Please, SHE-HULK, I’m begging you…

this 4 episode I thouth it was not funny in all.

and I want to love this show!

I really liked the previews episodes.

I finally saw Thor: Love and Thunder, and maybe it's because a lot of what I love best about Thor comics comes from the Walt Simonson era which were unapologetically goofy and over the top, but I had a lot of fun with this one.

I can see why there was some negative reaction to it, but I couldn't help but have a big, goofy grin on my face the whole time. Plus, I can forgive a lot of story shortcomings if the characterization feels right, and it really did here. Thor unmoored, trying to find purpose in life, still trying to mask his pain and grief after all he has lost over the course of the franchise (and I really like that it isn't as easy as just making it to the end of a movie's narrative arc and then he's okay - that's one of the things that helps with this super extended mega franchise - things like not magically getting over grief because the story has resolved feels more believable), Jane going on a journey through her illness, starting at denial and moving on to choosing how she was going to die, and even to Gorr lashing out in entirely understandable rage and hatred against a deity structure that honestly kinda deserved it.

Did it have the narrative punch of the Aaron original? No, but I do feel like it struck this nice balance between Simonson's goofy and Aaron's goofy (and yes, Jason Aaron's Thor stories had plenty of goofy in them), and I really like that it leaned full on in to the mythological on this one. Thor always felt a bit lacking in something when his stories try to go with "Well, they're highly advanced alien beings who are LIKE gods, but not REALLY gods" angle. And now we're in an MCU where all these pantheons co-exist, and that's fun and exciting. I even really enjoyed Omnipotence City, and a-hole Zeus to kinda hammer home exactly what it is that makes Thor our hero. He may not always be good at it, and he may make mistakes - a lot of mistakes - but he cares about mortals. He wants to do right by them. Even when his existential crises make it hard for him to do so like during the adventure with the Guardians in the beginning.

I also really appreciated the thematic threads running through this and Moon Knight - the concept of "what's worse than there being no God? A whole bunch of gods who just don't give a $#!+", and it's really neat to see that similar concept played out with Khonshu and Thor, but to wildly different approaches. In this MCU that has now embraced pantheons, I'd love to see Thor and Khonshu interacting with each other.

I also really liked the visual creativity on display in this movie. Especially when they make it to Gorr's hideout and all the color fades away with the sole exception of tiny glows of coloration from their weapons.

All in all, I'm pleased with Love and Thunder. I had a fun time with it, I really liked that they didn't shy away from Jane's cancer arc which I was worried they'd do (cancer isn't funny, after all), I like that they didn't give her a magic Eternity-cure in the end to keep her alive as I wouldn't appreciate magicking something as real and devastating as cancer away, I like that in pledging to adopt and take care of Gorr's daughter, Thor is addressing Gorr's grievance with divinity, and on a comicbook geek side of things, I REALLY like what is promised to us. The cinematic world needs a Thor/Hercules brawl, and I can't WAIT to get to it.

Haha what is Jake but another name for the devil?

Dunno if this tease is going to go any further than the WANDAVISION misdirect (misread?), but I'll take it for now.That's fair! Humor is very subjective, after all.

The first two episodes didn't do much for me, but the last two episodes have been winning me over. Haha Madisynn really worked for me, and the "Donny Blaze" tease was enough to keep me invested in the episode. I'd like for the series to be a liiiiiiiiiittle bit funnier, but right now, it seems like it's finding a story structure that works for it.I'm glad you dug it! Now that you say it, yeah, I can see the Simonson run's unfettered charm in this too. You also make a really good point about Thor caring about mortals and the parity of him caring for Gorr's revived daughter. There's good narrative balance in that act.

I think for me, I was hoping that Gorr's role would be more like Killmonger's and his indictment of apathetic gods also extend to Thor, who reflects upon his own inaction. I'm down with that still being mostly comedic and goofy, though.

Haha now you've got me wanting to see MCU Moon Knight throwing down with Thor! I could see that being nutty as hell.

