history. Hell, giving Peggy Carter some spotlight isn't even new -- we've got two seasons of Agent Carter as one of the very first MCU tie-in shows, tragically terminated before its story could reach its proper conclusion. 

And... and that's more or less what happens here. Uatu the Narrator gives us a quick talk about the premise of the show, and after some faithfully-recreated shot-by-shot scenes, we jump straight to where the timeline diverges. Peggy gets into the super-steroid-vita-ray machine instead of Steve Rogers, and ends up becoming the super-soldier instead. It's the easiest and most classic alternate-universe superhero story idea ever, but as the first episode, being basic isn't all that bad. Most of the story in this episode essentially follow the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger only with Peggy in the place of Steve, some additional character concepts that are definitely easier (and cheaper) to do in animated format than live-action format, and a whole lot of wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes on the canon timeline. 'Sacred Timeline', I guess, since we've got that term from Loki. Ha ha, Bucky almost fell off the train and he makes a joke about losing his arm. Stuff like that. 

And this episode is mostly... it's mostly slow-paced. There's the almost obligatory but very logical plotline of Peggy having to deal with misogyny (and having seen it twice over in Agent Carter, it's the same feeling I get when I saw Peter Parker being bit by that spider again in Amazing Spider-Man), but things kind of go a bit more off the rails. Not being a live-action show lets the animators be a bit free in over-exaggerating how Captain Carter (she doesn't get to become "Captain Britain"?) tosses trucks around. And hell, sickly ol' Steve Rogers even joins in the war effort because in this timeline, Howard gets the Tesseract and is able to build an Iron Man HYDRA Stomper suit for him. Their romance is preserved, which is kind of sweet. Ultimately this mini-movie ends with a desperate Red Skull summoning a giant eldritch tentacle-monster from space (a somewhat similar thing happens to the Hydra from the animated Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes) and this being the huge thing that Peggy stays behind to fight in her huge heroic sacrifice moment. 

It's competently done, and Hayley Atwell is a delight to see as ever, but, well, this one's kind of basic. Beyond pointing out more Easter Eggs and praising the performance of the voice actors, I honestly don't have a whole ton to say here.

Episode Two: What If... T'Challa Became A Star-Lord?

This was probably the one that everyone was talking about, because... well, it was Chadwick Boseman's final performance as Black Panther. He recorded his dialogue for this episode before his untimely death, and this episode is rightfully dedicated to the actor that brought the character to life. And on paper, it's another "what if X character was Y character instead?" And... and I wasn't the biggest fan of this episode's concept, I'm not going to lie. It sounds like a crack fanfiction, but, again, the writers proved me wrong because this episode was pretty dang enjoyable. 

T'Challa gets to become Star-Lord in this continuity because, in this continuity, Kraglin and Taserface were the ones in charge of kidnapping Peter Quill and nabbed T'Challa instead. And T'Challa ends up staying with the Ravagers and becoming Star-Lord... but an actual famous outlaw of the galaxy, someone that everyone knows about, a fun pastiche on one of my favourite MCU memes -- Korath's epic "Who?". But I was still a bit hostile to the concept until the episode itself actually peeled away all my questions on why T'Challa would even stay with the Guardians at all. It's no big leap to say that T'Challa always wanted to look to the world beyond the closed borders of Wakanda, but he's always struck me as a very responsible prince. Even if he was delighted with the aliens, wouldn't he want to go back to Earth? Well, Yondu told T'Challa that Wakanda was destroyed, because he wanted to 'keep' T'Challa as his son, so to speak. And then at the end of the episode, T'Challa gets to go back after sorting things out with Yondu, not forgetting about the legacy of his homeland. It's a running sub-plot that goes in the background of this otherwise over-the-top crazy episode, which I feels really helps in grounding this episode in the fact that the main character is T'Challa. Again, though, without making this one run for too long, all the wacky continuity wink-winks are neat and all, but it wouldn't be that good of an episode if we didn't have T'Challa's arc of seeing who his family is, and what his roots are. That moment when he finds the Wakandan spaceship is easily the strongest part of this episode. 

As with anything relating to the MCU's cosmic side, this episode was a lot more nuts-to-the-wall crazy than the previous one, which was mostly serious. From the moment when Korath fanboys over Star-Lord T'Challa, we increasingly make the gags funnier and funnier. T'Challa apparently talked Thanos down from a Mad Titan to a reasonable low-key gangster here, and both Fanboy Korath and Gardener Thanos sticks around as part of the Ravager crew. Nebula (with hair!), free of Thanos's abusive parenting, gets to become a femme fatale member of the underworld. Drax is a bartender, the Collector killed/beat half the MCU cast off-screen, and the Black Order are glorified security guards... it's manic in the fun way that the Guardians of the Galaxy movie is manic. I particularly like this episode where it seems like some characters are just going to show up for a gag, but they extend the gag into how the character would be. 

