Stop Telling Mentally Ill People They're Dangerous

According to the above data, in 1959, 60% of people believed that there should be a law that banned the general public from owning handguns. In 2016, less than 25% of people hold that opinion.

Have I talked about gun violence before? I don't think so. Either way, I'm not going to talk about it now.

I'm not going to talk about how Scotland and Australia introduced strict gun laws and firearm buyback schemes and since then, Scotland has had one mass shooting and Australia has had zero. I'm not going to talk about how, in August 2019, the USA has had well over 200 mass shootings. I'm not going to talk about how the number of mass shootings stopped by a good guy with a gun in recorded history is zero.

I'm not going to talk about gun culture and what that looks like in various countries, about interpretations of laws, of history, about politics, or about the scare campaigns and misinformation spread by lobbyist groups. There is zero point to me talking about any of that. You want my opinion, here it is: people should not own guns. But I'm not going to go into that. That's a waste of my time and yours. The USA it seems, has decided, in large, that the right to own a gun is more valuable than the lives of its citizens. There's nothing more to say.

But people with far greater fortitude than I are going to keep having that debate and more power to you guys. Have your say. Maybe one day you'll be heard. But I'm done with that discussion. What I want to discuss is this chart:

What we see here, from a poll taken of adults taken in 2017, is that 89% of Republican and Democrat supporters (not politicians) agree that people with mental illness should not be allowed to buy guns. Only 82% of Republicans and 85% of Democrats believe that people on a no-fly or watch list should be banned from purchasing a firearm. That means more people are concerned about people with mental illness buying a gun than people who are deemed unsafe to have on a plane or are suspected of criminal activity.

Exactly what is it about the anxious and depressed that you're so afraid of?

Oh, but it's not people with depression that you're worried about getting a gun. After all, one in four people have a mental illness, according to the World Health Organisation, so if mental illness made people into killers, surely one in four people would be buying a gun and going on a killing spree. No, those people might shoot themselves, sure, and we shouldn't let that happen, but the ones we really have to watch out for are those people with mania, the sociopaths, the sadists, the delusional paranoid voice hearing schizophrenics. People with "serious" mental illness.

They're the ones doing all the killing, right?

Well, here's some more numbers: only about 5% of gun related killings are committed by people with mental illness. That's not mass shootings, that's all gun killings. The MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study found that, once accounting for substance abuse, only 18% of those studied had committed a violent act in the past year. But when they compared those results to the violence rates in the neighbourhoods and mentally healthy people in a similar environment (such as siblings) it evened out. The violence rates became statistically insignificant.

On the other hand, a study conducted by the Australian government found that 18% of people suffering a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia were a victim of violent and 17% reported self-harm.

The evidence for a causative link between mental illness of any kind and violent crime, particularly firearm related killings, does not exist. Laws that restrict mentally ill people from having firearms is at best going to reduce gun crime by 5%. That's slightly more impact on the homicide rate than a law banning the bogeyman from owning a gun.

The majority of mentally ill people are no more dangerous to you than anybody else. Mental Illness is not the reason for these mass shootings, is not the reason for gun violence. Hate is not a mental illness. Bigotry is not a mental illness. Ethno-nationalism is not a mental illness. But these are the things you should be concerned about.

Okay. So, I actually wrote this blog more than a year ago, but by the time I had finished getting the data, the zeitgeist had tragically moved on. But here we are again, so now is the time to say something. And there's one more thing I would like to say.

I don't talk much about my personal life, but I have been open about suffering from mental illness. I have lived the majority of my life with severe mental illness. And at times, if I had a gun, I would have used it. But the only person I would have shot is myself. Australia's firearms restrictions have saved lives.

But we're not going to talk about that. After all, the decision has been made. Y'all prefer having a gun than not having a gun violence pandemic. So own it. Stop putting the blame on people who are already marginalised.

A Quick (and Confusing) History of The Flash

To borrow a phrase: Comics are weird.

I've been reading DC comics for a long time and that means a long time getting my head around DC's long and messy continuity. You've probably heard that DC occasionally does a "reboot" of its continuity but that's not entirely true. That would be too simple. One of the best ways to understand the history of DC Comics' fictional universe is by following a character through it from inception to modern incarnation. Many people have done this before and often they seem to focus on Supergirl. It makes sense. The history of Supergirl is like a fever dream.

But for my money, the history of DC continuity is easier to explore through The Flash, and when I say easier, I mean simple in the least simple way imaginable. And for no other reason than I feel like it, let's examine the history of The Flash and the DC Universe.

Jay Garrick

The first character call himself The Flash is Jay Garrick. Garrick was created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert in 1940. Jay Garrick is a university student who gets his powers from inhaling hard water while taking a smoke break in a chemistry lab. An origin story that could only come from the 1940s.

Jay Garrick joins the original super hero team, the Justice Society of America, and uses his super speed and blue jeans to be a classic hero of his era. Perhaps his most distinct trait is his hat, a World War I helmet that he modified to resemble the hat worn by Mercury in ancient depictions.

Jay Garrick appeared in an anthology series called Flash Comics, then a solo title called All-Flash. At the height of his popularity, Jay Garrick appeared in three regular publications: Flash Comics, All-Flash, and All Star Comics (the title that featured the JSA). But after the end of the second world war, super hero comics began to decline in popularity and between 1948 and 1951, all three of his book were cancelled.

Barry Allen

As the version of the character featured in numerous live action and animated TV shows, a plethora of straight to DVD animated features, and now a couple of major movies, Barry Allen is the version of the character most people are familiar with. Barry Allen was created in 1956 by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino.

Barry Allen is one of a number of characters who, during what is known as the Silver Age of Comics, was an updated recreation of an earlier character. Barry Allen is a forensic scientist who is doused by lightning-struck chemicals and develops super speed. Barry Allen would also be the first Flash to become associated with the Speed Force, a... Well, what exactly the Speed Force is changes depending on who's writing and what they need, so let's just call it the true source of Barry Allen's power and move on.

Barry Allen becomes a member of the Justice League, a staple of the DC universe, gets a side kick called Kid Flash. But before we talk about Kid Flash, we need to talk about how things get confusing. The creation of Barry Allen acted as a retcon for the DC universe. Barry Allen calls himself the Flash and dresses in red with a lightning bolt motif because he is inspired to become a hero by his favourite comic book super hero: Jay Garrick.

Jay Garrick was removed from the continuity of the DC universe as an actual hero and all his comic books became in-universe comic books. While characters he teamed up with like Superman and Batman remained real. And then...

