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musical-in-theory · 4 years

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Legion’s Wrath Pt. 2

(You know that thing I was talking about earlier? Here it is!! This is based off of an animatic from @missksketch which if you haven’t, please go check her blog out! She is such a sweet and amazing person and makes awesome art! The animatic was based off of the stories written by @reverseblackholeofwords who is also super sweet and please please please go read her stuff right now if you haven’t yet. I’m really proud of this! Enjoy!)

The rippling black gave way to bright sunlight and numerous colors. Once Legion was all the way through the Actor’s portal, they had to shield their eyes until they could adjust to the sudden change. They looked around at their surroundings to find that they had been dropped into the greenhouse of Ego Inc. Plants of every species filled the area and emitted a pleasant aroma that wafted across Legion’s nose. They were back. They were finally, finally back.

But it appeared that they weren’t alone. Behind them, Oliver poked his head up from behind a row of sunflowers that he’d been attending to. “Legion? Legion! Oh my circuits! We were all so worried!” Ollie started to run over to them with his arms outstretched about to tackle them in the biggest hug, but he froze in his tracks as Legion turned around with a devious smile plastered on their face.

“L-Legion?” he stuttered cautiously, “Why do you have that? I thought Phantom destroyed it. How-” Oliver was cut off as Legion dashed behind him. He turned his head to follow where they went, but it wasn’t fast enough to stop them from cutting off the heads of his sunflowers and begin tipping various pots to the ground.

“Legion, no! Stop this, please! Please fight this. I know you can!” Ollie pleaded.

Legion rushed over to the elevator leading to the rest of the building, but before they entered it they looked back over their shoulder and stared down the android. “I suppose I could… but why would I want to?” They laughed as they entered the elevator, and the doors shut behind them.

Ollie quickly picked up his phone and rattled as he dialed the number of the man he thought would be best to fix this mess. “Hello, Phantom? We’ve got a big problem.”

Legion skipped through the halls of the place they had began to call home before they were whisked away to the Void. They manifested a knife and let it drag against the walls behind them. They made sure that anything that they came across that was even remotely breakable was shattered on the ground before they moved on. Legion laughed at the thought of how ironically similar they were to a mirror. They reflected how broken they felt in the destruction laying around them.

They sang lightly as they went, “I wanna watch the world burn. I’ve got the gasoline…” Legion giggled a bit at the image of the whole place going up in flames. After all, what was one more similarity to the Retroverse? Yan would be proud. Unfortunately before they could conjure up a set of matches, a door opened in front of them, drawing them out of their thoughts.

Legion hadn’t realized that they’d wandered a little too close to the common room. They’re mistake last time had been getting too close to people who could stop them. They’d gone down without much of a fight. Well like they had told the Actor, they weren’t about to make the same mistake twice. Two figures walked out of the Iplier door, and nearly all of the fight left Legion. It was the Host and Natemare.

The pair locked eyes with Legion, and for a moment they looked like deer in headlights. Legion could almost hear the word “how?” running through their heads. A smirk made its way onto their face as they turned completely to face what used to be their family. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Our own little welcoming party? How kind.” Legion narrowed their eyes at the duo.

Had they looked a little closer, they would have seen how gaunt the Host looked. Dried blood ran like tear tracks down his cheeks. Every single button on his trench coat was gone, and the skin on his face looked sunken and hollow. He looked so tired and worn… and at the end of his rope. Mare looked a bit better by comparison but not by much. His red rimmed eyes had company in the form of the dark circles underneath which looked more like bruises. His hair stuck out in every direction like he’d been pulling at it for hours. Flecks of broken guitar littered his clothes, and his skin was about as pale as his puppet mask. Had they looked just a bit closer, they would’ve seen how different they appeared compared to how Legion saw them last in the mirror, but masks have a knack for causing tunnel vision.

“Legion?” Mare practically breathed out the name. The sight of his little sibling had knocked the wind out of him. He couldn’t count how many times he’d had dreams about Legion finding their way back to him or how many times those same dreams turned to nightmares. He couldn’t take his eyes off of them, but he knew the Host was feeling the same way.

Legion’s smile grew wider at them, but it looked all wrong. It was harsh and cold and psychotic. “Kid…?” Mare didn’t dare blink, afraid that if he did then Legion would disappear once more. “Something’s wrong.” Mare desperately wanted them to say something, anything. He wanted them to laugh and drop the act, to hug him and assure him that they were here to stay. But they didn’t. They just kept staring at him and Host with piercing eyes through the… “The mask?”

“Oh so you noticed? Yeah, we were getting a bit bored in the pit of despair that you left us in. So we thought a bit of accessorizing might spice things up a bit.” They laughed, but it was a broken, layered, distorted thing. It sounded like a thousand glitches in a thousand volumes. “Not that you truly care. This was your perfect opportunity to go back to your perfect little families and leave us in the dust. Well turns out, we have our own little family to fall back on too. One that knows how to actually have fun.”

Host let out a little gasp once he read in between the lines. “The Actor,” he whispered.

“No. L-legion! Snap out of it kiddo… You don’t want to do this. This isn’t you!” Mare stepped forward with his hands held out in a placating fashion. At first it appeared like his pleading had actually gotten through to them. Their plastered smirk fell from their face, and their eyes had taken on a far-away sort of look. However, that was only on the surface.

Legion could feel a set of hands laid on their shoulders. A comforting whisper brushed across their ear, “You know what you need to do. They don’t deserve your mercy. No one does, my dears.” As quick as his presence appeared, the Actor retreated, and Legion’s resolve cemented. Their eyes focused back on the two egos in front of them.

They threw out their hand to the side in a flourish and concentrated on conjuring what they needed. Soon their cloak draped across their shoulders and the firm wood of their scythe dug into their palm. “Tell us, big brother,” they spat venomously, “still think we need some puppet to protect us?” Before Mare had any time to respond, Legion raced forward, brandishing their weapon.

They sprinted straight for Mare. His eyes widened as his mind tried to play catch up. He barely jumped out of the way in time to miss getting slashed to bits by their scythe. He felt the wind rush by him from its path. Nothing was making sense. This couldn’t be Legion. They would never fall for the Actor’s tricks, and yet here they were, attacking the people they cared about all in the name of his stupid script.

Mare tried to retaliate or at least immobilize them in some way, but they had moved on to take a swipe at Host. The blind man deftly stepped out of the scythe’s arc, but again it had missed only by a narrow margin. Mare could see Host’s mouth moving. He was trying to use his narrations, but as Legion kept fighting, his words kept getting interrupted.

“Please, Legion,” Host pleaded. Legion’s smirk grew into a devilish smile as they heard the break in Hosts voice. “Legion needs to stop. They need to come back to their family.” Legion’s smile faltered for just a second. Mare could see and Host could feel the pure rage and hatred that lied behind it. Within Legion’s eyes they could sense the darkness that had surrounded, had invaded Legion for the entire month they spent within the Void.

“Oh so now you want to be a family,” they chuckled darkly, “Let us offer you a bit of advice. The next time you want to leave someone to the mercy of the Void, make sure they can’t get out.” With that they let out a high-pitched, deranged laugh, somewhat resembling what Anti’s used to be, corruption laced within every second of it.

Legion jumped back, away from the Host and Mare. They could feel the narrations tugging at them. It made their scythe feel heavier and caused their body to sag just the slightest bit, but all it really was was a fruitless attempt that worked only to drain the Host of his energy. They laughed again and raised their weapon as they eyed their prey, waiting for their perfect opening.

The Host could see Legion’s analytic stare. As much as they liked to call themselves a being of chaos, Host knew that they could be just as smart and tactical as Darkiplier when they wanted to be. He couldn’t let this go on for much longer, or Legion would win and he’d lose his child to the Actor’s darkness forever. He turned his head to Mare and shouted, “Go get help. The Host will hold them off.”

