Tim Burton rewatch! The massive financial success of Alice in Wonderland looms large over Burton’s career, so that in 2019 it was time for another Disney remake with Dumbo.
Here’s what happens: After World War I, a soldier named Holt returns to the circus he thought was his home. Down on his luck, he’s put in charge of pregnant elephant Jumbo and her eventual offspring, Jumbo Jr., not-so-affectionately nicknamed Dumbo. The baby elephant’s ginormous ears make him too much of a freak, even for the circus, until those ears give him the miraculous power of flight. Dumbo becomes a star, with Holt and family riding stardom with him.
Origin story: The creation of Dumbo is somewhat murky. Apparently, it was a children’s book by Helen Abseron-Mayer, Harold Pearl, and Helen Durney. But then the original Dumbo was also a prototype toy called a “Roll-A-Book.” Whatever these objects were, they were enough to inspire good ol’ Walt Disney to craft a feature about a flying elephant. The movie had a reduced budget and was made in the midst of a tense animators’ strike, but is (mostly) regarded as a classic today.
Outsider theory: Dumbo is an outsider, first being labeled a freak because his ears, and then spending the rest of the movie feeling alone after being separated from his mother. Holt and his daughter are also outsiders, him with a checkered past and a war injury, and her with an interest in science rather than ordinary kid stuff.
Reality breaks through: Bear with me on this one. The second half of the movie had Dumbo and co. becoming part of Dream Land, a gigantic city-sized circus run my a mysterious millionaire. Instead of being the main attraction, Dumbo is now one of many attractions. Could there be an art imitates life situation going on here, with a successful filmmaker getting swallowed up in the massive Disney CGI remake machine?
Best bits: Vandevere: “You have something very rare. You have wonder. You have mystique. You have magic. Come with me. Together, we can soar… on that elephant’s wings.”
Thoughts on this viewing: I was good during the beginning, with everything building up to Dumbo’s first flight. The pacing is relaxed but engaging, and I liked Holt’s relationship with his kids and the circus folk. But when the movie gets to Dream Land, that’s where it lost me. The second act is meandering and dull, and I was mentally checked out once it got to the action finale.
Next: What day is it?
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. The Secret Invasion crossover just keeps Skrull-ing along with issues 5-8, promising yet another big status quo change for the Marvel Universe.
Recap: The Skrulls having been living in secret among the Marvel heroes for a while, led by the Skrull Empress in place of Spider-Woman. As they’ve revealed themselves, the New Avengers are separated while fighting Skrulls in the jungles of the Savage Land, and a Skrull battleship unleashes hell over New York City. A Skrull posing as Sue infiltrated the new Baxter Building, seemingly destroying the top half of the building by opening the Negative Zone portal. Reed was captured by a Skrull impersonating Hank Pym and locked up inside one of their ships. When Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D. (the outer space version of S.H.I.E.L.D.) got blasted into space, she ended up on board that same ship.
Issue #5 begins with Norman Osbourne, current leader of the Thunderbolts, appealing to the Skrull who had been impersonating Mar-Vell as a sleeper agent to regain the heroism he had in that role. Then Nick Fury and the heroes of the New York battle have retreated into hiding, watching as the Skrulls broadcast a message to Earth, promising to end poverty, hardship, and disease once Earth becomes a member of the Skrull empire.
In space, Agent Brand fights her way through the Skrulls and finds Reed. He regains consciousness and accuses her of being a Skrull. He then uses the ship’s computers to assess the situation on Earth. He says, “I know what we need.” The ship is under attack, and the Mar-Vell Skrull shows up. At the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, the Skrulls have taken Maria Hill as a captive, but she out-Skrulls them with a life model decoy. While they fight her double, she sneaks off and wrecks the Helicarrier.
In the Savage Land, Tony Stark recovers from his confrontation with the Skrull Empress while the other heroes reunite and wonder who is or isn’t a Skrull. This includes a bunch of Marvel heroes as they appeared years earlier, who came out a Skrull ship claiming to be the original versions of themselves.
Then Reed comes crashing down in the middle of the Savage Land on board his wrecked Skrull ship. He’s developed a weapon, and with one shot, he reveals everyone who is a Skrull. It’s mostly the old-timey heroes. Now that everyone knows who is who, the heroes easily defeat the Skrulls. After seeing Mockingbird was a Skrull, Hawkeye, currently wearing the Ronin costume, swears to kill every last one of the Skrulls.
Issue #6 has the Mar-Vell Skrull tracking down Noh-Varr, a.k.a. Marvel Boy, who is a Kree. The Mar-Vell Skrull says the Skrulls have no honor, willing to lie or kill their fellow Skrulls to get to Earth. He says his time as a sleeper has shown him how good the Earth is, and he urges Noh-Varr to fight on Earth’s behalf.
A Skrull contacts the White House, explaining that humanity will be vastly improved by being a part of the Empire. He says the Skrulls have only attacked the superheroes who were aggressive to them, and that all hostilities will cease if the superheroes stand down. At Camp Hammond, home of the Fifty States Initiative, the Hank Pym Skrull and the Empress compare notes about Noh-Varr, the New Avengers in the Savage Land, and Reed’s escape. The Empress says the Wasp will be the Skrull’s backup plan. The New Avengers fly to New York, with Tony Stark swearing revenge against the Empress, only to find NYC trashed from the battle.
