Kamen Rider Zero One E44 Review: Everybody Riot

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 44: There's Only One Person Who Can Stop You

As we enter the penultimate episode of Kamen Rider Zero-One... it's pretty clear that the show's just bull-rushing on, yeah? I'm pretty sure they do have a plan for how the broad strokes of the show is going to end, but it's also clear that after the post-Gai-redemption arc, the episodes are really... condensed. Call it jumping the shark (jumping the biting shark?) if you want to, call it bad pacing caused by the shorter episode quota, or simply them not having the resources to shoot the episodes they wanted to due to the pandemic... I dunno. Ever since the Gai-redemption arc and beating up the Ark in its disembodied voice state, everything has just been all over the place. Exciting, sure, there's still the fun thrill of seeing these characters do action scenes and beat each other up. But there's also the nagging sense that the story is just all over the place, and none of the themes that the show has been emphasizing or exploring in the first 35-40 episodes really felt like it stuck. And it's a shame, if the contents of the past two or three episodes have been given more breathing room... it's basically all my complaints about the end of the original Horobi/Jin arc, but compounded. 

Because of Horobi's speech about how president Aruto is now the Ark, somehow it causes city-wide (nation-wide?) Humagear riots because all the Humagears are confused on whether Aruto has betrayed them, or if Metsubojinrai.net is right all along. Aruto's not providing any answers, so they just kind of riot with banners with words. And this just feels pretty weird, y'know? A good chunk of the Metal Cluster Hopper arc and the Aruto-restoring-Humagears-by-himself arc revolves around just how beloved Aruto is. I find that it's a bit of a bizarre jump for the Humagears who adore Aruto to suddenly be out on the streets crying for blood or whatever. And, sure, there is Williamson from Zaia egging things on, but it feels very convoluted that there's a huge strike of random Humagears crying out for Aruto to come out of his office.

Also, they seem to be a lot more sentient, but while it's not stated I'm going to chalk that up to Aruto restoring Humagears and giving them all a choice during his Hiden Ltd. storyline. And with what's going on in many parts of the world, I guess it's not too much of a stretch that a bit too much freedom would lead to riots all the time. 

Aruto, meanwhile, is just having headaches and mental images of Azu's shoulder slinking over his shoulder and hugging him from behind. That's actually a pretty cool shot. The episode then basically cuts back and forth between four places of conflict -- the vice president's group in Hiden Intelligence dealing with a riot; Williamson and AIMS dealing with a different riot in the streets; Aruto meeting Fuwa and Naki; and Horobi meeting Ikazuchi Raiden. And you know what? These scenes are great. The acting is great, the writing and cinematography are all right, and the emotions do hit me right where it's supposed to. It's just that the buildup to this payoff just isn't there. The themes and concepts they want to talk about is there, of course. Raiden and Yua both emphasize that humans essentially gave Humagears their hearts in trying to convince the people they're arguing against. Fukuzoe, Naki and Fuwa all talk about Aruto's dreams. There's a thematic connection, but, again, due to the suddenness of this whole all-the-humagears-riot storyline, it just doesn't quite feel that well-paced. 

I think Fukuzoe's scenes might be my favourite, although that might be because I've found myself with a certain fondness for Fukuzoe, Yamashita and Shesta. Ai-chan even makes a little cameo, telling Fukuzoe to go catch his own dream, and Fukuzoe is resolved at being 'number one at being a second-in-command'. There's a pretty cool, dramatic moment when Fukuzoe bows down and begs the rioting Humagears to believe in Aruto, followed by Shesta and Yamashita. That's pretty cool. Horobi and Raiden... it's the shortest of the scenes, but Raiden's cool-big-bro attitude gets rejected by Horobi, who asks Raiden "what if it's your precious brother that got killed by humans" to which he has no answer. 

Also pretty cool is giving Yua something to do, and those two Crab Bros that sort of hung around Yua but gets dropped when AIMS itself sort of shuffled into the background are clearly conflicted about following Williamson's "kill 'em all" attitude. But Yua shows up, tells AIMS that Gai pulled some strings to make AIMS an independent organization again. A random Humagear catgirl whacks Yua until her head is bleeding, but she doesn't fight and AIMS all throws their guns down because they are moved by Yua's words about how the justice they're fighting doesn't involve shooting these Humagears to death for no reason. A bit of a clunky speech, but okay. 

Fuwa and Naki confronting Aruto is the big obligatory action scene, and we get a random new form out of it somehow? Aruto is in a fugue-like state of 'I've done something irredeemable, there's no going back', while Fuwa tells Aruto that if he fights Horobi, all the Humagears will see humanity as an enemy. Again, I kind of get where they're going from. If the Humagears see the one most benevolent human ally they have kill a Humagear, then they'll get furious, but the show really doesn't depict this particularly well at all. Naki, meanwhile, is just straight-up furious. They're raising their voice! Naki screams at Aruto, asking him if he's given up on his dreams and how he's betraying all the Humagears who trusted him. 

Then Naki, forgetting that they also have a Rider form (or combining with Fuwa again, that's like, something they could do), just chucks their key to Fuwa and lets Fuwa transform into a brand new form. And, sure, Orthus Vulcan's pretty neat as a random recoloured form, but it also literally comes out of nowhere. Why does Naki's key work and Fuwa's key doesn't? We get a frankly simple melee fight between Orthus Vulcan and Aruto in his Zero-Two form (so he isn't fully in Ark-mode, huh) but ultimately Aruto just rips Orthus Vulcan's Wolverine claws off and his shotriser blows up mid-punch. It's honestly kind of underwhelming. 

Fuwa asks Aruto what's going to happen to his dream after he kills Horobi, but Aruto just completely ignores him... although we do get a scene of Aruto clearly being conflicted enough to ask Zea what to do. We get to see Papa Ichigata, though not what their clearly final-episode-redemption conversation ends up being. Speaking of what's clearly going to be a final-episode development, Gai gathers Yua and Fuwa to help him restore Jin, because Williamson has trusted him with Jin's little hearing aid thing.

Azu, meanwhile, is hanging out with Horobi on a rooftop, telling him to kill Aruto, destroy humanity and make his dreams come true and gives Horobi an extinction driver. The episode ends with Horobi and Aruto facing off each other in a televised fight, and this causes the Humagears calmed down by Fukuzoe and Yua to riot again, and the two of them transforms with Horobi having a brand new Ark-Scorpion form. And scene, next episode time. Pretty obvious that we're building up towards a last-minute redemption, but, again, with the pretty lackluster buildup in the final arc, it's hard to really get super excited about it.

Again, it's messy. Orthus Vulcan really came out of nowhere and feels like a desperate attempt to sneak in a random cheap repaint form before the series is over, and it's not like the fight is particularly exciting or particularly significant. I would've liked it more if it was Fuwa fighting as a regular human, or Fuwa and Naki actually working together to try and demonstrate to Aruto the human/humagear combo... but I dunno. this episode's just kind of messy, like the rest of this final arc. We'll see if the final episode can actually salvage this into a satisfying ending. 

Random Notes:

• Somewhere around this time we've got two episodes of the Kamen Rider Zero-One Short Anime: Everyone's Daily Life. It's cute wackiness, although nothing particularly noteworthy to talk about. It's nice to see everyone friendly instead of having terrorist wars and riots, though! 
• I'm disappointed but also, at this point, not surprised that Naki doesn't transform and instead tosses their key to Fuwa because Fuwa's a dude. Like, they couldn't even put in a simple 'Ark can hack into Force Riser' explanation? I dunno. 
• Naki is kind of ignored by the plot at large, but they do get a pretty dramatic shot near the end of the episode where they spin around and a helicarrier moves ominously above their head. That's such an unnecessarily dramatic shot, I like it. 
• I absolutely love the fact that Gai's 'Thouser Division' office is like in a random electrical room, yet he's set up an office desk and is still drinking darjeeling tea. You can take the boss out of the office but you can't take the boss out of the man. 
• After it becoming such a stupid running gag in his redemption arc, it's kind of bizarre that Gai's robot dog buddy just utterly disappears. 
• There's a nice bit of shot where Aruto is beating Fuwa up as Zero-Two, but we still have brief flashes to the Ark-One suit doing violence. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Japanese wolf! Shot rise. ORTHUS VULCAN! Awakening the instincts of two beasts long lost." It's finisher is 'Orthus Blast Fever', although we don't get any fancy katakana stuff. 
• "Ark Scorpion! Progrise! Ark! Taste destruction. Know ruin. Feel despair. Experience Extinction. ARK SCORPION! The conclusoin after evil climbs the top of the highest mountain of rock."
• Know your monster: Orthus is a two-headed giant wolf from Greek mythology. Not to be confused with the Cerberus. 

Stargirl S01E01-02 Review: Stars and Stripes

Stargirl, Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot; Episode 2: STRIPE

Episode 1: Stargirl

It's actually not something I say about a lot in this blog, but while it was Batman and the Justice League who got me into superhero comics for the first time, it was actually probably Stargirl who ended up causing me to go into a huge deep-dive into the DC comics lore back in the 00's. I was a huge fan of the Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. comic book run, as well as the Justice Society of America comics that they were basically the ones that ended up causing me to really, really hunt down less-mainstream DC comics and try and learn more about the characters. And so I have a huge, huge love for the character and the fact that they're basically combining both the 'small town superhero learning her legacy' of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. with the more over-reaching 'the next legacy of the Justice Society' of the 2006 JSA comic book run... yeah, I really liked the concept of this show. I watched the entirety of this show as it aired back on May... and I'm just not entirely sure why I didn't review it. Oh well, better late than never, right? 