Flash of Two Worlds

In 1961, Gardner Fox wrote a story called 'Flash of Two Worlds' which introduced to DC Comics the idea of a multiverse. In this story, Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick by travelling to an alternate dimension in which all the events of the comics featuring Jay Garrick were real and had happened around the time of their publication but Jay Garrick had since grown old and retired.

The idea of the multiverse is one reason DC Comics can be so hard to keep up with and it all began with this comic. After 'Flash of Two Worlds', many other writers took the opportunity to use the multiverse for team ups with older characters that had not been featured in comics for some time. Characters that had been in print constantly, like Batman and Superman, were given doubles from Jay Garrick's world - called Earth Two - as a way to explain why they had not aged in the decades since their creation. They were not the same characters, and the Earth Two Batman and Superman had grown older, like Garrick.

Crisis On Infinite Earths

While the multiverse thing was great for explaining how characters seemed to be immortal and gave writers opportunities to come up with interesting new versions of characters, it also made DC Comics hard to understand for new readers. Everybody knows who Superman is. He's the guy in movies and cartoons and old serials, but why are there so many Supermen in the comics?

The solution to this was a universe spanning event called Crisis On Infinite Earths which ran in 1985. The even is frequently called the first reboot of the DC universe, but that term isn't quite right. It was an in universe simplification and the short version is that a new all powerful villain was destroying all the realities of the DC universe one at a time, and a collection of heroes from across the multiverse team up to stop him but by the time they do, only one universe remains, a universe recreated from five universes with a combined history and cast of characters.

In this new, multiverse free, single Earth called New Earth, some characters like Supergirl simply ceased to exist, while others, like Jay Garrick, had their history retconned. This is why Crisis on Infinite Earths is not really a reboot. Many of Jay Garrick's original stories remained canon to this new universe, but no longer occurred on Earth Two.

Jay Garrick in this era became my favourite version of the character. A semi-retired old man superhero, and a mentor to the younger super heroes, and an occasional team mate of the younger Flashes. But mostly the grey haired Garrick hung out in his home in Keystone City with his wife Joan. He becomes retroactively connected to the Speed Force and that helps keep him physically younger than his actual age, but he's old enough that he's considered the slowest of all the Flashes. 

But what became of Barry Allen in this New Earth? Well, he died in the crisis. Again, it's not really a reboot because Barry Allen remained a character who lived and died, and his death inspired his Kid Flash to take up the mantle of The Flash.

Wally West

The first Kid Flash was introduced to comics in 1959, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino. He is the nephew of Barry Allen's wife, Iris West. Wally received his powers the same way Barry did and in the same place. While visiting the police station Barry worked at, lightning strikes a selection of chemicals that wash over Wally West and give him the same connection to the Speed Force.

Wally West was a member of the Teen Titans in its various incarnations up until he took over the title of The Flash from Barry during 'Crisis On Infinite Earths'. He not only takes the name, but also dons Barry's costume. Wally West became the third character to go by the name The Flash and keeps that name into the modern day.

Bart Allen

 The character Bart Allen was created by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo in 1994. He first appears with the super hero name Impulse and a white and red costume. Bart Allen is a character who I just don't have time to explain in full, but what you need to know is he's Barry Allen's grandson from the distant future travelled back in time. He was raised in virtual reality because the Speed Force made him physically age at super speed. Also, after travelling back in time, he lives with Jay Garrick. He joins Young Justice, then the Teen Titans and becomes the second Kid Flash and the side kick of Wally West.

And then later on he decides he'd also like to become The Flash and spends a while in a remarkably similar costume to his predecessors and with the same name.

Let's Stop and Recap
We have four characters called the Flash, the first is Jay Garrick who has a distinct costume and existed as a comic book character within the comic book universe, then in an alternate universe, then in the main universe as an old man. Barry Allen is the second character called The Flash who died when the multiverse was recreated as one universe. Wally West is the third The Flash, taking over for Barry and initially putting on Barry's costume. Finally, Bart Allen, who is the second Flash's grandson from the future, becomes The Flash. The Flash is aided by two versions of a side kick called Kid Flash, one is Wally West prior to becoming The Flash and the other is Bart Allen prior to becoming The Flash. Oh, and eventually the multiverse is recreated, including an Earth Two (That is not the same as Earth Two from pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths) but Jay Garrick remains on New Earth and as a part of its history.

Final Crisis

Final Crisis is... A bad comic full of good ideas that don't pay off nearly as well as they should because it is largely an incomprehensible incoherent mess and the whole thing is overshadowed by the presence of a vampire Superman that might have been the stupidest thing in DC Comics history if not for the death and return of Batman that occurred a little later. All you need to know about it is that Barry Allen comes back to life and resumes being The Flash.

Also Bart Allen, who was dead, comes back to life at this point but as Kid Flash again. He joins the Legion of Super Heroes in the future.

And for a little while, you have Jay Garrick as old retired Flash, Barry Allen and Wally West operating as The Flash independently, and Kid Flash in the future. And a multiverse with other versions of the Flash running around. And then Barry ruins it.

Flashpoint and The New 52

Speaking of bad comics. Flashpoint is a not that good comic that is about the Flash running so fast that he breaks time and stops being the Flash, but remembers being the Flash and what the world was like before he broke it. Then he becomes the Flash again, runs so fast that he fixes time only he fixes it wrong. The new remade and not quite the same universe was called The New 52 and it is a period of DC history where basically everything sucked for about 5 years.

The New 52 and Flashpoint is often called a reboot, but again it's not really a reboot because while it makes a lot of changes - specifically reducing all of DC comics history to 5 years of in-universe time - a lot of the pre-Flashpoint events are still considered to have happened. While many characters received completely new origin stories divorced from the pre-Flashpoint timeline, some, like Batman, kept a condensed version of their history where all the major plot points still happened in some similar fashion and resulted in a similar character.

As pertains to our friend The Flash, Barry Allen became the one true Flash, the first Flash of his world, created in the same lightning bolt chemical bath. But his origin is only just being explored now, and I haven't read it yet. But what's important is Barry Allen still exists and has never died and has had some adventures like he did pre-Flashpoint but the specifics are unclear.

Our old friend Jay Garrick was removed from existence and recreated on the new Earth 2 (that's three versions of Earth Two now). This new Jay Garrick is the only Flash of his earth and is given his power by the god Mercury before Mercury dies. He appears with a variety of other characters from the Golden Age of comics re-imagined as modern heroes and the comic was one of the better books in the New 52... For about a year or so. Then it too sucked. But all you need to know is Jay Garrick exists but he is entirely unrelated to any of the other Jay Garricks despite having the same name and same home dimension.

Bart Allen also gets recreated in The New 52 as part of the new Teen Titans group but that comic pretty much sucked from beginning to end and it's the worst version of Bart Allen and it's not worth talking about. But he's still a fast running kid from the future.

