The 1990s were a transformational time in American comics. Superman died and was later resurrected. The greatest Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, went on a killing spree and tried to destroy the universe. Spider-Man battled a serial killer named Carnage. A wacky merc-with-a-mouth named Deadpool broke the fourth wall on a regular basis. And the first issue of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn sold over a million copies for the nascent indie publisher, Image Comics. Antiheroes were all the rage in the nineties because of popular comics starring Wolverine, the Punisher, Venom, Lobo, Cable, and more. Beyond those obvious highlights, this era was also a revolutionary time for queer representation, especially when you look at Hellblazer‘s John Constantine.

The eighties planted the seeds for the proliferation of LGBTQ+ characters in the nineties. This was in large thanks to Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol run and the rise of two British superstar writers named Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman. The “British Invasion” of American comics in the ’80s led to the launch of Hellblazer. It was a monthly horror series starring the chain-smoking con man and magician, John Constantine. As a working class and deeply flawed occult detective, John Constantine battled the evils of the Thatcher administration in Britain. Constantine remains a deeply singular figure in comics. But he represents both an antihero perspective of this time period, as well as comics’ movement towards queer perspectives. 

In 1992’s Hellblazer #51, by John Smith, Sean Phillips, and Tom Ziuko, John Constantine casually remarks that all of his past girlfriends and “the odd boyfriend” end up walking out on him. It was the first time that Constantine revealed to the reader that he was bisexual. While a subtle moment, the reveal of Constantine’s queerness was groundbreaking in the early nineties. The decade would go on to feature the debut of gay couple, Midnighter and Apollo, and a dramatic coming out story for mutant and Alpha Flight member Northstar. But Hellblazer remains unique in its nonchalance about Constantine’s sexuality. If anything, the reveal of Constantine’s sexuality confirmed what Hellblazer readers already knew: he’s a deeply queer character. 

Queerness has a political significance in that it represents non-normative and transgressive modes of being. This is precisely what the ethos of Hellblazer had always been. The unsavory aspects of Constantine’s life and personality made him a rejection of the traditional “wise old sage” magicians in British literature. His dabbling with the occult and supernatural led him into horrific situations. And he was often unable to help the people affected. Both the disturbing things Constantine encountered in Hellblazer, as well as his deep flaws, questioned the moral foundations underlying superhero comic books. 

Contemporary magic users in comics, like DC’s Doctor Fate and Marvel’s Doctor Strange, captured fans’ admiration. However, Constantine wasn’t someone readers should model themselves after. Instead, the tragic aspects of his life, like his traumatic experience in a mental institution, were something readers could empathize with and relate to. Considering this, it is not surprising that Hellblazer had a starkly different aesthetic from other DC and Marvel books at the time. It took on a grittier and quotidian look despite its supernatural elements. For Constantine, his queerness wasn’t just his sexuality but also his unique perspective and persona.

This idea is especially pertinent with regards to how Constantine stood out from other queer men from ’90s comic books. As opposed to Midnighter, Apollo, and X-Men’s Northstar, Constantine wasn’t buff or particularly attractive. (Interestingly, the character’s aesthetics draw inspiration from singer Sting.) He kept his bony frame hidden under a ratty suit and an even rattier trench coat. While Northstar’s muscular body zoomed the pages of X-Men books, Constantine would rarely punch or kick anyone. When he did, he looked awkward and uncoordinated. There was never an intention for Constantine to look nor behave like a “normal” character in superhero comics. He did not assimilate into the heteronormative image of a comic book hero. 

In the same vein, Hellblazer subverted mainstream narratives of ’90s queerness. Constantine’s casual mention of his past boyfriends was a break from the spectacle of coming out. Coincidentally, Hellblazer #51 hit shelves a couple months after the release of Alpha Flight #106. In that issue, Northstar became the first character from mainstream American comics to reveal that he was gay. The X-Men spinoff book, written by Scott Lobdell, features Northstar pouncing towards the reader while shouting, “I am gay!” It takes a much more sensationalist approach to queer sexuality. 

The story revolves around Northstar visiting his newborn adopted daughter in the NICU. There, a doctor tells him that “the child has AIDS.” Later on, when Northstar fights a father who lost his gay son to AIDS, he says, “Do not presume to lecture me on the hardships homosexuals must bear. No one knows them better than I. For while I am not inclined to discuss my sexuality with people for whom it is none of their business––I am gay!” The issue’s cover tops off its sensationalism, bearing the tagline “Northstar as you’ve never known him before!” Alpha Flight #106 and Hellblazer #51 came within months of each other, five years before Ellen DeGeneres’ People magazine cover with the headline, “Yep, I’m Gay.” 

When viewed in comparison with his contemporaries, John Constantine becomes an even more important figure in queer comics history. Unlike Alpha Flight, Constantine’s sexuality wasn’t a plot device and did not come from a heteronormative gaze. Considering that Alpha Flight #106’s cover reads, “Northstar as you’ve never known him before,” it is clear that the issue was created without an imagined queer readership. In this context, queerness is a personal thing kept to oneself, away from others “for whom it is none of their business,” instead of an entire worldview and mode of existence. Northstar’s queerness was something to identify and not identify with.

Hellblazer #51 showed how queerness also applies to artistic expression beyond just direct content or subject matter. It is also within established canon. In fact, a previous issue by Garth Ennis, William Simpson, and Tom Ziuko shows Constantine meeting with a vampire king in the middle of the woods. Vampires are certainly an enduring metaphor for queer sexuality in literature. Thus, Hellblazer frequently surrounded Constantine with details that hinted at his queerness. 

Hellblazer’s dark subject matter, queer perspective, and political themes laid the groundwork for future LGBTQ+ comics like The Department of Truth, The Invisibles, and the current generation of X-Men comics. Constantine’s antihero elements made him an early example of a queer protagonist who was not bound by the duties of “positive representation.” Instead, Hellblazer gave us a deeply human picture of a queer man living in dehumanizing circumstances. He is someone who wants to do the right thing even when the narrative dooms him. In today’s climate, Constantine’s voice has never felt more urgent. 

The post HELLBLAZER’s John Constantine Revolutionized Queer Representation in ’90s Comics appeared first on Nerdist.

The Disney+ series American Born Chinese is adapted from Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel of the same title. The graphic novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. For an entire generation of Asian Americans, American Born Chinese was a gateway for discussing Asian American experiences, specifically a Chinese American experience, in the classroom. Now, showrunner Kelvin Yu has created an excellent adaptation of Yang’s graphic novel. The American Born Chinese series drops lots of comic book references, including a special nod to The Swamp Thing. 

This show follows a Taiwanese American high schooler named Jin Wang (Ben Wang). Jin struggles to form his own identity in a largely white school. A Chinese exchange student named Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu) arrives and is assigned to shadow Jin at school. Jin is then caught between wanting to be more assertive like Wei-Chen, while also not bringing unwanted attention to himself. He also wants to join the junior varsity soccer team and fit in with the jocks. This is to the dismay of his former best friend, Anuj (Mahi Alam). 

American Born Chinese’s graphic novel engaged with American cartooning’s racist depiction of Chinese, stemming from Yellow Peril’s emergence in the nineteenth century. The first issue of Detective Comics—the series that Batman would later debut in—has a horribly racist cover featuring the face of a Fu Manchu-like character. The American Born Chinese graphic novel triumphs because of its reckoning with the historical baggage of American graphic storytelling. And its television adaptation continues this spirit, spotlighting one recent positive development in Asian American comics representation.

American Born Chinese has numerous references to different comics and manga, thanks to the nerdy interests of Jin, Wei-Chen, and Anuj. A montage in Jin’s bedroom in the first episode reveals his comics and manga collection. It includes the likes of ’90s era Superman, Spawn, Dragon Ball Z, and Naruto. This brings to life the original graphic novel’s focus on the history of comics and cartooning in a way that feels authentic to an Asian American teen today.

One moment in American Born Chinese particularly stands out as a celebration of Asian American perspectives in comics. In episode two of the series, “A Monkey On A Quest,” Jin approaches Anuj and notices that he’s reading a comic. It is Volume One of DC Comics’ The Swamp Thing by writer Ram V, artist Mike Perkins, and colorist Mike Spicer. They discuss the series, with Anuj noting that Perkins’ art redefined DC’s Guardian of the Green for a new generation. Viewers unfamiliar with comics may not have noticed the significance of the scene. However comics fans, particularly those of the Asian diaspora, certainly did.  

The Swamp Thing (2021-2022), much like the original American Born Chinese graphic novel, is a groundbreaking story in American comics. It is the first solo series for DC’s newest Swamp Thing, Levi Kamei, who immigrated to the US from India as a teenager. As Swamp Thing, Levi is known as the Guardian of the Green, “the Green” being all plant life on Earth. His powers transform him into a hulking humanoid plant monster, who can manifest anywhere on Earth wherever there are plants. Levi can also tap into the sensory information of plants on a cellular level. This makes him capable of achieving a type of collective consciousness with all the plants on Earth. 

Ram V’s writing on the story delved into Levi’s experience as an immigrant. It reimagined Swamp Thing’s powers as an extended metaphor for the global mindset of Asian Americans. For Levi, his powers and responsibilities to protect the Green tethers him to his homeland and family in India, even though he now lives in America. His transformation into the Swamp Thing is an expression of his state of being. He is an “Other,” in both America and India, because of his place in the diaspora. In short, Levi Kamei’s Swamp Thing is a quintessential Asian American superhero. He isn’t just an Asian American with superpowers, but a superhero whose powers are born out of being Asian American. 

This scene is a nod to American Born Chinese’s graphic novel fans, many of whom are Asian American comic book readers. While the stereotypical image of a comic book reader has always been white and male, the American Born Chinese graphic novel challenged this notion. This book helped me fall in love with comics as a medium, increasing my hunger for the creative potential of Asian and Asian American stories. Years later, I began to collect each issue of Ram V, Mike Perkins, and Mike Spicer’s The Swamp Thing every month. I’ve never felt more “seen” by a show than I felt with The Swamp Thing’s inclusion in American Born Chinese.

The Swamp Thing‘s mention in American Born Chinese celebrates Asian American comic representation’s expansion since Yang’s graphic novel. While American Born Chinese is a coming-of-age story with fantasy elements, The Swamp Thing is rooted in a rich history of body horror. Including another Asian American comic from a vastly different genre about a protagonist from a different Asian culture proves that American Born Chinese isn’t interested in being seen as the definitive show about “The Asian American Experience.” Instead, it celebrates the multiplicity of being Asian American and the ever-changing canon of Asian American comics. 

American Born Chinese is a refreshing adaptation of a comic book because it pays direct tribute to its original medium. In a media landscape dominated by comic book properties, American Born Chinese reigns king because of its unabashed love for sequential stories and storytellers. 

The post AMERICAN BORN CHINESE Gave a Clever Nod to THE SWAMP THING Comic Book appeared first on Nerdist.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 introduces one of the heaviest hitters in the Marvel Universe, Adam Warlock, to the big screen. Played by actor Will Poulter, Adam Warlock is a genetically-engineered warrior working on behalf of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). Fans of Marvel Comics will know Adam Warlock as an important player in the Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and Infinity Watch storylines, but his portrayal in the MCU is much different from his usual role in comics. In fact, Adam Warlock operates in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as a critique of the MCU’s brand of heroism, particularly in its early Phases. In doing so, the film boldly makes the case for how the MCU can change with the times, calling out its own shortcomings in the process. 

