Hon hon hon! Eet ees I, ze Bad Touché -- mercenarie extraordinaire, pireet of ze 'eart, and mastaire of ze witty rapière!
I make ze pun, no? Ze rapière wit? Ma swoord, eet ees la rapière?
...
Ma 'umair, eet ees wasted upon you Americains.
Yes, I just now realized that "sacrebleu" is misspelled.
Bad Touché is one of my exceptionally rare boy toons, and you can see why: the concept of "Comedically Sleazy" just wouldn't work with a girl, who would instead just appear slutty and not very comedic.
As an aside, his name in the game is Bad Touche' because I figured people wouldn't want to hunt for the é character to message him and/or invite him to teams.
Luc-MaëlThierryBalzac's life was changed the moment he watched the fencing scene in The Princess Bride. He swore that he, too, would one day become a fencing wizard to equal -- nay, surpass -- Inigo Montoya and Westley the Dread Pirate Roberts, and after many years of wheedling his parents finally acquiesced and bought him lessons.
You've seen the meme "While You Were Partying, I Studied the Blade"? That was Luc-Maël. He studied fencing at the expense of everything else, including social skills. Especially social skills.
In short order, Luc-Maël earned a spot on the French Olympic Fencing Team at age 18, the youngest fencer to ever compete at that level. This is where he learned some interesting facts about himself:
He was a sore loser, prone to sulking and scheming revenge.
He was an even worse winner, going out of his way to humiliate his opponents.
Playing by the rules doesn't guarantee anyone except the rule-makers a victory, but playing outside the rules earned him a victory in every way that mattered.
Cheating is only cheating if you get caught. If you're good enough, you can cheat and not get caught... and if you're good enough not to get caught, you deserve to win.
As much as he liked girls, they didn't like his boorish behavior and lack of social awareness.
If you are thinking "This guy sounds like he's heading towards being a serial rapist," well, you're not wrong. He was headed that way, but someone influential got to him first and set him on a slightly different path.
That someone was an Fortunata Fateweaver accompanying the Arachnos Olympic Team. (Well, technically, the Rogue Islands Olympic Team, but the Rogue Isles are run by Arachnos, so it's the same thing.) She saw the potential within Luc-Maël, both as a budding villain and even perhaps as the Destined One. It took very little effort to convince him to abandon France and travel back to the Rogue Isles with her, as he thought he was going to live a life of lawless luxury, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful babes.
What he got, however, was a crash-course in survival of the fittest, as the moment the Arachnos transport touched down Luc-Maël was kicked out into the unforgiving streets of Darwin's Landing. The Fateweaver told him that he now had ultimate freedom, but everyone else did too, and if he wanted to live he'd need to be better than everyone else.
Much to Luc-Maël's surprise, he succeeded. At first he was a petty thug fighting for food and shelter, but he quickly built a reputation as a skilled swordsman. He adopted the name "Bad Touché" as a double entendre: "touché" means "touch" in French, and signifies landing a scoring strike on your opponent, but it also makes him sound like a pervert molester. You wouldn't think this would be a benefit, but there's a certain psychological advantage to having your opponent think you're going to do terrible things to them, especially if you're so skilled that you can cut away their clothes to impair and/or humiliate them.
At this point in his career, Bad Touché has completely thrown himself into his caricature persona of "Very Frawnch Pervy Swordsman" and enjoys every glorious, hammy moment of it. He's successful enough and rich enough that he doesn't need to work, and so he takes whatever jobs challenge or amuse him. In short, he's not so much evil (although he's done bad things) as he is extremely self-centered, self-indulgent, and arrogant, making him less of a supervillain and more like the fencing version of a heel wrestler keeping kayfabe.
Other notes of interest:
He used to fight with a rapier and main gauche, but quickly developed the skill to fight with paired rapiers to take advantage of the extra reach.
The rapiers he has now are made of impervium and have monomolecular edges to them, making them incredibly sharp.
He stole a gravity-reducing belt early in his career, giving him the ability to make tremendous leaps and move with surprising grace.
He has advanced, lightweight body armor build into his costume, which he thinks makes him look like a cross between a dashing pirate and a handsome musketeer.
I'm going to level with you: Sometimes I feel like the universe is sending me messages, and when I don't get them first time it increases the frequency and amplitude of that message until I finally get it.
For example, I took this screenshot on October 16th, 2021:
Cherenkova in front of the Terra Volta reactor after successfully defending it against attack.
By itself, that means nothing other than Erin is a slack-ass who is four months late in writing about this, but that's because you don't yet know who this character is. I do, and this character is not just relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also events that are happening there right now, what with battles being fought around Chernobyl and another nuclear power plant under attack. I don't know if this is coarse or tone-deaf or something; I hope it's not. I just feel like there are so many coincidences piling up that I my writer brain needs to do something about it or I'll go crazy. Regardless of how this turns out, I want everyone to know that my heart is with the Ukrainian people. Slava Ukraini, y'all.
I originally created Cherenkova in 2005, giving her the following character biography (brief because the text space in game is limited):
Dr. Nataliya Cherenkova is a world-renowned nuclear physicist and the great-granddaughter of Pavel Cherenkov, the man who discovered Cherenkov radiation*. Her power to safely absorb radiation manifested while still in the womb, saving the life of her mother who was living in what is now known as the Chernobyl "Dead Zone".
She has multiple doctorates in physics, electrical engineering, biology, and medicine, and has recently written a thesis regarding radiation and its effects upon parahumans. Her current mission is to prevent nuclear accidents and terrorism, and to this end has designed a suit which enables her to project and control the radiation her body absorbs and stores.
*Electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle gives off energy as it moves through oxygen faster than the speed of light. Radiation occurs mainly in the visible and near UV (especially blue) region of the spectrum. That Cherenkova's powers manifest as green, not blue, indicates she is phase-shifting the radiation to reduce its lethality.
Cherenkov radiation is blue. Very, very blue. I don't know why people think it's green, but it's been that way in pop culture (mostly comic books) for longer than I've been alive.
Pavel Cherenkov had a son (Alexey) and a daughter (Yelena) with his wife Maria Putintseva. I don't know about any children they had, but this is for a superhero MMO based on comic book logic and I've already shown more due diligence than a lot of comic book writers in doing my research, so I think I've earned plausible deniability... especially in a game clearly set in an alternate universe.
