When even low expectations can’t save a thing.
A Short Review of ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ (PS4)
It ain’t great.
The ‘Rasslin’ Report
AEW’s “All Out” was a middling affair, but there’s only so much you can do when half your main event participants are either too old (Jericho, and I am sorry, but he can’t keep doing what he does at this late stage in his career this high on the card) or too green and corny (MJF). The real sin of the night — and this is not some revolutionary opinion here, I’ll admit — was the refusal to call off the Matt Hardy-Sammy Guevara last man standing match, a decision that not only soured what could have been a better night but also put the lives of two wrestlers in jeopardy.
But it shouldn’t have come to that. Hardy and Guevara were in a mid-card feud, one that shouldn’t have been given a stip like the “last man standing” mod that should be saved for main event grudges that need to be definitively settled. And nothing says “hardcore blood feud” like opening the match with a reprisal of a comedy golf cart spot.
From there, it was on to a mid-match spot — a table bump from a scissor life — that was supposed to be only a segue to an even more dangerous one. But it went horribly wrong as Hardy and Guevara overshot the table, and Hardy’s head hit the concrete. Referee Aubrey Edwards threw up the X (but that’s been worked so many times, who knows at this point) and seemed to call off the match, only for someone — presumably AEW head honcho Tony Kahn — to send Hardy and Guevara back out to finish the match with another (albeit safer) bump from scaffolding onto a stunt platform.
As soon as the spot went wrong, that should have been the match, and better still, the 45-year-old Hardy should not be taking murderous geekshow bumps at this stage in his career. (You think for a second Chris Jericho would do that bump?) There are more days behind in his in-ring career than there are ahead, and for someone as committed as he is to revitalization and reworking creatively, you’d think he would have found a safer way to work. (Which, to be consistent with my stance re: Jericho, should not be at the top of the card.)
I know AEW is awash in managers (Can there possibly be a happy medium between WWE’s no managers and AEW’s “everyone has a manager” policy, please?), but if Hardy feels compelled to take these bumps in order to be a relevant wrestler, then maybe he should move to another on-screen role and hang ’em up.
Before he absolutely has to.
A Longer Review of ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ (PS4)
First, a bit of a disclaimer: I’m only about 15% finished with the single player campaign (or somewhere in the ballpark of a few hours of gameplay), but I think that’s enough to draw some important conclusions.
One, the visuals are *great.* This game makes my PS4 Pro sound like a hatchback going uphill on bad gas, and it’s really impressive. There are also some nifty spots that obliterate the seams between cutscenes and gameplay in an immersive way.
Two, Kamala Khan is a great protagonist. Her story feels genuine, and some of the opening moments in which she faces nerd gatekeeping are a straight-up kick in the teeth.
And three, unfortunately everything else blows.
When gameplay is good, it’s OK — not anything we haven’t seen in “Spider-Man” or the “Arkham” series, sure, but serviceable — yet when it’s bad, it’s awful. Are you excited to screw up a platform jump and then spend the next 30 seconds staring at the same series of loading screens? What about dying repeatedly while playing as the Hulk because some game designers thought that would be fun? Or, if none of that interests you, what about playing thinly veiled PvP dressed up as barely functionable single player PvE?
Progression systems are overworked and yet don’t seem to matter in the early going of the game, rendering a product that seems both overcooked and underdone in what seems to be the overall vibe of the game. It’s not so fundamentally broken as to hate it, but there’s far too little to tether any casual fan to what feels like a lumpy, uneven mess.
I don’t know what I expected — at least, it should have been fun escapism like “Spider-Man.” But this? A thoroughly mediocre waste.
I haven’t been this disappointed in a game since “Fallout ’76.”
And Now, Your Questions
Tweet me (@willnevin) or just scream at me with some stupid thing you want answered. If you don’t ask me questions, I’ll find you and beg you for them. Don’t make me beg.
@ComicsBookcase: What do you make of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison being exact hair opposites, in that Moore has tons and Morrison has none?
Three things:
First, congrats on gettin’ the ol’ “Next Door” comic funded. I was happy to throw in my five spot (with the added bonus that it brought your total to $6,666), and I’m looking forward to reading what you and your team put out. Nicely done, my man.
Second, I have entirely too much hair now. I mean, the last time I had a trim was March, and before that, I went every three weeks to have my high ’n’ tight touched up. This is too much, and it seems like it’s in all the wrong places. My eyes. Down my neck. Over my ears (which is slightly gray, by the way, and fuck you for that, Father Time). There’s no decent way to style it, so it always looks like a mess. I hate it. But not as much as I hate right now being indoors and 6 inches away from a stranger for 20 minutes.
Third, your question. I’m trying to find some deeper meaning in it, but really, aren’t these fellers more alike than they are different? Yes, one is in self-imposed exile/retirement and the other is doing whatever the hell he pleases on “Green Lantern,” but they’ve basically told Big Two comics to eff off (Morrison’s current gig notwithstanding). Maybe the point here is that hair — and having your intellectual property swindled — makes you bitter.
@Charliestolz: It has to be juice blood, but what currently boggles my mind is the structural integrity of the Kool-Aid Man. Obviously strong enough to break through stone. Metals? Don’t know. Don’t know if there’s a prison that could hold him.