The third Guardians of the Galaxy film follows the team as they race to protect Rocket Raccoon from his creator, the High Evolutionary. Rocket’s tactical genius makes him one of the High Evolutionary’s greatest achievements, prompting the latter to send Adam Warlock in search of him. Against this backdrop, the team must also come to terms with how larger events in the MCU have changed their found family dynamic, as Gamora is no longer in the group. It is an auspicious choice for Adam Warlock to debut in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, given how the team’s unconventional lineup of heroes compares to standard superhero expectations. 

Adam Warlock’s role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 touches on how superhero fiction is centered around moral and physical perfection. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Hawkman, Captain America, and Thor are physical and ethical paragons. They were created to inspire readers to be their best selves. Superhero teams like the Doom Patrol, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are meant to counter the genre’s focus on ethical and beautiful people; however, their existence still underscores this basic truth. 

The film’s Adam Warlock is supposed to be a model of perfection seen most clearly in Phase 1 of the MCU. Warlock (like any basic superhero model) is male, buff, handsome, and indestructible. He listens to authority presents as a white person. This is further solidified with several parallels between Warlock and key moments in the MCU’s Phase 1. Adam Warlock’s birth cocoon is reminiscent of Steve Rogers’ chamber that Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger. You know, the one that turns a skinny asthmatic into a muscly super soldier. His lofty way of speaking and cluelessness recalls Thor in his first film. Likewise, when Kraglin fires his Yaka Arrow at Warlock, it bounces off of him with the same comedic imperviousness as Iron Man’s Mark I armor in the first MCU film. 

But while Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man are amenable to audiences, Adam Warlock’s introduction has an opposite effect. He destroys the sense of peace on Knowhere and its moody atmosphere, courtesy of an acoustic rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” that Rocket put on. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 sets Warlock up as the direct antithesis to the Guardians crew. He isn’t “a weirdo” like the one in the aforementioned song. Never before has “normalcy” carried such a destructive presence in an MCU film. 

We see this with how the Guardians respond to their injuries during the fight versus Warlock. Groot sprouts four tendrils from his head and nonchalantly walks away on them while Nebula cracks her shattered limbs back into place. These are quintessential Guardians moments, built around the unique bodies of its “too strange” heroes. Warlock, on the other hand, embodies physical perfection. The literal golden boy doesn’t have a single hair out of place when Nebula finally stabs him through the chest. 

While audiences accepted heroes like Thor and Captain America in Phase 1, Adam Warlock and his relationship with the High Evolutionary reveals the sinister side to this quest for perfection. For the High Evolutionary, lifeforms that aren’t “perfect” like Adam are lesser. It’s how he is able to experiment on and then incinerate innocent animals or genetically engineer children and make them run for hours on end without a second thought.

For the High Evolutionary, life is malleable. And physical perfection is always a few tweaks away. If Tony Stark was able to build a life-saving arc reactor in a cave, with a box of scraps, then what’s stopping the High Evolutionary from creating the perfect man? As such, Adam Warlock illustrates the physical and emotional costs of the superhero genre’s obsession with perfection. Because after all, Warlock doesn’t exist to show the denizens of the universe a better path. His creation is for violence. 

The parallels between Adam Warlock and Phase 1 MCU films proves why the franchise needs the Guardians of the Galaxy. The superhero genre’s roots may envision a new type of perfection, but it’s also been the place to celebrate deviation. It’s no wonder Nebula and Rocket Raccoon—two characters who posit as disabled—are the anchors of this film.

In contrast to Adam Warlock, Nebula and Rocket are a different idea of heroic built on empathy from past pain. This especially comes to light when Rocket insists on rescuing the High Evolutionary’s other animal test subjects. (In fact, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the only film in the trilogy that doesn’t have a gratuitous shirtless moment with Chris Pratt.) The thesis of the film celebrates the diversity of life and bodily autonomy. As such, it’s fitting to leave behind the stereotypical marker of white male heroism from the MCU’s Phase 1. 

Adam Warlock’s arc with the High Evolutionary explores the toxicity, along with physical and emotional violence, rooted in idolizing perfection. He now makes Steve Rogers’ transformation scene in Captain America: The First Avenger uneasy to watch. Dr. Abraham Erskine believed that America needed “a little guy” to defeat the Nazis and their horrific supremacism. Steve Rogers had the heart of a little guy. But his body had to rapidly balloon in size and muscle tone in order to be adequate. To fight an enemy that believed in biological supremacy, Steve Rogers needed a whole new body type all together. 

It’s almost a shame that Warlock’s debut comes in this late-stage Guardians offering. But with physically marginalized characters like Rocket and Nebula, the Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the only self-aware and self-critical teams in the MCU. With this franchise’s future up in the air after an uneven Phase 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 proves that the MCU must seriously reckon with its past to properly evolve.

The post GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY’s Adam Warlock Critiques the MCU’s Brand of Heroism appeared first on Nerdist.

In 1993, Warner Bros. released Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, one of the finest takes on the Dark Knight in cinema. The story follows a young Bruce Wayne as he begins his life of crime-fighting as Batman. He is torn between the promise he made to his parents to avenge their deaths, and the life of happiness he envisions with his girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont. While the premise of Mask of the Phantasm may sound like a familiar superhero narrative, its frank depiction of grief built a lifelong kinship between myself and Batman. 

I would rewatch my Batman: Mask of the Phantasm VHS like clockwork in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, it was rare for children’s media to depict what it’s like to have dead family members. Sure, it was common for protagonists to be orphans, but the actual, ritualized reality of mourning was hardly ever shown. I distinctly remember visiting my grandfather’s grave a couple times a year with my family when I was growing up. And I had no other frame of reference for this experience except Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. 

Bruce Wayne visits his parents’ graves over the course of the film at different points in his life. Once, while visiting them during his college years, he meets a young woman, Andrea Beaumont, who is visiting her mother’s grave. The two bond and Andrea eventually becomes Bruce’s first love. On one occasion, he tearfully admits to his parents’ graves that he “didn’t count on being happy” after they died. 

Like Bruce Wayne, I grew up in the shadow of loss. My grandfather, who my mother was very close to, died before I was born. Growing up, my mother was very open about how this loss affected her as a parent, knowing that her father never got to meet her youngest child. With the loss of my Gung Gung (the Cantonese word for maternal grandfather) still fresh, we visited his grave a few times a year when I was a child. I would watch my mother speak in a conversational tone free from the tenseness that colored her exchanges with my grandmother. I never heard her speak that way to anyone else, as life required her to be armored and guarded. It evidenced to me, in my early childhood, how my mother was also once a child. 

In Mask of the Phantasm, Bruce and Andrea speak to their parents’ gravestones in the same tone as my mother. Watching these scenes from the film was like watching my mother at the cemetery. I was a silent observer, listening, trying to make sense of the sadness that I felt. It was an intensely private experience, one that I never talked about with anyone my age. This is perhaps why Batman became so personal to me early on. He was a part of this emotional world of grief that I didn’t yet have the language to describe nor understand. 

I’ve only realized how melancholy Mask of the Phantasm is as an adult. This shows how, despite its thematic focus on grief, it formed such a central part of my identity in my childhood. Even though I understood that it was sad that I never got to meet my Gung Gung, I had such a limited scope as to why. For Batman in Mask of the Phantasm, his grief was never born out of the actual, violent loss of his parents, or even evidence of the event itself. This is a rarity, given how frequently the Waynes’ murders have been depicted in film and television over the years. Instead, it grew from the absence of his parents in his life once he became an adult. 

This spoke to the type of longing and grief I experienced as a child. The film doesn’t show Thomas and Martha’s murders. Instead, the story put Batman in this state of general grief where the inciting event took place outside the film’s scope. This closely paralleled my own life because my grandfather’s death happened before my birth. The loss of Bruce’s parents happened before the “birth” of Mask of the Phantasm’s plot and runtime. I may not have even known when I first saw the film that Bruce’s parents were murdered. It’s this ambiguity around their deaths that made it so easy for me to relate to Bruce. In this way, Mask of the Phantasm comforted me. Batman made me feel safe in the conflicting emotions I felt. 

As an adult, Mask of the Phantasm still speaks to me. It represents the pressures of wanting to honor the dead, while still retaining agency over your own future. It’s a story about the transformative power of grief, for both Batman and for Andrea, who is later revealed to be Phantasm, Gotham’s lethal masked vigilante. 

And yet, Mask of the Phantasm didn’t present a negative outlook for me moving forwards. While grief could be a part of me, it could never be all of me. The film itself echoes this because it isn’t entirely a tragedy. It’s also a thrilling noir and a coming-of-age story. Grief is a facet of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, but not the entire picture. In this way, I’ll always be grateful that I had Batman to teach me this vital lesson. 

The post BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM Taught Me How to Grieve as a Child appeared first on Nerdist.

Evil Dead Rise is at the crossroads of contemporary horror. Typically, horror cinema has worked by stimulating its audience physically, psychologically, or any combination thereof. Splatter films invite the squeamish among us to keel over and feel sick, while science fiction horror functions as an advertisement for staying home. But Evil Dead Rise marries both the existential horror popularized over the last ten years with the chaotic, physical violence of the Evil Dead franchise. The film is a rickety, wooden theme park ride, and is all the more fun because of it. 

The Evil Dead movies have, largely, based themselves in stimulating their audience however they can. The campiness of Sam Raimi’s original trilogy (Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness) mixed hilarity with gore, powered by Raimi’s distinct, no-holds-barred directorial voice and Bruce Campbell’s enthusiastic Ash Williams. We’re invited to laugh while we scream. Fede Álvarez’s 2013 Evil Dead dropped the comedy of the original films to double down on gore, executed with impressive practical effects. 

With this in mind, Evil Dead Rise has a lot to measure up to. From Irish director/writer Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), Evil Dead Rise follows guitar technician Beth (Lily Sullivan) as she visits her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), in Los Angeles. Ellie is a single mother living in a high rise with her three children, Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher). After an earthquake in their building uncovers the cursed Book of the Dead, also known as the Necronomicon, a demonic force possesses Ellie, forcing the remaining family members to fight for their lives. 

Cronin’s thoughtful writing and measured direction, coupled with powerful performances from Sutherland, Sullivan, and Echols in particular, makes Evil Dead Rise an utterly terrifying thrill ride. While not as gory as the 2013 film, the film’s scares are like arrows carefully nocked and released, aimed squarely at the audience’s vulnerabilities. The film’s directorial precision is one of its strongest areas. Cronin clearly knows when to hold back and when to let all hell break loose. This helps keep Evil Dead Rise from feeling too overloaded with its attempts to scare us. After all, the horror set pieces can only work in contrast to safe, character-building scenes. Without giving too much away, the film’s scenes in a high-rise elevator will have the same effect that Jaws had on beaches in the summer of 1975. 

Evil Dead Rise benefits from being both disturbing and terrifying. It’s a rare balance that makes it memorable against other contemporary demonic possession films. It operates like The Exorcist, but for mothers. Considering Cronin’s previous film also dealt with the relationship between a mother and child, Evil Dead Rise’s thematic focus fits expertly within his wheelhouse. 

While demon-possessed mothers is by no means a new idea to horror, Evil Dead Rise succeeds in recreating what made Reagan’s possession in The Exorcist so disturbing. Like with Reagan, we fully understand who Ellie was before this horrible force entered her life. This makes her later transformation both tragic and terrifying, because we already have an emotional foundation for her character. Sutherland’s gnarly, teeth-gnashing performance as the Deadite Ellie sells this unadulterated evil even further. It’s absolutely one of the film’s highlights. Additionally, Davies, Echols, and Fisher play off each other so well as Ellie’s children that we feel just as terrified, and disturbed, as they do when they see their mother become a monster. 

