SHE-HULK EPISODE 2 REVIEW

 

            Now that’s more like it! Any complaint I had about Episode 1 was obliterated for Episode 2 (although my new complaint is you have a fourth wall-breaking character and you didn’t take advantage of that for the “Previously On” segment? C’mon!).

Jen's new normal.

            As I figured, they rushed through She-Hulk’s origin to get it out of the way. The second episode was much better paced. I enjoyed the story and the multiple excellent jokes (including a particular subtle “literally” joke) so much that I didn’t realize how quickly the time went by.

Starting to regret life choices.

            There isn’t much I can say that doesn’t fall into super spoilery territory as the story beats were minimal and concise. It is cool to see The Incredible Hulk become more integrated into the MCU, what with an episode of What If? depicting a scene from the film and now Tim Roth’s Abomination appearing in two Phase 4 projects. I guess that means either Universal’s stranglehold on the Hulk rights is beginning to lessen or Marvel legal has figured out ways they can reference it that won’t bring about lawsuits. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with the whole situation beyond the fact Marvel couldn’t do another solo Hulk movie if they wanted to.

Tim Roth returns!

Anyway, for hardcore MCU fans, this episode ties into Shang-Chi while referencing Eternals and firmly establishes the show’s place in the Phase 4 timeline. This will likely also lead into the expected appearance by Benedict Wong as his character, well, Wong as established by the various trailers for the show. Loved the introduction to Jen’s family (don’t recall if we ever saw much of them in the comics—at least not in any of the comics I’ve actually read), and as a tall person of some considerable strength I totally felt the end credits scene. And I’m loving Tatiana Maslany, especially her voice. It’s a good fit for the character! If she has any interest in voice work, I wouldn’t mind her continuing on as the voice of Shulkie in other projects.

"Yes, I'll be representing Marvel in all matters relating to The Incredible Hulk."

Overall, this episode was a marked improvement over the last, and if this is indicative of how the rest of the series is going to go this could be on track to take my top spot in the Disney+ spin-offs (y’know, if I played favorites. Which I don’t.). Also, keep an eye out for an X-Men Easter egg!

DOWN THE STREAM

 

Streaming everywhere!

            If you’re reading this, you’re probably no stranger to streaming. Hard to believe the concept is barely a decade old, but it’s managed to radically alter the entertainment industry within that time. I mean, it basically started with Netflix before Amazon joined in, and then the various studios and networks saw how much people liked it and said “By golly, we need to get in on that!” However, for every person cheering on the ability to watch their favorite stuff on their phones, save space without having to buy physical media or save money by cutting the cable cord, there are those who were a bit wary.

The before times of home media viewing.

            First, you have the inconvenience factor. Just because something is streaming now, doesn’t mean it’ll be there later. Outside ones like Netflix basically ran like television networks that aired reruns: contracted for a set period of time before the program moved on to its next home. Then you’ve got the first-party ones who rotate things out regularly, with only originals sticking around for the long haul (once upon a time, anyway).

Sorry, were you watching that? Not anymore!

            But then there’s the control factor. A factor people are getting to experience first-hand with the recent HBO Max hoopla. The owners of the streamers get to decide what plays on that service, when and where it’s available (foreign versions have considerably different offerings than the American ones), and when to take it off. Studios have also gotten smart by progressively ending their physical media output in order to force people onto those streaming services if they want to see their favorite things again and again (or into pirating that material, if you’re of dubious character).

Most of the victims.

            Which brings us back to HBO Max. As part of the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, the new head of it all, David Zaslav, is on a mission to save the company $3 billion by next year. Part of his plan is to take a dive on almost-complete projects for a tax break—in particular the upcoming Batgirl movie—and cancelling a lot of recently green-lit projects. This week came the sudden removal of 36 titles from the service, 20 of them original to the streamer, and 200 episodes of Sesame Street.

Zaslav's preferred tools.

            The worst recipient of this mass axing has been projects from Warner Bros.' own studios. And we’re not just talking about obscure stuff, we’re talking raved about hits like Infinity Train (whose creator posted his own comments on the whole ordeal) where their entire official web presence has been scrubbed in the process. Besides the crappiness of just up and removing the hard work of thousands of people without any kind of advanced warning whatsoever, there’s been another consequence folks not in the industry were previously unaware of: residuals. Apparently, while the shows stream, the animators get paid residuals into their pensions and health plans. By pulling the shows and not canceling them outright, Warner Bros. Discovery no longer has to pay out, thus adding to Zaslav’s big savings plan. And aside from the monetary loss, there’s also the loss of thousands of hours of hard work that will never get seen, such as Summer Camp Island, unless the shows are able to move elsewhere (which not all of them can). (It should be noted that, as of this writing, some of those shows are still available on a pay-per-view basis on other services like iTunes, but there’s a question as to how long). At least Sesame Street fired back by pointing out they’ve got a YouTube presence.

A tale in two tweets. Summer Camp Island creator hyping up the long-delayed new episodes and her devastation when the show was removed.

            HBO Max aside, this whole thing is endemic of a couple of larger systemic problems. The big one is that media is gradually being gobbled up by these gigantic multi-media entities so that only a handful of companies control everything. And that number will continue to dwindle as more mergers and acquisitions happen—and they will happen (“Every restaurant is Taco Bell.” – Demolition Man). But the other problem is the continued disdain given towards the animation industry. Animation has gradually been pushed aside like the red-headed stepchild of studios with little regard given to the material itself or the people who make it. It’s not unlike my own home industry of comic books, where no matter how many billion-dollar movies branch out from them they’re still not regarded as a true artform or given any kind of respect outside of the people who were already fans.  

The perfect stocking suffer for Zaslav this year.