This is a throwback to some good ol’ Kool-Aid Man discourse, and while we talked a whole bunch about his blood and what sort of spiritual commitment you make when you drink it, there wasn’t a lot of speculation about what his container was actually made of (aside from some talk of whether it was better classified as bones or skin — as it was determined, exoskeleton is the way to go there).
It’s not glass; we know that because glass < brick < Kool-Aid Man, and plastic doesn’t seem right either. So I’ll borrow one of my favorite bits of “Star Trek” lore and say the Kool-Aid Man’s exoskeleton is composed of transparent aluminum. Because the best solution when faced with an impossible engineering situation is simple: Just make something up.
@BlackFish775: As a follow-up question, what mutant power would make Nick Saban an even more feared coach than he is now?
Whatever his power, it’d have to be mental ’cuz he’s not suiting up on Saturdays, and we’d also have to consider the two areas in which it pays to have a quality coach: recruiting and gameday strategy. Saban has long been touted as a master of the first, but he’s perhaps lacking in the second, especially when it comes to adjusting a pregame strategy to fit in-game circumstances. (Alabama losses of the last few years seem to be of the snowballing, “everything is going wrong at once” variety.)
So let’s make him a master tactician: Saban becomes a precog with the ability to see all possible outcomes from his decisions (a la Destiny), and he’s able to base his in-game strategy on that information. Functionally, I guess that gives him the ability to see what plays the other team is likely to run — something that would help any football team. He’d probably find some inexplicable way to fuck it up against Auburn, though.
@93418: Wolverine…totally a K-pop fan, right?
Another throwback of sorts, and I’ll use the same logic as my Wolverine and craft beer answer: Logan has seen everything, done everything and listened to everything. And while our musical tastes tend to calcify (there’s more than a little truth in the Chris Rock joke that whatever music you were listening to when you started having sex is the music you love forever), what was the music of the day when Wolverine came of age? Orchestral? Chamber? Nah, that doesn’t work.
K-pop is at least new and different, at least when you’re talking Wolvie’s timeframe. And, sure, maybe he wouldn’t listen to it exclusively. But I think he’d be intrigued.
@taitaisanchez: In the strictest, most technical sense, is Galactus following the paleo diet?
Disclaimer from the Xavier Files Legal Department (which I think is me, but go along with the bit): WHY, WILL is not to be used as medical advice. Or any advice at all. Read at your own peril. Departing contestants receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Key West, where they stay at CROCODILE JACK’S BEDS N STUFF, the most luxurious-ish bed and “breakfast” in all of the Florida Keys.
The paleo diet, like 99% of the other diets out there, is bullshit, but this particular flavor of bullshit is premised on the idea that if you restrict your intake to foods that “might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era,” you’ll get benefits and stuff — namely turning off all your friends as you constantly harp on how your new diet is better and how they should get on it and YES WE GET IT, YOU OBNOXIOUS SHIT. Hunter-gatherer foods (fruits, vegetables, “grass-fed” and “free range” meats and fish) are in, while dairy, grains, potatoes, refined sugar and other more modern staples are out.
Galactus is the devourer of worlds, the end of all things, a being who must consume the lifeforce of entire planets to survive. If he ate Earth tomorrow, there’d be a lot of paleo-conforming stuff going down his gullet, but considering there’d be some doughnuts, tater tots and lasagna in there too, it wouldn’t all fall within the diet, so a strict, technical paleo diet is out.
But we’ve got something: The best way I can figure it, if Galactus doesn’t prepare planets in the same way that mere mortals would cook food, he’s more closely following a raw food diet. So rest easy knowing that he’s on some bullshit — just not the paleo bullshit.
Your ‘Why, Will’ Weekly Planner
Today, Wednesday, Sept. 9: “Bill & Ted Are Doomed” #1, “The Donald Who Laughs” #2 (I have a problem, I know this), “Ice Cream Man Presents Quarantine Comix Special” (hell yes). A little…thin.
Thursday: The 2020 NFL season kicks off as the Houston Texans travel to face the Kansas City Chiefs in the middle of a global pandemic that shows no signs of abating here in the United States. Super awesome.
Friday: “Spy Cat” opens in theaters? On demand? On Netflix? Who knows, but here’s a synopsis: “Marnie, a pampered house cat, trades a life of luxury for a new adventure as a private eye. With help from new friends and her favorite detective TV shows, Marnie sets out to solve a mystery and prove she’s more than just a house cat.”
Saturday: Duke and Notre Dame are scheduled to play a regulation game of American college football. Again, super awesome.
Sunday: The President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump will be in Las Vegas for a campaign rally. Here’s the waiver attendees acknowledge when they sign up for tickets:
“By registering for this event, you understand and expressly acknowledge that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. In attending the event, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, and waive, release, and discharge Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; the host venue; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers from any and all liability under any theory, whether in negligence or otherwise, for any illness or injury.”
Monday: “The Drew Barrymore Show” premieres. Huh. That’s really a thing. Check your local daytime listings, I guess.
Tuesday: “Batman” #99 (Oh God, so close to being finished with “Joker War”) and anything with Tom Taylor’s name on it.
Stay safe. Stay sane.
Have a good week, y’all.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
