Yesterday was a monumentous day my friends. Not only did we get a new episode of Kenobi, but we also got the premiere of the Ms. Marvel series on Disney+. This is probably the show I have been most anxiously waiting for because I genuinely love the character of Ms. Marvel. If you have never had a chance to read the original limited series run of the comic, then I highly suggest you do so. On second thought if you are not a comic reader maybe don’t because I have this feeling that the television show will follow it pretty closely. I am going to do my best to praise Ms. Marvel in as spoiler-free a manner as I can because I really want folks to go out and watch this show.
There are some characters in the Marvel universe that act as a stand-in for the public. Deadpool for example is every cynic, the person sitting with their friends cracking jokes as the movie is playing out on the screen. Deadpool is the embodiment of MST3k and Rifftrax, and the fans love them for this fourth wall-breaking nonsense. Kamala Khan is every fan. She is the embodiment of good-natured fan obsession with their heroes and the purveyor of fan fiction surrounding their potential actions. If you ever theorized about improbable connections between heroes and comic book runs, then you have a little Kamala in you. As a result, she has also been a fan favorite for a long while and has some of the more interestingly nuanced stories about how this fan obsession slams straight into a brick wall that is her conservative Pakistani upbringing.
I am legitimately uncertain that there exists a more perfect real-life representation of Kamala Khan than Iman Vellani. There is this joyous exuberance that she has nailed that is key to the character of Ms. Marvel. While we have not seen a ton of it yet, she also seems to be able to nail the comedic timing required for the character. I think part of the reason why I have always loved this character is it reminds me so much of my good friend Rae. Some of you who have been around for a while might know her from the AggroChat podcast or from the original Belghast Chibi character that used to adorn the banner of this site. She gets so extremely wrapped up in her fan obsessions and squirrels out of control into daydream land, planning cosplays and fan art. I think we probably all know a “Kamala” in our lives or might even be one ourselves, and I think that is part of what makes the character so potent.
One of the things that I think the show does phenomenally well is this “doodlemation” style of animatic. This is shown at the very beginning of the episode as we get a glimpse of the Sloth Baby productions Youtube page. I love the use of doodles to represent the vibrant daydream universe of Kamala, and I think it plays out pretty well on screen as well. One of the overriding characteristics of Kamala in pretty much every media is her love of superheroes, and more importantly her fan worship of Captain Marvel… specifically the Carol Danvers version we are familiar with in the MCU. Kamala wants to be Captain Marvel, and in the comics, this manifests into an origin story. So far this version appears to be following a theme more closely related to the Avengers video game variant of the Ms. Marvel origin story.
In the comics, Kamala was part of a wave of Inhuman characters brought in by the terrigen mist. This was all part of a nonsense side plot to create mutants that were tactically different from the mutants that Marvel was a dumdum and sold the exclusive rights to Fox. I say this as a way of illustrating that this origin story was sort of fraught from the start, and really doesn’t have much to do with the core of who Kamala Khan is. In the television series and therefore the MCU, Ms. Marvel seems to have powers stepping from either a mystic or cosmic origin. I think this shift happened for purely financial reasons because it would be extremely costly to create a believable version of “embiggening”. Cosmic crystalline not-human-looking nonsense is way easier and cheaper to animate than photorealistic gigantism. I mean I feel like the Avengers game did a pretty good job with her power and it still looked deeply uncanny valley at times.
Basically, I am asking you to go out and watch this show. There is already a wall of negative hype surrounding it because it is a story that is not featuring a white male in the pilot seat. Just like we saw with Reeva/Third Sister in the Kenobi series, public fandom for these properties has a serious problem with being a little racist. Folks are going to hedge their opinions in all sorts of ways to try and make them sound like they are educated and taking all views into account when in reality it often equates back to “person of color bad in my white show”. Ms. Marvel so far is a phenomenally comic accurate portrayal of this character, and I am hoping that more people will discover the great comic run as a result. This is legitimately maybe one of the most comic-accurate characters in the entire MCU.