Speaking as a guy who regularly rewatches the classic Universal monster movies, I truly did not expect WEREWOLF BY NIGHT to look so much like my kinda thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLEFqhS5WmI

I would say the problem with that is any inaction on Thor’s part wasn’t due to apathy, at least since learning his lesson in the first film. He’s failed at times, he’s struggled with incredible depression, but he was never idle in the way we saw from Zeus and Rapu. It’s one thing to fall into inaction due to crippling depression, another entirely to fall into inaction because you don’t give a crap. And not giving a crap has NEVER been Thor’s problem, so I don’t think it would have been fair for Gorr’s presence to indict Thor. He was never the kind of god who failed Gorr.

I definitely feel like Gorr is less there to indict Thor for his failures and more to serve as a portent to where not just Thor himself, but also where Valkyrie and Jane could fall to if they let their darker feelings overtake them. Thor, if he fails to find purpose in life beyond violence. Valkyrie, if she lets the loss of her sisters in arms obsess her too much. Jane, if her terminal diagnosis fuels bitterness and hatred. Gorr was a dark omen for where any of the three of them could end up without love in their lives.

It's interesting, I feel like much of the interpretation is coming down to how one views Thor's arc in a macro sense or in a micro sense.

In a macro sense, I can buy the read that Thor might still be suffering from depression and that he's struggling to move on with his life.

My take had been that by the end of ENDGAME, Thor had overcome his depression, and in LOVE & THUNDER, he's being airy and oblivious because he's in a self-prescribed funk to find himself. My read was that early in the film, his negligence led to even more loss of life during the alien war and his actions lead to desecration of a major religious & cultural site-- which sort of paired with the lackadaisical nature of the first god Gorr killed.

The funny thing is --and I say this genuinely-- I truly don't think either of us are wrong. I think the movie is pushing several themes and agendas such that many reads are more or less correct. Whether one feels that's a virtue or vice here probably comes down to how you feel about the script's story structure.

Your take on Gorr is very, very interesting too. The idea of him being what if the protagonists succumb to despair and hate is a fun thematic read, and it wouldn't surprise me if that was also an undercurrent Taika wanted for the character.

I have been far more busy than I'd like over the last few months and haven't had the time to work on my dials at all, but I had to come back for this because I am so cautiously hopeful about this one! The aesthetic is right up my alley and it's coming out right around my favorite time of the year. Here's hoping it's a fun spooky time!

Episode four of She-Hulk felt like a very quintessential She-Hulk story. The duality of Jen dealing with an utterly preposterous superhuman court case and a very mundane real-life problem felt just about perfect, her visuals came off very strong this time around, I’m all for seeing more of her dad (the shovel cracked me up), and Benedict Wong as Wong is a treasure. He’s great as always here, especially the little friendship he’s built up with Madisynn (who in and of herself was comedy gold).

The only thing that would have made this episode better is if Donny Blaze was played by Will Arnett, because this goober had Gob Bluth written all over him.

I kinda feel like Thor couldn't have gotten over his depression, mostly because if he had, then that montage of everyone he has ever lost in the beginning would have had no purpose aside from Korg's amusing understatement of it all. And I appreciated that, because depression isn't as easy to overcome as just beating the final boss. It's nice and tidy narrative-wise to do that, but doesn't ring true.

And yeah, I do feel like Gorr is a warning, an omen of where Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie could end up. It was all laid out in that scene where he had them all bound up in the shadows, taunting them with their similarities to him.

It's not a perfect movie, it's very clumsy in parts and inelegant, and in many ways it steps on its own toes, but gosh, each time one of these "bad" MCU movies comes up, I keep comparing it to the REALLY bad ones. Your X3s. Your Wolverine Origins. Spider-Man 3. Rise of the Silver Surfer. Anything Ghost Rider. (I'm not even going to delve into the "Distinguished Competition's" bad movies) And I just... no matter their flaws, they're never THAT bad.

