Marvel

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’: The Joys of a Diwali Sparkler in a Run-of-the-Mill Franchise Film

A film that feels like a feature-sized wink at its audience can only muster so much interest.

The problem with critiquing Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine is that it has already anticipated and addressed a large part of the criticism coming its way. This self-awareness is just for effect though, it doesn’t quite result in better creative decisions. On the flip side, the film is smug enough to believe that this self-awareness somehow exempts it from being better.

Brought to the screen in 2016 by Tim Miller’s Deadpool – which revitalised Ryan Reynolds’ flagging acting career – the film signalled a new era of superhero ventures, where the protagonist would riff on the greed of Hollywood studios, the sappy cliches of mainstream films, and directly addressed the audience using a deluge of pop culture references.

The trick, they probably thought, is if they spoke fast enough and people chuckled along, they might not notice how vacuous the whole undertaking is.

It got exhausting pretty quick. In Deadpool 2, our ‘hero’ throws shade on the antagonist for his grave demeanour, asking him “Are you from DC?” Despite the funny line, I don’t remember laughing. By the time one gets to the 144th pop culture reference in a film, with little connective tissue of emotional stakes, I might have yawned a little.

Levy’s film makes fun of the multiverse storytelling that Marvel (and other studios like Warner Bros and Sony Pictures) have taken on, and comments on how they’ve all been increasingly less effective in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame (2019). But Deadpool & Wolverine uses the same crutch to revive a beloved character, who got a perfect sendoff in James Mangold’s Logan (2017); using him to draw howls from its audience.

A still from ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’

The multiverse effectively allows the filmmakers to revive any actor/character for its audience, even after their arc has effectively concluded. It means that no story has any finality whatsoever – the future of superhero films rests on eager actors willing to do ‘one last film’, an obscene amount of money changing hands and fans mistaking these cameos for merit.

It’s probably successful and tested (both Deadpool and Deadpool 2 made over $750 million each), but arguably one of the most cynical ways to make movies. A film that feels like a feature-sized wink at its audience can only muster so much interest. Credit where it’s due, the first Deadpool film, at least felt independent in spirit. However, like it happens in profit-guzzling industries, studios don’t mind being the butt of [cautiously written] jokes, if it fetches them seven or eight times their investment.

Shawn Levy’s Deadpool and Wolverine, begins where Deadpool is tired of his “old shticks” and wants to ‘matter’. He wants to join the Avengers, but Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) turns him away. Abducted by a secret organisation called the Time Variance Authority (TVA) – led by the always wonderful Matthew Macfadyen playing Mr Paradox – Deadpool is offered a place in the Sacred timeline, if he can bring Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back from another timeline then the Sacred timeline will get its “anchor being” back.

All this jargon can’t distract from the simplistic nature of Deadpool and Wolverine – a [cinematic] universe needs a lucrative star in the wake of its less-than-favourable earnings in the last two years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has witnessed two flops (Antman & The Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels) in the last year alone – which was nearly inconceivable around four-five years back. The assembly line of billion-dollar box office films is threatening to evaporate. Enter Hugh Jackman.

A still from ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.

Jackman has brought the right amount of devil-may-care swagger and vulnerability to a character that has inherently felt more feral than human. Someone whose body regenerates from flesh wounds, but who has carried traumas of generations. Whose gifts and curse are probably the same thing. Here, Jackman shows he hasn’t lost touch with Wolverine and that it might be almost a second nature. But a lot of his grief and internal conflict are deflated with Deadpool’s intrusive thoughts. Reynolds has built an empire out of this talkative, overbearing persona – which has spilled over to his other films and interviews too. It’s insufferable at this point.

Deadpool & Wolverine has the joys of a Diwali sparkler, ones that last 15 seconds and are instantly forgotten after. It also infantilises its audience by handing out A-lister cameos like popsicles, each of them existing only to get a cheer and a sugary rush. To think a billion-dollar corporation making fun of its projects stuck in ‘purgatory’ (or development hell, as studios call it) will earn them brownie points for self-awareness is one of the funniest, unintentional jokes here. Because just like in their latest film, this self-awareness is only performative to get to the next billion-dollar box office.

Deadpool might have started out as a ‘different’ kind of superhero film, but all the fourth-wall breaking dialogue can’t make up for the fact that it’s now become like any other franchise in the world. It’s a part of Marvel’s pipeline, one that wishes to feed the whims of zombies unable (and unwilling) to distinguish between an ambitious failure and a successful, risk-free film. Deadpool & Wolverine obviously belongs to the latter.

‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Continues the Series’ Quest to Recover and Celebrate Lost Cultures

Whereas the first ‘Black Panther’ film celebrated an array of African cultures, the follow-up seeks to also highlight the rich legacy of Mesoamerican cultures destroyed by colonial conquest.

As someone who teaches and writes about Afrofuturism, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I’m particularly excited about the introduction of Namor and the hidden kingdom of Talokan, which he leads.

The first Black Panther film adhered to a longstanding practice in Afrofuturist stories and art by engaging in what I call “acts of recovery” – the process of reviving and celebrating elements of Black culture that were destroyed or suppressed by colonisation. This practice is often linked to “Sankofa,” an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that roughly translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”

Wakanda Forever pulls from the past in the same way, but with a twist: Talokan is inspired not by African cultures, but by Mesoamerica, a vast area that covers most of Central America and part of Mexico.

A theory of time

The idea that African knowledge and contributions to science and culture have been erased and must be recovered is central to Afrofuturism. The term, which was coined in 1994, describes a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history.

On its home page, the Afrofurist listserv, an email list organized by social scientist Alondra Nelson in 1998, pointed to this process of recovery as a central tenet of the genre:

“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, cultural producers of the African diaspora composed unique visions on the world at hand and the world to come. This speculation has been called AfroFuturism – cultural production that simultaneously references a past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation; celebrates the unique aesthetic perspectives inspired by these fractured histories; and imagines the possible futures of black life and ever-widening definitions of ‘blackness.’”