Cherenkov married his wife in 1930 at the age of 26. I don't know when his children were born, but let's spitball using minimums: assuming Alexey was born within 9 months of that marriage, he'd be 25 years old in 1955, and his son would be 25 years old in 1980. That's well within the range needed for great-granddaughter Nataliya to be born within 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster.
Why were they at Chernobyl? In true comic book fashion, I assume that Pavel Cherenkov's grandson continued the family tradition of nuclear physics and was one of the people who worked there. Because this is a comic book and also featuring Russians (more on that in a moment, I promise), it seems apropos that her father died while trying to SCRAM the runaway reactor.
OK, Russians. Keep in mind that in 1986, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and therefore under the control of Moscow. The reason why Kiev is now Kyiv is because the former name is the Russian pronunciation and the latter is Ukrainian. Until the fall of the USSR in the 1990s, Russian was the national language of Ukraine, and many Russian people lived and worked there. In fact, a Ukrainian-born friend of mine who was there at the time says that she was culturally Russian. Schools were all Russian, with Ukrainian language and literature taught as separate subjects. I'm not making any claims regarding sovereignty, I'm merely stating that's how it was then.
In honor of my friend, I'm declaring that Nataliya's mother is ethnically Jewish and emigrated to America in 1987, the same year my friend did. This puts Nataliya right where she needs to be for City of Heroes, and she can attend the very advanced Paragon City University.
I created Cherenkova in 2005. 2005 - 1986 = 19. Yes, this means she was a child prodigy. So was Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic.
The Rikti War happened in 2002; she'd be 15 or 16 at the time. She wasn't old enough to fight in it, but old enough to be affected by it. It's a good reason to become a hero.
City of Heroes shut down in 2012. I guess that means she's perpetually 26, which is a fine age for superheroing. She'd be 36 today, which is practically old age for heroes, but RDJ taught us that Iron Man can be smart and tough and cool well into middle age, so I'm fine with that. She's only going to get smarter as she ages by collecting more PhDs.
Her Powers
Nataliya Cherenkova is basically a living control rod: she can safely absorb large amounts of ionizing radiation, aka "radioactivity". In much the same way that heat always flows into cold areas first due to thermodynamics, ionizing radiation always flows into her. If you're at ground zero of a nuclear accident, the best place to be is within 10 feet of her (preferably with her between you and the radiation).
What's more, she metabolizes that radiation. It nourishes her and kicks her metabolism into high gear. She's a bit like a lizard in that the "hotter" she gets, the stronger and faster and smarter she is. This is why she was a child prodigy; the radiation she absorbed from Chernobyl kickstarted her development.
As a result of this odd metabolism, Cherenkova emits a rare, specific wavelength of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation that invigorates the cells of living things. Skin heals and bones knit at an accelerated pace, and damaged genes repair themselves via an interaction with DNA polymerase that even Nataliya doesn't fully understand.
This would be amazing just by itself, but Nataliya went one step further by designing a suit that would feed her radiation at a constant rate. This not only keeps her "charged up" but also allows her, through electromagnetic lensing, to emit and focus that energy in various ways. In addition to flight via graviton emission, she can also sap the strength of her opponents by giving them temporary radiation poisoning. As mentioned above, she is very conscientious about the potential lethality of her powers, and takes great pains not to permanent injure, let alone kill, anyone with them. She absolutely, positively, does not want to be known as "that hero giving cancer to people", and so she is quite free with her healing radiation when the battle is done.
However, she is quite formidable. If necessary, Cherenkova can emit concentrated beams of energy that pierce even the toughest armor, and she can create small-scale electro-magnetic pulses which will fry even hardened electronics.
Her Suit
When I first made Cherenkova, I wanted the aesthetic of "charming yet chunky Soviet design", reminiscent of the old Rocket Red Brigade (interestingly enough, also created in 1987).
In that regard, I think I succeeded marvelously:
However, there's a problem, and you might see it: despite being Ukrainian by birth, she's not wearing the colors of Ukraine. I wanted to fix that, and at the same time I felt she needed an armor upgrade. After all, that suit design is 17 years old.
First, let me tell you that it is damn hard to make a costume using just canary yellow and bright blue. I'm sure it can be done, but I couldn't make this one work. So I decided that I'd go with red, white and blue (the flag colors of Cherenkova's adopted country, the USA) and blue and yellow (the flag colors of Ukraine). It's not perfect, but I like it, and that's what is important.
Speaking of importance, I'm pleased I was able to keep some chunky aesthetic in the design. Since most of her powers emit out of her hands I just assume that the focusing apparatuses are in her gauntlets.
Her Life
Nataliya is always defending the city, even when she's not out fighting crime. She can charitably be described as an overachieving, type-A workaholic, and so thanks to her powers she maintains a work schedule that would kill a normal woman:
She has admitting privileges at all hospitals within Paragon City. While she doesn't specifically work at any of them (although most would cheerfully kill to have her on staff), she regularly drops by to lend a hand. She starts with the emergency room, ICU and NICU, then goes up to the children's ward and oncology. If she has time, she visits the newborns in the maternity ward to relax.
She is credentialed to teach at Paragon City U. She typically only teaches one class a semester, and that class is extremely advanced and competition for a slot is bordering on cutthroat. The topic varies, but it's always so lofty that you'll need an oxygen mask to reach its levels, and passing it looks amazing on any resume. To be fair, her long-suffering TAs do most of the work (she's there to teach, not grade papers) but just being her assistant is worth credits towards your PhD.
When she's not doing all that, she's working at the Terra Volta reactor: monitoring its systems, upgrading its hardware, and (of course) defending it against attacks by Sky Raiders, Freakshow and Rikti. If she can be said to have a home, it's here: they keep a small bedroom for her, and she's on-call for them 24/7. In return, they let her use their machine and electronics shops for free so she can repair and upgrade her suit.
Let's have a little chat about DC and their films, shall we?
Man of Steel: When this movie first came out, I wasn't going to go see movies in the theatres regularly (and in fact wasn't until about Winter Soldier or so). If I'm completely honest, I found it boring. It was very dull. I fell asleep the first time I watched it, and that may just be me not being a big fan of Superman, as the same thing happened watching Superman Returns and I have no nostalgia for the Christopher Reeves movies.