The Skrulls threaten civilians in New York, so Nick Fury’s new Howling Commandoes and the Young Avengers fight back. The Hood, who had recently taken over the Kingpin’s criminal empire, watches this from a distance along with a bunch of other villains. The Hood urges them to hold back, and not join the fight yet. There’s a weird bit where Thor and Captain America arrive (didn’t they do this at the end of issue #4?). This is the first time they’d been reunited since Thor’s death at the end of his series, with him having missed all of Civil War. He and Cap don’t trust each other.
There’s a big standoff at Central Park with the Skrulls on one side, and the New Avengers, Thunderbolts, Young Avengers, and Howling Commandoes on the other side. Reed does most of the talking, saying the Skrulls aren’t there to save the Earth, but to destroy it out of petty revenge. The Empress says, “He loves you,” which is something the Skrulls have been saying throughout all this. She adds that “he” refers to “God.” Stark has had enough. He does the ol’ “Avengers Assemble!” and the big fight breaks out.
Issue #7 offers several pages of the fight, with dozens of superheroes and Skrulls battling it out. There’s a lot of drama as the Hank Pym Skrull chases after the Wasp. Bullseye, hiding out on the sidelines, takes out the Pym Skrull with a sniper shot. So now the Hood and all the villains join the fight. Reed is confronted by the Sue Skrull, and then attacked by a whole bunch of Skrulls all taking Sue’s form. The new Howling Commandoes fight off all the Sues. Iron Man has to leave the battle to go repair his armor. Spider-Man jokes about how this crisis isn’t so bad because the Watcher hasn’t shown up yet, only for the Watcher to show up.
Jessica Jones watches from a distance. She leaves her baby Danielle with Jarvis (not knowing this Jarvis is a Skrull) to join the fight. Then Noh-Varr flies into the city, landing with a huge boom. He proclaims, “This fight is over!” Jessica reunites with Luke Cage, Kate Bishop is injured, the Empress electrocutes Wolverine. Hawkeye takes a big shot, successfully arrowing the Empress. Then the Hank Pym Skrull, despite his sniper injury, enacts the backup plan. Wasp has a flashback of Hank (the Skrull) giving her a new growth formula to give her giant powers as well as shrinking ones. Wasp grows to giant size, unleashing some sort of dark energy onto all the heroes.
Issue #8 has narrative captions further explaining that the Skrulls implanted a bioweapon inside the Wasp in case all else fails. Thor summons a hurricane to contain the dark energy, after which the Wasp’s body fades away. Thor swears, “I will avenge thee, Janet.”
The Empress reemerges, healing from her arrow shot. The heroes surround her, about to attack, but it’s Norman Osbourne who takes her out with a gun. The caption says, “Only one person got the killshot.” Osbourne then takes charge, ordering all the heroes to defeat what’s left of the Skrulls, primarily the warships still in orbit. The heroes take out the ships while not killing Skrulls on board, for interrogation. Then Iron Man finds something interesting in one ship. This one lands in NYC. Inside are the real Spider-Woman, Hank Pym, Elektra, and everyone else the Skrulls replaced.
There’s a lot of catching up, and everyone’s still a little suspicious of Spider-Woman. The villains run off. Hawkeye and Mockingbird share a kiss, while Nick Fury silently turns his back on Maria Hill. When Jessica Jones sees Jarvis among the survivors, she realizes that she left baby Danielle with a Skrull. Jessica, Carol Danvers, and Luke Cage fly to their apartment to discover Skrull Jarvis and the baby are gone.
The we’re treated to several pages of Fantastic Four, as Reed and Sue rush to the new Baxter Building, fearing that their kids died when the Negative Zone portal opened. Then we catch up to the ending of Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four where Ben, Johnny, and the kids try to figure out the Negative Zone portal. Reed works his computer, and the Baxter Building miraculously rebuilds itself, so it’s like brand new. Whatever this backup plan is, it’s not able to recreate any of their personal belongings with it. Sue promises the kids a shopping spree.
The spirit of Civil War looms large as Thor tells Iron Man he abhors what Tony has become. Cap turns his back on Iron Man without saying a word. Hulking, who is part Skrull, negotiates with one of the Skrull captives. The captive said the Skrull Empire is dying, and Earth was their last chance.
Then the status quo change. At the White House, the US President says this invasion, combined with the heroes all fighting each other during Civil War, means that Tony Stark is out as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Not only that, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is being shut down permanently, in favor of a newer and more modern organization. The whole world watched the news cameras record the New York battle on live TV, and saw a new hero save the world. Marvel’s new number one superhero is… Norman Osbourne!!!
The President further explains that Osbourne now has complete control of whatever this new S.H.I.E.L.D. replacement will be, as well as the New Avengers, and the Thunderbolts, and the entire Fifty States Initiative! Osbourne promises a full investigation into Stark Industries to root out any criminal negligence. Later, at Avengers Tower, Norman opens a secret door. Inside, he has assembled his own version of the Illuminati, with Dr. Doom, Namor, Loki, Emma Frost, and the Hood. He says, “It’s a new day,” and “This is how it’s going to be…” And just like that, without so much as taking a breath, Dark Reign begins on the same page that Secret Invasion ends.
Unstable molecule: We’re not given any details on Reed’s Skrull-exposing weapon. It seems to work not by preventing the Skrulls from shape-changing, but by them retaining their green Skrull faces no matter what form they take.
Fade out: Reed being attacked by a gang of Skrull Sues is one of the series’ most eye-popping moments. This is the type of weirdness you can only get in a Skrull story.
Clobberin’ time: Ben’s suggestion on how to restore the Baxter Building is just him saying “Press the blue button” over and over. Reed’s actions suggest that it’s a little more complicated than that.