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Good Morning Folks! We find ourselves entering the time of the year that used to be dominated by E3. Now instead we get a number of individual shows all orbiting this concept of the Geoff Keighley Summer Game Fest. Last week on the 2nd we got one of the first of these shows, but it has been a crazy sequence of days and I am just now getting around to talking about my thoughts. Ahead of this show Sony had released some warning information to make sure that folks were realizing that it would be largely focused on third-party games and things involving the new PSVR2 system. I still don’t have much interest in VR as a concept, so it threw out some interesting offerings like Resident Evil 8 in VRor a wholly unique Horizon Zero Dawn universe game set in VR. Even once you cast off the VR-only titles, it still left a lot of meat on the bones for the rest of the show.
I believe we first saw a sign of Stray at the PlayStation 5 reveal conference several years ago. From that point forward I have been hooked on the concept of this game, where you play a cat roaming around a cyberpunk landscape seemingly made up of humanized robots. It is very prescient that I am writing about this game as one of my own cats, Mollie, winds her way around my office to find a perch to sit on while I write. This is very much a “cat person” game and I hope it is every bit as enjoyable as it looks. The only problem is… this has consistently been revealed at Sony shows… but I am also finding out that it is going to release on Steam which immediately skews the scales towards a PC purchase for me.
The first game of the show that I had not heard of before was a title called Eternights. This very anime game seemed to center around a protagonist that has had part of his hand replaced with a rainbow and then can turn that into weapons. The gameplay looked fun, but I guess the determining factor if I play this… will be just how obsequiously anime it really is. I like Anime just fine but I am not super engaged with it and as a result, am mostly into the very surface level and “poser” properties. I think I will need to see more of this to determine if it is a purchase. Again however this is a game also coming out on PC via Steam, which leans me in the direction of purchasing on that platform… so I guess strike 2 for PS5.
Capcom seems to have resolved its problems with the clipart logo and is now presenting additional footage of Street Fighter 6. I am still not entirely certain what I think of “thickboi” Ryu, mostly because I have always thought of him as a fairly agile character. What I do really dig about this game is the paint splatter style as they do attacks. I am certain this is probably some sort of special meter, but I dig the way it looks. It has been decades since I have really been into a fighting game and my old man reflexes keep me from ever being competitive again… but I still enjoy the idea of them. Trying a night fighting game is essentially me wallowing in my nostalgia about the early days of the fighting game arcade scene. Again this is absolutely coming out on Steam so strike 3 for the PS5.
This was the second game in the show that I had never seen, and at first, I thought we were just getting an early reveal of the Dead Space reboot. This appears to be a game from one of the folks behind the Dead Space franchise and the studio started by Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead fame. At a time that last part would have been a serious pedigree for me… but after having watched that franchise more or less die over the last several years it starts to shift in the other direction. The game is also described as a Survival game, which could be really cool or could be not so much depending on how that genre is implemented. I am interested in it for certain, and right now the game is targeting pretty much all platforms… so again that shifts me towards a PC purchase. That would be strike number four for the PS5, which isn’t great given this is a Sony show.
Friends, I am so freaking into this game. This trailer spawned one of the comments on Twitter that concerned a number of my friends. What really did it for me… were these scenes shown in the above image, featuring what appears to be a Kaiju fight between two primals/eikons. So this game is being led by the same studio that works on Final Fantasy XIV and I am hoping that we are essentially getting to see another one of the reflections of the source as a result. The recent shift from Final Fantasy being turn-based to more action combat has been controversial, but I tend to land on the side where I actually enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay better as a result. I am so ready for this game and expect to pretty much give it my full attention whenever it releases. This will once again be released on PC, which means I will be purchasing on that platform rather than the Playstation.
As always with my reviews of the shows, I tend to focus on the things I was most interested in. That is not to say that there were not a number of other interesting games shown. For example, Resident Evil 4 is being added to the list of high production value Capcom remakes. This is really cool but also I have not played RE 1-3 remakes, but if I ever get around to doing this… I will be interested in this game as well. Also of interest is that Spiderman is getting a remastered edition and is being released on the PC platform, which interests me a bit but I already have those games on the PS5. Seasons: A Letter to the Future looked really neat, but also seemed deeply “Walking Sim” which is not exactly my jam. It very much looked like the sort of game that I would probably rather watch a “Let’s Play” for while doing something else than actually play it myself.
