TEEN TITANS, SEASON THREE (2004-05)

                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*                                                                                                                        

No "poor" episodes this time, but the same number of "good" ones as in previous seasons. The most significant development is the show's introduction of recurring villain Brother Blood. In the comics, Blood was the leader of a mind-controlling cult, but here, he's the headmaster of a school run by H.I.V.E., involved in training new villains for their criminal operations.                                                                           

FAIR

DECEPTION-- In this debut episode for Brother Blood, the Titans need to send a mole into his school to suss out his dastardly plans. Cyborg disguises himself as a new villain, Stone, and becomes a student at the school, where he antagonizes Gizmo and charms the gamine Jinx. When Blood finds out Stone's true identity, this sets a running grudge between Blood and Cyborg.                                                                                                                                      

X-- A never-named thief steals the costume and gimmicks Robin used for his sham villain "Red X" in Season One. At first, the other Titans strongly suspect that Robin is playing games again, but though they acknowledge that this Red X is a threat, they're not able to catch him by episode's end.                                  

CRASH-- Beast Boy accidentally causes Cyborg's systems to go haywire. The heroes force the scientific genius Gizmo to shrink himself into Cyborg's body in order to set things right. The guilty Beast Boy tags along to make sure the job is done right, and the two have a "fantastic voyage" through Cyborg's innards.     

HAUNTED-- Though all of the Titans witnessed Slade's fiery demise, Robin becomes obsessed with the villain once more, insisting that the evildoer has returned. Has the Teen Wonder gone mad, or is some malign influence calling the shots?   

SPELLBOUND -- Raven, needing escape from her dire destiny (fully on display in Season Four), becomes fascinated with a fantasy-novel, and soon learns that there's a real wizard held captive in the book. And yes, it's another trite tale about youthful crusaders getting caught up with their obsessions, though there's enough wit and action to keep the preaching to a minimum.   

WAVELENGTH-- Aqualad brings the Titans ill tidings: Brother Blood has constructed a new installation beneath the sea. Further, he's constructed a doomsday weapon based on tech stolen from Cyborg, which increases the sense of personal enmity between hero and villain. The Titans launch a search-and-destroy mission that requires Cyborg to go off alone and destroy the weapon while the others keep Blood busy. However, Bumblebee, one of the students from Blood's H.I.V.E. school, appears to stand in Cyborg's way. Parenthetically, this Bumblebee is a distinct improvement over the mediocre comics original.                      

CAN I KEEP HIM? -- This is an OK comedy episode in which the young adult heroes often act like children. Following the episode DATE WITH DESTINY, Beast Boy secretly kept one of Killer Moth's genetically engineered worm-creatures. The worm causes damage in the Tower, and when the heroes look for the intruder, Beast Boy convinces Starfire to cover for him. Starfire bonds with the repulsive little creature, naming it "Silkie," but the beast grows to huge proportions and is reclaimed by Killer Moth. This forces Starfire to choose between her friends and her pet, though in the end Silkie is spared. I was tempted to give this episode a poor rating just because Silkie was grotesquely overused for dumb shenanigans in the TEEN TITANS GO series.    

                                                                                                          BUNNY RAVEN-- The criminal magician Mumbo uses his powers not only to capture the Titans, but to turn them all into funny-animal versions of themselves, with the exception of Beast Boy, who gets changed into a lamp that can only shapeshift into other inanimate objects. Mumbo singles out Raven for special mockery by turning her into a bunny-rabbit version of herself, leading to assorted jokes about rabbits in hats. However, even though Raven isn't able to use her demon-powers, she figures out how to conquer Mumbo using the stage magician's methods of misdirection. 

                     

TITANS EAST PTS 1-2-- It's a new grudge match between Cyborg and Brother Blood. Young man Cyborg travels east to help a new group of heroes set up their HQ as "Titans East," comprised of Aqualad, Speedy (introduced in WINNER TAKE ALL), Bumblebee and two new interdependent speedster-heroes, Mas Y Menos. Cyborg is invited to become this group's permanent leader, but then Brother Blood invades, again using Cyborg's tech against the heroes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

  GOOD 

                                                                                                             BETROTHED -- Here, the writers boiled down into one 20-minute episode a very long comics-plotline about Starfire participating in a political marriage on her homeworld to benefit her Tamaranian people. Blackfire, last seen getting taken to prison by cosmic cops, has somehow ascended to the throne of Tamaran, and she brokers a marriage between her idealistic younger sister and a disgusting slime-creature. Robin reveals some of his carefully guarded feelings when he argues that she ought to marry for love. However, though Starfire is saved from the altar, her relationship with the Earth-hero remains largely unchanged.                

REVOLUTION-- In what might be the best of the "funny episodes," Mad Mod returns with a much more ambitious scheme. Just as the young heroes plan to celebrate the holiday of America's independence from Great Britain, Mad Mod cancels the American Revolution by reprogramming the whole nation into believing that they're still a British colony. Further, Mad Mod uses a device that switches the ages of himself and Robin, so that the villain becomes young and the hero a doddering old fellow. The other four leaderless Titans must formulate a plan of they can do so is to emulate the principles of American compromise.                                                                                                                                                        

 THE BEAST WITHIN-- The heroes encounter a new villain, the armor-clad Adonis, and during their battle, Adonis throws some verbal barbs at Beast Boy. The usually genial green guy strikes back, defeating Adonis with extreme violence. Moreover, Beast Boy doesn't seem willing to dial down his aggression even among his own friends, and they become concerned that he may gone on an animal-like rampage. He apparently attacks and harms Raven-- or is there another force at work? Definitely the best episode to focus on Beast Boy.                                

ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2 (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

Whereas ULTIMATE AVENGERS was just a pedestrian failure, ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2-- released a few months later during the same year and written by the same writing-team-- is more the "interesting failure." The first film, allegedly based on Marvel's ULTIMATE AVENGERS comics-franchise, was concerned only with setting up its version of "how the Avengers came together," here consisting of Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Giant-Man and Wasp. But this time the writers made an attempt, however clumsy, to emulate the emotional melodrama of Marvel Comics-- which is more than a lot of the live-action iterations have tried to do.