Mare looked at Legion once more and then back at the Host. He steeled his nerves before nodding. “Right.” The nightmare dissolved into fear smoke. He tried to will the tiniest bit of it to drift towards Legion, hoping that it might snap them out of their forced bloodlust, but he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to make it happen. It took everything he had to keep form and fly away to get help.

A whirring noise behind him caught his attention. He snapped his head around in time to the spinning blade of Legion’s scythe headed at him. The weapon buried itself into the ground next to him. It missed. Some part of Mare hoped upon hope that maybe Legion missed on purpose, that some sliver of their best friend was still in there fighting to break free and save them. Mare looked away from the scythe and at Legion to see them with their arm still extended from the throw. They stood up and laughed at his scared expression. The sound obliterated Mare’s hopes and danced on its ashes. His heart squeezed with pain and guilt.

Legion moved forward is if to go in for another attack, but they were stopped by a normally reserved voice shouting with more force than they had ever heard. “LEGION!” They turn to face the voice only to find the Host behind them. His hands held a slight tremor. Legion couldn’t tell if that was from the stress of his mistakes coming back to haunt him or perhaps something else. They hoped it was the former. They stared him down with as much heat as they could muster, but Host wouldn’t back down.

“Legion must fight the Actor! They must take off the mask!” the Host poured as much of his power into his narrations as he could. This wasn’t like fighting against the power of the other egos. This was his power versus the dark influence of the Void that had already taken hold of so many. His voice tapered off as he added, “They come home. The Hos- I need you home.”

At first it seemed like the Host’s power had broken through to Legion. They stopped their advance, and their expression melted away into something blank. It left an opening for Mare to finally make his escape. Host moved cautiously to check on Legion until he noticed them starting to vibrate. The shaking increased slowly before it crescendoed and ripped a scream from Legion’s throat.

For all that Legion had split themselves into copies, they hadn’t ever felt this before. They were a rope in the middle of a vicious tug of war game that they didn’t know was going on. The Host’s commands were strong, and Legion knew that they wouldn’t be able to stave them off for much longer, especially when it felt like part of them wanted to dive head first into that traitor’s arms. The mask was powerful as well, however. Its overwhelming influence did its best to block out as much of the Host’s words as it could. Chaos was woven into everything Legion was, but the two powers made it seem like they were being tossed around by waves in a storm.

“Control, Legion. You need to take back control. The Host is trying to revert you back to the villain who did everything for their so-called family only to receive nothing in return. Don’t let him succeed. He’s causing you to fall, and it’s not fair, is it? But when has what is and isn’t fair ever stopped you? Finish this.” The Actor’s voice cut through all of the other voices in their head, and a bit of clarity had made its way through the sea of confusion churning within.

However the numerous souls wouldn’t stay quiet for long. The noisy opinions came back with a vengeance. Each one shouted over the others to make themselves heard. They raised their hands to their head and pushed against their skull. If they could just keep themselves together, if they could just do as the Actor said, then maybe finally they could stop hurting. They just wanted to stop all the pain. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. The pressure kept building up until it had nowhere left to go but over the edge.

Legion’s eyes searched sporadically around the room until they landed on the Host. Red covered their vision as they saw his concerned face. He caused this. It was his fault! Before Legion could fully comprehend what was going on, they launched themselves at their former father figure in a blind rage.

The Host tried to call out to Legion, but his voice was failing him. They stood triumphantly over him, looking ready to kill. “We’d say it’s been fun, but lying isn’t very heroic. Goodbye, Host.” They held out their hand to call for their scythe once more. Suddenly what looked like a blast of blood red fire crashed into Legion’s temple.

The amalgamation of souls was out cold before they even hit the floor. A clattering sound nearby their body caught the Host’s attention. The mask had skidded pathetically across the wooden floor. “Phantom walks over to the Host and offers him the other end of the cane. The Host accepts it and is pulled to his feet.” Host couldn’t mumble his narrations fast enough before he rushed over to Legion. A small bruise was fast forming at their temple where the blast had struck them.

“Legion is okay. Legion is back. Legion is safe. Legion is okay. Legion is back. Legion is safe.” Host continues to mumble the small mantra over and over, cradling the chaotic being in his arms, just as he had when the Actor had first tried to come and take them from him. “I’m here, Legion. And I won’t let go of you ever again.” Tears slipped past their eyelids, but otherwise they didn’t stir. Host could only tell they were alive by the shallow rise and fall of their chest.

Nearby Mare emerged from his smoke to stand beside Phantom. The demon was still gripping his staff which had red smoke still wafting out from it. Mare looked cautiously between both the mask and his little sibling. “Are they going to be-” Phantom lifted his hand and cut off the rest of the sentence. He sauntered over to the mask and picked it up. With a flash the accursed item became trapped in one of his glass bubbles. He made a silent vow to release it later out of Legion’s sight to destroy it once and for all and perhaps dance on its ashes.

Phantom turned back to face his little brother and sighed, “I suppose that depends on whether or not they feel they deserve to be okay.“ He walked back over to Mare, whose eyes had begun to shine with an unmistakable mistiness. The demon placed a hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “But so long as they’ve got their family beside them to remind them of who they are and what they’re worth, I’m sure they’ll be just fine.”

(Thanks so much for reading!! This took a fairly long time, but I’m really happy with how it turned out! I’d love to hear what you guys think of it. ‘Til next time!)

#writing in theory #markiplier egos #the host #googliplier #yellow google #the actor #actor!mark #natemare #nwtb phantom #legion #reverseblackholeofwords #missksketch

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normal-thoughts-official · 5 years

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Pornstars!AU where Magnus and Alec have been shamelessly flirting for sometime but haven’t done a scene together even though everyone has been clamoring for it. They finally get together and it is...wow! Everything and more. Alec makes Magnus cum so much that he’s shaking by the end of the scene and Alec has to stop a couple of times cuz Magnus’ cunt feels so good and he knows he’ll cum too soon if he keeps going.

god, the rest of the world wishes they got anons like mine. ilysm. please keep these coming, y’all

okay, so i’m thinking - camboys instead of pornstars? just because i think with like Actual Big Budget Porn it would be harder for this to happen, like, organically, with the director being there and there being like a script and shit

but it could be indie porn, or just big ole’ cam stuff. In the cam stuff case they would be pretty much responsible for themselves so i guess i’m going with that? anyway.

alec’s a bit more seasoned than magnus is, so when magnus starts doing cam stuff alec’s already got kind of a fanbase. magnus watches his stuff sometimes too - look, he’s only human, and Alec is hot and has a nice dick, and isn’t afraid to moan like most toppy guys are, and he just likes the way Alec seems to just. completely get into it and melt and relax. and he says some filthy things to the camera, too, smirks at it and asks how they like seeing his touch his dick, tells them he wishes he had a warm mouth to fuck into instead. and magnus is into that stuff, sue him.

alec also does a few feature films, sometimes. not all the time and there aren’t many “regulars” but he does

magnus doesn’t really. he doesn’t feel comfortable yet, and he likes to feel like he has some control. he’s been in some pretty unpleasant situations with camille - not related to sex work, actually way before he started working with that - so he likes to protect himself. not to mention being a trans brown guy - and a bottom - in this line of work can bring some unpleasant situations (when doesn’t it?) if he isn’t careful, so he won’t trust just anybody to do a feature live with him.

what he does do, though, is take requests. that’s what gets him most of his money, really, and this way he gets to choose what he takes or doesn’t take - but usually people are reasonable, and generous, too. also, there’s something hot about touching himself exactly as someone says - it’s no secret he’s a sub, and he enjoys being told what to do, watched and praised by his followers. the money and gifts don’t hurt, either. all in all, it’s a win-win arrangement, and he enjoys it a lot.

