Theresa May gets hung

As I write this we have a hung parliament, which for those in countries who don't do it this way is an election that does not return a majority. There are five seats yet to declare but the Conservatives have 314 seats so they can't themselves get a clear win. They could, if literally two seats are declared for them, form a coalition with the DUP, though that has a bunch of issues all its own because the DUP might have an actual spine unlike the Liberal Democrats.

There are not, mathematically, enough seats in the hand of progressive parties to form a Labour-led coalition, which is a shame.

Still, the Tories have suffered from their arrogance and if Theresa May (the Prime Minister, not the pornstar, and I hope this is the last time I have to write that clarification) doesn't resign over this I confidently predict a vote of no confidence in her future.

I am willing to take that as a win. May campaigned hard on her Brexit strategy which, for those unaware, has been purely to stamp her foot and impotently threaten the EU because she has no idea how to negotiate.

So, as much as I would have preferred a Labour government we do at least have a stronger opposition, a right that has been given a kicking and we will likely be rid of May. Its not perfect and the left needs to build on this and build on this until the next election happens but it is something.

Over in the US, James Comey has given his first round of testimony.

In France, fascism and xenophobia lost big.

The Resistance has finally begun. 

Wonder Woman: spoilers on, I have feelings to discuss

This post is a mess. I just sat down and wrote about everything I could think of about this brilliant, brilliant movie. As such, he aware there are a lot of wild, unrestrained spoilers here. There might not be any sort of coherent structure but there are spoilers.

Batman and Wonder Woman: OTP 4EVA

Okay, not really, my OTP in the DC Universe will always be Tim and Steph (its generational) but I love that this whole film is a flashback brought on by Bruce sending Diana a photo her her Steve and the WWI gang. Being Bruce, of course, this sweet gesture is delivered by armoured car in a secure briefcase carried by armed guards because Bruce is the most extra person who ever lived.

I despise the pairing of Diana and Clark with a fiery passion but I have always had something of a soft spot for a bit of Bruce/Diana. I know this is probably not meant to be taken as a romantic gesture because this is Batman on film and he is TRAUMATIZED and CAN NEVER KNOW LOVE and MAAAAARTHA but I can live in hope.

Weeping Manly Tears

I admit it, the No Man's Land section brought a tear to my eye. Every last second of that scene is just liquid empowerment. Its a huge moment not only for Diana but for Steve and the rest of their ragtag little group. Everything from her climbing the trench ladder to demolishing the sniper nest is amazingly directed.

Diana in battle is probably the best thing to point to when someone asks how much having a female director on this film makes a difference. She's always shot in ways that keep her properly centred in the shot and accentuates her actions: the sweep of her sword, the direction of a leap, and so on. There are no scenes shot to give us a good angle on her breasts or her backside. There have been something like five Marvel movies with Black Widow in them and every damn fight scene, I swear...

27 countries

There are certain realities of the First World War that just get... well, whitewashed is a pretty appropriate word. When Steve is explaining the war to the Amazons he makes a specific point of how twenty-seven countries are involved in the conflict. I don't know about you, but wheb I learned about this in school the list was pretty much abbreviated to the UK, Germany, France, Russia and the United States.

There's a scene early in the film with a massive crowd of British soldiers about to take ship for France and in amongst them are Indian soldiers in turbans. There's also a substantial set piece set in the Ottoman theatre, instead of everything being about the Trenches as in just about every other WWI movie I've ever seen.

How cool is Steve Trevor?

The scene where we're introduced to the Lasso Of Truth is a great set piece for establishing Steve Trevor's character. In this version of events, the lasso is something that can be resisted but it causes pain. Steve manages to bite back the truth several times before blurting out that he's a spy. It shows us how strong a personality Steve is and, frankly, why he's worthy of Diana's attention (and, yes, that's the way it works because its her name on the film and he's the love interest).

The conversation about sleeping together on the boat is comedy gold, as well. Too much of Steve and Diana's funny scenes later are cringe comedy where he tries to force her to fit in with a patriarchal world and... I understand why those scenes exist and I like the bit with the glasses but I've never liked the cringe thing.

Oh, and I love the bath scene. I love that for once the guy is naked (and it is no chore looking at Chris Pine shirtless).

I adore Etta Candy

Probably the biggest departure from source material (other than the change of World War) is Etta Candy, here reimagined as an English suffragette with a dry sense of humour. I adore her and I wish there had been more room for her but Lucy Davis squeezes every moment of comedy from her scenes.

Allan Heinberg Returns

Allan Heinberg wrote the screenplay and, for those unaware, Heinberg is a very good screenwriter who sometimes moonlights as a very slow comics writer. He created the Young Avengers for Marvel where he made a twenty-four issue masterplan last six years. He was also writer on the post-Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman which stalled after four issues with a fifth being released something like a year later as an annual. For all that, those five issues were a bold statement of intent for a revitalised new direction... that totally stalled out because a year's worth of guest writers had to leave their options open as to what they were actually following up on.

Still, he had a fine sense of what Wonder Woman was about and I'm glad we finally drew some dividends from that.

BTW, Philippus is in it

I don't think she's named in any dialogue but IMDB tells me that the Amazon played by Ann Ogbomo is Philippus. So, if you were worried Queen Hippolyta might get too lonely with her sister dead and her daughter out in Man's World, well...

Part of me wishes Ares wasn't there

I can't help it. I like David Thewlis and what he does with the role and I acknowledge that there had to be someone about the place at Diana's power level for a final confrontation but...

I prefered the idea that there was no great supernatural conspiracy at work in the end, that the Great War really was just a mess of people being stubborn and shit at each other. That war genuinely was one of the greatest human tragedies in history and part of me feels that that could stand on its own. I'm not sure I'd call it disrepectful, exactly, but there is a part of me that questions the taste.

