Call it Cap: Why Captain America is My Favorite MCU Character

On May 11, 2016May 10, 2016 By James CastroIn Movies, Opinions, ReviewsLeave a comment

I recently enjoyed an MCU marathon this weekend just to prep for Civil War and it occurred to me that not only, and completely surprisingly, are the two previous Captain America films my favorite sub-franchise in the MCU, but that Cap himself is also my favorite character as well. Something wholly surprising. I thought I’d take a look at why both he and his movies have become my favorites.

I’m….Captain America…

What makes the Captain and Steve Rogers almost unique in his films is his personality is entirely heroic. In the first film Rogers is physically frail but has a hero’s heart. He’s genuinely a good person, something that most superheroes and superhero movies lost sometime in the 90s. I can remember in the original Men in Black Will Smith’s character mocking the rigid, goody-two-shoes soldier as “Captain America.” A term that has been largely pejorative as angry, anti-heroes started to co-opt the protagonist landscape. The idea of the “truth and justice” hero was passé and viewed as simplistic. Heroes needed to be dark and laconic; almost as bad as the villains to be “cool.” There was a movement in all of entertainment to shift from the classic “babyface and heel” dynamic (god help all of us who remember the “Attitude Era” of pro wrestling…) to ALL heels, just some are fighting with us and some against us.

It’s a mood that has both carried forward and evolved as films have. Look how dire and cheerless the Christopher Nolan Batman movies were compared to even the abstract mind of Tim Burton’s. Even Marvel’s character, who are by-and-large a lot more dynamic (meaning capable of more than two emotions often displayed in DC movies, those being misery and rage) tend to have these traits. Let’s just look at Rogers’ fellow Avengers at the end of Phase 1.

Tony Stark is a chaotic, self-obsessed narcissist who, while lovable, is also capable of profoundly selfish and bad decisions.
Thor is literally a god who did some growing up in his first outing but managed to remain a bit of a bull in a China shop man-child for a lot of his story lines.
Bruce Banner is simmering with mass-destructive rage, so much that he can be used by villains as effectively by heroes depending on the circumstance.
Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton both filling in as socially mal-adjusted killer agents trying to juggle regular human life with decidedly non-regular daily activities.

Essentially they’re all deeply flawed people, “good guys” but the kind of good guys we’re used to seeing nowadays with mixed motivations and lurking dark sides. Even the Guardians of the Galaxy, who I adore, are all maladjusted outcasts ranging from thieves to murderers, whose negative personalities are mitigated through the humor of the storytelling and their charming personality quirks.

Then there’s Steve Rogers. We know from the first film he selflessly wants to volunteer for combat in WWII, specifically in the unit in which his father served and died in during WWI. His motivations are clearly stated as “men are fighting and dying, I got no right to give any less.” He’s beaten up for his early attempt to stand up for what’s right, even if it’s just to shout down a movie heckler, and throws himself on a grenade during training. You get the impression that there is a sadness lurking in Rogers and that maybe he’s eager to die heroically after losing his parents and being the little guy in a big mean world. His obsession with inadvisably joining the army and even volunteering for an experiment with potentially catastrophic consequences shows he has kind of a “nothing to lose” attitude. And that could have been the “dark side” motivation assigned to him by a lesser team of filmmakers. There is, however, one statement that proves this aspect of Rogers’ character to not be his main impetus. So what does drive the First Avenger?

I don’t like bullies…I don’t care where they’re from.

When poignantly asked by Dr. Erskine if he wants to go kill Nazis this is Steve Rogers’ response. He’s been a victim of bullies. He doesn’t have a desire to kill them, or even to fight them, he just doesn’t want anyone to get pushed around. That sentimentality doesn’t change from when he’s a scrawny fellow being punched in an alley to when he’s a super-soldier going toe-to-toe with an entire rogue Nazi Science Division. And what a sentiment to have. Having been the little guy he’s always just wanted to be the one standing up for the little guys and through the narrative gains the ability to do so.

Dr Erskine reminding Rogers that no matter how powerful he may get he HAS to remember to be a good man. A message as powerful as “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Rogers is an optimistic hero. Not one born to be a hero or who goes through a startling 180 degree revelation that provides his heroic compass, like many of the other Marvel characters. He starts with the moral compass and finally gains the power to act on it. This isn’t saying he doesn’t deal with tragedy. He’s an orphan, his mentor and the first person to really believe in him dies. His best friend becomes a casualty of war. He never gets his dance with Peggy Carter. And yet…none of this tarnishes his beliefs or changes his motivation. It would have been easy for him to chase down and ruthlessly kill the Hydra spy who kills Erskine, if it weren’t for the latter’s last request being a reminder to Rogers to stay a good man. It would have been simple for his drive against the Red Skull to be motivated by vengeance for his fallen friend, instead he acts completely selflessly again to save the world not seek revenge on the bad guy. Even though he misses out on perhaps the love of his life, it doesn’t stop him visiting her decades later and still call her “his best girl.”

