SFCS -- Strong Female Character Syndrome.

I believe it was Stuart West who told me in private correspondence that he appreciated how many strong female characters I have. I was a little thrown there because it took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

In my novels, I have Manana Shushurin, who's a spy that's more James Bond than George Smiley.  She reads, likes music, has a degree from Wittenberg university .... has no social life, and technically, lives with her mother (technically, I say, because she really lives in her office). She also has a secret that's eating a hole in her life.



I also have Maureen McGrail.  She's an Interpol detective, local Dublin cop, relentless, tenacious, and she knows about three martial arts.  She's also pining for a guy who came into her life, swept her off of her feet (just by being himself, really) and disappeared, without showing even a hint of romantic interest in her.



Then there's Wilhelmina Goldberg, who is 4'11", computer nerd, daughter of two esoteric languages nerds. She likes science fiction and fantasy, programs her computer to talk like characters out of Lord of the Rings, and has a subscription to Security magazine.



In context, I should point out that Stuart was using the strong female character comment as a segue into a completely different point, an issue he found in my writing. (Apparently, I shouldn't be putting in bust size as far as describing a female character.  I neglected to tell Stuart that if I knew anything about clothing, I would probably include men's jacket sizes to paint a clearer, more accurate picture of them, too. But I don't know any men who are the sizes I need. Me? OCD?  Nah....)



In any case, the SFC term struck me, and stuck with me.



And then there was this article, entitled I hate Strong Female Characters.  If you read through it, you might find a few points to agree with, and a few problems.



Now, I agree with the author on the initial point.  I also have problems with the SFC label. I really do, because it tends to detract from, oh, the point. In the example they used of Buffy-- she was smart, witty, with outside the box solutions to non-vampire problems (shall we start with the fertilizer bomb in the high school, or the rocket launcher?).  But "Strong" is the only descriptor one can come up with?



In my own work, I spent so much time on developing characters like Manana and Wilhelmina, their quirks and habits and hobbies, that I feel a little awkward if the best description anyone can come up with about them is just "strong."



Though you want my problem with this author?

1)  "I want good complex characters!"



.... And then, let's focus completely on Buffy, because she's the STRONG character.... and ignore Willow, who saves the day repeatedly, but is physically as strong as your average anemic? Faith, who's as physically strong as Buffy, but a broken character? How about Cordelia, who starts out a vacuous California mean girl, and becomes more interesting within the first half of season 1? Anya, who goes through a fairly strange character arc of her own?



And, while they're talking about complex characters, they boiled Buffy down to only "SFC." How about witty? Smart? Creative? The example used in the article was the end point of a two-episode arc exposing just how vulnerable Buffy really is. Yes, she's got superpowers, but she's still a teenager, with all the problems that comes with it, in addition to waging a constant war against everything that came to kill her, swallow the Earth, etc. The author managed to ignore the entire point of a two-part story!



Who demands good complex characters! and then ignores them when s/he gets them?  If this article had said that the "SFC" label shoved a character into a box and left them there, then I could agree to some degree.  But this author seems to be guilty of doing just that.



2) I want a 1:1 ratio of complex characters, male and female! 

The author prattles on about Peggy Carter of Captain America: The First Avenger, complaining that she was unbalanced and cartoonish, making a lot of assumptions.





The author mentions that Peggy Carter shooting Captain America's shield is a temper tantrum that no guy would have gotten away with. Obviously, this person never saw the 100 generic Stupid People Tricks that are on cable, and mostly male.  The author assumed that in firing, Peggy had been too stupid to not be listening to the toymaker Stark prattle on about his cool toys for however long she'd been in his general orbit. The author also assumed that no one in the entire room knew that the shield was bulletproof-- which is kind of like people in Q's lab not knowing to duck on a regular basis.



The author then insists that this "over-the-top" reaction is because she's one of two women with a speaking part, and there be more women on screen to counter stuff like this. (Which is odd, since I counted four -- which included a grandma with a tommy gun, and a SHIELD agent at the end of the film).



My real problem?  First, the author makes these above assumptions and then kvetches that they could have shoe-horned in more women. Why? Just to shoe-horn in more women. So we could have a 1:1 ratio of women in the film. Really?



Hey, maybe we could have put in more cardboard cutouts. Besides, if you really want equality, then Captain America: The First Avenger, was perfectly equal. There were only two complex characters in the whole film.  Tommy Lee Jones was playing....Tommy Lee Jones.... Zola was Mad Scientist #2 ... The Red Skull was Psycho Villain #6 ... Eskine was "Dr. Littleoldmun" from Mel Brooks' High Anxiety. And Stark was very much "Howard Hughes Carbon Copy #1."  Outside of the sidekick Bucky (Plucky Sidekick #9), are any of Captain America's team referred to by name?



In short, Carter and Rodgers were the only two characters of any substance in the film. This isn't a complaint. I'm sure they were plenty deep in character design, but there was little enough of it on the screen. Not to mention-- it's a movie. If you're Peter Jackson, you get nine hours of films for develop all of your character. If you're a Marvel film, you have, at most two hours and thirty minutes.  If you have two well-written and developed characters, you're ahead of the game.  I feel fortunate to have one, some days.



But for the 1:1 ratio this author wants?



Maybe this author would have liked more 2D characters. As she suggest, let's gender swap.... Dr. Zola?  So we can have a weak, simpering little woman be bullied by Tommy Lee Jones? Dr. Erskine? So we can have a little grandmother figure play the martyr?  Hey, we could gender swap Tommy Lee Jones, and have him played by Kathy Bates!  Why not have the Red Skull played by Angelina Jolie?



Now, a reasonable argument I got from Karina Fabian is from the point of view that, there were certainly a heck of a lot more women in the WW2 military than were seen in the film. There were secretaries, WACs, women who transported planes, codebreakers, nurses, etc.  That way, we could have had a lot of women.... but they would have been in the background, and probably would have completely boiled away this author's argument.



3) Women are at the back of the bus...um, movie poster, like Black Widow.



"Strong women are supposed to kick ass and keep their mouth shut." Really?



How about, oh, that Black Widow WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO OUTSMARTED LOKI?  IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! GAAAHHHH!!!