It's a heist show, and heist shows are fun. Especially when this incarnation of the Collector (one of those 'underused characters' I talked about before) is a lot more chattier, and has revealed that he's got a whole ton of stolen weapons from MCU characters like Hela, Korg, Thor, Malekith, Captain America, and many others. The Black Order, a bunch of one-note mooks with fun designs that I've always had a huge soft spot for, end up getting a pretty fun role here, too, as minions of the Collector. And we even get a logical 'yeah, some other things proceed badly, shrug' moment when Uatu casually shows that without the events of the two Guardians of the Galaxy movie, it does mean that Ego is free to abduct a completely human Peter Quill for his plans of universal domination. 

Episode Three: "What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?"

Where the concept of the previous episode does feel like something special, though, this one... is a bit less derivative? I did laugh a lot when the first huge change is shown to the audience, admittedly. But this one feels a lot less interesting than the previous one. Someone is killing off all the Avengers one by one during the events of the 'big week' of Iron Man 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk, leaving Earth vulnerable as Nick Fury, Black Widow and Agent Coulson try to fix it. It's an interesting mystery problem, and it turns out that the villain is Hank Pym as Yellowjacket -- a nod to Hank's comic-book instability. And I don't actually have a problem with that. Casting Pym as a villain is interesting, and there are indeed some bread-crumbed clues on how it's someone with Ant-Man powers doing stuff. What's not made clear, however, was the bit of a random revelation that Hope van Dyne is a SHIELD agent who died in this particular timeline. 

The rest of the episode is competently done, at least, and I really did particularly like Loki in this episode. There's a sense that while he's doing a lot of grandstanding, at the very least part of his outrage at Thor's death is real. We all know Loki's a bit of a softie. At the end of the episode Loki lays a particularly badass beatdown on Yellowjacket Pym with his illusion powers, too, and in the middle of it he loses his composure when Hank dismisses Thor's death. It does feel like perhaps this episode was stretched a bit too much? I'm not quite sure what made me a bit too restless in this episode compared to the other two. 

Episode Four: "What If... Dr. Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?"

Another relatively predictable one, I feel, but one that is elevated beyond its concept. It's probably one of the easiest 'what if' prompts ever, right next to 'what if a supporting character is the hero instead' -- what if someone that's normally a superhero ends up becoming a supervillain? It's never something that's going to happen in the mainline MCU movies, considering how hard they have been in pulling back any sort of implication that the MCU heroes like Nick Fury or Iron Man could have any sort of moral gray area, but in a show like What If, they definitely can do it. 

In this episode, the point in time that changes is that Christine Palmer was in the car that Dr. Strange was driving in that fateful day, and instead of his hands, the casualty of that car crash is Christine herself. This leads to a moment after the events of the Doctor Strange movie where Dr. Strange ends up deciding to reverse time to save his girlfriend... only to fail again and again. Turns out that Christine's death is an 'Absolute Point', and because of the paradox that it will cause, the universe itself basically ensures that her death would happen. A different car crash, a freak fire accident, a mugger... it leads Dr. Strange into spiraling into darkness, looking for other sorts of magic that leads him into ultimately going into an ancient library and doing rituals to consume demons and otherworldly beings (including the tentacle monster that ate Red Skull in episode one) for centuries. 

Not the biggest fan of the third act, with the revelation that the Ancient One split the timeline (and the Dr. Stranges) in half, leading to a 'good Strange' vs. 'Strange Supreme'. I get that it's there to give some action before the finish, but I felt like it's a bit of a distraction. At least we get those Jack Kirby energy-beam warbles, which I thought was cute. Ultimately Strange Supreme dispatches of 'good Strange', absorbs him, and actually manages to resurrect Christine... leading to the paradox that causes the utter annihilation of their universe, leaving Strange Supreme alone in the small bubble that remains of that particular universe. In an interesting manner, Uatu actually interacts with Strange Supreme, albeit in the form of a conversation, basically telling him that this is all his fault. 

It's not the most original 'what if' storyline out there, but I think what elevates this beyond its concept is how well done Benedict Cumberbatch's voice acting is here, really exploring the various facets of the Dr Stranges we see in this episode. Plus, the particularly despair-inducing bit in the second act where Christine Palmer just keeps dying is executed pretty damn well. A very interesting 'bad timeline' for sure. 