 Some of the melodramatic setups seem more like excuses to get some of the cast-members out of the way. Since the first movie showed Bruce Banner getting in dutch with SHIELD for transforming himself into his emerald alter-ego, in Part 2 Banner's been locked down in a containment cube while a SHIELD doctor questions him. This effectively keeps Hulk out of the action till near the end. Thor isn't much different. The thunder-god spends a lot of time quarreling with his all-father about hanging out with humans too much, only to pitch in at the climax. Iron Man's about the same narcissist as always, and Black Widow tries to play den-mother to the group, but suddenly Captain America becomes obsessed with crusading to distract himself from time-displacement. This idea could have been done well, but once the main conflict-- another invasion by those dull ET-evildoers the Chitauri-- Cap's inner crisis gets kicked to the curb. For no particular reason Giant-Man becomes a snark-meister, alienating his wasp-winged girlfriend-- perhaps because this series lacked a Hawkeye for that function?

On top of all that, an eighth potential Avenger comes into the mix: the Black Panther. The hero's new origin is at least less encumbered than the one from the MCU's 2018 movie, bringing in a potentially good conflict between the reactionary attitudes of the Panther's subjects and the Panther's relative commitment to interaction with the First World countries. This time T'Challa attains the kingship thanks to a shapechanging Chitauri who spends most of the film looking like a leftover Nazi officer. The explanation for this peculiar affectation is that during the Chitauri's covert involvement during WWII, the shapechanger took the identity of a Nazi officer named Kleisser, in which form he killed Captain America's partner Bucky. There's no explanation as to why "Kleisser" continues to look like a Gestapo chief sixty-something years later, when he kills T'Challa's father. The extrinsic reason for the nasty-Nazi guise is to keep reminding viewers that he's the same entity on whom both Cap and the Panther desire vengeance-- though when they finally do, it's very underwhelming, even when the Panther's. inexplicably acquired the ability to morph into a panther-man shape.

At least I know what the writers were going for with giving two heroes the same enemy. But I have no clue as to what they were going for by making Giant-Man an overly critical douchebag. He rails on The Wasp, possibly because she's funding his research with her superior wealth and he resents that he needs her help. But again, this melodramatic point is just dropped later so that the character can undergo a sacrificial death. On top of all that, the action scenes are mediocre. The only standout moment occurs when Wasp, using some hyped-up strength, actually slams her way through a squamous Chitauri body and kills the ET dead.     

     

BLUE THUNDER (1983)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Not until 2014's CAPTAIN AMERICA THE WINTER SOLDIER would the world see a movie that tried so hard to mitigate use a Liberal political stance to justify throwing the spotlight on the destructive power of a huge piece of law enforcement ordnance.

Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) piloted helicopter rescue missions in Vietnam and now flies a police chopper in Los Angeles. The taciturn Murphy, who doesn't appear to play well with others, is partnered with a chatty fellow named Lymangood, apparently just to draw him out of his shell. The two witness a murder in the streets of LA but are unable to convince their superior of the murder's importance. (They also spy on a sexy girl doing yoga poses, just to make them both relatable.) The murder never really becomes a major plotline in THUNDER, but it helps establish that there's a lot of civilian criticism of police overreach, though all of the cops are good guys.

The bad guys are agents of the federal government, who are developing the technology of the super-helicopter "Blue Thunder" for use against civil disobedience and political undesirables. Murphy is tapped to fly Blue Thunder as part of a test of the ordnance in use for purposes of crowd control, though the association with the LAPD is merely the spooks' cover for their activities. The agents belatedly learn from their other pilot Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) that Murphy may be more trouble than he's worth.

Given that Cochrane warns the agents, you would think they'd take ample precautions to conceal their agenda. But what we get is Hardy Boys 101, as Murphy and Lymangood ferret out the covert plans for Blue Thunder with ridiculous ease. Murphy then makes it his mission to expose the dirty dealings to the press. To that end he uses Blue Thunder to wage a one-man war against conventional cops before he ends up in an aerial dogfight with his old enemy Cochrane.

THUNDER is okay eighties action-fodder but often proves a little on the slow side for modern tastes, and it's certainly one of the lesser accomplishments of co-writer Dan O'Bannon. Rude though it may be, I think the movie's best legacy is having inspired the TV show AIRWOLF, whose super-helicopter was way cooler.

BIG CALIBRE (1935)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                               The best thing about this routine B-western is the villain's use of a "diabolical device" to commit murder. While cowboy Bob Neal (played by sound-alike performer Bob Steele) is away from home, Bob's father is robbed and killed. But the killer, instead of simply shooting the father, uses a smoldering corrosive chemical in a jar to suffocate the victim. Neal and the sheriff examine the curious weapon-- to whose fumes they're also exposed-- and decide to ask local assayer Otto Zenz (William Quinn), the only guy in town who knows chemistry, to analyze the substance. They stumble across the fact that Zenz is the killer, but he escapes using the smoking chemical concoction again. Zenz doesn't go far; he hides out in some podunk town nearby, using a comical disguise to establish a new identity. (Maybe he didn't manage to get away with the dough he stole?) Neal goes looking for the killer but only stumbles across him by accident, in the process of getting accused of a separate murder of the father of your standard pretty young thing. Finally, at the climax Zenz tries to kill Neal with that smoking acid but of course he fails while the hero survives. I suppose this setup is mildly preferable to sitting through a tedious mystery about some mystery killer's true identity, but since the viewer already knows the villain's ID, the whole middle portion is a waste of time even for a B-western.   