How about that BLACK WIDOW WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD CLOSE THE PLOT DEVICE DESTROYING NEW YORK?



How about the fact that there were maybe five deep moments in the entire film, and Black Widow was in two of them (The five moments were Stark and Banner in Lab, Stark and Rodgers reconcile, Coulson, interrogating Loki, and Black Widow and Barton, post-brainwashing....six scenes, if you count Black Widow and Bruce Banner in India, giving her half the deep moments in the film).



Oh, hey, how about Sam Jackson? Maybe we should say The Avengers was racist, because he was in the back of the poster?



I'm sorry, but unless you're Iron Man or Thor, you're in the back of this poster.



4) Where's Thor?


Seriously, where's the movie Thor in this discussion?  You know, the movie that was mostly Kat Denning and Natalie Portman handling Chris Hemsworth as he was enduring culture shock? With some occasional exposition from Mr. Skaarsgard? Portman's character, astrophysicist Jane Foster, isn't "strong," in this sense, is she? Because last time I checked, most of my female friends could break her like a toothpick. Foster is instrumental in Thor's change from prick to hero, but is she thrown on the bonfires of the blogger's vanity because she doesn't come with a complete bio and genealogy?



Or does this author consider her merely as a damsel in distress?  Which would be odd, because if you were in the New Mexico town in Thor, you were in distress, up to and including the three beefy supporting characters and the Valkyrie that (quite literally) drop down out of the sky.



Or does this not count, because the end of the movie involves the Warriors Three, Odin, and Loki? Making it three more male characters on screen than women?  Do we count Freya, who tried to stopped three assassins coming to get Odin? Or because she wasn't on screen that often, should we throw her aside?



While not physically strong, I thought Jane Foster was very well written. She was the love interest, sure, but that love motivated both of them to be better.  He was motivated to be a better person, and she was motivated to continue pursuing interstellar/inter-dimensional travel.



Am I wrong? Or, as I asked, does she just not count?



Conclusion: Equality!



As I said at the beginning, I don't like the SFC label.  If you can shove my characters into a nice neat little box, I'm going to be pissy -- either at you for demeaning my characters, or at myself for making them cardboard cutouts.



I would have liked this article more if it were less obvious. It's clearly pushing an agenda -- not about creating good characters, but numerical "equality!" for "equality's" sake. By the end, I felt like I was reading a review of 300 that insisted that there should have been 150 female Spartans at Thermopylae (this is not a joke, I did read one of those).



I honestly couldn't tell you the ratio of my characters if you dared me to.



In A Pius Man, I've got Maureen, Manana and Wilhelmina named above as main characters. Is the ratio 1:1 if I include Giovanni Figlia's wife, the forensic specialist?



Is the ratio no longer 1:1 if I count the three priests in the background?



Is it all right if I have Scott "Mossad" Murphy, who can't shoot, is pale, anemic-looking, and pair him up with the sexy gunslinger Manana?  Does that make him weak, even though he will take gunfire and is a pivotal part of the book?



Does Wilhelmina Goldberg not count if she doesn't shoot anybody, but is a key part to hunting down the bad guys by the end?



At the end of the day, the SFC label is too simple. But so is reducing "equality" to numbers of people on screen and counting lines.  If you're keeping score with 1:1 ratios, exactly what will satisfy you? I have no idea.



Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go write a scene where Manana has to save Scott. Again.

Jack Bauer, Harry Potter, and the Cassandra effect.

So, what do Jack Bauer and Harry Potter have in common?

No, this is not a joke.

Jack Bauer, the hero of 24, is the key agent on the Counter Terrorism Unit.  He will torture (mostly just interrogation with yelling and threats), kill, fight his superiors, and lop off heads in order to save the day. He developed a drug addiction to go undercover with a cartel, stopped LA from being nuked about three times, saved the President of the United States at least a dozen times, and will occasionally go on revenge-fueld rampages. He is also the winner of going-the-longest-without-sleep-while-still-kicking-ass award.  He's mostly a lone wolf, because everyone who helps him eventually dies.

Harry Potter is essentially experiencing the worst high school experience since Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Instead of being born with martial arts skills and preternatural strength, all he has are the wits of a ten-year-old (to start with) and inborn magical ability that he's still learning to control.  His biggest assets are his friends-- one of whom is smarter than he is. And he's got a death sentence on him since he was born, all because of some Saruman wannabe who has his own Manson family.

So, what do the two of them have in common?

The Cassandra effect.

No, really.

Going through both series, you'll notice that no one actually listens to either Jack Bauer or Harry Potter.  If people listened to Jack Bauer in several seasons, the show would be called 12, not 24.  Every time Harry Potter falls head first into a plot, like some sort of magical Jessica Fletcher, no one over the age of 18 listens to him.  They are both Cassandra, knowing something will happen for certain, only no one will listen to them, especially when they're right. Leaving it up to our heroes to act on their own to save the day, despite the stupidity of others.

Now, granted, it's a plot device specifically designed so it can end with the hero standing alone against all odds, with maybe some cavalry coming over the hill at the last minute. One might say it's a very American concept -- rugged individualism, cowboy duels in the street, the Lone Ranger, every superhero, every Clint Eastwood western-- except that there is still the basic mythology of Odysseus, or Bellerophon, and other folks of yore who have special powers and abilities that make them the only ones to face demons and monsters.  It's the same concept, only we need different reasons for the lone hero to be lone anything.

In the case of comic books, that's easy-- most superheroes have superpowers that enable them to go toe-to-toe with the bad guy and walk away. Even Batman and Iron Man have special toys, special training, and a wealth of experience on their side.

But what happens outside of that? When everyone has the same training? The same knowledge base?

Enter the Cassandra effect.  In both cases, it stems from Konecsni's Law of Committees: to get the IQ of a committee, you take the total IQ of the individual committee members, and then divide it by TWICE the number of members on said committee.  Why? Because people are dumber in groups.

