Haven't watched the series and it might be the first thing I just skip out on. Sounds like a downer. Dials are fun though! The Fury made me laugh.

I did go find a clip of Gi'ah versus Gravik, and I have a few theories on the blade.
- Martinex was present during the Portals Fight and thus part of the harvest, and the show-runners thought it was a super cool powerset (and potentially wrote this thinking Martinex would be more than a cameo in GotG 3, and it would land as a cooler move).
- The crystalline-blade is supposed to evoke Khonshu, and it's kinda-sorta-not-really a Moon Knight power despite him definitely not being present at the Portal battle.
- It was more turning the air into a blade then transforming her own arm and is a Sersi power (despite Sersi also not being present in the battle).
- It's kinda-sorta supposed to be morphic nano-weaponry like Nebula or Iron Man have, despite that making zero sense from a "biological super skrull" perspective.
- They just thought it was neat. No explanation needed.

It's frustrating... most of my favorite comics are edgy in tone and substance --Ennis & Dillon's Punisher; Ellis & Deodato Jr.'s Thunderbolts; Mackie & various' Ghost Rider-- and I absolutely believe there's a market for edgy superhero movies that can be dark, substantive, and entertaining. Whenever a differently toned project like SECRET INVASION stumbles, it makes me worry that Marvel Studio does the typical Hollywood blame-the-wrong-problem thing and is like "well, groundedness failed. Guess we've gotta treble down on self-referential comedy."

SECRET INVASION failed because it was a hackneyed, on-the-nose spy thriller. Because it was bad.

haha and that's why we're trying to figure out where the hell super skrull powers came from and went. Of your well thought-out options, I'm most inclined to believe Nebula or Iron Man-- I think Iron Man manifested a blade like that in INFINITY WAR's fight against Thanos, right? Of course, you're right; if that's the case, it's nonsense... but it did look cool.

Either way, thank you for the dial praise! Glad Nick Fury gave you some enjoyment. Lord knows, it would've been nice to have gotten that from the show character. I kept wanting to find a really cool, exciting special or trait to give him, but the show did its damnest to say this Fury wasn't good for much, so I guess the dial had to follow suit.

I think the ice blade was from the Frost Beast DNA. I don't recall Frost Beast's being able to do that exact thing (but its been a while since I've seen the first two Thor movies so I'm happy to be corrected), but seems like the most obvious ice related character on the list. Not sure why Gravik never used the ice powers, since those were part of the original batch along with extremis and Groot.

LOKI, SEASON 2

Episode One

Things I Liked:
+Snappy Pacing
+Clever Time-Travel fun
+Great visuals and sounds

Things I Didn’t Like:
-No definitive sense of purpose yet

Loki season 2 hits two years after season one, and, at least for the premiere, it feels like a glow up. The pacing is faster; there’s a greater sense of stakes, consequences, and urgency; things clearly seem to be leading to something; and the stakes feel to be higher. Remember, it took the first season 3 episodes for the story proper to start. This feels like it’s setting up a ton of things and paying off the consequences of last season’s finale…

But it still isn’t a complete episode in terms of story structure. A lot of stuff is happening, but we don’t end with a clear sense of what the characters long-term need to accomplish and how they’re going to do it. It feels like a binge-format choice in weekly-format show. I’d like this to have been just a hair more of a bottle episode than it was. Either way, hopefully the rest of the season keeps up the pace.

Meanwhile, it’s great to see Ke Huy Quan in another multiverse tale! The guy’s a treasure, and I’m glad he’s finding work in front of the camera again.

Episode Two

Things I Liked:
+Loki using magic
+aesthetics of the show
+everyone's performances

Things I Didn't Like:
-The episode structure
-No, that 's torture, bro.

I'm starting to get worried about LOKI S.2. Don't get me wrong, it's already a better, faster, punchier thing than season 1-- changing the creative team clearly helped. Still, the show has a tendency to live in scenes for longer than feels necessary, drifting from one topic to the next for longer than feels engaging to me. Best example is the pie-eating scene at the automat. Beautiful visuals, but dang does that go on forever. Same for some of the conversations in 80s McDonalds. I get that it's a budgetary choice to save on re-dressing sets, but it wears on my patience when it's this obvious.

While I can't fault any of the individual elements of performance, aesthetics, or tone, I found the episode to have the wrong structure for the story it's telling. Simply put: if the audience isn't aware of a major ticking clock with towering stakes until literally seconds before devastation, it's not going to feel as tense or meaningful as it could. We spend an episode farting around the TVA and the McDonalds when we should find out earlier that there's an omnicide of unfathomable proportions taking place and there should be a race against time to stop it. I've also gotta say that it's such a huge event, the kind that many other shows would end a season on, that it's hard to imagine what could be larger (though, based on the credits, we're going to see some of the Kang war).