APE VS. MECHA-APE: NEW WORLD ORDER (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Just as the previous Asylum entry in this series was a deep-discount knockoff of GODZILLA VS. KONG, and so opposed its imitation Kong against its mechanical imitation, NEW WORLD ORDER loosely derives from GODZILLA VS. KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, wherein the two title monsters team against a threat to Earth.

ORDER is a tiny bit better than its predecessor, if only because returning writer-director Marc Gottleib injected a little more mystery into the proceedings. Why is Abraham the Ape, now confined to a Pacific island, now acting as if he anticipates some new enemy by costuming himself in crude "armor?" Why does a cruise ship, whose passengers include the parents of ace reporter Naomi (Ashley Dakin), disappear at sea? And even though the government has built a "Mark II" version of the Mecha-Kong that got enlisted by terrorists in the previous film, a version that should be impossible to usurp again, why does an early scene appear to show Mecha-Kong II overtaking the cruise ship?

Well, Gottleib does have some answers to some questions, though I don't think he ever explains that early oceanic scene with Mecha-Kong II. It seems that the aliens who originally inserted the bio-gunk into Abraham's capsule in APE VS MONSTER have a much more involved scheme, involving the resurrection of an ancient giant tentacle-headed critter named Khlu-hoo (HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu under an alias). Somehow the aliens, who never make an appearance on Earth itself, orchestrate this with the help of human servitors, including a politico played by the resident "name-actor," Sean Young. Ape and Mecha-Ape botn fight the Tentacle-Menace, and though the two "heroes" are not literally on screen together, Gottleib does find a way to make the early scene of Abraham "armoring" himself pay off.

That said, ORDER is still just another Asylum in which no-name actors stand around spouting Bad Expositions, with maybe ten percent of the movie devoted to monster-action. That said, I liked the design of Khloo-hoo (or whatever) better than either of the pongid protagonists, particularly in a scheme where Tentacle-Terror just picks up Abe and chucks him like a bad penny. But I didn't like anything about ORDER enough to give it a higher rating than poor.  

            

THE KILLER METEORS (1976)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

I don't exactly why I liked KILLER METEORS even in a minor way. It's certainly not because the movie is anyone's favorite Jackie Chan film, for although it received an early American video release thanks to the Chan fandom, the Chan-man occupies a supporting role in METEORS. This is primarily a Jimmy Wang Yu chopsocky, and I can't describe it better than a reviewer who said it was a movie made when Wang Yu was on the downside of his popularity and Chan was about to hit his stride. To be sure, at this point Chan had not yet found his metier, and METEORS is one of the few movies where Jolly Jackie plays a complete villain.

In many previous reviews I've assailed various HK movies for doing a bad job of melding the chopsocky genre with that of the murder-mystery. My most frequent criticism is that the mystery-choppers, at least as they appear in their English versions, are frequently sloppy, tossing in new characters at random and not providing strong motives for the principals. METEORS, though, was comparatively restrained in terms of introducing the main characters and sticking with them, so even if not every motive completely tracked, at least I could keep track of who was who.

Both Wang Yu and Chan plan renowned martial arts masters. Mei, the former's character, seems to be a roaming crusader, and he's nicknamed "Killer Meteors" because he possesses some strange weapon of that same name, though no one knows what the weapon  is because its victims are always destroyed. Hua, Chan's character, seems to be a nobleman in exile, living with a small entourage. When Mei answers Hua's summons to his home, Hua explains that his wife Lady Tempest (Lee Si-Si) fed him a slow-acting poison for some offense. Hua can't penetrate his wife's formidable defenses, consisting largely of four adepts with special powers, like hurling darts or wielding magical magnetism, so Hua hires Mei to steal the antidote from Lady Tempest. Hua accepts the task, and one of the first things he does to enter the Tempest court is to persuade one of her court-women, Lady Phoenix (Lily Lu-yi), to pretend that he's one of her slaves. At the same time, Mei also has another girl in his life, one Fung (Yu Ling-lung), and though there's no explicit sex here. Fung does visit Mei in jail once and apparently gives up her womanhood to him.

In addition to various sockings and choppings, there are also assorted crosses and double crosses, which I won't try to recapitulate. One IMDB review asserts that the screenplay by one Gu Long was adapted from the writer's own wuxia novel, and if so, I'd venture this is why the plot seemed to hang together reasonably well, even if I didn't buy every motive. The ending seems to set up a confrontation between Fung and Phoenix, the two rivals for Mei's love, but they just disappear for a time and then Phoenix shows up to unite with Mei, perhaps suggesting that Fung met some unpleasant fate. Chan and Wang Yu fight twice, but neither battle is exceptional given their stature in the world of martial movies. The revelation of the "killer meteors'" nature leads me to call this movie a magical-era fantasy, though it's much less evocative than one of Lo Wei's previous works in that vein, 1971's VENGEANCE OF A SNOW GIRL-- which I also esteem far above the two mundane Bruce Lee films Wei made around the same time. I don't know how many times Lo Wei might have crossed paths with Gu Long, except that after they made this shot-in-Korea Taiwanese cheapie, they again collaborated on a second kung-film in Korea as well, TO KILL WITH INTRIGUE, which had Chan as the sole star and Yu Ling-lung, again in a support-role.

HONOR ROLL #285

 One advantage of spotlighting a performer with only one credit, like LEE SI-SI, is that I can't mix up her name with any other alias.

It's the last roundup for Mockumentary-Ape-- I mean, MECHA-APE.

 WILLIAM QUINN's grotesque villain is more high-caliber than anything in this oddball oater.

ROY SCHEIDER, futuristic copter-cop.

This WASP isn't as good as the comics-version but at least she's not as terrible as the live-action MCU take.

"Hi, I'm BROTHER BLOOD, and I've got a chin like a bottle-opener."

 

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, sociological*

I wrote this ARCHIVE essay to get into some of the reasons I wasn't captivated by FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, even though I highly approved of the film's avoidance of the political pandering seen in so many other MCU movies. But I might boil down my reaction to STEPS to one sentence: "it's one of the first attempts to make a superhero film about 'ideas,'  but its ideas are not well executed."