Batman vs Superman: Look, don't watch this. Just don't. It's a disjointed mess. In fact, skip the one before it, and look for a fan film called Man of Tomorrow. It splices Man of Steel into Batman vs Superman and does so in a way fixes all the pacing and tonal issues of this movie, while keeping the great Wonder Woman and Batman/Alfred scenes. Affleck is great. Irons is great. Gadot is great. Eisenberg's Luthor is a crime against cinema.
Suicide Squad: Shut up, I like this one. I know it's bad. I love it anyway. It had some really great performances, great new takes on old characters, some great action, a cameo from Batfleck or two, and introduced me to the dreamy Cara Delevigne.
Wonder Woman: aka 'the good one.' I honestly have no criticism of this movie, aside from maybe they played it a little too safe on the story side. The performances were good, the action was good, the story was good. It stands alongside the better MCU films.
So, DC is 1 out of 4 so far going into Justice League. How did it fare?
Well... surprisingly well. Maybe it was Whedon taking over from Snyder. Maybe it was them learning lessons of what worked and what didn't from previous movies. Whatever it was, Justice League is actually a decent movie. It's no classic of the genre, like Winter Soldier, but it's at least as good as, say, Age of Ultron, just without that familiarity with the characters that we had there that allowed us to overlook some otherwise glaring problems.
That's not to say that it doesn't have problems. It does.
Flash is annoying. Like seriously annoying. Maybe I'm biased, watching him on television being portrayed masterfully by Grant Gustin, but Ezra Miller's Flash is just hard to watch. He's not funny and goofy, he's awkward and cringe-worthy. Maybe in theory that's a realistic portrayal of some kind of condition that's brave to show on film or something, but it's hard to watch in practice.
The movie's villain, Steppenwolf, looks terrible. It's embarrassing looking at him, then seeing Thanos in the Infinity War trailer.
Likewise, Cyborg suffers from the poor CGI that Steppenwolf does, but in a much less organic way. Cyborg ends up looking like one of Michael Bay's Transformers until an ending sequence that shows him sheathing himself in much better armour.
The story is a bit light, too, nearly scraping the depths to which the aforementioned Transformers series regularly descended: Big Bad wants to steal Magic McGuffins to take over the world and destroy stuff, good guys must band together to stop Big Bad with explosion that could possibly kill them.
On the good side, there's more of Batfleck and Gadot's Wonder Woman, and a very touching scene in which Diana helps Bruce with some of his injuries while Bruce muses on his own mortality while contrasting that with why the world needs Superman instead of him, owing to Superman's humanity. And speaking of which, I'm sorry if this is a spoiler (and if it is, congratulations on staying in the dark despite everyone's best efforts), but this is the movie that finally got Superman right. After Batman's plan is completed, the cavalry flies in to save the day with an upbeat, witty remark and a cataclysmic haymaker. Cyborg turns out to be a very good character as well, and Aquaman is a much better character than the hokey joke the trailers make him out to be. I'd like to shake the hand of Jason Mamoa's acting coach as well, as he's finally learned to emote on-screen.
There's a stand-out scene where the first battle against Steppenwolf is shown, being recounted as a legend, where the armies of man, Atlantis, and the Amazons drive him off-world with the help of certain familiar aliens and gods, and even a Green Lantern showing up.
All in all, this is definitely a movie worth watching, and it worries me a little that DC is rumoured to be giving up on the interconnected universe idea after this one, as this feels like the franchise finally getting up on its feet. It's by no means a perfect movie, but it's got potential. It's got life. Now they just need to do it again. And again. And keep doing it until they find the right balance of warmth, humour, action, and danger.
And I hope they do. I just hope it doesn't involve a Joss Whedon Batgirl. Stay away from my Barbara, Joss.
More away game material that ought to be showcased here:
If you want an explanation of why I feel this way: The boss fight in the final episode is okay at best, and had a little too much of "All you need to win is the power of love" to make me happy, but it was an acceptable 20 minutes to wrap up the series.
Unfortunately, there was 30 more minutes to go, and the denouement was similar to a souffle slowly collapsing.
If they had just stopped with him defeating Diamondback and Misty doing the whole "It'll be cool, I've got your back," that would have been great. All of the other stuff could have been folded into the second season.
That said, though, it's an amazingly good show and worth the time to watch. The casting is spot-on, the acting is excellent, the dialog flirts with Tarantino without actually trying to be Tarantino, the music is great (I can't stand rap, but I can grove to funk), and it's just basically a 21st century retelling of a 1970s blaxploitation movie.
It just deserved a better, perhaps tighter, ending.
Context is a wonderful thing. Context is what paints a picture around a very small thing and gives it meaning. It's a very important thing; without context, that very small thing is open to being wildly misinterpreted.
These are all obvious things, so why am I bringing them up?
Context.
A couple of weeks ago, the big news going around was that Rose McGowan, well known for playing the least popular sister on Charmed, a less popular series 'inspired' by The Craft (seriously, Piper was best girl on Charmed anyway), posted a scathing invective against the marketing campaign for X-Men: Apocalypse, scolding the studio for portraying 'casual violence against women' and not being able to 'manage to put any women directors on your slate for the next two years' and including a quote from a friend's 9-year-old that said 'Dad, why is that monster man committing violence against a woman?'
The classic Claremont Grip.
The Casualness Angle
Some minor spoilers for X-Men: Apocalypse here, and some context, as well.
Mystique is very strong, very agile, and a very skilled fighter. She's shown, throughout the six X-Men films she appears in, incapacitating men much larger than her with ease, being generally fearless, and (thanks to her mutant powers) an expert at infiltration and espionage. Mystique is, in short, not one to mess with. She's a major player in the X-films universe, and a persistent villain in the comics.
Apocalypse is two steps shy of being a god. Hulk and Thor would probably have trouble standing up to him, as he completely walks over the X-Men, even overpowering Charles Xavier in his own mind. In short, Apocalypse is the biggest threat the X-Men have ever faced in a movie, so much so that even the MCU's Avengers team couldn't have taken him down either. The fact that he has Mystique in a classic Claremont Grip on the billboard isn't showing 'casual violence against women'; it's showing that an insanely powerful supervillain has the upper hand over one of the main stars of the movie, who is also an extremely capable combatant. It speaks volumes to her combat prowess that she was able to get close enough for Apocalypse to lay hands on her, considering Google searches for "Marvel Apocalypse" and "Marvel Apocalypse choke" turn up very few results for choke-holds.
The one exception being Apocalypse choking The Hulk out. From behind. With tentacles.
Or possibly cables.