Technically taking place on "Earth-2" in the CW-DC Multiverse (it's just a moniker until they decide to do a crossover), it's basically a standalone series working with its own lore and history, something that I was certainly not prepared for. The comic book geek in me was so, so surprised to see the brutal fight as the original Justice Society gets absolutely massacred by their foes, the Injustice Society. And we get to see so many pretty faithful nods to the comics! Hourman! Icicle! Tigress! Sportsmaster! Dr. Mid-Nite! Wildcat! Solomon Grundy! A lot of CGI fights, a lot of deaths, as we follow the young sidekick Stripesy/Pat Dugan in seeing these heroes die. All Pat is able to do is get his partner Starman to safety before Starman gives his equipment to Pat... telling him to find a successor who is not him. 

Fast-forward ten years later and... and the episode basically does a full 180 in tone, going from superhero action-epic to... wacky happy teen drama stuff. Pat Dugan is older now, married to a woman, Barbara Whitmore, with young son Mike Dugan and angry teen stepdaughter Courtney Whitmore. And... it's got a very fun tone to it. The first episode does take a while to get on, but the cast is charming, and the setup as the family moves to Blue Valley is pretty chill while the episode sort of takes its time telling us about the core cast of characters that form the Whitemore-Dugan family, and their struggles after moving.

And it's actually pretty nice to have... I wouldn't say that Stargirl is a more grounded show, because if anything, the choice of eclectic superpowers that its cast has (which are remarkably faithfully adapted from the comics) is far more wacky than most of CW's fare, but its characters certainly are. There is a Peter Parker style simplicity to a teenager who just wants to find her place in the world, but ends up discovering that with great power comes great responsibility and all that. Pat Dugan, old and retired, is still looking for answers, seemingly hunting for the Injustice Society and tracking them to Blue Valley. Meanwhile, Courtney shows up at Blue Valley High School... and these first two episodes does a lot at showing a bunch of new characters and while I know enough of the comics to recognize some last names and figure out where the show is going to take them, I do appreciate that the show is more about seeing this new town through Courtney's eyes and basically ends up reducing most of the side cast into first impressions. There's the cheerleader alpha bitch. There're the awkward kids. There's the rich jock. 

To a smaller extent, we also get to see Pat and Barbara interacting with the small down people, with Barbara working with councilman Zarick's American Dream meeting, and Pat setting up his automobile shop and coming across overly-friendly 'hey yo brother everyone needs to work out' gym owner "Crusher" Crock. Again, we'll learn later on that a lot of the residents of Blue Valley are actually supervillains in disguise, but the show actually plays it very close to its chest in these early episodes, making characters like Crock and Zarick distinctive on how they relate to our main cast, while not overly suspicious. 

And the pacing could've been so boring. It really could've been slow and agonizing. And yet somehow, even as someone who normally dislikes these sort of after-school teen dramas, I really ended up liking everything that's going on here. And I'm willing to admit that there might be some bias because I like Stargirl and the JSA a lot... I don't know. The fact that the series immediately starts off with the promise that we're going to be building up to something epic is probably a good factor, but the fact that the two primary cast members -- Brec Bassinger (Courtney) and Luke Wilson (Pat) -- are so gosh-danged likable is probably a factor. 

Of course, eventually Courtney comes across the mysterious box that her dorky stepfather has while moping about her fate moving in this small town... and turns out that it's Starman's Cosmic Staff! Which is all alive and emphatic and warbles all the time, and has basically 'chosen' Courtney to be its wielder. Courtney also eventually figures out Pat's identity as Stripesy, and she and the Cosmic Staff go off on a bit of a joyride, using the brilliant disguise of a scarf over her face to beat up the bully in the school, Henry King Jr... and accidentally blowing up his car. Oops! Abuse of power! 

Courtney returns to her house and talks very long to Pat... and it's a very interesting scene, too, because it's not just the excitement that Courtney has and the anger that Pat's hiding something so big and potentially dangerous. The fact that this adaptation adds in the fact that Pat was glossed over by both Starman and the staff for being a potential wielder, and the fact that Pat is basically burdened by the fact that all  his friends are dead adds a sense of gravitas to this whole speech. Pat being absolutely worried that Courtney might get herself killed isn't just an adult refusing to let the teenager main character have fun, but something that might actually happen. And then Courtney complicates this further by fantasizing about how Starman could've been her missing biological father, who, coincidentally, went missing at around the time that the JSA died. They sort of bond over sharing this secret, and without realizing that there might be supervillains around, Pat basically allows Courtney to keep the staff under supervision. Being a teenager and a mystical sentient object, the Cosmic Staff almost immediately gets Courtney to run away and practice wielding it. We also get a neat scene of Courtney telling her mom how she and Pat are basically trying to make this family work, which is a continuing running thing in the background that I really do appreciate. 

Much to Courtney's misfortune, Henry King Junior is the son of dr. Henry King Senior. In addition to being one hell of an asshole of a father, turns out that once King Sr. figures out what's going on, he goes into a secret room and reveals that he's actually Brainwave, one of the villains that killed the JSA ten years ago... and someone just attacked his son in what he (reasonably) thinks is a superhero attack meant to draw him out. After informing Jordan Mahkent (a.k.a. Icicle), Brainwave decides to hunt down what he thinks is a new Starman. 

And so begins the 'starter villain' for our new heroine, where Brainwave, in all his glorious supervillain glory, starts tossing around tires and cars and trying to kill Stargirl while interrogating her, and it's only thanks to the staff's own initiative that Courtney survives -- something I found very much believable. The episode ends with Stargirl losing her first fight against Brainwave, and meeting with a giant robot. 

And... that's the end of the first episode, which feels more like the first part of a two-episode pilot, and that's why we're reviewing the first two episodes together here. But ultimately, it certainly is a fun breath of fresh air to have this very, very fun superhero show. I really do like the concept of a basically everything that's going on here. A father and daughter that's trying to make their relationship work; old sins and old failures; a small town with supervillains secretly living in it... there's a lot to unpack in this series, and I absolutely love everything that's going on here. A very serviceable pilot episode for sure. 

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Episode 2: STRIPE

And then we move into episode two. Oh, hey, turns out that Pat is piloting the Iron Giant esque giant robot, it's made out of Starman's old flying car, and they manage to rocket-boots away from Brainwave's assault. The reality and danger of having superpowers and mistaken for a superhero just sets in then and there for Courtney and Pat, and I really do like just how utterly protective Pat is of his stepdaughter. Again, there's honestly nothing super-out-there in this episode, mostly just a typical superhero origin story as Courtney learns more about her powers and decides to use it, and the justifiably worried parent, Pat, decides to finally support her daughter and realizing that Courtney's potential is going to allow her to be one of the best superheroes around... while also being pants-shittingly scared like any good parent would. We also get a bit more context about Pat's search, about how apparently Hourman was the one that went on the trail of the Injustice Society before killed in what Pat had assumed was a random car accident in Blue Valley. 

There's a neat bit of argument where Pat really tries to quash Courtney's dreams of Starman being her dad, while Courtney is angry that Pat would stop her from superheroing since Sylvester Pemberton started off at the age of fifteen... and also none-too-subtly insults Pat for 'sitting on the sidelines' for too long. I do like that the talk about secret identities leads to Courtney to decide that the clear solution here is to make a super-suit. And proceeds to destroy a bunch of sewing machines that aren't built to handle super-suit material. Meanwhile, Pat tries to work out the kinks in his STRIPE armor and punches himself in the face, another fun bit.

The villains living in Blue Valley are perhaps not as organized as Pat would've loved to think, though. Brainwave meets up with Councilman William Zarick, who turns out to be the Wizard, hiding his Harry Potter wand in a safe. They talk about how their plan, Project New America, is threatened, and how their boss (and presumed big bad of the season) is Jordan "Icicle" Mahkent. There's a neat little friction between them, and seeing that both Wizard and Brainwave both have kids that also attend Courtney's school, there's also the very, very interesting facet of this series in that most of the villains are parents who want to leave a legacy for their children, which is what they're doing in this small town. 

That said, though, that legacy bit is... interesting. Courtney herself has already played with a lot of legacy, inheriting her stepfather Pat's fight and also her (ssumed and totally not-real biological father's equipment. But in somewhat of a darker tone, we get to see the interaction between other people in Blue Valley as the secondary characters become slightly more prominent. There is Principal Anaya Bowin basically forcing her kid to be a musician. And Brainwave's son, Henry King Jr, gets a pretty interesting scene where he steals from his father's wallet, before his father calls him in and essentially interrogates him and asks him if he has psychic powers, essentially grooming Henry King Jr to be a copy of Henry King Sr. 

Ultimately, after we bounce around a bunch of side-characters and some superhero montage hijinks, there is a massive assembly in Blue Valley where Brainwave, Pat and Courtney are basically trying to figure each other's secret identities out. Brainwave wins on this pretty tense scene, corners Courtney, discovers her (mistaken) belief that she's Starman's daughter and basically threatens to kill her mother if she doesn't bring the Cosmic Staff to him. 

