When we first meet Selina Kyle in Batman #1 (1940) she is not yet donning her iconic purple costume and she is simply known as “The Cat.” Though we don’t see very much of Selina in her first appearance, we still learn right away that she is–as her codename suggests–very smart and cunning, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Bruce Wayne.
Just in time for the winter solstice, we simply couldn’t end Helena Wayne’s 40th anniversary celebration without discussing my favourite DC Comics holiday story of all time: the Huntress and Batman story featured in The Brave and the Bold #184 titled “The Batman’s Last Christmas.” Now, judging by the cover, it doesn’t look like Batman is having a holly jolly Christmas and the Huntress looks very concerned for him. But despite appearances, it is not really a story centred on manpain or Bruce Wayne’s usual brooding. Quite the opposite! It is instead a story about rediscovering the meaning of love, family, and friendship! Let’s get right to it.
Having spent the last three months discussing Helena Wayne’s publication history (from pre-Crisis to post-Flashpoint), we now get to talk about the Huntress story that started it all for me: Justice Society of America Annual #1 by Geoff Johns and Jerry Ordway.
Here we are! Last trade discussion before we wrap up Helena Wayne’s 40th anniversary with my favourite Huntress stories of all time in the next few weeks. It has been a very cathartic experience revisiting the pre-Crisis Huntress because I am truthfully very frightened about seeing Helena integrated into the Prime Earth Batman Family if Tom King’s Batman annual is anything to go by. Not because I think it’s a bad thing for her to get that kind of exposure. In fact, it’ll work in her favour because Batman fans love her just as much. It’s more concern over what she will lose in the process, and it’s the character’s rich history and core mythology that I don’t want to see get sacrificed to make her work within the confinements of DC’s twice (haphazardly) rebooted main Earth.
Let me start by saying it is hard to talk about Justice League without discussing the stuff that went on behind the scenes during production. From Warner Bros. decision to start shooting this film before knowing how Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would be received both commercially and critically, to the last minute changes they made to the film during post-production in an attempt to course-correct–all of that factored into the final product that is the theatrical release of Justice League. It’s enough to say this is my third draft of my review for the film.
In Paris, France, art culture is alive and well. Home to some of the most renowned museums in the world, such as the Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and Centre Pompidou, it seems as though the largest celebrities are the collections of art throughout the city. Visitors from all over the world flock each day to the Louvre to view classics like the Mona Lisa,Victory Angel, and Venus de Milo. In 2016 alone, the Musée du Louvre saw approximately 7.3 million people. (Source) Each person, upon entry, is immediately bombarded with reminders of the most popular works in the entire 38,000+ piece museum. Placards usher visitors through the corridors, promising to guide them to La Jaconde, and in turn leading them to the visitor dumping ground, piling them onto the sweaty heap of selfie-stick-wielding tourists, bloodthirsty for a peek at Mona Lisaherself.
Have you ever asked yourself why the Mona Lisa is so famous? It isn’t the epitome of fine art by a long shot. Like a Kardashian, La Jacondeis most likely famous because of scandal. In 1911, the painting was stolen from the museum after hours. The theft made international news as the entire world tuned in to find out what happened to the da Vinci original. After it was found, replaced, and vandalized a few times, it got new digs behind bulletproof glass and a partition, and thus the crowd formed. Suddenly, visitors were turning their backs on the other priceless works in the museum to make a bee-line for the swarm around the drama-magnet painting.
The public continues to drink in what the Louvre PR staff pumps out throughout the museum, collecting in pools around the Victory AngelandVenus de Milo. When they are finally through, they ring out their consumerist drool in the gift shop, emptying their wallets over anything and everything with the Mona Lisa on it. Shelves are coated in the iconic smile and captivating eyes adjacent to staggering Euro signs. Pop art models of Venus de Milo are arranged artfully at the entrance, hypnotizing passersby to drop their cash at the feet of the museum staff without even checking the price tag. Why? Because I’ve seen the real thing, and the countless pictures I took from every possible angle is not enough to commemorate that time I saw the most famous pieces of art ever.