Lesser grievance: Yes, I know Loki's a villain, and while I can laugh of him letting the lady in the truck fall to her death (it's the Mel Brooks' "Tragedy is when I stub my toe, comedy is when you fall in a hole and die" ethos), we've got another MCU show where torture is framed as a positive. I mean, yeah, the TVA sucks because they're time/space cops and, y'know, ACAB, but is that what we want to see Loki doing? Becoming a salaryman cop? Is that what we think of when we think of him? Just another cog in the machine?

Personally, I'd rather see him subverting the machine and bending it to his will.

Episode Three

Things I Liked:
+Creepy Ms. Minutes

Things I Didn't Like:
-The episode structure
-The continual betrayals

Episode 3 is a tablesetting episode establishing a version of Kang and the attempts to recruit him by various factions in the TVA. Jonathan Majors turns in a frustratingly great performance, proving to be one of the few people who can act awkward well. I say "frustrating" because the optics surrounding him are still gross as hell.

When you strip the episode down, you realize that it's a lot of padding going into recruiting him. If Loki had been a movie, as I'm sure was originally planned, this sequence would've taken all of 10-15 minutes and it'd be a much better, trimmer thing for it.

Instead, we sat through a procession of betrayals to the point where everyone's motivations were becoming murky. We sat through Loki and Mobius just wandering around a fair on a we-can't-call-it-a date. We sat through Jonathan Majors hamming it up and taking a long time to pronounce everything.

All that padding in the episode left me thinking about the overall premise of LOKI. Remember in ENDGAME when Loki grabbed the Tesseract and we all wondered what kind of chaos he caused? Remember early marketing for LOKI showing that chaos? Remember when LOKI finally arrived and it slowly revealed itself to be naught but a mid cop show? All that chaos was just a Loki variant and all that was here was a procedural with sci-fi instead of grit or dynamic, memorable characters.

There's been a lot of talk about the book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, and LOKI, the series, seems emblematic of the D+ TV shows operating without showrunners or clear senses of purpose.

Episode Four

Things I Liked:
+How it ended
+Rafael Casal's performance
+The plausible rebooting around Loki himself

Things I Didn't Like:
-The TV format

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Squabbler is frustrated by a TV show because it's a TV show.

While LOKI looks and sounds the part, I've consistently found it to be a padded thing with odd pacing. We're told there's an immanent, existence-ending threat that must be stopped at all costs, but there are constant asides for slow-moving things. Drama, quipping, building a new machine, etc. Yes, those are things that need to happen in a TV show, but they work against the urgency of the stakes and consequences. It doesn't work for me. It just seems like a ticking clock of that magnitude (and a ticking clock that exists in a place where the laws of time are screwy) would be better handled in a film where it would guide all plot threads.

That aside, it was a fine episode, I suppose. I like how the pruning of Victor Timely and the explosion of the timelines could soft-reboot the universe. That's timely (nyuck nyuck) because of the Jonathan Majors situation.

I also found myself really enjoying Rafael Casal's performance and started to feel sad that he was cast here. Yes, LOKI is a worthy show for anyone, but Casal's screen presence and great performance in BLINDSPOTTING made me think he would've been a fantastic MCU Johnny Blaze.

Episode Five

Things I Liked:
+TIME SPAGHETTI
+TVA as a Mobius strip

Things I Didn’t Like:
-Flat characters
-Why are they variants?
-“We need the TVA.”

Episode Five feels like a fun bottle episode, briefly showing where the main cast would be if they weren’t in the TVA. While that concept is charming and structurally sound in the episode, the characters are depicted one-dimensionally. Casey/Frank is JUST a prison escapee; Hunter B-15 is JUST a nurse; Mobius can’t turn off being a watercraft salesman. There’s not enough texture to make it poignant that these people were yanked from their native timelines for reasons unknown, and the new revelations about their past don’t deepen our understanding of them. Rescuing each one probably should’ve been a story unto itself. Chalk that up to Marvel Studios treating all of these shows as miniseries; mot ongoing shows.

I did think that reality unraveling into time spaghetti looked neat, and it was cool seeing Loki develop time control superpowers in addition to his magic. That update to his character may be how they make Loki a reality-level threat to replace Jonathan Major’s Kang. That said, I’m frustrated by all this emphasis on the TVA. I’m sure it’s a fun institution in the comics, and I like its aesthetics in the show, but it’s just a cop institution. It’s a bureaucracy of order existing to perpetuate fascism. Why would Loki, a being of chaos, want it to exist? Why would he want to work for it? Why wouldn’t he want to do his own thing? On a narrative level, isn’t it more interesting to see timelines and alternate dimensions crashing together with overlapping histories, races, and technologies than it is watching lines on a screen grow?

