Wednesday 8:39

Filling the grid took 8:39. The "full" solve took longer. The gimmick within the puzzle was state capital anagrams, and it's not my strongest suit. It took a few minutes to get most of them, but I finally had to Wikipedia a list to remind me of Lansing, Michigan (anagram IN SLANG).

Avengers: Endgame

Despite my other geeky tendencies, I was never a comic book geek. Sure, everyone knows Superman and Batman and Spider-Man, maybe a few X-Men, but you either followed them in the comics or not. My Saturday morning cartoons leaned more towards Smurfs and Transformers, not X-Men, so I was never really part of that. I liked the 1989 Batman movie and the first two sequels. They don't age well but I'm allowed to like that stuff when I'm 11. Childhood friend Dan Callaway had some archived classic Batman, and the Dark Knight Returns, so I had some exposure. I bought some comics around the death of Superman, but quit when it just got back to Superman as usual.

But other media got me. The first X-Men movie released in 2000. Smallville premiered in 2001, then the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man in 2002. Batman Begins came in 2005, and suddenly it was all superhero movies all the time. The Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008 and it's really changed the game for what a franchise could be. I started to watch YouTube videos that summarized big comic books sagas like Civil War, Planet Hulk, The Infinity War (all of these vary rather wildly from their movie adaptations, but the snap at the end of Infinity War did not come as a surprise). DC, on the other hand, high from Christopher Nolan's masterful Batman films, produced a number of terrible movies (Wonder Woman excepted; that movie was great) in an attempt to create their own universe. It's amazing how consistent they are at getting everything wrong while squandering their most bankable characters.

Marvel properties that other studios own have a spotty history, too. While Fox's handling of X-Men and Deadpool have gone mostly well (although the notable exceptions are really bad), their versions of the Fantastic Four have been disastrous. After Spider-Man 2, a high water mark for superhero movies at the time, Sony tanked it with a memorably bad Spider-Man 3 and a weak reboot attempt. Thankfully, they gave creative control to Marvel for Homecoming, and did a really great job with Into the Spider-Verse, possibly the greatest comic book movie that feels like a comic book, if that makes any sense.

While Marvel Studios has had some misses in their 21-movie-long journey to this point, it's crazy how well things have gone regardless. Thor 2 is probably the worst of the bunch but it's still something like a C, and the majority are well above that mark. Their casting has constantly been phenomenal, and they don't have trouble hiring big names like Glenn Close and Cate Blanchett to play roles. Visual styles between the various locales make each hero's identity unique, yet they still cohere nicely when they collide. The overall tone has been great. At heart, this is still a bunch of fantasy magic. You can't take it all so seriously all the time, even when the story starts out with half your friends being dead. Most of the jokes land pretty well and fit the characters. As for the score, well, Alan Silvestri is no John Williams, but you can't have it all.

Endgame is three hours long, but it sure doesn't feel like it. The story moves pretty much non-stop. Everyone assumed time travel was going to be involved (after all, there are already trailers for a Spider-Man sequel, who was dust at the end of Infinity War.), so it's good they established that as the central plot early on instead of some surprise tactic at the end. I knew Steve Rogers would wield Mjolnir at some point (this is from the comics), but it was still a joy to see. Captain Marvel was used primarily as deus ex machina, which is kinda lazy, but she's so powerful, it's hard for her to be anything else without overshadowing the rest of the heroes. Even then, she can't take down Thanos on her own, and every hero gets a shot at trying.

Aside

I read an article yesterday about Marvel and its supposed issue with female heroes. As in, there aren't enough of them in their movies, or they are relegated to sidekick/assistant status. Perhaps a somewhat valid complaint, though it's not exactly limited to Marvel. They then go on to complain about a certain scene in the final fight. After Peter Parker hands off the Gauntlet to Carol Danvers, he comments it will be hard for her to get it all the way to the van. Suddenly Wanda, Okoye, Wasp, and Pepper Potts as Rescue show up "she has help." The article said that all the girls showing up there was pure pandering, specifically complaining that these female characters had hardly any other lines in the movie. Well, of course not! Three of them had been dead for most of the time, and the other was very reluctant to get involved at all (Rescue showing up in the first place was some top-notch fan service, though).

End Aside

If I wanted to get super-persnickety, there's this: Thanos needed some ancient dwarf master craftsman with a forge powered by a star to make a gauntlet that could harness the stones, yet Tony Stark can make two in a CAVE! With a box of SCRAPS! in his lab.

I don't know where Marvel is going to go from here, but this movie is the perfect cap to Phase 3 of their plan for global domination. Disney acquiring Fox could mean X-Men joining the MCU, but it would be weird to introduce them now (where have they been all this time?) They may need to wait for the current franchises to wind down so they can reboot them simultaneously. I'm not sure there's a definitive plan for the X-Men after Dark Phoenix. I think it's very impressive that Fox has managed to plausibly put all of its X-Men movies into the same timeline, but you have to end it sometime. I think at least Jennifer Lawrence is done after this movie (I miss evil Mystique), and the absence of a Wolverine is starting to get noticeable.

Whew. Great movie. I may see it again, though I passed the no pee challenge the first time,