What If... the Avengers Assembled in 1602?

 "We never get our happy ending..."

I read Neil Gaiman's limited series of 1602 a couple of decades ago, but I fear I remember little. I recall the throwback from the future being the same as here, but the 1602 of the limited series was much more rooted in real history, Old Queen Bess with her old rotting teeth and all that. This is a very different beast, but fun just the same.

We have rifts in time causing this universe to end. We have a very ungrateful King Thor- he's had Wanda Maximoff kidnap Peggy from her own reality (and her own Steve Rgers) to help save their universe... only to exile her when she initially fails, still exiled to a doomed world. Yet Peggy is truly a hero, refusing the Watcher's offer to take her "home."

Indeed, I love the metatextuality with Peggy being very much aware of the Watcher's presence and the two ofvthem interacting. But then, of course, this is an episode which opens with Tom Hiddleston playing Hamlet (a recent play by some lad from Warwickshire) and which is delightfully crammed with deliberately absurd olde worlde insults.

The character stuff is cool too, though. Once again, Happy Hogan becomes the Freak. Yet, at the core of things, behind all the fun, is the deep, tragic heartbreak of Peggy and Steve never getting to be together. Here's hoping that the finale puts a stop to that...

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

 "How many holes do you have? I'm sorry, is that a personal question?"

I hear this film is not so well-liked as some Marvel films. I rather suspect that this may be connected to the fact that this film is utterly bonkers. I, for one, say that this is no bad thing.

Where to start? I'll briefly observe, with the MCU fifteen years in, that it offers a fascinating contrast with the comics in that there can be no equivalent of Marvel time: actors age. Even, at last, Paul Rudd. Even Michelle Pfeiffer, sixty-five and sexy. Even Michael Douglas, an action grandad living his best life as a Hank Pym in his late seventies. And, yes, Cassie is an adult xennial, part of that awesome generation that won't tolerate oppression and will save us all.

Then there's the wildness of the quantum realm. It's CGI, and obviously so, but it's perhaps the most out there science fantasy madness ever to be given to us by a mainstream Hollywood offering, full of trippy, utterly and deliciously insane visuals.

But... Kang. Wow. I'm aware of the... issues surrounding Jonathan Majors at the moment. And how, indeed, the Kang arc may be affected. With the post-credits sequences really leaning into Kang as a massive thing, too: Immortus, Rama-Tut, a proper Council of Kangs, all played by Jonathan Mayors. But damn, he's such a good actor- charismatic, believable as a villiain who is a cross between Einstein and Alexander the Great from a thousand years in the future. He comes across as psychopathic, yes; charismatic, yes; but a three dimensional person, with wit and a penetrating intelligence. Everything he says, one feels, contains a subtext that goes over one's head. He's quite the villiain, a triumph of both script and acting. He has both the eccentricity of a scientist and the believable threat of a man who can and will conquer for the intellectual challenge.

I haven't even mentioned the excellent humour, or the heartwarming daddy/daughter stuff between Scott and Cassie, something which this doting and denied daddy just gobbles up. Little Miss Llamastrangler will be just as brilliant. Then there's the love between Hope and Scott, Scott's insecurity as the man who talks to ants vs. his heroism, the glorious heroism of Janet and Hank, old people who kick arse. 

And, yeah, super-evolved, socialist ants. Although, you know, perhaps they should read a bit less Marx and a bit more Beveridge, and Lloyd George without the temperance. But I digress. The point is, the critics are wrong, This is one of the finest Marvel movies of this decade.

What If... Zombies?"

 "Do you guys just not have horror movies in Wakanda?"

"We don't need them. We have American reality shows."

Bear with me with Sandman; technical difficulties with Netflix. The Marvel stuff will continue on schedule. I may choose to alternate it with something else for the duration, but anyway...

After last episode's seriousness, here we get a load of fun. It's nt very complicated plot-wise, just taking all the zombie tropes and running with them. I stopped reading comics all but completely n '93-94ish, with the odd exception, after being a pretty much full-on True Believer at that point: I discovered rock music. Hence I know little of the whole "Marvel Zombies" thing.

But this is enormous fun. The Point of Departure is simple, but makes sense: Janet Van Dyne was a zombie who infected Hank Pym in the Quantum Zone, and so on. We have superhero zombies. We have a crew of random motley surviving superheroes. We have the requisite heroic sacrifice from a heroic hero, in this case the Wasp. We have a mini-sanctuary with the Vision, rather cleverly, as being an android he's "not on the menu", but it turns out he's not to be trusted due to his love for Zombie Wanda. Nice twist. And nice use of the Hulk.

And of course we have a, well, maxi-sanctuary in the form of Wakanda, humanity's last hope, where the survivors head, hoping to cure zombie-ism...

After which zombie Thanos is waiting to snap. Nice twist, again.

This is fun, not too serious but that makes it no less witty nor clever.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

“Anyone see a southern gentleman carrying a building?”

We have Disney Plus now, so it’s time to go back and fill those few remaining gaps. The oldest film I haven’t blogged (but have seen) is Captain America: Civil War, but I’ll get to that soon. This is another Marvel triumph, if anything better than its predecessor, and the perfect blend of comedy, heist antics and superheroics. Paul Rudd is again superb, with excellent comic timing, and the whole plot fits together like the perfect farce. This is the comedy corner of the MCU, and it’s a fun place to be. 

