Chris grew up during the Disney renaissance of animation and took his first trip to Disney World when he was ten. Even though he has loved Disney his whole life, his obsession didn't start until he began planning a trip for his honeymoon. Right now, his primary job (at least the one that doesn't pay the bills) is to indoctrinate his daughter with his love of Disney while at the same time convincing his wife to move to Orlando so he can become a tour guide in the parks. He can also be found indulging in his nerdy side (both Disney related and otherwise) at nerdintherealworld.wordpress.com.
This week’s episode is by far the busiest and the darkest episode to date. There were five storylines to follow, which may have been too much, with each one crossing paths with the others throughout. Coulson, Skye, Tripp and Fitz begin their search for the… Read More »Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. recap: S2E8 The Things We Bury
In 2009, a lot of people were upset about Disney purchasing Marvel. They were afraid that their favorite characters were going to become watered down versions of themselves. Five years later, all of those naysayers are the same ones that helped make a movie about a talking raccoon and his best friend the walking tree the highest grossing film of the year.
So, with Big Hero 6 out in theaters (and doing well) and the Avengers Half-Marathon last weekend, I thought it would be interesting to look back and see what Disney has done with Marvel, specifically outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in the past five years.
One of the first things they did was create a new Avengers cartoon for The Disney Channel. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes lasted two seasons before being scrapped for a different Avengers cartoon: Avengers Assemble! Disney wanted to create its own animated version of the MCU with all of the Marvel cartoons interconnected like their movie counterparts. Unfortunately for EMH, it had already built its own animated Marvel universe (which was awesome) so they had to cancel it in order to start over.
Now they have Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble! and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. with a Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon on the way. To me, this is the closest that Disney has come to making those fans’ fears a reality. With the exception of EMH, these shows are all pretty dull and sacrifice compelling storytelling for a “lesson of the week.”
A notable exception to this is the Phineas and Ferb crossover episode that they did with The Avengers which was hilarious. This is also the second time that Disney has done a crossover with Marvel.
Prep & Landing: Mansion Impossible was the first Disney/Marvel crossover. A back up story in three of Marvel’s main titles, this story featured Wayne and Lanny, the main characters from the vastly underrated Prep & Landing Christmas specials, as they attempt the get the Avengers Mansion ready for a visit from “the Big Guy.” It wasn’t heavy on action or complex plot, but the you can imagine the fun of watching the two elves wander through the mansion.Read More »Marvel and Disney 5 years on
This week, we got a lot of answers about Project TAHITI. Coulson goes back under Raina’s memory machine in order to find the answers so the team can stop a man who is killing those who are infected with the GH serum. He and his victims were test subjects in Project TAHITI but, though they seemed to be healing well with the serum, they quickly degenerated and became obsessed with the writings. Like a homing pigeon, they sought every means they could to find the meaning of the writings, which, for our villain of the week, meant killing.
Coulson and his team track him down and stop him, but in the process, Coulson realizes that the writings aren’t a map. They are blueprints for a city. Before we talk about the theories as to what the city could be, let’s talk about the other half of our team as they pursue Ward. I enjoyed seeing Ward in action again. We were definitely reminded why he was such a good agent as he stayed ahead of May and her team the whole time, even being able to figure out that Bobbi and Hunter were working with Coulson. I also liked seeing Tripp back in action. Having the weapons specialist that we grew to like last season stuck in the Playground while the big-mouthed newbie gets the action every episode is a little disappointing.
I am very interested in seeing how Ward’s story arc plays out.Read More »Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Recap and Preview
I have been very interested in Marvel’s new Disney Kingdoms comic title and enjoyed what I’ve read so far. Their first story was a supernatural adventure about the conceived but never built Museum of the Weird called, well, Seekers of the Weird. They followed that… Read More »New from Disney Kingdoms – Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Last night’s episode was less focused on action (though Bobbi Morse did a great impression of Natasha Rominav) and more focused on setting the stage for what’s to come.
Hydra is attempting to weaponize the obelisk’s power but without the obelisk itself they are limited to using a sample from one of its victims, and coming up unsuccessful. In the meantime, Raina goes back to Skye’s father for help with delivering the obelisk to Hydra in order to save her hide. However, he isn’t happy that she has failed to deliver his daughter to him so he refuses.
On her way to Hydra, Raina spots Simmons and decides to use her double agent status to blackmail Coulson. She arranges a meeting with him and offers not to reveal Simmons to Hydra if Coulson allows her to take Skye to her father. Coulson refuses the offer and Raina is visibly shaken (a great performance by Ruth Negga) but she exposes Simmons’s cover anyway. Hydra security chief, Bobbi Morse, has had some run-ins with Simmons as Morse pursues seeks out the mole that has been feeing S.H.I.E.L.D. information. She did a great job intimidating Simmons and actually had me convinced that she was going to have a long road to becoming the hero, Mockingbird.
Read More »Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. recap – S2xE5: Hen in the Wolf House
This week’s episode was a lot of fun. While we may not be any closer to finding out the truth about the alien writings or Skye’s dad, we did get to see Coulson and May, the senior officers, show the rest of the team how the spy game is played.
The episode starts with little set up as Coulson and May go undercover to retrieve a painting that has the mysterious writing on the back. Skye, Tripp, Hunter and Fitz act as back up from the Bus, at least, until a computer virus threatens to blow it up.
When the two agents spot General Talbot at the party, they think that they’ve been compromised. Coulson confronts Talbot to remind him of the uneasy alliance that they have. After Coulson leaves, Talbot makes a call to Dr. Whitehall giving us the impression that he is actually working for Hydra.
Read More »Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review – S2-E4: Face My Enemy
Last week, while promoting his new movie, The Judge, Robert Downey Jr. teased the audience of The Ellen DeGenerous show by seeming to announce that Iron Man 4 is in the works. Later that day, on the David Letterman show, he denied that announcement. However,… Read More »Iron Man joins Captain America in Marvel Civil War
This week’s episode was a reunion for a few of the characters. We, the audience, were reunited with Simmons who is, happily, not working for Hydra. Fitz and Ward are reunited, which almost ended in Ward’s demise. And, the team is reunited with Donnie Gill.… Read More »Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2-E3 Review: Making Friends and Influencing People