Frost Fight! (2015)

Marvel Super-Hero Adventures: Frost Fight!

In short form Loki and Frost Giant Ymir scheme to rule over realms, by plunging the worlds into an ice age?  Loki's lineage is that he is the crown prince of Jotunheim, biological son to King Laufey. In a ploy seen in the original motion picture, to rule Asgard and gain the thrown, Loki tricked Laufey into Asgard in a devised coup to kill Odin in his chamber, but killed his father for what I can surmise as a shame or disenchanted view of his true  origins.  So in his blue skin appearance in a frosted cave in the presence of Ymir, Loki appears unbothered by the cold temperature and can rule a kingdom in ice.

Long form the movie opens up in Monuriki Island, a very small uninhabited island from the islands of Fiji.  Tom Hanks movie Castaway was shot there. The plan was Ymir to arrive on the island and unleash the Casket of Ancient Winters on earth. By being in a small desolate pocket on earth, finding and arriving to the point on the planet that would create the ice age would garner the heroes to be too late to stop it and undo the damage.  The avengers did however arrive before the casket could be opened, and Tony Stark questioned in their battle of why a frost giant is standing his ground continuing to fight back where the environment he is in averages  30*C/ 25*F in the month of December, a place that never sees snow. Thor does state Ymir comes from Nifelheim a realm of mist/fog, but is perceived as a cold landscape.  The avengers bring on a trainee named Reptil to observe the team work.  Captain America has him moved out of the battle area and scout the perimeter.   Reptil soon spots Loki to whom after being discovered plots a quick escape and conjures a dimensional black hole sucking the contents of the island and any inhabitants into it.  Captain Marvel and Captain America mange to separate the Casket of Ancient Winters just before Ymir gets pulled into the vortex and finally sealing the inter dimensional rift.

Next we see the villains regroup in a frost cave, Ymir suggest if they stealing the ancient powers of Jolnir a mythic character that is half frost giant and half elf that can bend time and space among other gifts not yet discovered.  They could accomplish their goal of domination.  According to Ymir if they upsurp the Casket of Ancient Powers an item that also exists in Jolnir’s realm they can transfer Jolnir’s powers into Loki.   The duo would need to travel to Alfheim – home of the light elves.   Just before they make there way, Loki decides to keep the avengers busy, he travels to a realm where dinosaur like creatures roam the planet and drops a triceratops like creature in downtown Manhattan Island.


In recourse of distraction, Reptil transforming his appearance to a dinosaur to stops the triceratops; thinking she has found her young and becomes docile. They suspect Loki is up to something, meanwhile in the realms of space Loki has put out a large bounty for the capture of Jolnir. That posting grabs the attention of Rocket and Groot, just months before they were destined to join the Guardians of the Galaxy.  Thor Returns to earth after securing the Casket of Ancient Winters in Odins vault, and reports the bounty of Jolnir, and begins to laugh it off as Jolnir on Midgard is referred to as Santa Claus.

Agents of Shield SEASON TWO (11 -19)

Season two of Marvel's Agents of Shield was not as connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as fans would have liked.  Joss Whedon had express fatigue from working so closely within the frame work of Marvels phase 2; completing Avengers and then its immediate sequel, while ensuring that the vast story arcs, structure, and care would be given in telling the continuing saga through into the next chapter. As for network television Whedon was really hands off, Episodes 1 - 18 of the season focused on carrying on with its own storyline as season one's finale had initially set up.  Episode 19 would provide a little exposition entering into the opening of Avengers: Age of Ultron.  While retrospectively the show's final mission provides an interesting call back to the entirety of season two.

Episode 11, is the start of a new chapter in direction of the series, not given a name to what those whose hereditary genetic markers has given rise to.  Leo Fitz had uttered a diagnosis of Skye’s condition of being inhuman, only once in the body of the season.  The Mystery of Skye’s lineage is revealed and the resolve of Phil Coulson’s resurrection has concluded. These were the two largest questions fueling the underbelly of the first season.  Raina the woman in the floral dress who was seeking life’s great mysteries beyond the veil of human eyes and Skye are from the same lineage, and are now forever transformed into what can be classified as biological metahumans not enhanced like Deathlok or Donnie Gill (the altered young man who can freeze anything).The first ever Shield interaction with a bio-metahuman was Agent Melinda May’s experience in Bahrain. Episode 17 titled Melinda reveals the story of Agent May and what forever changed the trajectory of her life and garnered her name the cavalry. The tie-in to the slaughter of all the Shield Agents that protected Skye as a baby are all brought to light.  The story really develops exposition in episode 12 titled 'Who You Really Are', with a Kree battling the Asgardian warrior Lady Sif on earth, the Kree race had done experiments to human subjects with Terrigen crystals, the experiments failed as no compatible hosts were found, and they were meant as expendable weaponized world destroyers.  Very much in creative design process of having an advance civilization who came to a planet not inhabited by their kind  and began creating biological world destroying weapons, such as in the movie Prometheus.   The evolution of Jiaying allowed for a state of a controlled existence with these military designed weapons (meta-human), which gave birth to a new civilization in a hidden city called afterlife.  In Episode 11 titled Aftershocks, By destroying the heads of hydra by turning them against each other leaving only Dr. List and Baron Strucker as final leaders to topple; The Agents of Shield fought amongst themselves as to whom is the true embodiment to follow in Nick Fury’s footsteps.  Raina develops a clairvoyant extra sensory perception, and is a hideous physical monster constantly hiding in the shadows. While the family reunion of Skye and he biological parents will lead to the inevitable clash of worlds with shield and her kind in the season’s final episodes.

