Chocolate and Howling at the Moon

Bucky's milkshake brought all the superheroes to the yard - too many, I think, but the film was still very enjoyable!

Rei wrote some interesting meta, and so did Abigail Nussbaum and company, and of course Redlettermedia's reaction. The Fanfare post has good stuff too.

Rei's thoughts on ghosts sparked some thoughts of my own. Tony's method of dealing with ghosts seems to be to rewrite them or exorcise them. He uses his VR machine to rewrite the memory of the last time he talked to his parents and exorcise his guilt. The film echoes this structure when it shows Howard's murder three times, each time rewriting it. Throughout the films, Tony has seemingly changed his mind about the use of power, and each time he sees power abused, he tries to rewrite history to use it in a different way. He's changed his mind about his weapons, his suits, government oversight, predictive policing... If you try to sum up his opinions into a consistent worldview, it can get challenging since he seems to change them each film. His consistency comes from his reaction to abuses of power. Each film, he is reacting to past abuses and trying to rewrite them, so his opinions will change based on what just happened. Like the TSA reacting to a shoe bomber with an inordinate security focus on shoes going forward, Tony is forever looking backwards and trying to exorcise the existing ghost, rather than prevent new ones.

Steve, however, deals with his ghosts by living with them. Steve sees each loss as personal, but just lives with the fact that you lose people instead of trying to rewrite the rules of the game to save everyone, as Tony attempts to. That's the root of their conflict in this film. Tony also tries to kill Bucky to "rewrite" the past, even though Steve tells him, "This won't change what happened."

Other thoughts:

• Spidey was good - the best Spidey I've seen! - but out of place. Tony's interaction with Peter and Aunt May was similarly entertaining, but did it really belong in this film? And also, child soldier recruitment with no government supervision...? Also lol that the end needed to say "Spiderman will return." Like we don't have enough Spiderman already.
• SHIELD doesn't exist lol. So much for Agents of Whatever.
• Contrary to our fears, Steve didn't die! Nobody main died except for Peggy. :(
• I need a Black Panther movie stat.
• Where's Pepper? She could have cleared this whole confusion up in 1 meeting.
• I loled at Steve's attachment issues when he held on to Bucky's helicopter with his bare hands hahaha.
• That freezing scene was BS. Both from an in-story perspective - for chrissakes, Bucky needs counseling, not freezing and more damaging! - and from an audience perspective - the emotional reward for all of this struggle to keep Bucky alive and get him together with Steve is to... basically temporarily kill Bucky...
• We needed WAY MORE Bucky and Steve relationship. Redlettermedia is right when it called this basically 2 films, and they wanted just the Bucky/Steve film. The Sam and Bucky road trip stuff worked so well, too. Save the civil war crap for the Avengers film.
• That Sharon scene was out of nowhere wtf.
• Some things that were right out of fic made me happy - Tony calling Bucky names like "manchurian candidate," Tony dealing with Bucky killing his parents.

Also Agent Carter was CANCELLED and I am DISTRAUGHT. Season 2 was SO GOOD ughh and unresolved.

But I think I might have to start???

Everyone go watch Ghosts of the Past immediately.

• It is SO FUNNY and over the top. I am laughing at every line.
• The aven-jet.
• SAM JUST REALLY WANTS TO BE BFFS, STEVE.
• But Steve is too full of partner PTSD.
• And when Bucky sees Sam and Steve together and thinks that Steve is cheating on him, he lurks in the darkness and growls "Partner." AHAHAHA.
• It is such a relief to see an in-character Clint wow! ("Aww, jet-pack.") Especially after the travesty of AoU. Clint is a wisecracking fuck-up who never gives up, not just... someone who loves his creepily isolated wife and children.
• I'm kind of concerned for how Bruce never comes out? Is he okay?
• Red Skull is me I am Red Skull. I also just sit there and say BUCKY... JAMES... BARNES... BUCKYYY.
• Bucky has bat wings omg so hilarious. Like a flying squirrel.

These ep summaries are a m a z i n g. I want to see de-aged Tony Stark. And there are multiple body switching episodes.