And... and Pat, bless him, decides to forbid Courtney from seeking vengeance or playing hero like a fool, and decides to head off to fight Brainwave as STRIPE with strict instructions for Courtney to bring Barbarba and Mike away should he not return. And after a nice bit of Barbara thanking Courtney for trying to bond with her stepfather, Courtney heads off into combat as Stargirl. And while Brainwave mops the floor with STRIPE in their first encounter, after a pretty fun and fast-paced action scene Stargirl eventually beats Brainwave, overloading him with so much energy that it leaves him in a coma. There was a bit where Brainwave clearly had both heroes on a disadvantage, though, and while there's nothing super-special about it, it's a tense fight nonetheless. 

There are a couple of other side-characters that get developed. Barbara's boss, Mr. Sharpe, seems nice but is basically a passive-aggressive control freak who refuses anyone's input. We get a bit more of Crock being a gym rat. The Loser Squad in Courtney's school also get some highlight, mostly the overly-chipper Beth Chapel (her mother works with Brainwave's alter-ego and there's a fun bit where Courtney and Brainwave just narrowly miss seeing each other over Skype). And, of course, alpha-bitch Cindy Burman with her Rogue-from-X-Men hair gets a fair bit, too. And, of course, the end of the episode has Icicle finally show up and meet with Solomon Grundy (locked in a cage), Zarick and Sharpe. Since Stargirl's basically made her debut, she's essentially inviting the rest of Brainwave's allies to fight back. On with the premise of the season!

Episode 2 was perhaps a bit slower, alternating between typical 'newbie superhero' hijinks like making a costume or figuring out how a robot suit works while also having the tension of Courtney and Pat trying to figure out who Brainwave is and what he is planning in this small town. There are parts of the episode that feel a bit exposition heavy, although the script and Luke Wilson's performance ends up making a lot of them feel like he's just panic-rambling instead of delivering exposition. And I do like how the tension is ramped for the audience as we discover that more and more of the adults in Blue Valley are actually supervillains. 

Again, this is a pretty great two-parter pilot (even if it's not marketed as such), really showing off not just the characters of Courtney and Pat, but also selling the premise of a post-JSA world and the concept of a small town that's basically run by supervillains trying to do something. It really does feel like it's something completely different, and after a couple of DC shows that have taken some... extreme liberties with its source material, I am very happy to see one that is a lot more faithful while also doing a lot of changes that make the new stuff a lot fresher. The CGI and the action, which I didn't mention a lot in my already-lengthy review, is also top-notch. Special kudos go to the work in making STRIPE exude Pat's dork-dad energy and the Cosmic Staff for being a neat little R2-D2-style bleep-bloop companion. Pretty great pacing and general mood, too. I really did enjoy watching this season. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The constant reference to the Golden Age of Heroes is, of course, a reference to the Golden Age of comics, the era from the 1930's to the mid-1950's. In the DC universe, a lot of the heroes whose careers debuted there (mostly the Justice Society) tended to also have an equivalent in terms of being part of a 'Golden Age' themselves. 
• Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl, originally the second Star-Spangled Kid, in the comics is the step-daughter of Pat Dugan, sidekick to the original Star-Spangled Kid. As shown here, Courtney comes across the gear of the original Star-Spangled Kid (the cosmic converter belt), as well as later on the Cosmic Staff of Jack Knight, one of the many superheroes known as Starman. Thus carrying the legacies of two superheroes, Courtney would fight crime both in her small town of Blue Valley (in her solo series) and as part of the Justice Society of America.
• Pat Dugan/S.T.R.I.P.E., originally Stripesy, was the adult sidekick to the teenaged Star-Spangled Kid. Retiring when he grew older, Dugan would be forced to develop the S.T.R.I.P.E. armor when his stepdaughter runs around as a superheroine in order to protect and assist her. 
• The original acronym for STRIPE is Special Tactics Robotic Integrated Power Enhancer. Courtney prefers the more hilarious one of "Subatomic Tactical Robot Internet Pat Enhancer".
• Sylvester Pemberton is the Star-Spangled Kid in the comics, although the show combines him with the various superheroes called Starman in order to simplify the whole 'Courtney takes over a hero's legacy' thing. In the comics, the Star-Spangled Kid and his chaffeur sidekick fought against Nazis with their acrobatic prowess. Pemberton would later inherit Ted Knight (Starman I)'s cosmic rod for a while. He would be killed when he emerged from retirement as part of the Infinity Inc. organization. 
• The Justice Society of America shown here are based on many of its original members. Their base, as seen in this episode, is lifted almost verbatim from the comics. There are a lot of characters, so I'll be brief with talking about them:
• Wildcat, a.k.a. Ted Grant, is a world-class boxer who fought crime initially to clear his name after being framed. 
• Dr. Mid-Nite, a.k.a. Charles McNider, is a surgeon who was blinded by gangsters, but later discovered that he could see but in perfect darkness, and he began fighting crime at night or with 'blackout bombs'. 
• Hourman, a.k.a. Rex Tyler, is a chemist who created the super-steroid Miraclo, allowing him to have superpowers for exactly one hour. 
• The Flash I, a.k.a. Jay Garrick, might not appear on-screen but his helmet is evidently seen
• Green Lantern I, a.k.a. Alan Scott, also doesn't appear on-screen but his green flames are seen in the battlefield and he shows up on photographs. Alan Scott became a superhero when he found a mystical 'green flame' crash-landing on earth, giving him a variety of powers, allowing him to fly and create green objects. 
• Sandman, a.k.a. Wesley Dodds, (the guy with the gas mask) is a vigilante who has prophetic dreams about crimes, and would head off to prevent them with a sleeping gas gun. 
• Harkman (Carter Hall) and Hawkgirl (Shiera Sanders), as they are originally conceptualized, were the reincarnated Egyptian rulers Prince Khufu and Priestess Chay-Ara, reincarnated in modern times and using the knowledge of the extraterrestrial Nth Metal to fashion their wings and powers. 
• Johnny Thunder, also not seen but mentioned, is a man born on a specific date and forced to bond with a mystical genie called the Thunderbolt by a cult. Johnny is able to summon the Thunderbolt and ask him for assistance by saying the magic words "cei-u".
• The Injustice Society (not named on-screen) is based on the various incarnations of the team's lineup. The team is a mixture of various incarnations of the group over the years. Spoiler warning; a lot of the 'real names' here will spoil the identities of the characters although my review probably did so already. 
• Icicle, a.k.a. Joar Mahkent (Jordan here), is a foe of Alan Scott's Green Lantern who had access to an ice gun. Later, thanks to an accident with his equipment, Icicle became capable of wielding ice powers as a metahuman. 
• Tigress, a.k.a. Paula Brooks, was a foe of Wildcat who was a skilled hand-to-hand fighter who had an affinity for exotic weaponry. 
• Sportsmaster, a.k.a. Lawrence "Crusher" Crock, is a foe of Green Lantern who was a frustrated athlete who turned to a life of crime, utilizing various sports-related gimmicks. 
• Brainwave, a.k.a. Henry King Sr, was a secluded, friendless boy who developed psychic mind-reading and mind-manipulating powers, and was one of the earlier enemies of the Justice Society. 
• Solomon Grundy, a.k.a. Cyrus Gold, was a Green Lantern (and later Batman) enemy who was once a 19th-century criminal killed in the cursed Slaughter Swamp, and would continually be resurrected as the simple zombie Solomon Grundy. 
• Wizard, a.k.a. William A. Zard (renamed to William Zarick here) is a master illusionist and hypnotist, although later on he would gain access to actual magical power to menace the magic-users among the JSA. 
• Gambler, a.k.a. Steven Sharpe, a career criminal using throwing knives, cards and gas guns. He is yet another Green Lantern enemy. 
• Shade, a.k.a. Richard Swift, is presumably the one responsible for all the shadowy demon arms rampaging around the battle (it could be Wizard?). Shade is able to control the shadows, drawing power from a magical dimension called the Shadowlands. 
• Ted Knight, a.k.a. the original Starman, is credited by Pat as the designer of Sylvester's suit. 
• Dr. Weerd, a.k.a. James Stanton, is a very minor villain from the original Star-Spangled Kid comics. 
• This is long enough as it is, so we'll be saving the school cast for when they get relevant. 

Movie Review: Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 [2007]

I guess it's like a once-a-year tradition for me to do one of these every year, huh? I did Spider-Man exactly two years ago and Spider-Man 2 last year, so I guess I'm wrapping my very, very slow coverage of old superhero movies with the final part of Sam Raimi's trilogy, and the movie that infamously sort of sunk the Spider-Man movie franchise for a while. And back then, there was this whole sense of how Summer superhero blockbuster movies can't fail, that they are huge opportunities for merchandising and whatnot, and Spider-Man 3 sort of came out in around the period of time where superhero movies started to transition from janky sequels to either the MCU formula (tm) or dark'n'gritty stuff.

That said, though, Spider-Man 3 is... a weird beast. The first movie was pretty solid, with a very charismatic cast and an adequate adaptation of the basic parts of Spider-Man's comic-book backstory. Spider-Man 2 was even better, easily one of the more solid superhero adaptation of its time. Spider-Man 3... let's just say that it's already way too crammed with plot threads that don't really connect anywhere, and that's before you lousily shoehorn a rehash of Spider-Man 2's romantic plot after a pretty silly bit of out-of-character moment for Peter Parker.

