GOTG Vol 3 Flies Off Into The Beautiful & Forever Sky

James Gunn had once been fired by Disney, but luckily he’s been reinstated to finish off the Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy. It’s a quaddrilogy if you count the delightful GOTG Holiday Special on Disney+. (They were filmed simultaneously if you’d rather merge them together.) Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is his Marvel Studios swansong before he heads up DC Studios. Our Wages of Cinema collaboreviewis reassembled for SPOILERS! (They also saw SHA2AM & DADHAT with me but declined to podcast about them, leaving the review onus on me!) This one’s short by my standards.

The Mandalorian & Yodaling Season 3 Is Homeward Bound

I successfully binged the first season of Fakes instead of Andor’s premiere! (It has TWO unreliable narrators! Sally is THE MOST theater kid.) Everybody insists I should’ve watched Andor (despite me being lukewarm on Rogue One) because it’s the best Star Wars ever. I didn’t, however, want to diminish my enjoyment of The Mandalorian in comparison. The Book Of Boba Fett turned into The Mandalorian season 2.5, but here’s SPOILERS for season 3. Come for me questioning the worldbuilding of a galaxy far away; stay for me eventually hyping up Ewoks!

Your toys will get lonely if you don’t buy them toys of their own!

Is Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania Too Small To Fail?

I’m temporarily pausing the 2023 DC deluge for Marvel. (The other outlier thus far is my Willow season one review. I’ve unilaterally decided the ship portmanteau for Thraxus Boorman x Scorpia is Thraxorpia.) I’ll bounce back to The Flash’s final run like a boomerang later. Now it’s Kang time for Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, which seems like it’s missing an m. Or have we all been saying “Quantum-mania” when it’s really “Quantu-mania?” Shrink down for SPOILERS with The Wages Of Cinema collaboreview! We left the Spy Kids 3D comparisons to those who actually saw it. (Why hasn’t Robert Rodriguez directed anything Marvel yet?)

Thanksgiving For The GOTG Holiday Special?

The trailer for The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special debuted right before Halloween. The Disney+ special presentation premiered right after Thanksgiving. For international readers, that’s the American gluttony holiday with a parade to make folks paranoid about getting everyone presents on time for the greed holiday. (Canada has its Thanksgiving earlier than the states, so substitute Battle Of The Haligonian Kaiju here.) So my annual Thanksgiving post became more of a Black Friday/Cyber Monday post due to this awkward scheduling. The headline’s going to be obsolete until next year. It just says holiday in the title, but it’s clearly meant to be a Christmas special. Can we please give the autumn/winter holidays room to breathe? This review contains SPOILERS, but you can inoculate just by watching this feature first since it’s under an hour. Just come back & read this or I’ll cry.

Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever Boogaloo!

The Wages of Cinema reunited to collaboreview the bittersweet Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. If you’re not ready for SPOILERS, I have a mishmosh of X-Men ephemera for you in the meantime.

Wakanda Forever refutes all MCU movies being formulaic. While I’m predisposed to enjoying them, this feels like one that could appeal to those who’ve sworn off the MCU. (Of course those are least likely to see it unless they’re dragged along or stumble upon this recommendation out of morbid curiosity.) It’s a meditation on grief & legacy. (These wouldn’t be so rare if rightsholders weren’t compelled to reboot main characters not just their mantles.) This feels tonally consistent, which is a notion I often dislike. While there is humor, it’s used sparingly. You don’t need to have seen all the other MCU movies & shows to understand it. The geopolitical stakes are easier to get invested in that multiverse metaphysics. Ruth E. Carter’s costumes & Ludwig Göransson’s score are immersive. Nothing is phoned in. It’s not a rehash of the first film, & there’s forward momentum!

The Legitimutant X-Men Blog

This mutie miscellany was excised from my Marvel Comics Halloween post. It’s getting harder to title these in any meaningful way. This time I added one of the neologisms I coined, legitimutant. It refers to something that is actually a mutation such as the above standard number of toes on my cat. D-Cat is a legitimutant polydactyl with the power of ensnugglement. It can also be more broadly used to describe things that are genuinely out of the ordinary as opposed to hoaxes. For instance, Riverdale season six is legitimutant because supernatural forces were objectively involved throughout. Riverdale season four is ill-legitimutant because Cheryl’s other dead brother’s ghost was not possessing a doll. (Stop reporting this as otherwise to gullible readers & closing comments so it can’t be corrected, other news outlets!) Her mother was just gaslighting her by ripping off The Boy. Whether Cheryl literally gave Archie’s dad the kiss of life in the season two debut is a gray area. Regardless, Cheryl Blossom is an Omega level mutant.

Oh, yeah! This was supposed to be about X-Men. This contains backlogged rambling on the comics, others’ repackaged jokes about comics canon, commentary on existing Fox films but not much speculation about the MCU, toon talk, rants about toys, & action figure photography. None of this is necessarily in order because organization is hard, & there may be SPOILERS depending on what you’ve already been exposed to.

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Witness the secret origin of how Polaris made her second X-Factor costume!

Marvelous Hellfire Halloween!

It’s Samhain Season again! That’s another excuse for me to unload more outdated Marvel Comics ephemera. This is distinct from Marvel Cinematic Universe ephemera. (Watch Werewolf By Night again!) Toy talk has been sequestered to the end for your convenience. I’ve also removed the muties so they can get their own post soonish. The DC Comics equivalent could probably fill out more.

Its flickering candle makes a groovy strobe effect.

Captain Marvel’s Endgame Is Marvel Legends

Now that Black Adam’s been banished, it’s time for Captain Marvel’s time to shine. No, not SHAZAM! (yet), the other Captain Marvel. Or maybe it’s the other other other Captain Marvel depending on whether you’re more of a comics or movie person. You actually saw a sneak peek at this custom when I touched up King Valkyrie & Jacked Jane Foster. Now here are some (debatablely) better photos of it along with some minor MCU speculation.

“SHAZAM! Feel free to tremble.”

Did She-Hulk: Attorney At Law Pass The Bar?

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law was my most anticipated Disney+ series in theory. In practice, nearly everything about it aside from Tatiana Maslany is troubling. Will SHAAL be greater than the sum of its concerning parts? Did scheduling the finale after the howlingly good Werewolf By Night make it look worse? Smash the “continue reading” link for season one SPOILERS! I swear they eventually manifest after the second image. There will be some pettifogging.

No offense to the overworked animators, but I couldn’t resist a “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” joke.

Werewolf By Night By Disney+ Is A Howl!

The Disney+ Halloween special, Werewolf By Night, came out the same week as She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’s penultimate episode guest-starring Daredevil. It’s also up against Batman: The Audio Adventures season two, Pennyworth: The Origin Of Batman’s Butler season three with its new longer title, the latest Hellraiser, Luckiest Girl Alive, The Midnight Club, & US Netflix finally releasing Derry Girls series three.  They could’ve waited until closer to Halloween so it’d have less streaming competition. (In the trick or treat spirit, I’m tossing in bonus mini-reviews of Fakes & Yellowjackets at the end.) New York Comic Con is on now too.

WBN is definitely worth your attention though. It clocks in under an hour so be warned there’s not much to not SPOIL. (Apparently that counts as feature-length by Oscars standards.) This special is all killer no filler!

He’s credited as “Fire Tuba,” but that is clearly a Sousaphone!