This fascination with uncovering the ways in which Black contributions have been erased and suppressed means that Afrofuturist works often mine the past as a first step toward creating visions of the future.

Afrofuturist scholars such as Kinitra Brooks even describe Afrofuturism as a theory of time. For her, the “present, past, and future” exist together, creating the opportunity to push against the systemic devaluation of Black people that occurred during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and persists in contemporary anti-Black violence.

Looking back to see tomorrow

This recovery can take many forms.

Several Black writers published serialised novels of speculative fiction, such as Martin R. Delany’s Blake: Or the Huts of America, a slave revolt story written between 1859 and 1861. Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self, published in 1903, tells the story of mixed-race Harvard medical students who discover Telassar, a hidden city in Ethiopia, home to an advanced society possessing technology and mystical powers.

Both narratives refuse to depict Black culture as backwards or impotent, and instead celebrate Black empowerment and the rich cultural legacies of Black people.

Curator Ingrid Lafleur has long talked about how Afrofuturist visual aesthetics relies on recovering ancient African cosmology. You can see this practice in the work of musical artists such as Sun Ra, who used Egyptian symbolism throughout his work, and visual artists such as Kevin Sipp, who remixes and reimagines African cultural symbolism to create sculptures and visual work that fuse past styles and symbols with contemporary practices.

Simply put, a reverence for ancestral knowledge and culture is the beating heart of Afrofuturism, and has become an integral part of Afrofuturism’s mission to forge a better future.

Mesoamerica takes centre stage

The first Black Panther film celebrated an array of African cultures.

Costume designer Ruth Carter deliberately infused elements from across the continent in every scene. For example, the headdress worn by Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett, was inspired by the isicholo, a South African hat traditionally associated with married women. And Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia wore clothing inspired by the Suri tribe.

And so the film highlighted African cultures not by depicting them as fragile or foundering, but as paragons of artistry and sophistication.

In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, these themes are explored both in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri, and in the depiction of Namor and the kingdom of Talokan.

While Talokan is an underwater society inspired by the myth of Atlantis, Marvel Studios has signaled that the people of Talokan sought refuge underwater in response to colonial invasion.

By invoking the complexities of this history – and seemingly leaning heavily on parallels to Mayan culture – the film celebrates a society that scholarship has long noted for its achievements in architecture, mathematics, astronomy and language.

Woman with feathered hat stands next to soldiers.

History books reference these accomplishments. But in popular culture, there’s little attention given to this cultural landscape.

Namor and the kingdom he leads are poised to remind a global audience of the rich world of Mesoamerica that thrived – until European contact beginning in 1502 led to conquest, decline and eradication.

Today, immigration, trade and drug trafficking dominate discussions of Central America and Mexico in the U.S. media. This film, on the other hand, invites the viewer to appreciate the profound cultural legacy of Mexican and Central American civilizations.

Julian C. Chambliss is Professor of English, Michigan State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Marvel’s Cinematic Universe Continues to Expand. Here Are Five Exciting Additions.

A whole host of new heroes making their way from the more obscure corners of the comic universe onto the screen.

Two new Marvel heroes have been brought to the big and small screens that may be quite new to many people. The first is the titular character in the Disney+ series Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac, which is set in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. The other is Morbius, an unlucky vampiric doctor, played by Jared Leto, who is the newest villain-turned-good-ish guy in the Sony Spider-Man Universe to get a film, after Venom.

These are stories featuring violent male anti-heroes – who are also characters fairly unknown to the general public. When the first Venom was released, the Hollywood Reporter noted: “The MCU makes it easy to be a Marvel fan without having ever read the source material”.

Morbius has not fared so well, bringing in the lowest box office numbers compared to its Spider-Man counterparts. Critics suggest that this might be due to the character’s “relative obscurity”. On the other hand, Moon Knight has garnered good reviews.

Like it or not, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding and there are a whole host of new heroes making their way from the more obscure corners of the comic universe onto the screen. Here are five such characters who will be headlining new films and TV series as part of numerous forthcoming Marvel projects, from Disney’s Marvel Studios, and Sony.

1. Ms Marvel

The world’s first female, teen, Muslim superhero, Ms Marvel received a lot of praise when she made her debut in 2013 in a Captain Marvel comic. Critics praised the character as a positive representation of a young Pakistani American woman who is also Muslim. This outing was so successful, the teen got her own comic the following year. She will also officially be joining Marvel’s Cinematic Universe in June 2022 with her own series on Disney+.

The series revolves around a young woman called Kamala Khan, who is a huge fan of superheroes. When she mysteriously gets powers, Khan is inspired by Captain Marvel to become a hero herself. Ms Marvel will be appearing alongside Captain Marvel and Photon in the 2023 film The Marvels.

2. She-Hulk

In the comics, lawyer Jennifer Walters receives a blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner after she’s shot by a mobster. Afterwards, she also turns green when angry. First appearing in 1980, and one of the last characters created by Marvel impresario Stan Lee, She-Hulk comics often lean towards comedy, with characters breaking the fourth wall.

While the Guardians of the Galaxy films are more comedic than their stablemates, and the two Deadpool movies were black comedies, this is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe project to overtly use this genre. So, like WandaVision which used the sitcom format as a jumping off point, this is an interesting experiment for the Marvel brand. The She-Hulk show, set for release in late 2022, is expected to have audiences laughing more than any hero before her.

3. Werewolf by Night

Following the cinema release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first horror themed TV show. Featuring the somewhat prosaically named Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night ran for four years in the 1970s, following a relaxation on censorship of horror comics, which allowed for the creation of Marvel’s vampire characters Blade and Morbius in the first half of the decade.