In either case, this holds.  In the Hogwarts School model, the faculty obviously know more than this pissant little child, so how could he possibly have the answer to anything in particular?  In the case of Jack Bauer, the CTU bureaucracy looks something like the bureaucracy of the damned, filled with political operatives who know nothing about kicking ass and taking names, and everything about kissing ass and shuffling papers.  And, in both cases, our heroes can only appeal to an individual --Harry Potter's Dumbledore, or Bauer's President Palmer -- and that person can cut through the red tape that has made everything so very, very screwed up.

If you don't have that, you don't have a plot in either case.

"Oh, Harry? People are going to try and steal this valuable stone we have in the forbidden wing? We'll triple the guard on it. Thank you."

Or...

"Jack, you've got information that says that there were other people behind the terrorist threat? Sure, we'll have an air strike on them in the next five minutes."

Sounds boring, doesn't it?

At the end of the day, individuals who will fight the good fight are always more appealing to us than a massive, faceless bureaucracy. We trust individuals to get things done, but not the byzantine structure of bureaucracies, who will seemingly let anyone in. It doesn't matter if it's the IRS, the State Department, the NSA, CTU, or Hogwarts.  But good fiction uses this plot device well, exaggerating the natural ineptitude of bureaucracies into a plot point -- and sometimes, you don't need that much exaggeration.

Even when you have something like the Magnificent Seven, or the Avengers, it's very much the same concept. It's the individuals coming together to take on a threat that none of them could deal with alone.

Now, one could counter with military fiction... except in that case, fiction makes certain to focus on the officers and high-ranking foot soldiers -- people who have already been promoted because they have special abilities and knowledge that put them at the head of the back. Just look at 300-- we focus on, possibly, six of three hundred Spartans. It's hard to make us emotionally invested in 300 individual soldiers in the time and space allotted, but making us invested in a select few allows us to be invested in all of them.

At the end of the day, we the audience become invested in individuals.  The Cassandra effect -- or the committee effect -- gives writers the excuse to focus on a select few in a modern age where great big monolithic installations are supposed to take care of everything.

The American Journal, GamerGate, and other Insanity

A few weeks ago, I posted links to reviews of brand new shows that I wrote for The American Journal, which is a news site that lets me write for them. Usually, the more ranting and raving I am, the more the readers like it.  So, if you want to see me go bat-guano insane on a semi-regular basis, you can get it out. I think I've officially written over half the articles, so hit something at random, it might be written by Declan Finn.



Anyway, I've done a few articles in recent weeks that some of my readers may like.  In a lot of cases, I just keep a relatively neutral stance -- that stance being "Why can't you freaking morons shut up and leave me alone?"



However, you might want to check out some of these.



Walking Dead Actress Breaks up Sex Ring. Yes, this happened. And what did YOU do with your weekend?



Journalists Conspire to Shape News Over GamerGate This was just .... ARGH



Catholic Church to Support Gay Marriage Yeah, if you had questions about what the HELL is going on about this most recent synod, this is part of it. The other part: Here.



Comic Con Announces Guardians of the Galaxy Cartoon Good luck with that



Sequels for Iron Man and Independence Day in the Works



WB Releases DC Comics Movie Schedule



Video: Liam Neeson Returns in 'Taken 3' 



VIDEO: Viking Rejects Job Applicant Based on Faith -- It's not really politics, it's more of a comedy.  And completely insane. You have to see it to believe it.  Most of it isn't commentary, it's just the news story. Oy.



Zero Tolerance, Zero Intelligence. If you're read my official Amazon bio, you can guess why this is near and dear to my heart.



I think you folks might enjoy some of this.



And if you're wondering what I've been doing with my time.... now you know.

Avengers, Age Of Ultron ... WTF Was That?

So, that was fun.



Time for my five cents.



Needless to say-- SPOILERS FOR ALL MARVEL FILMS UP TO THIS POINT.



Avengers 2.

WHAT WE KNOW



Ultron is the primary villain of Avengers2. It's really called Avengers: Age of Ultron. So, duh.



We know that Paul Bettany, the voice of JARVIS in Iron Man, is getting his own part as the Vision.  More later.



We know that Pietro and Wanda Maximoff will be in the film.



Dr. Zola, in The Winter Soldier, has an artificial intelligence algorithm that is set to find threats to Hydra, like superheroes, and kill them.



Hydra has the glows tick of destiny from The Avengers.  It has a glowing gem that makes you control people's minds. A mind gem if you will (more on that later).



ADD IT TOGETHER, YOU GET...



Take the AI, stick it into some of Tony Stark's armor, whack it with the mind gem to give it life, and you have a crapstorm ahead called Ultron.



The Maximoff's were seen at the end of Winter Soldier in the clutches of Hydra. Which means that Baron von Strucker and his minions will be part of it. We have another army of darkness ahead.

That was before I saw the trailer.

Now that we've seen The Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer ... now what?



Well, a few things.  To start with, the narration was obviously done by the marvelously malicious James Spader, who is voicing the killer robot Ultron. Blaming Hydra aside, we know a good chunk of stuff.

[More below the break]







WHO IS ULTRON?



For those of you who don't know about Ultron, in the comics, he was created by Hank Pym, aka: Ant-Man, one of the leading minds of the Marvel universe. Because that's what scientists do in comic books. Ultron went bad, and would even create one of his own robot minions, The Vision. While The Vision is not in the trailer, just assume that he's going to be one of the dozens of various and sundry minions crawling all over that old castle.  Why do I assume that? Because, as noted, The Vision has been cast, and he will be played by Paul Bettany, who has been the voice of Tony Stark's AI with an attitude problem, Jarvis, since the first Iron Man film.



In this little bit of Marvel continuity, Ultron will be created by Tony Stark, not Hank Pym (set to have his own movie sometime next year ... maybe).  From what I have seen around the net, Tony Stark will try to "reactivate a program" and it all goes terribly wrong. Since the end of The Winter Soldier showed us elements that show up in Age of Ultron, my friend Jason and I have considered that this program may incorporate elements of the SHIELD / Hydra program that targeted threats to Hydra -- namely superheroes.



Let's face it, does anyone put it past Tony Stark to say "Hey, if I program to identify real threats, like on that Person of Interest show, and create an army of police drones to enforce it, there's no way that this can go wrong!"?