 Episode 19, leads to the capture of Dr. List one of the powerful heads of Hydra, this in turn reveals the whereabouts of Baron Strucker and his base in the Sokovia.  The assault on Dr. List’s location allows Phil Coulson to extract files from Hydra's servers, this in turn recovers the location of Loki’s Sceptor, and unveils the preparation of Theta Protocol a hidden agenda that took up most of the teams funds and Coulson’s absence in the period of the finale of season one to the start of Season two; and is now ready to be revealed in Age of Ultron. These revelations are really brought up in a private video conference call between Maria Hill and Phil Coulson in the final moments of the episode, and Raina’s vision of the coming of the Age of Ultron.  

Episode 11, provides one historical flashback, Jiaying being a mentor and introduces us to the young teleporter known as Gordon.  What it sets up in the big picture is a definitive time line of events.  We see the red door of the entrance to Afterlife and young Gordon trying to grasp his powers for the first time, but the flash back reveals the year 1983,

The Final Mission involves time travels to 1982 and skips a series of months until landing into 1983 and a young Jiaying, 5 years before the birth of Skye and the meeting of Skye’s father.  Daniel Whitehall the Hydra Agent working under Red Skull who cheated death by harvesting Jiaying glands and tissues and captured her rejuvenating ability. Is now in this branch of the time-stream a youthful version of himself, who harvested glands and tissues of Skye and captured her quake powers instead. Mother and daughter confront the earlier version of Whitehall, and Jiaying falls victim to her fate early and undermines the birth of Skye, but according to the principles of Endgame rules of time travel, Skye’s present is now the future and thus she is not going to be erased from history.  Shield is systematically destroyed by an invading enemy, this time not Hydra, Mac who led the division with shield factions in season 2, is leading Shield in an alternate faction and goes rogue by way of undermining his normal routine to infiltrate Sybil a powerful A.I.  Who can predict outcomes based on the patterns of her enemies.

 Jemma Simmons is the one agent everyone depends on to unlock the mystery for the team to advance forward. As  Leo Fitz sits on the side lines due to neurological damage; coincidently in the final mission Leo Fitz is hidden somewhere in time. In the series final two episodes Jemma is having problems retrieving particular memories ; an act made deliberate by  her and Leo to protect the mission,  that was triggered  to get worse when Daniel Whitehall digs too deep into Jemma’s mind and involuntarily wiping out all memory of Fitz existence. Besides the reintroduction of Daniel Whitehall, Patton Oswald’s Koening character (s), Agent Garret, Jiaying & Gordon, we also revisit the concept of project insight, the city of Afterlife, and another family Reunion for Skye with the sister she never knew she had.  The conspiracy theory of Coulson being an LMD finally gets explored in this season, and mentioning May’s ordeal in Bahrain, and seeing that she has finally moved passed it in the final season. Has made the experience of watching season two with fresh pair of eyes as actions, people and historical points have some call back for the final mission; which in turn works as philosophical Endgame scenario 

We're looking back at the previous MCU phases after watching the Infinity War and EndGame movies; you would gather a better appreciation of the storytelling and subtle nuisances that begins to shape the season and beyond. When you discover the journey becomes more exciting when you been to the destination.

Lego Marvel: Avengers ReAssembled

Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Avengers Reassembled is a delightful short animated spoof on the avenger’s movie.  It’s a loosely adapted story taking from the final films of phase 2 that is Age of Ultron and Ant-man. The animation was released on November of 2015, a few months after the summer release of Ant-Man, with release notes from civil war for having Spiderman making his cameo appearance in this story.