Flame on: Johnny starts to tell Reed and Sue about Lyja’s return in Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four, but he stops himself on the word “she.” Reed responds with, “I know all about it.” Does he?
Four and a half: After learning that all their personal possession couldn’t be restored, Sue promises Franklin a shopping spree at FAO Shwartz. (Wasn’t that in Times Square? She better hope it survived the Skrull attack.)
Our gal Val: Valeria tells Sue she knew the Skrull in issue #1 wasn’t the real Sue. Is Valeria that smart, or is this classic kid exaggeration?
Fantastic fifth wheel: As one of the main guys in the New Avengers, Luke Cage is front and center throughout the all the battles in Secret Invasion.
Trivia time: Turns out the Wasp isn’t really dead. In Avengers vol. 4 #32, we learn she was sucked into the Microverse at the end of Secret Invasion.
Jessica Jones’ search for baby Danielle continues in New Avengers #47-50. While the Avengers are dismantled to make way for Osbourne’s new team, Luke Cage and Bullseye eventually find the baby with the Jarvis Skrull. He wants to use the baby as a negotiating tactic to exchange for the Skrull prisoners from the invasion. Bullseye kills the Jarvis Skrull, and Luke, Jessica, and the baby are reunited.
The Marvel Wiki alleges that the Skrull language is a fictional “alienese” alphabet that Marvel letterers use to represent any number of alien speech. Attempts to codebreak Secret Invasion, however, reveals the Skrulls speaking mostly unimportant filler phrases or gibberish.
Howard the Duck appears briefly in issues 6 and 7, fighting the Skrulls with a handgun. I guess he was in New York at the time.
Fantastic or frightful? Whew. This crossover is all over the place. The big issue is that it’s all ensemble with no set protagonist. Iron Man disappears during the final battle so he can repair his armor. Hawkeye’s bloodlust for revenge could make him protagonist, but this doesn’t get much time spent on it. Noh-Varr has his big moment with Mar-Vell, but his big hero moment during the finale didn’t affect much. If anything, the Skrull Empress is the main character, as her plans work in the first half, and then unravel in the second half. The Wasp is barely in this series, only for her death to be the big shock moment. And yes, it’s all fighting and battles, and not enough of the who’s-a-Skrull-and-who-isn’t spycraft. In the end, Secret Invasion was only an excuse to have a bunch of Marvel heroes in one comic at the same time.
Next: Reign on me.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Let’s read Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! Act I scene 2 is one of the longest in the play, containing a ton of story. The first part of it, though, sets the stage (heh) for everything that is to follow.
The original Hermoine. Could she have convinced you to stay?
One of the many reasons Shakespeare’s plays have endured is because of their adaptability. After hundreds of years, actors and directors are still finding new takes in the material. The setup of this scene is simple, which means there’s a lot of wiggle room. Upon first read, it feels like flowery poetry for the sake of flowery poetry. But when we approach it from a character/emotional point of view, there’s multiple ways to tell this story.
King Leontes of Sicilia and King Polixenes of Bohemia are childhood friends, despite their two nations being far apart. Polixenes has been in Sicilia for a cordial visit. He wants to leave to check on things back home, while Leontes wants him to stay a bit longer. Leontes has his wife Hermoine do some convincing on his behalf. Upon seeing Hermoine and Polixenes heap praise on each other, Leontes develops a furious jealousy.
Friendliness or flirtation? You decide.
The question is whether Leontes’ jealousy is unfounded, or if there really is something romantic going on with Hermoine and Polixenes. It’s all open to interpretation. A turn of events in act III will reveal Hermoine innocent of any wrongdoing, but can we trust that information?
Further, Hermoine is going to have a baby in act II, and many productions will depict her as pregnant during this scene. This could serve as a connection between her and Leontes, making his jealousy all the more false and unhinged. But what if Polixenes is really the father? Wouldn’t that be a complication, and it can be depicted all through looks exchanged by characters, by their body language, or by emphasizing a key word here and there.
“Don’t underestimate the importance of body language!”
In her offer to get Polixenes to stay longer, Hermoine talks about being a host versus being a jailer. This might foreshadow her upcoming imprisonment. Polixenes then tells her stories of his and Leontes’ youth, how as boys they had freedom to do what they wanted and had little to know knowledge of good or evil. Can we interpret this as romantic toward Hermoine, with him saying their affair doesn’t have be right or wrong? Or is this more foreshadowing, with the two of them being blind as to how this interaction in front of Leontes will lead to their downfall?
The boy kings didn’t know good or evil, but maybe they played this PS2 classic.
Then there’s Leontes’ aside, where he reveals his jealousy. This is a lot. He says his wife and Polixenes are too “hot” and that they’re flaunting “entertainment” in front of everyone. He says their actions stir his heart, and not in a good way. This speech is a great opportunity for an actor to shed all the formal, stately kingliness and explode with real anger.
There’s a lot more ups and downs before the scene ends. We’ll get to that next time.
Next: Along came Camillo.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
So far in this blog series, I’ve done posts on The Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice Through the Looking Glass, which Burton produced but did not direct. I did this because I thought the two films were interesting points in his career, each in their own way. Might as well go down the list of the others he produced then, and see what we can see.
Cabin Boy (1994)
Burton was going to direct this at one point. Based on the date, I’d surmise he chose to helm Ed Wood instead. Chris Elliott plays a self-described “fancy lad” who ends up on a rough n’ tumble sea ship, having adventures of mythic proportions.