Episode Five: "What If... ZOMBIES?"

When I saw the title of this one, I was pleasantly surprised. The previous four episodes seems to just be straight-up alterations of pre-existing MCU movies, but this one felt like something a lot more different. Because, well, zombies! Taking place in the first act of Avengers: Infinity War, we see Bruce Banner arriving on a different Earth, witnessing zombie versions of Iron Man, Dr. Strange and Wong brutally murdering the Black Order and turning them into zombies. We learn later that it's because of the events in Ant-Man and the Wasp (so this movie does double duty on the parody front), where the Pyms' entry into the Quantum Realm eventually caused the spread of a zombie virus into the rest of the world, leaving only a handful of heroes uninfected. 

Not the biggest fan on the Zombieland parody orientation video, but the rest of the episode was pretty neat. We toss together a bunch of characters (Spider-Man, Wasp, Okoye, Bucky, Happy Hogan, Sharon Carter, the Cape of Levitation and Ant-Man's buddy Kurt) and have them fight against a bunch of zombies. The first half is pretty typical "let's you-and-you fight" with no real consequences, because some of the people are zombies, and this is an alternate universe anyway so the showrunners get to kill off whoever they want. As a surprisingly upbeat Spider-Man himself also notes, we go through a lot of zombie apocalypse tropes as well. The cast gets whittled down, one of the cast gets infected via a cut and pulls off a heroic last stand, a seeming ally turns out to be a psychopath that's feeding people to a zombified loved one... only except these characters are all MCU characters, which is where the black comedy comes in. 

Some pretty neat things that happen here include Bucky actually getting the Captain America shield ('Captain Bucky' probably will never happen in the primary MCU since Sam gets the shield there). And I think this is the first time Spider-Man ever says 'Uncle Ben' in the MCU? Wasp also gets to activate the Giant-(wo)man abilities of her suit. We get a (zombie) Scarlet Witch vs. Hulk fight. We get Scott Lang reduced to a head in a jar (all this accomplishes, really, is to allow Paul Rudd to say Paul Rudd lines). We get a homage to the original Marvel Zombies with someone catching Black Panther and using him as 'takeout'. Black Panther is actually voiced by Chadwick Boseman here, and it's kind of poignant that he gets a line in this episode is about how death is not the end.

The episode kind of ends abruptly with the survivors escaping two waves of zombie Avengers and a zombified Scarlet Witch, going to Wakanda to make a cure, not realizing that zombie Thanos is already there. (Don't ask how he's in Wakanda, trying to analyze this particular episode too hard is going to give you a headache -- just accept the funny and move on) I did feel like the tone of this episode does feel a bit 'off', with gruesome deaths jumping straight into comedy. It's fun, but ultimately it's a pretty all right alternate universe.

Movie Review - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Venom: Let There Be Carnage [2021]

I know, I know, a bit late to the party, but that's what happens when you can't really catch cinematic movies when they are aired because of pandemic restrictions and whatnot. 

I actually did really like the 2018 Venom movie. Well, I mostly really liked Tom Hardy's dual performance as both Eddie Brock and Venom, and how the movie ended up somehow working as a violent action comedy on a different spectrum from its also-violent brethren Deadpool. And... and Venom: Let There Be Carnage delivers more of the same thing as its predecessor, save for the fact that the antagonist is changed almost whole-cloth from the more epic alien invasion of Riot to the psychotic serial killer that is Cletus Kasady/Carnage, one of the most anticipated characters to be associated with Venom and Spider-Man in general. 

And I'm not going to lie, I'm enough of a comic book geek to know that the creepy CGI fight between Venom and Carnage is worth the price of admission into a superhero action flick. So I did enjoy myself watching this movie, if nothing else. 

It's just that... for its 90-minute runtime, Let There Be Carnage doesn't really deviate too much from its stated plotline. It's a Venom movie where we get introduced to Cletus Kasady, the utterly lunatic serial killer, who bonds with the Carnage symbiote, and they fight. The movie does have a couple of very basic side-plots -- Kasady gets his girlfriend, the sonic-shrieking mutant called Shriek, as his sidekick; Venom and Eddie play up their wacky relationship to its expected next step, which is a break-up; and there's also the rather underwhelming sub-plot of Detective Mulligan trying to figure out what's going on.