Wally West Again

And in case you were worried this was getting too easy, let's talk about Wallace "Wally" West. This version of Wally West was created in 2014 and is the latest character to take the name Kid Flash. Wally is also a nephew of Iris West and gets his powers through some time travel shenanigans that involve a future Wally absorbing some Speed Force off a future Barry Allen, but then dying and in his moment of death sending his power through the Speed Force back in time to empower his younger self. This Barry Allen joins the Teen Titans formed by Damian Wayne and, tragically, is a pretty dull character.

Since the Bart Allen of the New 52 is Impulse and the old Wally West was written out of continuity following Flashpoint, Wallace West is the now the only canonical Kid Flash in present DC Continuity. 

Rebirth

In 2016, DC Comics had a company wide relaunch, not at all a reboot, but an announcement that they were positioning all their titles in a new editorial direction focused on character stories rather than world building stories. Also, they stopped trying to be edgy and mature and started being fun again. In general, it was a not-quite-admission that the New 52 sucked and they were going to try and go back to how things were before without rebuilding their universe again.

Once again, this story was focused on The Flash (since Barry Allen was responsible, in universe, for the New 52 timeline*) and specifically on the original Wally West emerging from the Speed Force with knowledge of the pre-Flashpoint timeline that nobody else had. Wally West convinces Barry and the Justice League and the Titans (a group made up of the grown up original Teen Titans) that he is telling the truth and a friend and resumes being The Flash in this new continuity.

Once More With Feeling

Okay, so that more or less brings us up to speed on The Flash and the history of the DC Universe. Just so you understand, let me recap these characters.

Jay Garrick was the first Flash who received his powers from inhaling hard water. He was a member of the first super hero team, the Justice Society, and a member of the first shared superhero universe. Right up until he wasn't. Then he was a comic book character appearing in in-universe comic books. Until he wasn't, and he was a super hero in an alternate reality called Earth Two, one of many earths in a multiverse. Until he wasn't, and he was an old super hero who began his career in the 1940s but retired and became a mentor to younger characters from the 50s onward. Then this Jay Garrick stopped existing entirely** and Jay Garrick became a new young character empower by the god Mercury and a hero on Earth-2, contemporary with the rest of the DC Universe.

Barry Allen was the second Flash, getting his powers from lightning charged chemicals. He is inspired by comic books about Jay Garrick, then meets the real Jay Garrick on Earth Two, then history is rewritten and he's inspired by the old Jay Garrick. He takes Wally West as a side kick and then dies. Then he comes back to life. Then he rewrites history by running so fast he breaks reality then running so fast he puts it back together. Then he is the sole Flash of Prime Earth until he isn't when the old Wally West pops back into reality after being removed from it for a few years.

Wally West is the third Flash and the first Kid Flash and also gets his powers from an accidental electrified chemical shower. After Barry dies, he becomes The Flash. Then he sort of dies. Then he comes back to life. Then he stops existing. Then he exists again. He might be the only person who has remained one person from pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths and pre-Flashpoint to the present.

Bart Allen is from the future and he was Impulse, then the second Kid Flash, then the fourth Flash but only for a little while until he sort of died. Then he came back to life as a teenager and became Kid Flash again. He was raised in virtual reality because his super speed made him age to a teenager in a couple of years, but then they fixed that and he was raised by Jay Garrick. Then he was a whole new Bart Allen and a terrorist from the future with his mind wiped but that comic sucked so bad that everyone decided to pretend it doesn't exist and he hasn't been seen since*** so let's not talk about it.

Wallace West is the third Kid Flash and the second Wally West and he has only been around in comics for a few years. He has never been The Flash and isn't very interesting in general. He's the only person to be called Kid Flash after Flashpoint, even though the old Wally West is still around as The Flash.

And that's it! Now you know the history of The Flash and how he has changed as the DC Universe has changed and continuity has adjusted through in universe major events.

I will now take questions.

*Actually, it was Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen editing the timeline because... Reasons.
**Old man Garrick, Grandpa Flash as I like to call him, does make a brief appearance after Rebirth, inside the Speed Force like Wally did, with full memories of the pre-Flashpoint timeline, but he doesn't hang around.
***I'm told Bart Allen is back to being Impulse in current Young Justice comics but they probably take place on a different Earth to the rest of the DC Universe... But not Earth 2. And not Earth One. Oh, and Earth One is different to Prime Earth. Look, nobody said this was simple.

Is Cyberpunk Transphobic and Ableist?

There has been a lot of talk about the cyberpunk genre, lately, and its more troubling aspects, all stemming from a series of problematic revelations about the 'Cyberpunk 2077' video game being developped by 'CD Projekt Red'. What particularly caught my attention is an accusation that cyberpunk, a largely techno-phobic genre, is ableist in its condemnation of people using cybernetics to enhance themselves, and potentially transphobic for similar views on gender reassignment surgery. That is a great observation worth exploring.

Note that I am not talking about the video game 'Cyberpunk 2077'. The video game has some very troubling elements that read as transphobic and racist. But, come on, this is from the same studio that created a "collect women as sex trading cards" minigame in one of their titles. We shouldn't be this surprised and we certainly shouldn't be treating them as if they've earned the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway. I am henceforth talking about cyberpunk as a genre of fiction.

And I am going to explore it through Shadowrun, because it is the expression of cyberpunk I like the most and can speak the most about. It is also a super popular version of cyberpunk, having been around for 30 years in RPGs, novels, and video games. It's big enough and has been around long enough that I feel it's safe to call it an influential franchise within the genre. So, for the purpose of discussion, let's examine Shadowrun as a stand-in for cyberpunk more broadly, while ignoring the fantasy elements that are not applicable to the genre as a whole.

Is cyberpunk technophobic? Yes.

More broadly, cyberpunk is future-phobic. The conditions that birthed the cyberpunk genre are 1980s counter-culture that looked with trepidation at the economic and political reality of the world: a dawning digital age of right wing (read: socially conservative, economically liberal) economics and politics in which the global power was shifting to east Asia. And all of that meant alienation. Corporate domination would alienate us from our personal lives, an Asia dominated economy would alienate us from our national (read: western) roots, and technology would alienate us from our humanity. Thus was born the tropes of wage slaves corp drones, Japanese mega-corporations (or megacorps), and cybernetic augmentation. Cyberpunk does not want you to put pieces of metal into your body.

Is that ableist? Is its view of surgical transformation transphobic?