There’s a real meta element to Chris Elliot’s brand of comedy. His various gags always go in one direction when the audience expects it to go the other way. He delights in making himself unlikable to the audience, to the point where the audience, not him, is the butt of the joke. Cabin Boy is no exception. There are big laughs and far-out visuals, but the fancy boy never grows or learns his lesson. That last part will crack up some viewers, but leave a bad taste in others’ mouths.
Batman Forever (1995)
Batman faces a double threat as the Riddler and Two-Face team up to threaten Gotham City with a mind control device. There’s a character named Dr. Burton, played by Star Trek‘s Rene Auberjonois, who is named after and based on Tim Burton.
I don’t think we’ll ever know the full story of how and why Burton was replaced with Joel Shumaker for this high-profile sequel, but that’s how it all came out. Shumaker’s film is halfway between the dark Batman of Burton and/or Frank Miller, and halfway to the bright and campy ‘60s Adam West version. Plus a lot of, shall we say, disco flamboyance.
It always bugged me how Tommy Lee Jones went full clown as Two-Face, as if trying to do a Jim Carrey impersonation. It would have been much more interesting to have Carrey play the funny villain and Jones be the truly evil one. We’ve seen Jones go into dark places in other films, so why couldn’t he do it here? My favorite stuff in the movie is Bruce Wayne’s story, with his romance with Chase Masterson (named Chase because she chases Batman) and his friendship with Robin.
9 (2009)
When director Shane Acker’s short film of the same name was something of a sensation in 2005, Burton and Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov, among others, stepped up to produce a feature-length version. The story involves tiny puppet men called Stitchpunks who awaken in a dystopia. They go on a quest to find out who they are and what’s become of the world.
The big issue with the film is the dialogue. The short was silent, but in the feature, the Stitchpunks speak. Elijah Wood’s voice is immediately recognizable and modern-day sounding, breaking some immersion in this far-out world. But the animation is gorgeous, and the creature designs are truly creative, making this one worth checking out.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Bekmambetov must be one of Burton’s guys, because Burton is producer as he directs this historically inaccurate horror actioner. With that title, you’d think this would be a wacky parody film. But it’s serious business, rewriting Lincoln’s story so he always had a double life fighting the vamps.
There is some amusing absurdity to seeing the full-on Lincoln with the top hat and beard going all kung fu against a vampire on the roof of a runaway train, but the movie makes us wait to the finale to get to it. In the end, the movie is nothing horror fans haven’t seen before. Bekmambetov’s Night Watch is a far more interesting and engaging film.
Next: Baby elephant walk.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. While the FF are more supporting characters in Secret Invasion, they got their own spinoff miniseries, which filled in gaps in the main series and brought back on of Marvel’s most notorious characters.
The Skrulls have secretly infiltrated the Earth, successfully posing as many of the superheroes. After Elektra was revealed to be a Skrull, they came out of hiding for an all-out attack on New York. This included a Skrull posing as Sue sneaking into the new Baxter Building and opening the door to the negative zone prison, seemingly destroying the top half of the building. Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four offers more detail on the hows and whys of this incident. This one’s written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who worked on Marvel Knights: 4, and the artwork is by the always-excellent Barry Kitson.
We begin with Sue in Vancouver, where she’s on a lecture tour. She calls home, where Johnny tells her Reed has run off with Hank Pym on a secret mission. Sue arrives at her hotel to find Reed there, surprising her for some surprise romance. Except this isn’t Reed. It’s a Skrull who subdues Sue with her own force field power.
The we get a longer version of the scene from Secret Invasion, where the Skrull Sue opens the portal. Ben gets Franklin and Valeria to safety while Johnny confronts Skrull Sue. She’s affectionate to him, asking him to forgive her. Then we see the apparent destruction of the New Baxter Building, except turn the page and it’s not destroyed. Instead, the top half of the building is now flying through the Negative Zone.
Ben protects the kids from an attack by giant bugs, while Johnny confronts Skrull Sue. She continues to be affectionate toward him, but he doesn’t buy it. He flames on and is ready for a fight. She tells him that Skrulls have infiltrated all the super-teams and are attacking New York, and she’s brought them to the Negative Zone to protect them. Johnny quizzes Sue on her favorite movie. When she doesn’t know it, she’s revealed as a Skrull. But not just any Skrull – it’s Lyja!
Okay, a quick refresher course on who Lyja is. She’s a Skrull agent sent to infiltrate the FF by impersonating Alicia and getting close to Ben. But then Ben stayed in space after Secret Wars, so Lyja switched things up by romancing Johnny. Somewhere along the way, her feelings for Johnny became real, and they married. But she maintained the Alicia illusion the whole time. Once her secret was revealed, she became an enemy of the FF for a while, then rejoined the team, then almost restarted her romance with Johnny. Her storyline (and several others) were left unfinished during Onslaught and Heroes Reborn, and she disappeared.
Issue #2 begins with a flashback to some (but not all) of Johnny’s past girlfriends. Then he and Lyja fight it out, flying out of the building and into Negative Zone space. She’s mad at him, accusing him of leaving her behind without a second’s thought. Johnny stays focused on the invasion, demanding to know what became of Reed and Sue. Then a police car comes flying at Lyja (through the portal, I assume) and Johnny pushes her out of the way to save her life. Their eyes meet, and they kiss.