But saying "Apocalypse Hulk tentacle asphyxiation"
really ought to help our position in the search rankings.
The Marketing Angle
There is a meme floating around showing images from Deadpool with Angel Dust choking out defenseless Weasel and very defended Colossus, juxtaposed with Apocalypse strangling Mystique, and Deadpool wondering why two of those images are fine and one isn't.
Dammit, Wade, it's "you're".
The obvious retort that I've seen has some merit, in that Angel Dust wasn't strangling anyone on the billboards for Deadpool. But if we take that a step further, there were five billboards that I saw for X-Men: Apocalypse:
one with Magneto hovering menacingly with metal objects;
one with Storm shooting lightning from her hands;
one with Psylocke in a threatening pose;
one with Jean holding Scott's head as he fires his optic blasts;
and one with Apocalypse holding Mystique by the throat.
That's five billboards: four featuring one of the previously well-marketed female characters, one controlling the actions of a male character, two being generally awesome, and one in an inferior position to a god-like being. Deadpool's billboards... had no female representation.
The 9-Year-Old Angle
Do 9-year-olds speak like Gender Studies majors, or do Gender Studies majors speak like 9-year-olds? I can never keep track of this stuff anymore. Either way, a 9-year-old didn't say that. Or maybe a 9-year-old had been fed that shit like Sunday School and was parroting it.
My point here is that context is everything, and Rose McGowan is just another in a very, very long line of people that attack without context, whether they genuinely don't know the context or purposefully ignore it. This is no different than people that were against theBatgirl cover last year, where context (the fact that Barbara was once victimized when she was shot and paralyzed by The Joker, but has since faced him and overcome her fears to beat him) was also ignored, or any one of a number of huge public outcries.
I'm rapidly losing the ability to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not they're just ignoring context to try and gain attention over something. Rose, you're free to point out stuff you might find 'problematic', but I'm also free to point out that you're willfully ignoring context to make a point.
First of all, I actually enjoy CBS' Supergirl TV series.
Sure, the plots are lame (I'm not sure if they're more lame than the Flash and Arrow plots on CW, or if they only seem that way because Supergirl has a bigger budget on a bigger network) -- I mean, they took Alan Moore's amazing Black Mercy story and turned what should have been a 'Wow!' episode into 'Meh, was alright I guess' -- but I like it because the actors are convincing and overall the mood of the series is bright and cheerful and not the "oh god everything sucks i shall cut myself while listening to Nine Inch Nails" thing we have going on in the other two shows.
In other words, it's fun and it's cheerful even if it's a bit campy, and Melissa Benoist is very easy on my eyes.
But oh god, the writing. It baffles me how a series can have such good characterization and dialog between characters, but suck so badly at everything else. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.
Monday's episode, "Manhunter", dealt with how J'onn J'onzz became Hank Henshaw. And during a few flashbacks, we found out the following:
Henshaw calls the alien he is tracking through the South American jungle "the Manhunter" and "the Martian". Okay, how does he know this? It's not like J'onn was a prisoner on Fort Rozz...
Later, he says "This alien is over 300 years old!" Again, how does he know this?
He also says something like "Superman says this Martian is one of the most powerful beings on the planet!"
I... I just...
Okay, let me break this down.
If Superman says J'onn is powerful, it's likely because they had an encounter. Either they fought each other, and they fought alongside each other.
If Henshaw knows J'onn is Martian it has to be because J'onn told Superman he's Martian. It's not like Krypton had diplomatic relations with Mars (because if so I'm pretty sure Kara would have heard about them during her education on Krypton).
From what we know of J'onn, it's really doubtful that he'd tell a total stranger that he's a Martian. So it's likely that Superman gained his trust or respect.
So of course it makes total sense for a government agency to track down someone that Superman respects instead of other threats.
But let's assume that Henshaw is a total xenophobe nutcase (BTW, I don't buy that he's dead -- I totally expect him to come back as either a certain cyborg or something else) and thinks "I hate aliens, and Superman is an alien, so if he likes another alien I'm gonna kill him."
He still calls J'onn "the Manhunter".
Meaning that, logically, J'onn must have been hunting someone when Superman encountered him. This is probably how they met, fought, gained respect, etc.
So if J'onn is hunting men (bad guys, we assume), then he isn't keeping a very low profile, is he? And didn't he want to keep a low profile to blend in and not let White Martians find him and etc?
Furthermore, if he's hunting men, why is he hiding in a South American jungle?
I mean, you'd think that a shapeshifter who wanted to stay hidden could hide pretty damn easily in the Amazon. Of course, that would mean he's not out hunting men. And if he IS out hunting men, then why is he hiding in the Amazon?
None of this makes sense, because it's terrible exposition. The writers wanted us to know that J'onn J'onzz is from Mars -- but we already knew this when he told Kara several episodes ago. The writers wanted us to know that J'onn is Kryptonian-level powerful -- but we already knew this from how he took down Supergirl when she was under the effects of red kryptonite that made her evil. And the writers wanted us to know that J'onn is a manhunter -- but we already knew this because that's precisely what he does for the DEO in his guise as Hank Henshaw.
In other words, they really wanted us to know stuff we already knew. Except for the 300 years old part; that doesn't make any sense at all, unless you go comic book fan deep paranoid on it (see below).
Now there are ways around this, of course. The easiest way is to simply say that the flashback was from J'onn's perspective and not what actually happened. He could have been lying about what was said, or otherwise be an unreliable narrator.
The more interesting way to resolve this conundrum is to address these seeming contradictions head-on -- why yes, Hank Henshaw DID know these things, and he IS a raging xenophobe, and this all makes perfect sense because he is actually the Eradicator. Of course, this doesn't address the second set of problems (manhunter, jungle, etc) but that could be handled with option 1, above, or just ignored altogether if the dramatic reveal is good enough.
The problem, though, is that I don't think either of these things are going to happen. I think everything's going to be as straightforward as it seems, because that's how Supergirl seems to roll.
Sigh. Ah well. At least we're getting that sweet crossover with Flash next week, right?
By the way, this has always been my favorite Supergirl costume. The belly tee makes her look young (because she is), the white shirt makes her visually distinct from her cousin instead of "Superman with boobs and a skirt), and it's similar to alternate-universe Power Girl that you get the symbolism but without the needless boob window.
I would love it if the TV show adopted this costume, but I'm so not holding my breath.
