What Was the Point of Marvel's Secret Empire? There was something very telling about Marvel’s decision this past Monday to announce to The New York Times how its Secret Empire event would end. It felt like the publisher was trying to get ahead of yet more problems coming from the series’ conclusion. Now that the final issue of its primary series is in stores today, we know that’s right—and how thoroughly Secret Empire failed. The core concept that Marvel’s blond- haired, blue- eyed living symbol for American patriotism could actually be a sociopathic fascist with a plan to remake the world in his image was a disturbing one, to be sure. But Secret Empire had the potential to become an iconic story about the dangers of blindly buying into a dark, warped form of American exceptionalism that, given enough time, became the base ideology for Hydra’s oppressive, authoritarian society. This potentially powerful story’s importance was only further heightened by the major political events that defined 2. D- list comic book supervillain managed to become President of the United States. Marvel insisted that Secret Empire wasn’t meant to be a piece of political commentary, but the series launched at a time when its plot eerily echoed the social and political anxieties plaguing the country. Political or not, Secret Empire had every chance to become the kind of seminal story that defined what a flagship comic book event could be in the 2. But by Monday, when Marvel spoiled the ending to its own major comic book event, the writing was already on the wall: Secret Empire was about to end poorly and damage control was necessary. Having read the issue, we can say that calling it a series of predictable, unfortunate, bad events is too charitable. Even if you’re able to completely divorce yourself from the many controversies associated with Secret Empire, you can’t deny the fact that today’s issue #1. GIGSANDTOURS buy concert and gig tickets for a huge variety UK tour dates and shows, whether you're into rock, pop, indie, metal, jazz, blues or alternative music. See photos from the historic flight and visions of the moon through the eyes of the Apollo 11 crew. Or, at least, lazy and not at all the kind of well thought- out issue a publisher would want to end an event with. After months of brutal battles and painful deaths, Earth’s mightiest heroes all finally get a chance to take on Steve Rogers himself, newly in possession of a nearly- complete Cosmic Cube and a Hydra- themed suit that allows him to harness its power. As the heroes all dive at Steve, more than prepared to bring the world’s suffering to an end, it’s obvious that even now Secret Empire’s more interested in “shocking” plot twists than trying to actually say or do anything interesting with its story. The Avengers, X- Men, and Champions converge on Steve only to be effortlessly erased from existence because Steve’s wearing a suit that’s literally powered by a macguffin. What are a few humanoids in spandex to a man with the ability to bend reality itself to his will? But this is a comic book event, which means that the Good Guys have got to win, and they’ve got to win thanks to a clever plan that nobody, not even a man with cosmic omniscience could see coming. Offers news, comment and features about the British arts scene with sections on books, films, music, theatre, art and architecture. Requires free registration. Greetings, my Westerosi window envelopes! As you can probably guess, last week’s episode of Game of Thrones—and its increasing dominance over the pop culture. View auction details, art exhibitions and online catalogues; bid, buy and collect contemporary, impressionist or modern art, old masters, jewellery, wine, watches. Current and archived news stories on NASA and aerospace related news. You can watch cartoon online for free and in English. After Steve erases all of the physical devastation he’s inflicted upon the world, he’s surprised by a visit from Sam Wilson, the current Captain America, who just so happens to have the final piece of the Cosmic Cube that would turn Steve into a god if he managed to get his hands on it. At this point in the story, there’s nothing much that Sam can really do to fight Steve. He’s outgunned and his friends are all dead, so he does the sensible thing and bends the knee to Steve, offering his piece of the Cube as a show of good will. But it’s a trick! Watch TV series online. TV Shows like drama, comedy, horror, thriller, science fiction series and more with complete episode guide of this series. Fearful that the Russians would continue their lead in the space race and be the first to put a man on the moon, NASA felt an enormous pressure to push the Apollo. Though the piece of the Cube is real, buried deep within it are Ant- Man and Bucky Barnes, shrunken down so small that they’re in the microverse within the Cube itself which, it turns out, is a place we’ve seen before. All of the dreamy flashes to the land bathed in white where an amnesiac alt- Steve has been encountering his friends and loved