That having been said, it was a good idea to set the story just before Armistice Day. What Diana is foiling is explicitly the last ditch attempt of a German general to keep the war going when the end was all but a done deal. That means that Diana isn't ending the war all by herself which I think genuinely would have been disrespectful.

*****

Now, I don't doubt I'll have more to say about this movie in time, at the very least I'm likely to see it again with some friends some time next week, but that seems a decent amount to be getting on with. 

Thoughts on Wonder Woman (NON-SPOILER VERSION)

This was a good movie, maybe even a legitimately great one but I'm writing this about three hours after leaving the cinema so I'll let the euphoria fade before making that judgement.

On Sunday I wrote about how I thought Wonder Woman's success vindicated the DCEU approach. The drive towards more auteur-driven superhero movies and a greater variety of creative visions really pays off here. Well, it pays off for me, at any rate, I know there are plenty of people who felt it paid off in Suicide Squad or BvS or Man of Steel and ain't no problem with that. With an approach like this, mileage varies a lot.

Hell, even DC's habit (much older than the DCEU) of reinventing the wheel at the drop of a hat works here. Shoving Diana into the action of the First World War rather than the Second was a fantastic idea. There's so much more drama to be made out of having her interact with the “bad” world war, the one that was just a bunch of alliances and pacts getting in each other's way until the worst conflict in human history happened. Surprisingly, there's a lot more attention paid here to the period detail than many serious films about the period: one of the film's major set pieces takes place in the German occupied Ottoman Empire; Indian soldiers in turbans appear several times; even the most sympathetic characters (besides Diana, that is) are moved to callousness by the hopelessness of the conflict; and, some actual thought goes into placing the story at a point in the war where we don't see Wonder Woman rather insensitively winning a war that in reality cost millions of lives whilst still giving her a good reason to be involved (more on that tomorrow).

As to Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot is great in the role even though it took a while for her line delivery to really click with me. I've not seen her in anything before (I decided to skip BvS somewhere between learning about the peach tea and “Martha!” scenes) but once you're used to the voice it really works. Chris Pine is perfectly cast as Steve Trevor and its clear Pine has a good sense of what Trevor is there for, never getting in the way of Gadot's performance.

Lucy Davis' Etta Candy is, sadly, not as prominent a role as the trailers might have led people to believe but that's more than made up for a brilliant trio of companions Diana and Steve pick up along the way played by Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock as Sameer, Charlie and The Chief and, yes, there is a perfectly good reason for a Native American to be hanging around that even provides a great moment for Diana's education in how Man's World works.

Patty Jenkins' directing is top notch, by the way. Every fight scene is fantastic, busy with action on multiple levels and sheer power granted to Diana in those scenes is, whilst ultimately nothing special in the genre as a whole, something we're just not used to seeing a female superhero doing. Jenkins has an enviable sense of space with Paradise Island being all open spaces and clear skies whilst the London sections are full of crowded spaces indoors and out.

Most of all, though, at no point does the action stop to stare at Gal Gadot's body. Now, it would be a braver man than me who could claim that the camera doesn't linger on her, she's a stunning woman and the star of the movie, but what the camera conspicuously does not do is linger on her breasts or backside, nor is she ever blocked into a shot in such a way to emphasis body at the cost of moving her face out of shot. There have been something like five MCU movies with Black Widow in them and ever damn fight scene, I swear...

So, yes, this is a really good movie. I'm not sure I'm sold enough on the character to see Justice League just on the strength of her being in it but I'm more than on board for any sequels or spin-offs to this movie DC might want to greenlight in the future. 

Extreme Rules 2017

(SPOILERS for this past Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view)

“Predictable. Cautious. Extreme.” the opening moments of the show inform me because for some reason no one proof reads these things out loud. It was... kind of fitting, though.

Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz: Intercontinental Championship

(The Miz wins)

I question the logic of opening Extreme Rules with a match where the only stipulation is “ if the champion gets disqualified, he loses his championship”. That's actually a more vanilla match than usual and not extreme in any way. It could have worked, though, at another event and if Ambrose was not constantly losing his rag and on the verge of whacking the Miz with a chair. I genuinely think Ambrose could benefit from a proper, technical showcase if only to prove he can do it. He's a talented man and even if he needed carrying a bit in the absence of his usual set pieces then the Miz is absolutely the right person to carry him. The Miz is the right person to carry anyone.

I did love the moment with the exposed turnbuckle, though, where Ambrose had to stop himself slamming Miz's head into the metal fixture the Miz himself had exposed. On the subject of the Miz, though, they had him try for a chair shot and have to break a figure four leg lock at a four count but he should have been constantly flying close to disqualification just to goad Ambrose.

And it should have been on another show.

Even then it was so nearly a brilliant match and then Maryse slapped the Miz with the ref actually understanding what was happening. The official should have disqualified the Miz as she was interfering on his behalf, then there was the ref bump which “should” have had Dean disqualified and then there was a pin anyway. Bit of a mess, frankly.

And it should have been on another bloody show.

Noam Dar & Alicia Fox vs. Rich Swann & Sasha Banks: Cruiserweight Mixed Tag Match

(Swann & Banks win, Swann gets the pinfall)

First, Noam Dar deserved to get slapped for getting in Sasha's face. Second, bloody hell are mixed tag matches a terrible bloody idea. I mean, since they can't have the wrestlers of different genders in the same ring at the same time its just two different matches happening concurrently in the same ring. I adore Sasha Banks, I think Alicia Fox is great, Rich Swann is a fantastic cruiserweight and Noam Dar... I don't have much opinion on him, I don't watch much 205 Live, sorry pardon.

Also, “Noam Dr stole Alicia Fox...”. When did this become 2004 and the likes of Alicia Fox got reduced to an object for men to steal from each other and compete over?

And it had a sudden finish, which seemingly is a sexually transmitted disease that the Women's Division has passed on to the Cruiserweights. Speaking of which...

Bailey vs. Alex Bliss: Kendo Stick On A Pole Match

(Alexa Bliss retains)

It is such an awful stipulation: here's a kendo stick on top of a pole and whoever gets it down gets to use it. Thrilling.