Many fans of the FANTASTIC FOUR comic have lauded it for being more in the vein of the genre of "science fiction adventure" than of whatever they see as "ordinary superheroes." I understand this distinction but don't agree with it. However, like the unnamed fans, I think the filmmakers were seeking to foreground the FF's science-fictional associations over whatever they considered typical of the typical long-underwear crusader. This priority is reflected most visibly in the decision not to locate the new FF in "the world outside your window," but in a futuristic 1965. It's four years after Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny came back to Earth from a space-mission that endowed them with super-powers. But although the four former astronauts have become celebrated for using their powers against evil super-villains, just like any comic-book heroes, arguably it's the genius of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) that has refashioned the world-- for instance, by putting faster-than-light space-flight in the hands of Earth-people. To be sure, his wife Sue Richards (Vanessa Kirby) almost equals his influence, having used both her celebrity and an unexplained skill at diplomacy to nullify the arms race. (Guess that makes her an Ultimate Nullifier.)

As for Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), the two of them can't be said to have had such monumental impact on society, except through their popularity in advertising and in kids' cartoons. In the comic books, the overall family dynamic was that even though the powers of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman were not nearly as consequential as those of The Thing and The Human Torch, the latter two were often like brawling children and often had to be reined in, and properly directed, by their "daddy and mommy." The two "kids" were the muscle, but Dad was the brains and Mom was the heart. Director Matt Shakman and the four credited writers have zero interest in this dynamic, though, with the result that Ben and Johnny barely utter a contentious word to one another. If the four of them were the whole ball of wax in STEPS, then the overall dynamic would been more like THE DONNA REED SHOW than like anything in the comic, much less the better sitcoms. Indeed, after about a half hour of watching the film, the DONNA REED comparison popped into my mind-- and that was without my knowing that one of Director Shakman's most notable projects for the MCU was the streaming series WANDAVISION, which also tended to portray American sitcoms as safe, sterile, and not actually funny.

Yet, Shakman et al do have a new dynamic that dominates STEPS, because it just so happens that in 1965 Reed and Sue also enjoy a new personal best: that of conceiving their first child. Franklin Richards becomes the new cynosure around which the four costumed crusaders revolve. Sue is largely serene and unflappable, even when she gives birth to Franklin roughly halfway through the movie, under circumstances that would make the parturition of Zeus sound positively pacific. From start to end, though, Reed's new status as a father fills him with something like existential dread. In the comics it's Ben Grimm who suffers the most from the foursome's elevation into creatures of mythic importance to their culture. But Shakman et al wanted the protean genius of Reed front and center, because he's the one most responsible for turning New York into a benevolent version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. This change is not without some positive repercussions. However, none of those good repercussions have anything to do with celebrating what was great about the FANTASTIC FOUR of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (even though both of them are given a fair number of "Easter eggs," while Kirby gets a special dedication at the end).

So fidelity is not STEPS' greatest virtue. This isn't a serious crime against art-- I for one think Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER far exceeded the Philip Dick novel on which the movie was based. But the focus upon the first child of this world's "first superhero family" necessitated that STEPS' adaptation of one of the comic's most famous story-arcs must also orbit the same cynosure. One podcast suggested to me the possibility that STEPS may have taken inspiration, not from the 1966 "Galactus Trilogy" by Lee and Kirby, but a much later 21st-story in which Galactus and Franklin Richards became intertwined. I have avoided looking at any latter-day stories in writing this review, but I've observed that where superhero adaptations, Hollywood often favors the update over the original.

So, long before the appearances of either Galactus or his female herald (whom I believe is only called "The Herald" in the theatrical release), Reed is very worried about how Pre-Natal Franklin will turn out, given that the child has been spawned by two mutated human beings. In the comic books, Franklin's manifestation of godlike super-powers doesn't take long at all. However, for reasons that may have a lot to do with future MCU projects, STEPS never totally answers the question of what Franklin is, except that the average viewer will be reasonably sure he's not just a normie kid.

  The Herald, unlike the Silver Surfer in the 1965 Trilogy, very considerately informs all humans on Earth that their days are numbered and they should prize what time they have left. She leaves, and the Human Torch tries to overtake her, though he does not seek to fight or capture her. Rather, because it's important to the script, his first contact with The Herald gives him a linguistic clue to her background that will later prove important to the narrative. 

Nevertheless, Reed's technology is key to tracing the Herald's path back to her master, and to using the established space-tech to follow her. Shakman channels heavy "Apollo 11" imagery to sell these costumed crusaders as serious astronaut-heroes, and the entire world assumes that the Fantastic Four cannot help but triumph. One marked difference between this scenario and anything in the 1960s FF comic is that as long as Sue Richards was pregnant, Reed benched her from participating in heroics. But it's not feminism that makes it certain that this preggers superheroine will join the guys on the front lines, it's plot convenience.

 Though the space-journey is a little boring, the culminating arrival at Galactus' space-station is bracing, as is the foursome's first encounter with Galactus. The planet-eater confirms his intention to consume the Earth, but there's a new wrinkle. Even though neither Reed nor any other human was able to detect cosmic powers in Pre-Natal Franklin, Galactus is sure that he senses the Power Cosmic in the unborn infant. So he offers the Rumpelstiltskin Bargain: "I'll let your planet live if you give me your cosmic child, whose power can somehow annul my unceasing hunger."

And here's where I return to my opening statement. This reworking of Galactus' original modus operandi presents the audience with a particular idea-- the question as to whether it's morally justifiable to sacrifice "the One" to save "the Many'-- but does a poor job of answering the question. Granted, I enjoyed the scenes of the Herald surfing through the stars, pursuing the FF when they flee the station, and Sue giving birth in the Four's beleaguered spacecraft. Still, I had to ask-- what was the point of the Four fleeing? Didn't Galactus just give the heroes a choice as to whether to yield up their Little Stranger, rather than just outright trying to take the kid? Similarly, when the Four return to Earth, Reed unwisely reveals the suggested bargain to the populace. Shakman and the scripters totally fail to capture the drama of Earthlings turning against their former champions, and they do no better at coming up with a rationale that allows all Earth-nations to work together, seamlessly, on an alternate method of defeating the cosmic menace.