A sometimes-friendly lycanthrope, Russell joined up with other Marvel horror characters to form the Legion of Monsters appearing in various comics on and off since 1976 to fight evil. The TV version, set for release in October 2022, will also feature this helpful werewolf, played by Gael Garcia Bernal.

Werewolf by Night will be MCU’s first horror outing. Photo: Marvel

4. Kraven the Hunter

Kraven is the orphaned son of Russian aristocrats with a penchant for hunting big game. While hunting in Africa, he ends up drinking a potion that gives him superhuman strength, speed and the instincts of a jungle cat. Bored of hunting animals he sets his sights on larger prey, Spider-Man.

Kraven first appeared in comics as Spider-Man’s foe in 1964. The maniacal hunter will be the third villain to lead a live-action Spider-Verse film. However, unlike Venom and Morbius before him, Kraven is not known in the comics for performing good deeds, so it will be an interesting challenge for Marvel to make an anti-hero of the artistocrat.

Kraven rarely appears without Spider-Man in the comics so Sony have set themselves a challenge to flesh out the hunter in a film where his nemesis doesn’t appear. Kraven will be played by Aaron-Taylor Johnson, who is no stranger to a tight suit, having previously played the low-rent superhero Kick Ass in two films.

Kraven The Hunter is not a nice guy in the comics but is set to be an anti-hero in his first outing in the Spider-Man Sony universe. Photo: Marvel

5. Silk

The first Spider-Man Sony universe TV show will feature Cindy Moon, a female student bitten by the same radioactive spider that gave Spider-Man his abilities. However, unlike Peter Parker who was left to swing around New York and discover his new powers, Moon was kidnapped and held in a bunker for 13 years.

With Sony’s films only apparently allowing for Spider-Man to be shown or discussed in their end credit scenes, it will be interesting to see how Silk deals with the heroine’s creation without any mention of Spidey – unless given permission by Disney to do so. There has been speculation that Sony may revive Andrew Garfield’s incarnation of the character in the future, so time will tell how Silk proceeds.

Silk was turned by the same spider as Spider-Man.
Photo: Marvel

Alex Fitch, lecturer and PhD Candidate in Comics and Architecture, University of Brighton.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Shows That With Great Power Can Come Great Entertainment

The latest in the superhero franchise is sweet but with some central conflicts woven in.

Spider-Man: No Way Home almost starts like a coming-of-age film. The story’s pivot, a high school senior, Peter Parker (Tom Holland), nurtures a simple age-appropriate ambition: He wants to get into his dream school, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). But unlike other teenagers, Peter has to fight for the smallest of things, including – and especially – being normal. His arch-nemesis, Mysterio, has framed him for murder and revealed his identity. With great attention comes great backlash. The media calls him a “vile vigilante”; his peers hound him for photos; MIT rejects not just his application but also those close to him – his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), and his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon) – punishing him for what he is.

But filmmaker Jon Watts goes the other way, remembering and reminding us that, “even after saving half of the universe”, Peter Parker is still a teenager. So, the film’s initial portion – featuring intimidating lawyers, an MIT administrator, fierce supervillains – retains charming playfulness and pleasant humour. Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) reinforces that motif more directly, when he says, “I sometimes forget that you’re just a kid.” Holland and Cumberbatch share compelling chemistry. Marked by an obvious power differential, due to differences in age and powers, their bond has varying shades of banter, reverence, compassion. Even the rest of Peter’s inner circle, MJ and Ned, are simple and sincere. Ditto MJ and Peter’s relationship. (The audience of PVR Saket, often relishing mid-movie meta-commentary, had a member who, referring to MJ, said, “Bahut sweet hai, yaar.”)

The movie has such a breezy rhythm that its central conflict takes some time to register: Peter requesting Strange to cast a magic spell that will make everyone forget that he is Spider-Man. Restless and confused, Peter also demands many last-minute changes, summoning different characters from the ‘multiverse’ – Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), and Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) – descend on Earth with vicious intentions. Strange wants to send them back, where they’ll likely die; Peter wants to “cure them”. Spider-Man: No Way Home is often informed by a sense of righteousness – we even get the line “your weakness is your morality” – but it is not sanctimonious.

This delicate balance shows across departments. It is evident in Holland’s arresting performance, where silly boyishness makes way for searing intensity and it is evident in the movie’s tonal variations, flitting from easy humour to expansive fights. The Mirror Dimension sequence in particular – involving a tussle between Peter and Strange trapped in the city and its literal image, where high-rises sprout from the New York sky – is a dazzling set-piece. So are a few others, but the film doesn’t overdo them. Even the most loaded lines sound relaxed, such as Foxx’s Max saying, “You’re from Queens, you help the poor. I thought you might be Black. Well, there’s probably a Black Spider-Man out there somewhere.” That’s it – the film moves on. Comparing this light touch to another recent Marvel release, the ham-fisted and moralising Eternals, makes Spider-Man: No Way Home glow even more.

Besides, since the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is huge, it provides ample current for diverse star wattage. The entries of Strange and Osborn delighted my fellow audience (who, it must be mentioned, had braved a remarkably cold Delhi morning to watch an early show). A film such as this, elevated by tiered anticipations, can often slip into a servile mode, solely existing for fan service. Spider-Man: No Way Home is not above such temptations. It does manufacture some trite crowd-pleasers, such as Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) saying that line to Peter, “With great power comes great…” The line recurs later – this time, with an even reduced efficacy. But such instances of complacency are few. And it matters here because we get a big twist post-interval – an exceptional feast for the fans of the superhero – which makes the film even more susceptible to easy smugness. But Spider-Man: No Way Home keeps a level-head here, too. Instead of relying on that plot turn as a crutch, Watts uses the opportunity to open the film further, filling it with a renewed spirit of inquiry and wonder.

