Back From Burnout? (MCU Edition)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Year 1 Milennial,

in need of focus and rebranding.

2021 was a garbage year for me. Not that 2020 was a deep-dish Hawaiian pizza with extra toppings, mind you. And yes, I am one of those people who likes pineapple on pizza. But that is a conversation for another day, which I don't intend to have.

What I do intend on discussing today is where the hell I've been since last December. I think the backlash to my Chucky series review, the effort I put into reviewing it and announcing it on a new array of platforms, and the disappointing end result that was Chucky Season 1 had something to do with it,

On the work life side of things, I am the only original employee left standing (excluding business owners and employees at other locations) after four years of constant shifts in employment style, workforce, product availability and quality, and state oversight, plus the time I was out of work during the COVID shutdown.

In the past year, I have had to deal with the above-mentioned adversity, as well as family backlash and personal feelings about my mountain of gambling debt, and a (now deposed) department manager who was lazy, hated her job, brought her personal feelings to work, and thrived on starting drama between her subordinates like we were on a reality competition show. Among my co-workers are a fundamentalist Christian who thinks COVID was a hoax, a religious student who would put his paradoxical faith ahead of his family's safety, a psychedelic-using future cult leader and his female follower who believe Satan has manufactured false religious texts and is using the world's governments to mind-control humanity into a Hell on Earth from the comfort of his personal spirit dimension, several pro-Trump gun enthusiasts, and an anti-vaxxer spiritualist who thinks our government is evil (despite empirical evidence of actual evil governments in countless other countries across the world) and believes every conspiracy theory she finds on the internet (flat-Earth, the metaverse/Matrix, the Illuminati/Freemasons, Q, corporate politics, staged crises, rigged/stolen elections, Pizzagate, Satan-worshipping Democrats, weaponized weather, Alex Jones rhetoric, Fox News,...).

So is it any wonder that I went silent on social media, stopped blogging, developed a drinking problem, and relapsed into mobile gacha games until my savings ran out and I had to confess to my family yet again, but this time with more revealed addictions and repressed resentment?

Oh, and with two semesters left of my Accounting degree, I just stopped trying at my classes and stopped responding to my mentor's calls and e-mails.

ESCAPISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

So after coming to the same conclusion that I had come to in my second year (that Accounting would bring me more money than it would happiness, and I missed writing), I changed focus to Marketing. This was for three reasons: WGU does not offer a creative writing program online, most of the coursework has essays and practical exercises instead of traditional tests, and I am lacking the knowledge and skills to properly advertise my passions. So I get to write more, and learn current marketing techniques at the same time, which is a more satisfactory compromise than "used to be great at math, need money, take Accounting").

As for what I planned to do before all this happpened, here's a Critical Quickie rundown of everything I can remember (with SPOILERS):

Hawkeye--I tried to do a week-by-week release and failed from the jump to share my opinion of this serialized, Die Hard-inspired study of the title character as he (like myself) attempts to cope with the Christmas season and his past choices in the aftermath of a global disaster. Unlike myself, however, "everyone's least favorite Avenger" must also contend with an intrusive fangirl-cum-apprentice/sidekick and her organized crime-embroiled family drama, a pair of compelling female villains out for vengeance, an unflattering musical, and the best MCU guest star in recent memory. I regret not getting the chance to make a timely joke about the public's response to Dave Chappelle's Closer, with regards to Obadiah Stane (the villain from the first Iron Man) posthumously being allowed to have his name on a bell tower at Kate Bishop's school. But the fights were creative, the car chase from Echo's focus episode was well done, Yelena and the Swordsman were delightful characters, and Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin is one of my favorite Marvel villain portrayals of all time. There are a few sinnable practicality issues (most of Kate's tactical decisions come to mind), but Hawkeye is one of the better MCU series of the Disney+ era.

Moon Knight--MOON spells mess. I was never a rabid comics reader, but I came into this uneven, too-abbreviated series with at least a sense of what the character was about. Oscar Isaac (one of my least favorite actors of the century) does a commendable dual-plus performance as Marc Spector, a mercenary with disassociative identity disorder (one of which is a sheepish museum worker so British that he could make afternoon tea from his own bodily fluids), as well as the avatar of a deposed Egyptian moon deity. So much attention is placed on psychological horror, cosmic-level special effects, and unsettling atmosphere that fight choreography is almost nonexistent for the majority of the episodes. The villain (a fomer avatar of said lunar deity and current cult leader with mind-controlling Minority Report powers, played creepily by Ethan Hawke) is a welcome inclusion to the small group of memorable MCU antagonists, even if it is also another case of same-versus-same with another third-act kaiju fight tacked on by the Marvel checklist. We get Black Panther and Madripoor references out of the deal, though, as well as some potential allusions to "Secret Wars II" (Harrow and Amet's future crime powers, in place of an Inhuman ability) and the elder god pantheon (Amet's description in actual Egyptian mythology lines up with established and alluded MCU entities like Dormammu, Nightmare, the Dweller in Darkness, and not-Shuma Gorath). And that Cuckoo's Nest swerve in the last few episodes restored my interest in Moon Knight, if not my faith.