Also, where does Alexa get off saying Bailey isn't extreme, she was in the first Ironwoman match! She has more experience with extreme rules than Alexa has. Why all this crap about “will Bailey use it?”. All that hesitating and chasing around and... why, oh why am I bored watching a Bailey match? And why wasn't Alexa using the stick a DQ offence when the stipulation, battered into us in the clips package, was that only the person who brings it down gets to use it? That was Bailey.

And I wasn't the only one bored. Bailey and Alexa looked pretty bloody unengaged during the whole affair. All this and a sudden finish as well. The clips package ran longer than the match!

Still, this match was useful for scientific purposes as we finally know what a bad Bailey match looks like.

The Hardy Boys vs. Shamus & Cesaro: Steel Cage Tag Team Championship Match

(Shamus & Cesaro win)

Man, Cesaro is agile, isn't he? The way he just jumped more than halfway up the cage in one bound was amazing. Escape only is a good stipulation, even if it means a lot of repeated spots of one guy getting most of the way up and being dragged back down.

Its actually a good match but there just isn't that much to say about it. People climbed up, people were pulled back down, Matt ended up on his own against Cesaro and Shamus and that was a great bit. I'm not sure when they stopped locking the door on these things and just allowing people to wander in and out of the cage at will but that generated a few pretty cool spots at least. I mean, everyone was a tactical ignoramus at some point or another but you can forgive that in a wrestling match so long as it looks cool.

And, honestly, the ending looked cool with the Hardys leaving via the door but not fast enough to beat Cesaro and Shamus climbing down the other side of the cage.

I am very much looking forward to the rematch.

Neville vs. Austin Aries: Cruiserweight Championship Submission Match

(Neville retains)

Now this is how its meant to work: an interesting juxtaposition of championship and stipulation. All the “flippy shit” of the Cruiserweight Division is meant to tire and batter the opponent to get a pin. So a submissions only match has an interesting dimension, helped by the fact that these are two of the most muscular men in their division. There was still plenty of the high flying athleticism that makes this weight class great but it all revolved around weakening the opponent to make a submission move more painful.

Aries struggling backwards to get a foot on the ropes when Neville had him in the Rings Of Saturn was a particular highlight. Neville tapping out but outside the ring so it doesn't “count” was a good way to allow him to retain without harming Aries' momentum. Also, it didn't drag on too long after the false submission so it didn't matter that it made the conclusion a little predictable.

Seth Rollins vs. Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns:

Fatal Five Way Number One Contender Match

(Samoa Joe wins)

AKA the reason I unsubscribed to What Culture Wrestling because this is the second main event they have spoiled for me with the bloody thumbnail of a What Just Happened? video. Sorry, Plumpy and company, but I can search for your stuff and have some control of what I see then.

Anyway, Joe wins and I knew that going in. I was hoping for Bray Wyatt because I have this pie-eyed notion that the most charismatic man in the room whose entrance relies on the audience loving him should probably be kept in the main event scene. However, I can hardly argue that Joe doesn't deserve it. He's had to make a long journey up to this level since joining the company and I can see why WWE want him facing Lesnar for the Beast's first defense (about six weeks after the 30 Day Rule stipulates it should be but since when has simple maths mattered?).

Roman deserves all the props for the wonderful comedy bit of just standing in the corner alone and then wandering the ring unmolested as the other four beat the crap out of each other. His look of bemusement as he strolls is just perfect.

Joe won't win it, not at a PPV called (good grief) Great Balls Of Fire. I'm absolutely convinced by the rumours that Lesnar will retain right up to 'Mania. I think it should be Balor who eventually beats Lesnar, by the way. As was pointed out a lot here, he never lost that title and he should win it again to restore the natural course of history. That said, I do like that Joe wins with a submission move (he is the Samoan Submission Machine, even if he seems to have left that nickname behind) and that could be a good thing to emphasise in the build-up to the Lesnar match.

He won't win but it should be an interesting technical match with Lesnar's massive power game versus Joe's submission style. 

Thoughts on the Land Raider Crusader

First of all, people have been telling me for years that the Land Raider is a living nightmare of a kit. I've been told how awful it is to build, how nothing seems to fit together and the unnecessary complexity of the tank commander add ons and such.

Now, either GW substantially reworked the sprues when they made the plastic Crusader/Redeemer kit or against all logic I am better at building things than my friends.

(I am not. I once rage quit building a Land Speeder Typhoon.)

The only component I've had any problem with is the tank commander: the connecting point between the multi-melta and the commander's hands is rather small and not quite the right shape to make good, solid connection. Its a truly minor complaint fixed by a little trial and error.

Next thought: I love the design of the Land Raider. As much as it is a big metal box, the placement of the weapons around the different facings makes it look like a rolling fortress. You get a much better idea of why the Space Marines view these things as akin to (or, in some cases, as literally) religious relics to be preserved and venerated.

I also like how the Crusader is very, very well optimised for mowing down infantry. Whereas the purpose of a Rhino has always escaped me (“Let's put wheels on a storm bolter!”), the purpose of the Crusader is clear. Its a linebreaker: it drives up to the enemy line, firing mainly anti-infantry weapons and one multi-melta for dealing with barricades and emplacements and then the front ramp smashes down and disgorges a six pack of Terminators or the large family size Crusader Squad.

It literally only just clicked for me writing that sentence that the Black Templars' signature squad is named after the Black Templars' signature tank. I am an idiot. That realisation took almost twenty years.

Funnily enough, I'm not building this for my Flesh Tearers. I want to concentrate more on Fast Attack options there. Rather, this is to accompany some older models I'm reconditioning, though I can't say for what army as my best friend reads this blog and I'm planning a little nostalgic surprise for him when we have our first 8^th edition game. We'll be doing that this week as the local GW is running some taster events for which we're being asked to bring one HQ, one Troops choice and one “special thing”. My special thing, depending on how much I can get done this week, will either be this Land Raider or a Venerable Dreadnought I'm in the process of reconditioning (that is to say, painting better than when I first bought it).