I won't descant on the movie's ending, or on the teaser for AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY. Both were decent for what they were, and I wasn't bored. But I have no sense that Shakman and the rest really knew what sort of story they wanted to tell. The casting of the actors is as much a mixed bag as the script. Moss-Bachrach does adequately with the various comedy scenes with The Thing, but his efforts to play against type-- Ben Grimm is more a sensitive funny uncle rather than a curmudgeon with a bad temper-- merely seems tedious. Joseph Quinn's Torch is at least as lively a personality as the one from the comics, even if his quasi-relationship with The Herald boils down to connecting plot-points rather than meaningful communication. Vanessa Kirby probably does the best at projecting both courage and maternal solicitude even though Sue Richards is just as underwritten as she was in the Fox films. Pedro Pascal remains the weakest link, and I say that as one who has no previous acquaintance with his other roles. I think he did passably well with the character the script gives him: a man with an unparalleled master of all the sciences, who nevertheless worries about the possibility of losing his moral center as a human being. But while I don't need a Reed Richards who's a control-freak authoritarian, Pascal's Reed is too tentative to be credible as the leader of Marvel's First Superhero Family.                 

GALAXY WARRIORS (2022)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

It's time for another game of "how low can you go," specifically the "micro-budget edition." I just finished another micro-type in RANGERS: BLOODSTONE-- and despite my having almost nothing good to say about BLOODSTONE, next to GALAXY WARRIORS the earlier micro was comparatively watchable.

The failings of GALAXY are particularly egregious because it's a "woman-in-prison-film," IN SPACE. Really, how hard is it to watch the old Jack Hill classics and cobble together something that at least emulates that example of lively trash. 

Instead, we're introduced to two outer-space lady bounty hunters. Demeter (Christine Emes) and Vesta (Alianne Rozon). After a piddling adventure capturing a villain fleeing in another spaceship-- all with no FX or good costumes-- Demeter finds out that her sister Artemis has been sentenced to space-prison. So of course, both of them get themselves sent to the same prison in order to get Li'l Sis free. (BTW, though the majority of the characters have names culled from Greek mythology, all of these usages are entirely meaningless, and it's not even consistent since one male character bears the name "Jeb.")       

There's no nudity, no over-the-top melodrama, and no decent fight-scenes, so GALAXY belongs in some galaxy far far from here, presumably in some undeserving alien's trash compactor.

HARLEY QUINN-- SEASON 2 (2020)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological* 

As was the case with my review of Season 1, I still have not read more than a tiny number of the DC comic books that promoted Harley Quinn to starring status. Prior to this review, though, I did listen to a couple of podcasts on the subject. One, by a podcaster known as "JesterBell," asserted that in the early 2000s, DC wanted to engineer a competitor to the runaway success of Marvel's "merc-with-a-mouth" Deadpool, and that the editors chose Harley for that honor. I could not find any other fans advancing this theory, however, but I tend to believe it.

The Deadpool theory at least has some applicability to specific iterations of Harley. Deadpool's raison d'etre is that he's a mercenary who conveniently only kills bad guys and says a lot of goofy things while so doing. Season 1 pursued a similar course for Harley, in that the moment she became estranged from the Joker, she decided that she wanted to become as vicious and violent as he is-- but only toward other Gotham criminals. For a time during Season 1, she wants to become a member of the Legion of Doom, but her rejection there further embitters Harley, and so in Season 2 she becomes obsessed with disposing of the "big guns" of Gotham, such as Riddler, Bane, and Penguin. However, if QUINN's writers ever read Deadpool, they learned nothing of that feature's trademark snarky humor. QUINN's humor is, to repeat a comparison I made before, like that of ROBOT CHICKEN, predicated on loading familiar pop-culture icons with extreme quantities of sex and ultraviolence. Thus the first episode of Season 2 begins with Harley besting the Penguin by biting his nose off, so that the criminal bleeds to death.

  Still, despite the show's girl-boss rhetoric, the stories never really sell-- or even try to sell-- the idea that Harley Quinn possesses some inherent talent to become Gotham's new crime-queenpin, and the fact that most of her crew consists of goofball losers like Clayface and King Shark confirms that impression. If anything, the script suggest that much of her crusade is a deflection from the thing that truly motivates her, the subconscious desire to become entwined with her gal-pal Poison Ivy. Ivy, for her part, has committed herself to marry another loser villain, Kite-Man, though on two or three occasions Ivy and Harley somehow fell into bed together. The consensus is that both of them are repressing their lesbian tendencies, and that their previous dalliances-- one with an amiable idiot, the other with a murderous psychotic-- prove that Girl-on-Girl Power is far more meaningful than the pitfalls of heterosexual entanglement. And though not every female in the QUINN world is a lesbian, one certainly doesn't get any ringing endorsements of male-female encounters. Catwoman's in a few episodes of Season 2, as is Baman, but they never meet, as if alluding to one of the best-known hetero relationships in comic books might muddy the waters for the ideology.

 In the end, both Harley's quest for queenpin-power and her conversion to lesbitude seem forced and superficial. Later in the season she gets the idea to appeal to Darkseid himself to give her enough power to conquer Earth, and the Dark Lord does so, though he requires that she pass a test by duking it out with the gargantuan Granny Goodness. Harley thus spreads untold devastation to Planet Earth, but hey-- it's OK, because she's reacting to her repressed passion for her best gal-pal. Harley's least worshipful acolyte, the dwarfish Doctor Psycho, attempts to undermine Harley by also petitioning Darkseid for power, but in this case, Psycho ends up facilitating the writers' goal of championing the irresistible amour fou of the two super-villainesses.

