We’re in the Endgame now

by Thom Yee

Daredevil images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

Colin Farrell.

In spite of what others might insist, comicbooks have a great potential for meaning and depth and sometimes even occasional transcendence if met by a receptive audience.  They’re just like any other storytelling medium in that way.  Despite their often garish outer trappings, comicbooks aren’t inherently stupid or immature; not nearly as stupid and immature as the dismissive attitudes that would suggest they must be are anyway.  Like most other stories, comicbook stories tend to speak to the broader thoughts and universal themes we all recognize simply as part of being human.  Superman relates to concepts of power, divinity, and the notion of the foreigner finding their way in a strange new land.  Batman represents a different kind of power, acknowledging our darkest motivations meeting our greatest hopes, no matter how unattainable those hopes might be and how bad they may be for us.  Spider-Man is an everyman, facing the same troubles we all do, but, having learned an important lesson in power and responsibility, is an everyman who uses his gifts as selflessly as possible despite everything it costs him.  Some comicbook characters, though… some of them are just straight-up murderers.  Gifted with exotic murder powers.  Designed by murder artisans who work exclusively in the medium of murder.  Characters like Bullseye, whose power, basically, is to pick anything up and throw it at you, unerringly, in a way that kills you.  He’s our new bad guy in this season of Daredevil.  This time he doesn’t suck.

Not like this guy. Continue reading →

The opposite of binge watching?

by Thom Yee

It’s been a while since we’ve done a review for a Marvel Netflix show, and while there are a variety of reasons for that (some of which have nothing to do with the shows themselves) there’s really only one that matters:  Most of them aren’t very good.

Especially Jessica Jones.  And especially Jessica Jones season two. Continue reading →

Ow! My chi!

by Thom Yee

Iron Fist images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

Did you guys know Iron Fist came out? I feel like if I wasn’t actively keeping up with this stuff, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Anyway, Iron Fist is just the latest in Marvel’s series of prestige-format Netflix shows focused on the more human side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that began with Daredevil in 2015 before giving us Jessica Jones later that year and Luke Cage just last fall. Though the mandate for the Marvel Netflix shows has been to focus on more grounded stories in the MCU (at least in comparison to the movies), they’ve gradually but definitely moved more and more towards the fantastic. Continue reading →

I see these kids now with “Christmas” printed on their shirts. Pfft. Now Luke Cage, he’s a man that can teach you how to say “Sweet Christmas”!

by Thom Yee

Luke Cage images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

It’s been two shows, three seasons, and, really, only about a year and a half since this little Netflix corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) first started with the adventures of a blind lawyer doing his best (i.e., violence) to clean up Hell’s Kitchen, and in that time a lot has changed in the shared Marvel Universe. Tony Stark’s overzealous efforts to protect the world led to the destruction of a small Eastern European country, Inhumans are (apparently) popping up all over the place, and superhumans have been forced to register with the world’s’ governments and submit to their approval. But you wouldn’t know any of that if you’ve stuck exclusively to the Marvel Netflix shows and their focus on the street-level stories of the MCU, and with Luke Cage, the third and latest of them, things have started to get a little… funky. Continue reading →

Further proof that ninjas make everything better

by Thom Yee

Daredevil images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios and Netflix

Even in the superhero golden age that we’re now living in (though, admittedly, this precise moment is a bit of an extreme valley, right after Batman v Superman and right before Civil War), the state of broadcast superhero television is still a little disappointing. With the mediocrity of shows like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. typifying the space, it’s fallen to the Berlanti-verse group of superhero television series (so named after their producer Greg Berlanti) to headline the genre, but even its best show, The Flash, doesn’t showcase the genre’s potential on a regular basis. It’s a likable, occasionally ambitious, and incredibly sincere show, but it’s still far too often a sloppy mess that usually only pulls itself together at its key moments while spending the rest of the season meandering until reaching its various finish lines. I mean, I love The Flash, but it’s not exactly a show that trades in depth or complexity or adult themes like Breaking Bad or Mad Men, and with all of this past season’s broadcast superhero TV shows — ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter; WB’s Arrow, Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow; CBS’s Supergirl, NBC’s Heroes, and Fox’s Gotham — past, at, or near their seasonal (or series) conclusions, that’s not a trend that’s likely to end very soon.

And then there’s Netflix. Continue reading →