Given how many horror films about possession currently exist, this is no easy feat. Evil Dead Rise vanquishes its lesser contemporaries by building the humanity of its characters before ripping them to shreds. While this seems like a simple enough task, it is frustratingly rare to see in American studio horror films. Gone are the days where Evil Dead’s characters make the stupidest decisions possible, and act like fodder for Cabin in the Woods-type commentary. Here, Evil Dead Rise takes Evil Dead’s extreme physical violence a step further by adding emotional violence that will leave audiences feeling battered, but not hopeless. 

That said, some fans of Álvarez’s 2013 film may find Cronin’s thematic focus to be an obstacle impeding them from their gory spectacles. Cronin’s film certainly doesn’t have the same level of nastiness as its predecessor. I found that to be a boon, considering that there are children in this story. Thankfully, Cronin wisely skirts misogynist tropes that have bogged down horror cinema’s representation of motherhood, making Evil Dead Rise a refreshing entry for this decade. While motherhood is the entry point into the film’s world of horrors, it is never at the expense of the characters, or their bodies. Evil Dead has a rocky history of violating cisgender women’s bodies for spectacle, but Evil Dead Rise abandons this for good. Given that it’s 2023, it’s about time. 

Evil Dead Rise may tread familiar territory, but its strong character relationships, directing, and thematic focus make it a welcome entry into one of horror’s longest running franchises. Its commitment to both emotional horror and thrilling gore showcases how studio horror films can still exhibit the scrappy spirit of independent flicks. Long live the Evil Dead. 

Evil Dead Rise ⭐ (5 of 5)

The post EVIL DEAD RISE Is an Exhilarating Apartment Horror Thrill Ride appeared first on Nerdist.

Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 4 is a masterful reimagining of a classic horror video game. Its release could not come at a more pertinent time for the horror genre as a whole. Remakes have drawn some ire by those who see them as the capitalization of nostalgia. However, Resident Evil 4’s remake brings to light the ways horror has developed since the original in 2005. And while Resident Evil 4’s remake feels like the more mature older sibling to the original, they still bear the same campy DNA that boldly rejects the recent trend of prestige horror. 

Resident Evil 4 chronicles Leon S. Kennedy six years after the events of Resident Evil 2. Now a battle-hardened secret service agent, Leon travels to Spain on a mission. In order to rescue the President’s daughter, Ashley Graham, he has to fight a cult called Los Illuminados. The original Resident Evil 4 introduced a more action-oriented feel to the Resident Evil franchise. Beyond just the game’s third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective that departed from the earlier games’ fixed camera angles, Leon S. Kennedy’s swaggering action man bravado and emo pretty boy looks brought a new type of masculinity to the franchise. The game is as committed to campiness and B-movie aesthetics as it is to its terrifying scares. 

Over the past ten years, people have used prestige horror to describe cerebral, arthouse horror films. These include movies like The VVitch, Hereditary, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse. The term largely exists to differentiate these films from the genre’s perceived “lowbrow” fare. For some, prestige horror films address serious human topics like grief, trauma, and alienation, making them worthy of critical attention. While many prestige horror films are great, the term itself is both condescending and ignorant of the genre’s history. Horror cinema has always addressed heavy human subjects; films like Get Out have just made it impossible for mass audiences to ignore it. 

Another facet that differentiates prestige horror from “regular horror” is the effect that it has on the audience. While films like Scream, Halloween, and Malignant all have an element of fun to their scariness, devotees of prestige horror are drawn to films that are traumatizing because of their “grown-up” subject matter. This isn’t to say that traumatizing horror is lesser than any other type of horror. There’s room at the table for everyone, and this diversity within the genre is why fans like myself are so passionate about it. But prestige horror has made it more difficult than ever for “fun horror” to get the critical recognition that it deserves. 

Resident Evil 4’s remake is here to change that. While the graphics, gameplay, and sound design have all been reimagined, Capcom has largely left the campy but terrifying tone of the original game intact. Leon Kennedy still delivers delightfully schlocky one-liners such as:
“Where’s everybody going? Bingo?”
“Nighty-night, knights.”
“Adios, you son of a bitch.”

Resident Evil fans know that the game is ridiculous–it’s why it’s the preeminent video game horror franchise in the first place. And Capcom’s embrace of its shameless fun seems at once charmingly retro and a defiant rejection of prestige horror. As wonderful as it was to see a game like The Last of Us get its due with a faithful HBO adaptation, the silliness of Resident Evil 4 is a reminder that horror should always leave room for laughter and artifice. 

It’s the humor of Resident Evil that gets at a larger truth about how fear works in horror. Fear is perhaps one of the oldest part of our brains, something that reminds us that we are animals. In some ways, we are also ashamed of this fact, because of how intrinsically connected fear is to our baser instincts. The way that we talk about fear, and the types of fear we privilege over others, is indicative of this fact. Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts about prestige horror is that it often doesn’t give space for accepting fear as a recurrent part of existence, just like humor. Fear doesn’t always need to make us feel bad. Sometimes we need to say something silly like, “Whoa! Goddamn, you’re a big boy!” to get through the horrors of everyday life. 

Still, this isn’t to say that Resident Evil 4’s remake is completely devoid of human topics – quite the opposite. The player comes across a diary entry written by a foreman unknowingly infected by Los Illuminados’ parasite. In just a few words, the game sets up the humanity of this character as he slowly loses his own autonomy. He apologizes to his daughter for not having been a better father. The game succinctly makes Los Illuminados’ leader, Saddler, all the more evil when the player finally reads the foreman’s last diary entry. It’s a mindless, dateless profession of how much of an honor it is to serve Saddler. Like any other Resident Evil game, RE4 remake chronicles how capitalism turns people into monsters, literally. But it doesn’t stop the game from being fun.

One of the most satisfying parts of the remake is its new vision of Leon S. Kennedy. He looks and feels every bit as exhausted and traumatized as he would. He survived the zombie apocalypse on his first day of work! Instead of feeling like an action figure like in the original game, actor Nick Apostolides’ Leon is emotionally intelligent (when he chooses to be) and empathetic to those who are at their most vulnerable. He’s a badass softie without the emotional constipation of The Last of Us’ Joel or God of War’s Kratos. Leon’s openness with both his own fear and his strategies for pushing through is an encouraging sight. In 2023, that feels, frankly, incredibly necessary. 

The remake’s impeccable gameplay, gripping sound design, gorgeous visuals, stellar performances, and perfect pacing has once again made Resident Evil 4 one of the greatest games of all time. But beyond the satisfying synthesis of its parts, the game is a triumph because of how it reframes what makes a piece of horror media “good” in 2023. As terrifying as the game’s Regeneradors are, Resident Evil 4’s remake doesn’t leave the player speechlessly traumatized. By definition, video games provide us with the opportunity to safely immerse ourselves in dangerous situations. The same has been said about horror as a genre. In an increasingly uncertain and terrifying world, games like Resident Evil 4’s remake provides us with an outlet to safely scream our heads off. And that’s exactly the type of energy I need right now.

The post RESIDENT EVIL 4 Remake Isn’t ‘Prestige Horror,’ It’s Better Than That appeared first on Nerdist.

Without a doubt, the most enduring horror video game of the 2000s is Resident Evil 4. Capcom’s classic game redefined the survival horror genre for an entire generation of gamers. Rather than just scaring the player at any given moment, survival horror provides additional challenges that forces the player to be strategic with limited resources like ammo, weapons, medicine, and more. Players must make smart, rational decisions in the face of fear to advance to the next part of the game. As such, survival horror games like Resident Evil challenge players to overcome the emotion and physiological response that the games bait them into. And no game does this quite like Resident Evil 4.

The Resident Evil franchise began in 1996, and was an instant success. The first three games used claustrophobic settings like dark, cramped hallways to generate a sense of terror for the player. In addition to this, the games’ use of a fixed third person camera added to that sense of dread. It would cut every time the character rounded a corner. The camera was stationary, often positioned at a low angle in the corner of the hallway, and facing the character as they ran forwards. This deliberately obscured what was around the corner, inviting the player and their imagination to come up with the worst possible scenario. It’s a type of gameplay that’s frustrating from today’s gaming standards. And that is in large part due to Resident Evil 4’s innovative changes in 2005. 

Resident Evil 4 features a third person, over-the-shoulder camera placement that puts the gamer directly above and behind the protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy. Action games use this perspective heavily because it presents a more ideal viewpoint for aiming a gun at targets. And, it balances the integration of the character within the game’s world, as well as the player’s immersion within the action. With this new element, the Resident Evil franchise left behind its fixed camera placements and frequent cuts for good, opting to use third person camera angles for remakes of its second and third games. Resident Evil 4 permanently changed the look and experience for future games. 

This perspective change rewrote the rules for Resident Evil’s scares, which is evident in the game’s opening sequence. No matter the medium, horror ultimately relies on the strategic reveal of new information. Resident Evil 4 revised the terms in which the player gains new information. Before, Resident Evil’s horror came from the deliberate obfuscation of the player’s vision and dark, cramped spaces. A new angle or source of light signified new information, and new terrors ahead. 

In contrast, Resident Evil 4 opens with a scene in foggy daylight, countering horror’s expected, dark settings. The game gives us as much information as possible about the village that Leon must venture through—and it’s absolutely horrifying. Our eyes and ears discern everything as “wrong” in some way. Instead of imploring the gamer’s imagination, the game presents us with an inescapable spectacle of people, not quite zombies, behaving unnaturally. The sound design follows the lead of its illuminated visuals with a barrage of ghastly taunts. Before we even enter the village, we can hear disembodied voices cursing at us. Those sounds form a disconcerting chorus that we can’t outrun no matter where we go. The sense of confusion activates our fight-or-flight response before we confront any of the villagers.  

At the time of Resident Evil 4‘s release, horror games largely encouraged the player to evade monsters, not directly attack them. For example, Silent Hill put the player in a regular person’s shoes as they tried to unravel a mystery with heavy psychological themes. Resident Evil 4, however, made the player a badass, even as they were fighting for their life. In doing so, survival game horror became not so much about putting together clues and solving puzzles. It also demanded that you hit headshots, and strategically conserved your ammo. For the sake of the character in your control, you had to fight off your own terror. 

Resident Evil 4‘s take on fear is significant, given the unique impact that fear has on our brain’s ability to process new information. When we are afraid, our brains direct resources away from our cerebral cortex, the area responsible for rational thought and planning. Those resources instead go towards our amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. This evolutionary design’s purpose is to keep us alive; however, it comes at a cost: our ability to think clearly. For action-heavy video games that require players to make thousands of decisions in a split-second over the course of the story, fear can become an invisible obstacle. 

Resident Evil 4 takes this into account, ramping up the feeling of immediacy between the player and its scares. The aforementioned camera placement brings the player physically, emotionally, and psychologically closer to Leon S. Kennedy. Instead of feeling like they are watching Leon take on enemies, like in Resident Evil 2, players become Leon. This brings a visceral sense of fear to the game, particularly in the opening scene. Leon could immediately die at the hands of a chainsaw-wielding villager if he gets too close. Leon is a smooth-talking action hero who previously survived a first day of work during the zombie apocalypse. But, he’s just as vulnerable as any of us would be in this scenario.

Frank Herbert famously wrote in his novel, Dune, that, “Fear is the mind-killer.” Resident Evil 4 invites players to discover the truth behind this sentiment. As the game’s innovations ramped up its scariness, it also brought action gameplay into a much more dire setting. All action games elicit some stress in the heat of battle. But Resident Evil 4 brings an entirely new wildcard into the fold: fear. There is no shortage of fiends for Leon Kennedy must fight off in the game; however, the true enemy that players must overcome is themselves. With the release of Resident Evil 4’s remake, it’s the perfect time to revisit why this game still terrorizes us decades later.

