Superheroes!

I just found out that Lynda Carter is 69. I was surprised she is under 70.

 

She's one of those actors I liked when I was little that thought of as a real 'grownup' at the time, but when I look back I'm surprised by how young she was. Carrie Fisher is another, who was ~20 when she was in Star Wars. Actually, she was 20 when it came out, so she was probably 18-19 when they were filming. Erin Grey, Margot Kidder and Karen Allen were 29-30 when they were in Buck Rogers, Superman and Raiders of the Lost Ark, respectively, which jibes with how I remember them.

 

I hadn't known she was that young when doing WW on TV. But then while I'm old enough to have watched the show, I can't at this point remember well enough to match up years without looking it up.

 

Random thought: Since Teyonah Parris has been cast for Captain Marvel 2, I wonder if Monica Rambeau will get her powers and become Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar/Spectrum during WandaVision (that woman's had a lot of names ).

Random MCU trivia: In Captain Marvel, 5-year-old Monica and 11-year-old Monica were played by sisters, Azari and Akira Akbar.

Random Egon trivia I: When I played City of Heroes, a superhero MMORPG, one of my characters was an homage to Monica Rambeau's Captain Marvel. The developers of the game were nervous about copyright violations, so you weren't allowed to create a character that was a perfect recreation of a comics character, but the character-creator was so robust you could make almost anything, but the iconic symbols weren't available (Batman's and Superman's chest logos, for example). You just had to alter it slightly and come up with a different name. I had characters who were homages to Captain America ("Hundred Nations" - I gave him a Native American/First Nations theme); Will Eisner's The Spirit ("Agent Midnight"); the Golden Age Starman, for a Justice Society-themed group ("Starbolt"? "Starshield"? something like that); Daredevil ("The Crimson Shroud" - I made him a 1930s-style pulp-hero, a mix of The Shadow and Daredevil, with a red mask and a trenchcoat); and Monica Rambeau, circa the 1980s Avengers comic, for an Avengers-themed group (I think I named her "Lightspeed"); as well as a few others that weren't homages to existing comics characters. The game is shut down now, unfortunately. It had its warts, of course, but it was a lot of fun, and it had perhaps the best online community I've encountered.

Random Egon trivia II: Now that I mention him, The Spirit (2008) is another superhero movie I haven't been able to bring myself to watch. I don't think I've heard or read a single good thing about it, and I just haven't had the heart.

 

I think I may have seen that, but can't recall for sure. I may be mixing it up in my head with something else.

 

Go in with low expectations, and you should find The Spirit okay.

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It's not Maguire.

 

https://variety.com/2021/tv/feature...a-leslie-stunts-justice-privilege-1234864580/

Interview with the actress taking over the CW Batwoman role.

 

The Spirit (2008) I haven't seen. Looked right at the year and it didn't register; that was the Frank Miller version, I think, that I heard took too many liberties.

I was thinking of the earlier Sam Jones-starring version, which was as good as anything starring Sam Jones w/o a score by Queen should be, which was mediocre on the whole, had it's heart in the right place, and I don't remember a second beyond the staggering into the camera cocking a punch shot from the promo - but it wasn't horrible or anything. Heart pretty much in the right place, but Sam Jones, y'know?

 

Zoiks, I'd forgotten all about The Spirit (1987). Haven't seen that one, either. It has a young Nana Visitor in it. Well, not that young - 30 - but she's always looked younger than she is, to my eye. I figured she was in her late-20s when Deep Space 9 premiered, but she was 36.

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Meanwhile, rumors of Chris Evans coming out of retirement for more Captain America are starting fires all around the nerdosphere. I would guess he's maybe doing an episode of What If..?, or cameos in a second season of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, or as an alternate-universe Steve in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, small things like that.

I'm sure it'll never happen, but that doesn't stop me from fantasizing about a 3rd season of Agent Carter, after she reunites with Steve.

 

I remember going to day camp as a kid and thinking of all the camp counselors as "grownups", which was hilarious in retrospect when I became old enough to work as a camp counselor myself (15 y/o) the little kids would run up to me and call me "Mr." and "Teacher" and show me their boo-boos, or that they wet their pants, or tell on some other kid that hit them or called them names and expect me to fix the situation ... I remember thinking "LoLs those counselors weren't grownups they were just kids like me!"

It was even funnier, when I sent my own children to daycare, they would come home and tell me that Mr. so-and so, or Ms. such-and-such said or did this or that, but when I would meet this "Mr." or "Ms." they would almost always just be some teenager

 

WandaVision! I've watched the first two episodes and I still don't really know what the show is about...but I've got theories. Despite the slow start I've still enjoyed it. The performances from Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany are quite good, the homage to 50s and 60s sitcoms is spot on (from my limited viewing of older shows on Nick and Night), and Marvel is doing something different and they deserve kudos for that at least.

Spoiler Theories :

Wanda is still grieving from losing Vision and the pain is so intense she can't handle reality so she creates this alternate reality. Either entirely in her mind or a real alternate reality I'm not sure which. I know she is supposed to be a lot stronger in the comics and perhaps they are bringing some of that to the MCU. Either way, elements from the real/prime world are making their way into Wanda's reality which is what the voice on the radio, the beekeeper guy, the noises happening at night are about. I wouldn't be surprised if characters in the alternate reality are people in the prime reality.

Also while Wanda is in this state she probably isn't aware of what toll her actions are taking on the prime reality which is why the people are trying to get to her. I think that the colored helicopter she inadvertently crashed somehow.