I realize it's poor form to complain about a show without suggesting how to fix it, and since I've been a very vocal critic about Legends of Tomorrow, I figure I ought to do that. In fact, I can fix not just the show, but most of the dumbness of the season, with just two little words.
No, not "The End" or "We're Sorry." I could tell you those words, but that would spoil the surprise. Let me show you instead.
1st Arc Episode: Solivore
The Waverider receives a distress call from the Vanishing Point that echoes across all of space and time. The Council of Time Masters is under attack! All past, current and future Time Masters are called to help, and if Rip Hunter shows up, all is forgiven.
Heartened by the prospects of a pardon, the Waverider returns to the Vanishing Point to help the other ships fight off some cosmic-level Big Bad -- I'm thinking something very impressive like a Sun Eater (yes, the thing that Ferro Lad died defeating in Legion of Super Heroes, and if you get that reference you've already twigged to where I'm going with this) -- and after a suitably dramatic battle where many timeships are damaged or destroyed, and all of the Legends use their powers to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Hunter is granted amnesty and the Waverider docks in order to make repairs, take on provisions, and get updates from HQ's computer on Vandal Savage's next location.
2nd Arc Episode: Para Bellum
This episode is a bit of a downtime, now-we-can-relax show, with the characters getting to engage in character development without an urgent plot bearing down on them: Ray and Kendra work out how they feel about each other, Snart and Rory come to terms (I will bet money that Snart didn't have the guts to kill him last episode -- he's just frozen), and Jax and Canary get up to... something, I dunno what. And Dr. Stein, being the nerd, decides that he'd be a fool if he didn't take advantage of what is basically The Library At The End Of The Universe and starts reading.
We also get an idea about how the Time Masters work by seeing them interact with the characters, especially Hunter -- who, by the way, is acting very worried. He believes that the Sun Eater wasn't just a random attack, that someone set it upon the Time Masters, and that they should be preparing for war. The Council doesn't really buy it, saying that his private war against Vandal Savage has made him paranoid, but his valiant deeds have earned him the right to address the council and make his point.
Meanwhile, Stein makes a troubling discovery: if both Hunter and his wife were Time Masters -- who know how history is supposed to shake out -- why did he send her to live in 2166? Didn't he foresee the rise of Vandal Savage? It seems like he deliberately put her in danger. Either that, or the rise of Savage took everyone, including the Council, unaware... but that would have to mean that Savage's rise to power was engineered by someone outside the time stream!
As he makes this discovery -- the shots of Stein's realization are intercut with Hunter making his "We must prepare for war" speech -- something does indeed attack the Vanishing Point, and the Council of Time Masters is hit HARD. The only one left alive in the Council Room is Rip Hunter... who, just as the episode ends, smiles knowingly... perhaps even wickedly.
3rd Arc Episode: Oubliette
The Vanishing Point is in ruins, and the Council of Time Masters is destroyed. There's lots of screaming and crying and bleeding and dying, and those few timeships which can leave are fleeing with the survivors.
Rip Hunter blames this on Vandal Savage -- although he is unable to explain how Savage did it -- and as the Vanishing Point crumbles around them, Hunter orders his crew and the few surviving Time Master rank & file to load up the Waverider with supplies and weapons, as he intends to bring the war to Savage.
Meanwhile, as Professor Stein makes his way back from the library, he discovers... Rip Hunter? Only this Hunter is disheveled and emaciated, like he's been in a dark hole for years. As it turns out, that explanation is correct: this new Rip explains that after the Time Council turned down his request to go after Savage, he was attacked and imprisoned in an oubliette at the Vanishing Point. But who would do such a thing, and why? And who is the Rip Hunter commanding the Waverider? Clearly there is an imposter here, but who?
A good chunk of the episode is survival-themed, as Hunter & co. try to repair the Waverider so it can leave the Vanishing Point, and Stein and Other Rip try to make their way back to the docks.
Finally, everyone meets back up in the last few minutes of the show just as the base begins to fall apart. There is a dramatic reveal -- "You!!" -- as Prison Rip meets Captain Hunter, and the rest of the crew goes "Wait, what??"
Prison Rip attacks Captain Hunter and damages his disguise (since this is science fiction, it's likely some form of hologram) to reveal another actor. In proper villain monologue fashion, this Fake Rip -- the Captain we've known since episode one -- indicates that he (or she, I'm not picky) surprised the Legends figured it out now, since they were obviously too dim to have noticed any of the other clues. He brags about how he manipulated them all into helping him engineer Vandal Savage's rise to power, and that he couldn't have done it without their help.
But now that the legwork has been done, and the Time Council has been destroyed (along with most of the time ships), he doesn't need them anymore. He thanks them for their service, and just before disappearing -- apparently he can travel in time without needing a ship -- he says that for their pains, he won't kill them. He'll just leave them trapped there, in time, forever.
Yes, the arc words are in fact "Time Trapper".
The Rest of the Season
The Real Rip Hunter and crew miraculously repair the Waverider using their special powers -- Heatwave welds stuff, Atom shrinks, and now would be a great time for Firestorm to learn he has transmutation powers -- get off the Vanishing Point, and have to figure out why the Time Trapper needed to engineer the rise of Vandal Savage.
They soon find that certain eras of history are blocked off by what is described as an "Iron Curtain of Time", which makes fighting the both Savage and the Trapper much harder.
I'm not really sure where the season ends, but the short version is that it's eventually discovered that the Time Trapper did all this because the actions of the Time Masters prevented his creation, and so he had to engineer the rise of Vandal Savage in order to safeguard his own creation. And that's why the death of Rip Hunter's wife and child was a surprise -- the year 2166 was SUPPOSED to be one of the safest in history, but due to the meddling of Time Trapper and the Legends, they're all actually responsible for genocide. Yay, darkness! CW loves dark edgy stuff, right?
Cue more cross-time vengeance and ass-kicking as things go really nuts -- dinosaurs in 1930s New York City! All of Congress replaced by cavemen! -- as the Legends try to clean up the timeline while still battling their foe the Time Trapper.
Bonus Fun
It's revealed that the Time Trapper is actually the child of one of Carter and Kendra Hall's incarnations. And given they've had LOTS of incarnations, and probably had lots of kids over those lifespans, that doesn't really narrow it down. But the fact that both their souls are "untethered in time" explains to some extent why the Time Trapper is immortal and has time powers, and makes it far harder to defeat him.
There: the series is much less dumb now. You'd watch this, wouldn't you?
