Wrestlemania 36

And now, a brief interlude to the Marvel Cinematic Reviews.

I can't mar peoples' opinions of me much more than I already have, so I'll go ahead and admit that in addition to collecting comics and for most of my life obsessing over Star Wars, I am also a decades-long fan of professional wrestling.

To be fair, most of us were in the 1980s, when Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling shared cartoon airtime and toy shelf space with G.I. Joe and Transformers.

And again in the late 1990s, when the screens of sports bar TVs in college towns featured Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, the nWo and Goldberg, I was part of the "in" crowd.

The difference being: in the time between, I was a high schooler hosting pay-per-view parties with betting pools for vents that featured characters such as Mantaur.

I can tell you the differences between him, The Barbarian, The Warlord, and The Berzerker, and have an opinion on which of them was the better pro wrestling character.

When few were still watching in the mid-2000s, I was geeked to see independent wrestler CM Punk among the pinstriped gangsters that came to the ring with John Cena.

There have been times when interest waned and years that I did not watch at all, but for the better part of the time I have been alive, I've loved rasslin'.

Our 8-year old son Noah has adopted and elevated that fandom. When we cleaned the top level of our home yesterday, it took him about 20 minutes to clear out the custom-built arena and 50-odd figures (a fraction of his collection) that crowded the floor of his bedroom before we could vacuum it. He can tell you, in ascending order, the Top 10 Heaviest Wrestlers Ever. He knows in which year The Rock's cousin Umaga died. He's made and bonded with some of his best friends over their shared love.

Really, pro wresting is just superheroes and supervillains brought to sweaty, spandexed life - with less property destruction, more chair shots, and the battles contained within a squared circle and only the loosest of rules.

Melanie has also gotten into the goofy fun of it, and has strong opinions on the performers and story lines. Ask her about Ricochet and management's handling of him.

So, this past weekend, we watched Wrestlemania 36 together. Not on one night, but two - nominally because it was "the only Wrestlemania too big for one night, but more likely so that World Wrestling Entertainment didn't have to produce an NXT show on Saturday.

Not on pay-per-view, but streaming on the WWE Network. Not with a cash pool attached to our picks of winners, but bragging rights - though I teased Noah that if I had the most points, I would be awarding myself a T-shirt of his most hated wrestler, King Corbin. Not with fellow B.O.-oozing teenage boys, but with a couple rambunctious cats.

But, man, did it stink. Melanie and I agree that the biggest takeaway of it was that the live crowd is a much bigger part of pro wrestling than any of us realized. The athletes can pull off the high-risk, devastating-looking maneuvers as usual, they can deliver impassioned promos and cheer victories and mourn defeats, but without an audience surrounding them and reacting, it falls flat. The crowd is in on it (usually) and plays its part. With all respect to the performers and their talents, I just don't have any desire to watch if they continue the programs as they've been these past few weeks.

An exception: The Boneyard Match between The Undertaker and A.J. Styles. Instant camp classic. We are big fans of "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt in our home, but mixed on The Firefly Funhouse Match. I liked what I saw, but with it coming near the end of Night Two, have to admit to being somewhat tuned out while nearing the end of boarding and bagging a few dozen comics. Maybe I will watch it again more closely instead of any of their new shows this week. We still have to watch R-Truth 24, and I want to see Chronicle-Drew McIntyre.

Star Wars

Reading, listening to, or watching the reasons why some content creators are absent for awhile typically doesn't interest me, so in brief - the month of February sure was a full one, personally and professionally, so it has been nearly a month since my last post.

1. Friends and I continued our tabletop RPG adventures, with me GMing the Pathfinder 2nd Edition adventure "The Fall of Plaguestone."  A good deal of time was spent drawing maps, combing through my collection of miniatures to match the adversaries in the adventure, learning how to use the Syrinscape game soundtrack app, and other usual prep.

2. My students in all four grade levels and nine classes of the IMAGE academically talented program completed their second of three units for the year. That included two Medieval Feasts for the 3rd graders, "quick-build" STEM challenges with the 4th graders, two Auctions in which the 5th graders spent the funds from liquidating their Think Tank businesses, and setup of 50 art pieces and accompanying artist statements by the 6th graders as part of IMAGE ArtPrize... then compiling hundreds of votes from students, family members, and teachers to determine the Top 10 and Top 3 pieces.

3. Our family welcomed a Crash's Landing foster cat into our home.  Alexis Rose surprised us and her vet by testing positive for giardia just before she was to come home with us, as she showed no outward signs of it.  Her first 16 days, then, were spent behind the closed door to our basement, so we all worked hard to spend time and share love with between her and our feline family member of 10 months, Gia.  They have now occupied the same spaces around our home for 48 hours, and though they are not chummy, we see signs that we can comfortably adopt her.