As to the HQ and Troops, well that would be telling and my bestie would guess what I'm bringing but I'll have pictures up when its too late to spoil the surprise, probably on Thursday.

You know, I never thought I would ever be this enthusiastic about 40k again. I'm far more of a Fantasy fan, games wise. Even though its still all theory at this stage, the new edition looks like its been streamlined in all the rights ways to be smoother to play and easier to remember the mechanics without sacrificing depth.

Still, proof of the pudding and all that. Maybe I'll change my mind after playing the thing. I hope not.  

How Wonder Woman totally vindicates Batman v. Superman

With Wonder Woman getting good reviews all over the place (except from Fox News who seem offended that the title character isn't American because reasons) and Batman v. Superman getting a post-mortem bashing in the process, I just wanted to throw out a ray of hope for people who liked BvS:

Wonder Woman's success totally vindicates the creative vision of BvS.

Seriously. I'm not kidding. I'm not being mean. This isn't going to end with me praising BvS with faint damnation. It also, to be frank, doesn't end with me changing my own poor opinion of BvS but I seriously believe this whole situation works out for everyone in a way a lot of people aren't considering.

First of all, if you liked BvS (and Man Of Steel and Suicide Squad) then nothing can change that, that's how you feel. Furthermore, those films did well so you can rest assured that you are a commercially viable audience and DC isn't going to stop making films like that any time soon. The creative visions of Zack Snyder and David Ayer will continue to be present in their films.

And there it is!

See, since DC got into the shared cinematic universe game one of the big distinctions they tried to make between their operation and Marvel's was that they wanted to give their directors more creative control. Now, I don't hold that all Marvel films are directed exactly the same or have a totally unified aesthetic but there is an obvious effort to present a similar tone and production design so that when characters from different ends of the MCU meet it doesn't look weird.

Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman has a very different feel to the other three existing DCEU movies but Suicide Squad also has a different feel to the two Snyder-led efforts, just not as pronounced. It was, perhaps, a mistake to lead with two films by the same director and then follow up with a third from a new director whose style was not quite as distinct from Snyder's as it could have been but this does all show that DC is willing to pursue very different creative visions even with characters who are going to meet up.

Long story short: everybody wins. If you liked the Snyder (and closely allied Ayer) approach, that isn't going away even if Warner takes the success of Wonder Woman to heart. Justice League and Gotham City Sirens will continue that approach because that's what their directors were employed to create: Zack Snyder's Justice League and David Ayer's Gotham City Sirens. Then down the line we get Joss Whedon's Batgirl and Matt Reeves' The Batman.

Now, the down side of this is that unlike Marvel the audience of any one film in the franchise will not go into any of the others with the reassurance they're going to like what they watch. For my part, though, I'm more than willing to take that risk for a more varied approach to these properties. 

In which I approved of Chapter Approved

Two bits of 8^th edition news happened this weekend. Firstly, there's a new hover tank think for the Primaris Marines called a Repulsor. Its basically a flying Land Raider and even if I manage to offload my Primaris onto someone I might just buy one. Not long ago I read Aaron Demski-Bowden's Master of Mankind and in it Arkhan Land turns up with his personal flying Land Raider and this thing looks like a flying Land Raider so there we are.

More boringly, but perhaps more importantly, there's this:

Chapter Approved is being resurrected as the General's Handbook of 40k. I can't express how happy I am by this. Having a single, annually updated book just for points values means they won't have to start a new cycle of Codexes every time they want to rebalance the game. If something is OP they can just bump up the points in the next annual update. If something is stupidly below the power curve, just slip in a lower cost next time the book comes out. Its reactive, its simple, it isn't a thirty pound hardcover for every army that needs minor tweaks, which is increasingly what new Codex supplements have been about.

Its a very real cost of entry problem: army rulebooks cost a lot, edition rule books cost more, both go out of print and get replaced on a regular basis. Right now, for a core rulebook and a codex you're handing over the better part of a hundred quid before you buy a single model. It was getting untenable.

So, yes, long live Chapter Approved and long live the lowered barrier of entry! 

Comic Reviews

Its basically all Marvel all the time this week since DC hates five week months with a fiery passion matched only by their hatred of having the same continuity for more than two years. Okay, there was The Lazarus Contract conclusion and an issue of The Flash this week but neither particularly inspired me to write anything about them. Plus, Doctor Strange fell off the pull list for a bit because Nazis so this genuinely is most of my pulls for the week and not just me being lazy, honest.

Cable #1

Right, these post-IvX series have so far made me care about the Inhumans so let's see if lightning can strike twice and they can make me care about Cable, patron saint of 90s Second Amendment comics. It is James Robinson on writing duties, which is almost always a good sign.

Anyway, Robinson takes the time travel aspect of Cable and runs with it. As a first impression he has Cable swaggering into a Wild West saloon and Cable as old fashioned gunslinger is certainly a good take on the character. I mean, the whole look of him is basically old-style masculinity boiled down and distilled into a single character. Anyway, Cable is on the trail of some sort of time travelling arms dealers, first going after Wild West outlaws and then a bunch of sixteenth century ronin with lightsabers. Either of these would make a good single issue story but, sadly, they make a pretty a rather spare single issue that's long on atmosphere but rather short on story. Still, that's not a million miles from my previous experiences with Robinson (his Superman run in particular) and I know he's a writer I can afford a degree of patience to.

Hulk #6

I know an ongoing theme of these reviews lately has been me getting a bit tired of the decompressed storytelling style of Brian Michael Bendis and the like but this series absolutely lobbies for the right of that style to exist.

Its been six issues and only now do we get substantial time with Jen as the now neutrally gendered Hulk. We've had snippets of it here and there, other scenes where its implied but Jen spends most of this issue in her new grey skin and green scars form. We also get final confirmation of how this version of her Hulk form differs from her previous one and its entirely based on the idea of psychological triggers.