The post RESIDENT EVIL 4 Redefined Survival Horror for a Generation of Video Gamers appeared first on Nerdist.

It has been 10 years since Sony’s Santa Monica Studio released God of War: Ascension for PlayStation 3. The game laid the groundwork for the franchise’s future successes with 2018’s God of War and 2022’s God of War Ragnarök. A prequel to the rest of the God of War games, Ascension follows the Spartan warrior Kratos as he frees himself from the Furies of Greek mythology.

God of War: Ascension showcased the very best of what the PlayStation 3 had to offer as a console. It featured story beats and eye-popping action sequences rendered, impressively, in-game. This is where the God of War franchise began to diverge from other games of the PlayStation 3 era. Ascension spearheaded the push for seamless animation between cutscenes and actual gameplay. Instead of a noticeable decline in animation quality between the game’s cutscenes and gameplay, God of War: Ascension rendered both at the same depth. This would later become a unique part of the 2018 game, as it increased the immersiveness of the franchise. 

But beyond the technical achievements, God of War: Ascension has several shortcomings. These prove why the game’s 2018 overhaul was so necessary. While the game excels on a visual level, it does so at the expense of its protagonist, Kratos. Players get only a paper-thin sense of Kratos’s humanity, which often gets lost in the visual spectacle of the game—literally. And it is precisely because Kratos came off as more of an action figure than an actual human in God of War: Ascension, that he needed to become a fully-realized, force of nature protagonist in God of War 2018 and its sequel, God of War Ragnarök. 

Today, God of War’s Kratos is one of gaming’s most complex and nuanced characters. Kratos’ distinctive, scarred, ashy, and red-streaked appearance comes from the ashes and blood of his wife and daughter. He mistakenly killed his family while serving the Greek god of war, Ares. As a result, Kratos isn’t your run-of-the-mill berserker from ancient times. He’s a man deeply at odds with himself and the gods who led him to take so many lives. His character asks a simple question: when all of your value as a person is placed on killing, then what does it mean to keep on living?

With Kratos, God of War has always had the opportunity to marry its strongest selling point, action, with a gripping story and memorable characterization. This is what separates “good” action games from “great” action games. Video games are an interactive art form. But we return to them time and time again because we want emotional and psychological fulfillment. This is only possible through a story that connects with us on a human level. 

But for all of Ascension’s exhilarating moments, Kratos feels like an afterthought. The game opens with a heart-pounding scene where Kratos must battle his way out of his imprisonment by the Furies. He takes on hordes of monsters before he must fight the enormous being he was imprisoned in, Aegaeon the Hecatonchires. As the camera deftly keeps up with Kratos in battle, it does so from a great distance. It makes him appear tiny on-screen. 

Similarly, the sound design drowns out most of Kratos’ grunts and noises during the fight. Even as he earns the God of War franchise’s Mature rating by stomping heads and leaving a blood-soaked trail , the player doesn’t learn the physical costs of these actions for Kratos through the game’s sound design. In doing so, God of War: Ascension prioritizes the spectacle of the beings Kratos fights, rather than the spectacle of Kratos, a human being, fighting these creatures. 

This is an important distinction. It ultimately illustrates how the success of action games directly connects to our investment in their protagonist. Yes, obviously, none of this is real. But part of the magic of video games is when the game tricks us into believing that it is real for the character. Video games aren’t just a trick of the eye, ear, or even the mind. They’re a trick of our empathy.

It’s undeniable that God of War: Ascension was one of the most ambitious games of the PS3 era. But it ultimately proves why the God of War franchise needed to reinvent itself five years later. It’s not surprising that the 2018 God of War game featured a single shot camera that never cuts away from Kratos and his young son, Atreus. Now voiced with the commanding, heartbreaking clarity of actor Christopher Judge, Kratos bears the hallmarks of someone who has lived a life. This makes the player more than just an unseen force controlling the characters. It makes them a witness to a man trying to make up for the sins of his past.

In the end, God of War: Ascension makes the case for how M-rated action games need to become more than gratuitous violence and sex, not that either one of those are objectionable on their own. They need to follow up on what it means for their characters to experience them in the first place. Luckily for Kratos, God of War: Ascension was the wake-up call for recognizing his humanity.

The post 10 Years Later, GOD OF WAR: ASCENSION Is a Lesson in Building a Video Game Protagonist appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s new hit series, The Last of Us, continues to enthrall viewers with its emotional exploration of a post-apocalyptic world. Thus far, The Last of Us uses fantastical elements to radically reimagine a better world, even as its characters’ lives crumble around them. Interestingly, the series shows this better avenue through its treatment of chronic illness, whether it’s the real-world sicknesses that also exist in The Last of Us, or the fungal infections that serve as the catalyst for the show. By exploring the emotional, physical, and social realities of chronic illness, The Last of Us is refreshing in its conclusiveness about one basic truth. Eventually, our bodies break down, but that doesn’t mean our stories end. 

In the show’s seventh episode, “Left Behind,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her crush, Riley (Storm Reid), meander around an abandoned mall together. After Ellie finally kisses Riley, one of the Infected bites both of them. Ellie rampages in anger over their dire situation while Riley stays calm. Riley states that they have two options. They can shoot themselves so they can’t turn into the Infected. Or they fight the infection for as long as they can, together. “It ends this way sooner or later, right?” Riley says, “Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don’t quit, whether it’s two minutes, or two days, we don’t give that up.” 

This fate for Ellie and Riley continues the show’s exploration of queer relationships and illness. For the two girls, their infection is an impetus to stay together, rather than separate themselves. In many ways, this recalls the relationship between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in episode 3 (“Long, Long Time”). Bill and Frank, miraculously, avoid infection; however, Frank eventually falls terminally ill with a condition that was incurable even before apocalypse. Bill tenderly cares for Frank until the latter decides one day that he is ready to die. Surprisingly, Bill also takes a lethal dose of medication because he doesn’t want to continue living without his “life’s purpose”—Frank. 

It’s often said that horror is uniquely suited for discussing societal taboos that are “too jarring” in other genres. This is certainly the case for The Last of Us. The Infected represent some of the taboos that American, capitalist society is afraid to confront: illness and aging. Eventually, most of the Infected in The Last of Us explode into a fungus blossom after a period of time. Like humans, they also age and break down. So in effect, the characters’ fight to survive against the Infected isn’t so much a literal “man vs. zombie” situation. It is more a reckoning with what our eventual fate will be. 

Because illness often comes with age, we try make ourselves look younger for as long as we can. We are so fearful of falling ill and permanently changing that we pretend that it only happens to other people. As the characters’ reactions to the Infected show, the most horrifying part about falling ill or growing old isn’t the disease or age itself. Rather, it’s the isolation and abandonment that we associate with them. We fear the social death that precedes our final, physical death. 

And this is precisely why The Last of Us is so radical in its handling of Ellie and Riley’s infections, alongside Bill and Frank’s battle with chronic illness. When queer characters fall sick, however unfairly, they’re not alone. This is a major break from most mainstream narratives of chronic illness. It usually focuses on the healthy partner’s “bravery” for choosing to love someone who is going to die. But the truth of the matter is, as Riley says, we are all going to die. Death just comes earlier for some of us. By having characters united in this truth, The Last of Us exposes the hypocrisy in our culture’s view of chronic illness and disability.  

As a chronically ill queer person, I am deeply moved by how The Last of Us finds beauty in its most tragic moments. Despite being set unequivocally in a world of horrors, this show envisions a radical, queer space that is free of our culture’s most toxic attitudes towards illness, disability, and dying. It hurt to watch two young lesbians grapple with the unfairness of their own mortality; however, the show remains deeply committed in its refusal to concede to our expectations. The apocalypse in The Last of Us didn’t make people like Riley and Ellie more eager to abandon each other in the face of the inevitable. 

I am not on Riley and Ellie’s “two minutes or two days” timeline. But I do fear that one day, I won’t be able to get out of bed. My illness put a strain on my previous relationship. So, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of going through my next stages alone. I know the richness of life will continue to exist regardless of how bad my health gets; however, these latent fears are more difficult to shake off than I would like to admit. 

But there’s Ellie, who, like me, is just as much baffled by her own survival as she is scared of what she might become. In episode five (“Endure and Survive”), she admits to Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard) that she is afraid of “ending up alone.” And yet, in this episode, she races to patch up a wounded Joel (Pedro Pascal) instead of heeding his advice to leave him to die. For me, she represents how being chronically ill opens up a world of defiant possibilities. Getting hurt never needs to equate to death. Our survival hinges upon our ability to care for each other before the inevitable. And even though I can’t see what’s hurting me, I choose to keep going, like Riley and Ellie did. 

Bill and Frank celebrated aging because “older means we’re still here.” I have taken this idea to heart, for whatever lies ahead for me. 

The post THE LAST OF US Radically Captures the Reality of Living with Chronic Illness appeared first on Nerdist.

DC Studios recently unveiled chapter 1 of its development slate. And, to the delight of DC Comics fans everywhere, a Booster Gold television show is a part of this lineup. Booster Gold is a beloved character and former Justice Leaguer who absolutely deserves the opportunity to become a household name. Aside from being one of DC’s funniest heroes, Booster Gold has deep ties to both the DC multiverse and more lighthearted stories. These which will help differentiate this new era of DC film and television from its darker predecessors. But, there may be many new fans who aren’t as familiar with the comic origins of Booster Gold. Let’s take a dive into this character’s fun history.

The DC Comics History of Booster Gold

Booster Gold is emblematic of the comedic and satiric direction that many of DC’s biggest titles took in the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. He was created by the powerhouse DC writer/artist Dan Jurgens (The Death of Superman, Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time!) in 1986. First appearing in Booster Gold #1 by Jurgens, Mike DeCarlo, Tom Ziuko, and Agustin Mas, he went on to join the new Justice League the following year, which was later rebranded as the Justice League International. 

Perhaps the best way to describe Booster Gold is that he is a buffoon with a heart of gold. He unknowingly satirizes many elements of superheroism under capitalism. Booster Gold’s real name is actually Michael Jon Carter (a playful wink at science fiction conventions). He was born in the 25th century and found fame early on as a college football star.

Despite his talent, Carter became involved in betting. He lost all chance at a professional sports career after he purposely threw a game. With his good reputation soiled, Carter was only able to find work as a nighttime security guard at a museum. On a whim, he stole a superhero costume from the museum. And Booster Gold went back in time to the 20th century. With his 25th century tech, good looks, and ability to play to news cameras, Booster Gold instantly became a popular superhero. This was all without Carter having to prove much that he was up for the job, morally. Assisted by his sarcastic, skeptical robot pal named Skeets, Booster Gold hides the tragic elements of his life under the veneer of his megawatt smile. 

Booster Gold’s Powers, Personality, and Technology

Booster Gold does not have superpowers in the comics. He gets assistance only from his technology and knowledge of historical events in the 20th and 21st centuries. He puts on a great show for civilians as he flies around cities in his flashy suit fighting enemies with energy blasts while Skeets coaches him on his next move. More polished superheroes like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern can flawlessly stop a catastrophe from happening with zero collateral damage; however, Booster isn’t usually so lucky. Part of his charm is his failures, a running theme in his comics. 

Booster Gold is defined by his attempts to turn superheroism into a business, alongside his hilarious, over-the-top sense of confidence that is, at times, deeply out of touch with reality. This dynamic plays out brilliantly with his best friend, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord). Blue Beetle is a nervous worrier who reins in some of Booster’s most outlandish schemes. Their friendship was a key ingredient to the success of Justice League International, spearheaded by writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, with iconic art by Kevin Maguire. With Booster Gold and Blue Beetle on the roster, the Justice League became a much more approachable team for readers. They could easily imagine two well-meaning fools existing in everyday life under Ronald Reagan’s presidency. 

