Twisted Metal, Foundation, and Invasion

The FOURTH Law of Robotics says I GET TO FUCK ONE!

 OK. Haven’t had a ton of hobby (or writing about hobby) energy for a few weeks, but I have had the time and energy to binge three different mediocre streaming genre shows, so let’s get into that for a bit.

The Stupid Marvel Cartoon Project: Avengers Assemble Season 3: Ultron Revolution

NOTE: I just found this fully written and never posted from back in July. Since then, I started Season 4, got bogged down, got busy, forgot about it, and am now finishing it up. 

Season 3 opens on a suprisingly strong note. A two parter in which the Avengers, rusty as a team from months of doing their own thing in the absence of any global threats, ends up together fighting AIM’s new Adaptoids. At the end of the first part, AIM is defeated, but the Scientist Supreme, some of the Adaptoids, and some leftover Ultron tech bring Ultron back. In the second episode, they blow Ultron up. ‘ 

 

The Stupid Marvel Cartoon Project: Avengers Assemble Season 2

For about 10 episodes of Season 2, I thought I was gonna describe this season of Avengers Assemble as comfortably settling into the very average mediocrity Season 1 eventually found. It was telling a barely serviceable knockoff of the Infinity Stones saga where all the stones are on Earth (well sort of), there is no Soul Stone, and each stone is acquired by our heroes  over the course of a single half hour episode.

The Stupid Marvel Cartoon Project: Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United

 Can you call it a palate cleanser when it’s mostly garbage?

Heroes United: Iron Man and Hulk is the first of a series of PS4-launch-era-style CGI cutscenes that try to leverage the popularity of the MCU and the success of the DC Animated direct to video movies as cheaply as possible, and it shows.

The Stupid Marvel Cartoon Project: Backlog

 We all did some weird shit during First Quarantine. I could have made myself a sourdough starter like everyone else, but no. I decided that I’d watch all the Marvel cartoons on Disney+ in chronological order. Why ? No idea. How? Somewhat organically - if I was into it I’d watch it faster and if I wasn’t into it I’d bog down and wait until I was bored or making myself push through.

Since I started, I’ve gotten from 1979 to 2006, and I have 28 titles to go. I most recently finished the 2006 Fantastic Four, which’ll get it’s own post, but here’s a quick summary of what else I’ve watched so far:

An Old Nerd Encourages You All To Watch The Damn Tick Already

Definitive.

Season 2 of The Tick is quite simply the definitive version of The Tick that we’ve all dreamed of since we first encountered The Tick.

An Old Nerd Gets Very Vaguely Spoilery In Order To Be Ambivalent About Umbrella Academy

Be advised that the actual show is way less colorful and high contrast than this.

Continuing a run through Netflix genre drama, I’ve now watched the first season of The Umbrella Academy, and it’s... fine? There are no explicit spoilers ahead, but I have to complain about things that will allow you to figure out plot points in advance as you watch it. But you kinda don’t need to watch it.

An Old Nerd Wonders How That Iron Fist Season 2 Thing Happened

The real stars of Season 2

On a scale of one to ten, when the first season of Iron Fist dropped on Netflix, I’d say my interest in watching the show was about a 7.

Luke Cage Season 2: “Episodes 3 Through 7”

The Internet’s failure to find me a proper Comanche screengrab is disappointing.

The second batch of Luke Cage examples throws plot twists and nigh-Shakespearean tragedy around willy nilly, but it seems to have forgotten the first three episodes happened.

Luke Cage Season 2: “The First Three”

Thought they were gonna do a more standard HUBRIS story but no.

 Three episodes in, and I’m a little concerned that Netflix’s tendency to base entire seasons around “let’s drag all the characters through shit because that’s DRAMA, DAMMIT” may have infected Luke Cage.

Jessica Jones: “AKA The Middle Chunk”

As v/in Diesel would say, it’s about fuhmbuly.

I’ve been watching the middle chunk of Jessica Jones Season 2, but not writing about it. Partly because we blew through them fairly quickly (through episode 9) and partly because the middle chunk deals almost exclusively with two plot developments, and I’m still not sure how I feel about them.

The Flash: “We Are The Flash”

Still not the dumbest-looking thing on Barry’s head over the course of the series. But it’s close.

I think I finially need to come to grips with the fact that The Flash is just a bad show. It was an OK show for one season and a bad show for three seasons, and I had to look up how many seasons it’s been because I’ve been pummeled into apathy.

Arrow: “Life Sentence”

FWIENDSHIP1

The sixth season of Arrow is on the books, and it ended in a way that was satisfying to watch, but didn’t redeem an otherwise awful season.

Jessica Jones: “Freak Accident / Sole Survivor”

Maybe not the stable one?

As much as Jessica Jones Season 2 appears to be about the main character coming to terms with her mysterious past, I’m starting to wonder if the other real story of the seasson isn’t about Trish, and how her ostensibly more stable and successful exterior isn’t hiding some deep dysfunction.

The Flash: “Think Fast”

Oh hey Diggle.

There’s a lot to dislike about the penultimate episode of Flash Season 4.

Jessica Jones: “AKA Start At The Beginning”

RECONTEXTUALIZED!

With the main series wrapping up their seasons and Luke Cage S2 incoming, it’s time to finally dip into Jessica Jones Season 2.

Agents of SHIELD: “The Force Of Gravity”

It’s funny, for an episode full of important, impressive, or iconic moments, all of the screencaps from this episode are awful and don’t show any of them.

Arrow: “The Ties That Bind“

The Gang’s All Here

Once again, solid execution tries to pull Arrow out of the deep structural flaws of its season, and almost succeeds.

The Flash: “Harry And The Harrisons”No

Oh, just fuck off with this already, Flash.

No, really. Fuck off. Three episodes away from the end of another awful season, and you decide to devote it to Bad Accent Theater.

Superhero Catch Up Post

OK, between getting sick and not caring, I’m a few eps behind on posting around the various hero shows. But nothing’s really changed. All three shows are sticking with their patterns.

Flash continues to be awful, with recent episodes really playing up the series’ frequent flirtations with awful gender dynamics and writing for women. There are ocasional flashes of not-awful in the righting, but they’re few and far between.

Arrow keeps trying to mine an awful season arc for the best stories it can tell under the circumstances, and sort of kind of succeeds but not really. I mean, yeah, OK< Human Target disguised as Tommy Merlynn is about the only way I’d accept the return of Merlynn, but didn’t Flash just have a show where someone impersonated a dead person to get the hero out of a trial?

Agents of SHIELD continues to be the standout, despite its clumsy attempts to pretend it’s still happening around the same time as Infinity War. The weird tragedy of Glen Talbot continues as he becomes Graviton and goes insane is a fun, unexpected (three episodes ago) twist, but mentioing “New York” last week and “Thanos” in this last episode is about to raise some questions I don’t think the show’s capable of answering to any degree of satisfaction.