Viewer Log: Wheel of Time ep 9

An event nearly two years in the making.

Last time on The Wheel of Time, Rand and Moiraine set out to face his destiny. While they traveled the Great Blight to the Eye of the World, Rand is plagued by dreams of the mysterious man in Black taunting him. They arrive at the Eye and Rand falls into a coma. In his sleep, the Dark One tries to tempt Rand by showing him a vision of his perfect world, a life with Egwene and their daughter living in the al’Thor farm. Rand nearly falls to it, but rallies when he remembers that even if this is his fantasy, that’s not his Egwene so this isn’t worth it. He uses a sa’angreal in his pocket to seemingly overwhelm and destroy the Dark One. While that is going on, Egwene and Nynaeve are recruited to protect Fal Dara from a Trolloc invasion. They form a circle with Lady Amalisa, sister to Lord Agelmar, the lord of the castle and two others. They hold the Trollocs off, but everyone but Egwene ends up burning out and dying. With the last of her channeling strength, Egwene is able to revive Nynaeve. And while that is going on, a raiding party of Fades lead by Padan Fain break into Fal Dara and steal the Horn of Valere, an ancient artifact hidden in the castle for centuries. Loial, the Two Rivers Folk’s friend, is cut by Mat’s old evil dagger in the struggle and Perrin is left existentially struggling if he can hold onto the way of the leaf and face off against evil. At the Eye, Rand wakes up and begs Moiraine to find a way to tell everyone that he died here at the Eye. He’s worried that the madness Saidin channelers always succumb to will consume him and he’ll kill his friend unless he runs. She agrees to. After he left, Moiraine’s bodyguard and confidant Lan arrives. They realize that the Eye was a seal to the Dark One’s prison, it’s broken now, and that Moiraine was Stilled by the Dark One at the start of the fight. Hell of a finale. Let’s get to season 2.

 

Episode 9: A Taste of Solitude

 

We begin at an isolated manner house. A little girl is playing outside and looking at what looks like another seal to the Dark One’s prison. A group of Trollocs arrive and run at the girl. She runs inside and slams the door on them. She runs inside and hides under the table. A meeting is going on, lead by the Man from last season, the guy that Rand battled at and seemingly defeated at the Eye of the World. There are several other people at this meeting, but we don’t see any of their faces as we’re at the little girl’s eye level. She goes to speak to her mom, when the Man ducks under the table and says they’re in the middle of a meeting. He knows she’s in there because of the Trolloc. He takes her by the hand and says that people call him monster and other mean things, Father of Lies, Betrayer of Hope, Forsaken. He says they call him and the other “chosen” such hideous names because if they called him by what he really is, no one would be afraid. We’re shown Padan Fain at the meeting as he pulls his hood off and winks at her. The Man takes her outside and shows her to the Trolloc, asking what if it’s not evil, what if it’s just hungry? He picks the girl up and places his hand and then hers against the Trolloc’s. Weird.

 

Shifting locations, we find Moiraine working on a farm of some kind near a cliff. She’s drawing water from a well and walking it back to main building.  She pours the water into a large tub and uses it to wash herself. She’s clearly trying to channel but the weaves don’t come to her like they used to. She tries to relax in the water, but ends up crying and hugging herself. Lan, meanwhile, is training with his sword. He goes through several basic sword forms and also seems to be bottling up his emotions. A horse rides up, breaking his concentration. We return to the main house where we’re introduced to the Aes Sedai Adeleas and Verin, and Verin’s Warder Tomas.  Adeleas hits on Lan, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, saying that they’ve got a visitor arriving. Verin says that this is the 20^th guest they’ve had and that neither Lan nor Verin know what it’s about. Lan tells Moiraine that they’ve another visitor, this one from Illian. The guest, Bayle Domon, introduces himself before Moiraine orders Lan out. She says they have business to attend to.

 

We jump to the Amyrlin’s study in Tar Valon. Egwene is there as a Novice, cleaning mostly. For those who don’t know, a HUGE part of Novice training at the White Tower is centered around having them do manual labor. It’s supposed to build character or something like that. She does her best to keep her head down, and to not comment when she sees things like Alanna Sedai in bed with her Warders/Lovers Ihvon and Maksim. Which, ya know, is hard for a Two Rivers girl. They’re prudish. She passes the Warder Training grounds and deeper into the Tower bowels to help Nynaeve with the cooking. Nynaeve asks if the Amyrlin was back yet, but Egwene says no. Nynaeve notes that they were told that the Wheel pulled them to the Tower, making them sound important, but that they’ve only been cleaning since they signed the Novice Book. Egwene says that it’s a rite of passage and to not complain. Alanna comes in and gives the women in the kitchen a mini lesson on the One Power. It comes in five parts, Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit. The test today is to use touch the Source and use the One Power to clean a glass full of wash water before drinking it. Gross. She demonstrates the weave, taking the threads of earth from the stones around them, threads of water from the air or glass, combine them and then use that to clean the water. Egwene tries to it without using her hands, and Nynaeve… well, she can’t seem to find the Source. Alanna tells the other women to leave and has a talk with them. Basically she tells them that the Lady Amalisa used their power kill the Trollocs in Fal Dara, that they have great potential, Egwene’s is better than most but Nynaeve is supposedly THE strongest initiate they’ve had in living memory. But she’s been at the Tower for five months and hasn’t touched the Source once. Alanna gives Nynaeve the ultimatum about the water and tells her to close her eyes. Instead, Nynaeve drinks the gross water. Damn girl.

 

We jump to a meeting Alana is having with Sheriam, Liandrin and several other sisters about the Two rivers girls progress. Egwene needs to loosen up bit, and Nynaeve is still blocked. Liandrin says suggests she might need a more effective teacher. It’s here we learn that Liandrin is forbidden from teaching novices because the last one she oversaw died. Repeat. DIED. Sheriam muses that even one loss is too many and that the Tower is a shell of it’s former self. Liandrin insists she should be allowed to teach Nynaeve, as the world is metaphorically burning right now. Illian has called the Great Hunt of the Horn for the first time in a century, another False Dragon has proclaimed himself in Saldea, and Trolloc raids in Arafel. Liandrin asks to just talk to her, and Sheriam agrees. Alanna says this is a mistake, but Sheriam walks off. Liandrin says that no one has ever been hurt by a little talk… and I’m concerned she doesn’t realize that she’s going to be talking with Nynaeve. Nynaeve can make talks hurt.

 

Another jump and we’re with Perrin and Loial in Arad Doman. Perrin is writing a letter to Nynaeve and Egwene when Loial comes up to him and says that the horses are being made ready. Perrin muses that they’re all he has now that Rand’s gone and Mat’s missing. He’s apparently writing to people back home and getting nothing from them either. Loial says that the tracker Lord Ingtar hired has hired sent up a signal fire and they go to meet him. The Hunt for the Horn of Valere begins. The group, comprised of Perrin, Loial, Ingtar, Uno, and a bunch of nameless Shienarans head toward the fire. Uno complains that the signal fire will tip off Fain and the Dark Friends. Loial and Perrin tease Uno as he’s said more than once that he’s been “this” close to catching Fain multiple times since Fal Dara. They meet the tracker, a “sniffer” named Elyas Machera. Uno tells him to put out the fire, but Elyas says that the fire isn’t his. He leads them to the site of a battle, a bunch of people slaughtered by Trolloc. Perrin suddenly hears wolves hwling and then has a vision off the fighting that took place. He begins to follow the path of a child that escaped but stops when Elyas confirms that. They follow the trail to a dead wolf and a dead Sheinaran. They believe the wolf was trying to protect the girl and that the Shienaran was one of the ones that helped Padan Fain into the keep. Ingtar orders that they bury the slaughtered and continue in the morning.

 

Back at the farm, Moiraine is dealing with Bayle. He shows her a piece of Cuendillar, Heartstone. While Moiraine says it’s rare, she wants to know why he thinks this piece is so special. He says it’s because the stuff is made from the One Power itself and shouldn’t BE breakable. The stone white on one half, black on the other. Out in the garden, Lan is picking fruit with Tomas, complaining that the broken bond has him feeling… wrong. He says that Moiraine wants him to leave, and Tomas tells him that that is an option, and that he’ll be here if Moiraine needs a Warder. Lan refuses to go, Tomas saying he’s almost as stubborn as Moiraine is. Domon says that he got the piece just outside of Cairhien, that the “moondial” outside the city shattered early that spring. Domon says that he thinks Moiraine has people following him, he says he wants them gone, but Moiraine says that his enemies are his own. She notes  that there’s writing on it, Domon says that there was a poem written in the old tongue on it. He says he’ll part with the heartstone for fifty marks and a copy of the poem for five. Moiraine talks him down to one for the poem and just takes that, saying it’s all she needs. Domon is actually impressed with her haggling skills. She asks about the men following him, he says they’re two men in black with their faces covered. Moiraine tells him to rush to his boat and get gone, giving him ten more marks for provision. She wishes him luck as he goes. She unwravels the poem and reads it.

 

Back at the Tower, Nynaeve is sword training with Maksim and Ihvon. She’s good enough to impress them. Nynaeve complains about Alanna, but then says it’s the Tower itself makes her feel off. Maksim tells her that in the first month of Warder training you have to fight ten men at once, that you get beaten and bruised and that the only thing that can keep a man going is the reason they came to the Tower to train. She asks what brought them, Maksim says he fell in love with a Warder, and Ihvon says he fell in love with an Aes Sedai. How sweet… sort of. Maksim warns that the Aes Sedai will do similar things, custom made for her, to get her to channel and that she’ll save herself a lot of hurt if she can just answer that question. Nynaeve heads to Egwene’s room and tries to talk to her but finds it empty. Egwene visits Alanna. Egwene says that she wanted to talk about earlier, saying that she has trouble focusing on two things at once. Alanna initially thinks this is a sex question about handling two partners… but Egwene meant handling two WEAVES at once. Alanna says that it’s because she’s focusing on the individual pieces of dirt and not the mass of Earth itself and that’s what’s tripping her up. Egwene thanks her and goes to leave, Alanna adding that “things are messy before they’re perfect.”