I'm not quite sure to make of the guy watching the sitcom and taking notes. Perhaps he is part of a remnant of Hydra? That would explain the commercial in the 2nd episode and the helicopter had the same symbol as the guy's notebook. Perhaps beekeeper guy is with them as well? He seemed vaguely sinister as well.

 

I wouldn't wonder if it's closer to the comics - children by the Vision created by magic between movies and that went pear-shaped and so did her head. She learned English as a girl watching positively dusty old 'merican sitcoms, and this is what happens with that running around the back of your head, a psychotic break, and reality-warping powers all interacting. I'm probably wrong about the children, but see if her Donna Reed life doesn't get a pregnancy plot soon...

Haven't seen it, or clicked on anything - just stands to reason. She didn't have a stable and safe childhood, and sitcom life may have looked like heaven...

 

Zoiks and away! (its most audible in the 5th, most punch drunk iteration):

 

I'm fascinated by the idea of Ethan Hawke as the villain in Moon Knight. Once again, this casting would never in a million years have occurred to me (in part because iirc Hawke was one of the people who's been disgruntled about comic book movies taking over cinema - either this is different because it's a series and not a film, or they just backed up the money-truck). They haven't announced who he'll be playing. I was thinking that Bushman might be a "problematic" character to bring to the screen today, and I'm not sure that merely making him White would be enough to overcome that. But Moon Knight has a lot of good villains. Black Spectre and Morpheus immediately leap to mind as characters Hawke could ably play. Morpheus as the villain would make the show more of a psychedelic horror story, like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Candyman. If Black Spectre is the villain, it would be more of a physical action show with brutal hand-to-hand combat, like Atomic Blonde or The Raid. I'd be good with either one, of course, but I'm kind of leaning toward Morpheus right now.

Someone named May Calamawy has also been cast, presumably as the series' version of Marlene. IMDb says Calamawy is Egyptian-Palestinian, originally from Bahrain, and was in Ramy, which I've never seen, but I think it got good reviews.

 

I agree with your theory and said something similar to my wife when we watched it.

Spoiler :

The fact that she alone sees the occasional thing in colour (always red? ) and the fact that she rewound time to prevent Vision from being exposed to the beekeeper coming out of the sewer... plus the fact that everything starts turning colour after that made me think that it is all in her mind and or subconsciously controlled by her and her seeing the colour is a sign that she is becoming aware of the fantasy.

The other possibility I can see is the whole thing being some Truman Show or Westworld style setup by Hydra to study Wanda's power. Hydra is obviously involved somehow, because the Hydra symbol was on the watch in the commercial. What makes me think of Westworld/Truman Show is the fact that the show glitched out when the guy started choking, until vision saved him, but then reverted to what was an obviously canned ending as if the absurd situation at dinner never happened.

And yes it is all delightfully weird and mysterious. I'm having fun trying to figure out what it all means, because its obviously way more than meet the eye. The setting is so preposterous, that you know it has to be a cover for something else.

 

WandaVision ep. 3

Spoiler :

So it appears that the Vision we have here isn't just a projection - a Vision-vision, if you will - but has some self-awareness. It seems as though he's been somehow resurrected; maybe pulled through time from before he died, like the new Loki, or from an alternate dimension where he never died at all. So maybe they want to bring him back into the MCU, and not just have him disappear when Wanda's illusion/delusion ends.

...which probably means their twin sons - who grow up to be superheroes "Wiccan" and "Speed" in the comics - will be in the MCU down the road, too. We already know they're introducing Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel in Captain Marvel 2, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye in Hawkeye and America Chavez in Doctor Strange 2, and I think I read a rumor somewhere that the kid who becomes the new Patriot* will be introduced in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. So they seem to be setting up a Young Avengers movie or show, down the road.

It's certainly clear now that whatever is happening is happening to a real town and to real people who live there.

I'm glad they didn't use Pietro in one of the tv ads, as I'd predicted. The scene where she remembers him was much more effective.

Elizabeth Olsen did a nice job making Wanda seem slightly sinister when 'Geraldine' mentioned Ultron.

Paul Bettany's '70s outfit in the opening credits was awesome.



* Jeffrey Mace, played by Jason O'Mara in Agents of SHIELD, was the original Patriot. Elijah Bradley is the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, the black US soldier who got an experimental dose of the Super-Soldier formula before Steve Rogers did. Carl Lumbley has been cast for Falcon and the popular theory is that he'll be playing Isaiah Bradley.

 

Spoiler :

Yeah Wanda seems kinda evil in this show. She's holding people, or at the very least Vision there against their will. I wonder if she's the bad guy in this show, and possibly for Dr. Strange 2. She was initially on Ultron's side in Age of Ultron after all. Maybe she's reverted back to that "F it all I do what I want" frame of mind.

 

A popular theory is that WandaVision is the MCU adaptation of the Marvel Comics storyline House of M. I won't go into details, to avoid potentially spoiling the show for anyone who doesn't want to know, but there are myriad web pages on it. I will say that, even more so than other MCU adaptations of Marvel Comics stories, House of M would have to be dramatically changed to fit the MCU's continuity, because there are large plot points in the comic that just wouldn't work. This would have to be the loosest of adaptations, if it's an adaptation at all. So even people who are familiar with the comics don't really know what's coming in the show.

 

You almost got me again... but I caught myself this time I'm waiting to watch 2 episodes at once. this one episode a week thing is brutal.