Mariko Tamaki's take on this character has been so good for the way it takes the decades long canard of the Hulk as mental health metaphor and actually used it to explore themes of mental health. I know that discussion of mental health is, in a lot of ways, something we're only getting good at now but the idea has been around for decades and its only truly being exploited now. Obviously, its no how to guide on how to handle depression and anxiety, few of us have the chance to beat up supernatural horrors as occupational therapy, but the underlying emotions Tamaki writes ring very true to me as someone who has some experience dealing with such feelings in others.

I am very much looking forward to seeing where the next arc takes this series.

Generation X #2

Thus concludes a short and sweet introductory arc. Only two issues in and we have a good sense of the cast, a mission statement for the series and even a good bit of information on how the new Xavier's works in practice (which, sadly, we haven't managed to get from X-Men Gold, the main series set there).

Throughout it all, Christina Strain writes Jubilee as the veteran she damn well should have been since the original Generation X folded. Now, nothing will diminish my love for her as written in Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat but she was the POV character in the 90s cartoon and so I have a lot of affection for her. Plus, the idea of training mutants for something other than superheroics, training them to survive in the outside world and maybe to act as ambassadors for mutantkind is an interesting hook.

Plus, Strain has a great eye for where to slot in a cameo with the likes of Gentle, Broo and Graymalkin getting walk-ons during the fight with the Purifiers. Oh, yes, and seeing Jubilee's palpable rage when she confronts one of the Purifiers was great, whether it was a conscious callback to Skin's death or not.

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #7

There are two big takeaways from this issue. The first is how amazingly bad the Star Wars movie characters are at existing in Aphra's world. There's a moment when Triple Zero confronts Leia with how she “uses” Han and Luke as assets and Leia is horrified by the idea. One of the big themes of her character in Empire and Return is pulling back from how the war has dehumanised her and this marks as good a starting point as any for that journey.

The other takeaway is how conflicted a character Aphra herself is. Her shock when Luke refers to her as a friend is brilliant, as is her every reaction she has to presence of Sana. Boy, do I want to see an arc with them working together. Aphra has always had a certain “female Han” vibe to her so maybe an arc or two with “her” Lando would be cool. And I mean that comparison in more terms than just Sana being black: the two of them have old grudges and an older friendship, even if its more implied than anything else at this point.

And, yes, in this formulation Vader is Aphra's Luke. 

June is Death Guard Month

What else could it be? As much as I like the design of Primaris Marines (if not the concept or anything about the Dreadnought), the Death Guard are the main event of Dark Imperium for me. I'm still mulling over whether I want to swap shop the Bigly Marines or wait for inspiration to hit. I have this vague concept of painting them orange but that might be a passing craze, I don't know.

Anyway: Death Guard, the XIV Legion Astartes, the servants of Nurgle, the bringers of pestilence, the one Chaos Legion whose greatest rivalry is with another Chaos Legion because Mortarian really, really hates Magus the Red, the chubby traitors of cuddliness.

Just me, that last one, I take it?

Anyway, my absolute favourite Chaos Marine faction is coming to workable, buildable plastic but they're coming halfway through the month so, in the meantime, I once again brave the indignities of Forge World resin...

Yes, I know pics of plastic Death Guard Terminators have leaked but I honestly do prefer these sculpts. I'd have to, after my less than happy experience trying to scrape the FW Plague Marine torsos down to a point where they actually fit into the plastic legs they're designed to be built with it takes a lot to interest me in a Forge World kit. I have two sets of Terminator bodies, my plan for the second being to build two more “basic” Plague Terminators to fill the squad up to Nurgle's sacred number and then use the other three to make alternative weapons.

Yes, I'm going to do the “sacred number” thing in as many units as possible. I'm that sort of hobbyist. I even have a concept for the Possessed. You see, I want my Possessed not to be Death Guard but loyalist Marines they've captured and basically injected daemons into. I have approximately two or three complete Space Marines in bits in my bits box so I'll mix them in with the five Possessed from the actual kit, slap on some Deathwatch shoulder pads and then paint in a rainbow of appropriate colours to make a suitably horrific unit.

Oh, I also have a name for my Lord of Contagion: Scrofulus Bezoar (yes, I just did a big re-read of Sandman, why do you ask?).

For the moment, though, first priority goes to getting these Terminators started. I want to experiment with colour scheme on something big and relatively simple before working on the Dark Imperium models and I've had these conversion kits lying around for literally years. 

The Mae Young Classic and the classic Mae Young

If, like me, you came into wrestling fandom in the early 2000s, you just can't help but like Mae Young. Even if, like me, you're nowhere near old enough to have seen her in her prime (she made her in-ring debut in 1939) she was a familiar sight in the WWE from 1999 to 2013 where you could only describe her (along with her frequent partner in comedy the Fabulous Moolah) as “the gamest old bird in the business”.

Over her post-retirement appearances in WWE she took part in an evening gown match where she was stripped to bra and panties in her late seventies; gave birth to a hand; gave birth to Hornswoggle; won a bikini contest; got power bombed through a table by Bubba Ray Dudley twice; was one of the many conquests of “Sexual Chocolate” Mark Henry; performed a strip tease in the middle of a bra and panties match in her early eighties; indulged Gene Snitksy's foot fetish in a backstage segment; got to kiss the Rock, Edge, Eric Bischoff and the Great Khali (with varying degrees of on-stage enthusiasm and consent by the men involved, the Rock loved it); and, was involved in implied backstage group sex to the visible horror of Jonathan Coachman and obvious delight of Mean Gene Okerlund and Pat Patterson (who was probably more interested in Mean Gene in that context but whatever).

Apart from this madness she is the only professional wrestler have wrestled in nine different decades. She was the first NWA Women's Champion (then a regional Florida territory title) and, during the Second World War, was instrumental in expanding women's wrestling whilst the men were away fighting in a similar way to how women's baseball took off in the same period.

