Spider-Man: Homecoming Sticks Its Landing

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into Spider-Man: Homecoming. I did really enjoy Tom Holland’s outing as Spidey in Captain America: Civil War, but I was kind of out of the loop for the pre-movie publicity (I barely even remember the trailers) and I felt going in more like I was seeing it out of MCU obligation than genuine hype. Plus, I still had some lingering resentment from the whole “pushing back the entire MCU production schedule to slot another white dude in” thing.

Coming out of Spider-Man: Homecoming, however, I had a big ol’ grin on my face. This movie was fantastically well-crafted and cast, and was loads of fun while also telling a heartfelt and complex story at its core.

Major plot spoilers after the cut! Please don’t read if you are planning to see it; it’s really worth going in unspoiled!

(via cosmicbooknews)

Everyone Should Go Into the Badlands

The other week I had pure freedom to loaf around, so I firmly planted myself on the couch and hit the Netflix hard. Luckily for me, Into the Badlands, a show that had caught my eye before, was finally available. I’d only seen trailers online before for this post-apocalyptic show (brought to us by AMC, continuing their move from movies to original programming like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead). About two minutes in, I was hooked. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was quite this excited and engrossed by a new show, which is saying a lot. How is it awesome? In every way possible. Let’s take a look!

*heart-eyed emoji* (via yesmovies)

Trailer Tuesdays: Logan

This is the most awesome trailer I’ve seen in ages. I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that I haven’t been this excited for a strictly X-Men movie in a while now, especially one that has Wolverine as the main character. But this? This is all I have ever wanted in a new X-Men movie, and it sets things up for hopefully diverse X-Men movies in the future.

Red Sonja: Issues with the New First Issue

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a Red Sonja fan. After Gail Simone’s run with the character ended, Marguerite Bennett took over for a soft reset of the title that ran for several issues before tapering off to an end. For the first time in a long time, I found myself without the promise of more Sonja in the future, so when I heard that the She-Devil with a Sword would be appearing in a new ongoing series this year, I was excited to see where new author Amy Chu would take her.

Having read the latest Red Sonja #1, however, I was rather disappointed. Aside from not loving the latest plot concept, the issue had, well… issues.

Spoilers below the jump!

Web Crush Wednesdays: Superheroes in Full Color

As we Americans slog on toward Thanksgiving, it sometimes feels like there isn’t a whole lot to be thankful for this year, what with politics, celebrity deaths, and natural disasters coming one after the other in one big avalanche of awful. Even though Tumblr is often not great as well, I tend to use my malfunctioning blue hellscape of a dashboard as a handy mental escape, particularly this month. So today, I’d like to rec a site I’ve followed on Tumblr for a long time called Superheroes in Full Color.

Though we often bemoan the lack of characters of color and works created by people of color in our mainstream media, the fact remains that the content we seek is likely out there somewhere, just sorely under-hyped. Our major franchises are things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, all universes created by white people and all of which feature few, if any, characters of color. So if you’re the type of person who wants to read a more diverse, inclusive story, where should you start looking for this type of content? Today’s web crush is going to be a handy resource for you.

Trailer Tuesdays: Rogue One Redux

It’s been about six months since the last time we reviewed a Rogue One trailer. Since then the hype has only grown, and December 16^th can’t come fast enough. What we have in the meantime is this second full-length trailer.

This one reveals a bit more, but what it reveals has left me with mixed feelings.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Rent-A-Minority

By now, it’s a pretty observable fact that the U.S. has a major problem when it comes to race and inequality. We see it through star-studded outrage, like Hollywood’s #OscarsSoWhite, or companies attempting to start a well-meaning but poorly-thought-out conversation on race, like Starbucks’s #RaceTogether. Not only does this illustrate the results of racial inequality in the U.S., it also brings light to the fact that very few organizations have people of color in positions of power, or else these might not have been issues in the first place. Looks like a lot of Americans need a handy way to seem like they’re not racists. Enter today’s web crush: Rent-A-Minority.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Starling

I love a good philosophical sci-fi story. I also really, really love interspecies human/alien romance stories. However, even though I’d heard of Starling every once in a while for years now—one of the people I follow on Tumblr is a passionate proselytizer—I never really knew what it was about, and I never had the time or the inclination to change that. When a rec post came across my dash, however, giving me a spiel and a link to a starting point, I figured it was time to check it out.

Some spoilers for the story below.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Finite Incantatem

Though the last Harry Potter book was published almost ten years ago, its fandom has never died. It might have waned a little, but recently, with a play and another movie coming up, it’s come roaring back. And true to form, that means more creative fanworks from fandom. One such fanwork is an ingenious new webcomic called Finite Incantatem.

Fanfiction Fridays: SMOF by hollimichele

But man, if you want to get anywhere in Galaxy Quest fandom, you Don’t Talk About GalaxyCon ‘99.

I’m a n00b, by Quest standards– started watching with the New Adventures, right as LJ was taking off. The funny thing is, I’m not much younger than the biggest BNFs. They just got a head start, and were fans of the old show even though they were barely born when it was airing. I hear older fans grumble about it, sometimes. They wonder how a bunch of twentysomethings ended up not only the biggest names in fandom, but in charge of the con and friendly with the cast, besides.

“That picture from Jason and Gwen’s wedding is circulating on Tumblr again,” I tell my housemate. “Did you know Brandon Wheeger was a groomsman? He was barely out of high school– how did he even manage that?”

Max rolls her eyes at me. GQ isn’t one of her main fandoms, though I’ve made her watch most of the episodes on Netflix. Still, she picks up enough secondhand to know most of the main fannish players. “You’ve got a really weird grudge against that guy, you know,” she tells me. “You need to drop it. You’re friends with Katelyn, aren’t you?”

“Mostly I just really like her fic,” I say. To be fair, she writes really, really good fic. Her Laliari is amazing, and she even makes me like Roc. “The fact that she’s part of Brandon’s weird cabal is something I’m willing to overlook.”

“It’s not a cabal,” Max reminds me. “They’re the concom, not the Illuminati.”

“The Illuminati would be less banhammer-happy,” I grumble, but I let it drop. GQ fandom, for all its weirdness, is pretty well-run by its benevolent overlords: minimal wank, maximal inclusiveness, zero tolerance of cosplayer gropers or entitled man-children. I’ve even volunteered at GalaxyCon the last few years, mostly because Katelyn comes up with really awesome programming for the fanwork track, and she knows I can be trusted to not go mad with power if she lets me sit on her panels.

And, of course, because I know that You Don’t Talk About GalaxyCon ‘99.

Remember how just yesterday I was saying that Galaxy Quest’s only real issue was its lack of inclusivity? When the Galaxy Quest crew had to go to its fans to figure out how to maneuver around their ship and save the day, Jason called Brandon and his group of white male mega-fans to help them out. It was a nod to fandom, but it was only really for the stereotypical fans, even though it was clear from the convention shown in the movie that there were fans of color and female fans in the audience. So why not let some different people be the mega-fans for once? Fortunately, there’s fanfic to help out.