            And if this all turns out to only be temporary house-cleaning before the merging of HBO Max and Discovery+, then Zaslav clearly needs to work on his people skills.

*Bit of an update: apparently Cartoon Network is still committed to airing Summer Camp Island and Victor and Valentino, so at least that worked out okay to some extent.

SHE-HULK EPISODE 1 REVIEW

 

            TL;DR, I liked it, but I didn’t love it. TS;WR (too short; wanna read)? Okay, here’s my thoughts (may contain slight spoilers, be warned!):

"Oh, look--another internet rando with a hot take."

            Let me start off by saying I was looking forward to this show. A lot of people had trouble with the marketing, but I thought it made it look quite good and each new promo got me anxious for the premiere date to roll around.

Silent judgement for "M-SHE-U" critics.

            So, the good. Tatiana Maslany, I think, is going to be a good voice for the character. She looks like she’s having fun and I hear she’s uber talented (as of this writing, I have yet to see Orphan Black. I’m behind on EVERYTHING, sue me!). Her interactions with Mark Ruffalo were fun, and any concerns over the CGI and continuity and nerfing of Hulk from the “M-SHE-U” crowd were proven to be non-existent. It looks like it’s going to be fun without veering too far into the silly, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. Also, I laughed much harder at that post-credit scene than I should’ve. That alone was worth the price of admission.

"Wake up! We only have 9 episodes!"

            That said, I often hear the criticism of Marvel’s Disney+ shows being that they have pacing issues. To a point I agree—most of their shows go along at a good pace in the beginning then seem to need to rush everything at the end to fit the prescribed episode limit with their story (they show signs of improvement on that front with each subsequent entry). However, this was the first where I’d say the beginning had some pacing issues. This debut episode attempted to get all of the origin stuff out of the way right away, so it went through everything quickly. The introduction; the inciting incident (which hopefully will be explored more later); going to Bruce’s private estate to “train”; returning to the world as a Hulk. That third thing took up the bulk of the episode, and was arguably the best part.

Zen and the art of Hulking.

            I feel like a lot of moments were short-changed as a result. Jen’s transformation into She-Hulk was extremely abrupt. I also feel like we didn’t get enough time to get to know Jen pre-Hulk to fully appreciate her new circumstances. This isn’t like the comic’s Jen—she’s not the mousy, self-doubting lawyer who discovers new confidence as a Hulk and therefore always wants to remain that way. Her personality was pretty much already set from the beginning, and it seems like she’ll just be adjusting to her new stature. I also feel like they kinda “yadda yadda’ed” the pseudo-science that explained why she was different from Bruce in her Hulk-ness. “Oh, you’re a different kind of Hulk, but we won’t get into any specifics about that.” And that ending was rather…abrupt.

It's a lawyer show.

            Ideally, this episode should have been split into two. Begin with a look into Jen’s pre-Hulk life before she reconnects with Bruce. Have the inciting incident expose Jen to Bruce’s blood. Have the transformation be more gradual, keeping up the mystery over what kind of Hulk she is. Then end with her “asking” to be trained, with the rest of the episode’s events happening in the next episode.  

A real power suit.

             But, that’s just me. As I said, the episode was fine. It got in, did its job, and hopefully cleared up the rest of the way for the series to be what it needs to be. If the remainder of the episodes can live up to the promise of the marketing, I will be completely satisfied. I look forward to each coming week, and patiently wait for them to add her to the Marvel’s Avengers video game. Let’s make it happen already, people!

WELCOME TO THE QUARTER BIN

             What is The Quarter Bin?

The increasingly common TWO quarters bins!

            Well, in real life, the quarter bin is also known as a “discount bin” (as they’re not always a quarter, if any still even are these days). It’s where those who deal in comic book sales stick comics to sell that are worthless except to anyone that collects those particular series (of course, “worthless” is subjective and can change with either time or future movie deals). These are generally books with extremely large print runs, lesser-known characters, or by unknown creative teams (aka, generally anything from the 1990s). They are a comic collector’s dream, however, and a great way to inexpensively plug holes in their collection!

The Quater Bin in a nutshell.

            In regards to here, The Quarter Bin is my going to be little pop-culture blog where I’ll be posting objective articles, op-eds and whatever else my whims dictate. It could be about new stuff, it could be about classic stuff, it could be about comics, it could be about that DiGiorno’s commercial where the guy is dancing in his underwear. Who knows! Basically, it’ll be a collection of thoughts that I have no one to express them to offline, so you all get the benefit of them here!

Convention set up.

            And who am I? I’m a comic book writer and editor. No, you likely haven’t seen anything I’ve worked on. At my most active I was extremely low-end indie self-publishing with a distribution of whatever convention we were working. Within 10 years of going professional, I joined a networking group dedicated to helping n00bs break in, got two stories published the first book to come up when I joined, became the head of the local chapter, became responsible for the book publications, AND ended up running the whole shebang! …And that’s when it all collapsed for various reasons, and I suffered mental burnout (outside factors were involved as well) that has, to date, kept me unable to write anything fictional. I still have ideas, I can still craft a story in my head, but there’s a physical disconnect to actually making it happen. I’m working on it.

Nostalgia is king.

            Non-Fiction, however, I can handle just fine. For the last 8 years (as of this writing) I’ve been working on another blog, Saturday Mornings Forever, which discusses Saturday morning television as well as other related things. (You can visit that by adding a “.com” to the end of the title). So, I guess this will be more of the same.

You, to me, because I entertain you so.

            Anyway, enough about me. I hope whatever I come up with to slap up here keeps you interested in coming back for more. And, y’know, feel free to engage if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said here (or just wanna call me an idiot—it is the internet, that’s practically expected). ‘Til then!

 

Best,

your blogmaster, Chris