Episode
6: “What if we made one that was actually kind of good?”
For
all my snark about this series, I thought this week’s episode wasn’t too bad,
really. So this will be short, as I’m far better at snark than expressions of
genuine appreciation or emotion.
I
especially liked the theme (whether intended or not, I have my doubts) about the
dangers inherent in worshipping superheroes or following charismatic leaders.
This is Marvel we are talking about after all, so I’m not sure whether they
realized this week’s story beautifully illustrates why trusting in a superhero
to save you is such a short-sighted and stupid mentality. But own goals still count
as goals, so score one for Marvel!
This
one does a decent job of putting familiar characters into new situations
and—rather than having them just beat each other up—shows how they might react
to their new situation. The conceit is that Killmonger, Michael B Jordan’s
character from “Black Panther”, decides not to concoct a hideously complex and
byzantine plot to take over the highly advanced hermit kingdom of Wakanda by
challenging its king to ritual combat, but rather decides to concoct an even
more byzantine and frankly ludicrously complex plot to provoke a war between
America and Wakanda so that he can sweep in, save his homeland and rise to the
throne as a hero rather than a villain.
Step
one is to save Tony Stark from an ambush in Afghanistan (rewriting one of our
first-ever MCU scenes waaaay back in Iron Man 1). Killmonger is handsome, he’s
charming, he’s heroic, he has an amazing capacity for self-righteous violence, of
course everyone immediately loves him. Naturally he exploits this
hero-worship to get into Tony’s good graces and engineer an ambush that kills
both Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes, before
murdering Tony and pinning the blame on Wakanda. This works like a charm and
the two countries are soon at one another’s throats.
If
they’d stopped there, I would have loved, LOVED this. I mean, it’s not quite an
“Invincible” or “The Boys” level deconstruction of why superheroes are actually
kind of a bad idea really and maybe we shouldn’t be quite so willing to stop
thinking for ourselves, but for Marvel this is pretty spicy stuff.
Then
they throw in a gratuitous battle scene where the Americans send in an anime
esque robot army. Killmonger deactivates them, then for reasons best known to
himself reactivates them and spends five minutes beating up robots with a
spear. The whole battle scene is just … weird. Unnecessary and just bizarrely
frames this as a heroic struggle rather than a pointless fight engineered by an
unscrupulous zealot (for his own aggrandizement I guess—though he was already
the hero of the hour before the fight so I’m not sure what he hoped to
accomplish).
Q:
So, nothing to be snarky about?
A: Well,
at one point, the Watcher (the narrator) says something along the lines of
“Heroes never die.”
Just
after Black Panther, Iron Man and War Machine um, er … die.
Q:
How many times is this series going to kill Tony Stark?
A: AS
MANY AS IT TAKES.
Hey,
at least the old dude from Ant-Man wasn’t the bad guy this time.
Q:
Chadwick Boseman is in this one, too?
A:
Yes and just to make it extra weird he voices his own ghost.
Q:
Did they leave the door open for a sequel again?
A: They did indeed, featuring everyone’s two favorite Marvel characters, Pepper Potts and Black Panther’s kid sister.
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