She passed away in 2014, aged 90.

The woman's a legend in the industry and now she has a tournament named after her.

This is big. There are two other events named after legendary wrestlers in the WWE right now. There's the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, which runs annually on the developmental promotion NXT, the show where Dusty was a beloved trainer and talent developer. Then there's the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, an elimination match which is held at Wrestlemania every year and is generally used to promote the talents of the company's larger, more classically strongman-esque talent. Sadly, the Memorial Battle Royal has slid down the card to the pre-show in recent years but the win is still considered prestigious if a little poorly handled by the bookers.

Now, Mae Young joins this elite no-longer-fraternity. The only words I can think of is, obviously, that much abused but very appropriate chant:

“You deserve it.” 

The Lion as written by Chris Wraight

(SPOILERS for The Horus Heresy: Primarchs: Leman Russ: The Great Wolf by Chris Wraight)

I picked up Chris Wraight's Primarch's novella The Great Wolf on a whim. I don't follow the Horus Heresy series as closely as I used to, just checking in when a particularly attractive pairing of author and legion comes up. Usually, Chris Wraight writing Space Wolves would be a easy sell: I like Chris Wraight, I like how he writes Space Wolves. The only sticking point was the subject of the novella.

Its the duel with Lion El'Jonson.

Now, I get it. Its a hugely iconic moment in 40k history, its a big personal moment for both primarchs and there really isn't a place to slot it into the regular Heresy novels quite aside from the fact it isn't something that could really fill out a full-length novel. The Leman Russ novella was a natural home for it, especially as I'd bet the Lion novella will be about his relationship with Luther.

Still... Chris Wraight, Space Wolves, give it a try, I though. It started off great with the Thirteenth Company of all people being one of the main focuses of the story. Hell, Wraight even remembered the existence of Bulveye, now that's what I call fan service! Indeed, it took a while for the Dark Angels to turn up and I basically convinced myself that, okay, this was going well and was interesting and I could take the hit if the Lion bit wasn't as fun.

Well, I was wrong. The Lion bit is great because unlike most other authors, Chris Wraight has something more to say about the Lion than to wiggle his fingers and go “ooooh, untrustworthy and mysterious”. One of the first scene Russ and the Lion share has them basically comparing their ways of war. Russ, as long established, takes his wars very personally. He's the Emperor's appointed executioner, after all:

“Ever world we burn is for vengeance. They are condemned, he is condemned, and we are the sanction.”

The Lion, meanwhile, has a far more impersonal take on the whole affair:

“For me, the order was simple – go out, harvest worlds for Terra. I carry no hatred for those who resist. I barely see them. They are numbers, objects, obstacles to overcome. In the end the Great Crusade is all, and it stands or falls by our actions.”

As prosaic as it sounds, this is probably the deepest insight we've ever been granted into Jonson's mind. Most of the Legions gain their character from the personality of their primarch but Jonson has always been a mystery so Wraight works backwards: he takes the mindset of the Unforgiven and applies it to the Lion. He takes the cold singlemindedness with which the Dark Angels and their successor hunt the Fallen and asks what that would mean for a Jonson who has nothing to hide yet. Actually, the fact that Jonson has nothing to hide at this point, is a central theme of the novella and his conflict with Russ (hint: it has something to do with the Thirteenth Company).

Its certainly a more interesting approach than just having the Dark Angels always being untrustworthy dicks since day one which has tended to be how other authors treat them. And I'm not ust beating down on the “lower tier” Heresy writers here: Dan Abnett is just as bad for it in Unremembered Empire with Jonson forgetting to mention to anyone that he has bloody Night Haunter on his battlebarge because that's not the sort of thing that's going to come back and bite him on his knightly arse.

So, yes, for the first time ever I find myself interested in the Lion and it makes me want to dust off my Angels of Redemption. I've always liked the colours and the mechanics but now I have an insight into their psychology: the mission is everything without consideration of personal glory. Now, this gets a lot less heroic in the “present day” where that purity of purpose gets twisted into an endless quest of vengeance against the Fallen that has them regularly abandoning, selling out or massacring allies left and right but that psychology still holds true to a large extent.

Wraight's angle on the Lion also has the virtue of, just for once, not painting the Dark Angels as being entirely in the wrong. As much fun as I have tweaking our resident Dark Angels player's nose with the phrase “heretics in skirts”, a problem that comes up an awful lot is this:

“How does anyone trust these guys?”

So having a novella that shows them on a good day when there's no reason to (intentionally) betray anyone is a breath of fresh air. It genuinely is the first time I've seen them portrayed with the efficiency for war that gives them value as a fighting force and not just a bunch of shifty guys who swoop in, mysteriously abduct a mysterious person for mysterious reason and then massacre a hundred thousand Guardsmen for having seen too much. Or, to put it another way, as an army that works outside of their one USP storyline. 

The Undefeated Woman

Since this seems to be the week for women type news that will send male fanboys of things round the bend, let's talk about Asuka's undefeated streak, which is now the longest in WWE history.

Now, as people are so fond of pointing out, “wrestling is fake”. Now, this isn't true in the way people think its true (in that they think it means no skill or risk is involved which is very insulting to people I would never dream of insulting) but it does have to be admitted that results are booked in advance. What this means is that the largest wrestling company in the world made the conscious decision to let a woman beat Bill Goldberg's undefeated streak, the previous record.

That's big.

When the WWE chooses to equal or beat a record, especially one they talk about a lot, it means something. When John Cena won his sixteenth world title a few months back, equaling industry legend Ric Flair's record, it was a clear statement that the WWE views Cena as equal to that legend.

Not to be that guy but I do think they have a point. Please don't hurt my family.