ones during all of Secret Empire? That’s all happening inside the Cube where Kobik—a living embodiment of the Cube’s powers who’s taken the form of a little girl—has been hiding from the mess she’s made of the world. Through some comics weirdness that’s never adequately explained, Bucky travels into Kobik’s pocket universe, grabs her and the Good Steve by the hand, and manages to make his way back into the larger universe all within a matter of seconds. While all of this is happening, Evil Steve is standing there like a moron, looking at his suit wondering why his god powers aren’t working anymore. Evil Steve’s horror at the fact that he’s been outsmarted immediately intensifies when he comes face to face with Good Steve who, because of the way that the Cosmic Cube works, is now a real flesh and blood person. As Kobik undoes all of the changes to reality that Evil Steve made and the Avengers are resurrected, the two Steves face off Civil War- style and proceed to beat the shit out of each other in classic comic book fashion. I’m being rather glib about all of this because there’s absolutely nothing about any of these sequences that at all feels novel or truly creative, especially when you consider the sorts of ideas that big comics events have tried to tackle in the past. No one watching the two Steves fight questions them or unpacks the symbolism of their clash, and that feels like a major mistake. It’s a sorely missed opportunity for Spencer to at least try and have Secret Empire’s characters say something meaningful or lasting about Steve, a living concept at this point, and the ways that he’s put them all through hell. Sure, one of these men is ostensibly supposed to be good and the other bad, but both of them are beings who wouldn’t exist without the Cosmic Cube. Secret Empire wants you to feel as if Captain America is a person redeeming himself for the sins of his darker half, but in reality he’s just a physical construct going through the narrative motions of a predicable hero’s narrative. Even that wouldn’t be all that bad if it weren’t for the heavy- handed, coded language of resistance scattered throughout the panels. Even though Secret Empire isn’t about politics, multiple pages of the issue are dedicated to conveying the basic idea that pseudo- Nazism (Hydra are Nazis; deal with it) is bad and that punching a Hydra figurehead is a good thing. That’s a lovely sentiment to espouse, but it comes at a point in Secret Empire when readers have had to watch as Captain America murdered thousands and sent minorities to internment camps. To lazily pile on the “punching Nazis is good” imagery without actually taking the time to unpack the psychological and emotional impact the story’s had on its characters is outrageously bad. This is what Secret Empire’s been building up to for months now and it’s a disappointment of the highest order. Secret Empire closes with Good Steve defeating Bad Steve and the entire world deciding to just go along with the idea that everything’s going to be all right now that the bad Hydra bogeyman is no more. There’s a milquetoast epilogue involving an important Inhuman character being released from an internment camp that entirely glosses over what it means to live as a minority in a community of people who were literally just calling for your extermination. The Inhuman returns home to find his home covered in “Hail Hydra” spray paint messages, but by the next day his home’s gleaming like it’s new thanks to his neighbors coming together to clean the graffiti off. Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that nice? It’s difficult to say what Marvel was trying to accomplish with Secret Empire #1. But that’s honestly understandable when you look back at just how much of a mess this has been for a while now. For all its grandstanding and shocking headline grabs, in the end Secret Empire was little more than your typical big superhero event: good guys fighting bad versions of themselves instead of each other, for once, but still a story that superhero comics have told a thousand times before. The lackluster reveal tells readers that the “absolutely- totally- real” version of Captain America Marvel has assured us we’ve been following for over a year at this point is nothing more than a Cosmic Cube- created evil clone, one who’s had the real Cap sitting in his soul all along. That convoluted mechanic speaks to the grand aimlessness of the series. Secret Empire spent too much time wallowing in the grim nature of its premise, its moments of heroism few and far between and coming much too late into the run—and that’s after Marvel extended the whole thing by an issue for good measure, only to end in an awkward rush, like butter scraped over far too much bread. Given the generic outcome of its whole premise—and the convenient manner with which America at large forgets how easily it fell under the fascist thrall of Steve Rogers’ Hydra is swept aside by the end of Secret Empire #1. Bad comic book events are usually forgotten, save for being remembered as a point