The crowd around the Mona Lisa on a standard Monday afternoon. Note how few people are actually looking at the painting itself instead of through their camera.
Looking back at the sea of Mona Lisa visitors which nearly fills the small gallery room. The other works in the room are commonly neglected by the thousands of people who cycle through every day.
A smaller, but still congested crowd around Venus de Milo. This piece, like La Jaconde, is placed in the middle of the room, perhaps for ease of access.
With the Victory Angel at the top of the stairs, mobs pose a problem for the traffic flow of the museum. Some people will retreat to the balcony opposite the sculpture, creating their own sky box of viewers.
A new 21st century dimension to this phenomenon is the selfie culture. It is no longer enough to simply take a picture of the art. The amount of people with their backs to the piece in order to get in a picture withit seems counterproductive. Tweeting that you saw the Victory Angel is inaccurate, unless you have eyes in the back of your head.
Visitors commonly have to squeeze and elbow through the ravenous crowd outside the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. If you didn’t have claustrophobia before…
A fraction of the amount of visitors to the Louvre every day. Tour groups create waves in traffic throughout the museum, and have a tendency to linger at our favorite 3 pieces.
Gift shop display of Venus de Milo figurines in various colors. It’s almost refreshing to see something that isn’t the Mona Lisa, but these colorful little ladies are like chum for gift shop customers. At the end of the day, you’re going home with Lisa.
One of the many Mona Lisa displays in the Louvre gift shop. There’s a famous controversy about what her smile means. I cracked the code. It says, “BUY ME”.
The consumerism of the Mona Lisa extends outside the museum as a motif in advertisement. This ad is in a Paris metro station, but La Jaconde can even be found on billboards off I-84 in the United States.
Worldwide, in France, the US and beyond, the popularity of art is defined not by its quality, but rather by its value as a product to sell to an ususpecting, unquestioning, consumerist public.
I do not know why i am feeling like writing so much today, maybe i had a productive weekend or is it hormonal fluctuations overpowering my emotions and mood…OKAY! What so ever! I got a pet last Saturday. My Dad was driving past an area in Punjab called BANUR and this little fellow was running along our car. All of a sudden my Dad who love dogs but from a distance, said do you want to pet him? I was a bit surprised and elated at the same time. I said,”YES”. We gave him a boiled egg to eat and put him in the car. Its just third day and i am so empathetic for him. I do not mind waking up at 6:30 in the morning to take him for a walk, cleaning his pee and poop. I am at my office right now and i am thinking what he might be doing, he might be crying and sad and missing me. This is unconditional love where we give our 100% to a creature without expecting anything in return. If there are expectations and greed, then it was always out of motive. I do not know why humans cannot love other humans with this selfless motive and why it is always with an animal. Why our thought process changes from person to person. My words may sound conflicting and they will be because everyone have their own opinions , maybe after sometime my own opinions change and we cannot stick to just one opinion because they change based on circumstances , situations and surroundings.
You can hide from yourself or you can embrace the realities of being committed to an individual.
Blocking/unfriending/avoiding and so on does not show love or genuine interest, it shows the inability to function in the world without safety rails; it shows immaturity.
Grow strong with your person, open your eyes to the world, and embrace the journey.
It always disturbs me when I see a picture or gif of some gangbanger piece of crap holding a glock as if he is the shit. Sheepdogs carry the glock (and at times the 1911, Sig Sauer, etc). The bottom line: stick with what you are worth. A hi-point.
Earlier this week, Nicki Minaj released a verse on Gucci Mane‘s “Make Love” repeatedly calling someone a dumb ass and bum ass. Today, Remy Ma decided was done with the subliminal messages and responded with her version of “Ether”, “Shether”. Remy delivered a very lethal seven minutes of attacking Nicki, her music, her love life, and alluding to drug use. Nicki responded with very subtle hints of…
I’ve been browsing the internet for erotica since 1998. And ever since, what really gets me is how male masturbation gets categorized.