I can't deny that the animation on HARLEY Season 2 is top-notch, as much as Season 1, and I liked this or that bit of voice-work, like Michael Ironside for Darkseid. But ROBOT CHICKEN's style of humor works because each vignette exploits its shock-value very briefly before moving on to the next target. Within the context of a melodrama about costumed heroes and villains, that style wears out its welcome very quickly. And I absolutely cannot forgive these pinheaded ultraliberal writers sticking an idiotic word like "cis-gender" into the dialogue of a classy villain like Mister Freeze!    

ANGEL, SEASON TWO (2000-2001)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*   

JUDGEMENT (F)-- Angel, guided by one of Cordelia's visions, seeks to protect an innocent from a demonic sacrifice. However, though he finds the innocent, a pregnant woman named Jo, in the company of a demon, the demon in question is protecting Jo from the menace of The Tribunal. After Angel accidentally kills the demon, he must become Jo's champion to preserve her life, forcing our hero to undergo a jousting-duel on horseback. The episode is mostly interesting for showing how some of LA's demons solve their justice problems, and for introducing semi-regular Lorne, host of an oracular karaoke club. There's a mini-crossover in that Angel visits Faith in prison. She never becomes a regular player in the Angelverse but eventually re-appears in the Buffyverse. There's a strong sense even in this minor encounter that Angel, whose only interest in Faith was avuncular, has become a rough parental substitute for Faith, which is a big reason she never again (to my recollection) says anything more about her previous substitute, Mayor Wilkins.

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN (P)-- Politics and the Whedonverse never blend well. Since Angel's detective office was blown up at the end of Season 1, his entourage needs a new crib. Angel selects a derelict hotel, and it becomes obvious to his partners that he has some history with the place. Copious flashbacks take the viewer back to 1952, when the ensouled Angel lived a solitary existence in a hotel room, having contact with no one, until he gets drawn into a growing paranoia among other residents. The paranoia is partly created by one of those many make-work demons with overly specific powers, and it's later banished in contemporary times so that Angel Investigations can take over the hotel. The writer tried unsuccessfully to mix 1940s film noir with overly Liberal takes on 1950s paranoia, which was not entirely born from phantom enemies.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS (F)-- Gunn, who started making regular appearances in many Season 2 episodes, comes looking to team up with Angel to defeat a new demon. Instead he spends most of the story teamed up with Cordelia in various semi-comic adventures, which refreshingly don't focus on their respective races. The two of them reunite with Wesley and Angel to defeat the demon. In this episode Angel starts dreaming about Darla, who was resurrected, albeit in human form, by Wolfram and Hart.

     

    UNTOUCHED (F)-- While Lindsey monitors Darla's efforts to mess with Angel's mind, evil junior lawyer Lilah pursues a harder-to-follow plot to suborning a young woman with telekinetic powers, I guess to make her a Wolfram and Hart asset. The dubious plot involves sending a couple of men to rape young Bethany, thus triggering her psychic powers so that she kills them. Angel finds Bethany and talks her into visiting his HQ. When she does so, the heroes learn that Bethany's powers were activated by the trauma of parental abuse. Eventually W&H even use the evil father as an agent, hopiing to convert Bethany to the Dark Side, but Angel manages to save her.

DEAR BOY (P)-- Now, Angel's seeing Darla in the street, not just in her dreams, part of yet another dubious W&H plot. Angel goes a little nuts to find Darla alive again, and his friends fear for his mental health, while Detective Kate thinks this is her chance to bust the vampire. Not much going on beyond some good flashbacks showing how Angel and Darla decided to turn Drusilla back in the 19th century.

GUISE WILL BE GUISE (F)-- This is at least a fun caper, as Wesley is forced to pretend to be Angel in order to satisfy the whims of a dangerous gangster/sorcerer, Paul Lanier. Lanier appears merely to want his twenty-something daughter Virginia protected from enemies. However, the Angel group soon learns that Lanier has his own insidious plans, which lead to a pretty large falling-out between father and daughter. A worthless subplot keeps Angel out of the story for a time.

DARLA (F)-- This episode connected to the BUFFY episode "Fool for Love," but was not nearly as good. The strongest of the many flashback scenes is showing Darla introducing Angelus to her sire, the Master. The corrupt old vampire and the "stallion," as the Master calls him, do not get on well. Meanwhile, Lindsey falls in love with Darla and is concerned that his superiors at W&H are just using her.

THE SHROUD OF RAHMON (P)-- Now Angel and Gunn get mixed up with low-level demons making a museum-heist to get hold of the titular relic. There are a few decent jokes, and Boreanaz gets to play a character opposite to Angel's nature, but it's thin gruel indeed.

          

THE TRIAL (G)-- Despite Darla's having helped Wolfram and Hart, Angel is still obsessed by her, even though in past centuries she deserted Angel when he became "the vampire with a soul." She loses her desire to assail him further and reveals that her return to humanity comes with a penalty: she once more has the social disease she had before she was turned. Lorne informs Angel that there's a supernatural entity that should be able to heal Darla, and so Angel and Darla travel to that entity's dimension. The entity, known as The Valet, puts Angel through three grueling physical trials, and Angel triumphs in each of them. However, the Valet reveals that he can't heal Darla because she was already resurrected once. The entity does confer a "blessing" of sorts on Darla that won't be revealed until later. Angel and Darla return home, only to be ambushed by commandos under the aegis of Lindsay. With Angel neutralized, Lindsay brings in Drusilla, who promptly re-vampirizes Darla. 

REUNION (F)-- Though Angel seems still motivated by noble intentions as he seeks to locate Darla and Drusilla, the script doesn't quite make clear, until episode's end, how much he's become alienated from his status as a champion. As for Darla, though she's initially displeased with her return to undead status, and quarrels with Drusilla, the two finally bond once more and decide to assert their control over the satanic law firm that has manipulated them. The two bloodsuckers invite themselves to a party at Wolfram and Hart, intending to massacre everyone there. Angel makes an appearance, but this time, he refuses to intervene and leaves the senior partners to their fate. (Lilah and Lindsay are spared, however.) Angel's friends find out and try to reach out to him, and his response is to fire them from the agency.