 

Back in the kitchen, Nynaeve is trying to practice the water trick when Liandrin joins her. She starts by saying that Nynaeve has proven to be a disappointment. She says that Nynaeve is wasting her time with the Warders. Nynaeve defends the Warders, saying she’s learned more from them than from the sisters. Liandrin mocks the idea of fighting with swords, showing that she can make a sword from air, and then saying that she wouldn’t use such a thing herself. She doesn’t fight fairly; she fights to win. She blasts Nynaeve with a tornado of Air Weaves. Nynaeve demands to be let go. Liandrin says Red sisters don’t use Warders because they can defend themselves, calling Warders glorified dogs. She insults Lan, saying that he’ll end up a footnote in history, dying in a war, and pisses off Nynaeve so much she channels and throws her back with Air Weaves. Liandrin is actually impressed by that, saying Nynaeve was able to copy it perfectly after just seeing it once. She shields Nynaeve and tells her to use her anger to channel. She says she wants to make Nynaeve so strong no one will be able to take her power away like that again. She leaves Nynaeve shaking on the floor.

 

The Shienarans bury the dead, including the traitor. Perrin asks why, Ingtar saying that all men deserve a proper burial. Perrin asks why he isn’t angry, the traitor killed hundreds of his people. Ingtar says that if he was angry and sought revenge against all those that wronged Shienar, there wouldn’t be any of them left in the Borderlands. Perring talks about Fain, how Two Rivers folk treated him kindly and how he thought of him as a friend, how he sees an image of Fain waving to his wife and her waving back at him, smiling. He’s clearly shifting some of the anger and guilt at her death on to Fain, just saying. Perrin says that there’s a rage inside of him that grows as they get closer to finding him. He’s worried about killing Fain and watching him bleed out in front of him like Laila did. Ingtar says that maybe he had a reason and says that it might be worth it to ask Fain that question even if he doesn’t like the answer.

 

Lan goes to Moiraine and asks how it went. She’s still reading the poem and doesn’t acknowledge him until he asks who the trader was. Lan is infuriated by Moiraine smiling at him and acting like everything is fine and tells her as much. Moiraine says she’ll have her dinner up here and Lan says to make it herself as he storms off. She sits in silence and looks at the poem again.

 

Nynaeve goes to speak with Egwene, showing her a letter from Perrin. She asks what Egwene is doing, and Egwene reveals that it’s Bel Tine again, so she’s making one of the boats. Nynaeve reads the letter, summed up, he’s overwhelmed but enjoying his time with the soldiers and uses a metaphor about using shields to protect each other to say he misses them. But now that they’re separated, every day he feels exposed. He tells them that next year the four of them, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve and Loial will celebrate Bel Tine together and if they’re lucky, Mat will stay out of trouble and find them too. We cut to Mat, sitting on the floor of a cell. She reads the same letter to Mat, sans the line about him and then says how sad it is that in a dozen letters he hasn’t been mentioned once. She mocks his pain, saying it must be difficult for them to forgive him for abandoning him. Mat says what she wants. She says that naivety doesn’t suit him. He says that he hasn’t touched the dagger in six months and he’s not a threat to anyone. She wishes him a merry Bel Tine and locks him in.

 

We see Perrin make a boat for Laila. He almost puts his ring on it and sends it off but puts it back on at the last minute. Egwene says she misses Rand so much, and Nynaeve assures her that she’ll be with her always. They put out their boat for Rand, saying may his spirit find them again in this life or the next. Mat, meanwhile, moves his chest of drawers and pulls out loose brick. We also see a moment of Rand in an unknown village hanging his own lantern boat.

 

Lan joins Verin, Adeleus, and Verin for dinner, asking them to wait for Moiraine. Adeleus says that he’s taking this all too personally. Verin tells him that being cut off from the Source feels like the worst kind of assault, that most women don’t recover, they die. Verin says that she looks at Moiraine and sees strength. Tomas says the bond is one way they communicate, but not the only one. He tells him to instead of trying to force her to speak, to instead be quiet and truly listen. Lan notes that that might be the first time in his life someone told him he needed to be quiet. He takes a plate up to Moiraine. He finds her room empty but leaves the plate and utensils on her table. Outside, She runs almost immediately into a Myrddraal.  It knocks her off her horse and drives her into a nearby ruin. She draws a knife and tries to move around the Half-Man. She makes a mark with her boot, then slips around and stabs the Fade as it steps out of a shadow. She gets stabbed by a second one. Lan rushes in and slices it to pieces. A third Fade arrives and Land fights it with two swords. More Fades arrive, Lan keeps fighting and injuring the Shadowspawn. He kills one more but takes a serious would to the back of the legs and to his chest. He reaches out to Moiraine as they both bleed. Moiraine focuses and for a moment it looks like she’s channeling, but it’s revealed to by Verin. She tells them to cover their ears. Her weave distracts the Myrddraal long enough for Tomas to kill it with a sword of fire. Lan asks her what she’s not telling him as they both pass out.

 

Overall, this was a good start to the season. We get to see how everyone is doing after last season. Perrin’s on the hunt, Egwene is doing her best to learn, Nynaeve is doing her best to NOT learn, Moiraine is doing research and not talking, Lan is frustrated at not talking, Mat’s is being held against his will and Rand’s hiding out. Scattered to the four corners of the world indeed. I think of tall of them Egwene is doing the best. She’s not well, by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s burying her grief in learning channeling and being an Aes Sedai, which is at least productive. Nynaeve is terrified at tapping into the power that almost killed her and is really doing her damnedest to stay away from it while still not abandoning Egwene. She was never much of a fighter in the books, but I could see Book-Nynaeve also trying to use physical training like learning some swordsmanship to vent her feelings. Perrin is on the hunt, which is super relevant to the journey he’s going to be on. I’m glad he’s got Loial there for emotional support or else he might be wallowing in anger. The bit with his lantern boat, where he almost lets his ring go as a metaphor of Laila go but backs off at the last minute does describe his mindset well. Elyas is an important character to his arc and I’m looking forward to seeing Perrin bond with the ‘sniffer.’ I liked finding out what had happened to Mat since he left in the 6^th episode. Looks like he’s not doing well being held against his will. That dude is too much of a free spirit to be happy being stuck anywhere for six months. I’ve no idea what’s with the brick. Seeing the flash of Rand this episode I think was a good call. Better to show us how everyone is adjusting to his “death” than to focus on him for the first episode. The Dragon Reborn is in the wind and they’ll need to find him soon. I liked this interpretation of the “Dark One.” At this point in the story, he’s a stark raving lunatic, screaming at his minions to find al’Thor and bring him to him, his eyes and mouth on fire and his temper short. But this… calm version I think is way more sinister. The fact he takes time out of an important meeting to indoctrinate a child into trusting a Trolloc is just so unnerving. If he’s this persuasive now, he’ll be very dangerous indeed. Moiraine burying herself in her work to avoid her loss of power is classic her. I don’t love her pushing Lan away, as the two were a united front for most of the first few books, but this Moiraine without her powers is a unique plot line. So yeah, overall, I liked this start to the new season and am looking forward to see where it goes. Have a good night!

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Review: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

 Time to swing across the Multiverse

Okay, let’s talk Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The film is the sequel to the 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which followed the death of a Peter Parker and the raise of his successor Miles Morales. Along for the ride were Peter B Parker, a burnt-out version of Peter from another universe that needed to get the spark to try again, Gwen Stacy, a Spider-Woman pulled into this universe that need to learn to be open again, and Peter Noir, Peni Parker, and Peter Porker, three more Spiders from alternate universes pulled in by a super collider. Said collider was built by Wilson Fisk and Doc Olivia Octavius to try to bring an alternate version of Fisk’s recently deceased wife and son back to him. Miles learned to be a Spider-Man, befriended his Spider-peers and said goodbye to a Mentor and friend-he-definitely had a crush on. Great movie, great animation, now let’s talk about the sequel. Let’s get to it.

 

The film opens with Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman or Ghost Spider depending on the story, telling the general backstory of the first film. Miles Morales, bitten by a radioactive spider, uncle the Prowler died, big dimensional portal, and all that jazz. As she’s talking, she’s working through her feelings by drumming her heart out. We get a quick text flash telling us what universe we’re in, 65, as MJ and the rest of the band chew her out for getting so lost in playing she didn’t notice the song was over. Her bandmates try to get her to talk it out, but she’s bottling up her feelings too much to talk, so storms off. She remembers her backstory. She started off as Spider-Woman, her dad already clocked Spider-Woman as a menace, but her best friend Peter thought she was cool. Peter was being bullied, and in his desperation to make it stop and feel special, like Gwen, he concocted a serum and became Earth-65’s Lizard. On Prom night. Gwen fought the Lizard and ended up killing it by dropping scaffolding on him, only to discover it was Peter. He died in her arms and her father found him over the body and assumed the worst. She escaped and the hunt for Spider-Woman began. She laments the fact she only made only one friend since then, and he, Miles, is about as far from her as Peter is now.

 

She returns home and tries to move past her dad without talking. George, trying to make her feel better, tells her that he’s got a break in the Spider-Woman case and that he’ll bring her in and things will be okay. Gwen is evasive and defensive about Spider-Woman, really should have tipped him off just saying, and tells him that catching her won’t bring Peter back. They hug and then George gets a call about Vulture causing trouble downtown. He heads out, she suits up and follows.