No matter what, we'll have Ultron, the killer robot will have drone minions, and control machines ... like the Hulkbuster Iron Man armor we see the Incredible Hulk fighting in the trailer.



Short version: Ultron will be a pain in the ass to kill.



TRAILER IMAGES.



We see a city in the distance at sunset, then inside its borders are terrified citizens. In another cut is a crowd, seemingly protesting ... Probably Tony Stark, if the above theory is correct.  Though who would be out protesting during Ultron wiping out humanity is a completely different question.



A robotic hand emerges from a molten liquid and flexes, then more screaming people. We encounter our heroes; Captain America walks in slow motion into wreckage, an alert Hawkeye spins around and a backlit Thor stands in front of a smashed cityscape.

Yeah yeah, all very dramatic.



And here's Ultron, mangled but shambling into Avengers Tower, where the heroes -- in plain clothes -- see him, perhaps for the first time.



The next face we see close-up is Robert Downey, Jr. He looks pretty concerned as the bot-who-will-be-Ultron picks up a Stark drone and crushes his head and



... you know what, this bores me. Back to some analysis.



ECHOES FROM THE WINTER SOLDIER (SPOILERS?).

The Scarlet Witch, in costume

If the end of The Winter Soldier is anything to go by, Hydra will be involved for the first act, and it will involve the two young folk shown in Hydra glass cages -- who are Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.  Pietro just runs very fast. The Scarlet Witch has the power to warp reality ... and is bat-guano insane.



We know the Maximoff twins are going to be in the movie. They're in the trailer.  If they're out and running loose, that means that Hydra is involved, at least in the first act, if not the second and third.



After all, can't you just see it? Act one, Hydra attacks. Tony Stark releases his drone army.  Captain America comes in out of the cold -- and the search for Bucky -- to fight them. Bruce Banner is around, as seen at the end of Iron Man 3, so he shouldn't be too far off.  Black Widow and Hawkeye would come out to play and beat the crap out of Hydra.  And Thor might just be in the neighborhood.

The Twins, the in movie

By the end of Act One, Hydra is replaced with the drone that will become Ultron as a primary threat, and the Maximoff twins are leftover from the Hydra attack to join Ultron. Then we're off to the races.


How they fit in Jarvis as The Vision is a good question, and it can happen at least three different ways. In the comics, it was a natural progression of the AI Henchman that served Ultron. Obviously, if Jarvis has his own body, something else is going on.



Keep in mind, the Scarlet Witch and the Vision were eventually married in the comic books.



Insert your own "sex machine" joke here.



Since Wanda / Witch can warp reality, there was at least one comic book variation where she had an idle thought about a robot falling in love with her, and it grew a personality ... it also became Ultron.  But the less said about that storyline, the better. If they borrow elements of that, and make it the Vision, with Jarvis' programming, that might work


Also, for the ultra creepy-crowd, in the comics, there were a few writers, who created a few moments, where it looked like Pietro and Wanda were a "thing." And one of those writers was Jeph Loeb, who is currently running Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.



...Though I can't help imaging that if Loeb suggested such a thing, or tried to insert his influence anywhere near Age of Ultron, Joss Whedon would personally break Loeb's fingers off and use them as a suppository up Loeb's backside.



Just saying.



It will be interesting to see what happens with the Maximoff twins, as they belong to two different universes. On the one hand, both become members of the Avengers in the comics.  But they're also supposed to be the children of Magneto. They're mutants.  Yeah. That's going to be fun.



If this film ends with a cameo from Ian McKellen, expect laughter in the audience.


THE TRAILER (PART 2)


In the trailer, there is no shortage of wreckage -- destroyed cities, terrorized citizens and authorities fighting something off camera. Every hero we see early on in the trailer shows them walking slowly, looking forlorn and beat down. Bruce Banner is crouched and shuddering, clearly terrified … then stumbling through the snow, presumably post Hulk. A hospital bed wheels down a hall, and there’s a close-up of surgical equipment.

Okay, what does a castle have to do with ANYTHING?

Ultron is an evil robot. Or is he something Tony dug up somewhere?

Ultron, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch appear to exchange a moment in some sort of factory before the droid army swarm a mountain (the same one with the castle, which Iron Man looked up at and Cap stormed into). The heroes, inside an old structure, appear shocked enough to make Thor drop Mjolnir. Tony Stark says, “It's the end of the path I started us on,” to which Black Widow replies, “Nothing lasts forever.”



Yeah, so this is Stark's fault.



And why is Nick Fury back? And who's that bearded fellow with the odd haircut looking really angry/nervous (played by, I think, Andy Serkis, of Gollum fame)?

Hulk Buster Armor. Guess what it's supposed to do.

Scarlet Witch in an office building ... I'm kind of bored now.  Oh look, the not so jolly green giant versus Stark’s Hulkbuster armor.



Insert action cuts with Black Widow dropping out of a Quinjet on a motorcycle.  That looks cool.  Hey, Marvel, can we have the freaking Black Widow movie now, damnit?



.... And then Thor lifts Stark by the throat .. definition all Stark's fault.



Hulk throws a car at the Hulkbuster -- then punches through the car. Yay destruction.  And ... Captain America’s broken shield.



Are we doing the Death of Captain America already? I'd rather not. The Civil War rumors were stupid enough.

Dun dun dun DUNDUN

End with the finished Ultron product. Cue Terminator theme.



The trailer has the UK release date of April, not the US date of May 1.



So, that was fun.



Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, the commercial was having too much fun playing with that Pinocchio "No strings"  song. Which makes me wonder if Whedon wrote the commercial, too.  It would be something he'd pull.



PHASE TWO, THE CONCLUSION



Now, this will be the end of Marvel's second phrase. If you haven't figured it out yet, everything is building up to Avengers 3, where the main adversary will be Thanos, and he will be wielding all six infinity gems.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, they were mentioned in Guardians of the Galaxy as the McGuffin devices for Captain America, Thor 2, GotG, and the first Avengers.



That is actually a good question with Age of Ultron. The last image we had from Cap 2 was that Hydra, led by Baron von Strucker, was in possession of the mind control spear that Loki used in The Avengers.  If the spear is tipped with yet another gem -- the gem of the mind / soul, for example -- not only could it control people's minds, could it also bestow life on an artificial intelligence? We'll see how it goes.