Let's count the plotlines, shall we? We've got the Symbiote, which isn't explained at all beyond 'weird alien from a meteorite' who sort of latches onto Peter Parker and makes him act more aggressive and even evil like a douchebag; we've got the Sandman plot that's clumsily woven into the Ben Parker story from the first movie; we've got Peter and Mary Jane handling a breakup while Peter's acting like a total doofus thanks to the Symbiote; we've got Harry Osborn's dumb, out-of-place attempt to get revenge before a butler speech makes him ralize that his dad is evil all along. Am I missing anything? I mean, I guess there's the Peter Parker/Eddie Brock rivalry and Gwen Stacy as characters that sort of get shoehorned in, too. Oh, an a random amnesia plot for Harry Osborn! I nearly forgot about that, that was dumb. 

Like, there's a universe where you could put Venom, Sandman and Green Goblin II into the same movie and make it work, I'm sure. But this isn't that movie. And it isn't something like X-Men: The Last Stand where you can sort of see a decent movie crammed into the huge pile of messiness, but Spider-Man 3's characters just do a lot of things that don't make sense just to up the angst. The strength of the previous two Raimi movies is that the characters are solid. They're not the most well-developed characters, but you can get why Harry or Peter or Mary Jane did the things they did in those movies. Here, Peter randomly gets horny and kisses Gwen Stacy in public in front of his wife. Also, even though Harry is threatening Mary Jane, she doesn't try to warn her superhero ex that something's going wrong? Also for all of the drama in how everything in Peter's life being on the up-and-up while Mary Jane loses her starring role in the play, it feels awkward and shoehorned in and we never really get any sort of a satisfying emotional conclusion to this set-up. Or the random bit where Harry's huge moment of clarity came from a random speech from his butler that causes him to realize that "oh, my dad's the Green Goblin after all".

Let's talk about the Peter/MJ bit, too -- I've never been about the huge emotional romantic moments in superhero movies, but the fact that the titular couple has to deal with the ups and downs of their lives -- where Peter's career as photographer and as Spider-Man is being all rosy-sweet while Mary Jane's losing opportunities and barely holding herself together... it could've been an interesting one as Mary Jane learns to be more mature and less jealous and Peter learns to be more of a supportive partner than a behaviour more fitting for a cheerleader. But nope, all the setup is replaced with the admittedly entertaining dancing scene at the club and a generic "rescue the screeching leading lady from the monster" third act. 

The movie is meant to be two movies, with one starring the Sandman while seeding Eddie Brock as Peter's rival, while the theoretical fourth one would've been the Venom one, but... but instead we have this hodgepodge of plot threads that really felt like they could've been expanded upon but are instead just duds. Like, Sandman gets a pretty great-for-its-time showing as a CGI villain, and the scene where he reaches out for the locket of his sick daughter is amazing as hell, but the rest of his character just feels like it's begging to be expaned upon. Flint Marko is revealed to be the guy that gunned down Ben Parker in this continuity, and it could've led to an interesting journey for Peter Parker to realize that criminals are people too or something -- particularly with Flint's obvious "I have a sick daughter and I'm making irrational, immortal decisions out of desperation" backstory. But nope, Peter just sort of fights Sandman a couple of times throughout the movie, He turns into a generic CGI sand giant, and then for some reason Spider-Man and Sandman nod at each other and Sandman flies off as a cloud of dust? What?

Eddie Brock, meanwhile... I'm not sure if there's much Topher Grace could do with the script he's given. He's set up as this opportunistic asshole with no journalistic integrity, and he's smarmy and dickish enough, for sure. But he's just kind of there, being a dick before Peter exposes him, and he gose to a church to pray and coincidentally gets glooped on by the Venom symbiote? And then he ends up being a pretty generic villain, getting Sandman to show up for a team up and spending much of the fight not having the iconic Venom mug (which the movie actually does pretty passably) but with Topher Grace's face stuck onto the CG Venom body. There are a couple of deleted scenes in the DVD that actually show Peter Parker facing with hallucinations of the Venom symbiote taking over and revealing that it's its own entity instead of just something that enhances its host's negative emotions, but cutting out those scenes really means that for anyone who didn't come into this movie with prior knowledge of what the Venom Symbiote is supposed to be, it's a heavily confusing affair all around especially with how jarringly different Venom is compared to the relatively more grounded Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus. 

And one of the biggest things that I feel hurt the movie the most is the sheer amount of bizarre mood whiplashes. You go from the unbelievably campy bit of Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker dancing around in the street and in bars like a lunatic (Emo Peter was hilarious, and I will say that over and over, but it's just so out of place compared to the rest of the movie), and then we jump into heavily-emotional romantic storylines about self-worth, with a bunch of largely bland antagonists to top it off.

There is still a bunch of good parts in the movie, and it's not a complete trash-can-fire the way 2015's Fantastic Four adaptation was. Tobey Maguire gets a decent showing, still, and JK Simmons is still fantastic in every scene he's in. It's a shame that Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and Topher Grace really didn't get much beyond muddled, confused story arcs for their respective characters. Thomas Haden Church's Sandman is honestly relatively well-acted for the stilted character arc he's given. 

Ultimately, it's still a watchable movie that I did enjoy watching through for all of the wrong reasons, but it's a far cry from the standard we expect from superhero movies nowadays or even the standard set by its predecessors. 

Kamen Rider Zero-One E43 Review: Escalation

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 43: That is a Heart

Honestly, with only a handful of episodes left before the series is over, it's really kind of a shame that we seemingly lost four or five potential episodes of Kamen Rider Zero-One because, well, ever since the rather abrupt Gai-redemption arc, everything has been going on a breakneck speed and I honestly don't think that it's done well at all. The individual episodes are great as standalone tokusatsu episodes. The acting is all right, for the rapid pacing that they were forced to go through. But ultimately... yeah, it's kind of a shame considering how strongly Zero-One started out.

Still, at the very least, this little twist near the end is pretty interesting. We've had secondary Kamen Riders becoming evil and becoming one of the final antagonists before. We've had main characters either dying or be put in a bittersweet, sad ending before -- particularly prominent in the Heisei shows before... oh, I wanna say Hibiki. And we certainly have had main characters getting mind-controlled as a tragic villain near the end of the show.

But for the main character to personally and willingly (albeit not without 100% willingly) become a villain? Aruto is clearly conflicted. He spends most of his screentime particularly when talking with Azu angry, crying or confused. His emotions is clearly clouded and he's not thinking straight after Izu's death, and we, the audience, understands why. But on the other hand, it's not like he's being mind-controlled or turned into a mindless zombie the way that, say, Hino Eiji was when he turned into a Greed during his show; or the whole Hazard Build thing; or even Metal Cluster Hopper earlier in the show. Aruto is noted several times in this episode to be fully conscious of what he's doing. Influenced by his anger and malice, perhaps, and said anger is probably heavily enhanced by the Ark Progrise Key... but it's still Aruto doing all those things.

There's also Horobi, who, of course, ends up kind of being the focus. Again, I keep saying how I wished Horobi had more screentime to really get into his mind before he got even more fanatical last episode. He and Jin have a long discussion at some random rooftop with tattered clothes hanging from some wires which I thought is so over-the-top emo. I like it! Jin basically confronts Horobi with the idea that malice doesn't just come from humans, since Horobi clearly has some of his own if he would go as far as to kill Izu. Horobi makes a big show of showing off his katana and slicing off one of the hanging cloth pieces, but his hands are clearly shaking at the end of it.

The rest of the humans are... sort of basically playing a game of catch-up, and this feels pretty rushed. Like, okay, we need to get Gai, Fuwa, Yua, Shesta, the Vice President team and Williamson all on the same page regarding Izu's death and that Aruto is Kamen Rider Ark-One. Williamson orders Gai and the Shotriser duo to eliminate Aruto, and also makes a call to Jin. The human trio end up making a very cool last stand in a tunnel, and we get a pretty well-choreographed scene of Aruto dodging and deflecting every single blow from Vulcan, Valkyrie and Thouser, explicitly being in control and trying not to hurt his fellow humans. And then Aruto starts actually taking everyone out. He blows up Thouser's Jack Rise spear thing, then rips off the Thousand Driver and crushes it. And then he does some hacking goodness to disable the brain chips in Yua and Fuwa's heads, preventing them from transforming with the Shotriser.

The humans are forced to regroup and face that Aruto's actually acting on his own, and there's some talk about the 'contagion of malice' escalating the human/robot war, and they arrive at the conclusion that the Ark basically plans to replicate by, uh... inciting malice and anger in everyone? Okay, sure. Also, Naki and Ikazuchi shows up to tell Jin about the conflict, and Jin's hands are shaky, just like Horobi earlier in the episode.

Horobi, meanwhile, gathers even more Humagears and turns them into Magia with messages about how humanity's evil gave rise to the Ark and there's no salvation left for them. Aruto and Azu are arguing, but ultimately Aruto accepts Azu's help to go off after Horobi. Aruto confronts Horobi and his army of Magia at a warehouse.... and, as always, the action scene is actually pretty cool. Ark-One flash-speeding through the goons, at one point grabbing two Magia by the face and slamming them down. Another neat scene is Horobi punching the ground to have his scorpion-whip-stinger thing burst out a short distance away. Their argument basically revolves around the whole "I have no heart!" insistence from Horobi. Ark-One, being the overpowered final boss form, absolutely overpowers the army of Magia, and there's a neat sense that Horobi's only managing to survive because he has all of the help.