All in all, it was a pretty solid show. It lacked some of the big reveals that I have come to expect from a Sony E3 show, but was a relatively solid showing. The biggest problem that I saw from the product offering is that there really was nothing shown that would move units. The only thing truly limited to the Sony platform is anything PSVR2-related. Even “Seasons”, is coming out on PC… so for me personally this seemed like more of a big win for Steam as a platform than it was for Sony. Maybe this was intentional to try and relieve some pressure on the supply chain and lower demand for new PlayStation 5 units? I sincerely doubt this, but it could happen. I’m extremely interested in seeing how Microsoft answers this show on the 12th.
The post Sony State of Play – June 2022 appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! Over the weekend I wrapped up the series Only Murders in the Building and I thought this morning I would talk a bit about it. I used to talk about the media I consume quite a bit but have not really in a while. I have to be honest, I am very late to the punch here because this is a show that was the talk of the town… last year. It is one of those shows that I filed away in my brain not by name, but by the cast of actors. Instead of remembering it was called Only Murders in the Building, I remembered it as “That Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez show”. So when my wife was hunting for suggestions of things to watch, and a friend of hers suggested this show… I had no recollection of it. A quick google produced a flood of “oh yeah I wanted to watch that” feelings however and here we are having consumed it over a few nights.
I would not exactly call my wife and me true crime junkies, but we do consume quite a bit of it. I think in part this is due to the fact that our taste patterns do not have a ton of overlap, and true crime is one of those topics we can always both agree on. When we take a long trip it is often our entertainment to throw on a podcast as we drive and have absolutely consumed shows like Serial and S Town while doing this. I actually got bit by Serial when I co-worker suggested the show, and caught up about halfway through the original run. We’ve also been drawn into a number of Netflix series like Making a Murderer or The Staircase. I think honestly the attraction to these shows is less about the experience of watching them, but more about the experience of having the conversations for months after the fact positing our theories.
What makes Only Murders in the Building interesting is it has a self-aware quality to it. Instead of being a mystery, a dark comedy, a crime drama, or a documentary on the creation of a podcast… it is all of these wrapped up into a quirky package. It is both a show for fans of the true-crime podcast genre, but also a show that pokes gentle fun at those same fans. The entire show centers around an unlikely trio of characters played expertly by Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. The latter two of those are extremely foundational characters in the mythology of my childhood. The Jerk is still to this day one of my favorite movies, and for whatever reason, as kids, we latched onto The Three Amigos as an epic film that we parroted lines from constantly. The thread that brings these characters together is their shared love of a podcast set in Oklahoma that seems to be referencing S Town. When a murder takes place in their building, they get the idea of turning it into a podcast.
Charles-Haden Savage
Steve Martin plays Charles-Haden Savage a washed-up actor whose major claim to fame is playing a hard-boiled detective character named Brazzos. I did not realize until I actually looked up the character that the hyphen was in the wrong place on his name. He lives alone in his apartment and laments the loss of love as well as a general loss of relevancy. The universally likable character that you end up feeling a bit sorry for over the course of the show.
Oliver Putnam
Then you have the Martin Short character of Oliver Putnam who is a failed Broadway producer. I always associate Martin Short with these deeply manic characters, but while highly neurotic this is actually a subdued portrayal. Oliver is most well known for a series of failed musicals including Splash!… where he got the grand idea of converting the stage into a giant pool which caused many injuries. He is a man looking for the next big thing, so when the podcast idea comes along he grabs hold with both hands for dear life.
Mabel Mora
Then we have Selena Gomez’s character of Mabel Mora, who is in the building refurbishing the apartment of her aunt. Mabel is really the centerpiece of the show and is the character that changes the most over the course of the entire experience. Additionally, she is the most nuanced character, and to talk much about this… would give away way too many plot points. The portrayal of the character by Selena is phenomenal and her dry wit effortlessly upstages the more physical comedy styles of Steve Martin and Martin Short.