That's a good reminder too - the "floor" for Marvel is pretty low. Even my last favorite MCU content (which, hot take, would include Homecoming, What If?, and both Ant-mans alongside the whipping boys of AoU and Dark World) are still eminently watchable and better than a lot of the competition. The worst of the MCU can still stand reasonably alongside all but the very best of the DCEU, Sonyverse, and FoX-men, and the dregs of the MCU are like beacons of angelic purity alongside the worst of those things.

But even then, I legit just enjoyed this possibly even more than Ragnarok. I'd still put it somewhere in the middle of MCU films - it is clunky, it's sometimes inelegant, and Omnipotence City feels like a pointless sidequest that's just there to seed Hercules and fill screentime that could have gone to fleshing out Gorr more or giving Valkyrie more of an arc or just letting Jane and Thor finally share screentime where they're actually equals and have actual chemistry. But I think a lot of what the movie was trying to do worked for me to.

I think a lot of the frustration with Thor makes sense though. This is a very "Waititi" movie, even moreso than Rag - that doesn't work for everyone. It actually adapts a recent, beloved arc - and my read is that as a superhero flick it's fine, but as an adaptation of an iconic run it's terrible (and as someone who reads few comics but did read Faction and Aja's run on Hawkeye and thus didn't love the show, I get that).

And I am just sensing a growing frustration with "Phase 4" more generally as I peruse Reddit and read the AVClub and hang out in various FB Groups and talk to family and friends - a sense that it feels like none of this is "going anywhere" fast enough, compounded by the fact that while I like some of Phase 4 quite a bit more than the average fan, none of them are in the top 5 of the MCU - they haven't put out a real showstopper of a flick since the one-two-three punch of Black Panther, Infinity War, and Endgame (I know Ant-man and Wasp and Captain Marvel were in there too, but those three films mark a heck of a run) and I'd call all of the shows "good with frustrating flaws" at best, a far cry from the homerun of The Mandalorian or the huge cultural cache that a Game of Thrones or Stranger Things.

last Week episode of She-Hulk make turn cold about waiting each episode each week. I will watch it buuuuuut, I'm disapointed. I wanted to love this show so much for the Humor and Byrne connection and all. but last episode for me it was not funny in all, not even once. (I did liked the 3 first episodes)

The world is overdue for Marvel horror. So freakin' overdue. Now I just have to live until October 7th...Haha agreeeeeeeeeeeeed.See, I think that's an equally valid read, but because we don't see any of the character's drift to the dark side in their adventure, it doesn't feel [to me] to be a fully-fledged arc in the structure of the script. It's another one of the movie's disconnected ideas.

Oh yeah, I wouldn't say it's a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't strike me personally as special or as strong as MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS or even SHANG-CHI.

Haha I'll step up to the plate for X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE. X3 is a bad X-Men comic adaptation (they pretty much all are, but...), but it holds together pretty well as a movie. GHOST RIDER 2 is a perfectly decent Grindhouse-style movie... but I won't lie, I struggle to watch any Nic Cage movie.Definitely agree with this-- there's definitely a sense that Phase 4 -its movies and shows- have been polarizing and less critically transcendent than Phase 3. One of my favorite pop culture critics has suggested that Phase 4 is Marvel Studios' "experimental phase." The movies are guaranteed hits, they know they can get away with just about everything, so they're having fun and trying all sorts of stuff.

Among those wired into pop culture, there's definitely a sense that the shows are still struggling to be consistently strong throughout (routinely weak finales; SHE-HULK's weaker first two episodes) and that the movies have been polarizing for one reason or another. There's also a whole separate conversation to be had about how the MCU is one of the key wedges in the ongoing culture war waged by the alt-right or whatever we're calling them these days.

But among the Not Excessively Online crowd, it sure seems like the MCU is maintaining its cultural dominance --I'd say on par with Game of Thrones, but having reached such a routine that it's rarely celebrated except for breakout excellent movies.

Haha I'm still waiting for folks in the mainstream to come around and realize how hard ETERNALS ruled!Bummer the last episode wasn't your jam! Hopefully the rest of the season is more to your liking!

Speaking of pop culture, Megan Thee Stallion is getting a dial, right? ����