The season finale of every D+ Marvel show goes absolutely buckwild and pulls out all the stops, so it will be interesting to see where LOKI will leave us. Perhaps well Victor Timely will still be reinstated to the TVA and THE AVENGERS: THE KANG DYNASTY will still play out as originally intended. Or perhaps the door will be opened to go in another direction entirely.

Episode Six

Things I Liked:
+Loki, God of Time
+Yggdrasil
+Time montages
+Writing out Jonathan Majors

Things I Didn't Like:
-Liking Jonathan Majors' performance

Always count on an MCU D+ show to go apes*** in the finale episode, and LOKI doesn't disappoint. Pound for pound, I honestly think this is the best D+ season finale along with WHAT IF...?'s-- it's all informed by what came before, it's intensely character-driven, it's beautifully climactic, and it rewrites part of the continuity.

That it has two GROUNDHOG DAY-inspired montages is excusable, as is leaning a bit on Jonathan Majors, who they were sort of stuck with, but leading up to the climax of Loki course-correcting on the multiversal war to create (more or less) a multiversal peace is impressive on a few levels. It recenters Loki as the most important person in the universe (makes sense, his show was the best performing D+ MCU show); it writes out Jonathan Majors entirely if they choose to do that; and it allows Marvel Studios to abandon the multiverse angle -or at least slow it down considerably.

Right now, considering all the bad press Marvel Studios is facing, THE MARVELS' 61% RT score, and the optics of them delaying three of their upcoming films, maybe slowing down is just what they need.

Discussing S2E1 of Loki:

I liked this episode a lot. I had a good time watching the episode, pretty much from start to finish. Some recent Marvel projects have felt more like a chore, something I needed to get through, so this was much more enjoyable.

I was also really happy to see Ke Huy Quan. He was good in EEAAO, and so far, he's good here, too. The character's awkward mannerisms were great for a bit of humour, and he also managed to seem believable in more serious moments. All good stuff.

It'll be interesting to see what direction they actually take this show in, though. A good opening can be ruined by a bad ending, and this show will pretty much have to be somewhat open-ended, since it's too early to actually solve the Kang-problem.
I hope they still find a way to give this show a satisfying ending.


There were also a few minor things that irked me a bit about this specific episode:

1) Why did Loki approach the ringing phone so slowly, when he was supposed to be hurrying to find a pruning stick? That made no sense and just felt weird. I supposed he might have already given up, and that's why he slowed down, which leads to my second minor issue:

2) O.B.'s warning seemed too exaggerated. He said Loki would have moments to react, requiring near-perfect timing, but Loki actually took nearly a minute (in-universe) to get pruned and the extraction worked just fine with that. I guess we could see this as a genuine mistake in-universe, with O.B. simply being mistaken. It doesn't seem like a common problem to deal with, after all.

3) I feel bad for that driver, who just seemed to fall to her death after Loki crashed her flying car. Did that add anything to the scene? To Loki's character development?


Also, I didn't get a good look at the lady in the elevator who ultimately pruned Loki. Was that Sylvie?

Here's a VERY revealing article about all the troubles Marvel Studios has had with their Disney+ shows:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...ey-1235614518/

My big takeaways:

1. They've clearly been transliterating movies to shows, and it's part of why they feel ungainly

2. Refusing to have showrunners --that is, refusing to delegate from Kevin Feige-- has meant no cohesion and any real follow-through on these shows. It's why they've felt so uneven.

3. "Finding it in editing"/"Fixing it in post" sometimes works, but it's an insanely expensive approach, and it justifies not creating with any sense of purpose. It's why there are wild pacing differences within these miniseries.

4. Wow, you mean Marvel Studios fired the people who knew what they were doing off SECRET INVASION, hired a revolving door of less competent people who all bickered on set and didn't even want to work on the show? Wouldn't have guessed that.

5. Honestly, probably good that the WGA & SAG strikes force them to pump the breaks and take some time for introspection.

Hi folks! It's your friendly neighborhood Squabbler with a fun l'il PSA for Spooky Season:

Disney+ now has a colorized version of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, and I highly encourage you to watch it.

There are a few good reason to do so!

1. It's fun comparing the black & white to the color version. Some things work better in color, some better in grayscale. It's rare to see modern films do this, and it can highlight the value of black & white filmmaking.

2. Did you want to see red blood last time? You're in luck! There's lots of it! And a super green Man-Thing!

3. Most importantly, Marvel spent money on this. They are likely releasing the colorized version now as a feeler to see if it's worth making future Halloween horror specials.