 

Gwen arrives just as her dad does, webbing all the cops before heading inside. She gets attacked by a literal Renaissance era Vulture. They battled, Gwen deducing that he was pulled into this dimension and started wrecking stuff. Vulture’s tech is old timey but puts Gwen on the ropes, she’s almost sliced to ribbons, but is saved at the last minute by Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099. After some banter where Gwen uses her spider whit to annoy him so much that he answers her questions. Namely that he’s a Spider-Man from another dimension and that he’s leading a team of Spiders to help protect the multiverse. The Vulture gets back up and they all start fighting again. Miguel blames Gwen for her part in the Kingpin supercollider that led to these holes in space and villains being sucked through to other dimensions. Miguel cuts off one of the Vulture’s wings, but he quickly rebuilds it, revealing he has access to Hammer-Space. It’s an extradimensional space where one can store infinite amounts of objects. Did Spider-Ham pull a hammer as big as himself out of a pocket? Hammer space. Miguel has his AI assistant Lyla call for backup. Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, drives in on her Spider-Cycle and slams into Vulture before webbing him some more. Jessica and Gwen meet, Gwen geeking out a little bit at how cool Jessica seems, and then marvels at her fighting while at least 6 months Pregnant. They all start fighting the Vulture again, Jessica taking a moment to ask Miguel if they should recruit Gwen, but he says no. And when asked why he says, “you know why.” A disruption starts going through the museum, warping it and Miguel says something about disrupting a Canon Event. He rides Vulture outside, almost bites him like a damn Vampire, but Vulture escapes by shooting a helicopter. They all crash. Gwen quickly leaps around, webbing all over the place to slow the copter down while Jessica and Miguel clear some of the civilians and then all three stop the copter from crashing. Miguel grabs a roped-up Vulture and he and Jessica give Gwen the spider-bro nod. Gwen, injured, tries to get away, but her dad corners her. She tries to talk to him but he’s bringing her in. Desperate, Gwen takes her mask off. While shocked to realize she’s Gwen, George continues to read her Maranda Rights. Jessica and Miguel arrive, stopping George and taking her with them through a rift, giving her a wrist device that’ll keep her from glitching out in other realities.

 

And after that lengthy intro we catch up with the Titular Spider-Man, Miles Morales of Earth 1610. He’s racing across town to get to a meeting with his parents and the school counselor to get the jump on college. He’s distracted by a weird guy attempting to steal an ATM. Well, first he tries to open a portal into an ATM to just take the money, messes up, and then decides to try to steal the whole thing. While the store owner tries to beat him up with a bat, Miles heats up a beef patty. The dude makes a lot of complaints, saying he used to be a scientist (handsome by scientist standards) but got turned into white thing covered in spots and now can’t get a job so turned to a life of crime. Miles and the dude finally face off, the dude introducing himself as the Spot. He claims to be from Miles’ Past, but Miles gets a text from his dad to get to the school, so has to hurry past that without comment. He tries to web the Spot, misses and because portal ends up Webbing himself as he struggles to go after the Spot and get the web off, we get the info dump.

 

It’s been a year and four months in universe since the last film and he’s had a few ups and downs. He’s gotten bigger, got a new costume, Aunt May moved to Florida, he guest hosted Jeopardy, endorsed Baby powered, apologized for endorsing the baby powder, improved his venom strike (knocked out the power to the city, and is generally stressing about his double life and lying to his parents. He says he’s not thinking too much about his extra-dimensional friends but makes a ton of art dedicated to them (especially Gwen). Miles is continuing to fight the Spot. He’s a particularly skilled or even dangerous fighter, but the holes in reality on his body and that he spreads around makes it very hard for Miles to actually hit him. Ultimately, Miles gets a web on him and then ties him up in a web pattern through the wormholes, trapping him. Miles runs off to get to his appointment.

 

Miles swings through his dorm room, telling Ganke about the Spot and asking him to please call it in, but this universe’s version of Ganke Lee is totally uninterested in being the guy in the chair. This might be an awful version of reality. Miles gets his Jordans back from Ganke and then rushes to his appointment. He arrives and gets a high-speed scolding as from his parents for being late, and then again when it’s discovered he’s getting a B in Spanish and missing classes. Miles claims to have a lot going on. It’s revealed that Miles wants to go to Princeton to learn quantum physics and learn to travel across dimensions. He impresses his parents and the councilor with his passion, but immediately ruins it when he has to rush off to get a freed Spot. He got a Spider-sense tingle and saw him out a window. HE rushes off, his father following when he gets a call about the Spot too. Left alone with the councilor, she tells Rio, Miles’ mom, that he’s lying to her and that she thinks that Rio knows that. Miles quickly changes in his room and starts battling with the Spot, his father, Jeff, following him.

 

They fall through a portal and end up at the Alchemax site, now under reconstruction. The Spot dives at Miles and knocks him through a portal. Jeff considers leaping through the portal after them but takes the stairs instead.  Like son, like father. The Spot reveals that he was an Alchemax scientist, the one that brought the Spider that bit Miles through the dimensional rift. He was also the scientist that got hit with a bagel when Miles and Peter B raided the Alchemax facility in upstate New York. HE was in the collider room when Miles and the others blew it up and turned him into this. He screams at Miles for turning him into this creature, saying he will respect the Spot as his nemesis. He rushes at the Morales’s but ends up opening a portal in the wrong place, kicking himself in the ass and falling into a portal, disappearing.

 

Jeff starts yelling at Miles for causing so much damage. They have a heart to heart, Jeff saying that he knows Miles is smart, but he does dumb stuff. He’s worried that he’s going to mess his life up. Miles tells his dad to maybe lay off a little. To let him spread his wings a little. Miles leaves, Jeff telling him to catch that holes guy.

 

The Spot materializes in a white space surrounded by holes. He believes he kicked himself into himself. He sticks his head through a hole and sees into a 1950s style universe. He sticks his head through another, Lego universe, and another Venom’s film universe. He falls through another hole and ends up back at the Alchemax. He realizes that his holes are the answer to getting revenge on Spider-Man, toddling off. Back on Lego Earth, Spider-Man-13122 sees the damage caused by the Spot and calls it in to Miguel.

 

Back on 1610, the Rio is looking for Miles during the party they’re throwing for Jeff’s promotion to Captain. Rio is forced to make a speech, buying time while Miles needs to make his way to them with the cakes. It’s a bit awkward. Miles is slowed down multiple times by villains and crooks popping up. Jeff takes over the speech and toasts to his brother, then to Rio and finally to Miles, just then realizing Miles isn’t there. Damn. Miles finally arrives, changing quickly as he runs and leaps up the stairs. He tries to dodge his parents but they’re too fast. His parents try to scold him while also mingling at the party. They ask Miles about the “friends” that he’s running with that they’ve never met. Miles tries to placate them by talking about his friends Peter and Gwanda that left town. Miles gets frustrated and says ‘whatever’ to them and gets grounded. A fight breaks out between them, the DJ does his best to cover them, but they just yell louder. Miles storms off and gets told he’s got two months of grounded.

 

Miles goes to his room and tries to decompress with his headphones on, but his stuff starts floating and he gets called out of his music by Gwen calling out to him through a portal. She leaps into his dimension and hugs him. They both comment on their changes, he got taller, she dyed her hair. She nabs his sketchbook and sees so many drawings of herself and tries to play it off as not TOO weird. They head out in their Spider-suits and catch up. His parents come in, find he’s gone and a girl’s hoodie in the room and Jeff angrily says 3 months.

 

They leap around town, trying to impress each other with swinging techniques as Gwen catches Miles up on what’s been happening with her. Spider-Society, Jessica Drew, Miguel, and her new buddy Hobie. She says that they’re strict about where she goes, or she’d have visited sooner. She slips away for a moment and sets up a camera pointed at the Spot’s apartment building.

 

They stop at the Williamsburg Bank building to chat. They end up sitting upside down in the building and enjoy the scenery. They bond about being young and spider powered. Gwen reveals that in every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man, and it ends badly.  Miles says there’s a first time for everything and they rest against each other. They head back to the party as teens and talk, Miles’ parents not loving this seemingly older white girl their son is hanging out with. Miles wants to go with Gwen on interdimensional missions, but she claims there’s not a lot of slots. His parents interrupt, Gwen calling them by their first names which they hate. It’s awkward but Gwen gets an alert on her device and runs off to handle it. Miles is obviously depressed to see her go, and his mom stays behind to try to talk to him. Miles still can’t bring himself to reveal he’s Spider-man despite wanting to. He almost does it but turns it into “I’m sorry for being late.” Rio, wanting to be supportive, says go after her. She says that her biggest fear for him before he leaves is that wherever he goes won’t have the support she wants for him. She makes him promise he’ll come back and sends him off. Oh, and when he comes back, he’s still grounded.

 

Miles changes and swings after Gwen. They arrive at the apartment and find Spot holes blown in it. Gwen goes in and Miles follows, invisible. Gwen uses future tech to scan the room and replay what happened. In the video, the Spot arrives and reveals he figured out that he needs more dark energy to make more portals. He jerry rigs together a device to give him just enough power to get out of this dimension and into one with a full-sized collider. He turns it on, gets a portal and swears to get revenge on Spider-Man. He touches the spot that was made and vanishes to another universe. Gwen get a call from Jessica Drew. She tries to play off losing the Spot, saying he’s just a villain of the week. Jessica scolds Gwen for seeing Miles, saying that she knows he can’t be part of this. While they argue, Lyla tracks the Spot through realities, seeing that he’s stopping in places with Alchemax colliders. Miles intuits that he’s doing that to make himself more powerful. Gwen asks for another chance and gets it. She’s being sent to Earth-50101. Jessica gives her one more chance, giving her an hour to fix this and opens a portal for her. Gwen heads towards it, stopping long enough to say goodbye in the direction of Miles’ house, not realizing she’s saying it to invisible him directly. Miles almost goes back home but runs through the portal at the last second.