Back inside the building, Ben fights more giant bugs and then confronts a big octopus-like alien. Franklin and Valeria help defeat the monster, co-piloting a mech suit Reed had built for them in case of emergency. Johnny and Lyja arrive, and everyone compares notes. None of them have the knowledge to repair Reed’s lab and get back to Earth. Franklin reminds them (and us) about the Negative Zone portal from Civil War. He says there’s got to be a supervillain in there with the smarts to fix the portal.
In issue #3, Ben, Johnny, Lyja, and the kids travel to the prison. Ben and the kids head inside, while Johnny and Lyja finally talk things out. Johnny reminds her (and us) that the last time he saw her, it was when she living as a human woman named Laura Green.
We then get a flashback to Lyja’s life as Laura, living in New York and working in a bookstore. She was happy for a while, until the Skrulls found her. They took her to Queen Veranke, who is now Empress Veranke, the Skrull impersonating Spider-Woman. Veranke convinced Lyja to rejoin the Skrulls’ cause. They restored her laser-fist powers and gave her a high-ranking ministerial post. But she’s not entirely loyal to the Skrulls. Her assignment was to kill Johnny and Ben, but she brought them to the Negative Zone to save them instead.
Inside the jail, Ben and the kids find the Tinkerer and ask for his help. He refuses, saying he’s safer in there from an alien invasion. He also tells them about how he was arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. during Civil War while taking his grandkids out for ice cream. Franklin and Valeria appeal to his grandfatherly side, and he agrees to help.
Back at the Baxter Building, time passes while the Tinkerer gets to work. Lyja tells Johnny that she’s not going back, and that she will stay in the Negative Zone. She will make a new life for herself there, leaving the affairs of Earth and Skrulls behind. The Tinkerer gets everyone but Lyja back to Earth, but not the building itself. They stand atop the lower part of the wrecked building, looking out over New York in ruins. Ben promises the kids that they’ll find Reed and Sue, while Franklin muses about how nothing will ever be the same again.
To be continued!
Unstable molecule: Reed is only mentioned and not seen in these issues. Remember that during the main Secret Invasion series, he was ambushed by the Hank Pym Skrull and taken into space on one of their ships.
Fade out: We’re not given any details on what Sue’s lecture tour. The audience is entirely women, so I wonder if it’s part of Miss America, her new charity-based all-female super-team.
Clobberin’ time: There’s a running gag about Ben learning to cook. First he’s making coq au vin for Johnny and the kids, and later he exclaims “Now we’re cooking!” while he fights the giant bugs. I looked it up, and coq au vin is a French stew with chicken braised in red wine.
Flame on: The flashbacks to Johnny’s past girlfriends reveal Johnny’s first kiss, a girl named Hannah Henrickson. There’s also cheerleaders (plural!) as his high school girlfriends. Poor Dorrie Evans doesn’t warrant a mention.
Four and a half: This would appear to be the only appearance of Franklin and Valeria’s co-piloted mech. The Marvel Wiki labels it “Reed’s battle suit,” but doesn’t give it its own entry.
Our gal Val: It seems that Aguirre-Sacasa didn’t get the news that Valeria is a genius, because all dialogue in this series is all toddler-speak. Maybe she’s putting on the toddler act for fear that aliens might be watching.
Fantastic fifth wheel: The flashbacks to Johnny’s past girlfriends also include Crystal, Frankie Raye a.k.a. Nova, and even Namorita.
And then there’s Lyja. While this would appear to be the long-overdue resolution to her storyline, she’ll be back once we get into the whole “Future Foundation” thing.
Trivia time: The two other villains seen inside the Negative Zone prison are Spider-Man’s foe Stegron, and the Faceless Man, a character from back in the Tomb of Dracula days.
Is the Skrull who defeats Sue in Vancouver supposed to be Lyja? He (she?) doesn’t act like it. My guess is this is the Skrull who appeared as the 1960s style Sue stepping out of the Skrull ship in Secret Invasion #1.
Fantastic or frightful? Look, the whole “Alicia is a Skrull” story was a debacle, and it is still disliked by fans all these years later. But it remains a part of Marvel history, and Lyja was part of this series on and off for a good hundred issues or more. So it’s nice to see the character be given some respect after all this time, and giving her a new direction.
Next: And that’s no Skrull.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech, strange creatures, and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first ten episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Let’s read Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. This is often considered a “problem” play, and one difficult to put on stage. As such, it’s also developed a cult following among Shakespeare fans. In this blog series, let’s dig into it and see what we can see.
Press play now on “Legs” by ZZ Top.
Act I, Scene 1 is a short conversation between Camillo, a lord of Sicilia, and Archidamus, a lord of Bohemia. It’s expositional table-setting as they compare their lifestyles and their kings. The set-up is that the Bohemian king is visiting Sicilia, and the two are good terms despite not having seen each other in many years.
Stately lords.
The Winter’s Tale is sometimes criticized as two plays mashed together, with the first half a drama/tragedy set in Sicilia and the second a comedy/romance set in Bohemia. Shakespeare appears to address that in this opening, where these characters address the differences between the two countries.
OMG, Bohemians!
In today’s eyes, “Bohemian” represents the likes of hippies, beatniks, and other free-spirited folk. The Winter’s Tale is open to interpretation, but a cursory glance seems to portray the Bohemian Archidamus as a fun-loving free spirit, with Camillo acting formal and stately.
While Camillo will go on to be a main character, this scene is all we get of Archidamus. He gets the most fun and lively part of the scene when he offers to fill the Sicilians full of “sleepy drink” so their senses will be “unintelligent.”