There are many different ways to slice this pie, and I'm sure there are various and sundry things I'm missing. Heck, the only way I can fit the old castle into this film is if it's a Hydra base .... Yes, I could see Act one (as described above) ending with the Avengers being beaten and driven off, and as they research the program Stark used, they have to go to Eastern Europe to investigate.



Why Eastern Europe?  Look at the region the tanks are driving through, the forest that Hawkeye runs through, and tell me that doesn't look like something that could be in Eastern Europe.



How does this fit in with the rest of "The Marvel Plan"?  Identifying the spear as running on an Infinity Gem would add to the chaos.  If the old castle is actually a really old Hydra base ... well, we know how Hydra liked to play with Powers That Should Not Be Touched, so who only knows where this plot could go with reference to the overarching storyline. Also, according to IMDB, Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter in Cap 1) is supposedly in the movie, but that's IMDB, so who knows?



How much of this buildup was there?  [SPOILERS] Well, Iron Man 3 ended with Tony Stark giving up his suit, which would lead to this drone program (subtle as a brick, our Mr. Whedon). Thor 2 might only impact the story because Thor is on Earth. Captain America 2, however, might bring in God-knows-what, from Hydra, to the AI program, to the glow stick of destiny, but it will certainly bring in the Maximoff Twins. [END SPOILERS]



In reference to Avengers 3, seriously, who knows? I'm still trying to figure out why we're getting a movie about Ant-Man and not Miss Marvel, Black Widow, or Hawkeye.  GotG at least made sense in that it better introduced us to Thanos than his brief cameo at the end of The Avengers. Personally, I could have seen a few different movies done instead, and then do GotG in phase 3, but what do I know?



CAPTAIN AMERICA 3 AND THE CIVIL WAR RUMORS



If you know anything about the Civil War premise, you know that it's impossible to make into a movie at this point, and maybe never.  Why? The original Civil War plotline called for dozens if not hundreds of active heroes in the Marvelverse.  The Superhero Registration Act requires heroes to reveal their identities to the government ... and everyone in the film universe knows about Thor, Stark, Captain America, War Machine, and after Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and maybe Bruce Banner.  Civil War is an impossibility.



This rumor came out of a conflation of two stories. One, Iron Man would be in Captain America 3. Two, Marvel was going to have a comic book callback to Civil War. Conflate both stories, and game over.



Considering that the rest of the Cap 3 story was that "Downy complained that his role was too small, and various drafts delete him from the plot entirely," I suspect it may be more than a cameo.  Also, if Captain America 3 doesn't involve the search for Bucky, than what the hell was the end of The Winter Soldier about?



Anyway, I think I've said enough. I've told you all I know, and some of what I suspect.  Enjoy.

Dissecting the Winter Soldier trailers

Well, yesterday was a little long-winded, wasn't it?



Today should be a little shorter.... yeah, no, probably not



Here’s my rundown of stuff you can draw from the assorted promotional materials.



Some of these are SPOILERS, you HAVE BEEN WARNED.



And some of these are ... well, they are MAYBE spoilers, bit and pieces collected from what we know of the Winter Soldier plot (covered yesterday) and the Marvelverse at large, and just plain old-fashioned speculation.



So, SPOILERS and SPOILERS...maybe.



In the words of Heath Ledger, here ... we .... go! [below the break]





Paranoia and conspiracies.



You may have noticed one or two things in the trailers posted yesterday that was a little paranoia-ish.If you didn’t pick up on this vibe, you weren’t paying attention. From shots of SHIELD’s arsenal to Cap beating up a bunch of agents in an elevator, it’s pretty obvious that the idealistic World War II hero is going to find himself pitted against the more modern intelligence community. Add to that a shadowy assassin (potentially the person Robert Redford is talking to when he says, “Your work has shaped the century”) and your story begins to take on the dimensions of major American myth.

 We've seen SHIELD on SHIELD violence. Fury being shot at, perhaps helicarriers firing on helicarriers, an airship crashing into the Triskelion, the Black Widow apparently on the run, out in the cold with Cap, a lot of images of SHIELD seemingly fighting itself and/or failing the people it’s supposed to be supporting. American-looking fighter planes chase the Falcon around the helicarrier. Cap argues with Nick Fury about SHIELD policy. Fury warns Cap not to trust anybody. Is that because the threat—whatever it is—is closer than Cap would like to admit?

And they have Robert Redford, ultra-leftist, in a Captain America movie ... how is he NOT the bad guy?  

The directors have insisted that this is a nod to 1970s paranoid thrillers like Three Days of the Condor, which was all about "the evil government wants oil!" So, Captain America will be running a lot.



Steve seems to spend a lot of time in these scenes walking around in civilian clothes—at least once, seemingly through a museum exhibit dedicated to his wartime exploits. The ensemble even includes the traditional hero-incognito baseball cap. But he’s still seen carrying the shield and getting shot at—and fighting the Winter Soldier—in that civilian garb.



Something else from the trailers....



Um....

Nyet, comrade. I suspect cameras are involved

Cap in love? 



Yes, that’s a set photo of Steve and Natasha making out.



No, I don’t believe it. Unless fanfiction writers have taken over this script. But the last Captain America movie was pretty darn romantic for a film with only one major female character. With Natasha giving Steve romantic advice in that early scene, it looks like she’s getting involved with his personal life. And while Natasha could have any of a billion reasons for that involvement, Steve is pretty straightforward with his emotions. If he falls for Natasha, he’s serious about it. And that can’t go anywhere good.



However, Sharon Carter, Cap's other love interest, is also in the film. So.... muahahahahaha.

The Falcon.

See that guy with the metal wings? That’s Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon, one of the first African American superheroes. In the comics, Sam was powered by the Red Skull with a fancy wing-suit and a telepathic link with birds, including a hawk named Redwing. and sent to kill Captain America. That worked as well as can be expected, and the two of them ended up best friends and partners. The relationship was notable at the time (the 1970s) for being something pretty close to a real partnership, too; while Steve was obviously giving Sam tips on superheroing, Sam held his own remarkably well in those stories, and wasn't nearly as stereotyped as typical portrayals of black characters from the same period (see: early Luke Cage). 