Well, let's begin with gender expression. How does the cyberpunk genre feel about your gender expression, or, for that matter, however else you want to express yourself? Well, as a genre that takes half its name from a counter-culture and aesthetic (punk) that was big at the time, and on the whole radical and transgressive, it should come as no surprise that cyberpunk does not care how you dress, what colour your hair is, how you style it, whether you've got piercings, and it sure as hell doesn't care what pronouns you go by (in fact, cyberpunk thinks gendered pronouns are boring and you should be using slick street slang like "chummer" to address people) or your sexual preferences. The only thing it does care about is your coming down on others and trying to force conformity on them. That's the punk in cyberpunk. Its identity politics are radically liberal.

Now let's hone in on the question of cybernetics. In the 5th edition rules of Shadowrun, the alienation that comes from altering your body with technology is represented in a mechanic called essence. You start with 6, and every augment takes it down a bit. Computer in your head? Maybe 0.5 essence. Flamethrower implanted in your arm? Maybe 1 whole essence. Replace your nervous system with wires? Like, 3 essence.

Gender reassignment surgery? None. In fact, most simple cosmetic surgery (basically anything you can get done today) is 0. Even metatype reassignment, essentially race change surgery, is 0 cost to your essence. If all you're doing is trying to make the human you feel like become the human you look like, cyberpunk doesn't care.

What about a new heart? A new arm? A replacement foot? So, it's a little less clear but again, if what you want is a replacement functioning piece of yourself, that's also 0 cost. If you're in an accident and lose your arm, you can have a genetic copy custom made to replace it and you lose none of your "humanity" score. What we would just call medicine gets really no judgement from cyberpunk. Cyberpunk does not think you should die because you have a bad heart or failing liver. Oh, and modern prosthetic are basically not mentioned, nor are external assistant devices like wheelchairs. They are not relevant.

(Quick aside: within Shadowrun, you can get cheaper medical surgeries done to fix or replace limbs and organs with universal "off the shelf" bioware and this does cost essence which does cloud the issue a little. This is arguably because class warfare is of more interest to Shadowrun than transhumanist questions, especially in its most recent years. Either way, nobody is saying it's perfect.)

Where cyberpunk takes issue is in the technology of enhancement. You don't lose essence for seeking medical treatment, you lose essence for saying "Hey, I'd like to have somebody chop my arm off and replace it with a metal arm with gold plates and neon lights and transforms into a machine gun because that'd be awesome and fashion means more to me than my humanaity." Cyberpunk sees that as alienating you from your humanity because you are, in the genre's terms, literally transforming yourself into something inhuman. This is frequently compounded with the notion that augmentations will make you more valuable to corporations because they make you a better worker. And again, those megacorps are alienating you from yourself. Johnny Mneumonic (to use a non-shadowrun example) cuts out a piece of his head and his memories of childhood for his job as a data courier. Technology meets corporate greed and destroys the human individual, deprives him of a part of himself.

The trope of "cyberpsychosis" where you replace so much of yourself with machine that you go crazy is the extreme expression of this anxiety at the heart of the genre.

So, on examination, I'm not sure the argument that cyberpunk is an inherently transphobic or ableist genre pans out. Cyberpunk has no interest in condemning you for trying to be the best version of you, the version of you that you are comfortable being, the version of you that can live the most fulfilling life you can, but that's on the basis that if you go beyond what is human to become part meat, part super advanced machine, you're no longer being you. Be complete, just be completely human, says Shadowrun.

And you can disagree with that. You can be in favour of transhumanism and think "human" means a lot more than flesh. That's not really cyberpunk, though. It might look cyberpunk, but cyberpunk is more than an aesthetic. Star Trek sometimes includes transhumanist elements and it is even positive on them, but it's not cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk questions transhumanism, it is cautious of it, it sees the potential of abuse and alienation in technology. To be critical of cyberpunk and to be fair about your critical analysis, I argue that you need to engage with cyberpunk beyond individual pieces. And in that way, I'm not convinced that cyberpunk, as a genre, when looked at as a whole, has anything much to say at at all about gender or medical prosthesis, let alone condemnation.

Ramble Review: Iron Man 3

I had originally planned to do ramble reviews of all the Iron Man films because they're all pretty good and it'd be an excuse to watch them. But I don't need a reason to watch good movies and the only one I really want to talk about is Iron Man 3, so here we go, ramble review of Iron Man 3.



Iron Man 3 is a 2013 sci-fi superhero film directed by Shane Black. It stars Robert Downey Jr as the titular hero Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, and Ben Kingsley co-star. It's based on the comic book hero of the same name from Marvel Comics.

This is my preferred poster

Iron Man 3 follows on from the events of the Avengers film and sees Tony Stark, the superhero known as Iron Man, suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after nearly dying in the climax of that film. He's dealing with the associated anxiety and insomnia by building new suit after new suit.

Meanwhile, a new terrorist calling himself The Mandarin has claimed responsibility for a series of explosive attacks across the US. After Tony's friend Happy Hogan is injured in one such attack, Tony publicly challenges the Mandarin. The ensuing conflict at first sees Iron Man defeated and stranded in Tennesee, presumed dead, and with a non-functioning suit. But with some help from a local boy, he's able to repair his suit, track down the Mandarin and face his own demons.

Robert Downy Jr continues to be the perfect Tony Stark - eccentric, supremely charismatic, manic even in his expression of anxiety, and charming even in his most obnoxiously narcissistic moments. Gwyneth Paltrow's sassy, self-assured, and much put-upon portrayal of Pepper Potts is still the best version of that character we've ever seen. Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce both play villains and both do great jobs, but Ben Kingsley steals the show and plays into the dramatic reveal of his character perfectly.

As an action movie, Iron Man 3 is easily the greatest in the series. The action beats are creative and varied, Robert Downy Jr is given the occasional opportunity to show off his actual skills as a martial artist, and the climax in particular takes the possibilities of Iron Man and his super suits to their full potential. Even Gwenyth Paltrow gets in on the action and it's great to see Pepper finally let loose.

Okay, that's all that surface level, standard movie review praise done. The movie is six years old and its part of one of the biggest media franchise ever; everybody should have seen it by now. You already know it's good and if the fact that it's well acted, well directed, well choreographed, well written, and just all around a technically proficient entry into the MCU hasn't convinced you it's a good movie worth your time, I don't know what to tell you. But if you're on board with me so far, let's get into the meat of Iron Man 3.

Because Iron Man 3 isn't just a good action movie and an enjoyable super hero film, it's a legitimately great movie. Iron Man 3 is the kind of film that justifies the entire genre. And not just that, Iron Man 3 is culturally significant in the same way Black Panther and Wonder Woman are culturally significant.