 

He starts glitching almost immediately as he falls through a very Indian inspired New York. It’s dubbed Earth 50101, Mumbattan. It’s a mashup of Manhattan and Mumbai. Miles finds Gwen chasing after the Spot. He’s gotten much better at hopping through portals and portals fighting since yesterday. Miles distracts Gwen and he breaks free of his restraints. Miles catches Gwen when she falls and then almost drops her again when he glitches out again. They’re both saved by Pavitr Prabhakar, Spider-Man India. He’s been a Spider-Man for six months and he’s in the “this is awesome phase” of that lifestyle. He’s got powers, is naturally fit, has amazing hair, a girlfriend and is in general very happy with his life. The first time he seems angry is when he hears Miles refer to Chai as Chai tea, as Chai means tea. After his intro they get back to the fight. The Spot is revealing in getting kind of good at fighting, saying that he's on a journey of self-discovery. This pisses off Pav, who says that coming to India for that is a western cliché and not to “Eat, Pray, Love” me bro.” He slams Miles through several portals before slamming into a billboard. They follow the Spot to Alchemax and arrive just as he’s powering it up. They can’t get to it because of an energy barrier. Miles tries to use his Venom strike to overload the barrier, but he can’t get enough juice into it. They’re interrupted by the intro of the best character, Hobie Brown. He runs in and shatters the barrier. Hobie leads the others in fighting the Spot.

 

He gives us his quick background, he’s Spider-Punk, a Spider-Man from a Fascist version of London. He’s a rocker, anti-establishment type, and is just in general cool dude. The Spiders do well again the Spot, but he eventually throws the others back with a portal. He tells his Spider-Man, Miles, that this’ll be good for them, that they’ll finally live up to their potential. Miles will have a villain worth fighting, and he won’t just be a joke to him. They almost stop him, but the Spot enters the collider and super charges himself. It takes a minute but then it explodes. Miles gets a vision of the Spot’s life and of what looks like his father (it flashes between Jeff and Inspector Singh, Pavitr’s police officer) being crushed by debris. Miles asks what that was, and the Spot claims it’s their future. He’s much weirder looking now, being all black with a white spot for a face and looking like something out of a cosmic horror story. He tells Miles, “See you back home, Spider-Man,” and vanishes. The spiders race out of the collapsing Alchemax building.

 

Miles tells Gwen and Hobie to hold the building up while he and Pavitr clear civilians. They delay the fall long enough to get a lot of people out of the way and then all four swings through to save more. They end up on a bridge and see Pavitr’s girlfriend Gaytri on a bus begin to fall. Lyla contacts Gwen, saying a canon event is incoming. Inspector Singh runs in and tries to save a child. Pavitr sees him and knows he’ll die without help. He says to himself that he can save them both and tries to pull the bus up more quickly. Miles runs in and grabs Singh, despite Gwen telling him to stay back. He’s seemingly crushed by rubble with Singh as Hobie helps Pavitr pull the bus up. Pavitr hugs Gaytri and pretends to not know her, and Gaytri and Singh hug. Singh and Pavitr shake hands and Pavitr and Hobbie sing Miles’ praises. They have a moment of cheering, but then a giant hole forms in space beneath them. A Spider drone lands full of Spider-people who set about trying to seal the anomaly. Jessica tells them all they’er ordered back to HQ.

 

They land in the 2099-dimension, Nueva York Earth 928. Hobie taking off his mask for the first time and we get to see his afro and piercings. So cool. We’re shown the full Spider-Society, a giant building built for Spiders. Hundreds of Spider-Men, Women, people, and objects are all over the place. Miles is brought through their lock up, which contains villains that got stuck in other dimensions. They’ve got several Doc Ocks, Moosterio, Ms. Sterio, Pixilated video game baddies, Kraven, a literal Rhion, and Childish Gambino… I mean Donald Glover… I mean Prowler from the MCU. He’s introduce to Margo Kess aka Spider-Byte, who runs their “Go Home Machine” the device they use to return people to their correct dimensions. She’s from an advanced future world and her body is a physical digital avatar. Neat.

 

As they walk, they’re being watched by Miguel O’Hara via the cameras.  We see him take an injection of some kind, saying that he’s not like the other Spider-Men and that he doesn’t always like what he must do. As they walk toward Miguel, Hobie grabs random bits of tech off the wall, saying it probably doesn’t do anything and that he’s rebelling against propaganda or something. Hobie tells Miles that being a spider is about your independence and warns Miles not to sign up until he knows who he’s fighting. Gwen introduces Miles to Miguel. Miguel flips out at Miles and Gwen for causing another rip in space time, but he’s actively ignoring Hobie as he can’t deal with him. Peter B comes in and says to go easy on Miles, he had a terrible teacher. Peter B is in a bathrobe and baby Bjorn. Why? He brought his daughter, May “Mayday” Parker. Peter has become an extremely doting dad, showing everyone pictures of Mayday despite her being there. He scolds Miguel as being the only Spider-Man that isn’t funny, and they have a little argument about what it takes to protect the multiverse. Miguel tells Miles that he interrupted a Canon event. He explains Canon events, pivotal points in a Spider’s life that connects them. Different stages, different actors playing Spider-Man (Woman/etc), but with the same story beats. You know a lot of them, death of a father/father figure, great power/great responsibility, death of a police captain saving a child. That last one is important, as Miles interrupted Pavitr’s version of that. Miles is a little surprised it happened to Hobie too, but he says what of it. Miguel says that the canon binds reality together, but they can be broken and that leads to anomalies and instability in the multiverse. Miguel explains why he knows this and why he fights so hard to keep the universe together. This instance of Miguel O’Hara, while exploring the multiverse, found one where he wasn’t Spider-Man, and where he had a family and happy life. That Miguel was killed, so this Miguel stepped into that one’s life. He lived with this family, loved them, but the disruption to the canon caused that world to be destroyed. Break enough canon, save enough captains, and they could lose everything.

 

Miles realizes that his dad is about to become a captain and what that means. He has that same vision of his father dying by the Spot. He asks when it happens. Miguel tells him two days, according to their model. Miles wants to be sent home but Miguel won’t let him go. Miles tries to get support from the others, asking Peter if he’d stay if he knew Uncle Ben was going to die. Peter tells him that without Uncle Ben dying, most of the Spiders wouldn’t be there. Miguel tells him the old ‘lose one, save a thousand’ saying. Miles insists Spider-Man can do both, but the others disagree. Miles realizes that he’s surrounded by Spider-Men, including Peni Parker from the last movie. Miles realizes that this is some kind of intervention. Miguel captures him in a capture web and says they’ll just hold him a few days while things play out. Hobie reminds Miles about using his whole hand, and Miles does so, using his Venom strike to short out the cage. He runs. The Spiders chase after him, Peter tells Mayday that he’s sorry for doing this and that it’s bad parenting, and Hobie says that he quits, walking through a portal and dropping his watch.

 

An alert goes out to stop Miles Morales. Miles is chased by every Spider in the building, including Spider-Cat and Spider-Rex. During the chase, Peter asks Miguel to get a picture of this, as it’s Mayday’s first chase, she ends up webbing the button and getting the shot herself. Miles almost gets cornered but leaps out a window. They end up falling beneath the city into an underground section. Peter B webs miles and pulls him away. He tells Miles that it’s crazy to run. He insists that Miles hold Mayday and let them change the vibe so they can talk. He eventually says that he and MJ had her because he likes Miles and thought that if he could raise his kid to be as good as Miles that’d be great. Lyla tracks his location and sends the others toward Miles. He webs Peter up and then leaps through a machine to the street.

 

They end up on a high-speed train and going vertically towards the moon. Miguel takes Miles’ watch off and he starts shorting out. He and Miguel start brawling, him telling the future Spider-Man. Miguel tells him that he’s an anomaly, THE anomaly. That the spider that bit him came from a universe other than his own, so there’s a dimension that has no Spider-Man to protect it. He calls Miles a mistake, and that because of him, his Peter would have lived. Miles learns that Peter and Gwen knew about his status as an anomaly and that they didn’t know how to tell him. Miles reveals that he lured all the Spiders away on purpose. He then charges up on Miguel’s digital suit and then full palm blasts him out. He tells Miguel that he’s going to do his own thing and leaps off the train before disappearing. Miguel’s suit recovers and he dives after him.

 

Back at the Bace, Margo is distracted trying hair styles for her avatar when the Go Home Machine starts powering up. Miles, while invisible, gets the machine to recognize his dimensional signature and tells it to send him home. Margo tries to switch the machine off but can’t get it to shut down. Miguel arrives and tries to break the shell being woven around Miles. Margo gets to the point where she can reboot the system but lets him go.

 

There’s a little more to the movie, but I don’t want to ruin the twist. See the movie to find out.

 

This is a great movie. The plot was great, the animation amazing and I loved the cast. Shameik Moore is amazing as Miles. He’s grown a bit between films, both physically and emotionally. He’s more of the Spider-Man he needs to be that he was growing into in the first film. The fights with his parents feel authentic. They’re a loving family that is dealing with the compounding issues of Miles having to lie to keep them safe. All the Spiders were great, but Hobie Brown portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya is amazing. I didn’t realize this on first viewing, but I saw someone point out something interesting about him. He’s designed to be and played up as Miles’ romantic rival. The too cool guy that is probably just friends with Gwen, but Miles is threatened by him and continues to mess up because of it. Instead, from the moment he arrived he was Miles’ biggest fan. He gives him tips and advice, tries to warn him about the pitfalls of Spider Society, generally just being a helpful dude. I especially liked the bit where he was seemingly ripping tech off at random but was building something important for the finale. Karan Soni as Pavitr is great as Spider-Man India. He’s cool, confident, and just loves the lifestyle. I enjoyed him being upset about various Indian stuff. I think his design is the best of all the characters and a vast improvement on the original Spider-Man India suit. Originally, his suit is top half Spider-Man, bottom half a dhoti with a trailing sash. It’s just… not great. The redesign just feels more… authentically Indian. So yeah, he’s cool. I liked the expansion on Gwen’s story, showing us how she became Spider-Woman and the death of her Peter. I think it fleshed her out just a bit more to see the worst part of her origin before jumping into the main plot. Her universe is also beautifully animated, just saying. The chase scene is amazing, I just wish it hadn’t been spoiled in literally every trailer. Jason’s Schwartzman is great as the Spot. I read that the idea was he’s supposed to be Miles’ antithesis, as Miles grew into a better hero in the first film, The Spot grew as a villain in this one. But that leads a little into the bad.