Watching it gives them reason to make more of these.

Think of all we could see!

A 1940s Universal-style monster movie pitting Manphibian against the Living Mummy!
A 1950s-60s Hammer Horror-style Tomb of Dracula vampire movie!
A 1970s grindhouse Man-Thing origin movie!
A 1980s slasher starring Scarecrow (who would be taken down by a Ghost Rider)!
A 1990s dark neo noir like SE7EN starring Hannibal King!
A 2000s-era action-horror movie like RESIDENT EVIL or UNDERWORLD starring Mr. Terror!

The possibilities are endless!

...but only if Marvel Studios and Disney think it's worth the investment. Remember, they are currently re-evaluating their TV strategy...

I feel like season 2 of Loki is not a Loki show. He has barely done anything. It was fun to see him use his shadow magic that one time, but that's about it. Everything else could have been done or happened to any other character. There has been no character progression or insights. Why is this still Loki's show? Some episodes it feels like he is barely on screen. This is extremely frustrating as someone who is a huge Loki fan. I honestly think the show would make more sense and be more intriguing if it were a Kang variant who was trying to fix the TVA at this point. It would also play better into the overall themes of Kang trying not to become his future self or trying to rectify the mistakes of a past self.
That being said, Ke Huy Quan is an absolute delight and the best part of the series so far.

Hell, I’d go so far as to say this hasn’t been a Loki show since the series began. It’s squashed out most of who Loki is in favor of a slightly more mischievous time cop.

It feels like it’s mostly been a TVA palace intrigue show. That’s not a bad concept, but it also doesn’t feel like it’s maximized its concept. The problem is that it doesn’t have the budget or contracts to make this exciting or work— we’d need to see Loki screwing around throughout the MCU, messing with major movie events, and the TVA racing around trying to stop him as the multiverse comes crashing down around them.

Personally, having realized LOKI is just a cop show with sci-fi jargon, I’ve found it harder to invest in the characters or stakes. It all feels so unimaginably large in scale that the consequences (exploding timelines) feels too remote and pointless.

I at least liked the way this last episode ended, potentially allowing the show to reset a great deal of what’s happening and what’s important. I’ve seen theories suggesting that this is how they’ll write out Kang as the big bad and how they might replace him with Loki or, less likely, Ravonna Renslayer.

Definitely agree, though— Ke Huy Quan is fun as hell who’s made the show much more entertaining with his mere presence. Curious how much more we’ll see of OB outside of this series.

Well hey, everyone in the TVA is a variant, right? And "Ouroboros" doesn't sound like it would be his original name. So he could show up anywhere.

Sounds like things are as rough internally for Marvel Studios as they look externally.

https://variety.com/2023/film/featur...ng-1235774940/

There’s no denying that the last few years of MCU content has had wild ups and downs in quality. I’d like to think that the re-evaluation of the amount of D+ shows and the goal of getting the Blade movie under a $100 million budget are signs of the ship slowly turning to get back on course… but it’s still going to take awhile.

Meanwhile, based on this article, think we’ve all gotta brace for how inelegant THE MARVELS likely will be : /

Alright, LOKI dials start tomorrow morning. First dial won't be super spoilery, but Monday's certainly will be.

Hoping to see THE MARVELS this weekend and have essays & dials for it to follow after Monday's dial.

My big spicy take is that LOKI's season finale was quite good, and I hope that THE MARVELS is just as good.

So happy Ke Huy Quan is getting the on-screen time he always, ALWAYS deserved.



Unique #199 O.B.
Real Name: Ouroboros
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 25
Keywords: TVA, TVA Ally, Police, Cosmic, Scientist

6 9 16 1

6 9 16 1

6 9 16 1

6 9 16 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

He Wrote the Book!: If an adjacent friendly character's card has Perplex and Probability Control, O.B. can use both this turn in addition to his own.
And I Wrote the Book!: Perplex and Probability Control. POWER: Generate an Object from your sideline adjacent to O.B. Opposing players score its points immediately. Each time you use this ability, give an Action Token to the nearest friendly character.

UPDATED 11/10/23 - Thanks, AdmiralB!

Would scientist be appropriate for OB? I mean if they can give it to Tony Stark, why not? Right?

The once per game object generation is pretty funny. Almost wish it had an extra bit where he could use it multiple times, but had to token other characters in addition to himself to get anything past the first.

Should he be unique with such a potentially silver bullet type affect?

D'oh! Would you believe the first draft of the dial had the scientist keyword? Dunno how I forgot to re-add it!

I love your notes all around and have added them all! Big thanks to you, friend! Sending some rep along as well.