But let's begin the proper rambling with the Mandarin, because this is - or at least was when it came out - somehow controversial. If you're not familiar with the Mandarin as a comic book character, all you need to know is he's Fu Manchu with super science rings. He's a racist caricature that has no place in modern pop culture. Iron Man 3's decision to divorce him of that origin and instead re-imagine him as a kind of global villain was nothing short of genius. He's a cyber terrorist able to hack national broadcasts, his name, lair and clothing evoke a vague Orientalism, but his tactics and his video messages are distinctly Al Qaeda. He is an amalgam of various foreigner nightmares the US media has conjured up in the last fifty years. There's even a touch of the domestic: he sermonises like an extremist southern preacher, speaking with an un-placeable drawl. Oh, and he's also genuinely terrifying as a villain. Seriously, Ben Kingsley is amazing.

Not Featured: A Racist Caricature

But it's all fake. Ben Kingsley's Mandarin is an act, a character he puts on to cover for the real mastermind, Aldrich Killian (Pearce) and the terrorist attacks aren't attacks at all, they're accidents caused by Killian's research. The Mandarin is non-specific foreign fear, but is all American made. And while that's a great twist in the narrative, it's entirely consistent with the world of the Iron Man films.

Let's look back: The first Iron Man film begins with the Ten Rings as a pretty generic terrorist group in the Middle East kidnapping Tony Stark so he can build them a weapon, but we find out that it was American Obadiah Stane who hired them to kill Tony, and who has been selling them weapons.

Iron Man 2's villain Ivan Vanko is motivated by the wrongs committed against his father by Tony's father, but he's quickly defeated and imprisoned by Iron Man. He only becomes a real threat once the American villain Justin Hammer recruits him and puts him to work in his own vendetta against Tony Stark.

In every Iron Man movie, the villain is a foreigner or foreign organisation that on the surface reflects America's anxieties, they are the enemies created by a historically militant foreign policy, they are the ghosts of its global conflicts (IVan Vanko is the ghost of the cold war, in case you missed it) but in reality they are all backed by corporate America.

And this is especially true in Iron Man 3 where it plays into the central theme of the movie.

A good story will, in general, establish everything from the main characters to the main conflict to the central themes in the early parts of the story. Iron Man 3 establishes its core theme in the opening moments of the film, via monologue. "We create our own demons." The threats to America in the Iron Man films are made by America. They are its home grown demons.

And the threats to Tony Stark are made by Tony Stark. The major villains in Iron Man 3 exist because of Tony Stark's mistreatment of people in his earlier life. That much is clear in the text. But there's another demon Tony Stark has to confront in Iron Man 3 and that's Iron Man.

Nothing demonic about this imagery

No sir, no symbolism here.

Tony Stark projects all his anxiety and his trauma onto the Iron Man suits. He sees them as his protection, and his salvation, but they are at best a dependency and at worst a literal dead weight. Despite the Iron Man being a literal part of him (by way of the arc reactor and magnet in his chest), Tony Stark is so out of sync with the suits (and thus himself) that at one point his latest suit attacks Pepper in her sleep. The Iron Man suits are a false salvation, and at Tony Stark's lowest point, the film provides us with a beautiful visual metaphor of a cold and isolated Tony Stark literally dragging his Iron Man suit through the snow and darkness. This is the perfect synthesis of narrative, sound, visuals, and subtext that makes film such a unique art form.

This right here, this is art.

And the resolution of all this is just as great. If you scroll up to my synopsis, you might notice that I don't at any point mention Iron Man saves the world or saves anybody specific. He doesn't. The climax of Iron Man 3 sees Tony Stark and all his new suits fighting to beat Killian, save Pepper (who Killian has captured) and save the President. But it's Rhodey (Cheadle) who saves the president, and Pepper saves herself. It's also Pepper who defeats Killian and saves Tony. She saves him physically, and she becomes his emotional salvation, doing what the Iron Man suits could not, and on realising this, Tony destroys all his new suits, letting go of that false security.

It's nothing new or revolutionary for a woman, particularly a love interest, to help the manly hero of a story with the power of love and emotional support. But how often do you see that play out on screen as the female lead being the actual physical hero of the story's climax? How often does the superhero's girlfriend get to be that awesome in general, whether or not its a visual action packed metaphor for the development of the relationship between her and the main character? Why aren't we talking about this more? Why hasn't Gwyneth Paltrow got her own MCU film yet? Where's my Rescue* film, Marvel? Huh? Where's my Rescue film? (I believe the answer to this is in part because she doesn't want her own solo film, and the world is worse off for it.)

Action Hero Pepper needs to be a thing!

Iron Man 3's thematic depth isn't anything hard to uncover, but it plays out magnificently as a visual subtext running through the film that blends with the action and physical drama as well as the inter-character drama across the length of the film. The central theme is established in the opening and it underpins everything that happens until the closing moments of the film. This is just incredible story telling. This is what movies should be.

Way back there near the top, I said that Iron Man 3 is significant in the way that Black Panther and Wonder Woman are significant and now that I've talked at length about how well written and how well made Iron Man is, let's look at that old hobby horse of mine: diverse representation in fiction.

Iron Man 3 is the best portrayal of mental illness in a super hero film. Ever.

Okay, so, there's nothing new in pairing super heroes and mental illness. That's basically the 80 year story of Batman. That's basically the story of every modern incarnation of Batman's super villains. It's the largely unspoken defining trait of every character in Watchmen. But Iron Man 3 is different.

Tony Stark isn't Iron Man because of some unresolved mental illness or emotional turmoil. I mean, arguably that's still part of his origin, but he works through it pretty quick and while it might still be part of him, it doesn't define him. He's comfortable working off the sins of his past as a super hero, and he clearly enjoys it most of the time. No, the mental illness that eventually afflicts Tony Stark is a result of being Iron Man. And it's a problem.

And let's be clear: without any disrespect to people who live with mental illness, mental illness is a problem. That's kind of what defines it. And for many people, it will always be a part of who they are and how they live, and it's important to be sensitive to that and realise those people can live with it and have full, productive, even happy lives. But mental illness is a problem that a lot of people must manage every day.

And that's where we come into Tony Stark's life in Iron Man 3. He's suffering a mental illness: PTSD. And it is a problem, and he's managing it poorly, and not only does it guide many of his bad or misguided decisions, it actively manifests as panic attacks through the film, as insomnia, as a compulsion to build. There's some argument to be made about how realistic this portrayal is relative to the lived experience of real people in the real world, but I don't see that as significant to this discussion. What's important is that it is internally consistent with the world and the character of Tony Stark.

And Iron Man 3 doesn't glorify it like we so often see with Batman's trauma, nor does it demonise it as we often see with comic book villains written as mentally ill. And perhaps most importantly: it doesn't stop Tony Stark being a hero who fights badguys and is, with a lot of help, ultimately victorious in broad terms. And when we leave Iron Man 3 and go into the later MCU films where he appears, his PTSD is down played but it is clear he's not suddenly "cured" at the end of Iron Man 3, he's just managing it a lot better now that he has faced it, owned it, and found salvation in his relationships instead of his machines.