of mockery by readers years later. With Secret Empire, however, the series ultimately made its biggest impact in the anger it generated, rather than anything that happened in its pages. Many were already uneasy at the idea of Captain America being made a fascist in a time when white supremacy has risen to an ugly prominence on a national level in America. But as the months dragged on, it felt like Secret Empire continued to heedlessly court controversy at every turn, from Captain America’s descent into supervillainy to variant covers putting heroes and villains alike in the crossfire of consumer ire. A great story might, in some ways, have been worth weathering the storm of fury and criticism Marvel Comics has faced this year. One that ends in such a lackluster manner as Secret Empire does, does not feel like it was worth the immense backlash Marvel faced. And yet, Marvel acted oblivious to it all, which could have dire ramifications for the publisher’s reputation going forward. Man Walks on Another World — National Geographic Magazine. Historic words and photographs by Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins. Ektachrome by Neil A. Armstrong, NASAThis article was originally published in the December 1. The talk was weighted with cryptic exchanges of scientific data, but still it rang with the stupendous drama of the greatest achievement in the history of exploration. For these were the voices of Apollo 1. The world listened as Neil Armstrong, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, and Michael Collins spoke to each other and to Cap. Com, the capsule communicator in Houston. And as Eagle (the lunar module) separated from Columbia (the command module) and touched down in the dust of that desolate, windless world on July 2. EDT—1. 02 hours, 4. ARMSTRONG: Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed. CAPCOM (Astronaut Charles M. Duke): Roger, Tranquillity, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot. COLLINS (in Columbia): Fantastic! ARMSTRONG: Houston, that may have seemed like a very long final phase. The autotargeting was taking us right into a .. CAPCOM: Roger, we copy. It was beautiful from here, Tranquillity. Over. ALDRIN: We’ll get to the details of what’s around here, but it looks like a collection of just about every variety of shape—angularity, granularity, about every variety of rock .. The colors—well .. There doesn’t appear to be too much of a general color at all; however, it looks as though some of the rocks and boulders [are] going to have some interesting colors to them. Over. CAPCOM: Rog, Tranquillity. Be advised there are lots of smiling faces in this room and all over the world. Over. ARMSTRONG: There are two of them up here. COLLINS: And don’t forget one in the command module .. And thanks for putting me on relay, Houston. I was missing all the action. CAPCOM: Rog, Columbia .. Say something. They ought to be able to hear you .. COLLINS: Roger. Tranquillity Base, it sure sounded great from up here. You guys did a fantastic job. ARMSTRONG: Thank you. Just keep that orbiting base ready for us up there now. CAPCOM: Tranquillity Base .. Houston. All your consumables are solid [normal consumptions of fuel and oxygen]. You’re looking good in every respect .. Everything is copacetic. Over. ARMSTRONG: You might be interested to know that I don’t think we notice any difficulty at all in adapting to & frac. CAPCOM: Roger, Tranquillity. We copy. Over. ARMSTRONG: [Outside the] window is a relatively level plain cratered with a fairly large number of craters of the five- to fifty foot variety and some ridges, small, twenty, thirty feet high, I would guess, and literally thousands of little one- and two- foot craters around the area. We see some angular blocks out several hundred feet in front of us that are probably two feet in size and have angular edges. There is a hill in view, just .. COLLINS: Sounds like it looks a lot better now than it did yesterday at that very low sun angle. It looked rough as a cob then. ALDRIN: .. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way. Over. The astronauts begin preparations to leave the LM, first having made a detailed check of their craft to make sure all is in order for eventual lift- off. Armstrong will be the first out, about 6½ hours after the landing. ARMSTRONG: The hatch is coming open. ALDRIN: Neil, you’re lined up nicely. Toward me a little bit. O. K., down. ARMSTRONG: How am I doing? ALDRIN: You’re doing fine. ARMSTRONG: O. K., Houston, I'm on the porch. CAPCOM (now Astronaut Bruce Mc. Candless): Man, we’re getting a picture on the TV. ALDRIN: Oh, you got a good picture, huh? CAPCOM: There’s a great deal of contrast in it, and currently it’s upside down on our monitor, but we can make out a fair amount of detail. O. K., Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now. ARMSTRONG: I’m at the foot of the ladder. The LM [lunar module] footpads are only depressed in the surface about one or two inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It’s almost like a