I have largely moved away from commenting about popular culture or current events on this site because as time passes, such things become less relevant. Perhaps I am committing folly by assuming that things like my Traveller posts will stand the test of time, but let's be honest for a moment: once an election or a television season is over, no one really cares what was said about it, but my "I am the very model of a modern Marvel mastermind" filk is still funny years after it was topical.
But today I am going to break that rule -- I do it every so often -- and talk about something in pop culture that is driving me bugnuts crazy. Specifically, the CW's new show Legends of Tomorrow.
I'm sorry, but this show is terrible.
I want to like it, because I am a big fan of Arrow and Flash. I enjoyed Ray Palmer's "too smart for his own good" run on Arrow (even if The Atom is more Iron Man than Ant-Man), and I enjoyed seeing Professor Martin Stein be a mentor to Barry on Flash.
Sadly, none of that is present in this show. Instead, we get stupid plots that break the rules of time travel that were set up in Flash, and the leader of the group is a character we don't know and who has all the charisma of a bureaucrat. Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter doesn't act like a leader -- he doesn't act very well at all, in fact -- and he's so overshadowed by the personalities who CAN act that you're left wondering "Why do these awesome people continue to listen to this jackass who has not only lied to them but also can't even grasp the basics of causality?"
Allow me to explain.
Rip Hunter wants to go back in time to stop Vandal Savage from conquering the world and killing his family. We're going to set aside the whole paradoxical argument of "You went back in time to stop something from happening, and so it didn't happen, and because it didn't happen you didn't go back in time to stop it, so it did happen, so you go back in time..." because 1) that way lies madness and 2) that doesn't make an entertaining show. So we have to assume that time travelers can fix things without erasing their reason for the fix. I'm fine with this, as it's the central conceit of the show and I know it going in, so I accept it as I watch it for the same reason I choose to accept "the dead animate to feast upon the living" so I can watch The Walking Dead. However, accepting this premise leads to some questions
Question #1: Why doesn't Rip go back in time to the day BEFORE Savage kills his family, pile them onto the Waverider, and take them to a safe place in history?
Question #2: Rip hesitates and doesn't kill Savage in ancient Egypt. Why not go back again and finish the job? Hell, why not go back MULTIPLE TIMES and have multiple Rips there to kill Savage?
The answer to both of these questions seems to be a variation on the observer effect: if a time traveller is there for an event, they cannot change it, because it is part of their personal timestream. In other words, Rip can't gang up on Savage because he didn't see multiple versions of himself there. He can't save his family because he's already seen them dead.
Problem #1: This directly contradicts how time travel works in the Flash, where Barry has not only changed events he is part of (Weather Wizard's tidal wave in season 1, and Vandal Savage going boom in season 2), but has actually met and interacted with himself (the fight with Zoom in the past). Since Flash came out before Legends, and because the entire season 1 metaplot was built around time travel, I consider its rules on how time travel works to have precedent unless there's a good explanation why things ought to be different. So far, there hasn't been one. Despite Rip Hunter talking a good game about how he's a Time Master and he knows how to make subtle alterations to the time stream so that the changes stick, there's been no explanation as to how he knows or what the rules for making proper changes are.
Problem #2: Again, according to Flash, when you alter the past to change the present, the past "fights back" and tries to reassert itself in the new causality. In other words, if you mess around with time travel, you pay for it, which makes good sense from a narrative standpoint because otherwise every villain can be beaten with "The Flash goes back in time 24 hours and defeats the villain." Now compare this with how it works in Legends, where the team screws up a 1970s arms deal and suddenly Central City of 2016 is in flames. So the past is easy to change, I guess? And it doesn't fight to reassert itself... except when it does, like when Leonard Snart tries to keep his father out of prison by stealing the emerald his father would get caught stealing, and instead his father is put in jail for fencing the stolen gem. There's no consistency here.
Problem #3: If the Observer Effect is how changes to the time stream work in Legends, then this is all a fool's errand, because Rip has already observed that Vandal Savage conquers the world 2166. Tough noogies, Rip, you can't change the future because you've just observed it. So either you don't know how altering the time stream works, or you're delusional with grief... or the writers obviously have no clue and they're making you look like an idiot.
Conclusion: There is literally NO POINT to this show. Either Rip Hunter wins, immediately, because he's a time traveller, or he's already lost and cannot change that because observing the events has fixed them in the time stream. Saying there's some kind of middle ground, especially without any kind of explanation as to how or why the rules are different, is just masturbation. And that's what this show is: character-based fanwanking. Which would be fine if the characters were handled intelligently and sympathetically... but they aren't.
Hey Arrow fans, you remember how smart and confident and competent Ray Palmer was? He was this awesome uber-geek who could leave Felicity Smoak in the dust, and he didn't have any of her crippling social anxieties. Really cool, right? Well, he isn't any of those things in this show. Instead, he's just a nerdy fanboy who gets handed the idiot ball so that smooth criminal Leonard Snart can show him up. Instead of being the smartest man in the room, he's been reduced to "shrinking guy."
Hey Flash fans, you remember how Professor Stein was wise and mature and a fatherly mentor figure? He talked about time travel and alternate realities and was generally warm and kind and filled the role of leader when Reverse-Flash abandoned his Wells disguise. Guess what? He isn't any of those things in this show, either! Instead he's an angry, controlling, almost bullying old man who will do or say anything to get his way, including roofie-ing and kidnapping Jax so that Old Man Stein can have his Big Egotistical Adventure.
The only bright spot in this dismal affair is the triple "bromance" that Canary has with Heatwave and Captain Cold. If the show was just those three travelling through time and getting into trouble, I would enjoy the hell out of it. Sadly, it isn't, and Wentworth Miller's schmoozy charisma and Caity Lotz's psycho intensity only highlight how much I don't care about Rip Hunter and Hawkgirl.
In other words, it's not just fanwankery, it's BAD fanwankery that doesn't deliver. I was SO excited for this show, because the premise was amazing -- "Your favorite side characters, in their own show!" -- and it's just terrible in execution.
However, because I feel bad for savaging Legends, I'm going to give Greg Berlanti (in the exceedingly slim chance that he reads this) an idea for his next show.
Put John Constantine and Zatanna in a series called The Books of Magic and have them fight magic-based villains. (Alternate titles: Trenchcoat Brigade; Shadowpact)
Set it in England (but film it in Vancouver, to have maximum crossover potential with Flash and Arrow).