 

I feel like the Spot is weirdly utilized in this film. He’s the main villain in the first half, a bumbler that becomes an eldritch horror, but then he just kind of vanishes halfway through the movie. I know that they needed to set up the Spider Society and to finish off the Spot in movie 3 but it’s just an uneven pacing to me. Also, when we get to the Spider Society, all but like 10% of which was used in the trailer by the way, it feels like we’re super rushing through that to set up all these Spider-Men/women/people. Part of me feels like they should have finished off the Spot in this film and then saved dealing with the issues that the Spider Society solves and maybe causes in the third one instead.  But that’s just me.

 

Again, I loved this movie, so I don’t really have much to criticize… From a story telling standpoint. It sounds like the animators were worked to exhaustion without proper compensation in order to get this out and that’s a serious issue in the industry. Just saying. The movie is great, but we need to do better for animators.

 

Great movie, solid story, heroes, and villains. There are minor pacing issues to it and a slight feeling like this is two different movies that are kind of stitched together to get the final product, but it’s an overall fun story. We’re in an era with a glut of multiverse stories, but this one stands out as one of the better ones. The Spiders are all well designed, well animated, and well-acted. The movie has me excited for the finale, and I have no real idea where it’s going to go, along with that twist at the end. Obviously with the writers and actor’s guild strikes still currently going on at the time of writing, it’ll probably not be out in 2024 like originally predicted but I’m more than willing to wait. Great stories need great writers to make them, and all writers need to be paid a living wage. Just saying. So yeah, good movie. Not sure how we’re going to close out this month. So, my next post will be a surprise. Have a good night, everyone. 

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

 A send off that this team deserves.

Let’s talk Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3. The final chapter of the James Gunn Guardian’s films is a masterful way to end a trilogy, being full of heart, humor, and space guns! There are quite a few different little threads for them to finish up, but I think they’re tied up reasonably well. Let’s get to the final adventure of these rapscallions.

 

The movie opens with a massive of baby raccoons in a cage. A mysterious man walks up to the cage, opens the door and grabs the only baby racoon that didn’t have enough sense to huddle back with the others. We jump forward to the present, where it’s revealed that baby raccoon is indeed Rocket. The Guardians are continuing their work restoring Knowhere from the Holiday Special. He’s listening to Radiohead’s “I’m a Creep,” as he goes around checking on everyone. Drax and Mantis are doing some painting, Nebula and Groot are hanging up their Guardians of the Galaxy sign, and Cosmo and Kraglin are fighting over something. Rocket enters he bar area where he finds a very drunk Peter Quill. It seems he’s relapsed from the happy high he was on at the end of the Holiday Special, where he learned that Mantis is his half-sister. He sees Rocket has his Zune and is irate. He yells at Rocket to keep his grimy Raccoon hands off his stuff. Rocket grabs a drink, saying he’s not a damn Raccoon before Peter passes out on the ground. Rocket flags down Nebula and the crew gathers as they take a passed out Peter to his room to sleep it off. Nebula tucks him in and turns the lights out for him.

 

Rocket asks Nebula what she plans to do with Peter, and they fight over who has the least emotional damage to handle that. Cosmo the space dog shows up Kraglin by hitting targets with his arrow better than he can, and Kraglin being mean and saying Cosmo is a bad dog. Cosmo, like I assume any dog that has ever heard that phrase, is furious and demands he take it back. This is going to be kind of her whole thing this movie. The crew gathers and try to discuss what to do about Peter. They don’t settle on a solution, unfortunately.

 

We cut to the space just outside of Knowhere where a man of gold is flying through the void towards it. Rocket heads up to his own room to get some sleep, looking at a keycard of some kind just before taking off his shirt to wind down, when a bright light barrels into his room and knocks him clear across the area. This alien is clearly a Sovereign. Remember the Sovereign? They were the golden aliens that the Guardians helped in Vol 2 at the start but ended up swearing an oath of everlasting vengeance against them after Rocket stole some of their batteries. A huge brawl takes places across Knowhere as the Guardians try to stop the Sovereign from taking Rocket. Nebula tries to shoot him with a cannon but is knocked aside, Groot wraps him in vines but the Sovereign flies off with him, slamming him around Knowhere until he breaks Groot’s head off. Kraglin tries to hit him with the arrow but it bounces off his skin. He finds Rocket as he’s about to ready a cannon to shoot him and gets blasted. He breaks Mantis’ arm and almost attacks Rocket again, but is distracted by Peter’s Element Gun shots and Drax throwing him outside, saying to pick on someone his own size. While Drax fights, Nebula pulls herself back together and Peter and Mantis rush to get Rocket a medpack to help him recover from his gun shot wounds. Nebula sneaks up behind the Sovereign as he beats on Drax, stabbing him through the chest and making him drop. Peter gets a medpack on Rocket but it seems to induce a stroke rather than fix him. The Guardians recover from their various wounds as the Sovereign flies off into space again. Guess his species can handle stab wounds. They rush Rocket to the ship and their med bay.

 

Rocket seems to have a dream about his… procedure. We don’t get many details besides his fur being shaved in places to allow for the cybernetic and brain augments, being tattooed with the serial number 89P13, and injected with various chemicals. He’s thrown into a cage with several other altered animals, a female Otter, a Male walrus, and a male bunny. The otter’s body has been modified into an approximation of a bipedal shape with robotic arms, but the Walrus has wheels connected to his rump to help him move and the Bunny has had spider-like legs attached to his back. Rocket’s first words are Hurts. And my heart breaks a little. The Otter gets a cloth, tells him to not be scared and helps clean the blood off him.

 

In the present, the Guardian’s learn that Rocket has a kill-switch in his brain that is set to go off if  anything tampers with his body. The switch is on his heart. Mantis asks about Rocket’s past, wondering if they can figure anything out from there on how to save him. Peter just says that Rocket won’t talk about it. Nebula, who is plugged into him and doing most of the scanning, sees most of the tech is copywritten for a company called OrgoCorp and they have his 89P13 serial number. Nebula says he’s got maybe 48 hours. Peter tells the team to get ready, they’re going to head to OrgoCorp and save Rocket. Peter leaves Kraglin and Rocket in charge while they’re gone. Nebula says she might have a contact near OrgoCorp that can help.

 

While they fly, we get another memory of Rocket’s. He’s playing along with his other prisoners in their cell. They are playing tag or something. They all end up on the ground, laughing, the otter saying it’s good to have friends.

 

In the present, we jump to Counter-Earth, the headquarters of our villain.  Ayesha, the head of the Sovereign, is weeping over the injured Sovereign that tried to grab rocket. Her boss comes in, the High Evolutionary. He demands to know if her minion has what he wants, but she says no. She blames the High Evolutionary for releasing the “Warlock” from his maturation pod early. When the boy, Adam, complains about his chest wound, High Evolutionary uses his own gravity powers to slam him against the wall and torture him until Ayesha begs him to stop. He orders them to get 89P13 back, NOW, and storms off. He asks one of his attendents, Theel, how 89P13 could still be alive after all these years, Theel saying he was always clever. The High Evolutionary wants Rocket specifically for that cleverness, he wants to examine Rocket’s brain. Theel asks if it’s wise to leave this up to the Sovereign and the High Evolutionary says they’re a backup plan as he knows where the Guardians are going.

 

We cut to the Orgoscope, headquarters of OrgoCorp, a giant organic planet. It’s just as horrifying as it sounds. Nebula is scanning the area and sees that there are three shields protecting the Orgoscope. Peter prepares the ship to penetrate the shield, lamenting the fact his drunkenness is what lead to Rocket getting hurt. Mantis and Drax try to get him to cheer up. After lamenting the deaths in his life, his mom, Yandu, Gamora 1.0, while Mantis reminds him his grandpa might still be alive. Peter is dismissive of the idea, as he remembers a hard man and isn’t interested in reconnecting with him even if he’s still alive. This causes a mild panic in Mantis when she learns humans can die at 50. They punch through another shield and Peter sets the third shield. They head to the bridge, just before the ship shorts out and they get boarded. It’s a Ravagers fleet lead by Sylvester Stallone… I mean Stakar Ogord. They Ravagers board via a lizard guy’s sling ring portals. Nebula stops a fight from breaking out by saying they have an appointment… with Gamora.

 

Stakar gives the group OrgoCorp uniforms, saying they’ll need them to get through the base. The Guardians get into their uniforms while dealing with the weirdness that Gamora is alive but much meaner than they remember. Stakar says that OrgoCorp has some of the most important Genetic IPs in the galaxy in their system. They need to get in, grab the code and get out.

 

Groot goes to check on Rocket and we get another memory. At some point, the High Evolutionary began tutoring Rocket. He impresses the High Evolutionary by solving complex equations. Outside the ship, they see Counter-Earth. It’s a planet that the High Evolutionary is preparing for his experiments. Rocket, or P13 as the High Evolutionary called him then, likes the blue sky and seeing rockets fly by and the music that the High Evolutionary is playing. He wants to turn what things are and turn them into what they should be, his words. He takes Rocket to see something, the little Raccoon grabbing something before following. We learn that the High Evolutionary is working on trying to create the perfect lifeform and society. He says that Rocket is part of Batch 89, but Batch 90 will be animals he puts though rapid, controlled evolution that he guides in moments. To demonstrate, they stick a turtle in the chamber and mutate it into a humanoid form. The thing screams at Rocket and tries to attack him. The High Evolutionary says this is the one flaw, for some reason every animal they put through the process gets extremely angry. High Evolutionary has Theel to kill it. Rocket points to a part of the machine, saying that the filters are suppressing glycosylated salts and are causing the build up of the chemical that are making the animal-people violent. His observation clearly blows all their minds.

 

Back in the present, the Guardians take off in color coordinated suits for the Orgoscope. They land on it and make for the hatch. While they cut into the station, Peter hits the blue communication button and tries to talk to Gamora. She’s really not interested in learning about her other self, and it’s clear that Peter has tried this tactic before without success. Then the others point out that they can hear all of this because Blue is open communication, not closed line to blue suit. After a comedy bit about which buttons connect to which suits, they slice into the station and slide inside. The main station gets an alert, and the security team calls Master Karja to check it out. Oh, hey, it’s Nathan Fillion. The team has just enough time to stow their suits before Karja and his team arrive. Peter plays it off, saying that they’re a maintenance team that just happened to be in the area when a Neutro Quark punched a hole in the station. While Peter and Karja bond over having stupid teammates, Mantis notices their spacesuits floating out in space. Turns out the bin they used was the decontamination bin and it jettisoned the suits. Shoot. They’ll need to find another way out.