But one of the most memorable – and moving – bits about the film is its coda. Running for only a few minutes, it accomplishes several heartening feats. It shows, for instance, that this superhero fare is not just about giant action set-pieces; that it cares for its main characters, even when they’re not in the spotlight; even when they’re just regular people. I never thought I’d be ever reminded of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay during a Marvel spectacle, but there I was. The scene’s understated circularity makes it even more poignant: Peter, MJ, and Ned at the same café, where they found about the MIT rejections at the start of the film. They are still the same people, but their worlds have changed. And Peter Parker, on the cusp of adulthood, must find ways to fight that eternal battle once more – not the one involving super-villains but the one webbing his teenage innocence: the desire to be ‘normal’.

‘Eternals’ Is Jaded and Bland – and Doesn’t Deserve a Medal for Being ‘Inclusive’

Intent is one story, execution the other – and many times, a world separates the two. That world is ‘Eternals’ itself.

The most striking achievement for an American ‘indie’ filmmaker is not an Academy Award but a superhero directorial credit. It’s the ultimate stamp of recognition: A king summoning a subject – a monolithic corporation welcoming a small filmmaker. Several trailblazing directors have accepted such offers. But Marvel Studios’ latest release, Eternals, complicates that perception. Because here, filmmaker Chloé Zhao – a long-time fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – approached the studio. Two-and-a-half years later, she won the Academy Award for Nomadland. There you’ve it: a perfect combination, an acclaimed director and a mainstream taste.

Even the story and settings aid the promised inclusive vision. The movie opens to Mesopotamia in 5,000 BC, where 10 Eternals – Ajak (Salma Hayek), Druig (Barry Keoghan), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), and Thena (Angelina Jolie) – land on Earth to rescue humans from Deviants. Eternals depicts their journeys across civilizations and periods – Babylon, 575 BC; Gupta Empire, 400 AD; Tenochtitlan, 1521 – where they do some more rescuing.

Such a lunge intends to grasp human evolution (or regression) in a tight fist – a gargantuan ambition – but Zhao takes it further. The Eternals comprise a diverse under-represented bunch: Phastos is a Black gay man, Makkari mute (the first for a superhero in MCU), and a woman, Ajak, leads them. This inclusivity extends behind the scenes, too: Nanjiani is a Pakistani-American, Lee South Korean-American, and Zhao Chinese-American. For a story that spans millennia and continents (including London, South Dakota, Mumbai, and Amazon rainforest in the present-day), these choices, at first, don’t seem like perfunctory progressive stunts.

But intent is one story, execution the other – and many times, a world separates the two. That world is, well, Eternals itself. Characters don’t communicate as much as unfurl information – a backstory here, a motivation there, and sterile lines almost everywhere. What’s even more bizarre? Characters addressing each other by first names – and they know each other for thousands of years (for Eternals are immortal): “Druig, I know you’re upset”, “I don’t want to fight, Sersi”, “I’m in love with you, Sersi”, “Revenge won’t bring peace for you, Thena”. This is sloppy writing, Zhao (who co-wrote the screenplay with Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo). The plot is sluggish for more than an hour – the invincible Eternals flit from one civilisation to another, maiming and torching their enemies – making us wonder what is at stake?

Even though the film spends substantial time in different civilisations – much of it shot in natural light, garnering aesthetic and political points – it provides scarce insights into the lives of people and the mechanics of their world, reducing the whole thing into a vacuous Google Earth tour. This is also not the first time that Zhao has entered a ‘foreign’ land solely to milk it dry for its cinematographic splendour: Nomadland is a more dignified example of such callousness.

Some bits are plain embarrassing, such as Kingo, a modern Bollywood star, shooting a dance sequence. Let’s for a moment forget the infuriating trope that reduces India to cinema to Bollywood to garish costumes to melodramatic songs. Let’s just concentrate on Nanjiani’s expressions and steps. The dude looks so disinterested and frozen (the most he does is arch his right eyebrow), encapsulating the embodiment of an IT professional serving his notice period. Let me state this for the record: Our back-up dancers are better, our forgettable ‘masala’ fares more polished. Eternals is so bad that it made me miss the unmissable: a Dharma Productions movie.

We soon find out that the Eternals need to reassemble for a crucial mission (when was the last time such a plot point…), where a man named Karun (Harish Patel), “Kingo’s valet”, accompanies the star for the rest of the journey. Much like Kingo’s profession, Karun is a trope, too. Carrying a handycam, he follows one character after the other – Kingo wants to make a documentary on the Eternals – as the other members berate and belittle him. When he’s not a punching bag, he’s used for comic relief. He gets one half-a-decent dialogue, his final line, that grants him some shred of dignity.

Inclusivity much, Zhao?

It’s important to clarify that, as an Indian, I’m not offended by Karun’s characterisation. But for a director and a film that wears their progressive politics like war medals, this hypocrisy deserves nothing but scorn. Besides, Eternals is so jaded and bland that nothing in it moves you. Okay, I lied: two scenes, kind of, moved me – one where Sersi and Ikaris peek into Phastos’ kitchen to glimpse the father-son relationship and the other where Sprite expresses her long-suppressed desire to be normal, to be mortal, to be… human. Even the climactic set-piece (featuring a schmaltzy flashback straining to be ‘poignant’) is inert.

Like most superhero films, Eternals dangles a carrot in the last few scenes nudging you to return for the next instalment. That is the sole end game of a film like this: to make you buy another ticket. Martin Scorsese caused a huge furore in 2019 when he likened the Marvel movies to “theme parks”. Now that is a loaded statement demanding considerable nuance and analysis, but I’ll say one thing: Theme parks are at least fun – and they don’t grovel for a return ticket.

‘WandaVision’ Echoes Mythology To Explain How Grief and Love Persevere

The Marvel TV show’s portrayal of grief and loss brings to mind the Egyptian myth of the goddess Isis searching for the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris.

During a flashback scene in Marvel’s Disney Plus show WandaVision, the superpowered android Vision comforts his wife, Wanda Maximoff, after the death of her twin brother. “But what is grief,” he tells her, “if not love persevering?”