Also, Falcon started out wearing green and purple spandex, something that the actor actually said he wanted to try, instead of a flight suit, seen above. Obviously, this is a man who has never, ever been in spandex. Ever.

Anyway ...Steve and Sam routinely describe each other as brothers—a term Steve reserves for Sam, Bucky and a couple of war buddies, and that Sam uses only for Steve. While this Falcon is apparently a SHIELD agent rather than a creation of the Red Skull, he seems to have the same deep and instant loyalty to Steve Rogers. It’s good to see him up on the screen; this movie needs a rock like Sam Wilson.

Robert Redford.

As mentioned earlier, that’s Robert Redford. And he seems to be talking to Steve Rogers about the need to tear down an old world and build a new one … but is he talking to Steve? 

At one point, he’s heard saying, “Your work has shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time.” Steve was pretty impressive in the war and everything, but shaping a century? That sounds more like a description of the Winter Soldier and his involvement in key assassinations throughout the Cold War. And with the role of spy-mentor already filled by Nick Fury, Redford’s character is looking more and more sinister... outside of being ROBERT REDFORD. Yeesh. He might has well have a neon sign over his head.



The best use of Redford would be as a red herring -- he's not the bad guy, will be the good guy, maybe even the best man of all, but I can't bring myself to believe it Cap’s got a long history in the comics of going up against bad guys in suits who seemed innocuous at first. Is Redford’s character the next in a long line?



The current theory is that Robert Redford is the Red Skull, older and Back! From! Spaaaaccceeee! after he pissed off the cosmic Rubix cube in the first film. Skull really enjoys mind-controlling, impersonating, and body-snatching people in power..  And Red Skull will always be Captain America's enemy. Even if he isn't on screen, he'll probably be in the background.



Oh, and the alphabet block from Hell has also played as a home for Skull's brain more than a few times. if the Red Skull did happen to be in there, the entire Avengers film probably would have woken him up. And SHIELD owned it for a bit, so .... bad things will happen.  Period.



Though it might be a touch too obvious.  But, still, Redford, evil.

Nick Fury having a bad day.

His car gets blown up and ripped apart by the Winter Soldier, SHIELD is going bonkers all around him, and Steve quotes “Fury’s last words” (which might be his last words before he apparently died, or just the last thing he said before disappearing). And someone with Fury’s skin tone is seen as a patient in an operating room. When ol’ One-Eye goes from running an international law-enforcement organization to being dead or missing, it’s a bad day for the free world, and a worse day for Steve Rogers. There’s even a scene that appears to show Natasha walking out of a congressional hearing about intelligence operations.

Fury’s major weakness is bureaucrats who can go over his head to get things done. How high do the bad guys go? And how low will Fury have to sink to beat them? Answer: as low as he can get. 

Also see: "Coulson kept his Captain America cards in his locker, not his jacket."  Yes, Fury is a m-fing BASTARD.

For the record, a spoiler: if Nick Fury "dies" in this film, he's going to get better. As in "you didn't touch me, sucka." The comic book Fury is so manipulative, this is a guy who has messed with every major superhero at least once, and didn't get his guts torn out -- this list included calm, relaxed folks like Wolverine.

Okay, let's look at a storyline caled Secret War -- no, not the one from the 80s, from the last decade.  Fury recruits every superhero in New York (ie: most of them) and brings them to Latveria to stop the Prime Minister from selling off all of Doctor Doom's technology to the highest bidder (Doom is temporarily in Hell at the time. Long story). Fury gets the heroes in, and assassinates the PM, and then mindwipes everyone so they don't remember it happened.

Later, when blowback happens and no one remembers why it's happening, Fury explains what happened.  Wolverine, who doesn't react well to having his mind messed with yet again, pops his claws and shreds Nick Fury.

Fury's robotic decory calmly answers, "Logan did you really think I'd be dumb enough to tell you this in person? I'm going off grid for a while. Bye."

Someone talk to the artist.

I think they enhanced ScarJo too much.

I don't mind, it's just that I can see it.

Black Widow.



Don't hold your breath on a Romanov/Rogers romance. Seriously, just don't.



The Marvel movies have been hinting around at the Black Widow’s history for a while now. From the effortless way she infiltrated Tony Stark’s life in Iron Man 2 to her loaded conversations with Loki and Hawkeye in The Avengers, she’s always come across like a complicated character with a long backstory.



Now she’s been promoted to second billing, right after Cap himself, and she’s in a lot of scenes in those videos. Most importantly, she’s the one seen telling Steve—reluctantly—about the Winter Soldier and his legend.



Are we finally going to get to see where the Black Widow comes from? Is the movie Black Widow going to have her own history with the Winter Soldier?



Since ScarJo is getting her own Black Widow film, I'm going to say.... not yet.



Agent 13

This isn't in the trailers, but Emily van Camp is listed in the cast of this movie as “Agent 13”, but she hasn't been seen except for that extremely brief shot of her in the UK trailer. Considering the huge importance of Sharon Carter in the Winter Soldier comics storyline, her absence is conspicuous. They're obviously going to have Sharon as a a surprise. 

So, Agent 13 is the neighbor for Captain America ... I wouldn't put it past the boys from SHIELD (read: Fury) to assign Cap a new best friend / lover / babysitter / spy.  After all, Steve has no friends in the twenty-first century, and doesn’t seem interested in making any. He apparently spends his free time alone in the gym. That kind of isolation is not healthy, so I wouldn't be surprised if SHIELD tried to set a valuable operative up with some “starter friends” to ease him into his new situation. 

The last thing SHIELD needs is a self-destructive superhero. Besides, why would Captain America have normal neighbors? Wouldn't they at least need to be vetted by SHIELD just to live in the same building?

For the record: I love the idea of Emily van Camp as Agent 13. Words can't express how much I like the idea. On Revenge, she's basically playing someone in a long-term, deep cover operation, maipulating people to self-destruction.  I've also seen her fight, and I've seen her wearing black versions of Agent 13's white body suit.

Who the BLEEP is the Winter Soldier?