The entire show centers around the idea of trying to solve a murder that happened in the building, while at the same time recording a podcast. This plays with the notion of the true-crime podcast nature being a slow reveal of details when the producers understood the conclusion from the very start. Serial doled out information in pieces specifically to build tension, but I clearly feel like all of the evidence had already been gathered well before the first episode was released. Only Murders in the Building also plays with the notion of super fans, who end up being camped out in front of the building hoping for a glimpse of the cast of characters set forth in the show. I am being purposefully vague in talking about this show because it takes some turns, and I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience.
I seem to have chosen the ideal time to get into this series. On June 28th the second season of the show is premiering on Hulu, and I am certain that my wife and I will be tuning in. The first season runs 10 episodes with runtime for each episode of roughly thirty minutes. I am largely throwing this out there in case anyone else missed this show so that they might have time to catch up before the next season hits.
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Good Morning Friends! I had a rather busy weekend and I am still sorta feeling out of it as a result. I had to run up and help my dad with a few things, including getting several items that are too heavy to lift solo off to the city dump. The last few times I have been up there I have made friends with Fang. Either through battle damage or birth defect, Fang has a permanently exposed canine too and snarled lip. It makes him look rather fearsome but he is one of the sweetest cats. He now follows me around because he knows that eventually, I will stop to give him head scratches. This makes actually doing work with my dad a little challenging because the last thing I want to do is kick him when we are carrying something heavy and my visibility is limited.
I am pretty sure that Fang is the evolved form of one of these three pokemon taken from 2016. The problem with barn cats is that they sorta come and go over time and we have no clue what happened to two of the three. Fang however has grown up to be my dad’s buddy. He apparently comes into the shop with him and hangs out while my dad putters around tinkering on things. He also occasionally comes into the house but from the sound of it, he doesn’t really like being indoors. During the winter months, dad leaves the heater on in his shop so I think Fang more or less lives there. I’ve not gotten a picture of it but apparently, my dad also has a pet turtle that sometimes keeps him company. Driving down the dirt lane I had to carefully straddle a few massive terapins, which were more or less a common order growing up as well.
Lately, I have not consumed media as fast as I used to, and there was a time when I would have ravenously consumed Stranger Things as soon as it was released. This weekend I finally got around to starting the season and only made it four episodes in before taking a quick break. One of the problems of being “of” the era pictured in the show is that sometimes an anachronism stands out. For example, this bag was zoomed in close during an airport scene… and we very much did not have these in 1986. My wife was the first to notice it and this led to doing some research. Sure enough, this style of bag was invented in 1987 but did not really reach mass market adoption until the mid to late 90s. I know we did not really have fancy luggage like this until the 2000s, but mostly because we had to wait for it to get cheap. Season 4 is set in March of 1986, and I would have been 9 years old at that point, so I deeply remember some aspects of the show but was quite a bit younger than the cast of characters.
As far as gaming goes this weekend, I ended up missing Tequatl both Saturday and Sunday because life was happening. I did get in some co-op gaming with my friend Grace and we played some Gunfire Reborn. The game is very much Borderlands 2 meets Roguelike experience with really interesting weapons and some fun powers for your classes. Over time you unlock more of a cast of anthropomorphic animal friends. This is honestly the only complaint I would have for the game is that maybe it would have been better to just let players pick from a wide cast of characters, rather than having to unlock them through grinding it out.
Some of the weapons are deeply entertaining. Grace found this weapon that was essentially a firebreathing lizard and in order to reload the game you had to sort of smack it. I am running around with an exploding kunai. There are times when the runs go extremely smoothly and you get good picks from the additional perks. Then there were runs where everything went wrong and you might as well just start over. Regardless of your choice, you want to finish the run because this gives you experience points that you can then spend on a talent tree system that carries over between runs. Definitely a fun little game and extremely cheap if you are looking for some co-op nonsense with friends.
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Belghast 