The line has become famous among Marvel fans and inspired an internet meme. But it also neatly summarises the events of the show. Later, distraught over Vision’s death after battling the villain Thanos, Wanda uses her magic powers to bring a version of him back to life. He becomes her husband in a sitcom fantasy world of her own creation. In order to establish this dream world, Wanda pulls an entire town of people into her magic bubble to play roles of her choosing.

The success of WandaVision continues Marvel’s impressive record. But besides extending the studio’s string of box office hits into television, WandaVision also continues another familiar pattern from Marvel: echoing much older stories from world mythologies.

Marvel and mythology

As I show in my recent book, Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, examples of that pattern are not hard to find.

The origin stories where Marvel heroes discover their powers often resemble initiation rituals found around the world. In those rituals, the hero often dies – literally or symbolically – and achieves a new status upon coming back to life.

For instance, it shows up frequently in stories of shamans from around the globe, where individuals grow very sick or even briefly die, then return with supernatural powers. Similarly, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Black Panther all gain their powers after near-death experiences.

In some cases, as when the Avengers battle one another – such as in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War – the tragic battle between heroes resembles the scale and savagery of Achilles fighting Hector in the Greek Iliad or Arjuna battling Karna in the Hindu Mahabharata. Among the Avengers, when it is revealed that Captain America hid knowledge of who killed Iron Man’s parents, it results in a similarly vicious battle between the two heroes.

And when the Avengers battle monsters and villains, those antagonists often mirror the giants, dragons and beasts of much older stories. Think, for instance, of the Abomination and Red Skull, who resemble ogres found in stories like the Norse myth Beowulf or the Chinese folk tale Journey to the West.

The primary villains also have mythic connections. Thanos, whose name means “death” in Greek, has similarities to mythic figures of death from around the world. Like the Greek god Hades, at times he appears regal, surrounded by servants and followers, sitting in a throne while wearing armor and a crown. Other times he is like Mara, the god of death in Buddhism, who assumes monstrous forms and commands an army of frightening and misshapen creatures.

The Avengers’ final attempt to defeat Thanos also parallels quests to overcome death found in stories like the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh or the tales of Siberian shamans. Like those ancient heroes, the Avengers undertake a great journey to acquire magical objects – in their case, the Infinity Stones – to overcome death.

Wanda’s grief

In the case of WandaVision, its portrayal of grief and loss brings to mind many famous world myths. In Egyptian mythology, the goddess Isis searches for the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris. After Isis reassembles Osiris, the couple have a son, Horus. Similarly, when Wanda cannot put Vision’s destroyed body back together, she recreates it out of magic and goes on to have twins with him.

Wanda’s actions also bring to mind a famous tale from the Buddhist tradition. In that story, a woman named Kisa Gotami is heartbroken when her only child dies. She begs the Buddha to bring the child back to life. The Buddha tells her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one has died. Going from house to house, Kisa Gotami discovers there is no family that has not experienced death, grief and loss. In the end, she comes to terms with her sorrow and joins the Buddhist path.

Interestingly, WandaVision arrives at a similar ending. For most of the series, Wanda clings to the idea that she can keep Vision alive and live happily ever after with him. But she eventually realises it is wrong to keep her fantasy family alive at the cost of imprisoning an entire town. Like Kisa Gotami, she ultimately acknowledges the reality of death and lets Vision and their children go by ending the spell that animates them.

As Wanda watches Vision slowly vanish before her eyes, viewers may be reminded of the myth of Orpheus, a Greek hero, and his wife, Eurydice. After Eurydice dies from a snakebite, Orpheus persuades Hades to release her from the underworld. Unfortunately, on the journey back, Orpheus breaks the one rule Hades gave him: Do not look at her before reaching the surface. When he does, he watches Eurydice disappear all over again.

Isis, Osiris and their son horus in a statuette. Photo: Rama/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Timeless lessons

It’s possible that these parallels between the Marvel stories and ancient myths are part of their ongoing popularity. Both genres tap into fundamental questions that people have been trying to answer for thousands of years. What is worth fighting for? How do I live my best life? Why do we have to die?

WandaVision, meanwhile, is all about grief, but – like many myths before it – there is a sprinkle of hope. As Vision begins to disappear, he tells Wanda, “I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human, and now, a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next? We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason, we’ll say hello again.”

Those words capture the same ache felt by Isis, Orpheus, Kisa Gotami and any person – ancient or modern – who has ever lost a loved one. The mythological tales remain relevant across time and across cultures, reappearing in these Marvel stories. That fact makes me wonder if we can alter Vision’s famous words just a bit: “What is Marvel, if not mythology persevering?”

Michael Nichols, professor of religious studies, Martin University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Brazilian Mayor’s Attempts to Ban Comic Book Over Gay Kiss Foiled

Marcelo Crivella opposed the sale of a Marvel comic, but the Supreme Court ruled his actions illegal as they only targeted LGBT content.

Brazilian mayor Marcelo Crivella hogged the headlines of the national dailies and several other prominent media platforms across the world, after he sought an Avengers comic book to be banned because it depicted two men kissing.

Pessoal, precisamos proteger as nossas crianças. Por isso, determinamos que os organizadores da Bienal recolhessem os livros com conteúdos impróprios para menores. Não é correto que elas tenham acesso precoce a assuntos que não estão de acordo com suas idades. pic.twitter.com/sFw82bqmOx

— Marcelo Crivella (@MCrivella) September 5, 2019

Crivella, a former evangelical pastor who is the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, ordered law enforcement agents to seize all the copies of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, the comic that featured the kiss, from the International Book Fair. He said the books need to be packaged in black plastic and sealed, according to a translation by the New York Times. He also said “we must protect our children” against “sexual content”.