Spider-Man: No Way Home--I ruined the specialness of this one with too much YouTube and Wikipedia tracking. All the best remembered villains from the old Sony franchises are here, all three live-action Spider-Men are here, Doctor Strange is here to make the plot happen and set up his sequel, Netflix Daredevil is Peter's lawyer, Willem Dafoe makes a three-course meal of every scene he's in, and the rest is spectacular action and nostalgic references. The plot is bonkers and self-contradictory, and Aunt May dies because no one wanted Uncle Ben to be an important part of Spider-Man's character growth for the third time. Fridging Marissa Tomei is much better...? But this is still the best movie in the Home trilogy, the best ASM movie, the best Doctor Strange movie (MOM has its share of plot and practicality issues, too), and the best Spider-Man movie since SM2. Hell, with the end-credits cameo, it's the best Venom movie, too.

Doctor Strange In the Multiverse Of Madness--Everything good and bad you've heard about this movie holds true. It's a Sam Raimi movie, with all the Raimi Easter eggs and cinematic flourishes that fans of Raimi films would expect to see. It has a great fanboy moment involving the Illuminati and a combination of MCU, Marvel Television, Fox, and Sony cameos, as well as possible future casting choices. And the effects are spectacular and in line with previous Doctor Strange visuals. But it also proves to be problematically written and unambitious where expectations are concerned. With Phase Four's...focus?...on the multiverse thus far, and the word being in the title, only about three alternate universes are used here (mostly "so the plot can happen"), the villain reveal is so obvious that speculators predicted it before Disney Plus existed, and it contradicts their entire character arc up to this point, the Mordo teaser from the last movie was somewhere between glossed over and completely dropped, the already underutilized Christine Palmer (not counting the What If...? episode where she gets murdered by Groundhog Day and the universe melts) was further disrespected, jokes are recycled, and the new character (for that possible Young Avengers/Dark Avengers/All-New, All-Different Avengers/Thunderbolts thing that keeps getting hinted at in all of the series) is given a goofy backstory and treated as a MacGuffin so underutilized that they might as well not have been in the movie at all. But we get cool visuals, classic characters, the Illuminati, Incursion hints, and Bruce Campbell sitting next to three-week-old hotdogs and hitting himself in the face offscreen for almost the entire runtime, so there's that....

Ms. Marvel--Let's end this post on a positive note. Despite my not being familiar with the cast or most of the characters and not connecting with the atonal Middle-Eastern soundtrack, despite the abbreviated episode count, the rushed defeat of the generic villains, the sudden aversion of a transdimensional apocalypse in favor of a barely consequential time travel episode and a finale that pits high school kids against heavily armed gunmen in what is basically a thematically insensitive Home Alone sequel, there is a lot to like here. The series has Big Home Trilogy vibes with its youthful energy, family dynamics, super-fan main character, and animated expository elements. For those who balk at representation movements (or at Muslim representation, specifically), this is not the show for you (and I'd probably block you from commenting if Google didn't beat me to it). But Marvel fans will appreciate the unique take on Ms. Marvel's non-Inhuman origins (Middle Eastern folklore, plus something Disney can say now that they own Fox, plus time travel, trains, and maybe that purple, crystalline energy from the rifts at the end of NWH), and her super identity being more than just "fan of Captain Marvel calls herself Ms. Marvel because Marvel. Marvel. Marvel. Marvel. Marvel?" Anyway, there are problems and cultural barriers, but the new take on the character is great, the cast play their roles well enough, the costume looks good, the effects are decent, the family drama is pretty relatable, Marvel still has a thing for trains, the pacing is even enough, the story is mostly entertaining, and I had fun. Good stinger at the end, too. I have high hopes for the movie continuation.

Monday, I will get back to anime with the continuation of Back From Burnout?.

Ticketmaster,

Back from BurnOut.