Diversity and representation of more people with more life experiences is important. I'm not going to say that seeing a mentally ill hero is as important or significant as seeing people of colour, LGBTQI+ people, or women in those roles and being welcome into a space they have traditionally been excluded from or marginalised within. That is not for me to decide and I'm not interested in deciding it.

But what I can say without hesitation is that people with mental illness have existed in a similar place and far too often mental illness is presented as being the reason for villainy in the worst forms. To see a hero suffer but still live as themself, still be a hero, and not find a magical cure like "Hey, you should just decide to be better and get over it," is incredibly meaningful.

There's a lot that goes into making a film, and a lot of ways to measure its quality. Iron Man 3's plot has a few twists, but it's nothing special. But as I've said, it's not about being something we've never seen before, it's about doing something unique and special with what you've got. It's the difference between a jacket off the rack and a tailor made jacket. They're both just jackets, the same general shape and purpose, but one is made with a lot more skill, care and purpose. That's Iron Man 3. In my opinion, there hasn't been a film as good as Iron Man 3 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since. And maybe you won't feel so strongly about it, but it's kind of weird how often it gets overlooked when it's genuinely fantastic.

If nothing else, it's a fun, exciting, technically proficient film with some outstanding action scenes and almost perfect casting. It's also saddled with the task of being the end of a trilogy, the halfway point of a character arc (Tony continues to develop right up until Endgame), and the sequel to two different movies. The fact that it accomplishes all that without being a total mess is kind of amazing in itself. There's no argument it's one of the greats in the ever expanding and ever improving super hero film genre.

But it's also a damned fine film in its own right, apart from what it accomplishes in the wider view of the MCU. It is what super hero movies as a whole should aspire to be in quality and significance. I suspect it is overlooked because sequels, as a rule, are considered inherently lesser, and the super hero genre has saturated the cinema landscape for over a decade now and most of them are enjoyable but unremarkable, middle of the road films.

But Iron Man 3 deserves a whole lot more because it is a whole lot more.

Grab a buddy and go watch it again!

*Rescue is the name Pepper uses in the comics when she gets her own super suit and becomes a hero.

Ramble Review: Shazam

If you're reading this on my Good Reads page, the format will probably be screwed and the text and pictures won't align properly. Follow the links to my blog to read it there.

Possibly unnecessarily long preamble

So, more than a decade ago when I was an active member of DeviantArt, I regularly wrote movie reviews. If you haven't noticed in the times I've talked about movies on this blog, I really like talking about movies, often at great length, often in minute detail, and movie reviews is a decent way to do that in a format that is recognisable and easily accessible to an audience and easy to keep focused for a writer, and focus is important because even when I am focused on a particular point I... ramble. I'm doing it right now. But, you know, I own that. That's how I do.

And right now I'm inclined to talk (or ramble) about movies again. That's where my head space is. As far as media goes, Cinema was my first love. I have always watched movies and I have always loved movies and I have always sat and picked apart why I love those movies and when I've done that, I enjoy talking to other film nerds about it and hoping that they saw something I didn't, that they picked up on details I missed. It's a great pleasure. So, for at least a couple of blogs, we're going to talk about movies and I'm going to write some reviews so that my rambling is somewhat focused and somewhat accessible.

And if you're along for the ride, great, let me sat a couple of other things up front: No numeric scores. I don't believe numeric scores at all helpful in conveying a complex opinion or distilling a core argument.  No standard length, no standard structure. I'm calling these ramble reviews because I'm not going to impose a lot of limits on how long I talk about a movie or how I go about talking about it. I don't do that anywhere else in my blog, why start now. If I don't mention an aspect of a film, assume it is at least adequate but not remarkable. I can't talk about every working part of a movie and often every working part doesn't need addressing. If I don't say it's good or bad, it's probably fine. Movies can be judged on objective metrics but conclusions are always subjective. At least, there is a commonly accepted canon of film criticism that is functionally objective, but how anybody weights those metrics is up to them. I give a lot of credit to movies for depth of theme and strong subtext and will often overlook more generic structure or plot in a script. I think these are more important in distinguishing a film, but you may disagree. That's fine. Quality is not the same as enjoyment, and it's okay to love bad movies. I firmly believe that the most important thing a film can be is enjoyable and the worst crime of a movie is being boring. 'Hawk The Slayer' is an objectively bad film but it is supremely enjoyable. There's no shame or contradiction in that statement. Difference from source material does not make a film bad. Since I'll probably end up talking a lot about films that are adaptations of other media - because even if I didn't spend a lot of time watching comic super hero films, a big chunk of all films are adaptations - let's be clear: "it's different to the thing" is not a valid criticism. It might be true, but it does not inherently make the adaptation good or bad. In a similar vein, the source material cannot fix an adaptation by filling in blanks or explaining away problems. If it's important, it should be in the adaptation.

Okay, enough rambling about rambling, let's talk movie. I'm starting with the most recent film I saw at the cinema. I actually saw it 3 times, so, you know, spoiler alert, I liked it.

Shazam! (2019)

Shazam! is a superhero action-comedy film directed by David Sandberg, released by Warner Bros. Pictures, and based on the character of Captain Marvel created by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker in 1939 for Fawcett Comics. At one point, the character was the most popular super hero comic in publication and then for complicated historical and legal reasons, he disappeared from print, the rights were eventually bought by DC Comics, but DC couldn't print comics with the name Captain Marvel, so they leaned heavily on the Shazam brand and in 2012 the character was re-imagined as part of DC Comics' company wide comics relaunch and the Captain Marvel name was basically abandoned in favour of Shazam as the character's name, but I'm a grumpy old man stuck in his ways and still like calling him Captain Marvel, so I may use them interchangeably in this review and the film only kind of suggests that the character is named Shazam, anyway. It'd kind of a running joke. This film takes most of its characterisation and plot from the 2012 re-imagined origin story of the character.

This is what Captain Marvel thinks of complicated legal histories!

Shazam! stars Asher Angel as Billy Batson, an orphan who has run away from his latest foster home in search of his birth mother who he believes is out there somewhere waiting for him to come home. He's adopted by a new family made up entirely of fostered children, but before he can run away again, he's chosen by the wizard Shazam to become his champion and protect the world from evil demonic entities known as the Seven Deadly Sins, which are possessing and empowering a man named Dr Sivanna (Mark Strong). The power Shazam gives Billy is the power to transform into an adult super hero (played by Zachary Levi) and with this new power and responsibility thrust upon him, Billy turns to his super hero obsessed foster brother, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), to help him navigate and discover his new powers.