Anyway, a woman now holds the record for longest undefeated streak in the history of the company. A thoroughly deserving woman, in my view. She's a fantastic in-ring talent and marvellously charismatic on the mic. Perversely enough, I do want this undefeated streak to end because then she can drop that title and finally move up to main roster where she belongs but I won't deny for a moment she deserves it. I just also think she deserves a big time match at Wrestlemania some time before she retires, is all. 

A women only Wonder Woman screening and the men who just want to be there

As you can imagine, the usual brigade of dickhead men are angry about the idea that one cinema in the US is having a couple of Wonder Woman screenings for women only. So far I have seen some of them claim that this is as bad as racial segregation and one particular idiot go to far, far too much trouble to get himself a ticket to a screening where everyone else in the room will resent his presence which I'm willing to bet will not be a novel experience for the man.

Now, once again I just have to say: this is why I hate the whole Men's Rights Activist brigade because this is the shit they loudly waste their time on.

Its not even a preview. Its two screenings a couple of days after the film comes out, for goodness sake. Its literally just a couple of screenings they're being asked politely not to attend. In a rational, adult world, this is a minor inconvenience. Its a major feature film, there will be a dozen or more other screenings every day of opening week in any cinema you can find.

You know what? There are serious social issues affecting men that I would like to see addressed in my lifetime. Things like our sky high suicide rate; the massive under-diagnosis of violent personality disorders; the fact that emotional distance is considered a normal component of fatherhood; the chronic under-funding of prostate cancer research even though its the second most common cancer in men; the massive stigma surrounding physical contact between men; the way that media portrays “a useless idiot, but at least he's not abusive” as some sort of ideal relationship goal; the fact that domestic and sexual violence against men gets swept under the rug because of a belief we, as the “stronger” sex, should not be affected by it.

And I think anyone who calls themselves an activist on behalf of men's issues should probably be more concerned about issues that literally kill us or fill our lives with loneliness and misery that then likely kills us anyway than having a by now days long tantrum about there being two screenings in one cinema that most of them live nowhere near that they can't attend.

And they wonder why there are women who would like to see a movie without them. 

Detachment Issues (8th edition force org charts)

Just to be clear: as I queue this post these images are still “leaks” and thus rumours. They look legit but we've all been bitten before. That said, let's talk crunch!

Now, I hate the standard force organisation chart with a fiery passion. It doesn't work for me. I know what its meant to do. Its to provide balance by restricting every player to the same basic menu of unit types which isn't a bad design philosophy but it can be a little limiting that, say, no matter the context or importance of a mission your army isn't going to commit more than three units of elite troops to it under any circumstances.

This isn't to say the standard force org is going away but it is getting more versatile. For one thing, the “standard” version lives in a tiered system...

So, different sizes of chart for different sizes of game, I can get down with that. I also like that you get more Elites with six slots in the normal-sized game Battalion Detachment, a move that reminds me of Fantasy going to maximum 50% Special choices. I imagine that some of the more powerful Troops choices will find themselves bumped up to Elite status to compensate but I can appreciate the opportunities for army theming this represents. We also get an extra HQ slot (two of the three being compulsory), which is no bad thing since most armies now have so many HQ options that just two and only two was starting to feel very restricting.

Flyers are now part of the standard force organisation as their own discrete entity, which is nice.

The flipside of this trend seems to be raising the compulsory Troops choices from two to three which might seem unfair except for the fact that there are now force orgs that don't require troops at all.

So, basically, one themed chart for each of the other choices: Vanguard for compulsory Elites, Spearhead for compulsory Heavy Support and Outrider for compulsory Fast Attack. Each has Troops at 0-3 and the other choices at 0-2. These measures and dropping the HQ slots down to two again gives these charts a significant downside to the Battalion. These are charts for a more strict theming than the three-tiered standard and I like that. My mind is already brimming with ideas for a Flesh Tearers Outrider Detachment (all the Assault Marines...).

And then there's a page of various housekeeping exercises: flyer, fortification and super-heavy detachments that presumably slot along the side of a main army plus an HQ themed chart which seems designed for campaign theming and the like when you want the big boss man / woman / alien / robot / daemon present for a special game with his own cadre of hangers on and a big thing.

All in all, yet more reason to look forward to a very versatile edition of the rules, me thinks. 

Jinder annoys me less than Brock

Its been almost a week since Backlash. The main event had a divisive result and, initially, I hated it. I still think it was too soon and very cynically motivated but, ultimately, Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion annoys me less than Brock Lesnar as Universal Champion. Praising with faint damnation, I know, but that's where we are.

Brock, as good as he is, is a part timer right now. The main event for Extreme Rules is a number one contenders match because he's a part timer.

The thing is, on the off-chance that Jinder isn't a good heel champion, the WWE Championship can survive a bad title reign. This title has graced the waist of the likes of John Cena, Ric Flair and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It has legacy, it has staying power, it has Randy Orton to jump in when you need a decent transitional champion.

Then there's the jam belt...

The Universal Championship has graced a grand total of four waists in its less than a year of life: Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Bill Goldberg and, now, Brock Lesnar. Balor and Owens were fresh talent just up from NXT, the future faces of the industry being propelled into the big time with a top card title. It was sad that Balor had to vacate right after winning it but Owens was more than worthy replacement even if he spent too much of his reign as a chickenshit hiding behind Chris Jericho.

Then Goldberg defeated Owens in a match that lasted a matter of seconds bell to bell and for no better reason than to up the stakes of Goldberg/Lesnar III when it could have ridden on macho the honour grudge alone. Goldberg was a old guy coming in for one last series of three matches, only the last of which ran more than two minutes and he dropped it to another part-timer who now won't even be defending the title on the next pay-per-view down the line. I know the full card hasn't been announced yet but giving the Backlash plug to the number one contenders match is highly suggestive.

Hell, even as sick of Brock's ridiculous invincibility as I am, the idea of throwing that into an Extreme Rules match actually interests me. I'd love to see Brock, hopefully on a day he can bothered, is a street fight or a TLC match. It would bring him out of his comfort zone of pure athletics and give us something we don't usually get with him. We saw a hint of that when he had his match against Ambrose but then he beat Ambrose pretty quickly.