So, this week comes writing a series on Captain America: The Winter Soldier.



First things first, here, from beginning to end, are the videos we’ve seen so far.



First is the initial trailer, from back in October:

Then the Superbowl trailer, with a cameo by the creator of The Winter Soldier, Ed Brubaker.

And TV Spot #1.

And another spot with the phrase "Fury's last words." Sam Jackson still has several contracted Marvel films... and Nick Fury has more life model decoys up his sleeve than an army of Phil Coulsons, so....

Then a clip that apparently spoils the end of the film.

Followed by a ton of Black Widow. I approve.  I heart Redheads.

Marvel UK's "Three Days of Captain America"

Then... even MORE Black Widow.  I want a movie, and I want it called "Black Widow: Budapest."

So, if you want to know what exactly all this is about, and why a lot of people kicking around the internet are interested in this film, well, let's take a look.

Step 1, day 1: Who the BLEEP is the Winter Soldier?

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS

This paragraph pretty much only exists to tell you to STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. Seriously. This is your last chance. 


Abandon all hope of surprise, ye who enter this blog. There is no meaningful way to discuss the Winter Soldier storyline, or the movie that’s arisen from it, without spoiling at least a few really big plot points. So if you've somehow avoided all the chatter about this movie so far that’s spilled the Winter Soldier’s identity and backstory, and you don’t want to know walking into that theater who he is and why he’s fighting Steve Rogers, then

 STOP READING RIGHT NOW.

And if you didn't see that coming, I'd be surprised.  


Now, then, where were we?

THE WINTER SOLDIER STORYLINE

To explain who the Winter Soldier is and why he matters, come with me now to those glorydays of yesteryear -- 2004 -- when Marvel Comics relaunched the monthly Captain America comic book with a brand-new #1 issue.

With crime-comic writer Ed Brubaker, the comic quickly established itself as a combination of superhero adventure and spy thriller. The story begins with a mysterious ex-Soviet general, Aleksander Lukin, killing a Russian agent sent to disrupt his plans.


Lukin then orders his men to give the body full funeral honors -- he's not a supervillain, he's actually something of a patriot and a soldier.

After that, Lukin meets with the Red Skull, who wants to buy some decommissioned Soviet super-weapons generally found in Cold War comics.


There’s only one thing Lukin won’t sell—a tank containing the shadowy figure of a man with a metal arm. Lukin says he won’t part with that unless the Skull is willing to trade the Cosmic Cube (the Tesseract, if you watch the movies), which can reshape reality. 


The Skull says that a) he doesn't have the Cube and b) he wouldn't give it up if he did, and c) soon he will have it again, blah blah blah world domination—it’s your standard Red Skull rant.

What are we going to do tonight, Skull? 

Fast-forward to five years later. At the end of the comic, after some scenes establishing that Captain America is having some personal problems and that the Skull has some big plan in the works--reassembling a broken Cosmic Cube and powering it up. 

We’re all very focused on the Skull as he takes a call on his cell phone while he’s fondling the Cube.... yes, sounds dirty, doesn't it? It's the Red Skull, he's a freak.  Anyway.

The phone call is from General Lukin from five years ago, making one last offer. The Skull turns him down flat, goes into his usual rant—

—and then suddenly has a fist-sized hole through his chest from a sniper’s bullet.

The Skull falls to the floor, dead. Lukin had made him an offer Skull shouldn't have refused.

A shadowy figure enters the apartment and takes the Cube from the corpse’s hand … at which point we see that the hand picking up that Cube is made of metal. Whoever was in the tank, he’s out in the world now. And he’s working for Aleksander Lukin.


From here on out, what looked like a story about the Red Skull trying to take over the world AGAIN becomes a story about Captain America trying to figure out who killed the Red Skull, and why, and why do we care, it's the Red Skull? Let him rot.



And then it becomes a story about the Winter Soldier.

SO WHO IS THE WINTER SOLDIER?

CSI: Marvel

Still a better concept

than Agents of SHIELD

It’s up to one of Marvel's other super-spies to who figures that out.

In the course of all the running around and spycraft in this story, SHIELD agent, and Steve's girlfriend, Sharon Carter gets captured by the Winter Soldier and used as bait. 

Cap’s already rattled by this point because Lukin has been using the Cube to mess with him from a distance. Cap’s beginning to doubt his own recollection of important battles and major events in his life, especially the day that his partner, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, died and Cap himself was frozen in ice.

He’s just remembered a long-forgotten detail—that Bucky didn't get blown up because he insisted on defusing a flying missile, but rather because he got his clothing snagged while trying to jump free, as Steve ordered him to do.



Bucky died because Steve wasn't there to save him.

Hmm, wait, doesn't Retcon sound an awful lot like how Bucky bought it in the movie?  Hmm. Yes it does.



Did I see Brubaker's name in the credits for The First Avenger? Yes, I did.



Funny that.

So, Steve becomes Catholic, and incredibly guilty.

And then Sharon tells him that she got a good look at the Winter Soldier’s face … and she’s dead certain that he’s Bucky.



Hilarity, chaos, and complete and utter anarchy ensues.

Steve doesn’t believe it at first, but when he encounters the Winter Soldier in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing (which the Soldier set off), even he’s struck by the resemblance—even if the Winter Soldier is not:

Who the hell is Bucky? It becomes a theme.



THE PERMANENT CORPSES

Remember how long

this lasted?

Yeah, bringing Bucky back from the dead was a bit of a big deal.  True, people who die in comics don’t usually stay dead. It's standard comic-book death: Superman didn't stay dead. Two dead Robins have failed to stay dead. Jean Grey of the X-Men has died so many times that we've all lost count, and all stopped caring.

But there are a few exceptions. Characters who not only stay dead, they must stay dead, so the theory goes. 

Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben is THE classic example of this. If Uncle Ben isn't dead, Spider-Man isn't motivated to be Spider-Man.



Bruce Wayne's family?  They are going to stay dead, dead, dead. If they could become more dead, they would.