Crivella’s call for a ban found support in the lower court but was overturned by Supreme Court Chief Justice Jose Dias Toffoli on Sunday. The country’s top court ruled that Crivella’s actions were illegal as they only targeted LGBT content. The court also made it illegal to ban any LGBT publication.

Excerpt from the comic book “Avengers: The Children’s Crusade” Photo: O Globo

Penned by well-known screenwriter Allan Heinberg and illustrated by Briton Jim Cheung, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade includes two members of the Young Avengers, Wiccano and Hulkling (a character patterned on the superhero Hulk), who happen to be in a relationship, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported. It is these two characters locking lips that enraged the Rio de Janeiro mayor.

According to the BBC, the Children’s Crusade series has been available in Brazil since 2012. The comic book in question has also been available for the past three years.

Folha de S.Paulo, another national daily for Brazil, printed the image Crivellag objected to on their front page.

Esta é capa da #Folha deste sábado (7). Acesse https://t.co/OUrEFevL3e para ler mais. #folha #folhadespaulo #fsp pic.twitter.com/wru197Gpzi

— Folha de S.Paulo (@folha) September 7, 2019

Despite Crivella’s attempts and public appeal to ban the Marvel comic book’s sale, event organisers refused to comply with the mayor’s antics, as reported by The Independent. They also filed a preventative injunction with the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice. They argued such behaviour and a call for a ban flies against the freedom of expression. Federal attorney-general Raquel Dodge also supported the organisers’ plea, ABC News reported.

Notably, this is not the first time Crivella has made news for his take on homosexuality. In his 1999 book, Evangelizing Africa, he garnered criticism for calling homosexuality a “terrible evil”.

Brazil’s politicians have also employed anti-homosexual rhetoric in the past. In 2018, before ascending to the presidency, Jair Bolosonaro advocated for the reversal of rights for same-sex couples and had previously described himself as a “proud homophobe”. Furthermore, he had criticised the decision by the Supreme Court to make homophobia a crime and proposed that an evangelical Christian must be brought to the bench.

Brazil is a preferred destination for LGBTQ tourism, as the country has many events – carnivals and parades – marketed at the community. Bolsonaro has expressed opposition at this idea, saying Brazil should not become a gay destination since “we have families”.

Also read: How LGBTQ People are Resisting Bolsonaro’s Brazil Through Art

Despite the controversy raked up by politicians, sales of the comic book remain unaffected. According to reports, the comic sold out at the book fair. Moreover, the popular comedian Felipe Neto, one of the most famous YouTube personalities from Brazil, said that he would distribute thousands of books with LGBTQI characters at the book festival. He added that the books would be red-labelled quoting that they were “inappropriate for backward, retrograde and prejudiced people”, reported New York Times.

To support the organisers and comic creators, publishing house Faro on Saturday put up a stand at the festival with a banner “Books That Are Forbidden by Crivella”. The stall was said to feature a host of books on a variety of LGBTQI issues. The stand was a crowd favourite, O Globo reported.

Nidhima Taneja is an editorial intern at The Wire.

Spoilers: Making People Angry Since Victorian Times

‘Spoiler culture’ may seem like a product of the internet age, but in fact, originated with the media in the 19th century.

It’s fair to say that with the release of the latest series of HBO’s Game of Thrones and another instalment from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Endgame, the “spoiler” has never had so much power. Twitter and Facebook have become no-go areas for those yet to watch them, while various guides are offering help on how to live “spoiler-free” online.

In the “real world”, someone’s attempts to leak the conclusion to Endgame outside a Hong Kong cinema reportedly led to them being attacked.

Spoiler culture and “spoiler-phobia” seem like a unique creation of the internet age: a combination of mass audiences, rapid dissemination of information and popular entertainment being released in episodic formats. But these are, in fact, issues that originated with the media of the 19th century.

Our Victorian forebears wouldn’t have called them “spoilers”, but they were often as conscious as we are that the joys of watching or reading fiction can depend on not knowing what’s to come.

The Woman in White

The novelist Wilkie Collins had always been eclipsed by Charles Dickens, his friend and colleague, until The Woman in White began to be published as a serial from November 1859. The novel – an exhilarating mixture of intrigue, madness and crime – was not only “sensational” in terms of its contents, but also in its public reception.

People queued outside the publisher’s offices for the next instalment and placed bets on the “secret” of its antagonist. Meanwhile perfumes and dances were named after it and William Gladstone, then the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer (as we know, he went on to serve four terms as prime minister) cancelled a theatre visit so he could catch up with the newest developments.

Also Read: Game of Thrones Holds Many Lessons for Climate Justice Movements

Having been released in weekly instalments for more than ten months, The Woman in White was eventually published in a collected, three-volume format in 1860. To the critics who would soon review the book, Collins cautioned against revealing its plot:

[if] he [the critic] tells it at all, in any way whatever, is he doing a service to the reader, by destroying, beforehand, two main elements in the attraction of all stories – the interest of curiosity, and the excitement of surprise?

Nowadays, when we’re used to seeing studios and creators go to often extreme lengths to stop audiences and the media revealing details about their work, it’s difficult to appreciate just how curious Collins’s request was – how could a plot-heavy novel be discussed without giving away its contents?

Surprisingly, most critics accepted it. The Examiner, a weekly periodical, struggled not to divulge anything, but fully admitted that “giving hints of [the] plot … would impair its interest for readers … yet to make its acquaintance”. Meanwhile, even though another paper, the Saturday Review, disliked the novel, their reviewer thought it would be “unfair to the story” to reveal details. So the critic came to a compromise:

[we hope] there is no objection to an occasional hint, a dark allusion … to this mystery of mysteries, the [plot of] the Woman in White.

It’s not quite what we’d recognise today as a “spoiler-free” review, but this was new territory for the Victorian reviews and their readers.

The first spoiler?