There’s also plenty to satisfy my inner geek. Scott’s antics with “Cap” have had severe consequences. The first post-credits scene links things very firmly with the events in the more serious films. And we have a new female version of Ghost- whose father is Egghead, a nice touch. We also meet Bill Foster- played superbly, as ever, by Laurence Fishburne. Let’s hope he’ll be Goliath once more the next time we see him. Michelle Pfeiffer may be very much at odds with the Janet Van Dyne from the comics, but she’s good. It’s good to see her and Hank Pym get their happy ending- sort of.

This film mixes stapstick humour, wit, superhero action, car chases and quantum trippiness to give us a concoction that may not aspire any higher than to be a fun little blockbuster, but it does that very well. Any film with a building that can be wheeled along like a briefcase has to be cool.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

“Go to sleep or I’ll sell all your toys!

I don’t care if I’m skipping a couple of recent films for this one; I’ve never been strictly chronological with the Marvel films in a pinch and I won’t start now. The months of spoiler-dodging stop now.

So... wow. A big, blockbuster geeky film that’s three hours long yet doesn’t feature a single Hobbit. And it had me in equal measures gripped, laughing and trying not to cry. This film is indeed as good as everyone says it is.

It also subverts expectations in an awfully clever way. In showing us the true horror of Thanos’ click via Hawkeye and his vanished family, it shows us a Thanos who has forever destroyed all the Infinity Stones and retired- so the Avengers visit him and Thor kills him in a massive anticlimax. Fast forward five years. That certainly wasn’t the obvious thing to do.

Cue the return of Ant-Man eventually prompting Tony Stark, now a husband and father, to invent time travel, and lots of highly entertaining dialogue about how the butterfly effect, and hence every time trace movie ever, doesn’t imply in the Marvel Universe. Time travel doesn’t work as in Back to the Future, says the now-smart Hulk, yet the solution to Thanos’ click is to travel back into the recent past and do a Back to the Future II, which is both clever and hilarious.

And so we get a coda where the Hulk’s click brings the dead back- but the Thanos of 2014 has found out the truth from the future Nebula and has time travelled back to kill them all. It’s good to see Karen Gillan with such a prominent role here, but her story is so very timey-wimey. And it seems to explain why Thanos originally had Nebula tied up, yet history is changed here and the 2014 Thanos has events play out differently. The dynamic between the two very different Nebulas, and Gamora, is wonderful, but this film doesn’t let its big, epic nature get in the way of character, pathos or humour. So Black Widow’s death has meaning. Tony Stark’s final, fatal click, saying “I am Iron Man”, May save the army if goodies from Thanos but gives him a meaningful death, dwelt on properly as it should be; if any character can be said to be the main star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s him.

Cap, too, gets a suitable exit, spending the rest of his days with Peggy in a beautiful coda.

There’s so much more, though. Fat Thor. Tony Stark meeting his dad in 1970, with a cameo from Jarvis whom we’ve only seen in Agent Carter- at least one of the MCU TV series is sort of recognised as canon. There’s “Scott, I get emails from a raccoon”. Thor getting a pep talk from his mother. It’s wonderful that the film has so much heart, and all its characters are properly used.

A wonderful film, and a fitting end to an age. Let’s hope the future is just as bright.

Ant-Man (2015)

"How's retirement?"

"How's your face?"

This is probably one of the less good Marvel films I've seen; there was a certain lack of polish and there's an unevenness that makes it very noticeable that Edgar Wright was replaced as director. And yet it shows the Marvel benchmark that we nevertheless have a thoroughly enjoyable film that isn't going to garner many negative comments. It helps that Paul Rudd is so excellent.

You can sort of tell, in spite of the different genre (a heist movie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and very different setting that the script is from the same source as a certain three films starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, in spite of the lowered humour quotient. But this is very much a Marvel film, complete with Stan Lee cameo and gratuitous reference to Tales to Astonish. It's interesting that Henry Pym was a superhero, as Ant-Man, back in the '80s here, but that Janet Van Dyne, a character I remember so well from Secret Wars, is dead. my Marvel comics knowledge is pretty thorough up to about 1993 and pretty hazy after that; is she dead in the comics?

It's nice to have someone released from prison (admittedly for a pretty Robin Hood crime that doesn't lose our sympathy) as a hero. This film believes in rehabilitation, which is a big reason to like it. The character stuff s good too- Scott being cruelly kept from his daughter (my own little girl is not much younger) and the dynamic between Hank and Hope. The most emotive scenes are all about fathers and daughters. It's a fun film to watch, and even has a giant Thomas the Tank Engine. It's well worth seeing, and don't be put off by the fact that there are better Marvel films. It would be a shame to skip this.

Sausage Party (2016)

"We need to unite and stop focusing on each others' differences. Especially in immature and outdated ways."

Yes, this film is puerile, expletive-ridden, sex-obsessed and filled with lowest common denominator bad jokes, as its critics often point out. That is all perfectly true. What is equally true, however, is that it is also witty, intelligent, delightfully cheeky, politically aware and... well, what exactly is wrong with sex and swearing? Any film which essentially solves the notoriously intractable Israel/Palestine problem by having a Palestinian chap and a Jewish bloke have rigorous and gloriously gay sex is fine by me.

The idea behind the film- food is sentient and suffers when we prepare it for eating, but is kept blissfully unaware of its fate by a made-up religion, is brilliant, followed through and milked for every possible ounce of humour. And we get all sorts of humour, low-brow and high-brow together. The sense of humour is very Jewish American which is, for reasons unknown, pretty much the same as British humour.

I love everything about this film. I love the lyrics of the song ("...Where I'm sure that nothing bad happens to food"), I love the political commentary, I love Gum, I love the way it goes mad and orgiastic and fourth-wall breaking at the end. Don't be put off by the negative reviews: this film is clever, funny and wise.