That said, the runtime of the movie is also very short, and the movie never really tries to pretend that it's anything but a thrilling, super-fast action movie. Sure, there's the ultimate realization that Eddie Brock and Venom are good partners and they learn to work together in the climax of the movie. And the movie does go through the motions of giving both Eddie and Venom a character arc as they realize that they need the other... but it's a journey that's a bit besmirched by the fact that Eddie has a a symbiote-powered serial killer gunning for him; while Venom can't keep any of his hosts alive (other than Chen and Ann). So there's a literal, physical need that the two have to reunite. 

Admittedly the movie does play up their ultimate reunion as more of a comedic moment, but still, I really did wish that there was more? Of course, playing up the 'we could see Venom and Eddie's relationship like a romantic couple on the outs' up to eleven is a pretty fun choice for the writers and filmmakers. 

Of course, the poster show off both Venom and Carnage, and the Carnage side of the equation is interesting. Played by the excellent Woody Harrelson, Cletus does really give the vibe of a complete nutjob who's going to either shank you or talk politely to you on a whim. I know enough comics to know that Cletus is a complete and total psychopath through and through, and any attempt for him to deflect and tell a sob-story is 100% bullshit. I'm not sure why he's obsessed with Eddie Brock being the one to tell his story in the beginning of the movie -- although after Eddie's little crime-solving bit aided with Venom, Cletus's obsession with him is definitely warranted.

Maybe in an attempt to humanize Cletus or to give him a secondary goal beyond revenge, Cletus's primary goal in this movie is to be reunited with Frances "Shriek" Barrison, the only person in the world he even remotely likes, and for what it's worth, the movie does a pretty good job at showing that Frances is as much of an unhinged lunatic like Cletus is. The crux of the problem is that Frances's Shriek powers absolutely pisses off the Carnage symbiote, and that's what drives a wedge between Cletus and Carnage's partnership in the climax.  It's just kind of a shame that for a movie where the climax hinges on the three-way disagreement between Frances, Cletus and Carnage, two of them are a pretty flat character -- Frances is well-acted for what little screentime she has, but she never really shows much personality beyond being crazy and being in love. And the Carnage symbiote is honestly more of an extension of Cletus... except when he's not. 

Ultimately the movie ends up going for a superhero classic -- the hostage climax. The Bonnie-and-Clyde pair kidnap Detective Mulligan and Ann Weying, leading Eddie, Venom and Dan the Doctor to go and fight them. Of course it happens in a church! Again, the Mulligan storyline is really something that does feel more like a distraction than anything. Sure, the movie seems to intend to set him up as another symbiote-superhero later on down the line, but neither his friction with Eddie nor his vendetta with Shriek really amounts to all that much. 

The actual Venom/Carnage fight, as I mentioned above, is something that I unabashedly enjoy. Sometimes you enter an action movie, and you just want an action movie, you know? It's full of one-liners, comedic drops, and unabashedly dramatically-appropriate lightning bolts to accentuate badass lines from the antagonist. And honestly, this is just such a fun movie to watch -- it's a great bonus that Venom and Carnage are so much easier to tell apart due to their differing colours, body-builds and even the texture of their 'skin'. It's a common complaint that Riot looked a bit too similar to Venom in the first movie's climax. 

It's a fun, short ride, I guess, is what I'm saying. Go in for the special effects and action scenes and comedy, and you really won't be disappointed -- it's not trying to be too different from the formula, and while most of the audience are either too used to the MCU formula or bored of superhero movies in general; I, for one, did enjoy my symbiote-fighty-fighty action movie. 

And, of course, there's that genuinely surprising mid-credits scene at the end, which promises for... bigger and greater things!

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Not really going to go over Carnage and Shriek's backstories in the comics because the movie does a decent job at going through it, but Patrick Mulligan is also known in the comics as the first Toxin -- which is what that random scene with his eyes glowing is all about.
  
• Notable, though, that while not called a 'mutant' outright, they did talk about Shriek's 'mutations'. 
• The recurring gag of "Lethal Protector" is the title of a six-issue Venom miniseries released in 1993, which solidifies Eddie Brock/Venom's transition from villain to antihero. 
• Shriek is kept in the Ravencroft Institute, a recurring location in the Spider-Man comics; which is actually most commonly associated with Carnage. 
• Mulligan reads a newspaper from the Daily Bugle.
• Cletus crushes a spider that runs around his desk when writing a letter for Venom, a wink-wink nod to how Venom and Carnage are technically Spider-Man enemies.
• And, of course, there's the post-credits scene, where Venom and Eddie found themselves tossed into the MCU universe, seeing J. Jonah Jameson's proclamation about Spider-Man and Peter Parker as seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home's final scene. I haven't watched that movie, but presumably this is caused by the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.