Ultimately, not even a point-blank shot to Ark-One's face can faze him. Aruto destroys Horobi's weapon, and clearly having Izu's death in mind, unleashes a finishing rider kick. Of course, Jin jumps in the way, gets kicked all the way through the warehouse and blows the fuck up and both Horobi and Aruto are absolutely shocked. It's actually pretty neat how thematic this is, that Aruto gets so blinded by his single-minded anger at Horobi just as Horobi himself has been letting himself be single-minded about the extinction of humans; while characters like Jin and Izu have been trying to get both sides to stop.

Jin, as he lies dying, notes to Horobi how he does have a heart and he's scared of having emotions, and Jin doesn't want Horobi to lose that heart because he's his father. And then Jin's CGI feathers shatter, he blows up and Horobi gets tossed aside. This turns out to be the trigger for Horobi to transform into another Kamen Rider Ark-One, since he's now in malice-land and the Ark will be revived as long as there's enough malice. And the episode ends in an ominious showcase of multiple Ark-One keys.

So... yeah. It sure is an interesting setup to a finale. I still have a lot of complaints about the pacing of this final arc, but at the very least it promises to be something different. This episode, if nothing else, has a bunch of neat action scenes.

Random Notes:

• I do actually really like the fact that not for one second does Aruto get fooled by the Izu/Azu thing. He recognizes Azu as someone who just parades around looking like Izu, and is nothing but hostile to her. 
• As Jin dies, there's a pretty tacky but also neat little visual effect of the floating, disconnected Burning Falcon feathers slowly crumbling away. We also get a shot of his little earpiece falling next to his handgun. 
• It's really kind of sad that this seems to be it for the side-characters, huh? Fuwa, Yua, Ikazuchi and Naki are basically just hangers-on at this point. Particularly Yua, who basically didn't get anything significant in the show after punching Gai in the face. Naki and Ikazuchi are particularly under-utilized for sure, hopefully they'll get to transform at least once or twice more before the series is over. 
• I guess it's Ark-One's gimmick to have random flashes to the suit being lighted up with different-coloured lighting in a dark room? It was cool last episode, but at this point it just feels distracting.
• The Gimmick Watch: "Perfect conclusion: Learning END!"
• When the Ark-One Key is going through the annoucement of "Despair! Conflict! Destruction!" there's a neat little slower zoom-in when the key gets to "ruin" (metsubo), because of the fact that it's tied not only to Metsubojinrai.net, but the specific kanji that Horobi takes his name from. 
• I'm not sure if it's the same thing as the "that's what Kamen Rider Zero-One is!" that Aruto, Fuwa, Jin and Yua have spoken a couple of times throughout the series, but when Horobi and Aruto face off against each other there's a neat line from Horobi where he declares that "that's the way of Kamen Rider Horobi!" And his motivation is to make all humans extinct. Okay. 

Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #23 - Planeshift & Apocalypse

So after Invasion, the next two small blocks are Planeshift and Apocalypse, which follows up on the whole Phyrexian Invasion/Rath Overlay storyline. And I think I'll go back to reviewing the two small blocks in a single review. Planeshift's story is, well, the titular Planeshift where the Phyrexian generals attempt to bring their artificial plane of Rath and combine it with Dominaria as a way to instantly conquer the entire plane. These two expansions basically end up as the grand finale for the huge Phyrexian Invasion arc, spanning all the way from... Weatherlight, I guess, even though a whole lot of the backstory for the characters go all the way back to Antiquities? So yeah, lore-wise, it's a huge set of expansions.

• Click here for the previous part, Invasion.
• Click here for the next part, Odyssey.
• Click here for the index.

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For the most part, what I can gather from the story in the accompanying novel is basically our heroes moving and setting up individual battles in individual battlegrounds. Crovax, the ex-Weatherlight-crew member, kills and cannibalizes Invasion's big bad, Tsabo Tavoc, after her failure. Urza goes off to Urborg, Eladamri goes off to Keld, Rhammidarigaaz and the dragons go to Shiv... all that fun stuff as our heroes go off to new battlegrounds and some of them make allies with the beings that come from Rath like the Skyshroud elves and the lich-lord Dralnu (who turns out to be a traitor). The planeswalkers that Urza gathered travel to Phyrexia itself, attempting to blow it up with soul bombs, but Tevesh Szat betrays them. Tahngarth the minotaur fights Greven il-Vec and kills him, but the long-missing Ertai appears and kidnaps Gerrard. Gerrard is brought before Crovax, who promises that Yawgmoth, the Phyrexians' god-king, could being back the dead Hanna. To prove this, Crovax kills Squee the goblin, and then brings him back.

Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Darigaaz the dragon manages to successfully resurrect all the other primeval dragons, only to realize that their power is uncontrollable, causing Darigaaz to sacrifice himself to deny the prophecy of the primeval dragons from being completed... but not before the Weatherlight's crew and other allied forces have to face off the other rampaging dragons. Urza meets face-to-face with Yawgmoth, who attempts to recruit Urza to the Phyrexians' side. Yawgmoth reveals that Urza's long-thought-to-be-dead brother, Mishra, is still alive and has been tortured for thousands of years in Phyrexia since the Brother's War... but it's the promise of learning all of the arts of artificing that ends up causing Urza to bend the knee. So simultaneously, Gerrard and Urza end up seemingly bowing down to the Phyrexians. Cliffhanger!

March of Souls is here because I really, really like the artwork. I'm not sure if this is what it's meant to represent because it's just honestly kind of my interpretation from the novel summary and stuff, but I'm going to assume that March of Souls represents the souls of slain warriors and defenders of Dominaria who's rising up to fight as spirits? That is pretty cool.

As usual, White is the most boring one for me, but Voice of All is a pretty cool-looking badass angel. She's got a scythe and that bizarre two-ended weapon. What is that thing? It's got a spearhead on one end and a huge chunky blade that juts out to the side on the other end. It's weird. The name 'Voice of All' is pretty cool, although in practice she just picks and blocks a certain colour. The name and the artwork (her wings are all of M:TG's mana colours except for black) seems to indicate that she was probably originally meant to be a multi-colour card? Eh.


We're jumping straight to Blue because... well, honestly, while the story is certainly exciting, both Planeshift and Apocalypse don't really have a lot of interesting monsters or cards I want to talk about. There are a couple of cool things, though, like Sea Smidd! What is a Smidd? Why is it a 'beast' and not a sea serpent or a leviathan or anything else? It appears to have the body of a sea serpent, being large and undulating, but it's also got tentacles jutting out of its body. At least I think those are tentacles; they wouldn't probably help out much to catch prey for a creature with such a huge screaming mouth. Maybe they are the Sea Smidd's young, and the Sea Smidd gives birth from pores on its neck? Or something? I do like this, it looks pretty cute.

We've had our share of M:TG elementals that embody the sea or the storm or whatever, but I always find it cool whenever the M:TG artists manage to get creative in making a 'face in the waves' look different than what you'd expect from one of these things. I like that it's got little hands made out of the waves' form.


The Arctic Merfolk is here just because I find her looking cool. I'm not sure which part, exactly. The almost crustacean-like head formation? The lionfish-esque fins on her hips? That thin, tapering eel-like lower body? I dunno. She's one of the merfolk designs that looks cool without necessarily looking monstrous, and looks graceful without looking like she stepped out of a Disney movie. That's a pretty cool balance.

Dralnu's Pet is... umm.... what? I'm not sure what's going on and I'm not sure if I'm meant to understand what is going on. It's very goopy, and it's got a vaguely humanoid body that sort of reminds me of a xenomorph? If you removed the xenomorph's face and attached another long, ridged head onto the other side. The whole consistency of this thing looks like it's covered in moss or something. It's a shapeshifter, while Dralnu himself is an evil undead lich-lord... but Dralnu's Pet is pure-Blue? Whatever it is, it makes me feel uncomfortable.


Morgue Toad is just here because I really like the artwork. Sure, it's just a more humanoid-looking toad, but the addition of sharp fangs around a circular mouth and a forked tail makes it look a fair bit more reptilian and predatory than it otherwise would be, fitting for a proper Black-mana card. Apparently the Phyrexians, upon plane-shifting into Dominaria decided that, yep, local Urborg toads are prime for weaponizing.

And we're back with yet another grisly Phyrexian zombie-monster drawn by Ron Spencer,  the Maggot Carrier. Now, to be fair, I'm not sure the artwork matches the name particularly well -- sure, it's a grisly-looking cyborg zombie, but there really aren't any maggots on the dude, right? Never mind, I have to retract my commentary. What I thought were gray, silver wires running all over the zombie-man's body are actually the maggots in question. I thought they were wires! Okay, that makes this thing look extra nasty now. I was also wondering why the cyborg-zombie is ripping apart another techno-organic horror, but I guess the Maggot Carrier is actually on the side of the good guys, one of Dominaria's black-mana creatures fighting the Phyrexian invasions. It's not a cyborg zombie, it's a regular maggot zombie fighting a cyborg-horror-thing!