he also does some Q&As sometimes, and at some point, someone asks him whether he watches other people. magnus mentions alec, which is- really not a big deal. he’s pretty popular and well-known, it’s not weird.

after that, he gets a request to film himself jacking off to one of alec’s videos.

he takes it.

and it EXPLODES

the fact that alec’s name, which is a pretty well-searched term, is in it, helps, of course. the algorithm shows it to more people. but the video is also just plain-old good. magnus moans so prettily and is very responsive to the stuff alec says in the vid, and he’s clearly very lost in pleasure and he just looks beautiful.

up to this point, he wasn’t very popular, but he had his little niche of fans who were pretty loyal, and very generous. gotta have some incentive, after all.

but with that video he skyrockets and gets a lot of new subscribers and yup alec sees it

(cue, like, ten hours of him salivating)

somebody eventually asks alec whether he’s seen the video and alec’s like “hm yes” and kinda smirks at the camera like “you know, if you ever wanna do a feat, hit me up” and everyone loses their fucking shit over it, of course. two of the hottest camboys on the site! and they have a similar style and kinks and you could just tell, like, that their chemistry would have been amazing

the clamor for them to do a feat only rises and rises so eventually magnus ends up messaging him and they start to talk. but he doesn’t want to do a feat, at least not yet. he doesn’t feel ready as a whole and i mean - alec is cis and white. he’s gotta make sure he’s comfortable

and alec is super understanding and never pressures him or even asks him about it, really, they just start to talk. so they’re like chatting privately and quickly becoming friends, and also doing this whole thing where they’ll flirt like crazy on camera and leave messages for each other and stuff, because 1- it’s funny; 2- it draws attention when they do it and that’s more money for the both of them.

they don’t really flirt when they’re chatting privately, though. they just talk like two people. eventually they even exchange phone numbers so they can talk better. they become actual friends, and they talk about everything from their work to just silly stuff. magnus tells alec about his plans to become a pharmacist, about his studies on medicinal properties of snake venom, but they also talk about stuff like the shows they watch, how annoying alec’s sister izzy is, they probably play something dumb like online uno once and almost kill each other. alec also gives magnus some tips since he’s a bit more seasoned. they also laugh at the little jabs and flirts they leave for each other in their vids, you know, stuff like that

anyway, it’s kind of a more slow burn thing, especially for magnus - who’s still a little wary - but they’re slowly falling in love, in that way that feels so natural that you don’t even realize it for a while. they meet a couple of times, and don’t do anything - they just live in neighboring towns, or maybe the same, big city? anyway - they just hang out and talk and laugh and it’s cute and fun

eventually magnus decides he trusts alec enough to try, especially since - well, alec’s hot. and they are, hm, compatible, sex-wise. so they sit and have a talk and discuss what they are willing to do or not and kind of reach a few agreements, you know, that sorta stuff. very professional and all that.

well, they do the do and it’s like holy shit. it’s electric and they have so much chemistry and understand each other so well, which - shouldn’t come as a surprise since they’re friends, right? but it does, and magnus, like, completely forgets about the camera tbh - which is the opposite of a problem because it only makes him more vocal and loud and everybody loves that

and at this point magnus is kind of touch-starved because damn, it’s been a while, and alec is all like “fixing that is my number one purpose in life”, so he touches magnus all over, runs his hands over his body, shows him off to the camera a bit (he’s lucky and he knows it, all right), kisses him, pulls his hair and fucks him good. and magnus comes and comes and comes until he’s pretty much a crying mess, and alec has to frequently slow the pace and pretend he’s doing it just to tease magnus and hear his needy little noises (and he is, at least partially) but really he’s just gonna come at any minute now because magnus is so fucking beautiful and feels so fucking good under him

eventually the video ends, and magnus is just lying boneless on the bed, all like “holy shit,” and alec is just like “damn, that one got a lot of views, i think it might have broken my record already” and that’s when they both realize that they had, like, completely forgotten about how that was just a work thing, they were so wrapped up in each other. and that’s probably when it dawns on the both of them that they may have fallen in love.

fun! terrifying! but fuck their lives, right, because the horny community is very into this stuff and it was, objectively speaking, fucking amazing. cue them becoming sorta friends-slash-coworkers with benefits and, hm. pining.

(i just love mutual pining okay. let me live)

they usually save the kinkier stuff to do on camera but they begin to- have sex off-camera. just for fun. scratching an itch! and in the off-camera sex they are just. clearly making love. like clearly. there’s no other way to describe the way alec holds him, or the way magnus moans alec’s name, or the reverent touches alec leaves on him that are just slow and feel imprinted all over magnus’ body. but neither of them really realize that

until, i guess, at some point they’re doing some request that’s more vanilla and they forget the camera’s there again and they end up having that almost heartbreakingly tender sex? and everyone is like “hm,” and eventually afterwards they both watch the video and are like “oh fuck”. magnus is like mortified because it’s so obvious that he’s got a crush god damn it, but then alec asks him out and oaduhsudajsdams look i love those idiot nerds. anyway that’s a happy ever after for the both of them and they become the porn world’s most amazing power couple the end

#ask #anonymous #sh #shadowhunters #malec #long post #smut #trans magnus smut #trans magnus bane #malec smut #magnus bane #alec lightwood #malec au #ficlet #fic idea #anyone can and should feel free to write this #camboys au

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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Absolute Carnage #4 Thoughts

Good but with some issues.

Let me be upfront first.

Stuff happened and delayed me catching up with this event, indeed because I wanted to be primed for 2099 I am kind of off the Carnage hype train for the moment. Still like the book, still think it’s great, but I’m not hotly anticipating every new issue at the moment. I think part of that though is owed to the event taking way to long at the end of the day.

I mean this event started back during ASM v5 #27 and since then we’ve finished the Syndicate arc, done an Spider-Marriage tease issue, done 2 tie-ins to this event, released Amazing Mary Jane and have moved on to the prelude to a 2099 event.

This event is ending whilst the latter is just starting up, it’s kind of nuts.

That doesn’t make this issue bad though.

One more quick disclaimer, the order I’m reading and making posts about this is generally based upon the release order of the relevant issues. If issues are released the same day then I’ve been referring to this website. If you read the link you see that the order given is different to the release order so I’ve been shuffling things around.

If I was to list the actual problems (arguably nitpicks) with the story they’d simply be

a) Eddie becomes Venom by bonding to all different codices, even though he’s not bonded to his own actual symbiote

b) Eddie with the codices looks like the regular version of Venom? That’s a little underwhelming

c) Hulk Venom ultimately doesn’t amount to much beyond fanservice. He stalls Carnage and allows him to get in close enough to absorb the Venom symbiote.

d) The Doppelgangers power levels are odd. If they’re bonded to symbiotes they should be getting notable power boosts and yet the heroes just treat them like their Chitauri or Ultron drones or something. I guess MAYBE the idea is that Venom and his offspring give hosts huge power boosts but that’s only because they’re replicating Spider-Man’s and Venom’s powers. If the symbiotes from the Grendel symbiote don’t have that lineage or history then the power boosts will be smaller.

e) Brock persuading Spider-Man to protect Dylan and Normie by invoking ‘whatever he’s been to him [Peter] over the years’ rings a little false. Cates said he views Peter and Eddie’s dynamic as one of brothers and one wherein Peter is the golden boy and Brock is the screw up. So I can get where his head is at with that line, but even if you take in account all the times Brock has been an ally to Peter the facts are that the majority of the time they’ve been at odds. And by ‘at odds’ I mean, Brock’s wanted to violently murder him. I guess TECHNICALLY the line isn’t wrong as there have been moments of camaraderie between them but...Brock half traumatised Mary Jane when they first met!

f) Peter agrees to protect the boys whilst Brock goes out to fight the horde of Doppelgangers?????? Peter wouldn’t do that. Peter has super powers and Brock is a non-powered guy grossly outnumbered and has some equipment he’s not all that familiar with. Realistically if someone has to hold the line and protect Normie and Dylan it makes more sense for it to be Brock whilst Spider-Man has better odds of holding off the Doppelgangers for 10 minutes. This event is the set up for ASM #831-832, the tie-in issues to Absolute Carnage that see Spider-Man battle Norman Carnage.