Other authors followed the example Collins set. Mary Elizabeth Braddon had found huge success with her 1862 novel Lady Audley’s Secret, which revolved around mistaken identities and past crimes. She knew that much of the power of her follow-up novel, Henry Dunbar, could be spoiled if reviewers gave away a “secret” that occurs in the final pages – she therefore asked them “not to describe the plot”.

But critics gave a mixed response this time. Many questioned whether a novel that could be spoiled was worth reading – and whether revealing details in this way really did have a negative effect on the reading experience. The Examiner asked how a novel’s plot is “to be at the same time concealed and criticised?”. In any case, they went on to say, readers could easily guess the secret of Henry Dunbar before it was disclosed – what was the fuss?

The Times went even further: the pleasures of these novels don’t depend on “ignorance” of their endings, the reviewer said, and readers were just as content to see how their plots unfolded.

Nevertheless, Collins and Braddon seem to have won out. An 1871 contributor to the Saturday Review confessed that although they found suspense unpleasant they were not “the majority of novel-readers”, for whom the “anxiety to discover the end” was a valued aspect of fiction. Fifteen years later, we find arguably the first mention of a “spoiler” in print. The Graphic, a weekly illustrated newspaper, began its evaluation of the (deliciously titled) novel Doable Cunning with the following remark:

We shall avoid spoiling the effect by giving the least hint of its plot, the interest of which depends altogether upon the reader’s coming to it with complete freshness and openness of mind.

Even if the stakes seem higher today – when billions of dollars are invested in certain entertainment franchises, and series can unfold over many years – it is comforting to find that modern audiences are far from alone in thinking that the enjoyment of fiction can depend on not knowing everything in advance.

James Green, PhD researcher in English literature, University of Exeter.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Marvel Meets Mesopotamia: How Modern Comics Preserve Ancient Myths

Ancient Mesopotamia and its deities can be thanked for many of our ‘superheroes’ today.

Ancient Mesopotamia, the region roughly encompassing modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Syria, Iran and Turkey, gave us what we could consider some of the earliest known literary “superheroes”.

One was the hero Lugalbanda, whose kindness to animals resulted in the gift of super speed, perhaps making him the literary great-grandparent of the comic hero The Flash.

But unlike the classical heroes (Theseus, Herakles, and Egyptian deities such as Horus), which have continued to be important cultural symbols in modern pop culture, Mesopotamian deities have largely fallen into obscurity.

An exception to this is the representation of Mesopotamian culture in science fiction, fantasy, and especially comics. Marvel and DC comics have added Mesopotamian deities, such as Inanna, goddess of love, Netherworld deities Nergal and Ereshkigal, and Gilgamesh, the heroic king of the city of Uruk.

Gilgamesh the Avenger

The Marvel comic book hero of Gilgamesh was created by Jack Kirby, although the character has been employed by numerous authors, notably Roy Thomas. Gilgamesh the superhero is a member of the Avengers, Marvel comics’ fictional team of superheroes now the subject of a major movie franchise, including Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk. His character has a close connection with Captain America, who assists Gilgamesh in numerous battles.

Gilgamesh and Captain America are both characters who stand apart from their own time and culture. For Captain America, this is the US during the 1940s, and for Gilgamesh, ancient Mesopotamia. A core aspect of their personal narratives is their struggle to navigate the modern world while still engaging with traditions from the past.

Gilgamesh’s first appearance as an Avenger was in 1989 in the comic series Avengers 1, issue #300, Inferno Squared. In the comic, Gilgamesh is known, rather aptly, as the “Forgotten One”. The “forgetting” of Gilgamesh the hero is also referenced in his first appearance in Marvel comics in 1976, where the character Sprite remarks that the hero “lives like an ancient myth, no longer remembered”.

In Avengers #304, …Yearning to Breathe Free!, Gilgamesh travels to Ellis Island with Captain America and Thor. The setting of Ellis Island allows for the heroes’ thoughtful consideration of their shared past as immigrants. Like Gilgamesh, Thor is also from foreign lands, in this case the Norse kingdom of Asgard.

In the 1992 comic Captain America Annual #11, the battle against the villainous Kang sends Captain America time-travelling back to Uruk in 2700 BCE. Captain America realises that the his royal companion is Gilgamesh, and accompanies the king on adventures from the legendary Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the original legend, Gilgamesh finds the key to eternal youth, a heartbeat plant, and then promptly loses it to a snake. In the comic adaptation, the snake is an angry sea serpent, who Captain America must fight to save Gilgamesh. The Mesopotamian hero’s famous fixation on acquiring immortality is reflected in his Marvel counterpart’s choice to leave Captain America fighting the serpent in order to collect the heartbeat plant. This leads Cap to observe his ancient friend has “a few millennia” of catching up to do on the concept of team-work!

Gilgamesh is not the only hero to feature. Marvel’s 1974 comic, Conan the Barbarian #40, The Fiend from the Forgotten City, features the Mesopotamian goddess of love, Inanna. In the comic, the barbarian hero is assisted by the goddess while fighting against looters in an ancient “forgotten city.” Marvel’s Inanna holds similar powers to her mythical counterpart, including the ability to heal. It is interesting to note the prominence of the theme of “forgetting” in comic books involving Mesopotamian myths, perhaps alluding to the present day obscurity of ancient Mesopotamian culture.
Myth literacy

It’s tempting to think that Captain America’s 1992 journey back to ancient Mesopotamia was a comment on the political context at the time, particularly the Gulf War. But Roy Thomas, creator of this comic, told me via email his portrayal of Gilgamesh reflected his interest in the legend from his university days, and teaching students ancient myths at a high school.

Thomas’ belief in the benefits of learning myths is well founded. Story-telling has been recognised since ancient times as a powerful tool for imparting wisdom. Myths teach empathy and the ability to consider problems from different perspectives.

The combination of social and analytical skills developed through engaging with mythology can provide the foundation for a life-long love of learning. A recent study has shown that packaging stories in comics makes them more memorable, a finding with particular significance for preserving Mesopotamia’s cultural heritage.