 

They split up, Mantis and Drax to try to find a way to get Groot to fly the ship in for an extraction while Nebula, Gamora and Peter find the data to save Rocket. While walking, Peter bumps into a guy that we know as Theel. Shoot. Mantis and Drax enter the lobby of the building, Mantis making a security guard fall in love with Drax to get them through. While they search, we hear a message about OrgoCorp, how it was founded by the High Evolutionary 300 years ago. Unfortunately, security gets a look at Mantis and Drax’s faces, recognizes them from a report they got earlier and call in their troops.

 

Peter’s team make it to the records area. Peter goes to seduce Ura the record keeper, but Gamora doesn’t have time for this and comes in and threatens her with a gun. They get Ura to show them the records area and the species tag for Rocket. While Ura works, Peter and Gamora fight about their non-existent relationship. There’s a funny moment when Gamora says that the other her sounds more like Nebula than her and Peter and Nebula have a weird moment. They get the file, a slimy ball thing as a security alert goes off. Mantis and Drax are surrounded by guards in the lobby as guards surround Peter and co. Drax and Mantis start throwing guards around, while Gamora holds Ura hostage. Gamora says to kill an alien that looks like a carrot to show they mean business. Peter says no, and that past Gamora is so mean. Nebula points out she was always like that and yet Nebula was always the bad guy. Nebula radios Groot to get their ship, the Bowie into position. On an awkward elevator ride down, Peter gives Ura a super summarized version of Gamora and his relationship, Nebula saying that he skimmed over some key details but that’s the gist. They leave the elevator and Peter and Gamora head for the security hub while Nebula goes to help Mantis and Drax.

 

Drax takes a shot from Karja, badly injuring him. He tells Mantis to run but she doesn’t listen.  Nebula gets shot running to them. Peter begs Ura to give him access to the security system so he can give an impassioned speech and try to get things to calm down. Ura lets him in and Peter says he was lying to get access to their system. He then has all the guards’ jets to go off and make them fly around in circles. Peter heads out, telling Gamora that Ura was totally into him. Groot crash lands and they head out.

 

Another flashback and Rocket is laying in his cage with his friends. They are imaging what the new world will be like. The Walrus says he’s been thinking, about nothing in particular but thinking. The otter says that she’s been thinking about names. Her designation 89Q12 isn’t much of a name. She dubs herself Lylla, the Walrus names himself Teefs, and the rabbit says he’s Floor. Rocket names himself and says that he’ll build them a rocket and they’ll all fly off together forever and beautiful sky. They all laugh as they talk about their names.

 

Stop breaking my heart, James Gunn!

 

The Guardians watch the video in the orb. It’s a video of the procedure Rocket went through to become Rocket. They find out that the passkey was gone, 1 million characters long, and it was deleted by Theel. They realize that he works for the High Evolutionary and how he’s worshiped as a God in some parts of the universe. They realize the computer on Theel’s head has the code, so they’re going to rip it out and save him. Peter rallies the crew to head out and save Rocket, Gamora wants to be dropped off. Peter starts talking about his Gamora again, setting this Gamora off. She throws him into a wall and asks what’s so wrong with him that he needs her to be someone else. Nebula tells her to back off, Rocket’s family and she’s not risking him to make her life more convenient. Gamora says screw all of them as she heads out.

 

Karja grabbed a Ravager from earlier and brough him in for questioning. Ayesha tells Adam to show the Ravager they mean business, and he incinerates him. Whoops. Adam says they can interrogate his pet thing because he’s dumb. Thankfully for them, Gamora radios the Ravager and requests a pickup. She sends them to her coordinates because she’s dumb for this scene, I guess.

 

While flying Peter listens to sad music while wearing a new Guardian’s uniform. The rest of the crew put them on too. Mantis sends Drax to talk to Peter, to say exactly what she said, as no one listens to her. Drax gives him a speech about life being a pond, that he spent his life leaping from lily pad to lily pad and that maybe he needs to learn to swim. He then ruins it by going off script because Drax. They get an alert as Rocket’s vitals are flatlining.

 

He has another flashback to when an irate High Evolutionary came to Rocket’s cage. He grabs Rocket and takes him to see another set of animals be hyper evolved and asks how he knew about the proteins. The High Evolutionary seems to be having a nervous breakdown at the thought that Rocket knew something that he didn’t. He reveals that the procedure works now, and because of that, he doesn’t need Rocket and batch 89 anymore. He calls Rocket a “Medley of mistakes that we could learn from and be applied to the creatures that truly matter.”  He orders batch 89 incinerated tomorrow, but that he’ll have Rocket’s brain removed from his body first for additional study.

 

In the present, Nebula tells Peter that they don’t have long just as they arrive on Counter-Earth. It’s weirdly close to what Earth was like circa 1950-60. They land in the middle of suburb populated by the High Evolutionary’s Humanimals, highly evolved humanoid animals. Diplomatic relations hit a snag almost immediately when Drax throws a ball back at a child too hard and knocks her down. A riot almost breaks out but Nebula orders Groot to go Full Kaiju to scare them off. Peter goes to talk to a Bat-lady that got hurt in the initial scuffle and offers to help her fix her scraps in exchange for help. I’m amazed she was able to get all that, as the Humanimals don’t speak Galactic Basic or have a translator or whatever handwave the Guardians settled on to how every species speaks English in space.

 

Adam and Ayesha fly in, Adam petting the creature he took from  the dead Ravager. He says he’ll train him in the ways of the Sovereign. They reach the planet and prepare to land.

 

The Guardians are brough into the Bat’s house and do their best to communicate despite the language barrier, Nebula and Mantis fighting, and Drax insisting he should be able to laydown completely on the couch. They’re able to explain enough to her to figure out that people like Theel are at a large pyramid nearby, which is the High Evolutionary’s, base. Peter, Groot and Nebula take the Bat Lady’s car to drive to it, Peter ordering Drax and Mantis to stay back and watch Gamora and Rocket. He also gives Groot his Elemental Guns and tells him he knows what to do with them. They drive off, sort of Peter has no idea how to drive stick, as Gamora watches from the cockpit. We take a few minutes with Gamora. She wanders the base, talks to the comatose Rocket, saying that he must be a very loyal pet for them to do all of this for him. She looks through Peter’s old backpack full of 80s stuff, his photo of his mom and grandpa. At the same time, we see Peter and co driving through town and seeing the Humanimals have a crime ridden city filled with drugs and violence. Oh no.

 

We cut to the High Evolutionary examining one of his latest experiments, the “Star Children.” Theel comes to talk to him, but he ignores Theel for a few minutes as he lists off the Star Children’s specs. The one he’s watching has been running around in a circle for nearly 2 hours without breaking a sweat, they can survive on 30 calories a day, a week of sleep, are always happy, and can rewire complex machinery in under two minutes. He asks if she’ll be ready for the new colony. Theel finally tells him that Peter and company are there. Peter pulls up to the compound and meets the hellspawn, heavily modified humanimals covered in weapons. They let Peter and Groot in, keeping Nebula back because of her robot arm. Peter and Groot meet the High Evolutionary.

 

Another flashback and we see Rocket being brought back into his cage. Knowing that they don’t have much time, he quickly searches his cages and body for parts he hid. He assembles a skeleton key to open their cage while telling his friends what happened. He says that just down the hall are ships, he can pilot one and the four of them can fly off together just like they always said. Floor is happy while Teefs and Lilah seem more apprehensive. He opens the cage and then goes over and frees Lilah and Teefs. Lilah comes out and the two hug for the first time. She almost says “It really is good to have friends” but is shot at “have” by the High Evolutionary. He orders Rocket back in the cage as Lilah sighs out “Sky” before dying. Floor starts screaming that “Rocket, Teefts Floor go now,” as the High Evolutionary reports the escape attempt in and Rocket screams bloody murder. The High Evolutionary orders him back in the cage again, Rocket tackles him and starts slicing up his face with his claws. Guards arrive, Rocket grabs a gun and kills them. He goes to get the others only to find Teefs and Floor dead too. Rocket runs off, steals a ship and flies away… and I guess never really stops until he hooks up with the Guardians and Groot.

 

Back in the present, Drax and Mantis steal a motorcycle. Drax says he has a bad feeling about this and wants to go help. He tricks Mantis onto it and they drive off.

 

Peter sees Theel and demands to get the passkey from him. The High Evolutionary starts talking to Peter, his other assistant Vim ordering one of the hellspawn from outside (Warpig) to head out. The High Evolutionary says that he visited Earth years ago and was impressed by our culture and tech, and how he wanted to model his perfect society off of it. Like old Earth without bigotry or corruption, or so he says. Peter, already tied of this, says that he doesn’t need another speech from another whackjob whose mother didn’t love him trying to rationalize why he needs to conquer the universe. While they chat, Gamora hears the ship alarm going off. She exits the bathroom to see Warpig trying to steal Rocket. They start fighting. The High Evolutionary reveals he’s not happy with Counter-Earth’s development and that he’s going to raze the planet and start again. Warpig gets Rocket and calls it in, the pyramid starts to take off.