This is Archidamus III from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Probably not the same guy.
Another interesting bit about the scene is that when Archidamus refers to Bohemia and Sicilia, he talks about them as countries, and about the people. When Camillo does it, he’s describing the kings as individuals – two childhood friends reunited after years apart. This shows a difference in mindset between the two characters, and possibly between their countries as well.
I imagine most live productions will cut out this scene entirely and start the action with scene 2, where everything gets rolling. But I like this opening. It’s a nice opportunity for the audience to get settled before things get dramatic.
Next: Things get dramatic!
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. It’s finally time for Secret Invasion, which takes place between issues #565 and #566 of Fantastic Four. So let’s get all green and wrinkly-chinned for some serious Skrull action.
Gimmie a gimmick: If Secret Invasion is famous for anything, it’s all the covers! Marvel flooded its entire line with gimmick covers, in which famous Marvel art was redone with the characters as Skrulls. For months, you’d walk into the comic book store and see an entire wall of those green faces staring back at you.
The event began in New Avengers #31. This was during a big shakeup for the team. Elektra had taken over as new leader of the Hand, and now commanded her own army of ninjas. She and the Hand had the Avengers on the run, with a plot to brainwash the Avengers to do her bidding. Most of issue #31 is the Avengers battling ninjas inside a Japanese castle while Dr. Strange and Echo fight to overcome the brainwashing. Echo ultimately succeeds, and then she stabs Elektra through the chest as vengeance for Elektra doing the same to her a few issues earlier. The fight stops, and there are two pages of everyone reacting in shock. We finally reveal that Elektra was a Skrull the whole time! The issue ends as Iron Fist asks, “What does this mean?” and his question goes unanswered.
At the time, Marvel did a bang-up job of keeping this secret hidden from readers up to the day the comic hit stands, a Herculean task in the age of public solicits and internet spoilers. Just as Civil War benefitted from the internet by generating massive fan hype online, the phrase “Elektra is a Skrull” similarly got all the mid-2000s message boards buzzing. There were endless debates over who else might a Skrull. Secret Invasion followed quickly thereafter.
Secret Invasion issue #1 begins in paranoia mode as Tony Stark calls Reed Richards and Hank Pym for an autopsy on the Elektra Skrull, while fearing that either of them might also be a Skrull. S.W.O.R.D., which is space version of S.H.I.E.L.D., reports a Skrull ship headed for Earth, about to come down in the Savage Land. The Avengers assemble (of course) and fly to the Savage Land as well, even though the team is not in good standing with S.H.I.E.L.D. at this time.
At the Savage Land, the Avengers find the Skrull ship and debate whether to open it. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dum Dum Dugan is revealed to be a Skrull, setting off a bomb in the S.W.O.R.D. satellite. And the Avengers’ butler Jarvis is a Skrull, unleashing a computer virus on Iron Man’s armor.
And it’s not just Iron Man. The virus runs rampant through all the Stark International buildings and tech, it downs a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and it frees all the villains in super-prisons the Raft and the Cube. A Skrull impersonates Sue Richards to get into the New Baxter Building and free all the villains inside the Negative Zone prison, which is still a thing since Civil War. There’s an exterior shot of the Baxter Building getting absolutely wrecked by the Negative Zone portal.
Back in the Savage Land, Iron Man suffers a seizure due to his armor’s malfunction. Then the Skrull ship opens and a whole bunch of Marvel heroes come out, wearing their costumes from years earlier. They claim to be the real ones, taken off Earth some time ago, blaming the current Avengers for being the imposters.
In space, Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D. survived the bomb in some kind of shield/bubble thingie, and she spots a huge fleet of alien warships flying past the moon toward Earth. At Avengers tower, Reed is still working on the autopsy when Hank Pym pulls a gun on him. Hank is really a Skrull, and the gun stretches out Reed to make him look like chewed gum or something.
Issue #2 begins with a little bit of the two Avengers teams accusing each other of being Skrulls, but it doesn’t last long before the big brawl starts. Captain Marvel flies Tony away to a nearby cave where he starts repair work on his armor. The heroes end up scattered in the jungle, encountering each other in small groups and not knowing who is really who. In Manhattan, the warships arrive overhead with the big portal also still overhead, and a bunch of Skrulls dressed up like Marvel heroes emerge onto the New York streets to trash the place.
Issue #3 is a lot of business as the Skrull Jarvis shows up at a Helicarrier demanding surrender, a Skrull Mar-Vell attacks Thunderbolt Mountain, and the young trainees of the Fifty States Initiative (remember them?) are told that training is over and it’s time to suit up. In New York, the Young Avengers fight the Skrulls. Hulkling, who is half-Skrull, tries to reason with the invaders, but to no avail. All the Initiative heroes then join the fight.
Spider-Woman finds Iron Man in his cave in the Savage Land. Here we learn she’s not just a Skrull, but the Skrull Empress! She tells Tony that he’s been a sleeper agent all along, that he’s not even aware he’s a Skrull. He refuses to believe her. In New York, it looks like the Skrulls are winning, until Nick Fury shows up with a brand-new team of modern-day Howling Commandoes that he’s been recruiting in secret. Fury says, “Let’s turn this thing around!”
Issue #4 has one page of a helpless Reed Richards being experimented on aboard one of the Skrull ships. The Skrulls narrate about how they infiltrate a world, replace everyone there by shape-changing, and continue living those people’s lives on the planet. Agent Brand manages to sneak aboard the ship, and she finds where they’re keeping Reed. Then it’s page after page of the fight in New York. The Skrulls maintain the advantage, because the superheroes cannot be certain whether their teammates are Skrulls.