The animation keeps with the trend of using puns and rolling gags to occupy the brevity of its story.  The premise is very straight forward Tony Stark is going for Ice for his special announcement party when Utlron kidnaps him and controls the ironman armor and all of Tony’s Iron Legion.  It’s up to the avengers Captain America, Thor, Vision, The Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye to rescue him and save the world from annihilation. In this adventure, we as the viewer are introduced to little Sokovia a small district in New York and that appears to be a giant castle near central park west. Von Strucker and his members of Hydra have made a deal with Ultron, work for him and they get to keep a small part of the world...Australia..  That line or thought bubble  comes straight from Superman II as Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor strikes a bargain with General Zod  in his conquest for world domination.  The film offers a little help from Ant-Man as Captain America like’s to refer to joking one liners of Scott Lang’s size in making the roll call of his name to fellow avengers.  Ant-Man is called in to combat yellow jacket another miniature character that’s in league with Ultron. 

The animation has a runtime of 22 minutes; just enough to tell a complete and fast pace story, and concludes just before you look down at your watch should you feel the story starts to drag.  Directed by Rob Silvertri, an animator by design that is just breaking into his own. His next project Blazing Samurai is set to release in the summer of 2021.

Ultimate Avengers 2

Ultimate Avengers 2, was a follow up to a movie that was released earlier that same year in 2006.   Unlike its predecessor, this film has 3 well known actors providing their voices.  Producer Craig Kyle, has went on record to say he did not want people trying to guess who was providing the voices in the original movie, so he deliberately hired regular actors who best occupied the role.  On the credits you will read Dwight Schultz , Mark Hamil, and Chi McBride;  in addition to regular voice actor Olivia D’Abo who was known best for her role in the Wonder Years, playing Fred Savages’ sister.

The sequel probably takes place in real time, only a few months after the events of the first film. The film opens up in Wakanda, as Prince T’Challa has returned from abroad, his father King T’Chaka sent him to study in Oxford , where gained an PhD. in physics. The Chitarui aliens have entered Wakanda lead by Herr Kleiser a high ranking member of the alien hierarchy who is a shape shifter alien; who back in World War 2 absorbed and devoured the original Nazi officer with that name.  In the early phases of Marvel, the studio did not own the rights to the Skrulls it was a property of 20^th Century Fox, The Chitauri, an alien race existing only in the Ultimates; are revealed to be a subversive group of terrorists within the alien Skrull race.  This fact is completely dropped and not included in the motion picture movies due to the conflict of Intellectual property ownership.

Ultimate Avengers 2: The movie, predates Avengers: Age of Ultron by 9 years, but shares some similar story threads. In the theatrical release Thor was given a vision by the Norns of Fate while bathing in a sacred pool. While in this movie Thor can be seen practicing the art of Ruinic divination. Translating messages from ancient ideograms by using the environment and sacrificing a bit of his own blood.  The message came in the form of a nightmare vision foretelling the death of the avengers. Steve Rogers has trouble sleeping as he struggles being a man out of time; out living everyone he has ever known, and pushing hard at being just a soldier the one thing he was designed for and finds comfortable in doing; as his life outside of that appears empty.

Bruce Banner remains under containment and is periodically interrogated for his actions in the first movie; those scenes are a throwback to issue #7 of the Ultimates comic titled Homeland security.  The interrogation establishes the tone for this movie.  We are watching a drama; many of the cast of characters have conflicts ahead of the alien invasion, Hank Pym though a scientific genius is emotionally unstable with his relationship with Janet, and displaying an imbalance on his perception with acceptance on accomplishments. Tony Stark has a subtle call back to the story of demon in the bottle has he is seen having a private drink amongst the team who are arguing.  Thor has constantly defied his father with his connection to Midgard, in the comics that defiance has led to numerous occasions where Odin had stripped him of his powers. Conversely the original motion picture, Thor’s powers were stripped because his ego and lack of empathy and consideration for his people on Asgard, had him cast out to Midgard.

At the heart of this movie is an extra-terrestrial invasion; however the film does not embrace a lovecraftian approach in its storytelling.  Herr Kleiser is the only entity with body manipulation, as his story climax takes shape with a horror element.  The overall direction of movie leans more to Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds, adapted by H.G. Wells novel; the images with the attack on London clearly depict imagery from that story and the world being encased in a dome with attacks all over the world in tandem to the attack on Wakanda.  

Most characters story arcs reach a resolve or an evolution; as characters like Bruce Banner does end up in a different place by the conclusion of the movie there is an open door for a further story development.  Ultimate Avengers 3, though possible to make is not likely to be created as Marvel Studios has plan to set up both future television series and animated series under the umbrella of phase 4 and phase 5 line ups. A realization would have to come from fans pushing a request through social media and other venues to show interest.  An opportunity that won’t be realized in that specific art form, however fans will have splinters of other stories starting with “What if….”  An upcoming animated anthology series coming to phase 4, with an episode asking what if Peggy Carter received the super soldier serum during the World War.