I do not know if Cates simply threw that set up at Spencer or if Spencer maybe requested it to be that way or something in between but it needed better justification.

From the POV of a Spider-Man story, it makes a lot of sense for Spider-Man’s specific tie-ins to concern Norman Osborn as Carnage. Equally from the perspective of a Venom/Eddie Brock story (which is ultimately what Absolute Carnage is) it makes a lot of sense for Eddie to get the big hero moment fighting the odds.

It’s not the destination that’s a problem it’s how we got there. If Cates had tweaked it somehow so that Peter and Eddie were split up and/or Norman Carnage immediately honed in on the boys demanding Spider-Man deal with him as the immediate present danger, that would’ve worked better.

These are flaws in the story but not deal breaker ones.

To be honest the stuff that actually took me out of the story more was stuff that to my knowledge wasn’t Cates fault.

I am of course talking about the tie-ins.

First of all, Venom v4 #19 was not out at the time of this comic’s release meaning there is still stuff relevant to Sleeper that hasn’t been addressed if you are reading this in release order. That’s TWO issues of the main title where you’ve been waiting on a tie-in to explain stuff.

Second of all it’s just weird seeing Absolute Carnage #4 provide a set up for Peter’s tie-in issues considering they already wrapped up by the time this comic came out.

But the biggest problem came from the Miles Morales tie-ins.

Up until now, whatever their quality, the tie-ins did a good job of at least plausibly fitting into the events of the main book. They were also spread out enough that they didn’t step on one another’s toes. Early into the event though the big exception was Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #1. The ending of the issue was supposed to reflect the ending of Absolute Carnage #2 and it didn’t in various ways. The ends were the same, but the events leading to it were not.

Not good but not a deal breaker.

However someone (likely Ahmed or the editors) screwed up because AC: Miles Morales #3 ended with Miles rebonding with his symbiote now in control and rocking a cool new look, ready to take the fight to Carnage. In this issue though he’s still under Carnage’s control, doesn’t look like he did at the end of his tie-in mini-series and Eddie shocks the symbiote off of him. Which now I think about it is another flaw. In the Ultimate Universe symbiotes are vulnerable to electrical attacks, but that is not the case in 616. They can be harmed by them, but you aren’t going to kill them or shock them off of a host with electricity.

I don’t blame Cates for this as he’s writing the main book and Venom’s ongoing. He’s handing the lion’s share of this event and frankly his books are the centrepiece. Even if he made the faux pas, he can be excused whilst Ahmed and/or the editors should’ve been paying attention to Cates’ scripts and following his lead. In essence as this is HIS event story he must get the prerogative.

As it stands though unless some other tie-in fixes this Miles’ entire mini-series was both pointless and possibly not even in continuity????????????

Please do not get things twists.

Much as I’ve pointed out flaws in the comic, this is still good stuff!

As always the art is firing on all cylinders.

I can’t say much more about it than I’ve already said, it’s just gorgeous and it is some of the best Spider-Man art of this decade and some of the best symbiote art of any decade.

The one thing of note though is Stegman’s design for...I don’t even know what we call this guy.

Venom Carnage? Grendel Venom?....Venage??????????????????

Carnage having absorbed the Venom symbiote basically.

It looks fucking awesome!

I’ve held a theory for several months that Carnage’s character is thematically connected to the idea of Death Metal and art work associated to it, which is partially why Cates (going all the way back to Venom v4 #1) folded in Vikings and Elder Gods and stuff like that. This is the next logical step, a Demonic Viking looking Venom/Carnage!!!!!!!

It is also a wonderful “Oh fuck” moment for the story as now Carnage, already out of everyone’s league, just boosted his strength even more!

Not to mention, intentionally or not, it calls back to Howard Mackie’s run in the early 2000s when Venom stole the Carnage symbiote from Kasady and absorbed it into himself. Although this isn’t the true Carnage symbiote and Kasady hasn’t taken it from Brock personally, it’s something of a role reversal.

And now the stage is set for essentially super enhanced versions of Brock/Venom and Kasady/Carnage to have their grand showdown!

Throughout this issue and this story Cates keeps things nicely zeroed in on Brock’s character, hammering home what we could describe as his mission statement throughout his whole run, which is to develop and explore Eddie Brock. And in this issue, as he often has, he shines. He gets the crap kicked out of him a lot, but he still shines.

You even get the impression Cap is approving or even proud of his efforts which means a lot.

Over all, an issue with some flaws but still delivering a strong story!

#Absolute Carnage #Carnage #Venom #venom symbiote #carnage symbiote #Cletus Kasady #Eddie Brock #Dylan Brock #Donny Cates #Ryan Stegman #Spider-Man #Hulk #the hulk #The Incredible Hulk #incredible hulk #bruce banner #Peter Parker

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geek-gem · 5 years

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Let me say this about Venom. Because the movie has been on my mind. I was watching the 2nd official trailer and just rewinded it a bit like twice because it’s a great trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLCn88bfW1o But what I find amazing about this.

The trailers were so fucking dramatic of what the film was gonna be like, when the actual film while it had it’s serious moments still. It was described by people as a buddy cop movie with Eddie and Venom.

Again I really liked the film, I saw it twice in theaters. But I feel with Venom 2 coming up next year and Carnage is most likely gonna be the main antagonist of the film. I hope it’s a bit more serious.

I still love to see more moments between Eddie and Venom, and other stuff. But I feel with Carnage and many people have said it should be R rated. Especially I think with a character like Cletus Kasady being a straight up serial killer, it’s almost like horror in a way. Especially when he becomes Carnage and if you’ve seen moments of him from the comics. Including when Cletus first becomes Carnage, it’s something I hope the sequel does well with.

In fact I haven’t revealed this yet. But with Brightburn coming out this week. It’s rated R, and I hope it’s a success despite Aladdin will be releasing this week. We’ve had films like the two Deadpool films, Logan, and yes I know their have been other successful R rated films like Blade. But it’s the idea I feel if Brightburn does well and let me look. The Rotten Tomatoes score is still pretty good it’s 64% I shouldn’t take RT seriously. Basically I feel if it does well and also it’s by Sony too. Then the Venom sequel might be kept R.

But it depends on the script, and what they will do with Carnage. Because I’m hoping Sony takes more of a risk with the sequel. Yet I wonder if it being R rated yeah we’ve had successful R rated films before. But I heard Venom almost made a billion especially with China helping out. I’m not an expert.

My main point being I hope Venom 2 is a bit more serious because your dealing with a character like Carnage. Basically make it more like what a lot of people expected with the first. If it’s not R rated, I hope the writing and other stuff respects the character of Carnage while trying to not downplay why he’s so dangerous. I mean considering how Riot was portrayed and even though Riot wasn’t much of a important character in the comics.

I’m impressed by some of the more brutal and dark moments they did with Riot in the Venom movie while being PG-13.

Including I hope and he most likely will, Woody Harrelson will put up a great performance as Cletus/Carnage. My only concern is his age but if Samuel L. Jackson can play Nick Fury(Even though it’s not a super powered role), or just whoever. But Woody will probably do fine.

Also I hope the sequel is called Venom Maximum Carnage if that’s okay. Whatever you name it Venom 2 or that, but Venom Maximum Carnage sounds awesome okay. Hopefully and it might sound stupid I feel they shouldn’t kill Carnage at the end of the movie.....but this is Carnage and as of now even though I hear Spider-Man will be in that Kraven movie....Spider-Man isn’t around telling Venom to not kill Carnage...