 

Gamora tackles Warpig to try to stop her, gets thrown off, but then Adam flies in and knocks her over. He orders his pet to stay. Warpig asks him why he’s doing this when they have the same boss. He says he needs the credit to save his civilization and tells her to backoff. Peter orders Groot to kill them all, but the High Evolutionary pins them with Gravity for a minute. When she doesn’t, he rips her head off. It’s only then that he realizes Gamora got up and ran off with Rocket. She circles around to the front of the ship just as Counter-Earth starts exploding. Adam flies off to try to save his mother but can’t get there in time and is tossed back. Nebula radios Drax to bring the ship around, only to discover they had just arrived at the pyramid. Gamora tries to take off, gets knocked back, gets up and finds a burnt and injured Adam had returned to the ship just before collapsing. Nebula radios Gamora and tells her to take off. Theel mocks Peter for walking into an obvious trap, Peter once again calls it a face off and tells Groot again to kill them all. Groot grows bigger and reveals he stored weapons within his chest cavity. They use a grenade to keep the High Evolutionary from them, Groot pulls out like 8 guns for himself and Peters two and they all start blasting.

 

Gamora gets the ship powered on and starts trying to take off. Nebula, Drax and Mantis dive at the Pyramid ship and get on the bottom most level as it takes off. Theel begs for his life, Peter gives it, but says thanking him would be premature. He runs and tackles Theel out of an open window, Groot leaping after a minute later. The High evolutionary says it’s a novel escape plan, jumping onto an exploding planet. Groot larches onto Peter and grows wings to let them glide down. Nebula and co try to get inside, believing Peter and Groot are still inside just as they shoot past them. They crash and Peter rips the computer out of Theel’s dead skull before almost getting crushed by Gamora and the ship. Drax just gets the door open by slamming into it just before they freeze to death or suffocate. Inside they find a ton of Star Children in cages, Nebula groaning “Oh piss off.” Peter and Gamora race to get the key to Rocket as the ship takes off.

 

Inside, Nebula flips out at Drax, believing Nebula and Rocket are dead because of him and that his excuse of being a big dumb idiot has worn on her last nerve. Mantis tries to defend him and Nebula yell at her too, and Mantis yells back at her. Mantis says that Drax has sadness but he’s the only one of the group that doesn’t hate himself. Drax asks if she thinks he’s stupid, she says yes but then makes him forget. They start freeing the kids as Nebula tries to reach Peter and Groot.

 

Peter and Nebula start trying to get the passkey into Rocket’s killswitch. As they do, he mentally enters a white room and sees Liliah, Teefs and Floor. The key is uploading but Gamora says that it’s uploading too slowly. He apologizes for failing them. She forgives him, saying that the sky is beautiful and forever. He asks if he can fly with them too, she says yes. Rocket starts to flatline, but Peter won’t let him go. He pulls the wires out and tries to give him compressions. Rocket goes to follow his friends, Liliah stops him and says not yet and that he still has a purpose. He asks for what, saying they’re just experiments made by a freak to be thrown away. She says there are the hands that made us, and the hands that guide the hands. They nuzzle, she calls him her beloved raccoon and tells him that the story has been his all along, he just didn’t know it yet. He has just enough time to deny being a raccoon before being thrown back to his body.  The passkey goes through and they slap a medpack on him to fix his chest. He gets up and Peter and Groot hug him. Groot entangling them in vines to make it tighter. He asks where Nebula is. Peter prepares to tell him Nebula is dead on the planet, but Rocket says that her code is on the comm. They reach Nebula and get their stories lined up. The High Evolutionary busts in and orders the Star Children back in their cages. He gets the communicator and tells Peter to bring Rocket to him or he’ll kill them.

 

We cut to Knowhere where Cosmo, Kraglin and several others are playing cards. Cosmo is still upset about being called a bad dog and from everyone else reaction she’s been complaining about it since the main crew left. Peter radios Kraglin and orders him to bring Knowhere to a set of coordinates.

 

We returned to the High Evolutionary’s ship. He’s having a psychological breakdown, it seems, at having lost rocket again and is yelling at Vim for failing to get him back. Vim is counseling heading to the new colony site now and not fighting at all. The High Evolutionary points to two of the Star Children, saying that they can do technical wonders like rewire a carbenetrix core in under two minutes but are still practicing rote memorizations. He claims that in hundreds of years, only one experiment had the spark of true invention. He calls Rocket putrid in every way except that. He believes that his star children’s society will fail unless they can get Rocket’s brain, figure out what makes him creative, and transfer it to the Star Children or they’ll fail.

 

Nebula, Mantis and Drax are thrown in a cell. The Star Children come to watch them.  They know that Peter doesn’t know about them, and that he’ll try to get to Knowhere to save them.  They try to warn the kids to stay away from the starboard side as that’s where Peter will attack but the language barrier is too much. Nebula starts yelling at them in frustration and freaking them out. Drax calms them down by doing monkey noises and then talks to them in their language, saying he told them to stay away from the starboard side.

 

The Guardians of the Galaxy suit up to do their rescue mission. Watch the movie to see how it plays out.

 

Okay, good first. The returning cast are all great. I liked that the movie wasn’t really focused on Peter trying to get Variant Gamora to become his Gamora, but ultimately to let his Gamora go and let this new Gamora be her own person. Certain parts, like Nebula finally getting fed up with Drax and Mantis getting tired of not being listened to feels a little forced but they’re trying to wrap up their story arcs in a satisfying way, there’s gonna be some hiccups. I like how this was first and foremost Rocket’s story. We got to see his birth, how he was raised, why he was such an asshole for so long and why he fought so hard to get his friends back. They don’t say it directly, but it’s implied that Rocket and Nebula are particularly close in this film due to the five years they spent together as the only living Guardians of the Galaxy. Major props to Bradley Cooper’s voice work in this. Now onto the new cast. Will Poulter is good as Adam Warlock. It’s clear he’s supposed to be like Drax from early on. Strong, yes, but extremely dumb. He makes a ton of mistakes because he doesn’t think things through, but he’s got an earnestness to him that makes it impossible to hate him. He’s just trying to make sure his people survive.  Chuwudi Iwuji is amazing as the High Evolutionary. Brillian but sadistic, creative but cruel, this unrepentant monster is the perfect villain to encapsulate the cruelty that made Rocket Raccoon. I loved the underlying message hee, that the High Evolutionary’s plan is impossible. He wants Rocket’s brain to figure out how to genetically program creativity. But that trait isn’t something you can hard wire in. You can nurture it, you can learn to be better at it, but no amount of DNA tinkering can make an organism that intuitively knows how to make new things, to think outside the box. The High Evolutionary’s empire burned to the ground for something he could never, really, have. It’s almost sad. Oh, and I liked that everyone’s plot got wrapped up in such a way without anyone dying. I was scared every time something was going to kill a Guardian every time someone took a hard hit. But no, everyone found a spot for them to be in, be it a retirement like it seems for Drax and Nebula, a solo journey like Mantis and Peter, or a new team like Groot, Rocket and Gamora ended up on. I teared up when Groot said, I assume in Groot but we got to understand it, “I love you guys.” The effects and music are amazing, but that’s true of most of James Gunn’s work, so I’m not surprised.

 

The bad is minimal. Certain scenes like on the Orgoscope drag a little in places. Certain jokes drag on a little too long, like Mantis making that alien fall in love with Drax and such. Like I said, the Nebula finally hitting her last nerve with Drax felt extremely forced, but I can’t even be too mad at it because it’s meant to help get us to her telling Drax his real purpose isn’t to be a destroyer but a dad. Oh, and Peter almost dying because he didn’t have his super space tech, folds into an earpiece helmet for the firsts time was a tad silly. But that did lead us to the cool shot of Adam redeeming himself and saving him. If it feels like I’m really struggling to find negatives, it’s because I am. Everyone getting a hit on the High Evolutionary is a bit silly, but thematically relevant. I believe without a doubt that this was by far the best MCU movie of Phase 5.

 

So yeah, this is a great movie. It’s a touching send-off to the Guardians of the Galaxy as we knew them, a love letter to all the characters that we’ve grown to love over the years. The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy turned a team of Marvel D-list heroes into some of the most beloved characters in modern film. This is an excellent bookend to their story, and while I’m sad we may never see some of these guys again, I’m happy it ended like this, with everyone on their own journey, a family that’s going in different directions, but not done-done. Oh, and ending it with the new team talking Earth music and closing out with Rocket playing Redbone’s “Come And Get Your Love,” like the films started was just a sweet way to end it. My hats off to you, James Gunn, this has me really excited about what you’re going to do with Superman in a few years. Have a good night, everyone. Tomorrow, Across the Spider-verse!

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Viewer Log: My Adventures With Superman ep 9

 What was Zero Day?

Last time on My Adventures with Superman, Clark developed Super Hearing. Clark spends most of the episode exhausting himself, using his hearing and speed to try to save as many people as possible. Roughly 48-72 hours of Supermaning left Clark exhausted and behaving slightly erratically. He heard that Mist has escaped wherever he’d been held and was causing trouble in Metropolis. Clark tried to stop him, but tracking a dude that can be invisible is tough. He caused a major car accident saving Mist from getting hit by a truck, causing the public to start to turn on him. Because from their perspective he dived in front of a truck for no reason. He finally cornered Mist, who tells him that Siobhan and Albert are still being held at a black site and are about to be moved. He begged Superman for help saving his family, Clark agreed due to the illegality of holding people without trial. Meanwhile, Lois dealt with learning that their is a chance that her Clark could become evil but is quickly distracted by her latest job. She and Jimmy are assigned by Perry to help visiting journalist Vikki Veil with a Superman article she’s working on. Vikki is quickly revealed to be an anti-Superman type, so Lois and Jimmy take her to interviewees that have glowing recommendations. Vikki, though, went to speak with Ivo’s old assistant Alexander, who hates Superman with passion. Vikki writes a hit piece that unfortunately corresponds with Clark’s car accident. Clark arrived at the base and goes to free the villains from a plane, only to be attacked by the group. Ivo the Parasite, Silver Banshee, Heat Wave, Roughhouse, Livewire, and Deathstroke rush him. The five others overwhelm Superman with attacks and Ivo runs in to drain him of his strength further. It’s also revealed that Mist has one of the Taskforce X collars on, making all this a set up. Clark is defeated in the park and taken, Jimmy and Lois arriving too late to do anything to stop it. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it.