Now here are actual Phyrexian horrors! We're winding down the Phyrexian invasions and I honestly do think that my favourite Phyrexian zombie-machine-abominations were near the beginning of the Phyrexian saga. A lot of these later ones are just creepy-looking robots. But there's nothing wrong with that, designs like the Phyrexian Bloodstock still looks pretty cool! What's there not to like about a bird-headed, four armed, spider-legged monstrosity made out of wires and rust? It's even got a buzzsaw hand! Presumably it replenishes its 'bloodstock' by, well, buzzsawing up these dumb human soldiers that run headlong into him.

A "scuta" is defined as "the second dorsal sclerite in each thoracic segment of an insect." And googling that up makes me realize what Phyrexian Scuta was meant to be. I thought he's just a weird brain-exposed cyborg-zombie-man, but instead this is actually a fly-headed cyborg-zombie-man! That makes it so much cooler; what I thought were little beady eyes are instead the Scuta's nostrils, and what I thought were exposed brain ridges were actually the segmented fly-eyes. The entire vibe of the Scuta doesn't scream 'bug' at all, and it's just the head. The rest of the body is a pretty run-of-the-mill cool looking apocalypse cyborg warrior, with a pretty cool clawed hand and one of the fancier-looking shields I've seen a Phyrexian monstrosity carry around. A pretty unique looking Phyrexian monster.


And, yeah, we don't have a whole ton of cards to talk about this time around, like I said. We're already two colours down! The bulk of the expansion's going to be stuck in the post-break segment, I'm afraid. Planeswalker's Scorn is pretty neat, though. I'm not sure if this is Yawgmoth, an avatar of Mr. Moth, or just a random Phyrexian minion, but I do like... whatever the hell is going on here. I'm not entirely sure what's going on other than he's got a bunch of squid tentacles and might otherwise have a vaguely-humanoid body above it, but he sure is being scornful! This is where a flavour text would've been helpful, I think.

Hey, it's Tahngarth, Talruum Hero! Thanks to how much the novel and the cards in the Weatherlight expansion focuses on the crew, I feel like those characters are far more memorable than some of the other names or groups (like the 'nine Planeswalkers') in the saga. So it's neat that Tahngarth the angry minotaur man gets a card. Mostly I just appreciate that the non-human charactesr get some chance to shine. I do find Tahngarth's design interesting -- he's got back-swept cow horns and an extra pair of almost dog-ear-like ridges, which certainly gives him and most Dominarian minotaurs a unique silhouette. And he sure is killing all those Phyrexian fools! I do like that despite being the most violent macho manly-man minotaur out there, Tahngarth seems to have his hide patterned after a regular milk cow.


I tend to talk about monsters mostly in these reviews, but occasionally the concept and execution of an enchantment card is so beautiful. Like Deadapult. That one mage is just launching some angry zombie that's been set on fire at the enemy. That's it. That's the whole crux of the card. You blow up a zombie and you set it on fire and you launch it at the enemy for 2 damage. That's glorious.

The Magnigoth Treefolk are apparently the largest beings in Dominaria, basically being trees the size of mountains. Apparently Verdeloth, the legendary treefolk, from the previous expansion, is a Magnigoth Treefolk! I do like that their arms and legs are just giant clumps of roots, and that there are two smaller Magnigoths in the background. And, more importantly, the foot of a stomping one is in the foreground right next to a surviving Phyrexian reaver to illustrate scale. Can you even call these guys 'treefolk' instead of, oh, I dunno, 'junglefolk' at this point?


We still get more Kavus since these two expansions are sequels to Invasion, although we're sort of winding down. Alpha Kavu is... it sure has a nasty-looking mouth, yeah? Although that, I feel, is mostly from a forced-perspective angle. I don't think it's much more interesting than a regular Kavu otherwise. Amphibious Kavu is a lot more interesting for the fact that it's became a fish-frog-dinosaur, with webbed limbs and a ridge of fins, and apparently it evolved exclusively to prey on merfolk. And, judging by its effect, this amphibious mutation doesn't just make it good against aquatic creatures (the Blue side of the things), it also helps them fight Black-mana creatures for some reason. Okay, sure.


Nemata, Grove Guardian is just one of the many nature beings that fight the Phyrexians. And... he doesn't show up in the novels as far as I can tell, neither does he have any flavour text. Boo! He's a pretty cool plant-person, though, and I do like the visual of vines and brambles just seemingly shedding off of him. And yet he stands so tall and regal. He has a humanoid silhouette, but I don't think you can make out a conventional face underneath that bramble-crown, which is a nice bit of detail I liked.

Root Greevil is, as far as I can tell, the only Greevil that has ever showed up in M:TG. Not to be confused with Greevil from Pokemon Colosseum, or the Greevils from Dota 2. I guess it's just there for them to make a pun between 'greed' and 'evil'? Eh. It's a weird-looking beast, some kind of four-armed, vaguely lizard-like creature with a mantis head and a bunch of hair running down its back. Pretty neat-looking weirdo, although nothing particularly exciting.


Oh, hello, Ertai the Corrupted. This isn't the first time we've seen you, although these pair of expansions will be the last time we see you. He went from arrogant wizard to the one that was left behind by the crew to eventually being mutated into a bald dude with like eight strands of hair, a pair of extra arms growing out of his elbows, and some big, chunky World of Warcraft shoulder pauldrons. He doesn't keep this Phyrexian-mutated form for long on account of the Phyrexian saga ending in these two expansions, but at least it's not just a boring costume change. Oh, and also, he's a White/Blue/Black triple-colour. I'm not sure what is left of this crazy traitor is still White-mana, although I suppose that's a leftover from when he was a White/Blue wizard?

Doomsday Specter is pretty cool, though. And, sure, the figure with bat wings and the hood is neat and all, but the mount, this giant flying winged snake? That looks extra cool. I especially like how thin the limbs that connect the wings to the snake's main body are -- which would be heavily impractical in real life, but this is fantasy land and it's a specter anyway, who are you to argue with a specter about how his mount's wings defy physics? Actually, what's to say that what I think is a rider and a mount aren't actually joined together, like a hideous flying-snake-man version of a Nuckelavee?


Ooo boy, look at that badass face design for the Horned Kavu. Apparently, the Horned Kavu is mutated from the Rath overlay, and it's resulted in this far, far more intelligent-looking Kavu? I really do love the head design, though, it almost looks like an elaborate tribal mask of sorts. And between the more humanoid gait that the Horned Kavu has and the very intelligent and cruel-looking eyes, I am choosing to believe that the Horned Kavu has basically been elevated into more of sentient being than just rampaging Godzilla-expies. I don't think this really goes anywhere, though, and it's just one cool card.

Speaking of being mutated by the Rath overlay, Marsh Crocodile's art seems to be showing... something? I wouldn't call either creature on both sides of the portal as a 'crocodile', though. The one on the left looks more like a lumbering dinosaur, and the one on the right is like a weird lizard. And I'm not sure what's going on, I guess the unstable Dominaria/Rath overlay is causing creatures to get mutated or displaced or something? Are the two reptiles still the same creature, mutated through the overlay, or are they two creatures from two worlds fused together? What's going on here?


Okay, I guess it's actually showing these creatures transforming, I suppose. Silver Drake is apparently some sort of a duck or seagull, and now it's transformed not only into a drake, but a metallic, silver drake. Ancient Spider, in addition to being a very cool image of a spider perching on top of an ancient, overgrown tower, also has a pretty cool flavour text. "It outlived both king and castle". So did this spider grow from being just a random spider in the castle that grew to gigantic size?

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Two multi-coloured Kavu, and they look pretty interesting. Radiant Kavu is all very feathery and stuff, very grisly-looking as it's crushing that Phyrexian creature, and apparently the 'White' part of the Radian Kavu comes from the fact that it's got the ability to unleash a blinding light to protect itself and black Blue and Black damage. Okay!

The Sparkcaster isn't even recognizable as a Kavu anymore, huh? I'm not sure what it looks like, but the combination of green blobs and the somewhat wood-like texture made me think that it's some kind of spore-sac-carrying Treefolk or something. This Kavu also seems to be appearing from a portal, and based on its name, it's shooting lightning out of its body. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's probably one of the weirder Kavus from this block.


Oh, hey, it's another Snidd. I guess it's not a mere sea serpent, since Razing Snidd here is a Red/Black creature. It's... I'm not sure what it is, though. Some kind of creature with four legs clustered near the back of its body, and two giant mantis-esque arms that are as large as columns of rock, boring into the ground? And it's got the face of a particularly ugly anglerfish, plus a cluster of tentacles on its back? That sure is a 'Snidd', I suppose. Pretty cool monster design regardless.

Oh, wait, the loon is a real bird? I didn't know that. None of them are Sawtooth Loons, though, and between the saw-like teeth, the spikes on its beak and back, the pterodactyl claws on its very angular wings and the weird way that the legs are attached to the body, the Sawtooth Loon sure only superficially shares a real-life loon's appearance. And it gets more creepy when you look at the head. The Sawtooth loon not only lacks eyes, it's got a mass of red wormy flesh where the neck abruptly ends. It reminds me of some creepy tube-worm or snail or something, only instead of worm anatomy this thing has a hideous bird-beak extending out of the red flesh. A far nastier-looking design than I first gave it credit for.