Tim Hunter can be their teenage sidekick. This allows that funky quasi-family dynamic that CW loves, and also gives Constantine the chance to take the piss out of Harry Potter. Win-win!
At some point, add the Huntress to the team. She can be the third leg to the love triangle that I know you'll set up with John and Zats. (Feel free to rip off the Question/Huntressdynamic from Justice League Unlimited.)
Have over-arching metaplots linking to DC's cosmic entities: Lords of Order and Chaos; the Endless from Gaiman's Sandman series; and of course the Spectre. As the stories progress, the team can receive missions from the Phantom Stranger and/or Doctor Fate.
Etrigan the Demon can be the first season nemesis, but can redeem and eventually join the team as a good guy.
Also good adds or guest stars: Swamp Thing and Hawkgirl (who would be a MUCH better fit here than on Legends).
Yes, people will say it's a ripoff of Supernatural (and maybe it is), but it's a DC-themed ripoff. Think of the crossover potential between shows, and the rich mystical history of the DC universe. We have a natural show (Arrow) a science show (Flash), and an alien show (Supergirl); we need a magic show, and the character of John Constantine is popular (and the actor is available).
Boom, there's your new series. I give it to Greg Berlanti for free. Just add my name somewhere in the credits and we're good.
Ant-Man, the latest entry into the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, is not a big, flashy event movie like an Avengers or Iron Man title would be. The events don’t, at least at first glance, hold earth-shaking implications for the greater narrative of the MCU. Startling revelations are not made about previously beloved characters.
And you know what? That's OK.
It's exactly what it needs to be. After the last few films it's nice
to get a fun little flick that works on a few levels and doesn't amp
up the adrenaline level of the MCU.
Like most Marvel films, Ant-Man is
primarily a genre film first, with added superhero panache. Like
Winter Soldier was a spy film with superheroes, Thor was a fantasy
film with superheroes, and Guardians of the Galaxy was a space opera
with superheroes, Ant-Man is a tight, competent heist movie with
superheroes (and shades of the old 50s giant insect movies). It's
certainly not on the level of The Italian Job or Ocean's Eleven (or
even Ocean's Twelve), it does its job well and retains the trademark
Marvel sense of fun while displaying a level of technical
storytelling that wouldn't be present in one of the event films like
Age of Ultron. While Age of Ultron brought us “Bad guy uses space metal to lift a city and drop it in an extinction-level event,”
Ant-Man instead gives us “Reluctant criminal uses liquid nitrogen
to expand the door and locking mechanism of a safe and blow it open.”
The character work in this film in interesting as well, as it
brings us a new take on a hero. Paul Rudd's Scott Lang is a bit of a
fuckup. Like Chris Pratt's Star-Lord, he's very good at what he does,
but unlike Star Lord is nowhere near the master criminal he'd like to
think he is, as evidenced by the opening scenes showing him being
released from San Quentin, and then later being arrested twice, once even in the Ant-Man suit. There's something really humanizing
about the protagonist being someone who really just wants to do the
right thing but constantly goes about it the wrong way.
Michael Douglas (finally!) brings us the Marvel Universe's most maligned super-genius, Hank Pym, and adds a really interesting human touch as a much older character (even having an altercation with Howard Stark and an aged (but lovely) Peggy Carter in the opening) who is a driven scientist and neglectful father filled with regret over a tragedy in his life. His daughter, Hope Van Dyne (portrayed by Evangeline Lily, who I don't think I've ever seen in anything before), is bitter and angry, and as we learn by the end of the film, has every right to be.
Aside from the continuity nod to
Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, there's an appearance by The Falcon,
making up for the disappointment of not seeing him in action on Age
of Ultron, with a proper throw-down between he and Lang. This is
probably the best and most blatant bit of fan-service in the film: a throwback to the superhero crossovers of comics, where two
heroes meet, fight, and team up... only this one is without the team-up. The fight
is fantastic, utilizing both Falcon's and Ant-Man's power sets well,
especially with Lang ending it by straight-up cheating.
Ant-Man
is not a driving narrative piece of the MCU, but I feel it's what we
need right now. A smaller story, with a few ties to the other, larger
pieces and a chance to catch our breath after Winter Soldier,
Guardians of the Galaxy, and Age of Ultron one right after the other,
and Civil War in May of next year. And speaking of Civil War – stay
after the credits. You'll see some familiar faces.
Pictured: Team Ant. Seriously, how does this keep happening?
Seriously. Go see Ant-Man. It's fun, it's down-to-earth and fantastical at the same time, and it's really good.
[author's note: the following critique
is entirely hypothetical in nature, as the series premiere of
Supergirl has not yet aired, and the leaked pilot is only available
via less-than-legitimate means. The author in no way supports
illegitimate ways of obtaining entertainment material, and strongly
recommends you purchase an overpriced cable subscription from your
local cable company. They need the money, after all. That said..
hypothetical spoiler warning]
I am not a fan of Superman. He really
bores the hell out of me, and is really only interesting to me when
he's Batman's punching bag. So how do you go about making Superman
interesting to someone like me?
Question asked and answered:
make her an awkward, insecure twenty-something who is completely out
of practice with her powers.
When I saw the six minute long
trailer for the series, I was not hopeful. It played like a bad
rom-com with superheroes. Like Sex and the City or Ally McBeal with a
cape... not helped by the appearance of Callista Flockheart.
Superdoof is best doof
Now that I've... hypothetically seen
it. I'm happy to say that it's... really not that bad. Given that
it's a CBS property, it borrows some elements from its CW cousins,
Arrow and Flash. The light tone and adorably nerdy protagonist
strongly echo Grant Gustin's Flash, and the voiceover “My name
is..” introductory monologue returns from the two related series.
It's got that DC spirit that's worked so well on television so far.
The MCU juggernaut may rule the big-screen, but (despite SHIELD and
Daredevil), DC still has television locked down, and I could imagine
Kara joining Ollie and Barry for a 'super' crossover (I'm so sorry).
The episode's golden moment comes when
Kara sees a plane with a failing engine that happens to be carrying
her adopted sister, and struggles momentarily to remember how to fly
before shooting up into the sky with a beautiful camera shot panning
around her as she chases after the plane and carries it to a safe
landing through a suspension bridge and into a river before climbing
aboard the wing in view of cameraphones, news choppers, and lots of
witnesses. Following up with Kara (in sweats, on her sofa) squeeing over
seeing herself on the news adds the human touch missing from the
first appearance of Superman.