Booster Gold and His Importance in DC Comics’ Timeline and Multiverse

Though comic fans love Booster Gold’s his unique personality and values, he also has an important role in the timestream and multiverse in DC Comics. After Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle was tragically killed in the lead up to DC’s Infinite Crisis crossover event in 2005, it had lasting consequences for Booster. Geoff Johns, who wrote Infinite Crisis and would later go on to write and co-write multiverse-heavy stories like Flashpoint and Flashpoint Beyond. These stories instilled a greater, cosmic role for Booster Gold by revealing that he was the father of the time traveler, Rip Hunter, in Booster Gold #1000000. (This was co-written with Jeff Katz, with pencils by Dan Jurgens, finishes by Norm Rapmund, colors by Hi-Fi, and letters by Nick J. Napolitano.)

Rip Hunter is known principally as the leader of the Time Masters in the DC Universe. This group is responsible for maintaining the health of the timestream in the universe. By making Booster Gold the father of Rip Hunter, Johns added a sense of consequence to Booster’s lighthearted adventures. Before, Booster had shamelessly used his knowledge of historical events to find tragedies to thwart in the present day. Now, he understood the dangers of doing this.

As such, his second series—kickstarted by Geoff Johns in 2007 after the events of 52—explored his relationship with his ancestors in the present day. It eventually led into Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert’s 2011 Flashpoint crossover. This rebooted the DC multiverse ahead of its next era, the New 52. Booster Gold was recently spotlit in Dan Jurgens and Ryan Sook’s Blue and Gold series, which chronicled his and Blue Beetle’s attempt to launch a small business as superheroes.

As Blue and Gold shows, Booster’s motivations might not always be altruistic; however, he remains a lovable figure because of his desperate and slightly delusional optimism. In a world where cynical takes on superheroes abound, Booster Gold is refreshing because of his utter disregard for edginess. And it is this specific energy that DC Studios needs now more than ever.

The post Who Is DC Comics’ Booster Gold? His Comic Origins, Explained appeared first on Nerdist.

Avatar: The Way of Water is an impressive feat of world-building thanks to the level of detail in its visual effects. While the first Avatar film largely took place in a jungle environment on the planet of Pandora, The Way of Water takes Jake Sully, Neytiri, and their family out of their home environment and into Metkayina, where another Na’vi clan live on the edge of a coral reef. Metkayina’s ecosystem is teeming with aquatic life for both plants and animals. And a significant part of The Way of Water’s three-hour runtime explores this marine life with a nod to real science. And even though Pandora is an alien planet, Metkayina feels wonderfully lived-in, from apex predators all the way down to single-celled organisms. 

Avatar: The Way of Water‘s Balance of Real Science and Movie Magic

Creating visual effects for water is no small task, especially when a film takes place on a fictional planet with different physics than Earth. Unlike Earth, Pandora has multiple moons that are much closer to the surface of the planet than ours. Thus, Pandora’s moons would have a much different gravitational pull and effect on Pandora’s oceans. That said, the visual effects team at Wētā had to strike a balance between otherworldliness and believability. After all, a visual effects-heavy film like Avatar can quickly lose its immersiveness if the movements of characters and their environments look unnatural. So while the physics on Pandora are different than they are on Earth, the visual effects team decided to stick to Earthbound physics as much as they could. This made it so abnormal movements wouldn’t distract viewers.

Wētā FX Supervisor Jonathan Nixon explained that the team first built the film’s water effects off of reference footage. They then manipulated it according to the story’s needs. “A lot of that reference that’s based in reality then allowed for us to change when we needed to. Because if we didn’t have that real physics basis, if we started with, ‘Okay, the creature is nine feet tall, the water needs to behave this way,’ then it gets really hard to wrangle this back in when you start to wonder, ‘Why does this look right? This looks odd.’” 

The Real Waters of The Way of Water

And while The Way of Water has a certain otherworldly feel to it, inspiration for the film’s scenes in Metkayina came directly from places around our world. Wētā’s Visual Effects Supervisor Pavani Rao Boddapati explained that, “Bora Bora and several other tropical ecosystems are what we referenced. That’s where you get this abundant life that’s also not very deep. Because Metkayina, especially in the reef where they’re swimming, is not super deep, it’s seven meters at the most.”

In addition, director James Cameron traveled to the Bahamas and to New Zealand to capture reference footage of different aquatic environments. Even as the director of the film gathered reference footage from around the world, VFX artists were encouraged to shoot their own reference if they saw something in their everyday lives. “Your brain expands by just becoming more immersed in your actual reality,” Nixon noted, “It makes you a better artist.” This idea is part of what makes The Way of Water such an immersive film.

Bioluminescent Plant and Animal Life

One of the most striking parts about the aquatic environments in The Way of Water is the diversity of plant and animal life, with bioluminescence being a common factor. Boddapati and Nixon learned about ocean life from consulting with marine biologists from Aotearoa-New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). This proved especially helpful given the role that coral plays in Metkayina’s underwater environments.

All of the corals in Metkayina were classified as either “hard coral” or “soft coral,” which would affect their movement underwater. While “hard” corals are existent in tropical places like Bora Bora, “soft” corals don’t actually exist in real life, so the team would seek out reference footage of other species of coral that resembled what they wanted the end result to be. The marine biologists were quick to remind the VFX team that corals are animals, not plants, making The Way of Water a delightful crash course in underwater life. 

Another unique part about The Way of Water’s visual effects was how it used bioluminescence, a phenomenon that hasn’t appeared a lot in films since the first Avatar in 2009. The Na’vi, like many other life forms on Pandora, have bioluminescent skin, often arranging themselves in dots around their faces. And while bioluminescence is part of the Na’vi’s character designs, it still needed to feel motivated in the story. The team had to determine when the bioluminescent dots on the Na’vi would turn off and on.

This also apply to the plants in Metkayina, as some would light up when someone touched them, while others remained lit up on their own. Boddapati explained that the underwater bioluminescence was “ten times more challenging” because of the variables necessary for it to look believable. After the VFX team first learned from a biological standpoint what bioluminescence is and how it actually works, they faced an even greater challenge: bringing it to life underwater. 

The Dinoflagellates of Pandora

For bioluminescence on Pandora, the team used Earth’s dinoflagellates as the foundation. Dinoflagellates are single-celled organisms in coral reefs, and create bioluminescence themselves. In nature, dinoflagellates’ bioluminescence activates when they are agitated; they give off a blue-green glow that lasts for a short time until the energy that powers their bioluminescence burns out. Nixon stated that the team used this same principle for the underwater bioluminescence in Way of Water.

For nighttime underwater scenes, they first isolated variables from their VFX water simulations like velocity and aeration decay. Then, knowing that dinoflagellates glow for a set amount of time in response to agitation, timed the bioluminescence in the water in accordance with the simulation’s velocity and aeration decay. This is why when a character kicks their feet around in the water, the water begins to glow around them. Together, this enhances the characterization of water in the film as a living, breathing character in its own right. 

2009’s Avatar was a groundbreaking film for visual effects, and The Way of Water is an excellent successor. Beyond its jaw-dropping, alien spectacle, The Way of Water feels like a love letter to life on Earth. It builds a sense of poetry through the ecosystem in Metkayina. In a world where blockbusters increasingly lay on jargon like the multiverse, and concepts related to quantum physics, Avatar: The Way of Water’s attention to marine biology is a refreshingly grounded marriage between science and the human imagination.

_{This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!}

The post The Real Marine Science Behind AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER appeared first on Nerdist.

Avatar: The Way of Water is an outstanding feat of world-building, largely due to the visual effects on the film. A sequel to the 2009 Avatar film, The Way of Water is the long-awaited second installment in a planned five film series from director James Cameron. Set on the planet of Pandora with its nine foot tall aliens known as the Na’vi, the Avatar franchise explores the tensions between them and their imperialist invaders: humans. The first film gained critical acclaim for its achievements in visual effects; however, public opinion on it derided its familiar, Disney’s Pocahontas-type story. But, The Way of Water surpasses its predecessor’s visual splendor. The film uses its spectacle as the basis for a new type of genre storytelling with VFX leading the way.

The Way of Water focuses on the interactions between different Na’vi tribes and their environment on Pandora. The film introduces a new tribe, the Metkayina. They live on a different part of the planet near a coral reef. In contrast to the jungle-dwelling Na’vi from the first film, the Metkayina are powerful swimmers and divers. They have a unique connection to the plant and animal life underwater. Therefore, a significant part of The Way of Water’s run time is devoted to exploring the Metkayina’s underwater environment. The film’s gorgeous visual effects makes this environment feel like a real, living ecosystem. And this comes to life thanks to the research that the VFX team did on similar ecosystems on Earth. 

In this way, The Way of Water’s visual effects achieve an unprecedented sense of immersion between the film’s environments, human characters, Na’vi characters, and animal characters. Instead of using VFX only as a means for providing an exciting visual spectacle, The Way of Water’s effects directly place the viewer in the world that it has created, which came through an innovative and novel approach. The film was shot stereoscopically, in 3D, with specific attention towards guiding the viewer’s point of focus. During a film press conference, producer Jon Landau described the team’s approach to 3D as “a window into a world, and not a world coming out of a window.” The stereoscopic process mirrors human vision, capturing the world through two different “cameras” a.k.a. human eyes. The brain then composites the two images into one three-dimensional picture. 

Additionally, the film’s immersive feel began in production. Wētā FX devised a new Simulcam that bridged the difference between live action and CG. This Simulcam provided a layered composite image through an eyepiece while shooting. It could show how characters could fit in front of, or behind, layers on-screen. This layering was a crucial difference, especially in a film with so many CG characters walking around CG environments. Landau explained it as the difference between showing “a weatherman in front of a screen,” versus having a “weatherman [walk] through the clouds.”

Because of this, The Way of Water feels lightyears ahead of the egregious, flat-looking CGI of recent blockbusters. In visualizing how characters move and interact between layers in their environment during production, The Way of Water prioritizes building an immersive world. But even as The Way of Water strove for immersive realism, it wasn’t afraid to create a hyperreal environment during its action scenes. During certain fight sequences in the film, the frame rate increased from the standard 24 frames per second to 48 frames per second.

This increased the amount of visual information the audience took in with characters’ movements, lending a hyperreal effect to the action. Lightstorm Visual Effects supervisor, virtual second unit director, and executive producer Richie Baneham explained that this decision was motivated from “an experiential standpoint.”

With characters moving more quickly, capturing the scene at a higher rate brings more attention to their bodies in motion. Like the characters fighting for their lives, the audience switches into a state of hyper-awareness about what is taking place. This sporadic use of high frame rates evidences The Way of Water’s mastery of VFX as a malleable cinematic tool. And, this decision is even more impressive considering most of the characters are CG and the stereoscopically shot footage. Why? Because this drastically lengthened the rendering process. But as impressive as this is, it’s grounded by a clear artistic goal of making the intangible feel real. The “experiential” element is the key ingredient to The Way of Water’s VFX. 

Yet another way that The Way of Water’s VFX sets a new standard is in the interactions between CG characters and human characters. Spider (Jack Champion), a new human character, fits seamlessly into CG environments. His interactions with Na’vi characters feel authentic thanks to new technology developed to aid the actor’s performance. Many films that use motion and performance capture today with an actor playing a non-human character utilize a tennis ball. The creative team mounts it on or around the actor’s body to show other actors where they should look.