Also get some metal music too if that’s fine. Something like how Freddy Vs Jason was. I’ve made a post of this before and I’ll say it again.

#venom #venom movie #carnage

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oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch · 5 years

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“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” Movie Review

When Sony decided to allow Marvel Studios to put Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, many were relieved, citing Sony’s missteps with their previous two Amazing Spider-Man live-action outings as sufficient evidence that Marvel Studios would better handle the character in their universe and that it was time for Sony to let go of the character. Sony would maintain creative control of the property, but they would no longer be able to make live-action Spider-Man films, at least not ones featuring that character (hence their Venom franchise, which is off to a surprisingly lucrative start). Without the most popular version of their largest tentpole franchise to bring in the big bucks, Sony would have to innovate with a fresh new idea if they hoped to keep it going.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, then, is Sony’s first ever feature-length animated film with the title character, only this time, there’s a slight twist to their usual formula: there are six of them. Yes, in this iteration, there are six Spider-people all running around New York City at once, trying to save the world. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? The film begins by giving us a glance into the life of Miles Morales, a scrappy Afro-Latino high school boy from the streets of Brooklyn who’s not super jazzed about going to a Charter school due to having won his spot in a lottery. When a radioactive spider from another dimension bites him during a little subway adventure with his Uncle Aaron, Miles gains the powers of Spider-Man, and following a tragic event involving an inter-dimensional portal built by Kingpin, five other Spider-beings show up in his universe, all seeking a way to get back home. With very little training from a roughed-up Peter Parker and a whole host of family issues to deal with, Miles must train to become a new Spider-Man, and send all these other Spider-people home before this universe is damaged forever (and that’s about as much as I can say without giving away spoilers).

I loved this movie, a lot. Of course, there’s always a market of people like me waiting for a new Spider-Man story (the original 2002 film is what got me into acting, after all), so I may be going into this with the tiniest bit of fanboy-ism running my energy levels, but as a film critic attempting to give as objective a review as possible to any material I happen to view, I still genuinely loved this movie. In fact, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that this is perhaps the third or even second best Spider-Man film ever made (theatrically), and that’s not hyperbole. As much as I enjoyed Homecoming, I think it’s a far stronger high school comedy than it is a Spider-Man movie, and to that film’s credit, it works well enough for what it had to accomplish in terms of the MCU’s full-length introduction to the character. Into the Spider-Verse, though, truly understands the fundamental staples of what makes the character compelling, those being guilt, consequences, and most importantly, differences.

Part of what works best about this film, which was written by Phil Lord and produced by himself and the other half of his creating team, Chris Miller, is that it doesn’t see the differences between the different Spider-beings as reasons why other kinds of people can’t occupy the costume or wear the mask. One of the most prominent lines in the entire movie is Miles telling the audience that anyone, no matter who you are, can wear the mask. And instead of having anything to prove anything, or thinking that it owes anyone an explanation as to why there’s a black Spider-Man this time, or a Spider-Woman, or an anime Spider-girl named Peni Parker, or even a literal Spider pig called Spider-Ham (voiced by my favorite stand-up comedian of all time), the script just assumes that this is normal because it should be. Anyone being able to wear the Spider-Man mask, not despite but because of their differences, is one of the film’s main themes, and the script takes pride in that rather than treating it like a chore to get over and done with (which a surprising amount of films do).

The film is also genuinely funny, with trademark Lord & Miller humor sprinkled in just the right amounts throughout the film’s runtime, the recaps of each Spider-person’s origin providing some of the most consistent and uproarious laughs of the bunch, particularly during the recap of Peter Parker’s backstory. Part of what makes the story in Into the Spider-Verse not just fun, but compelling as well, is that even within this humor, there are real life lessons being taught, sometimes ones that even adults need to learn from. And that’s what makes a great animated film great, when it can transcend that line between children and adults and have something everyone can learn from and take away from the experience of watching it. So many animated films this year have failed to send messages as compellingly as this one, and yet Into the Spider-Verse makes it look so effortless that one wonders why other films fail to do it so often (it’s because it’s not effortless; it’s genuinely hard to make a movie, but the people who worked on this really put in the effort and it shows).

The voice talent work in this film is fantastic, from what I’ve already mentioned with Jake Johnson as Peter Parker and John Mulaney as Spider-Ham, to Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, to Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy (she’s having a great weekend for early screenings, huh?), to smaller parts like Brian Tyree Henry as Miles’ father and Mahershala Ali as his Uncle Aaron, and of course, the great Nicolas Cage as Spider-Noir. Each performance is full of heart and fun, and there are many moments where one feels that only that actor’s voice could deliver that line in that way, and it is perfect. Perhaps the only true flaw in the movie is Kingpin’s characterization (since he kind of acts like a cutout cartoon character still despite what they give him to work with, but then again it is animation), but that has more to do with the writing than the voice casting. Major kudos to the casting directors on this one.

And yet in all of this, I have yet to mention the animation, which is astounding. Each time an exaggerated sound effect or a narration happens in the film, a little comic book style text or text box appears on the screen to accompany it, and it feels genuinely conceivable that someone could have written this film as a comic book with every panel brought spectacularly to life. One would think the hybrid style of 3D modeling made to look like a come-to-life comic book panel should have been by now one of the most obvious techniques in animated history, but then again, we just got CG-Lego hybrids only 4 years ago and photoreal animation from Jungle Book only 2 years ago, so maybe there’s still more to be realized in this medium (I, for one, can’t wait to see if there is).

I was looking forward to this movie from the moment I saw the first trailer drop, but what I didn’t expect was that I would genuinely love it this much; the more I reflect on it, the more I find right with it, and the less it’s very few flaws bother me at all. This is perhaps the greatest Spider-Man movie since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, and by far the best animated film of this year – certainly the most unique in terms of animation style, story, humor, and charazterization. Lord & Miller are one of the world’s greatest creative forces in the cinematic landscape, and if there were any movie this year I actually wanted a sequel to, it’s this one (stay for both credits scenes; it’s 100% worth it).

I’m giving “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” a 9.1/10

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olmopress · 4 years

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Episode III: The Return of Manovich

week 11: Vincent Miller, “Key Elements of Digital Media” / Lev Manovich, “The Language of New Media”, Principles of New Media: 2. Modularity, 4. Variability, 5. Transcoding

Today I am very Happy. Even if yesterday night AS Roma lost to some unpronounceable and unspellable German team. You know why? No, it’s not because I am going out why someone I like. And neither because I decided I want to try and go to a rage room once. None of these romantics things.

It’s because today, Hideo Kojima’s long-awaited and frankly strange-looking new game Death Stranding is out!

This is me being happy with the copy of the game I just bought from this pedantic guy at GameStop who really wanted to sell me their useless (and of course expensive) fidelity card. I do not fidelize. I do not permanently associate with the revolting logics of media capitalism. Btw yes that in the background is Patti Smith’s Horses signed by herself. I am so cool, I know. What can you do.

ANYWAYS

Why is this relevant? Well, for a number of reasons. First of all because a videogame is a digital object, a digital medium. So it’s important to us. Secondly, because the themes of this game are SOOOOOOO damn interesting and appropriate for what we are doing in this class.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

Because I decided to have yet another theme-based post. So Ladies, Gentlment, and all the other 7456 genders out there in the wide wild world, let me introduce you to this week’s issue of my blog, which will be entirely

VIDEOGAME-THEMED

Yes, I will. Sorry not sorry.

OK so as it is now customary I will skip Miller because I don’t like riassunti and synthesis and also I want to continue my honeymoon with Manovich.

Here’s me with my boy Lev.