And hey, speaking of old friends, it's the Skyship Weatherlight as a card! I don't think there's much to be said here, we've seen the Weatherlight depicted on cards over and over again, but here it is as an individual Legendary Artifact. I really don't have much to say here, it sure is neat!

Draco is... a pretty nasty looking zombie-robot-dragon. I really do love how Draco is just bursting out of the ground like a corpse rising from the dead, and how pieces of its robotic structure is just sloughing off from its arms and face. Pretty cool artwork, even if I don't think Draco actually plays any sort of role in the story.

Ooooh this is cool, Stratadon's name and design just brings to mind a giant elephant, only this elephant is a giant steampunk war-machine. I love the two giant tusks, I love the little spearheads poking out of its featureless 'face' (cockpit?) and back, and I love the little robotic bird and armies there for scale. And, yeah, I know that M:TG gets some rap for combining sci-fi and fantasy together a lot, but if it results in cool-looking things like Stratadon, I won't complain!
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...and the cliffhanger is continued in the final set in the Invasion block, Apocalypse! Gerrard and Urza, the main characters, have seemingly been swayed by Yawgmoth and pledge allegiance to Phyrexia. Yawgmoth teleports Urza and Gerrard into an arena, promising only to fulfill the greatest wish of whoever wins the duel. Gerrard wins the duel, cutting off Urza's head. Instead of resurrecting Hanna, Yawgmoth sends one of his avatars that looks like Hanna to meet Gerrard. The human sees through the deception and attacks the false Hanna, unknowingly attacking Yawgmoth's true essence hidden within the Hanna avatar. A panicked Yawgmoth flings Gerrard away into the Stronghold.

Meanwhile, on Dominaria, the silver golem Karn have been regaining his memory since he broke his oath of pacifism in Invasion, now having access to lots of knowledge from the past. With that, Karn combines the Weatherlight with the Thran Tome, turning the flying ship into a Transformer sentient artifact creature. Multani the Maro-Sorcerer, discoevring that Benalia, Llanowar and the ocean's merfolk countries having all falen, teleports a chunk of Yavimaya forest to take the war literally to Urborg, driving Crovax away. Gerrard arrives in the Stronghold and reunites with Squee, and the two fight and ultimately slay Ertai and Crovax. The arrival of the Weatherlight and an army of dwarf saboteurs invade the Phyrexians' stronghold and set off a volcano to wipe out the Phyrexian forces.

The rest of the surviving planeswalkers on Phyrexia decide to set off the soul bomb manually, gouging a massive chunk of Phyrexia.  This is too late to stop Yawgmoth, however, who has escaped to Dominaria and intending to transform it into new Phyrexia. Yawgmoth arrives in the form of a massive death cloud, killing all he touches and turning them into his undead servants. Various minor allies, including many minotaurs and elves, either die or commit suicide. It's at this point that Urza's decapitated head (which Gerrard was apparently carrying around) reveals himself to be alive, and together with Karn, they figure out that they could go to the Null Moon, the greatest concentration of white mana nearby, that they can channel to defeat Yawgmoth. The Weatherlight is used to channel this energy via the Legacy Weapon, but in struggling against Yawgmoth, the Weatherlight's newfound sentience is gone. Urza and Gerrard use Urza's powerstone eyes and places them into Karn's chest, causing a chain reaction that completes 'the Legacy'. The resulting eruption of mana absorbs Urza, Gerrard, Karn and Yawgmoth. With Yawgmoth's death, the Phyrexian troops are disconnected from their master and swiftly defeated. And so ends the Phyrexian invasion!

One year later, as the rest of the Weatherlight survivors have a ceremony and prepare to set off on their new ship, the Victory, Karn shows up alive and well, apparently having fused with the entire Legacy, including Urza and Gerrard. And that... is the end of Magic: The Gathering's very first long-running storyline and the whole Phyrexian saga! For now...

And that sure was a trip, huh? I mean, I obviously haven't read any of the novels so I wouldn't have had the personal attachment to them as actual characters, but while there are certainly aspects of this that feel odd as a tie-in story to a card game (and the ending, at least from the summary, feels kind of 'oh we found the right plot device, bye Galactus' sort of dull and mundane). But all in all? The Phyrexian invasion and the forces of Dominaria rallying up to fight them is a pretty great story. On with the cards!


It's Gerrard Capashen, the main hero man of the series! We've talked about him a lot, and he's basically the main hero person, the captain of the Weatherlight, and a pretty swell guy all around. Also, like most generic hero-man-protagonists... I really don't find that there's much to talk about him. He's inoffensive and generically cool from a design standpoint, but he's also just a generic action-adventure fantasy dude, of which we have a lot in Magic: The Gathering cards. He is The Main Character (tm) so there's a neat bit of awesomeness seeing him represented as a card. Pure White, though? I mean... sure? Considering he's got a bit of a yolo vibe to him I've always thought that he would be White/Red. But pure White works, I guess.

I don't tend to find Magic's angel cards interesting (unless they're corrupted by the Eldrazi or something) but Haunted Angel's artwork is pretty cool, showing an angel seeing a specter of... well, there probably is an interesting story here. Is it her guilt? Phyrexian corruption? An actual ghost? I mostly put her here because I really do like the artwork.


Yep, definitely in sci-fi lands now with the Helionaut. This is just some dude with a bunch of wacky steampunk (or, well, magic-punk? Fantasypunk? Somethingpunk.) wings and contraptions that allows him to fly. And he's part of a whole squadron! I'm choosing that those are literal giant butterfly wings that they attached to themselves instead of the wings being painted to resemble butterfly wings.

I'm not sure if 'Volver' is even a real word, but apparently there's a cycle of Volvers here, with the... Degavolver? What is that supposed to mean? What are you -volving, Degavolver? The Volvers are apparently mutants that fused with 'opposing' colours. So White's normal allied colours on the colour wheel are Green and Blue, whereas they almost never have synergy cards with Black or Red. Yet Degavolver has just that. He's a pale dude with a cool-looking giant gauntlet holding a pretty cool flame-sword, and honestly, as far as White humanoids go, the Degavolver kinda looks pretty cool. I'm not sure where the Black mana part is; I guess it's that lame chest tattoo.


Despite being the big 'end of the Phyrexian invasion' saga, we still have place in Apocalypse to have just a bunch of regular Merfolk. I like the colours on Ceta Disciple, the orange and blue makes her look like a neat tropical fish. At first I thought she is beached and dying, but apparently she's protecting a sprouting plant. Really shouldn't bother, Ceta Disciple, that plant's growing near sea water; it's not going to survive for much longer.

Vdalian Mystic has got a pretty cool-looking Cthulhu beard, but a bit cooler is whatever ritual he's doing with that seashell and the weird smoky effect that comes out of it. Is he... extending the size of his fan-like tail? Is he actually making part of it invisible? I guess judging by the flavour text he's actually infusing himself with differently-coloured magic. Okay, interesting. Also interesting is that he's got a big tail fin.


Unnatural Selectoin is... oh man, what a fucked-up monster. I'm not sure what this reminds me of, but it sure reminds me of something. Look at this completely fucked-up poor thing, it's a bunch of tentacles bursting out of the ocean, but at the tip of each tentacle is parts of either a Kavu or a dinosaur, the tentacles ending in reptile legs or a reptile head. "Unnatural" is right, those are parts of an organic creature that should not be attached to those specific parts! Very cool artwork.

Cetavolver's name, at least, presumably comes from Ceta Disciple. And... I guess that dude was originally a merfolk, but now he's got ram horns and a flaming trident? Not sure where the Green part is, though.


Necravolver is some sort of demon-man with a holy-light shield. I'm sure that symbol means something, but I can't be arsed to find what. Like the Cetavolver, this one doesn't really look like it's channeling the Green or White powers, but rather just White. Which... I guess kinda makes sense, they only have the opposite-colour powers when you pay the Kicker mana, so I guess they can use those mana colours but are not creatures of that mana colour, which is why they're not dual-class? Eh.

Quagmire Druid is a zombie druid! Apparently, he's a druid that has died and been absorbed into a bog, but somehow rose from the dead and is still fighting for Dominaria even in death, summoning a hummingbird pal. Yeah, that hummingbird's gonna show Yawgmoth what's-what! I do really like the artwork here, though, that screaming expression really showcases the desperation and the wretchedness of the zombie druid but he's still freaking fighting, man.


Planar Despair! Okay, yeah, there are three creatures here, but look at the one in the middle, with the beady eyes and the mouth that looks like it's sucking on a straw from his mecha-suit. No seriously, look at him, he looks freaking adorable. Apparently these guys are Yawgmoth's retainers. Okay, sure, I guess that's why Yawgmoth has always been relying on Volrath and Crovax and Tsabo and all those cooler-looking heralds, his actual retainers look like reject Star Wars puppets. Not that it's a bad thing, though, I absolutely love them.

Urborg Uprising is... wow, okay, if this was just a bunch of dead soldiers turning into ghosts, I'd consider it cool but unremarkable. But the depiction of the ghosts here are so bizarrely creepy, with realistic faces on cartoon-ghost proportions. Makes it look like they're floating torsos, but without heads, and the faces appear on their chests. Extremely creepy. I also love the name that this is an 'uprising', too. Uprisings in Black-mana areas in Magic takes a whole different meaning!