Billy and Freddy doing what any child would do with new powers: goof around with them.

The two bond over the process of testing Billy's powers and form a friendship both of them were sorely lacking, but the fun and games are interrupted when Dr Sivanna tracks Billy down and demands he hand over the powers of Shazam. At first Dr Sivanna is able to best Billy by being cruel, ruthless, arguably more powerful, and, unlike Billy, being driven by more than self-indulgence and the desire for super powered shenanigans. But Billy is able to turn things around after finding a reason to fight in his new family, and eventually conquers Dr Sivanna. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that a super hero film concludes with a good guy and a bad guy have a big fight and the good guy wins and also learns an important moral lesson about friends and family. If you consider that a twist or a secret, I can only assume you've never watched a super hero or children's cartoon ever.

But things are going to get more spoilerific from here on out so reader beware.

Super hero films are always pretty tightly constrained by the expectations and demands of their genre and they live or die on the details, in how they do the same thing different to how everyone else does the same thing and Shazam! is no exception. 

One of the biggest ways it differs is in how it challenges, even subverts, the superhero mythology of a lone powerful individual saving the world. Superheroes have always been, at their core, a Nietzchean/Randian power fantasy about exceptional individuals who treat what makes them special as a means to become masters unto themselves, unconstrained by social, cultural, or legal expectations. Super heroes are above the law, above social norms, above day-to-day problems because they're so damned impressive and so aware of their specialness that they don't need to be beholden to the things weaker people like you and me are. But Billy doesn't just learn that family is important and that's why he needs to be a better, stronger hero, Billy discovers that he literally needs his family to defeat Dr Sivanna and that one champion isn't enough. The moral lesson at the end of Billy Batson's arc isn't just empowering for him, it is a power in itself. Without getting into the details, the climax of Shazam! is not only exciting, satisfying and spectacular, it sets it apart from basically everything else in the genre and it perfectly ties together the threads of the main plot with Billy's character arc into one conclusion.

If I can take a moment to talk to the bigger picture of DC's cinematic universe and its rocky, uneven history, Shazam! is the film that feels like Warner Bros. is finally finding their groove and figuring out what they want to do that is different from the competition without being so caught up in being different that quality is sacrificed. It gives us all hope that more people than Patty Jenkins know what they're doing. It's not that Marvel has never been about family or the need for more than a single hero. That's obviously not true. Guardians of The Galaxy couldn't be more explicitly about family if it tried, and the whole franchise has been riding hard on similar ideas of friendship, family, and camaraderie since the first Avengers film, but none of them have gone to lengths like Shazam to make it a core part of any character in a way that, as I said, challenges an idea at the core of the modern superhero as we understand them.

"Your franchise is recharged."

Not only that, but Shazam! is a dark film. Not in the edgy, everybody is constantly brooding and frowning, Superman kills people and Batman uses guns way that DC's previous film efforts have been childishly masquerading as dark, but dark in the sense that some scenes from Shazam! would be at home in a horror movie. Dark in the same way that Wonder Woman presented the blood and mud soaked horrors of war to establish a world that is dark, mean, and slightly cynical. That's the kind of dark that defines much of Shazam!'s world building and more serious moments. In fact, the world feels entirely tonally consistent with the world of Wonder Woman.

And that makes sense. Shazam! exists in the world of a sad and angry child with serious abandonment issues. 

Side-tracking (side-rambling) again for a second: it's no surprise that Shazam is a popular character. The idea of a child who says a magic word and becomes a fully grown super hero is a power fantasy that sells itself and is loaded with potential for interesting stories no matter how you want to spin it. But on another level, the character also works (especially in Shazam! and the 2012 comic that is its basis) as a metaphor for crossing from adolescence into adulthood and how frightening and challenging that is. Shazam! the film understands both those aspects of the character and uses them.

Anyway, back on being dark, it's not a stretch to say that the true villains of the film - the Seven Deadly Sins - are in every way a child's understanding of evil. You could change the story to being Shazam about fighting monsters under his bed or in his closet and you wouldn't need to redesign them at all. Not only that, but basically every adult in the film is awful. They're abusive, neglectful, suspicious of children, or patronising towards them, or cowards. And honestly, the children aren't much better. 

"I know I've got super powers, but I'll hide behind you!"

You quickly get the sense that even though the family that adopts Billy and adopted Freddy and all their other siblings are wonderful people, and the parents are really the only likeable adult characters, Freddy still feels alone in the world in spite of them, and meeting Billy is the best thing to happen to him with or without super powers. Freddy's day to day life includes being bullied by the local archetypal bullies, and ignored or scorned by almost every one of his peers, and all of that is routine. And whether or not these tropes read as true to life, they read as true to the exaggerated hyper-emotional life experience of children and teenagers. And Billy himself, hero of the film, is acknowledged as being kind of a jerk for most of the movie. A sympathetic jerk that you can like despite his flaws, but still a jerk.

So it's a cynical movie full of horrific moments and awful people. And this bleak tone is aided by the use of a lot of run down, decript, abandoned filming locations that are used for the scenes when things are at their best for the characters. The happiest moments are set against a backdrop of intense urban decay. Even Billy and Freddy's home is a cluttered, ageing, working class home that looks like it's barely holding together. Then the climax of the film - when events have reached their dramatic high point and life is at its absolute worst for Billy and his Family - takes place at a Christmas carnival, what should be a place of excitement and joy. If they could have somehow set the scene at Disneyland and undercut both the happiest time of the year and the happiest place on earth, I'm sure they would have.

In short, this world sucks for kids, and suddenly being an adult, at least in appearance, doesn't solve anything for Billy. He can choose to avoid all his childhood problems and at first finds liberation in ditching his school and his peers and his family, but those problems are replaced with new dilemmas of super powered adulthood and having nobody but himself to blame for and deal with the consequences of his actions. There's no easy solution for Billy and - as one character states very early on in the film, establishing a core theme - he can't take care of himself. Not even when he's physically invulnerable.

And all of this - this awful world where it sucks being a child and even the symbols of joy an innocence are victim to it - extends to Dr Sivanna's story. Despite being an actual adult when he steals the power of the Seven Deadly Sins, the character is portrayed as somebody who never truly grew up. The opening scenes of the film show us how Dr Sivanna came to be driven by an obsession with power, and by hate and anger at those around him, and eventually jealousy of Billy's powers. The defining moment of his life happens when he is a child and in the 40 years between that scene and the time the film takes place, Dr Sivanna has never moved on from that childhood moment. Age and super powers have not liberated him from his childhood troubles any more than they have for Billy Batson. Both Mark Strong and Zachary Levi do superb jobs playing up their characters as feeling emotions in the raw, heightened, and uncontrollable way that children feel emotions. Their actions and expressions are over stated, yeah, but that's the point. They're both big children throwing tantrums for one reason or another.