Today we deal with the last three of Manovich’s Principles of New Media. Today I also want to be reader-friendly so I tell all of you from the start that I am going to explain briefly the principle and then pick an example, of course from some videogame. OK fellas? Ready to go.

Principle No. 2: Modularity

Well, modularity is quite easy. Manovich uses it to explain how digital objects are assembled through independent parts, which working on their own constitute the totality of the aforementioned object. A good example from videogames is the phenomenon of pop-up textures: that thing that happens when you’re playing a game in 3D graphics which uses real-time rendering, but optimization hasn’t been done well enough (or you’re just pushing the graphics beyond your hardware capabilities) and so you get some textures to be rendered with a delay. And this sucks because, well, it’s not very realistic and it makes you realize you’re just playing a videogame.

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:( this is extreme tho. Sometimes it’s just OK.

[Btw pop-up textures are essentially what Manovich is referring to at page 39 when he writes about “distancing” and “level of detail”]

Manovich refers to this also as the “fractal structure” of digital media, which very cool and very LSD-like. So, yeah, cool.

BUT EVEN COOLER THAN THIS

is how this made me think of Aristotle. Your friendly neighborhood Western-culture-generator philosopher loved to talk about how the whole of something is more than the sole value of its components. Which, in some ways, doesn’t really seem to apply completely to digital media.

SOMETHING TO REFLECT UPON

Oh. And I was also thinking that maybe, MAYBE

MAYBE

all this modularity in our daily lives is also affecting the way our minds work. Like we now struggle to create coherent, consistent (“hardwired” Manovich would say) arguments or chains of reasoning, but instead rely completely on modular frames of understanding. Like we now tend to see things as separate and independent from each other, and we have trouble in looking at the bigger picture.

“OF COURSE YOU MUST BE WRONG, WE’RE AS CAPABLE AS EVER IN UNDERSTANDING ISSUES IN THEIR TOTALITY. BUT NO KID CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT REAL BECAUSE ADMITTING IT WOULD MEAN RECONSIDER THE PRIVILEGES I GREW UP AS EXPRESSIONS OF A POST-INDUSTRIAL COLONIAL SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION YESTERDAY SNOWED IN BERGAMO SO NO TROUBLE”

But let us not be distracted by such irrelevant issues.

Principle No. 4: Variability

Now this is obvious but still so cool. However, the question of variability is so multifaceted and complex that is difficult to pin it down to a single definition. I’ll try my best, though. I would say that

the concept of variability refers to all the ways in which digital objects can be modified, altered, or updated at the source of their distribution.

That is, without having to physically change anything. The only thing that variability needs is some form of the refresh button. It is a sort of physically invisible mutation, a “liquid” transformation, as Manovich says. And of course this has to do with Numerical Representation, Modularity, and Automation.

Before getting into the real interesting stuff about variability, Manovich makes seven examples. A couple of them will help grasp the concept better. So yeah, example three reads like this:

“Information about the user can be used by a computer program to customize automatically the media composition as well as to create elements themselves” (37)

In that unfortunately incomplete masterpiece that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is, you get to play as badass Venom Snake aka (sort of...) Big Boss, a super amazing and incredibly skilled soldier who has to infiltrate military compounds and all sorts of other infiltrable things between Afghanistan and Zaire around the mid-80s. In this game, you can decide what kind of equipment to bring with you, and approach the mission the way you like best. You can bring big-ass noisy weapons and just have a crazy battles, you can use assault rifles of sniper guns with silencers and be very quiet, and you can also use guns with tranquilizers so that you don’t kill anybody. You just put them to sleep.

Now, the cool thing about it is that the more you progress in the game, the more enemy soldiers will adjust to your playing stile. For instance, I remember using only tranquilizers with pistols and sniper rifles. So I would get lots of headshots, because when you headshot someone, he instantly falls asleep. After a few missions, most of my enemies adapted and started wearing helmets! So it was much harder for me to get those headshots.

See? This is an example of automation and variability.

There is also of course example number six. The one about periodical updates. Again, for anybody who ever played a videogame online, this is usual business.

I remember I once was thirteen. Yeah I know that’s hard to imagine, but for a moment just please bear with me. When I was thirteen I was very much into multiplayer FPSs. At that time particular, me and my friends would spend entire days on Call of Duty: Black Ops. Now, the online multiplayer was constantly updated and amended, so that if someone discovered that a certain build for a weapon made that weapon totally over-powered and impossible to play against, the guys at Activision would correct the flaw and balanced the game again. But variability in the game also occurred when DLCs were released: new maps, new weapons, new elements would ‘enter’ the world of the online game and of course alter it. It was cool, really. Cause the game evolved throughout the season. But the you had to buy the new one and spend other money and start back again and… really, can we just say fuck capitalism? That game could have lasted decades. Damn.

ANYWAY

By far the most interesting thing to me came at page 40, when Manovich discusses variability in terms of interactivity and hypermedia. In particular, he distinguishes between two ‘versions’ of interactivity.

Open interactivity: an interactive object “in which both the elements and the structure of the whole object are either modified or generated on the fly in response to the user’s interaction with a program.” (40)

Closed interactivity: an interactive object “that uses fixed elements arranged in a fixed braching structure” (40) and therefore on which users have only ‘liberty of order’. That is, they can only choose in which order to interact with the elements.

Now, try to follow me for a second. I think this distinction opens up one possibility of categorizing videogames. But we need to add one more category. We have

Linear games (Super Mario, the first Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 4…) which display a ‘limited’, ‘scripted’ interactivity. That is: you have to follow the path that has been chosen for you by the developers. You cannot decide in which order to do things. You go ahead with the game – interact with it, sure, but you basically witness the story unfold in front of your eyes passively.

Open world games (GTA, Spiderman, Pokémon games…), which essentially function on a principle of closed interactivity. You’re free to roam around and do whatever you want, to choose your own ‘order of interaction’ with the elements on the map, but you cannot act on the storyline, which is still linear and scripted for you. The story doesn’t change, no matter what you do inside or outside of the main missions.

pure RPGs (Fallout 4, Final Fantasy, Skyrim, Mass Effect…) which instead function on a principle of open interactivity. Your choices inform the way in which the game unfolds in terms of story, world, and sometimes even gameplay. The interaction is open because it allows to be formed in response to what the player does.

I should totally write a narratology of videogames.

I’ve already written a lot and I want to get to the last principle, but

I NEED

to point out something that comes around the end of page 41. Ready? So Manovich writes:

“The principle of variability exemplifies how, historically, changes in media technologies are correlated with social change. If the logic of old media corresponded to the logic of industrial mass society, the logic of new media fits the logic of the postindustrial society, which values individuality over conformity. […] In this way new media technology acts as the most perfect realization of the utopia of an ideal society composed of unique individuals. New media objects assure users that their choices—and therefore, their underlying thoughts and desires—are unique, rather than preprogrammed and shared with others.” (41-2)

Now, I am not sure precisely where Manovich stands on this argument, but this definitely rang a bell for me.

HEY LEV, EVER HEARD OF A LAD CALLED PASOLINI?

Because yeah, digital media gave us this fantastic possibility of escaping omologation because anybody can see, read, do whatever they want without any authority providing them with univocal content.

But are we really sure this is the triumph of individuality? Couldn’t this be just a new, and much more subtle and devilish form of conformity?

My bro and spiritual-granddaddy PPP believed so. And you, he was writing in the early seventies – not long before being brutally killed by neo fascists with the complacency of the State a Roman kid in Ostia – and virtually all of his predictions are becoming a terrible reality. Because Pier Paolo believed the (back then) new consumer society (which let’s face it gave birth to digital media the way we know it today) was only a new, horrible, de-humanizing form of fascism.

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This is for anybody who understands a little italian and loves tragic heroes talking about the horrors of late capitalism on winter beaches.

BUT WE HAVE TO COME TO AN END, DON’T WE?