On the majority of porn websites, male masturbation imagery is associated with gayness. Think about it: the majority of the time, when you look up for “masturbation” images, what comes up is solo female imagery by default. And if you want to see men masturbating, you have to search for “solo male” which is always a subcategory under gay. WTF is up with that? Never in my life have I ever associated masturbation specifically with being gay.
Another message that gets sunk into our head over and over again, is the concept that masturbation is a lesser form of pleasure for men who can’t have a vagina to penetrate. WTF is up with that? This is not what it is.
Maybe I just had a healthier adolescence with more masturbation-positive experiences than others?
Over the last couple of days, I’ve seen a lot of talk (mostly on “TV news” sites) about how DuckTales ratings were down and not living up to what Disney expected and a whole lot of nonsense like that. Now, I’m not saying it’s not true; I honestly don’t know (and I’ve literally spent the past half hour trying to find the ratings). I’m saying that if it is true, it’s Disney’s fault.
It’s so hard for me to write all this because I practically worshipped Disney most of my life. I grew up watching Disney movies and then Disney Channel shows; most of what I remember from the first 12+ years of my life (in terms of TV and film) is Disney. I think I’ve watched most of the Disney films and shows that came out anytime between 1990 and 2010. Seriously. Disney is more or less ingrained into my DNA.
But the truth needs to be said. Disney failed DuckTales.
I’m not talking about season 3, because I understand that was intentional (although that still says something about lack of proper organisation). I’m talking about the first two seasons. And to be more specific, I’m talking about how inconsistently those two seasons aired.
I’ve said it quite a bit after season 1 started, because it made no sense and it infuriated me. Disney spent a lot of time and money promoting the show, particularly before the opening two-parter. The couple of weeks before it aired, there were so many interviews and events and takeovers, it looked like they’re preparing their new lead animated show. Then we had a break we knew was coming (they announced in advance it’s going to start a few weeks after the special), and then for a few weeks we got an episode every week, just as you’d expect it.
And that’s roughly when Disney’s programming stopped making sense, at least as far as DuckTales goes.
To be honest, I thought waiting for your show to return from a hiatus following a cliffhanger was the second worst thing in the realm of TV (having your show cancelledon a cliffhanger being the worst thing, of course). In 2017, Disney taught me there was worsethan that. Because you could be waiting for your show to return from a hiatus, not knowing how long it’ll take for it to return, how many episodes you’re going to get when it does, and how long a hiatus you’ll have after the few episodes you’ll get then.
When it happened the first time, after 1x08 (The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra), it made little sense, but it was near holiday hiatus (I will never understand American programming), so it could be argued it had something to do with that. Then in December we got an episode after about a month without any news, and again, Disney went silent. It took five very long months for DuckTales to come back. Five months without a word. Not a clue about when it returns or how long for. It was then that it moved from Disney XD to Disney Channel.
For basically the second half of season 1, it seemed like they’ve finally decided about what to do with DuckTales. The Disney Channel move was doing DuckTales good: the ratings were up, season 3 was announced before season 2 had even premiered, it aired more-or-less regularly and the fans were thrilled. Obviously, so was Disney.
Naturally, when season 2 started, about a month after that announcement, the mood was still high. Why wouldn’t it be? The season one arc was amazing, the finale was done spectacularly well, the show was finally in its rightful place on Disney Channel and we had a season 3 announcement already. Seriously, what’s not to be happy about?
And then they started playing the same game they did with season 1. Six episodes in, a supposedly-holidays-break. I say supposedly because holidays breaks tend to start in December and end in January. Not in March. Then an episode in March. Then two more months of waiting, not knowing when it’ll be back. Then suddenly it’s a daily show for a week and a half, and just as you start to think you’re finally getting to see the rest of the season, they take another 3.5 months break. The final 8 episodes get aired over two weeks in September, nearly a year after the season premiere aired.