This ensures that the eyelines between all the characters in the scene remain consistent. This is crucial when you have, say, six foot tall Thor talking to eight foot tall Hulk. The tennis ball allows for actors in the same scene to respond to each other’s performances; however, neither of them are able to look directly at each other’s faces. This can have an unnatural feel for the actors. 

The Way of Water devised a solution to this problem, which came in handy for Spider’s tense scenes with Quaritch (Stephen Lang). The team created a “Spidercam” rig that mounted a screen with Lang’s live performance at the correct level. They could move the “Spidercam” around the set to match Quaritch’s movements. This ensured that Champion could react to Lang’s performance in a much more natural way that mimicked a “one-to-one performance live on set,” according to Senior VFX Supervisor, Joe Letteri.

The actors’ performances in The Way of Water got a powerful boost by this setup, lending a more believable feel to their characters’ relationships in the film. It is a compelling case for how this new technology can be used as a world-building tool, rather than just a plain spectacle. The film’s fresh approach to VFX builds the audience’s emotional investment in the characters and their environments. It makes Pandora feel like a real, living place. Beyond the film’s jaw-dropping action scenes, The Way of Water succeeds visually because Pandora is a world worth building in the first place.

The post AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER’s VFX Set a New Standard for Sci-Fi World-Building   appeared first on Nerdist.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has radically expanded the potential of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Its presentation of Namor the Sub-Mariner proves that it is ready for the X-Men. Though Namor isn’t the first mutant to appear in the MCU, his particular condition as a Meso-American survivor of Spanish imperialism speaks to the core themes of the X-Men comics. And since Black Panther: Wakanda Forever depicts the complexities of liberation amidst the threat of imperialism, it is the perfect vessel to pilot what the MCU’s X-Men can offer. 

Wakanda Forever follows Princess Shuri and Queen Ramonda as they grieve the loss of King T’Challa. At the same time, their country is in a tense era of international politics, as countries like the United States and France are suspicious of their supply of vibranium. This comes to a head when a covert American operation to find more vibranium threatens the underwater kingdom of Talokan. Its leader, Namor, vows to destroy the surface world to prevent the continued genocide of his people. It then must fall on Shuri to choose if Wakanda’s fate lies with Talokan, or the rest of the world.

Beyond just having Namor, a mutant, in the film, Wakanda Forever beautifully sets up what an X-Men movie could look like in the MCU through its handling of political topics. This is primarily achieved through its reenvisioning of Namor’s identity. Namor has explicitly been non-white in the comics, vocally declaring a vendetta against all white men from the very beginning. However, his arched eyebrows and racially-ambiguous appearance never pointed to a specific human culture he had ancestry from. 

Wakanda Forever takes a much firmer stance. It rewrites his comics origin by making him the protector of an Indigenous community in the Yucatan. Known to his people as K’uk’ulkan, the Sub-Mariner got the name “Namor” when a Spanish missionary called him “el niño sin amor.” Thus, Namor’s Indigenous background is an integral part of his character in the MCU. Beyond the fact that Tenoch Huerta, an Indigenous actor, plays Namor, his politics, anxieties, and hopes for his people stem from his experiences with Spanish imperialism. 

This characterization of Namor is significant, because it echoes the principles that have guided X-Men comics for nearly 50 years now. While the X-Men had been around in Marvel Comics since 1963, they were revolutionized in the mid-1970s. Beginning with 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, and continuing through writer Chris Claremont’s legendary X-Men and New Mutants runs, the X-Men focused heavily on the unique ethnic and cultural backgrounds of its characters.

Previously, the team had been largely white American. However, with the introduction of mutants from around the world like Storm (of Kenyan descent), Colossus (Russian), and Nightcrawler (a Catholic from Germany), in addition to Indigenous mutants like Thunderbird (Apache), the X-Men found their footing with a more diverse cast. While the cast of Giant-Size X-Men may not seem as diverse by 2022 standards, it was revolutionary at the time to feature Russian and German characters who weren’t villains. 

By approaching Marvel’s Merry Mutants through a culturally-conscious lens, X-Men comics tied mutant identity to contemporary political issues. Since mutations either manifested from birth, or later in life in response to extreme stress, they came to reflect unique problems faced by marginalized groups. For instance, New Mutants member Karma (Xi’an Coy Manh) gained her ability to possess people during the Vietnam War. She took control of a North Vietnamese soldier who was about to kill her younger brother. For many X-Men characters, their mutant identities and marginalized identities are deeply entwined. By grounding mutants within the lived experiences of people from around the world, Claremont’s X-Men illustrated how mutant identity was not monolithic. 

And yet, this straightforward handling of Namor’s cultural background is something the X-Men films have largely shied away from. With the exception of Magneto, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, the X-Men films left out the comics’ emphasis on cultural specificity. Banshee, an Irish mutant whose wife died in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, was American in X-Men: First Class. More troublingly, Sunspot, an Afro-Brazilian mutant who got his powers while defending himself from anti-Black racism, has never been played by an Afro-Brazilian actor. Beyond just whitewashing, the omission of these characters’ identities also omits their political perspectives as mutants. Thus, the discourse in the Fox films is limited by a white American sense of homogeny. 

As such, the MCU should use Wakanda Forever’s vision of Namor as the basis for assembling its X-Men cast. Fox’s X-Men films went astray when they stopped exploring the complexities in the fight for liberation. This is the essential drama of the comics, and the essential drama of Wakanda Forever. Magneto may be a standout character, as a radical militant Holocaust survivor, but he’s so much better when he’s in the company of other mutants whose identities enrich the metaphor. By taking a culturally-conscious route, the MCU’s X-Men can embody the comics’ most radical idea. A diverse group of marginalized people can lead the world to a better place, without flattening out the differences between them. 

Overall, Wakanda Forever proves that the MCU can handle topics like imperialism and genocide in a setting that is both fantastical and politically engaged. These elements are also the core of Marvel’s current era of X-Men comics. The radical reimagining of Namor proves the MCU has the capacity to fully commit to the cultural specificities guiding X-Men. But more than that, it can truly thrive when it embraces complexity over uniformity.

The post WAKANDA FOREVER Shows How the MCU Should Handle the X-Men appeared first on Nerdist.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever may have introduced Namor as its most nuanced villain yet. But it also revealed the true villain of this next phase of the MCU: CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. First appearing in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been a mysterious figure. She brought characters like U.S. Agent and Black Widow’s Yelena Belova to her Thunderbolts team. This is similar to how Nick Fury appeared in post-credit scenes in Phase One MCU films, leading to the first Avengers team in the MCU. But as Wakanda Forever shows, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is actually the next big villain in the MCU. 

Wakanda Forever captures Black Panther’s nation at a watershed moment in international politics. The nation’s secret supply of vibranium now public information. And imperial superpowers like the United States want to obtain the most valuable natural resource in the world. Tensions escalate further when the US blames Wakanda for attacking an American ship that was looking for vibranium. As it turns out, the technology powering the Americans’ search came from 19-year-old Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne). This has placed her in the sights of both Wakanda and the underwater kingdom of Talokan. With Wakanda’s public image under threat, the nation’s only foreign ally is CIA agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), the ex-husband of de Fontaine. 

The film’s biggest battles are fought between Shuri’s Wakanda and Namor’s Talokan; however, their real enemy is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Both Shuri and Namor fear that their nations will be exploited by Western powers for their vibranium. We soon discover that their fears are valid. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine later explosively admits in a very MCU-villany way that she “dreams” of a world where the United States controls the global supply of vibranium. In a meeting with her colleagues at the CIA, including Ross, de Fontaine is eager to go to war with Wakanda if it means gaining their vibranium. As such, Wakanda Forever paints de Fontaine’s true motivations as deeply imperialistic. 

While imperialism isn’t new in the MCU, de Fontaine’s embodiment of it is. Previously, the MCU has represented imperialism through aliens like Thanos and Thor: Ragnarok’s Hela. Despite their horrifying actions, these villains’ imperialism was presented with a degree of removal because of the fact that they weren’t human. It’s easier to ignore the similarities between Thanos’ paternalistic rhetoric in Avengers: Infinity War and the United States’ history when the former is an eight foot tall alien with purple skin. This violent human operation can be dismissed as pure fiction. 

But Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is drastically different for one reason: she’s human. And more than that, her appearance goes against the villainy that the MCU has conditioned fans to recognize. De Fontaine’s purple streak of hair, “girlboss” attitude, and performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus lulls fans into a false sense of security. She’s quirky, so she can’t be that evil, even if she’s the director of the CIA, right? How bad can Elaine from Seinfeld be when U.S. Agent is running around murdering people in broad daylight? 

And this is precisely the point. By dressing up de Fontaine’s imperialism under the guise of a quirky white American woman, Wakanda Forever continues Black Panther’s damning exposé of audience expectations. Neither Namor nor Killmonger were the true villains of either Black Panther film. The common evil denominator is US imperialism. Agent Ross admitted that Killmonger learned how to enter and destabilize countries like Wakanda from the American military. Namor is only at war with Wakanda because an American ship of Navy SEALs threatened his underwater kingdom, and blamed it on Wakanda. 

De Fontaine’s grinning face and affinity for Peloton is a veneer that places her squarely within a recognizable world for the audience. In doing so, Wakanda Forever makes a point to say that this villain is more like us than we want to admit to. While Tony Stark was having anxiety attacks in Iron Man 3 about the Chitauri invasion from Avengers, a real threat to global stability was percolating in Virginia. Audiences were taught to fear Ultron and other robots because of their callous nature and capacity for violence. But we see those same behaviors by de Fontaine in Wakanda Forever. The call is coming from inside the house. 

This change breaks a crucial rule about the MCU’s representation of the American government. Before, in films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, villains in the US government were “bad apples” in a good bunch. Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce is a uniquely bad person within the World Security Council. He’s an evil that “good” people like SHIELD director Nick Fury must balance out. Pierce was an anomaly working covertly within the system for nefarious purposes, but de Fontaine is much different. She’s an evil person with support and subsequent enablement by the system and American foreign policy.

De Fontaine isn’t unique. She’s simply a reflection of American interests in the twenty-first century. It is fitting then that she is the one who handcuffs Ross, the only “good” CIA agent, in his own home for his treasonous decision to aid the Wakandans. The role that de Fontaine plays in Wakanda Forever hints at the important shift for women in the MCU’s future. Though the MCU has more female heroes, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s turn as a villain is refreshing.

In many ways, de Fontaine is the foil of Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, an early advocate for Wakanda’s global outreach programs. In this sense, characters’ feelings towards vibranium are now the perfect litmus test for separating the good from the bad. By revealing to the world the secret behind their technological innovation, Wakanda learned who their true enemies are. And as Wakanda Forever evidences, they are much closer than they thought. Let’s see how de Fontaine plays into Phase 5 of the MCU.

The post The MCU’s Next Big Villain Is Hiding in Plain Sight appeared first on Nerdist.

Namor is the latest character to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And his arrival heralds a change in the type of characters that Marvel Studios chooses to spotlight. Known in the comics as the half-human ruler of Atlantis, Namor the Sub-Mariner occupies a unique place in the Marvel universe. It is certainly one that Wakanda Forever takes advantage of, giving Namor an air of untouchability that separates him from Marvel’s street-level heroes. Namor’s Atlantean background is different in the MCU; however, his new origin story hints at how the MCU will present characters in the future. By emphasizing Namor’s power as a mythological being, Wakanda Forever affirms that speculative storytelling is the way of its future.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever follows the late King T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, and her mother, Queen Ramonda. They, along with the nation of Wakanda, try to heal from their family’s losses in a rapidly changing world. Wakanda Forever details the country’s new place in geopolitics after T’Challa’s decision to reveal their technological innovation to the world. Western powers like the United States and France want nothing more than to plunder Wakanda’s vibranium.