It's got some
delightfully subversive moments, too, such as Kara's reacting poorly
to her boss Kat (Ms Flockheart) dubbing her “Supergirl,”
suggesting it's not very 'feminist.' Kat then dresses her down
beautifully. “I'm a girl, and I'm beautiful and powerful and
successful. If there's a problem with SuperGIRL, maybe the problem's
with you,” to paraphrase. Another moment later on when the big bad
of the episode underestimates her because she's a woman (alien from a
literal patriarchal society), allowing her to sucker punch him with
heat vision.
She walks like she's got some steel in her spine when she's on the clock.
Aside from a few minor adaptation
changes, the pilot so far hasn't strayed too far from established
Super-lore. The one most noticeable exception is that now Jimmy Olson
is no longer a scrawny excitable ginger, but a charismatic hunky
black man. And possibly Supergirl's love interest. Which... I'm okay with. I like the actor. He does good work with the role.
There's some dodgy CGI. Some corny
dialogue. A few head-slapping choices of musical scoring. The comedy
best friend is annoying, and I'm not hopeful that he'll grow on us
like Foggy Nelson did over in Daredevil. But overall, the pilot is
nowhere near as bad as the six-minute first-look trailer made me
worry it would be. Ironically, there's a human element to Kara Zor-El
that almost every depiction of Superman so far has been lacking, and
I think that might be enough to make the show worth watching.
So, tonight the CW aired the pilot episode of The Flash, and it was pretty good. This ought to come as no surprise to anyone who watches Arrow, as they're cut from the same cloth (and have more or less the same executive producers). Marvel might rule the cinema, but DC owns television -- at least until ABC picks up that "Agent Carter" series I've been hearing about.
Also, I was really quite impressed with the nod to TV history by the casting of John Wesley Shipp -- the star of the 1990 version of The Flash -- as Barry Allen's father. I might have even let out a fangirl squeal at that.
Equally nifty were little visual references that might pay off (a broken animal cage with the word "Grodd" on a nameplate) and might not (testing at a Ferris Aircraft runway). Oh, and a throwaway bit at the very end about a future merger between Queen Industries and Wayne Technologies, which gladdens my heart because it's a reference, however oblique, to Batman existing in the CWiverse.
And then there's Barry's traumatic past, which likely ties in with a certain character we've already seen -- who fans will have recognized by name alone, and who casual fans probably won't have even noticed.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the head of STAR Labs, Harrison Wells, has a middle name that starts with the letter "G"...
All in all, a good show: good acting, fun writing ("Lighting gave me abs?"), great special effects, and a more lighthearted feel than the (deliberately) gloomy Arrow.
But you know the real reason I'm writing about this? Because it's all about me. Me me me me me. Back in 2008, I wrote a post about the Flash that I felt didn't get the traction (hurr hurr) it deserved, and now I have an amazing opportunity to re-use it!
Some of you folks may have heard of Goldentusk, a YouTubie who writes lyrics to well known theme songs (Superman, Batman, and James Bond, to note a few). But I've noticed that, well, he missed one. Notably, a certain scarlet speedster who had his own short-lived series in 1990.
Naturally, I have corrected this glaring oversight. Do feel free to sing along! (PS: Wait until the 7 second mark.)
A flash of light -ning!
Is very fright -ning!
This is how I sing!
As I go fly -ing!
And hit my own logo... (ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow my ego)
Bolt from the blue
Now I see you
Justice is swift
D'you catch my drift?
Demon in red
Cannot be shed
I will pursue
You have no clue
I am the Flash, the monarch of motion
I'll knock you on your ass!
I am the Flash, the fastest man alive
And I run really fast!
This is my love interest
Tina McGee
She's replaced Iris
(Obviously)
Then there's this guy
What is his name?
He's Julio (was never canon)
I gotta go (get my run on)
Bust some heads!
And you'd!
Never!
Think that!
I am seeee-
cretly police scientist Barry Allen!
And just in case you didn't find that amusing, I leave you with this:
(Trigger Warning: Captain America: The Winter Soldier spoilers to follow)
This weekend, something remarkable happened: Hollywood grew a spine.
I don't know it happened. Perhaps it is a sign of things to come; perhaps it is just temporary cartilage that will buckle as soon as any real weight is placed upon it. But still, for 2 hrs and 30 minutes, something glorious occurred.
In a big-budget blockbuster that is, incidentally, only one of two Marvel Studios movies this year, and the only one with any real "name-brand" recognition, I heard and saw the following:
The bad guys, who have a direct moral and historical link to the Nazis, said that people were too stupid to be allowed to have freedom, but if you try to take that freedom away they will fight; therefore, the trick is to scare the people enough into giving up their freedom voluntarily.
The bad guys also said that to serve the "greater good", millions would have to be killed (troublemakers, free thinkers, and those who would oppose the new order) in order to save billions. Ah, the moral "justification" of genocide.
And finally, these bad guys, these Nazi inheritors, said that they needed to do this through Big Brother tactics and the surveillance state... which they acquired through step 1, "scare the people into giving up their liberty."
And then -- AND THEN -- no less a symbol than Captain America* his own bad self stated that no, this is wrong, that it goes against everything he believes in, everything he stands for, and everything he and his generation fought for in World War 2. Then they try to murder him, of course.
I'll say that again: the proponents of the surveillance state try to murder the living symbol of liberty.
And then this living symbol, allied with other trouble-making, free-thinking, liberty-loving "undesirables", goes and beats the snot out of the bad guys. They get the mobile death camps to destroy each other, they expose the spy network by leaking all their secrets onto the Internet**, and they dismantle the surveillance organization so that citizens are no longer spied upon by their own government -- all while the audience is going "Go Cap! Kick their butts!"
I can't believe I just watched Hollywood make a movie where they
Equated the modern surveillance state with Nazi Germany;
Stated we were but one step away from genocide;
Had a figurehead for American Ideals say "No, that's wrong";
Endorsed the destruction of said surveillance state in the name of freedom.
I feel like I dimension-shifted while I was sleeping and awoke in a glorious new world.
Pray tell me, good sirs and ladies, what color is the Emperor Norton bridge in this reality?
* Fuck Yeah!
** This was done by Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanova. Who is Russian. The Snowden parallel is obvious.
Erin Palette is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
PDF
_logo.jpg){kind=logo}