Bucky was one of those permanent corpses. His death, ret-conned into Captain America’s backstory when the character was revived in the 1960s, turned a World War II patriotic hero into a tragic figure in keeping with Marvel's five hundred other tragic figures.  Because, you know, you can't simply have a hero be a hero because he's a good man. Heaven forbid.



And, this being marvel, Captain America just had to have a tragic backstory.  After all, isn't the “man out of time” schtick good for just so long—eventually, he’d have to adjust to life in the “future” and he’d be just another superhero, right? But a superhero who’s constantly reminded of his greatest failure—that his partner, best friend, and surrogate little brother died because of the very screwup that made him immortal—that’s a story that fits in with everyone else's tragic backstory. Because this is the freaking comic book industry; even Superman has been ret-conned so he was given some similar trauma.



So, according to this accepted comic book wisdom, Bucky has to remain dead.

Right?

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE


It turns out there’s a way to make a warm breathing Bucky even harder on Steve Rogers than ice cold Bucky. It turns out that Bucky also got the Captain America on ice treatment; even though the missile took his left arm, the freezing water preserved his body.

Remember when Bucky fell from the train in the Captain America movie, and fell into freezing water? Yeah, there's a reason for that.

I'll take you all with one arm

Anyway, a Russian submarine picked up his body, thinking he might be Captain America. But they got the wrong hero on ice. A Soviet general named Karpov had the frozen corpse studied, during which time, the Soviets revived Bucky. Like Jason Bourne, he was missing most of his memories, but he could thrash anyone who got too close, even with only one arm.



Basically, Bucky makes Jason Bourne look like a pussy, especially when he's played by Matt Damon.



By this time, the Cold War was raging. Bucky had basically been a teenage commando, trained in wet work that Captain America wasn't let near with a two-foot tactical baton. So Karpov fitted Bucky with a metal arm and some basic Cold War 101 Ipcress brainwashing, and used him against American targets.

"They will never see me coming."

No, wait, they used that line.

But Bucky was too stubborn—the longer he was out of the deep freeze, the more his real personality tried to reassert itself. So, Karpov put his assassin into stasis between missions and reprogramming him on each awakening. They called him the Winter Soldier in part because of these regular deep freezes, and because Russia has always relied on "General Winter" to win a lot of their battles. When Karpov died, Bucky was put back on ice for a couple of decades—until he was found by Karpov’s protégé, Alexander Lukin.

And for Steve, this is actually worse than thinking Bucky was dead... because having your friend come back as a cyborg zombie assassin is pretty much nightmare fuel.



Steve knows that Bucky would want Steve to kill him rather than let him remain a zombie assassin. And as everyone in the story points out to Steve at some point, there's no Bucky under all that programming. He came face-to-face with Captain America, in full costume, and didn't recognize him. He didn't even know his own name:

It’s appropriate, then, that there’s one dissenting voice in the chorus of “just kill him already”. That voice belongs to a character who’s been controlled by the bad guys before, and who might be Captain America’s best friend in the present day—Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon.

So, let's save Bucky.

NEVER TRUST THE GENIE


Cap, the Falcon, and SHIELD track the Winter Soldier, and the superheroes go in before backup can arrive.

Because you don't want to see this

from the business end.

What follows is a running fight between Cap and the Winter Soldier. It comes to a head after Bucky expresses surprise that hitting Captain America in the head with a cyborg arm doesn't actually kill him, and Steve realizes that the ex-Soviet killer is still trying to kill people. This comes as a shock, somehow, and Steve challenges Bucky to shoot him in the head if he really doesn't remember their past relationship.

Luckily, Captain America can dodge bullets pretty well, and grabs the Cube.



And then, well …

There's an important lesson comic books can teach writers. It's that there is no easy answer to a problem. Ever.

Two things about the Cosmic Cube.



One, in the comic universe, you can touch it without being blown away.



Two, it's your standard untrustworthy wish-granting device, an old-fashioned jinn, or one of the fae. It will misinterpret pretty much anything you say, if it can. So, with only a second or two to make his wish before the Winter Soldier tackles him again, he goes with:

Sounds good, right? Impossible to screw up? Well...

Yup. This will end well.

PTSD level flashbacks.

NOTHING can go wrong here.

Turns out that suddenly regaining your real personality after being a cyborg zombie for 7 decades is not terribly good for your mental health.

Yeah. NO ONE saw that coming, right?



Oh, wait, everyone’s been saying this all along.



The Bucky grabs the demonic cube and then poof, all that’s left is a little pile of ash. To Sharon and the Falcon, it looks pretty simple: Bucky couldn't live with what had been done to him, so he killed himself. Steve is unconvinced.



And he’s right. For the next year’s worth of comics, Steve is alternately battling the Red Skull and trying to find Bucky. Yes, the Skull got better. Are we surprised?



THE REST OF THE STORY


Once Bucky has his memories back, he ends up doing some cloak-and-dagger work for Nick "I am a bastard" Fury and avoiding Steve, apparently because there’s no good way to have a conversation about how you murdered a bunch of innocent people, tried to shoot your best friend in the face, and then faked your own suicide.



And then Steve gets himself assassinated in Civil War.  If you don't know it, I've got a rant for that.



Along the way, Bucky runs into an old girlfriend... And Hawkeye is going to be pissed.  Apparently, Bucky and Natalia had a thing back when the Winter Soldier was a combat instructor for the Black Widow program. So there’s that.



And Bucky becomes Captain America, because someone has to be.

Alex Ross is a badass.

He's the artist.

The “Bucky Cap” stories focused on Bucky’s ongoing quest for redemption, his struggle to live up to Steve’s example, and his complicated relationship with Natasha. She acted as his liason with SHIELD, pointing him at trouble spots



The Bucky-Widow relationship was actually a lot of fun. The fact that Bucky and Natalia were both strong, complex characters with their own clashing agendas, but that they still clung to each other emotionally kept the story from ever degenerating into something that made one or the other secondary.



Then they killed Bucky AGAIN so Steve could resume being Captain America, just in time for the movie to come out.



Bucky, of course, gets better; he's too popular to kill now.



And, post-Avengers film, Black Widow has had Bucky mind-wiped from her brain, because fans liked her and Hawkeye in the film.



As much as I love the Marvel films, I hate it when it messes up the comic books.