These outsiders even have covert missions to try to locate sources of the precious metal around the world. But when Namor and the vibranium-rich kingdom of Talokan strike back against these Western powers, Shuri and Ramonda must make a choice. They will either join him or remain isolated for their own protection. And, through Shuri’s interactions with him, we uncover the full scope of his mythological background—one that informs the story in a fresh way.

One of the most distinctive aspects about Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is its emphasis on the folk over the mythic. Many parts of the superhero genre are rooted in classical archetypes; however, Marvel Comics’ emphasis on character relatability has driven its success for the past sixty years. It is the foundation for why everyman heroes like Spider-Man have become such pop culture juggernauts.

Audiences can better imagine themselves in outlandish fantasy settings when the characters seem plucked from everyday life. This has only been accelerated by the success of the MCU. Even Thor, a Norse god, can be a bro playing Fortnite in his sweats. And the MCU’s more far-fetched teams like Guardians of the Galaxy still feature grounded elements. Its cybernetically-enhanced raccoon has a voice like Joe Pesci and its half-human leader is bad at dancing. 

And yet, 2021’s Eternals saw the MCU moving towards a more mythic tone with characters who are firmly god-like. Rather than being your next door neighbor, the Eternals are the basis for the oldest and most persistent myths in human history. The collective wonders if their love for humanity, with all of its flaws, can overcome their cosmic programming. These are problems no ordinary human would ever have to think about. But relatability should never be the primary metric for a story’s effectiveness. Eternals remains a divisive film between critics, fans of the comics, and MCU fans, precisely because its perspective is quite different from other films in the franchise. However, Wakanda Forever shows that this shift will continue to take the MCU to new heights. 

By introducing Namor, the MCU doubles down on its commitment to mythic elements. It’s a decision that will test whether or not the franchise can thrive without underhanded reliability at its core. Mythic characters are significant not just because they contrast the humanity of folk heroes like Spider-Man. They are also vital because they are built on possibility, rather than plausibility. Whether or not a mutant like Namor could exist is negligible in the world of the MCU. Mythic stories are more concerned with exploring the limits of possibility, rather than explaining their inner logic. As such, it’s not an accident that a mythic character like Namor appears in Wakanda Forever. He echoes the spirit of possibility that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s characters and world are guided by.

The decision to create a new kingdom for Namor based in Mayan culture is a sign of how the MCU will continue to approach mythic stories. As Namor explains in the film, Talokan was born out of the atrocities of Spanish imperialism. Its formation was a last-ditch effort by his people to save themselves from the diseases that the Spanish had brought. Thus, Talokan’s secrecy is how Namor protects his people from genocide. His whispered, rumored status in the surface world isn’t just an aesthetic exercise or a facet of his personality. It’s an illustration of how the mythic as an idea can be reimagined as an anti-imperialist tool.

As such, between Wakanda Forever and Eternals, the MCU is using mythic characters to illustrate the weight of collective problems that go beyond asking your crush to the homecoming dance. For many people, the greatest threat imaginable isn’t a purple alien with a cosmic glove. It is the pervasive reality of state-sanctioned imperialism.

The MCU has been enormously successful because of its relatable characters. But the realms of possibility put forth by Namor in Wakanda Forever set a new bar for how the MCU can reinvent itself in the future. If the MCU is to remain fresh, it must require its fans to choose possibility over plausibility. If this continues, the combination of myth and the MCU might lead to its best era yet.

The post How WAKANDA FOREVER’s Namor Changes the Future of the MCU appeared first on Nerdist.

Werewolf by Night is the latest Marvel Comics character to enter the MCU. His body horror-filled Disney+ special provides the perfect template for the introduction of the Fantastic Four. Fans are eagerly awaiting the MCU debut of Marvel’s first superhero team, especially given their spotty history on-screen thus far. And as Werewolf by Night shows, the MCU could nail a Fantastic Four reboot by leaning into the more horrific parts of their stories. 

Werewolf by Night’s use of body horror isn’t unprecedented in the superhero genre. In fact, body horror is an essential force guiding fans’ conceptions of superheroes like the Fantastic Four. The superhero genre, at its core, whether through comics, film, or television, focuses around the body. As the lowest common denominator between character and fan, the body connects the outlandish adventures of superheroes to the regular people who find them fascinating. It’s what makes the sight of bullets ricocheting off of Superman’s unperturbed face so impactful. Audiences know the fragility of their own human flesh. In this way, the superhero genre takes what is ordinary and transforms it into the extraordinary, and occasionally, the monstrous.

As such, the Fantastic Four are the definitive Marvel Comics team. The group represents the genre’s emphasis on the body. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961, they embody the core tenets that guided Marvel Comics during the creatively fruitful Silver Age of Comics. The team is led by Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), one of the smartest men in the Marvel Universe, who can stretch his body in superhuman ways. His wife, the Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), can generate force-fields in addition to making herself invisible. Sue’s brother, The Human Torch (Johnny Storm), can turn his body into a flying ball of fire. The Thing (Ben Grimm), a towering rock monster with super strength on par with the Hulk, rounds out the team. And while the Hulk can transform back into his human self as Bruce Banner, the Thing is permanently stuck in this form.

Unlike popular comics heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel (later known as Shazam), the Fantastic Four were not classical hero archetypes from myths and magic. Instead, they were decidedly modern heroes, with a heavy scientific influence that spoke to mid-century technological advancement. With the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics hammered out a thesis that would define their heroes for the rest of the century: heroes are made, not born. 

The Fantastic Four’s unique DNA as superheroes builds from their origin story, which later became the blueprint for Marvel’s superheroes going forward. As depicted in Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four #1, the group embarked on a trip to research “cosmic rays” in space. When their spaceship collided with the cosmic storm, the rays breached the hull of the ship. They then passed through each member. After their ship crashed, the members emerged with horrifying superpowers. As such, the circumstances of the Fantastic Four’s origin not only reflected the Cold War’s Space Race, but also a world where humanity’s technological prowess could lead to irreversible bodily change.

With this in mind, it isn’t difficult to see how Werewolf by Night stems from the Fantastic Four’s legacy. Partway through the special, Gael García Bernal’s Jack Russell transforms into his werewolf form. The camera focuses on Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly’s) terrified expression as the monster’s shadow dances across the wall behind her. This mimics the effect of Fantastic Four #1. In the issue, both character and reader unite in shared shock as Ben Grimm’s human face permanently transforms into the Thing. Even as Werewolf by Night runs through superhero theatrics, dispatching bad guys with balletic grace, he remains unquestionably a monster. And like the Fantastic Four, his monstrosity isn’t an innate quality, but something that happens to him, against his will. To watch Werewolf by Night, or to read Fantastic Four, is to bear witness to the ambiguous separations between superheroism and monstrosity. 

This theme of superhoism and monstrosity is another key element to the Fantastic Four’s identities. Werewolf by Night excellently pilots this by hitting familiar fight sequence beats through a stylized Universal monster look. With this unabashed indulgence in the legacy of monster movies, Marvel Studios proves it’s ready to tackle the most central question of the Fantastic Four as a group: is all heroism itself a form of monstrosity?

The Fantastic Four’s previous adaptations have fallen short of addressing this question, and have suffered for it. This powerful question challenges fans’ understanding of how heroism works in the MCU. One of the most iconic shots in the Captain America movies reveals Steve Rogers’ chiseled form after Dr. Erskine injects him with the Super Soldier Serum in Captain America: The First Avenger. The heroic music and awestruck looks from the people in the room fill the scene with a sense of benevolence, rather than horror.

Seeing skinny Steve Rogers transformed into a muscular hunk through the miracle of science sets the stage for the MCU’s handling of bodily change and heroism. His physical exceptionalism is intended to be seen as an expression of his noble ideals. In other words, he’s a hero because he’s different, while still remaining familiar enough that he isn’t seen as threatening or villainous.

The Fantastic Four don’t have this luxury. Their freakishness can enhance the MCU’s heroic diversity if Marvel Studios applies the same level of commitment seen in Werewolf by Night. While audiences have accepted an alien tree and a talking raccoon as valid superheroes, the Fantastic Four illustrate the visceral costs and conditions to being a superhero that other characters in the MCU simply don’t experience. The Super Soldier Serum may have rapidly transformed Captain America, but his handsome face and muscles makes him easily accepted by society. On the other hand, the Thing’s civilian identity as Ben Grimm functionally died the day that cosmic rays hit him. He can’t exist in public without people seeing him as a monster, or as a superhero. The Thing is unrecognizable to those who knew him as Ben Grimm.

Likewise, in one striking moment in Daredevil #261 by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr., the Human Torch describes the terror he feels every time he fires up his powers, not knowing if this time, his superpowers will simply burn him alive. Body horror is built into who the Fantastic Four are as superheroes. Building their MCU debut around this concept will invite fans to consider heroism within a more critical lens. 

The Fantastic Four are at their best when their stories take the weight of their experiences and bodily changes into account. Though buzzwords and concepts like the multiverse are all the rage right now in the MCU, it shouldn’t distract from the simple, human truth that the Fantastic Four have brought to Marvel Comics. The group shows that heroism can be an intensely isolating experience. It’s not always something chosen by those “gifted” with superpowers. The Fantastic Four have bravely been the face of the fine line between freakishness and heroism in Marvel Comics. By digging into this part of their story, Marvel Studios has the chance to finally give the group the adaptation they deserve.

The post WEREWOLF BY NIGHT’s Body Horror Proves the MCU Needs the Fantastic Four appeared first on Nerdist.

Marvel Studios’ latest release, Werewolf by Night, introduces a horde of new characters into the MCU, including the famed monster hunter, Elsa Bloodstone. As Marvel Studios’ first unabashed horror project, Werewolf by Night lays the foundations for further explorations into the genre. With films like Blade on the horizon, the MCU will need to dig deeply into Marvel Comics lore to make this next chapter fully fleshed out. Though fans are accustomed to more traditional modes of heroism with the Avengers, projects such as Werewolf by Night will provide the necessary connective tissue to these next stages in the MCU.

Directed by composer Michael Giacchino, Werewolf by Night is an hour-long special on Disney+ centering on the titular lycanthrope. Gael Garcia Bernal stars as Jack Russell, a man cursed with lycanthropy who convenes with other monster hunters at Bloodstone Manor, presumably the home of Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly). Shot in black and white, with a distinct style that harkens back to 1930s horror movies, Werewolf by Night is a celebration of Marvel Comics’ under-appreciated horror legacy. 

Part of that legacy includes Elsa Bloodstone, a monster hunter associated with the supernatural. Essentially, Elsa Bloodstone is Buffy Summers meets Lara Croft. As a member of the Bloodstone family, Elsa’s lore runs deep in the Marvel Universe. Her father, Ulysses Bloodstone, bequeathed his powerful Bloodgem fragment to Elsa, giving her enhanced physical abilities. Like Lara Croft, Elsa’s journey has taken her all over the world, and like Buffy Summers, vampires are among her greatest enemies. Bloodstone will likely play an important role in linking together Marvel’s future horror outings, as she has ties to everyone from Doctor Strange, to Black Knight, to Ghost Rider, to Blade. 