In the Savage Land, we see some of the old-timey heroes revealed as Skrulls when Black Widow shoots and kills them (!). She attacks the Spider-Woman Skrull, who retreats and leaves Black Widow alone with Iron Man. Black Widow assures Iron Man that he’s not a Skrull, and that the Empress was just messing with him. Back in NYC, the battle gets more and more out of control, with civilians being endangered. There’s a bolt of lightning. Thor and Captain America appear in the sky overhead.
To be continued!
Unstable molecule: Issue #3 ends with Iron Man saying that he needs Reed Richards’ help to fight the Skrulls, not knowing they’ve already abducted Reed.
Fade out: Sue is one of the heroes emerging from the Skrull ship, wearing her 1960s-era uniform. It’s highly likely this is a Skrull. A Skrull successfully impersonates Sue all the way into the Baxter Building and the Negative Zone portal.
Flame on: By the time Johnny figures out that the Sue in the Baxter Building isn’t really her, he can’t act fast enough before she opens the portal.
Four and a half/Our gal Val: The kids are shown hanging out with Johnny just before the Negative Zone portal opens.
Sue-per spy: The 2019 Invisible Woman miniseries revealed that Sue had a double life as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent all along. Given that S.H.I.E.L.D. was caught unawares by the invasion, and Nick Fury enlisted the new Commandoes while he was deep in hiding, I doubt Sue had any advance knowledge of the Skrulls.
Trivia time: While all this was going on, Marvel used New Avengers to fill in the gaps to the main story. Issues #40 and #42 were the prequel explaining how the Skrulls got away with all this. Basically, they engineered a new version of a Super-Skrull that can mimic superhuman powers as well as appearance, and shape-shifting so finite it can fool the likes of even Dr. Strange and Professor X.
Nick Fury’s new Howling Commandoes are Quake, Slingshot a.k.a. Yo-Yo, Phobos, Hellfire, Druid, and Stonewall. Yes, Quake is Daisy Johnson, the main character from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. The Initiative members, meanwhile, are Gauntlet, Sunstreak, Red 9, and Annex.
Fantastic or frightful? Rather than a sprawling crossover like a Civil War or Secret Wars II, Secret Invasion is pretty much a New Avengers story guest-starring other characters, like the Thunderbolts, Young Avengers, and Fantastic Four. It seems at odds with itself, in how the drama of not knowing who to trust keeps getting overshadowed by the big set pieces, particularly the New York fight. There’s some good stuff in these first four issues, but it’s uneven.
Next: And that’s no Skrull.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Tim Burton rewatch! Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) seems like a perfect property for Burton to adapt, but it came and went with little fanfare. How does it hold up?
Here’s what happens: After the death of his grandfather, troubled teen Jake visits the childhood home where grandpa grew up. There, he finds a group of magically super-powered children living in a time loop repeating the same day from 1943 over and over, while cared after by a woman who can transform into a falcon. (Got all that?) Why are they in a time loop? It’s to protect the kids from an even greater supernatural force hunting them. Can Jake save his new friends, or has he brought doom upon them?
Origin story: It all began with author Ransom Riggs collecting weird-looking antique photographs, and writing a fictional story based on them. The book, with the photos included, was a smash hit when published in 2011, and movie talks began right away.
Outsider theory: Jake is certainly an outsider, but I believe he’s first where it’s explicitly said he has mental health issues. There’s a mechanic where he can leave the time loop whenever he wants to go back to his own year, but he never seems in a hurry to do so.
Reality breaks through: Jake does return to the present a few times to check in with his dad, who is rightfully distraught about how Jake keeps disappearing for days at a time.
Best bits: Barron: “Eventually, you’re going to run out of breath. And then it’ll be over. Death for your beloved Jake and Miss Peregrine. Everlasting life for me… and a mint for you.”
Thoughts upon this viewing: This should be a no-brainer – make a movie that looks like the book’s bizarre photos. Why, then, does the movie not do that? Everything’s all bright with carnival colors, when it should be old-timey gothic stuff. I’ll admit, however, that I enjoyed this viewing more than previous ones. There are individual moments when the movie gets interesting, such as exploring a sunken ship underwater or the children all donning gas masks to celebrate the time loop resetting.
Next: The producers.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #565 concludes this wholesome family holiday story with a tentacle monster, because of course it does.
The FF have traveled to Scotland to spend Christmas with Reed’s never-before-seen cousin Hamish and his family. There are hints that something strange is going on in this small town. Then, on Christmas morning, little Valeria goes missing in the woods. This issue begins with the search for her, as local law enforcement work with the FF and Hamish to find her. Johnny and Ben comb the forest while everyone else does a townwide door-to-door sweep. Hamish blames himself for what happened, but Reed says the FF are magnets for stuff like this. “Wherever we go, the madness just follows,” he says.
Johnny deduces (how?) that someone or something grabbed Valeria and dragged her under the water of a lake. He dives into it and swims through a tunnel, emerging into a spooky underground tunnel. He finds Valeria there, unharmed. He asks who abducted her, and she says, “It’s right behind you.” Turn the page and we’re right into the fight, as giant tentacles attack Johnny and he blasts them with flame. They’re immune to fire, though, so he grabs Valeria and flies her out of there.