powder. Now and then it’s very fine. I’m going to step off the LM now. That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. The television camera on the LM records Armstrong’s first movements through the moon’s dark shadows and blinding sunlight. ARMSTRONG: The surface is fine and powdery. I can—I can pick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles. CAPCOM: Neil, this is Houston. We’re copying. ARMSTRONG: There seems to be no difficulty in moving around. As we suspected, it’s even perhaps easier than the simulations at & frac. It’s actually no trouble to walk around. The descent engine did not leave a crater of any size .. We’re essentially on a very level place here. I can see some evidence of rays emanating from the descent engine, but very insignificant amount. O. K., Buzz, we’re ready to bring down the camera. ALDRIN: I’m all ready. ARMSTRONG: O. K., it’s quite dark here in the shadow and a little hard for me to see that I have good footing. I’ll work my way over into the sunlight here without looking directly into the sun. ALDRIN: O. K., going to get the contingency sample now, Neil? ARMSTRONG: This is very interesting. It’s a very soft surface, but here and there where I plug with the contingency sample collector, I run into a very hard surface, but it appears to be very cohesive material of the same sort. I’ll try to get a rock in here. Here’s a couple. ALDRIN: That looks beautiful from here, Neil. ARMSTRONG: It has a stark beauty all its own. It’s like much of the high desert of the United States. It’s different, but it’s very pretty out here. ALDRIN: Are you ready for me to come out? ARMSTRONG: All set. O. K., you saw what difficulties I was having. I’ll try to watch your PLSS [portable life- support system] from underneath here. ALDRIN: Now I want to back up and partially close the hatch. Making sure not to lock it. ARMSTRONG: A particularly good thought. ALDRIN: That’s our home for the next couple of hours and we want to take good care of it .. That’s a very simple matter to hop down from one step to the next. ARMSTRONG: There you go. ALDRIN: Beautiful view. ARMSTRONG: Isn’t that something? Magnificent sight out here .. Isn’t it fun? ALDRIN: .. The rocks are rather slippery .. Have to be careful that you are leaning in the direction you want to go .. You have to cross your foot over to stay underneath where your center of mass is. And, Neil, didn’t I say we might see some purple rocks? ARMSTRONG: Find a purple rock? ALDRIN: Yep. Very small, sparkly .. ARMSTRONG: For those who haven’t read the plaque, we’ll read the plaque that’s on the front landing gear of this LM. First there’s two hemispheres, one showing each of the two hemispheres of earth. Underneath it says, “HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1. A. D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.” It has the crew members’ signatures and the signature of the President of the United States. COLLINS (in Columbia): .. This is history. CAPCOM: Roger .. I believe they are setting up the flag now. COLLINS: Great. CAPCOM: I guess you’re about the only person around that doesn’t have TV coverage. COLLINS: That’s right. That’s all right. I don’t mind a bit. How is the quality of the TV? CAPCOM: Oh, it’s beautiful, Mike. Really is. COLLINS: Oh, gee, that’s great. Is the lighting halfway decent? CAPCOM: Yes, indeed. They’ve got the flag up now and you can see the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface. COLLINS: Beautiful. Just beautiful. ALDRIN: You do have to be rather careful to keep track of where your center of mass is. Sometimes it takes about two or three paces to make sure that you’ve got your feet underneath you .. CAPCOM: Neil and Buzz, the President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few words to you. Over. ARMSTRONG: That would be an honor. CAPCOM: Go ahead, Mr. President. PRESIDENT NIXON: Hello, Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. I just can’t tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives, and for people all over the world I am sure they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquillity to earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. And one in our prayers, that you will return safely to earth. ARMSTRONG: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations. And with interest and a curiosity and a vision for the future. It’s an honor for us to be able to participate here today. ALDRIN: How’s the bulk sample coming, Neil? ARMSTRONG: Bulk sample is .. ALDRIN: Houston. The passive seismometer has been deployed manually. ARMSTRONG: These boulders look like basalt and they have probably 2 percent white minerals in them .. Armstrong has been on the surface of the moon nearly two hours now. The astronauts have devoted most of their time to setting up scientific instruments and taking samples of moon material. Houston advises them that they have about ten minutes left before beginning preparations to re- enter the LM.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2017
Categories |