And whilst we're spitballing pie in the sky ideas, I'd love to see Lesnar do a Hell In A Cell against someone other than the Undertaker just to see how that would go.

But Brock as a barely there champion on a belt that started off being about the new, up and coming talent we hadn't seen in the main event scene before? I just can't get excited about that. At least Jinder has the intrigue of the new and unexpected about him.

Unexpected for a bloody good reason but unexpected nonetheless. 

Donald Trump is a fucking idiot

Donald Trump and Theresa May (the Prime Minister, not the pornstar) at NATO,
behold the dignity of The Donald!

It was bad enough when his administration decided that, yes, they would give all the classified intelligence we'd handed over on the Manchester bomber to the press thus compromising the active investigation and jeopardising all future intelligence co-operation between the UK and US because, frankly, you're meant to be able to trust your allies.

I never expected to empathise with Benjamin Netanyahu but here we bloody are.

Then there was the speech. A normal person, or at least a normal politician, would just lead the moment of silence and launch into the platitudes. To the credit of Trump's handlers, he started well. I wasn't even that shocked when he decided that calling ISIS “losers” was suitable to the dignity of the moment.

No, what had my blood boiling was when Trump finally proved, once and for all, that no tragedy is so great or so distant that it can't be all about him. From the loser comment he segued into a rambling monologue about some of his favourite subjects: how NATO owed him money; unsubtle digs about how his Muslim immigration ban was a good idea and similar measures would have prevented the bombing (the bomber was born and raised in Manchester, so no); and reminiscing about how amazing his speech in Saudi Arabia was.

All this quite aside from trying to rip Emmanuel Macron's arm off when it looked like the French President was trying to avoid a handshake and literally grabbing another NATO leader to shove the man aside because The Donald has to be at the front of the shot, damn it!

He is a child. He is a stupid child who can't even conjure up the simple human decency to lead a moment of silence without finding a way to make it all about him.

Worthless orange shitgibbon. 

Dark Imperium thoughts

Okay let's start with the Primaris Marines because what I really want to discuss are the Death Guard. The Intercessors are basically what Marines should always have been and everything I said waaaaaaaaay back when we were debating what we now know to be a picture of the Primaris Lieutenant with auto bolt rifle was making the rounds still stands: the design adds height and width in all the right places; it adds visual interest to previously very dull flat planes like the legs and arms; and, most vitally, it keeps a lot of the iconic silhouette so it is still clearly a Space Marine. I'm not too sold on the new background that introduces them, I'm of the crowd that would be just as happy if GW had just said “This is a Space Marine now, your old ones are still cool but some day they'll all look like this.”, but its a nice design.

As to the rest of them: the Lieutenants are nice sculpts if a little bland; the Inceptors are a great idea even if their space suit power armour seems a little overdone; the Captain is great and I love the miniature Gauntlet of Ultramar he's armed with; and, I love the idea of a unit armed entirely with plasma weapons though I strongly suspect them of being a glass cannon if Gets Hot remains anything like it is now.

Right, good and righteousness all done, let's talk buboes...

Let's start with Big Daddy Disgusting here. This guy looks huge and his axe is one of the most over the top things I have ever seen this design team put out: its a giant corroded axe with three buzzsaw blades mounted inside it. It slices, it dices, it juliennes! Quite apart from that, there's such a sense of weight to the pose here: the way he holds the axe, the slight lean forward, the Nurgling being squished beneath one boot, it all adds to the impression that this is one slow, heavy guy. Also, he has one of those big nose blade things I so loved with the Blightkings.

And speaking of design cues nicked from the Blightkings, there's this chap and his bell. Apparently the equivalent of the Primaris Ancient standardbearer, this is one guy who really likes his “for whom the bell tolls” imagery. I also like the butcher's apron motif, that's cool.

Finally on the character front is the Malignant Plaguecaster. I'm not as sold on him as the other two Death Guard characters but that could just be a classic case of GW employing the worst angle to showcase a model from. He has a lot going for him but there's something about the head that puts me off. Still, given the way they've painted his staff it looks like they're going back to the very old idea of the Death Guard using a lot of wood in their wargear. No, seriously, the really, really old plastic Plague Marines had wood casings on their bolters. Speaking of...

Oh, look at them! Mutations everywhere, horns and tentacles and pitting on the armour. One of the big improvements this set has over Dark Vengeance is that there are no duplicate models in this unit. The Dark Vengeance Chaos Chosen had two identical Marines with bolters and in a unit that small it really showed. There is such unique character in each and every one of these fellows. My personal favourite is the plasma gunner with his cloak made out of corroded chain. I also like that they're all wearing mutated Mark III Iron armour because it suits them and not just because I really like Iron armour.

Then we get the peons of the army. Now, you know me, I love my Lost And The Damned and any effort to represent something mortal and squishy in 40k Chaos is fine by me. That said, if I had to guess I'd say these were more like mortals possessed by Plaguebearers than simply Nurglesque cultists. They look like they're going to be very fun to paint but also relltively simple, a must with hordes in my view. I mean, once you've got a flesh method that seems like half the model done and then its all detail in a limited palette of metallics and drab cloth.

And finally, the Foetid Bloat-Drone. I've always liked the look of Forge World's own Blight Drone but too many horror stories about building the thing and fixing the thing when it breaks have reached my ears to want one of my own. Now, there's one (or near enough) in lovely, lovely durable plastic.I actually think some improvements have been made over the Forge World version like giving it what look horrifically like a gas mask and working in more explicitly Nurglesque iconography.

Anyway, just a few random thoughts. I'm currently mulling over whether I want the Primaris half. The local store is doing one of those “swap shop” groups so I have a few days to decide whether there's something I want to do with the Primaris Marines or whether I want a double dose of XIV Legion.