Now, let me ask you something. Can you really be surprised if the ratings are down after this sort of programming?
I’m not a TV expert, not by a long shot. But it doesn’t take expertise to know this is really bad programming. All it takes is common sense. The whole American half-season-hiatus-half-season model is already frustrating enough as it is, but I get that that’s how it is. But what happened with DuckTales wasn’t even it. It looked more like Disney execs were throwing darts at a board with shows’ names on it than an actual, pre-built schedule. Seriously.
And all of this? Just true for the States. The rest of the world got it even more erratically than that nightmare. Disney+ hasn’t been up to date with anything either; as of May 2020, Disney+ UK (since that’s where I am) only had season 1 on (apparently they’ve got two now; nice to see they finally caught up with Disney+ US). And season 3? Well, so far it seems it’s been basically impossible to follow it legally in quite a few countries. US probably included.
So if the ratings aredown, I think the only people to blame here are Disney. There’s only so much you can do as a fan when your gets pushed around and you haven’t a clue when you might get to see it again. I suspect ratings would be significantly higher if you included the people who watch it only when the season ends because they’re sick of this game, but… what do I know?
*I’ve seen a lot of talk online (in fan areas) saying it’s not really a ratings issue, but it’s because Disney doesn’t want to pay for more than 3 seasons of a show. They make up a ratings issue, but the real reason. IMO it’s more than likely, but I honestly don’t know. But if that’s the truth and it’s their pattern… well, I absolutely agree with this comment in that respect; it’s a real issue. You can’t expect people to get invested knowing a show will be taken away from them two or three years later. It might work with kids, but in shows meant for adults as well… it just doesn’t work. And the DuckTales team said they’re appealing to viewers of the original show and to younger viewers alike from day one. That was literally half their promotion. So if that’s the case, this is something they should’v considered. Because… really, Disney, you’re only damaging yourself when you’re doing that.
“In #Anipoke Episode 114. Satoshi’s rival in the “Pokemon Diamond Pearl” anime Shinji makes an appearance⚡️. He also fought Satoshi in the quarterfinal match of the Shin-Ou League.
He’s cool, and sometimes hard on his Pokémon…
This time, Shinji and Satoshi will have a special training battle .
Stand by for the battle! / Stand by for battle!“
“He’s cool, and sometimes hard on his Pokemon”
…..We’re still going with thatbullshit, are we? -_-
Who wrote this episode, again?
Of fucking course.
That description might not be too off from the Paul was saw in this episode, but it doesn’t AT ALL fit with the Paul from the D/P series.
And it could be that Paul in this timeline wasn’t ever as abusive to his Pokemon, just like Serena might’ve never had a crush on Ash…but if that were the case, then what was the Ash VS Paul rivalry even for?
Thatdefinitelyisn’t the case, since we got flashbacks showing how Paul abused and ultimately abandoned Chimchar. Paul’s problem as both a horrible person in D/P and as a semi-decent person here is the same: Atsuhiro Tomioka. This character is his own take on Silver from the games, but he just did not understand that you were never supposed to see Silver as “cool” during his phase as an antagonist, you were supposed to loathehim and see his heartless, abusive treatment of people and Pokemon alike as exactly what it is. Whereas Tomioka didn’t allow other characters to react to Paul realistically, and really pushed for the viewer to see him as “cool” and view his treatment of Pokemon as a wrong-headed but still valid and understandable training method. And while it took Silver getting his ass handed to him several times for him to start changing his ways, Paul only lost twice (to Brandon and Ash), and didn’t show signs of changing his ways until after the second loss, which isn’t very believable given how he always beat Ash before and would be more likely to brush his victory at the League off as dumb luck. Lastly, Silver’s turnaround was full of visible remorse for what he used to be like and active attempts at reparations, and there’s none of that with Paul. Author favoritism is always a dangerous thing for characters, and Paul’s a prime case of it.