REDEFINITION (F)-- Angel's friends worry about the vampire's descent into darkness, as well as fretting about their own employment prospects. Lilah and Lindsay have similar concerns about their future with Wolfram and Hart as the only survivors of the party-massacre. (However, by episode's end the two rivals are forced by their employers to work together.) Darla and Drusilla attempt to form a gang of demon-servants, but Angel becomes brutally pro-active. Angel kills all the demons and sets the vampire women on fire, though they're able to save themselves. At the episode's end, Wesley tells Angel that they intend to continue helping the helpless, but he remains committed to his ruthless mission of vengeance.

  BLOOD MONEY (F)-- Here we have another crime-themed episode, with Angel seeking to undermine W&H's plan to use a children's charity to bilk rich people of their charitable donations and divert the money to evil enterprises. The story's engaging but nothing special.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (F)-- Lorne's talent alerts him to a non-supernatural apocalypse: a physicist working on a machine able to stop time. The "anniversary" of the title is the fellow's one-year celebration with his cute girlfriend, but he overhears her telling a friend that she plans to end their relationship. The scientist's attempt to meddle with time puts the universe in dire straits, and Lorne can just barely talk the reluctant Angel into intervening. The episode does spotlight the hero's immense frustration with trying to do good, and it does give Andy Hallett his first real chance to shine in the Lorne character.

THE THIN DEAD LINE (F)-- Someone's bringing dead cops back to life as unkillable zombies, so Angel again puts his W&H jeremiad on hold, reaching out to Detective Kate for aid. Meanwhile Gunn, Cordy and Wesley encounter Anne Steele, manager of the youth shelter, and the trio start working the rotting-cop case from that angle. There's some strong drama when Wesley's shot by one of the zombies, and only Angel's defeat of the zombie-maker saves the lives of the hero's former partners. Angel makes a token gesture of reconciliation to them, but Cordelia turns him away, unaware that he saved them indirectly.

REPRISE (F)-- Hostilities between Angel and W&H ramp up as one of the firm's Really Senor Partners-- implicitly a major demon from Hell-- plans to visit and review the progress of the company. Angel seeks out a special gauntlet with which to kill the demon, thereby to commence a direct assault on Perdition. Darla is taken in by Lindsay, while Drusilla leaves town, but for reasons not entirely clear, Darla steals the gauntlet from Angel so that she can make her own assault. Angel foils Darla's plot and then launches his own pyrrhic attack but finds his mission to prove metaphysically futile. Detective Kate is relieved of her duties by superiors who just don't believe in monsters. The lady cop attempts suicide, but Angel can't be bothered with her problems. Darla appears on his doorstep, intending to kill him-- and instead, the two of them make at least three beasts with two backs.      

EPIPHANY (G) -- What would a good Irish boy like Angel be doin', if he couldn't have an epiphany-- though admittedly no James Joyce quotations were made in this episode. Darla thinks that her having sex with Angel several times will revert him to Angelus. Instead-- possibly because Angel's vibe with Buffy was categorically different than his vibe with Darla-- he only experiences perfect despair, and the return of a moral prerogative that erases his ruthless persona. He tells Darla to leave and then rescues Kate from her suicide attempt. Later, after he helps the other heroes save Cordy from vengeful Sikosh demons, he's finally able to explain to Kate the nature of his epiphany, which comes down to an existential version of "doing good is its own reward." He comes back to Angel Investigations but agrees to let the others call the shots while they gauge whether to trust him again.   

DISHARMONY (F)-- Harmony shows up in LA and approaches Cordelia alone, seeking to relive some of the good times the two of them once enjoyed-- though without mentioning her new status as a vampire. The two homegirls enjoy hanging out, but Cordy mistakes Harmony's growing bloodlust for lesbian urges. This results in one of the season's funniest scenes, when Cordelia gets Willow on the phone. Being informed that Harmony's a vamp, Cordelia uses the "L" word and also gets an update on Willow's recent conversion. While the heroes try to cope with the dippy bloodsucker, they must investigate a vampire cult organized like a self-affirmation course ("I'm in control of my unlife!"). The episode's dominant comic mood does not keep Cordy from unloading on Angel for having hurt her with his indifference. And yet "Disharmony" ends with a humorous conclusion that can stand with the best of the Buffy-endjokes.    

DEAD END (F)-- W&H are about to review the futures of Lilah and Lindsay, to determine who gets cut-- and the senior lawyers seem to favor Lindsay, since they make it possible to get an organic replacement for his prosthetic hand. At the same time, a Cordelia-vision puts the heroes on the trail of a human-parts chop shop maintained by W&H. Lindsay finds his new gift a mixed blessing, since the new hand seems to have a mind of its own. He seeks out the karaoke bar for counsel from Lorne and gets the unpleasant news that the Fates want Lindsay and Angel to work together. After much sparring, they do so, and the chop-shop takes a flop. Though W&H don't know what Lindsay did, he bids them farewell and leaves LA, though it's not a final farewell.

BELONGING (F)-- A destructive beast called a Drakken begins to feed on humans, but Lorne brings it to the Angel Team's attention because the creature attacked his club. While tracking the beast, the heroes learn that five years ago, a female physicist nicknamed "Fred" disappeared from her college, and as they make further investigations, Cordy reads a spell and a dimensional portal opens. Out comes Landok, a barbaric warrior with skin as green as Lorne's, and he immediately recognizes the karaoke host. Landok renders the heroes aid in slaying the Drakken and his exchanges with Lorne make clear that the host fled his home dimension for Earth, where he might enjoy culture above the level of barbarism. The good guys activate a spell and send Landok home, but the spell drags Cordelia into the world of Pylea as well.