Elsa Bloodstone’s comics set a solid foundation for where the MCU could go next. One of her most recent appearances was in the 2021 Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade series by Simon Spurrier and Sergio Davila. There, Elsa came to the aid of Dane Whitman’s Black Knight, a notoriously incompetent hero who wields one of the most powerful weapons in the Marvel Universe: the Ebony Blade. The two fought Mordred, the bastard son of King Arthur, with Elsa chastising Whitman for his poor weapons skills. The Ebony Blade feeds off of the negative energy of whoever wields it, making it dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced.

This makes Elsa not only a seasoned pro at taking down supernatural or magical threats, but an important source of knowledge for other Marvel Comics characters. She’s not an ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances, like Peter Parker or Steve Rogers. Elsa Bloodstone was born to see the world in its horrific clarity with her monster hunting family.

As such, the release of Werewolf By Night sets up a possible Elsa Bloodstone and Black Knight team-up in the MCU. Last year’s Eternals introduced Kit Harrington’s Black Knight, along with the Ebony Blade in a post-credits scene. Like Dane Whitman in the comics, the MCU’s version of the character is clueless about the weapon that he holds. This could give Elsa Bloodstone a perfect chance to come to his aid. Presumably, the MCU’s Dane Whitman lacks any combat skills too, putting Elsa in the position to teach him everything he needs to know. Thus far, Dane Whitman has only dealt with powerful godlike figures from space. Teaming up with human characters like Elsa Bloodstone would integrate him with Marvel’s other street-level heroes. 

Black Knight is far from the only character that Elsa Bloodstone has connections to in the comics. Werewolf By Night also sets up her tie to Blade and the supernatural Midnight Sons team. In the past, Elsa has been a member of the Midnight Sons, alongside Blade; Man-Thing; Doctor Voodoo (also known to fans as Brother Voodoo); Moon Knight; Iron Fist; and Ghost-Rider. The Midnight Sons are usually led by Blade, and most of its members are characters emblematic of Marvel’s dark supernatural bent in the 1970s.

This year, Marvel relaunched and renamed the title as The Midnight Suns, featuring a brand new lineup with Blade as their leader. And while Elsa is not on this new Midnight Suns team, Marvel’s history of brand synergy points to the possibility that the Blade film could introduce the team, with her as one of its members. The MCU has found success with aesthetically-distinct groups like the Guardians of the Galaxy. And a new Midnight Sons team could shake up a universe that is feeling more and more formulaic to fans. 

Thus far, the MCU has established its signature brand of quippy sci-fi action. But this has barely scratched the surface of its comics universe. Elsa Bloodstone’s MCU debut opens doors to a much darker side of comics rarely seen in adaptations. Considering that the MCU has made unapologetically “comic-book” concepts like Infinity Stones part of mainstream pop culture, it’s time the oddballs of Marvel Comics get their due.

Moreover, Elsa Bloodstone’s debut points to a promising future for horror directors and creators in the MCU. While the MCU has flirted with the genre in the past, most notably with Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, characters like Elsa Bloodstone, Werewolf by Night, and Blade require an extra sense of commitment to the genre in order to shine. Werewolf By Night is clearly a love letter to horror and horror comics. And if the MCU wishes to continue this ethos in the future, it should bring the wonderful world of Elsa Bloodstone to life.

The post How WEREWOLF BY NIGHT’s Elsa Bloodstone Could Tie Into the MCU’s Future appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, adapts George R. R. Martin’s book, Fire & Blood. The stories leads to one of the most brutal chapters in Westeros’ history: the Dance of the Dragons. Introducing a new group of Targaryen characters and their various allies and enemies in Westeros, House of the Dragon depicts the Targaryens at their most powerful, almost two centuries before the events of the original Game of Thrones show. 

The Dance of the Dragons was a civil war that sprung up over succession to the Iron Throne. It is one of the precipitating events that eventually brought down the power of House Targaryen in Westeros. Princess Rhaenyra, the heir appointed by King Viserys, battled for the right to rule. And while disputes of succession are by no means new to the world of Game of Thrones, the Dance of the Dragons revealed how hostile Westeros was to the idea of a female ruler. Even though Princess Rhaenyra established herself as the most level-headed option for King Viserys’ heir, the king’s male children from his second marriage to Alicent Hightower further muddied the waters of succession to the Iron Throne. 

So far, HBO’s adaptation of Fire & Blood has stayed largely faithful to the book. However, it lacks one specific aspect that enhances the story’s focus on how society stifles women in positions of power. Fire & Blood, unlike other Game of Thrones books, is an oral history. Instead of following the story from different characters’ perspectives, Fire & Blood offers a macro view of how narratives of the past are constructed, and the political ends that they can serve. This is apparent when the narrator reveals that two different historical accounts exist for the Dance of the Dragons, one written by Maester Eustace, and the other written by a court fool named Mushroom.

Maester Eustace’s account is a sober recollection of House Targaryen’s fall; Mushroom’s is a deeply sensationalized look at Princess Rhaenyra’s life in particular. In turn, this is a perfect framework for the story of House Targaryen, because of how morally complex many of the characters are. With the narrator unsure of which version of history is true, the book leaves it to the reader to determine how much they want to believe from either one. 

This discrepancy comes to a head when the scheming Prince Daemon, brother of King Viserys and uncle of Princess Rhaenyra, returns to King’s Landing. The narrator admits that the history gets muddled between Maester Eustace and Mushroom’s accounts. According to Maester Eustace, Daemon “seduced his niece the princess and claimed her maidenhood,” leading Rhaenyra to later tell her father that she was in love with Daemon. Mushroom, on the other hand, wrote that Rhaenyra longed for Ser Criston Cole, her personal guard, leading Daemon to teach her how to seduce men. This involved sneaking the princess out of the castle and into the Street of Silk, King’s Landing’s red light district. Rhaenyra then tried to seduce Criston Cole, only to have him reject her. Mushroom’s story soon came to light, and Viserys denied his daughter’s wrongdoing before Daemon confirmed that it was true. 

House of the Dragon settles this debate by adapting many details from Mushroom’s account. The main difference is Criston Cole accepted Rhaenyra’s advances. In doing so, it tacitly accepts Mushroom’s version as the truth, without interrogating the political ends the story had in the first place. After all, it was Mushroom who leaked Rhaenyra’s purported activities to the court. Clearly men, including Daemon, had much to gain from sullying the princess’ image. 

The show did try to replicate the discrepancies in the book. We see it in a scene where Queen Alicent confronts Rhaenyra about her rumored activities with Daemon. However, it falls short of presenting the most central fact of Fire & Blood: the hindsight of men forges history. Rather than unfolding in the present through a neutral party, the history of Fire & Blood frequently presents as a collaborative project, one in which the readers themselves are complicit. Fire & Blood pulls readers in to teach them the early history of House Targaryen. Then, it shows them the patchwork of lies and incomplete truths governing the narrative. In the end, they walk away with no definitive account of what really happened. In this sense, Fire & Blood is less a history of House Targaryen, and more a portrait of the construction of history in Westeros in the first place. 

This lack of subjectivity in House of the Dragon is intriguing, given that so much of the show’s themes circle around the subjugation of women like Rhaenyra. By leaving out the roles that Maester Eustace and Mushroom played in documenting the history of House Targaryen, House of the Dragon misses the book’s most damning revelation: even at the height of their power, House Targaryen was never in control of their own narrative. As they terrorized Westeros with their display of dragons and military might, the Targaryens’ power eroded from the inside thanks to men with political agendas watching their every move. While it may be easy to wipe out entire armies full of men with a dragon, not even the Targaryens could extinguish a story spread by men like Maester Eustace and Mushroom. 

The post HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Misses One of the Best Aspects of FIRE & BLOOD appeared first on Nerdist.

Netflix’s The Sandman is a loving tribute to the original comic published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Many of its characters remain consistent from page to screen, even if their genders are different in the show. In a world where comics and their Hollywood adaptations have never felt more separate, The Sandman’s attention to detail in regards to its source material feels revolutionary. In one instance, The Sandman tucks in a deep cut from John Constantine’s Hellblazer comics. This small yet vital mention adds another heartbreaking dimension to one of the series’ saddest moments. 

The Sandman adapts the comic written by Neil Gaiman, with art by Sam Kieth, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, and more. The story chronicles the journey of Dream (Tom Sturridge), also known as Morpheus of the Endless. Dream is responsible for protecting a space known as The Dreaming, a place of infinite possibility and power channeled from the dreams of humanity. Dream is captured and imprisoned for a period of one hundred years on Earth. After this, The Dreaming falls into disrepair, with Dream’s objects of office—a helm, the ruby Dreamstone, and a pouch of sand—scattered across the Earth and in Hell. As Dream sets off to recover each object one by one, he comes across a powerful, irreverent magic user named Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) who is in possession of his sand pouch. 

Johanna Constantine is based off of the occult detective John Constantine. His appearances in the Sandman comics and in his Hellblazer solo series paint him as a deeply flawed yet charming master manipulator. Magicians are often portrayed as wise and noble in traditional English fantasy stories; however, Constantine is the dramatic opposite. He’s foul-mouthed, difficult to trust, and cursed with an uncanny ability to make terrible decisions impacting his loved ones. Johanna Constantine is canonically John’s ancestor from the 18th century in DC Comics. But Coleman’s portrayal in The Sandman is the most faithful adaptation of the character in live-action. 

This faithfulness to both Constantine’s character and Hellblazer comics is heartbreakingly clear in episode three of the Sandman TV series. In “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” a deep cut reference cements Constantine’s tragic love life. Johanna retrieves Dream’s sand pouch from the apartment of her ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Eleanor Fanyinka). While there, Johanna’s former flame reveals that she called up several of her exes in order to find Johanna. This list includes Oliver, a reference to the Constantine: the Hellblazer comics series by Ming Doyle, James Tynion IV, and Riley Rossmo. In this comic series, John Constantine dated a man of the same name. Oliver met a terrible fate after he made a deal with a demon to condemn his soul to Hell in exchange for the safety of his two daughters. It is a tragic end that is unfortunately common for many of Constantine’s lovers. 

Referencing this particular moment in Constantine’s publication history is significant. It underscores The Sandman’s commitment to its source material as well as the queerness of its characters. John Constantine is one of the most high profile bisexual characters in DC Comics. And the Constantine: the Hellblazer series (2015-2016) remains the most thorough exploration of his queer sexuality in comics. Taking an element of Constantine: the Hellblazer and putting it into The Sandman affirms the show’s depth of lore. And it also cements Oliver and John’s relationship as an indispensable part of his persona.

The Sandman placing this relationship within the context of Johanna and Rachel’s story makes it even more heartbreaking. The version of Rachel that Johanna had been speaking to was later revealed to be an illusion. The real Rachel lays wasting away in her bed, her body emaciated from holding onto Dream’s sand pouch. It’s a cruel reminder to Constantine that her magical prowess always has an adverse effect on the people around her. Johanna thought she was protecting Rachel by vanishing from her life. But she ended up inadvertently dooming Rachel anyway, just as John did with Oliver in Constantine: the Hellblazer. 

By reimagining John Constantine as Johanna in the show, The Sandman queers his original relationship with Rachel. But this happens while also providing a callback to the comics run that radically reimagined his character in the 21st century. This establishes Constantine’s bisexuality in the most Hellblazer way possible, as the phantasm of a former lover lays out the tragic timeline of Constantine’s past.

The Sandman’s Oliver seems to have escaped his sad comics fate; however, viewers never truly know what happened between him and Johanna. Regardless, The Sandman makes it clear that Oliver still remains a ghostly presence in this iteration of Constantine’s life, a fact that haunts both comics fans and now emergent fans of the show. 

The post THE SANDMAN Includes a Heartbreaking Deep Cut From the HELLBLAZER Comics appeared first on Nerdist.