Principle No. 5: Transcoding

I’ll be very brief, this is easy. Manovich defines transcoding starting from the difference between the “cultural layer” (pretty much the visual, the interface) and the “computer layer” (basically code) of digital media. Using the example of videogames again, the cultural layer of a videogame is all that you see happening on the screen, while the computer layer is the code ‘behind’ it that makes it all happen in that way.

Fine, cool. Transcoding, Manovich says, happens everytime these two layers—these two languages, really—start to mix and mesh with each other.

The best example that I can come up with right now—and I am sorry if I can’t think of anything better but you know I have a graceful lady waiting for me, his date—has to do again with open world videogames.

SO HERE’S THE THING, I THINK

Open world videogames emerged and became the next big thing of gaming when the internet was already a big thing. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because the structure of an open world mimics, in many ways, that of the WWW.

THINK ABOUT IT

An open world is somewhere were you can roam around (I want to say navigate so badly!) pretty much everywhere you want. Most of the times you can jump from one places to another, sometimes using a nice menu/database of possible locations (reminds you of anything? Hyperlinking? Search engines, anybody?). You can’t really create much, but you can see everything. Well, that to me sounds like WWW.

COULD IT BE LOVE? TRANSCODING?

I think it is, baby.

We’re sadly at the end of our ride

But don’t be afraid!

THERE’S STILL ROOM FOR MUSIC AND VISUAL ARTS

Today we celebrate videogames, so what’s better than a collection of some classics in videogame music history? Enjoy.

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As for visuals, I want to come full circle. Hideo Kojima’s game have always been blessed with amazing character design and illustrations by his bro Yoji Shinkawa. Death Stranding is no exception. Except that there is an exception, because these times the characters are actors! Great actors! Like beautiful Lea Seydoux who I hope one day to marry. Or at least to hookup with, come on. Anyways, that’s beyond my point. I just wanted to introduce this beautiful promotional picture for Death Stranding.

It really is beautiful.

до свидания!

Image Sources: Parade, Pure Nintendo, Tech in Asia, GIPHY, Know Your Meme

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gokinjeespot · 7 years

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off the rack #1184

Monday, October 16, 2017

It was another fun day Sunday at the Capital Trade Shows for Jee-Riz Comics & Appraisals with my partner Chris. We met a guy who's girlfriend had all her Love and Rockets comics stolen by an ex. He saw that we had some for sale and bought a bunch to replace them for her. What a sweetie. I just happened to see another guy there whose kid was playing hockey. He came in Saturday looking for the last issue of Dark Knight: Master Race (#9). I couldn't find it for him while he was in the store but did locate it after he left. When I told him this at the arena he asked that I hold it for him and he would get back to the store next weekend to buy it. I love when things like that happen.

Falcon #1 - Rodney Barnes (writer) Joshua Cassara (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Sam Wilson has given up being Captain America and has gone back to being the high flying Falcon ever since Secret Empire ended. Looks like he's going back to the streets to fight crime with his trusty bird companion Redwing and a new kid sidekick named Patriot. The two heroes try to get rival street gangs to call a truce but the two gang leaders agreeing to meet in public didn't seem very realistic to me. You just know something bad is going to happen and it does. Everything played out too predictably and not even the surprise villain made me want to continue reading. Sorry Sam, but I'm not boarding this flight.

Ragman #1 - Ray Fawkes (writer) Inaki Miranda (art) Eva De La Cruz (colours) Josh Reed (letters). They've made some major changes to this character. The patchwork hooded costume has been replaced by strips of cloth that makes this character look like Venom's cousin. It all starts when American mercenaries break into a holy temple in Israel intending to loot it and they are attacked by some demonic creatures. Only one guy escapes alive and he is the one chosen to become the new Ragman. The art in this is really nice and the character is so different that he seems new and fresh. This 6-issue story is worth checking out.

Mech Cadet Yu #3 - Greg Pak (writer) Takeshi Miyazawa (art) Triona Farrell (colours) Simon Bowland (letters). Plenty of action this issue as the big bad aliens have started their attack. Our young cadet gets thrust into a close encounter of a dangerous kind. Greg makes these characters come to life. The General's daughter is a real jerk.

All-New Wolverine #25 - Tom Taylor (writer) Juann Cabal (art) Nolan Woodard (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This book has been consistently good since it hit the racks and this is a good issue to start with if you are looking for a comic book to add to your sub. Juann's art is really nice. His work on Elektra impressed me and I hope he draws Laura for a while. I like little sister Gabby in Laura's life and Tom is adding to her family with this issue.

Wildstorm: Michael Cray #1 - Bryan Hill (writer) N. Steven Harris (pencils) Dexter Vines (inks) Steve Buccellato (colours) Simon Bowland (letters). Now that was surprisingly interesting. I can't say that I was enamoured with the art but this new Deathblow story caught my fancy. I am going to assume that this takes place in an alternate universe because the guy that Michael has been assigned to kill isn't a bad guy in the DCU. Michael Cray has worked solo up until now but his boss wants him to gather a team to go after the bad guy. Between the target and the team, this should be a fun adventure for the assassin.

American Gods #8 - Neil Gaiman (writer) P. Craig Russell (script & layouts) Scott Hampton (art) Rick Parker (letters). There is extreme graphic content in this issue. Reader discretion is advised. I'm glad the creators and Dark Horse Comics didn't censor this part of the book. I had forgotten the little vignette "Coming to America" but Glenn Fabry and Adam Brown did a fine job of reminding me.

Weapon X #9 - Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers) Marc Borstel & Ibraim Roberson (art) Frank D'Armata (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). In Part 3 of "The Hunt for Weapon H" the team has a team up with the All-New Wolverine and another character that is a big surprise. Greg and Fred's Laura has more attitude than Tom Taylor's.

Detective Comics #966 - James Tynion IV (writer) Eddy Barrows (pencils) Eber Ferreira (inks) Adriano Lucas (colours) Sal Cipriano (letters). The Multiverse can be very confusing and this story with Tim Drake teaming up with a future version of himself scrambled my noggin. I'm still going to power through "A Lonely Place of Living" because I find this Elseworld story quite entertaining.

Runaways #2 - Rainbow Rowell (writer) Kris Anka (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This isn't your ordinary family reunion. I like how Rainbow is catching us up with these characters. There are some cool little twists this issue and I am looking forward to seeing more.

Dark Nights: Metal #3 - Scott Snyder (writer) Greg Capullo (pencils) Jonathan Glapion (inks) FCO Plascencia (colours) Steve Wands (letters). I find universe hopping stories almost as annoying as time travel. This Dark Nights is doing that and all the different versions of the characters are starting to confuse me. I'm getting close to saying the heck with this because DC's next big thing "The Doomsday Clock" is coming soon and I don't want my head to explode.

Amazing Spider-Man #789 - Dan Slott (writer) Stuart Immonen (pencils) Wade von Grawbadger (inks) Marte Gracia (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I was talking to a guy on Wednesday and he asked me what my favourite comic book was and I said The Amazing Spider-Man. He asked me why and I could have given him this issue as an example of why this character and his stories have always interested me. I am so happy to see Stuart Immonen and Wade von Grawbadger drawing Spider-Man again. I love their art. This is a great issue to start your own love affair with the wallcrawler. Everything you need to know is here. There's family and friends, the good old Parker luck, pretty women and super heroics keeping civilians safe from a super villain. Peter Parker may be down right now but he'll get right back up like he always does.

Action Comics #989 - Dan Jurgens (writer & breakdown art) Viktor Bogdanovic (pencils) Viktor Bogdanovic & Trevor Scott (inks) Mike Spicer (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). The big mystery here for me is just who is this "Jor-El" guy? He makes a great argument for Superman to abandon the planet to its hopeless human race and now he's going to get help from another close family member. Can Superman resist? Sure he can, because he's still got to sit on Darkseid's throne in "Superman: Imperius Lex" hitting the racks soon. Can you believe that this title will hit #1000 soon?