Phyrexian Rager is a pretty cool Phyrexian cyborg-horror-machine, and I guess with Phyrexia being dealt with in this expansion, this is going to be the last Phyrexians we get to see in a while? And as much as I like the Phyrexians, it's neat to have a break in whatever next couple of expansions we get. And while these two do fall off to the somewhat-more-uniform creepy robot vibe instead of the more varied horrors we had in the heydays of the Phyrexian expansions, we do end off on two of the best of these creepy robots. Phyrexian Rager has spider-like legs and way too many arms, some of which are clearly fleshy, and I absolutely love the huge dome-like upper body with half a humanoid face attached to it, as well as exhaust vents.

Phyrexian Gargantua, meanwhile, is yet another one with spidery legs carrying a big dome-like body, but it's way more hulking than the Rager, with gigantic finger-arms that look more at home in a construction machine than a creature. I also absolutely love that face, with glowing eyes and approximately 80% teeth in surface area. It's like some nightmarish crab mutant out of hell.


More Kavus! And these are far, far more mutated than previous sets, which I guess nicely closes out the Kavus for now, too, since the Kavus are sort of limited to the Invasion set. Bloodfire Kavu is basically an elemental in all but name, being comprised of rock and molten magma. Whereas Kavu Glider doesn't even look like a Kavu but more like some sort of bizarre gliding lizard, with membraneous wings, skinny arms and a huge frog-like mouth. The Kavu Glider is actually a pretty interesting thing, because we do know that dinosaurs shaped more or less like these exist and if the Kavu are basically mutable dinosaurs in Dominaria, this as one of the later points of Kavu evolution kind of makes sense? I also like that its 'flying' ability is more of a gliding ability you have to spend mana on.


Another pretty cool Kavu, the Tundra Kavu is described by the flavour text (and maybe by the artist?) as a 'cross between a jaguar and an armadillo. It looks like one of those creatures from Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, the Alips or whatever, but then I realize that the Tundra Kavu actually does have four legs, and those are pretty long legs. I do like the anatomy of this thing, from the armour plates down its back, the bony protrusions on the lower jaw and the huge, long legs. I'm not even sure what those are meant to resemble. Reptilian horses? Giant beetle legs?

Okay, so I'm assuming that the symbol on those shields are like, the new alliance symbol or something? Desolation Giant is here mostly becuase I found the art pretty cool, with those weird lionfish-esque horns jutting out from the Desolation Giant's head and back and face, while he is tossing rocks around. He's got lots of hair but only on his lower arm, too. I dunno, I think that head design is really what catches my attention a lot.


Bloodfire Colossus is actually pretty cool looking, a four-armed giant warrior that's exploding with fiery energy. Its artwork of it burning up, its flavour text and its effect all really flavour the creature very well; a creature with a lot of uncontrollable strength that, upon deciding to sacrifice itself, decides to erupt. Pretty cool art, too.

The Rakavolver is... a mintaur with chipped horns, bat wings, and a glowing shield? It can volve some blue and white mana, and it's got a glowing shield, too. He's got a lot of weapons, actually, now that I look at him more clearly. A whip, a glaive and a shield? The Rakavolver does not do things in halves.



The Anavolver is probably my favourite of the Volvers mostly because I'm not even sure what it is, it's just got a really, really angry face. Look at that face, if 'wrath of nature' had a face, then it'd be Anavolver's face. He's got weird bug wings, armour made out of bark, hair, and a pair of Illidan-Stormrage-style twin-blades whose designs are basically just leaves. The Anavolver channels blue and black mana, and I'm not sure how that goes but I really do like just how much of a weirdo this guy is.

Look at that cute little grinning Saproling created by Ana Disciple! It's got cute little Tinkerbell butterfly wings and it's grinning so happily, aww, and you thought Dominaria's creepy Chestburster-Saprolings can't look cute.


Apocalypse gives us a bunch of weird beasts. the Bog Gnarr is something that looks like an artist's interpretation of some description of a fairy-tale beast, and it looks like maybe it's a dragon or a kirin or something, but it's got a snaky body, horns, hair, and it's nourished by the dark as shown by a cloud of black aura around its head.

And Bog Gnarr would be a weird kinda-dragon, kinda-snake, kinda-crocodile creature... if not for the fact that we see another Gnarr in the Glade Gnarr, which is like the crossbreed of a Hadrosaur and a deer. That's the best description I can made of its anatomy, with its massive crown of horns and its weirdly dinosaurian posture. The Bog and Glade Gnarrs look wildly different, and yet I can also at the same time believe that these are just particularly wild variants of a certain taxonomic genus or family. Like, look at stingrays and sharks, after all.


Oh nooo look at that funny-headed dude from Planar Despair, he got trapped by vines and those Facehugger-style Saprolings are eating its dumb bald head. Actually, from this angle, I realize that I know that these guys remind me of -- Biths from Star Wars. Consume Strength's artwork also makes me think that there are a couple of extra mutant locusts feeding on Phyrexian Bith Dude, but apparently those are the guy's robotic arms being forcibly ripped apart by the tree. It's a Black/Green card showing that the forces of nature thrive on eating decaying flesh, which... actually makes a lot of sense.

Aether Mutation is a Grenen/Blue card, and it involves some Treefolk dude trapping a Phyrexian hound-thing in an energy bubble and, I think, mutating it into a bunch of Facehuggers Saprolings. I don't have much to say here, I just really like the designs of the Saprolings here. They look so much like angry piranha-eels.


The setting of the forces of the Green plant-based warriors fighting and trouncing the Phyrexians in a swamp really captured the design team's imagination, huh? We get another pair of Green/Black creatures. Ebony Treefolk is absolutely nasty-looking, with tar and vines dripping all over, and its giant shambling dead-tree feet really looks nasty as it's tearing these Phyrexian warriors apart. Most of all, though, is that creepy-ass face. And Ebony Treefolk is one of the good guys!

Even more formless is the Fungal Shambler, who doesn't even have a face or even any sort of vaguely humanoid silhouette, just a giant fat body with three legs, a mass of branches (hyphae?) on top and tendrils that lash all around it. Very cool looking plant creature, I'm a huge fan of these. I actually recognize this art piece a lot, because for the longest time, my D&D DM uses this specific artwork to represent Shambling Mounds. I thought he found it in a D&D publication somewhere, but apparently it's from Magic: The Gathering. Neato.


The Spiritmonger is... not a monger! It's just a beast. I have no fucking idea what is going on, but it's like, this giant, muscle-bound minotaur with a bunch of orc tusks, extra bones jutting out of his knuckles and shoulders, and the 'Spiritmonger' part presumably comes from the fact that he's vomiting a bunch of what I assume are spirits out of his chest. Nasty. None of his effects have the fantasy of summoning or consuming spirits, so there's a bit of a disconnect there, but still, a pretty weird creature.

Oh hey, we get another Flowstone card, and Flowstone Charger is here mostly because the artwork is cool, I don't really have a clue what's going on, but I find this rampaging mass of molten stone with a roaring face pretty cool.


Dodecapod is... okay, what the heck? It's an artifact creature, although it really looks like it should be another Green/Black monster. So it's a golem? It's a golem with the face of a spider and like several dozen arms, some of which have human fists and some are multi-jointed like bug monsters. It really looks nightmarish, and... and honestly, I'm not sure whether it's meant to be Phyrexian or part of Dominaria's alliance. I really like it, though, whatever it is allied with.

The Legacy Weapon is basically the sentient Weatherlight, right? Channeling power from the White moon through itself to create all the other mana colours to wipe out Yawgmoth, with Gerrard and Karn and Urza and all that jazz. Honestly not the most exciting card art, but pretty important to the story.


What in the absolute hell are you, Cromat? The great creature type update tells us that Cromat is... an "Illusion", which really doesn't help me out at all. It's a creature summoned by paying one of each type of mana, and it's got five effects that are combinations of the different colours, and... how do I even describe this creature? It's a giant... slug? Centipede? It's got giant butterfly wings, and what I think are meant to be mantis legs, and that's a second, fat floating whale-headed buddy that's flying just next to it. Its larvae? Part of its anatomy? And there's like a dead polar bear at its feet. The more I look at Cromat, the more bizarre it becomes. Even more bizarre is that this legendary being...  has absolutely nothing to do with the Apocalypse storyline. So he's just a delightful little weirdo, and an awesome one to end our main coverage on the Invasion block.

And... holy shit, we did it. We finished Apocalypse, which is 23 sets of Magic: The Gathering and putting to a close to, dare I say, the first big chapter of Magic. For better or for worse, a significant portion of the blocks basically revolve around what's more or less the same concept and the same grand story of Dominaria-vs-Phyrexia. The next couple of blocks are still sequels to this Dominaria saga, but separated by a century's worth of time skip, there's a significant gap, story and flavour wise, between the post-Apocalypse blocks. And that's going to be pretty interesting to see. We still have two more blocks to go (and not to be a downer, but Odyssey and Onslaught are going to go by in a snap because I looked ahead and don't think I'll have much to talk about) before we get to Mirrodin where each block is going to have its own definitive theme and it'll give me a lot more to discuss, but I'll allow myself a bit of a pat on the back.