4. Inspired by the podcast of a friend from Western Michigan University, I've started the work of becoming more regularly active and walking several miles at a time.  The sunny days we've enjoyed have helped.

Just tonight, I sat down with Joe for the first time in over two decades, and our conversation will be a part of his podcast sometime in the next month.  As usually happens when someone learns that I'm a lifelong fan of Star Wars, the question is asked: "What did you think about the new movies?"  A friend since childhood, Steve, asked me that a couple weeks ago, too, and my reply was that I should probably blog about that so if anyone cares for a thorough answer, they can be invited to read it.

My experience of those modern films has extremely deep roots.  Having been born in 1976, Star Wars was a part of my life from near the start of it.

There have been several seasons of Star Wars as a popular culture touchstone.  The original films and their characters are still most identifiable: Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2-D2, C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Lando, Darth Vader, The Emperor, Boba Fett, Jabba, and many others from Episodes IV, V, and VI.  The toys, cartoons, Underoos, lunchboxes, and comic books accompanying the first movies cemented the mass appeal of those characters and their adventures.

It was comics that were the first to tell extended "further adventures" in the galaxy far away.  The first series was licensed by Marvel Comics, starting in 1977 around the time the first film released, and continuing through 1987, a few years after Return of the Jedi.  I collected a handful of issues through those years, but it wasn't one that was regularly stocked at the pharmacy, deli, or five-and-dime in my hometown of Escanaba where I bought all my early comics.  It's also possible that others snatched up all the issues before I found them.

Though a glow-in-the-dark Yoda bulletin board was a fixture in my bedroom for 20 years, all the way through college, a mild season of fandom of several years followed the original movie trilogy, interest waning as I grew up and was drawn to other things.  Video game worlds of Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and others captured my attention instead, as did Captain America, Hulk, and many other Marvel heroes.

In 1991, when Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire launched what would become known as The Thrawn Trilogy, my love for Star Wars blossomed again.  In addition to Grand Admiral Thrawn, the rich cast included Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Jaina and Jacen Solo, Garm, Gilad, Joruus.  It was truly an Expanded Universe with just these three books, but dozens more soon followed, as did new video games and the ambitious Shadows of the Empire tie-ins.  I could not keep up with all the novels.  Of those I read, the X-Wing books were my favorites, though, something that definitely later colored my response to The Force Awakens.

Another briefer lull followed, before another season turned with the advent of the prequel trilogy.  The criticism of it now is largely warranted, but when The Phantom Menace released, I was all in.  While in Oklahoma for my friend Brian's college graduation, I purchased the soundtrack and listened to and marveled at it on a Discman while sleeping on an air mattress in his living room.  That some of the movie's best drama was spoiled by the title of the track Qui-Gon's Noble Sacrifice didn't dampen my excitement to see it.  The ambling line of people outside the Kalamazoo Toys 'R Us on the night that the action figures were released included me, and I made the drive to the M-89 Cinema in Plainwell no fewer than five times to see The Phantom Menace.

Each subsequent movie was less fun for me, though, and as Melanie and I were then married, I no longer had the leeway to invest a few hundred dollars in buying an entire line of action figures.  Soon after we moved into our first house, Knights of the Old Republic became one of the very few PC games I have ever played.  It enraptured me for months and multiple playthroughs.

A new season turned when we introduced the kids to Star Wars in 2015, during our drive from Michigan to Anna Maria Island, Florida.  They watched every movie in the backseat of our Honda Odyssey on portable DVD players strapped to the backs of our seats.  I'd just watched The Force Awakens just before the trip, and truly enjoyed it - in spite of my grave reservations.

Why the reservations?

Disney acquired Star Wars as a property in 2012, then announced they were creating a new trilogy of films.  The deck would be cleared of now over 20 years of rich stories so that they had freedom to tell the absolute best stories they could.  This was essentially the death of The Extended Universe - only some of which I had been able to and been interested in following, but those characters and stories that I knew and loved, I loved dearly.

I put real trust in their assurances that Han and Leia siring twins that developed their own legacy, and Wedge being much more than simply one of Luke's fellow pilots, and all the other things becoming just Legends was a necessary step in having the freedom to make the excellent movies that would become the new canon continuations of the original films.

Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were my favorites of that time (and still are now), so there was hope that the Star Wars movies would be similarly polished, cohesive, and most of all, fun.

Why the enjoyment of The Force Awakens?

It was the characters.  Rey, Finn, and especially Poe.  Not just Poe, but the other Black Squadron pilots.  I got similar vibes from them that I did from the old X-Wing novels.  When Marvel launched the spectacularly successful Star Wars comic set in the time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, I collected it and most of its many spin-offs.  My favorite series was Poe Dameron, the only one set in the Resistance/First Order era.  Poe, BB-8, Snap, Jess, Kare, L'ulo, and Oddy became familiar friends like others before them.