You're just a frightened and angry kid in a man's body like me!

And despite all this, the film is never dreary or overly sombre. Rather the film is ultimately hopeful and sincere in its statement that what Billy needed all along was to move on from his grief and not just accept, but actively invite other people into his life. It's an emotional arc that is triumphant against a world that is grim and terrifying.

The film is also hilarious. Comedy is always hard to judge because it's so personal and subjective, but for me, when the film was revelling in its lighter and comic moments (which is most of the time Shazam is on screen) I couldn't stop laughing. And what's most impressive about this is that the film moves easily from horror movie to comedy to super hero action and never feels tonally confused. Each shift has enough well paced build up to their tonal heights that it reads as entirely natural and consistent with the rest of the film.

To make one more Wonder Woman comparison, while Wonder Woman was a film about soldiers in a world that is terrible for soldiers, but where you can still find hope and light in the most hopeless and darkest places, Shazam! is about children in a world that is terrible for children, but where you can still find warmth and joy in the most cold and joyless places. 

In its own way, Shazam! is both a great example of the genre and a film that is deliberately subversive of the modern super hero blockbuster and it knows it. Not in the sense that it's trying to be a Watchmen style deconstruction, because it's not that in in way, shape, or form. The subversive elements are mostly done to further heighten and highlight the themes, tone, and world of the film. But it also strikes me that the film makers were aware of the omnipresent shadow of Marvel's dominance in this genre and they went to lengths to separate Shazam! from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in as many ways as they could. This is through challenging (and subverting) the superhero myth, as I said above, the choice of villains - they're probably the most horrific and inhuman villains we've seen in a super hero film since Blade -  through highlighting the world as noticeably dark and unfriendly, and through playing with and undermining tropes of the genre. The film has a strong metatextual awareness of where it exists and where it wants to exist in relation to both the rest of the DC film universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And so finally, the DC film universe is having its cake and eating it too. It has established a superhero world that is darker and more mature than the majority of the MCU, that has its own style and tone and sensibilities, but is no less fun because of it.

So while we can say it's true that the story is nothing all that new and the themes aren't exactly unique for this genre, the script is outstanding and the delivery is equally outstanding; rich with layered subtext, thematic depth, and world building that rewards observation for anybody new to the character and the story as much as it does those who are already familiar with it. There are Easter eggs and references that comic fans will get, but there's also just excellent film making and subtlety that anybody can appreciate.

Of course none of this world work as well if it wasn't carried by some practically flawless performances. Mark Strong's Dr Sivanna stands out in particular to me. He has shades of his similarly larger-than-life comic-book-esque villain in 'Sherlock Holmes', but stripped of all that Victorian sophistication and restraint. As mentioned, the character is essentially a giant child throwing a tantrum for the whole film, and Mark Strong plays it with a low boil constant intensity that is even more frightening than the Seven Deadly Sins he's carrying around. It's like he's a man who has already been pushed over the edge and snapped, but at any second he could snap more. 

Zachary Levi can barely contain the joy he's having being Shazam and that carries to his character, a 14 year old who can barely contain his joy at suddenly being grown up and super powered and revelling in it. 

Jack Dylan Grazer probably had the easiest job playing Freddy, because all he had to do is act like he was super excited to be in a super hero film and I'd be surprised if Grazer wasn't already feeling that every moment of the shoot. But I don't mean disrespect to him by saying it was an easy role, rather I want to highlight that it's particularly impressive then in the dramatic scenes where he has to be decidedly unhappy about being in a super hero film and he carries it without a problem. Also, as he demonstrated in 2017's 'IT', the guy has phenomenal comic timing.

Asher Angel does a fantastic job walking the line between the brooding loner and a kid who is consumed with sadness for how his life has turned out and trying to make it better in the only way he sees how. It's not the sadness, regret, or even frustration that drives Billy but clutching to hope that he can make it better, and that makes all the difference, and so when he goes from sulking to revelling, when he somehow weathers the biggest hurt that any child could suffer, it's entirely consistent with the characters in how Billy is written and how Angel portrays him.

They are all joined by a wide cast of supporting characters who are worthy of praise both for how they're written and portrayed as immediately distinct so when, near the end, when they become all but unrecognisable, they're no less identifiable. But I do have to end this blog eventually and can't go through and praise each one individually, much as I think they might deserve it.

What I'm saying is Shazam isn't the only strong cast member

Where the film is at its weakest is its visual style, primarily in that it doesn't really have one. For better or worse, the DC film universe up until now have looked entirely distinct and vivid in one way or another, and Shazam! is the odd one out. It doesn't look bad, there's just not a lot about the colour or framing of any part of the film that stands out. This also extends to and is probably no more noticeable than in the design of the Seven Deadly Sins which could have used a bit more distinction between them.

Does it need to be visually stylistic and distinct? Absolutely not. The film does more than enough well that it can be excusably tame in this area, but I guess I'd come to expect something more by this point. But even in Wonder Woman, a lot of that visual style had Snyder's name written all over it and now he has departed, I suspect the style will continue to be downplayed. And it's not like no thought has been given to it or that visuals don't match or don't reinforce the tone and themes of the film, so they haven't done anything wrong, and I'll gladly trade Snyder's visual aesthetic for the rest of the film being as high quality as it is, but I'll still remember that style fondly.

And maybe it's not gone forever. James Wan, director of Aquaman, similarly infused that film with a distinct style, but it was definitely Wan's style and not Snyder's style, so hopefully the future DC Comics films will see more reliably competent auteur filmmakers lend their aesthetic vision to the franchise.

Getting back to Shazam! there's also a few moments when I wish the drama had more time to breathe and develop, rather than keep moving with the rapid pace of the film (and despite its run time of 2 hours, the film is always moving quickly) but again that doesn't do much to harm the film because the actors are good enough and the script is good enough to use all that time efficiently. Basically, at this point, I'm nit picking because it's a review and I feel the need to at least try and be fair and holistic in my commentary and point out that it's not perfect.

But it doesn't need to be perfect. No movie is perfect. But some movies are great, and Shazam! is one of them.

It's not great for a super hero movie, it's not great fun but a just okay as a piece of cinema art, there's no qualifiers here. Shazam! is an objectively great film. It's the kind of film that proves what a joke the Oscars are for turning their nose up at action block busters every year.

It's just a great movie.

And has dethroned Die Hard as my favourite Christmas movie. Don't @ me.

Captain Marvel and Freddy enjoy a customary "Better Than Die Hard" Victory Drink