 

We start with Lois and Jimmy frantically searching for Superman. According to Lois, they’ve got just about the whole Daily Planet staff looking for him or at least keeping their ears open for rumors about him. Jimmy’s keeping an eye on his Flamebird stream, but no one is posting new info there either. Flip Johnson and the Newskid Legion arrive to help Lois and Jimmy search, having pooled their money to get Walkie talkies and make missing posters for Superman. Lois tells her that it’s too dangerous and she should go home, but Flip is insistent that they help. The woman of business says that Superman makes the city feel safer and after he saved her several times, she owes it to Superman to look for him. Helping Superman makes her feel less small. Lois agrees to let them help and takes a walkie.

 

Superman wakes up strapped down in a metal stockade in a room full of red light. He’s shocked a moment later as the General walks in. Superman asks where he is and gets shocked for it. The General tells him that he’s not going to punch his way out of his confinement and demands to know dates and numbers. Superman is super confused by this question and gets zapped again. The General wants to know when the next invasion is and how many are coming this time. Superman still has no idea what he’s talking about, and the General is growing irater. The General activates a holographic recording of Zero day, saying that he and Superman were both there when it happened.

 

The hologram shows an army camp set up under a giant archway. We learn from the CO that the archway arrived on earth 72 hours ago and has been dormant sense. A younger Amanda Waller notices that the General, whom she refers to as Sam, is missing and goes to get him. She finds him in a tent talking to someone on the phone. Given who I know who the General is at this point and how he’s talking, he’s speaking either to his wife or an infant daughter. Waller grabs him and scolds him for hiding in the command tent to make a call on a top-secret mission. Sam shrugs and tries to play it off as no big deal. Then the attack happens. The arch way opens a portal into deep space. Through the hole we can see an armada of warships lead by an armored being in a cape. The war ships launch dozens of small pods that land and transform into attack robots. All of them have a distinct emblem on their chests, a V made of three interconnected circles. The robots start shooting up the place, large units land and wreck tanks and the leader fires heat vision blasts from his helmet. He almost shoots Waller and Sam, but an explosion occurs on their end of the portal, knocking him back and destabilizing the wormhole. When the wormhole shuts, the robots power down. Sam and Waller seem to be the only ones that survived.

 

The General tells Superman that after this, he formed Taskforce X and adapted the technology left behind for their use. He made the “hard calls” to make sure Earth was ready for his return. Someone watched Invincible recently, it seems. He calls Superman a weapon and demands answers. Superman starts crying, saying that he doesn’t know and asking why “they” (I assume his bio parents) would do this.

 

In Metropolis, Lois and co are looking for Superman. Lois and Jimmy are at the docks and found nothing, Flip, and her crew at the shipping yard, also found nothing. Lois is clearly freaking out, Jimmy asks her what’s up and she explains she’s feeling like crap for not believing in Clark when he needed her. The “normal” she said to him is eating at her conscience it seems. Jimmy tells her that they’re going to find him.

 

Back at the black site, Ivo is having a nervous breakdown in his cell, demanding he get to kill Superman like he was promised. Siobhan in her cell with her boys tells him to shut up, while Albert comforts Kyle. Kyle, I assume, is not feeling great about leading Superman into being caged like them. Leslie is playing with a quarter she snuck into her cell, and notices that she’s conducting electricity without her harness. She looks at the camera in her cell and then looks away quickly. We cut to Amanda Waller’s office, where she’s monitoring all the camera feeds. She tells the General as he enters that Superman’s power level remained stable during the interrogation and thinks the Parasite collar and Cadmus Omega Field are working to keep him powerless. She congratulates Ivo for living up to his own hype and says that she thinks they can get a little more use out of him before he completely loses his mind. The General is clearly having issues with torturing Superman for information. He points out something I’ve been muttering at my screen for like a month now, that Superman is too young to have been involved in Zero Day, at least if his kind ages at the same rate as humans. Waller isn’t interested in the ethics of torturing someone that might not be involved with Zero Day and says they should execute Superman now. The General insists they need information. Waller suggests turning Superman over to Ivo if the General doesn’t think he can execute him himself, but the General shouts that down. Waller asks him if he’s having doubts about something “real” or because Superman reminds him of “her.” They don’t elaborate on the ‘her’ but assume either a late wife or a daughter who doesn’t talk to him anymore. The General says they’re keeping him alive for questioning, it’s his call, not hers and dismisses her. Waller leaves, but hits something on the desk as she goes.

 

Leslie’s camera powers down and she rips her collar off. She frees herself and then Ivo, asking him if he wants to take down Superman. Ivo gets his Parasite armor on and rushes through shoulders to get Superman’s cell. He demands a rematch against him, the beatdown of the century. Superman doesn’t want to fight, but Ivo isn’t interested in that. He says that Superman doesn’t hurt him, this time, he hurts Superman. The General sees the fight break out and calls Code Orange to his team. Parasite beats the crap out of Superman. To keep himself going, he rips into the bases electrical grid and drains electricity to mutate further. Superman, dazed, tells Ivo that he doesn’t want to fight him, that he doesn’t want to fight anyone. Ivo tells him that he guesses he’s going to die. Before he can attack, the General and Slade with extra guards arrive. Ivo stabs his tail into a light and mutates into a giant insect monster. The rest of Taskforce X’s prisoners arrive looking for payback. The group knocks back most of the General’s troops, Livewire getting in close to Wilson and puts his eye out with an electrified stab. Superman starts hearing Lois calling out to him and is able to pull himself out of the hole Ivo slammed into and out the ceiling. With Superman gone, Livewire decides to use Ivo to cover their escape. She supercharges him, turning him into a giant Kaiju. As the base crumbles around them, the villains escape out another hole.

 

Superman drags himself out of the Taskforce X base, which is apparently in the Metropolis sewers, as Flip was riding by. She radios into the others and tells them to meet her at the Newskid club house. I’m not sure how a ten-year-old moved the 200+ pounds of Superman, but she must have. We cut to the clubhouse, Superman sitting in a corner. Jimmy and Lois arrive. Clark tells them about what he saw. He believes now that he was made for destruction and that he came to Earth to kill them all. Lois tells him that she won’t accept that and that he’s not a weapon, he’s a person. Their talk is interrupted by Parasite bursting from the underground, demanding that Superman come out or he’ll make him. Superman goes to face Parasite. Lois tries to stop him, saying he can’t fight the Parasite in his condition, but Superman says he must try.

 

Superman flies to Parasite and tries to convince him to leave the citizens alone. Parasite says no, knocking Superman around and then draining him and the city’s power grid even more. Lois obviously is freaking out at what she’s seeing and asking what they can do to help. Jimmy, seeing his 5 million viewers count on Flamebird has an idea. He and Lois stream to the city the situation, that they’re Superman’s friends and that he needs help to protect them. Lois’ impassioned speech convinces the whole city to start shutting down their buildings to starve Parasite of energy. Superman also hears the speech via his super hearing and rallies. Power starts cutting out around the city as Clark stands up. The Parasite visibly shrinks as his energy gets cut off. The two of them brawl, Ivo blaming Superman for turning him into a monster, saying he’s not even human. Superman tells him that he chose to be a monster as he catches Parasite’s hands again when he tries to slam down on his again. Ivo asks him “what does that make an alien freak like you?” Superman’s eyes turn blue, and he uses his X-ray vision for the first time to see the physical body of Ivo within the Parasite’s chest. He charges up and slams through Parasite’s chest, saying “don’t you read the paper? I’m Superman.” He pulls Ivo from the Parasite as he does so. The whole town celebrates as the sun comes up and the Parasite turns black and dead.

 

Superman flies to the Daily Planet. Jimmy hug-tackles him and says he’s never letting Clark go again. He then notices Lois waiting, so backs off. Clark says that he heard everything that Lois said, she says she meant every word and then punches him in the arm, saying to never scare her like that again. She tells him she loves him, Clark flies at her and lifts her into the sky, kissing her and saying he loves her too. Jimmy, wanting to give them space, grabs Lois’ purse and heads out. On the walk down from the roof, he notices a green glow and pulls out the orb.

 

Back at Task Force X’s base, Amanda Waller tells The General that he’s being relieved of duty as the leader of Task Force X. According to their governing body, Checkmate, Amanda is now in charge, and she’s focused on taking lethal action against Superman. She gives the General Ivo’s last weapon, the Omega Canon, saying that it should weaken Superman enough for the General to kill him. Oh, and Slade is still alive, wearing an eyepatch to cover his burnt eye socket. Well, that’s a dark way to end an episode.

 

Damn, this was a good episode. We finally got to see what Zero Day was, after having it teased all the way back in the second episode. The invasion was intense, with that faceless armored Kryptonian leading an invasion fleet of Drones, it was chilling. For those who didn’t recognize the symbol, the three connected circles in a V-shape are the logo of the one and only Brainiac. I’m not sure if the armored Kryptonian is supposed to be his latest body or if that was minion of some kind, but it’s clear to me at least that Brainiac has something to do with why Clark was sent to Earth. Also, with the reveal that his first name is indeed Sam, it’s basically confirmed that the General’s full legal name is Samuel Lane, father of Lois Lane. So, the meet-the-parents part of Lois and Clark’s relationship is going to be even more awkward than for your average couple.  The villain’s escape was basically inevitable, but it’s cold blooded that Waller set it in motion. She was clearly displeased at letting Superman live this long, and her ends justifies any means mentality meant she’d not sit for keeping him alive long, but hitting the button is a low for her. And I liked that Lois and Jimmy got Metropolis itself in on helping Superman. Starving Parasite as part of a way of showing that the city loves Superman and believes he’s fighting for them is just a nice touch. It was also nice to see Superman once again choosing to stop Ivo but let him live instead of justifiably executing him. Using his X-Ray vision to pinpoint him target Ivo is just a perfect Superman thing to do. Ending the episode with the happy moment of Superman and Lois saying they love each other, the dark moment of Jimmy seeing the recording of the evil Supermen, and darkest moment of the General getting his new weapon and mission to kill Superman is tonal whiplash. But the good kind. And we have one more episode to see how that all shakes out. Next time Guardians 3, definitely. 

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