A lot about The Last Jedi bothered me, but the total absence of Black Squadron was what bothered me most.  Rose and her fierce commitment to the Resistance struck a chord with me, though, and its final poignant scene with "broom boy" was one of the few moments that elicited a cheer and some hope that the final chapter to the trilogy might live up to the lofty promises Disney had made.

It did not.  There are plenty of rants and scathing reviews out there, but in short, The Rise of Skywalker was hobbled by inconsistencies and near-total lack of logic.  (Yes, I do realize that we are talking Star Wars, here.  Internal logic is still needed in these types of stories.)  Not only is the Black Squadron I invested over $100 of comics and three years of time getting to know absent once again, but Snap Wexley is given some brief quippy lines, an ignominious death, and only a moment of mourning after.  Rose, too, is a nonentity, raising the uncomfortable possibility that toxic fanboy backlash led to a diminished role.

In the end, very little about the New Trilogy equaled the quality of the Expanded Universe material I read and played.  As lifelong fan, I care a great deal about Star Wars.  These movies were a promise not kept, and hope lost.  Many have suggested that adapting The Thrawn Trilogy to film would likely have resulted in at least a more cohesive adventure.  There's little argument against that.

As stated early on here, my experience with these new movies has deep roots, and branches that span my entire life and the entire history of Star Wars.  My ultimate disappointment with them has as much to do with what was lost in their creation as it does with their unevenness.

Still, my current greatest vacation dream is to return with the family to Walt Disney World in October 2021 during the park's 50th anniversary and immerse myself in all their new Star Wars attractions.  I'll love Star Wars through all of its seasons yet to come.

Why I Write

If I am not creating, I get restless. It's been that way all of my life.

Somewhere, there are radio-play-style cassette tape recordings of me at around 5 years, re-enacting scenes from The Empire Strikes Back with my action figures, and also imagining their adventures between Episodes IV and V. I promise you, they were more interesting than the recent Marvel comics told in the same period, and featured a lot of IG-88 and Greedo.  (Greedo lives.)

When our parents decided we'd idled away enough of our Saturday afternoons playing NES, my friend Corey and I folded blank paper into booklets, stapled them near the crease, and drew our own games, creating more than a few volumes of The Book Of Rad Games. He and I also busted out my old cassette recorder to create Fart & Bart's Radio Station, consisting largely of us recording live pop radio from WGLQ, singing bad parodies ("Heaven Is A Place On Earth" = "Heaven Is A Place In The Toilet Bowl") with liberal flatulent noises seasoned in.

Late and beloved Escanaba Senior High teacher Doug Fix assigned regular journaling to his Creative Writing students. I did so daily, sometimes for hours, filling many spiral notebooks throughout those months. Near the end of that Junior year, he wrote a lengthy note in my final notebook and sketched a WWF-style belt in it, proclaiming me The Journaling Champion of the World.

It takes me much longer to consume print than it does others with similar reading habits and skills. While enjoying a book, extremely detailed images form in my mind. When a passage really strikes me, I'll re-read passages and envision them with still more clarity. Even the words of straightforward news articles are read in the voices I imagine their authors having.

Before video game RPGs were lushly voice-acted, I would cast each character with the voice of a TV or film star, and read their lines in those voices in my head. Friends who clicked through scenes of dialogue left me aghast.

I "started" this blog sometime several months ago, with a few intentions:

1) write more often, since I was finding less times and fewer opportunities for creative pursuits; 

3) share my writing, and the fact that I was writing, as a way to keep myself accountable to whoever meandered along with me;

2) focus on comic books, which I found myself thinking about often and deeply as I got serious about sorting, bagging, and boarding my collection.

I'd actually written a few complete entries, but each felt too serious, even pretentious. They're comics, man. What I read today runs the gamut and some have serious stories to tell, but comics should be enjoyable on some level, and my writing about them wasn't.

The single theme also felt too confining. I loved The Mandalorian. I wanted to write and share my reactions to it, and especially the experience of watching it with my son in the waning days of our holiday break. Would I just do that in a Facebook post, then, rather than blog it?

A good name escaped me until tonight. So, now, I write, because for the first time since "Philosoraptor" came to me in the shower in 2012 and I was stricken to discover someone already had the same shower-thought years before, a suitably fun and distinctively geeky blog name fell into my head.

I write because it has always been an easier way for me to articulate my thoughts and feelings than spoken words.

I write because, unlike Brock Lesnar, I have a championship belt that I need to defend, and I wouldn't want to disappoint Fix.

But, ultimately, I write because - if I am not creating, I get restless.

(This blog will be updated weekly, or more or less often, as life allows and the moods strike.)