  OVER THE RAINBOW (F)-- The Angel Team labors to figure out a way to cross into Pylea, but they must do so without Gunn, who owes his allegiance to his crew. Cordelia finds herself stuck in a medieval-looking world dominated by low-level demons of various types. In this world native humans are treated as beasts of burden and are known as "cows," who are kept in line by shock-collars, and Cordy is almost immediately captured and enslaved. She had a brief encounter with the lost physicist Fred (Amy Acker, who will become a regular cast member in Season 3). Wesley figures out a way to enter a new portal, and he, Angel, Lorne and Gunn (who changes his mind about going) make the transition. Meanwhile, Cordy's visions attract undue attention, though this doesn't have quite the dire consequences she expects.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (F)-- Surprise! Because of her visions, Cordelia is elevated to the position of a princess, and she even gets an "off with their heads" line. Unfortunately, though her presence saves her four male buddies, she's also expected to mate with a being called The Groosalugg. Angel and Lorne go looking for a portal and seek help from Lorne's estranged family. Landok is there and he talks up Angel the Mighty Warrior so much that everyone celebrates him and ignores Lorne. Angel enjoys the barbarian life for a time, until he realizes he's expected to execute a "cow" for dinner, and it just happens to be Winifred Burkle, the physicist. Angel and Lorne liberate Fred and flee, while back at Cordelia's castle the other three guys leave but Cordy gets stuck. She meets the Groosalugg and finds him not hard to take, but the priesthood that put her in place have their own plans for the princess. Meanwhile, the first time Angel tries to use his vamp-powers, he turns into an almost mindless demon and attacks his friends, only to be lured away by Fred's intervention.                 

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE PLRTZ GLRB (F)-- The season finale keeps the flow of incidents coming thick and fast. Angel manages to recover his normal personality, only to be attacked to the warriors of the priesthood. Gunn and Wesley almost get killed by a gang of rebels, and Lorne literally loses his head. However, Lorne has more success getting put back together than did Humpty Dumpty. Wesley and Gunn ally themselves with the rebels in order to bring all their people together again. Angel shows up but Wesley almost immediately drafts him in a distraction-gambit, which involves him challenging the demons' champion the Groosalugg to single combat, much to Cordy's displeasure. The priesthood is defeated pretty easily-- hey, it's a TV show, after all-- while Angel is able to stop himself from killing the equally noble Groosalugg. So all the good guys, including Fred, get to go home, though the Groosalugg stays behind. But there's a sad ending, because this episode takes place in parallel to the events of the BUFFY episode "The Gift."     

Overall Season 2 isn't as strong as Season 1, and that's partly because the writers logically tried to come up with storylines largely independent of the Buffyverse. But I for one did not find most of the major characters that the season focuses on-- Lilah, Lindsay and Darla-- to be capable of carrying the added narrative weight.      

ASSASSIN (1976)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*  

Twenty minutes from the end of this film, I was ready to describe this obscure Taiwanese chopsocky as an entirely naturalistic martial drama, about noble Chinese patriots seeking to assassinate Mongke Khan (Bai Ying), the head of a Mongolian invasion force attacking China. But at that point in the film, the Chinese leader decides that he wants one of his commanders, Ling (Tien Peng), to impersonate a Chinese officer who's been condemned for betraying China to the Mongols. And how does the official want Ling to bring about this imposture? Why, he brings in a tanner who usually cuts off animal skins and asks the guy to cut off the traitor's facial skin, which Ling then wears into the Mongolian camp-- a gambit which is for the most part a big success. This is ASSASSIN's only enjoyably brain-fried moment, though, for most of the rest of the movie is dull.

At the film's outset, Su Mei (Hsu Feng), girlfriend of Ling, has planned an imposture of her own. After some breast-beating about the danger of the mission, Su takes the place of a concubine who's going to be sent to Mongke. Once Su gets close to the enemy leader, she can pull a Chinese version of the Biblical Deborah by slaying Mongke with her knives. Before she gets there, we're introduced to Mongke, who seems to be a tough, resourceful leader, with a sister, Ha Shi Li (Chia Ling), who's also a martial artist. However, Mongke figures out the plot and ambushes Su. Armed only with two short daggers, Su makes hash of several Mongolians, but Mongke himself easily masters her, even though he doesn't do any impressive kung fu stunts. He then imprisons her, clearly thinking about making use of her, though somehow, he never quite does so. 

 Ha Shi Li, however, signals some possible sibling issues, for she seems very jealous of Mongke's attentions to this Chinese lady assassin. Li corners Su in prison, where she could stab Su to death with ease. However, perhaps to prove her martial superiority, Li simply cuts Su's bonds and challenges her to a duel, Su's double knives against Li's sword. It's a very cool diva-battle, better than the two actresses' fight in THE GREAT HUNTER, and easily the best scene in the movie, including the wacky face-stealing scene. Mongke and his guards forestall the duel's conclusion. However, prior to that, Su cleverly plants a seed in Li's mind, that if she's so great she ought to go challenge Ling to a contest at the Chinese camp. Li does so, and though she doesn't defeat Ling she does slice up a bunch of no-name soldiers, so that both kung-fu divas get an equal chance to shine. Indeed, though Hsu Feng is pictured as being more glamorous than Chia Ling, both are really the only good reasons to watch the film.

The final general dust-up is nothing special, but it has one curious moment. Mongke fights Ling, and Ling manages to stab the Mongol. Su comes up from behind Mongke and also stabs him, at which point Li tries to stab Su from behind. Mongke, who's apparently fallen in love with Su in some off-camera scene, flings Ling and Su away from him, and flings a dagger at-- his sister, in order to save Su. This might have made a little sense had Mongke actually forced himself on Su, only to become so besotted with her that he valued her life over his own, or his sister's. But if that was the intention, the filmmakers totally muffed the execution.