If you’ve been able to see Avengers: Endgame, good on ya. There will be a review post coming soon, I hope. There has been a lot going on on my end. Keeping with the spirit of commemorating the last eleven or so years of Marvel films, here is a walk down memory lane that shows you the funnier side of this universe.
The early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were in the early days of the internet becoming a hub for social media and meme culture. Memes as a form of humor, to my recollection, exploded in 2012, around the time The Avengers came out. You could argue that Marvel fandom invented online fandom and memes. If not, you have to at least agree that this fandom and memes have more or less always gone hand in hand.
The MCU fandom has spawned billions of images with funny captions or screenshots of Twitter and Tumblr text posts. This saga, that many are now referring to as the Infinity Saga, is the story that the digital generation grew up with. They have celebrated it in countless ways: the examples below are just a few.
1. Iron Man Not Having a Superhero Identity Crisis
SparkNotes Version/Summary: My headcanon is that the end goal of Hela in Thor: Ragnarok was to turn the universe into a realm of the undead by enslaving the souls of the living in a trance-like state, similar to what Thor saw in his dream in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
I wanted to do more for Women’s History Month in March. With the time crunch to an upcoming convention and Avengers: Endgame, I had to make some sacrifices. However, I feel this theory of mine is important enough to merit a blog post, and since it’s Marvel-related I can move forward with it. (If this reads like an English paper, please know that it’s how I’ve been trained to present an argument.)
Remember that tangent I went on in my Captain Marvelreview about how Carol Danvers should consider the possibility of taking over the universe simply because she is that powerful and she can just blow up anyone who gets in her way?
It was while I was pursuing that line of thought that it occurred to me that the MCU has already featured an overpowered female character who wanted to do just that.
Since then, I’ve rewatched Thor: Ragnarok. The whole movie is great, but the best part for me is Cate Blanchett as Hela, the goddess of Death. Seriously, I can’t take my eyes off her. Especially when she’s got her hair down. She is just soooooo fabulous. And of course, I loved cosplaying her last fall at FanX.
Thor: Ragnarok has been criticized for being too much of a comedy, but then again what could be more dark and depressing than the scenes of Hela just killing…and killing…and killing? Maybe the critics took home their blu-ray copies and just skipped all of Hela’s scenes.
Hela’s story in the movie is that she wants to conquer the entire universe simply because SHE CAN. She argues that it is Asgard’s responsibility because they are worthy to do so as the most superior people in the universe (not stated but definitely implied). It’s also because her dad didn’t let her do that before, and now he’s not in the way.
“It’s come to my attention that you don’t know who I am.” (Jason Hsu)
After Ragnarok came out, there was something small about Hela that bothered me for a while. She is the goddess of Death, but how so? In the movie, she conjures weapons, slaughters the innocent, and raises an army of zombies so she can kill even more people. In the comics and in Norse mythology, however, Hel/Hela rules over an actual realm of the dead, which seems more like the trait of a goddess than just being an overpowered warrior and conqueror. What does Hela killing people with magic weapons have to do with her being a Death goddess, besides the obvious?
SUMMARY: I had a blast at FanX 2018. I did a lot of cool stuff. I got my first-ever celeb photo-op with Karl Urban. I went to a Star Wars wedding. I cosplayed Hela, my Jedi OC, and Princess Black Widow. I’m so happy I got to see my cosplay friends one more time before I moved out of Utah.
It’s been over month since FanX 2018, and I am painfully aware of that. But right after FanX I moved to Arizona, and since then I have been getting settled in and adjusting. I probably could have, and should have, written this post sooner. But I am still writing about this a month later because I have a few thoughts that I think are worth sharing
I did three costumes: Hela on Thursday, a Jedi/SHIELD agent on Friday, and Princess Black Widow on Saturday. Last year I didn’t do any Marvel cosplays, so I swore that I would do all Marvel at the next convention I went to. I think I did good on keeping my bargain to myself.
The Apprentice Chronicles 