The myth literacy of science fiction and fantasy audiences allows for the representation in these works of more obscure ancient figures. Marvel comics see virtually the entire pantheons of Greece, Rome, and Asgard represented. But beyond these more familiar ancient worlds, Marvel has also featured deities of the Mayan, Hawaiian, Celtic religions, and Australian Aboriginal divinities, and many others.

The use of Mesopotamian myth in comic books shows the continued capacity of ancient legends to find new audiences and modern relevance. In the comic multiverse, an appreciation of storytelling bridges a cultural gap of 4,000 years, making old stories new again, and hopefully preserving them for the future.

Louise Pryke, Lecturer, Languages and Literature of Ancient Israel, Macquarie University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

There’s a Reason Siri, Alexa and AI Are Imagined as Female – Sexism

When we can only seemingly imagine an AI as a subservient woman, we reinforce dangerous and outdated stereotypes.

Virtual assistants are increasingly popular and present in our everyday lives: literally with Alexa, Cortana, Holly, and Siri and fictionally in films Samantha (Her), Joi (Blade Runner 2049) and Marvel’s AIs, FRIDAY (Avengers: Infinity War), and Karen (Spider-Man: Homecoming). These names demonstrate the assumption that virtual assistants, from SatNav to Siri, will be voiced by a woman. This reinforces gender stereotypes, expectations and assumptions about the future of artificial intelligence.

Fictional male voices do exist, of course, but today they are simply far less common. HAL-9000 is the most famous male-voiced Hollywood AI – a malevolent sentient computer released into the public imagination 50 years ago in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Male AI used to be more common, specifically in stories where technology becomes evil or beyond our control (like Hal). Female AI on the other hand is, more often than not, envisaged in a submissive servile role. Another pattern concerns whether fictional AI is embodied or not. When it is, it tends to be male, from the Terminator, to Sonny in I, Robot and super-villain Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ex Machina’s Ava (Alicia Vikander) is an interesting anomaly to the roster of embodied AI and she is seen as a victim rather than an uncontrolled menace, even after she kills her creator.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically the AI inventions of Tony Stark, and the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, offer interesting and somewhat problematic takes on the future of AI. The future may be female, but in these imagined AI futures this is not a good thing.

Marvel assistants

At least since the demise of Stark’s sentient AI JARVIS in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2013), the fictional AI landscape has become predominately female. Stark’s male AI JARVIS – which he modelled and named after his childhood butler – is destroyed in the fight against Ultron (although he ultimately becomes part of a new embodied android character called The Vision). Stark then replaces his operating system not with a back up of JARVIS or another male voiced AI but with FRIDAY (voiced by Kerry Condon).

FRIDAY is a far less prominent character. Stark’s AI is pushed into a far more secondary role, one where she is very much the assistant, unlike the complex companion Stark created in JARVIS.

Likewise, in Spider-Man Homecoming, Stark gifts Peter Parker (Tom Holland) his own super suit, which comes with a nameless female-voiced virtual assistant. Peter initially calls her “suit lady”, later naming her Karen. Peter imbues his suit with personality and identity by naming it, but you wonder if he would have been so willing to imagine his suit as a caring confidant if it had come with a older-sounding male voice.

Karen is virtual support for the Spider-Man suit, designed to train and enhance Peter’s abilities. But in building a relationship of trust with her, Karen takes on the role of a friend for Peter, even encouraging him to approach the girl he likes at school. Here, the female voiced AI takes on a caring role – as a mother or sister – which places the Karen AI into another limiting female stereotype. Female voiced or embodied AI is expected to have a different role to their male-aligned counterparts, perpetuating the idea that women are more likely to be in the role of the secretary rather than the scientist.

Blade Runner‘s Joi

Another classic example of artificial intelligence can be found in Blade Runner (1982) and its bio-robotic androids, the Replicants. These artificial beings were designed and manufactured to do the jobs that humans in the future didn’t want: from colonising dangerous alien planets to serving as sex workers. Although stronger and often smarter than their humans creators, they have a limited lifespan that literally stops them from developing sufficiently to work out how to take over.

The recent Blade Runner 2049 updates the replicants’ technology and introduces a purchasable intelligent holographic companion called Joi (Ana de Armas). The Joi we are shown in the film is Agent K’s (Ryan Gosling) companion – at first restricted by the projector in his home and later set free, to an extent (Joi is still controlled by K’s movements), when K buys himself a portable device called an Emanator. Joi is a logical extension of today’s digital assistants and is one of the few female AIs to occupy the narrative foreground.

But at the end of the day, Joi is a corporate creation that is sold as “everything you want to hear and everything you want to see”. A thing that can be created, adapted, and sold for consumption. Her holographic body makes her seem a little more real but her purpose is similar to those of the virtual assistants discussed here already: to serve often male masters.

Subservient women

When we can only seemingly imagine an AI as a subservient woman, we reinforce dangerous and outdated stereotypes. What prejudices are perpetuated by putting servile obedient females into our dreams of technology, as well as our current experiences? All this is important because science fiction not only reflects our hopes and fears for the future of science, but also informs it. The imagined futures of the movies inspire those working in tech companies as they develop and update AI, working towards the expectations formed in our fictions.

Just like in the movies, default real-life virtual assistants are often female (Siri, Alexa). But there is some promise of change: having announced in May that their Google Assistant would be getting six new voices, but that the default was named “Holly”, Google more recently issued an update that assigns them colours instead of names, done randomly in order to avoid any associations between particular colours and genders.

This is a promising step, but technology cannot progress while the same types of people remain in control of their development and management. Perhaps increased female participation in Silicon Valley could change the way we imagine and develop technology and how it sounds and looks. Diversity in front of and behind the Hollywood camera is equally important in order to improve the way we present our possible futures and so inspire future creators.

Amy Chambers, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.