gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Default)
. . . but last night [personal profile] kshandra and I caught up on episodes of 2 & 3 of Ms. Marvel and finally watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Yeah, we meant to go to the theater for that one, but things kept getting in the way.

We're loving Ms. Marvel because Kamala Khan is a person. This is Marvel's strength. you care about their characters as people first. Seeing her at the run-down mosque, navigating high school, and developing a serious crush has been so much fun. But it's also a superhero story, so we see her learning to use her powers, and then having to rescue a kid doing a Bram Stark in the mosque's minaret. Which only increases the government's shadowy Office of Damage Control's interest in finding this new metahuman and bringing her in.

To make things worse, she's now tied to a group of exiled djinn, who see Kamala as their only way home, and they will do anything to make that happen. What's a girl from Jersey City to do? I do love how they are portraying the Pakistani-American community in the show. In one scene, her best friend is running for the Mosque Council and at a street fair celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the friend divides her canvassers between groups like the Mosque Bros, the IllumiAunties, and others. It's really fun, and I'm looking forward to the second half of the series.

Now, Dr. Strange. Wow. It was a roller-coaster ride as Strange tries to help America Chavez, a person who can kick star-shaped holes between dimensions, escape a mysterious pursuer.

Spoiler Break! )
gridlore: Photo: penguin chick with its wings outstretched, captioned "Yay!" (Penguin - Yay!)
I watched the first episode of Ms. Marvel yesterday and was really impressed. The thing that the MCU has always understood is that people like stories about people, and people are not perfect. Tony Stark is an arrogant drunk, Thor is brash and headstrong, and so on.

Kamala Khan is the same way. A 16-year-old Pakistani-American living in Jersey City, she battles her conservative immigrant parents, the social hell of high school, and just the struggle of growing up. What really attracted me was we are much the same. One of the fun tricks they use is that whenever Kamala is passing by graffitied murals, they come to life in her imagination. I was much the same way, imagining alien monster battler heroic space marines in the weeds as I walked to school.

I'm not going to say too much about what happens, but it revolves around getting to AvengersCon and winning the Captain Marvel cosplay contest. In an effort to add a personal touch to the costume, Kamala takes a bauble that her mother had dismissed as junk. Hijinks ensure.

After that, because I was already on Disney+, I decided to rewatch one of my favorites, Thor: Ragnarok. Everyone always remembers it for the funny bits, but the beauty of the film is how it uses humor while handling several major dramatic themes, like the end of Odin, the coming of Hela, and Thor and Loki both growing a little.

One of the overlooked things in this movie is the character arc of Skurge, a relatively minor villain from the comics who her has an entire journey that ends in a blaze of glory.

The reason the MCU is doing so well while the DCEU is flailing is simple: Marvel makes movies and TV shows about people. DC doesn't.

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gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Default)
Douglas Berry

October 2023

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