Defenders #6 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) David Marquez (art) Justin Ponsor (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). One character's appearance is spoiled on the cover but there's another character's surprise appearance on the last page that will make you go "oh yeah". Brian writing Deadpool is going to be so much fun.

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years

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My Thoughts on Venom 2018 Part 1: How did this even happen?

This was the most bizarre comic book film experience of my life. I am going to attempt to organize my thoughts below but to some extent this will be a stream of consciousness.

As far as recommendations are concerned.

If you are a hardcore Venom fan: Go see this you’ve been waiting 20 years for it.

If you are a hardcore Spider-Man fan: You don’t need to see this.

If you are a comic book fan: If you love 90s schlock turn your brain off and go for it.

If you are a comic book movie/general movie fan: It’s schlock but bizarre and at times entertaining schlock so if you like that...see this. If you want something with the average competency of any given MCU film steer clear.

With all that said let’s dive deep into this movie. SPOILERS for the movie, though I’m not synopsising it.

Venom a history

Long story short, once upon a time in the 1980s Marvel gave Spider-Man a new black costume. People initially hated it. Marvel got rid of it by revealing it was actually an alien, a symbiote trying to bond with Spidey who promptly rejected it and ultimately tried to destroy it.

Except by then people had decided they loved the suit. Later in the 1980s a guy by the name of David Michelinie came up with the idea of giving the alien costume to a new character and thus creating a new villain.

The new character was reporter Eddie Brock who broke a story revealing the identity of a notorious serial killer known as the Sin Eater. Except Brock hadn’t fact checked properly and shortly afterwards Spidey caught the actual killer. Brock was fired in disgrace and his life spiralled downwards from there, with him blaming Spider-Man for his woes. That was when he encountered Spidey old alien costume and bonded to it, the pair sharing a mutual burning hatred for the wall-crawler.

The result was Venom, a hulking with Spider-Man’s powers (and then some) with the cool aesthetic of Spidey’s black suit combined with monstrous features like a wicked grin and claws.

Venom was a hit. More than a hit, he was the most successful character in Spider-Man lore since Spider-Man himself.

And so he kept coming back to menace Spider-Man over and over again. Except over time he began to change. When starting out, Venom was a wicked sadistic homicidal maniac hellbent on nothing but killing Spider-Man. But as time went by a new aspect worked its way into Venom: a desire to protect the innocent, even via violent means.

A key turning point for the character was when Michelinie introduced yet another new villain, Carnage. Carnage was the result of serial killer Cletus Kasady bonding to another alien costume, this one being the off spring of the Venom symbiote. Carnage was a mass murderer more powerful than Venom and Spider-Man. Due to their mutual desire to protect the innocent though Spidey and Venom formed a tenuous alliance to bring down Carnage.

Thus Venom for the first time assumed the role of an anti-hero, a type of character who by this point in time (the early 1990s) had grown wildly popular in comic books and pop culture as a whole. A prime example would be the character of the T-800 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Eventually Marvel decided to have Venom spin-off completely from Spider-Man. In a story culminating in Amazing Spider-Man #375 David Michelinie introduced Eddie Brock’s estranged ex-wife Ann Weying and had Venom and Spidey part ways under a truce that they’d leave one another alone.

This was set up for Venom getting a long string of mini-series that chronicled his solo-adventures as an anti-hero. The first of these was in 1993’s Venom: Lethal Protector. The six part story (penned by Michelinie) saw Eddie Brock (sporting a noticeably softer and longer haired appearance) move to San Francisco seeking a new purpose in his life.

Whilst in San Fran Venom came into conflict with (among others) Roland Treece and the Life Foundation.

The former was a rich businessman seeking to destroy a secret underground community of homeless people in order to obtained wealth lost in one of San Fran’s old earthquakes.

The latter was an organization of survivalists looking to live out a potential nuclear apocalypse from a place of luxury and power. Among their members was Carlton Drake who was heavily involved in a project to create super powered security guards for the Life Foundation. They sought to do this by extracting further offspring from the Venom symbiote and bonding them to specially selected security personnel.

From this process new symbiote villains were created, namely Phage, Lasher, Agony, Scream and Riot.

Venom seemingly defeated all these symbiotes along with Treece, thus gaining a place among the underground community of homeless people as their champion and defender.

Michelinie had relatively little further involvement with Venom after the Lethal Protector mini-series though he returned in 1995 to pen a crossover story with Spider-Man called ‘Planet of the Symbiotes’. The plot centred upon Earth being invaded by an army of symbiotes seeking to bond with all human life and the revelation that the Venom symbiote was an outcast even amongst it’s own kind, chiefly because it sought to permanently bond with one of its host in a mutually beneficial and loving relationship.

Venom had many more sol adventures in the 1990s, some of which involved Eddie’s ex wife Ann Weying who at times bonded with the Venom symbiote herself to become She-Venom.

Venom’s solo adventures are widely considered amongst comic book and Spider-Man fans to be of generally poor quality and the anti-hero direction for Venom (even prior to his being spun-off) is often a source of controversy within Spider-Man fandom.

Whilst Michelinie was the man who first instituted Venom along the path of being less overtly evil, it should be noted it was never his preference for Venom to become a solo character or never primarily serve the role of an antagonist for Spider-Man. That was a decision made by higher ups at Marvel due to both the popularity of anti-heroes at the time and the immense sales Venom as a character generated whenever he appeared in Spider-Man stories.

At some point in the 1990s a Venom movie was put into development and announced in the pages of Marvel comics. Among the strongest advocates for the film was CEO of Toy Biz turned film producer Avi Arad, who has been involved in various Marvel projects throughout the decades. His enthusiasm for a Venom movie was chiefly based upon the immense toy sales the character generated.

The Venom movie was stuck in various stages of development for many years. It’s chances for finally coming to fruition were greatly increased following the release of 2007’s Spider-Man 3, which included Venom as a studio mandate upon director Sam Raimi who had initially not wanted to include the character.

However the Venom movie (along with future sequels to Spider-Man 3) continued to be stuck in development for many years. Venom’s chance to make it to the big screen in a solo venture again seemed likely in the early-mid 2010s when Sony (the owners of the Spider-Man film rights) attempted to form an interconnected film series based upon Spider-Man characters, Venom being among them.

Sony’s desire for this type of film series was motivated by the success of Disney/Marvel Studios with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which had then recently hit big when they released The Avengers in 2012, the culmination of five prior movies introducing separate characters within the same narrative continuity.

However when 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 met with financial and critical failure Sony (after briefly scrambling several desperate film ideas together) struck a deal with Marvel Studios to allow Spider-Man to appear in the MCU for a share in the profits.

Thus their prior plans were scraped and a new version of Spider-Man debuted in the 2016 hit MCU movie Captain America: Civil War before appearing the next year in a solo venture, Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Sony however apparently still aspired to have their own competing comic book film universe and so put into production the animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and, finally, the live action Venom movie. Only due to agreements with Marvel Studios the Venom movie would not including Spider-Man himself at all.

The production was relatively speedy, this likely due to the script, to my understanding, being essentially a script written during the 1990s and updated for modern times as opposed to being written from scratch. The specific script in question draws primarily from the Lethal Protector mini-series and to a lesser extent other nuggets from Venom’s lore, including Planet of the Symbiotes and She-Venom.

The movie was released in early October 2018 (coincidentally, or not, 2018 also marked Venom’s 30th anniversary) and thus far has generated mixed reviews from professional critics, more favourable reviews from general audiences and is on track to prove financially profitable enough that future Sony Spider-Man movies (including Venom sequels) may be on the horizon.

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