In town, the FF and the cops come to the home of Rhona, the woman who nervously tried to give Sue a warning last issue. She says she’s not allowed to talk. Sue turns Rhona’s front door invisible to reveal Rhona has a black eye. Before we can find out what that’s about, Johnny returns with Valeria, being pursued by the gigantic tentacle monster.
More fighting, with Ben throwing Rhona’s car at the monster. The creature is fireproof, but Johnny slows it down by melting the ground under it. Franklin then comes up with a plan. Using Valeria as bait (!) he gets the monster to follow him into the FF’s new TARDIS-style bigger-on-the-inside Fantasti-carrier, which is big enough to contain it. It only works for a few minutes, though, as the monster breaks through the carrier and keeps rampaging. Sue then says she’s going to hit the monster with the heaviest thing in town. Using her force fields, she drops the town church on the beast.
With the fight over, the townsfolk gather. One local says, “They killed Korgo!” and another says, “What do we do then?” A cop explains that the town has no crime, sickness, or death, and that’s not a coincidence. Hamish adds that Korgo protected the town for thousands of years, and all it needed was the sacrifice of an innocent child one Christmas morning every twenty-five years.
Hamish says Korgo wanted to take his son Hamish, but he somehow arranged for Valeria to be the sacrifice instead. Reed responds by stretching his hand into a huge fist and punching Hamish unconscious. Ben’s fiancé Debbie, who’s been hanging back during all this, says, “We are so going to my parents next year.”
Cut to months later, and we see a letter Rhona has written to Sue, revealing that the last child taken by Korgo was hers. She’s moved to another town, gotten married, and has a new baby on the way. She says this one’s going to be safe. There’s a bit of foreshadowing when Rhona says she’s sorry about what happened with Dr. Doom and with Ben’s fiancé. She ends by saying “Just remember that your friends are praying for you.”
Unstable molecule: In her letter, Rhona says she heard that Reed built a special “nature preserve” for Korgo, and that Korgo was originally from another planet. We’ll never know whether these things are true, because Korgo never appeared again.
Fade out: What to make of Sue turning Rhona’s front door invisible to peek in on her? It seems like an invasion of privacy, but she was also searching for her missing daughter, so I guess we can call this a heightened situation.
Clobberin’ time: It has no effect when Ben throws Rhona’s car at Korgo. Later, he throws a bus at Korgo after Korgo is defeated, just because Ben wanted to get in the final blow.
Flame on: Johnny is eerily quiet during the search for Valeria. Ben says there’s nothing in the world Johnny cares about more than his niece.
Four and a half: Franklin gets a fun action hero moment by coming up with a plan, and then using his new flying backpack to get Korgo to chase him.
Our gal Val: This issue makes the point that, despite Valeria’s genius, she’s still a child. When trapped in Korgo’s lair, all she can think to do is hide until the FF come to rescue her.
Trivia time: In addition to Korgo, Hamish and his family never appeared again. I wonder if Hamish really was Reed’s cousin, or if that was all a ruse on his and Korgo’s part.
This issue mentions the neighboring Scottish town of Coatbridge. This is a real locale. It’s the birthplace of writer Mark Millar, who penned this issue.
Fantastic or frightful? This two-issue arc has the sense of “business as usual” for the Fantastic Four, but in an ongoing series, we need side episodes like these to be immersed in this world. It’s an excuse to visit a new location and a have a monster fight, and that’s all it needs to be.
Next: No day at the beach.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
Tim Burton rewatch! Yes, I know Burton only produced Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) and didn’t direct. But just as the produced-not-directed Nightmare Before Christmas reflected on Burton’s filmography, I feel Looking Class reflects it as well – but in a different way.
Here’s what happens: Alice is now a seasoned adventurer, running her father’s shipping company while battling pirates. But former suitor Hamish returns, threating to take over the business and reduce Alice to an office clerk. Then Wonderland comes calling, with a new quest for Alice. Now there’s time travel, courtesy of Time himself, with Alice going back to discover the secrets of Wonderland’s past.
Origin story: If Burton’s not in the chair, who is director James Bobin? He’s no slouch when it comes to weird and quirky media. He co-created two cult TV favorites, The Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords, and he got Muppet-y with his first two films, The Muppets (2011), and Muppets Most Wanted (2014). After Alice, he directed the equally weird Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019).
Outsider theory: The time travel mechanic makes this sequel a stealth prequel. The Red Queen is also back, and we get her origin story. She’s sympathetic now, as we see her evil ways were born of her feeling isolated and different from others.
Reality breaks through: At the movie’s midpoint, when Alice is at a low point and all seems lost, she leaves Wonderland and returns to Earth for a bit, where we catch up on the frame story. It’s nice to see the filmmakers tying the two storylines together in a more cohesive way.
Best bits: Red Queen: “Alice, you always were an irksome, slurvish, interrupting thing!”
Thoughts on this viewing: What makes this movie interesting is its consistency. Yes, it’s all green-screen CGI, but with a consistent visual look throughout, so this feels like a singular world. Making the first movie an Alice-based action movie was awkward, but now that has been established, this movie can take the action-adventure tone and run with it in way the first cannot. It’s not perfect – a little too long, and Johnny Depp looks utterly lost under all that makeup – but this is the big, bold fantasy film that the 2010 Alice wanted to be but wasn’t.
Next: Held for Ransom.
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Want more? Check out my ongoing serial, THE SUBTERKNIGHTS, on Kindle Vella. A man searches for his missing sister in a sprawling city full of far-out tech and secret magic. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid full of action, romance, mystery, and laughs. The first three episodes are FREE! Click here for a list of all my books and serials.
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