The look on his face says it all. 70 years later she’s still his “best girl.”

In a world of miserable, po-faced anti-heroes I find Captain America breathes life into the classic concept of the hero. Not because he’s “good at everything” because he’s clearly not (becoming a super soldier didn’t make him any less socially awkward and he plays in a certain league; Asgardians can still knock him for a loop) but because despite everything he goes through he still tries to be as good as he can and to do what’s right. And that’s ok. We need that to offset the number of heroes who have been made brooding and dark. We need Leonardo to offset Raphael. Too many heroes suffer from deep emotional issues and have been turned into shadowy, twisted versions of themselves in a desperate effort to be “edgy” in the perverse belief that it makes them more “complex.” It’s refreshing to see good guys can still be good. Hell even, Superman, the cultural icon of truth and justice, is a wretched, blue-tinted, humorless bastard in his latest incarnation. It’s a palpable relief to see Captain America be, well Captain America.

So we know why it’s refreshing to have an old-fashioned hero on film, but why are his movies so good? We’ll take a look at that next time.

Thoughts on Imagination

On May 4, 2016May 3, 2016 By James CastroIn OpinionsLeave a comment

It may sound strange but the impending arrival of Doom 4 (and yes I’m calling it “Doom 4”) got me thinking about imagination in entertainment.

I spent years of my teenaged life bolted to a PC chair playing the Doom, Doom II, and Duke Nukem 3D. It was the ultimate time waster and even though those games have “stories” or at least bits of text or set up between big chapters, one thing I always appreciated about them is how much time they gave the player to themselves.

Most of the time I played Doom I was running around blasting demons and crafting my own little narratives. Maybe today I was some X-Men-style mutant on the run from monsters (this was in the midst of my biggest X-Men phase), tomorrow I’d be a trained assassin dropped into a hellish world and forced to survive. Those games really gave you a chance to experience them in your own way. A big open map, lots of things to shoot, but with definite goals broad enough to weave into your own little stories. Before FarCry made it normal, Doom II provided a huge map with lots of ways to get around enemies and take them out. Open world games now don’t feel the same, putting you in the character of a named person with a voice and a story arc. They fill in the narrative for you as you play. The closest I can think of to the kinds of experiences I had in the Doom era are Bethesda games and even they provide significant stories and characters, you just don’t have to interact with them and can spin your own fantasies a lot of the time if you’d like.

The more I think about it the more I find imagination is being taken from audiences, not just of games but of movies, and entertainment in general.

I noted in my lengthy Conan review that there is a lot in that film that isn’t handed to the viewer. There are relationships, histories, and concepts that exist in the background for the viewer to decipher for themselves, allowing their own knowledge and imaginations to create their own stories or explanations. Recently only Mad Max has done something similar. But too often narratives are explicit, and I don’t mean “Warning Explicit Content” explicit. I mean they spell things out and leave nothing for the audience to learn or assume; no gaps to fill in. They show you something, say they’ve shown it, tell you why it’s important, and then tell you what they’ll do with it.

I can imagine Conan made today he’d find the sword in the crypt and either say “it’s a legendary blade!” or some wise man or witch would tell him later it’s the sword of some dead god, who was also his ancestor…and he was meant to have it because…reasons. Instead of finding a mystical item, his physical reactions and his uses of it enhancing its mystique and value to the audience.

The same is true for video games of course. Part of me wonders if the push toward hyper-realism in larger budget games is a reason for this. Companies spend significant money trying to make characters and environments look impressive and want to force players to look upon these creations as much as possible. Ben Yahtzee Croshaw has mentioned in the past how often this happens as game play is wrenched from our hands so we can experience something the developer wanted us to in exactly the way they wanted us to and negative this is to the overall experience. After all it’s the subjective experience had by the audience that creates the legacy rather than the one the author has attempted to impose.

Even as much as I enjoyed Wolfenstein: A New Order and its story I did long for the days when I could just be a generic face holding a gun running through corridors, making it up as I go.

The story behind this image is as in depth as the players want it to be.

It’s one reason I enjoy tabletop games so much and one of the biggest aspects of my love for Warhammer gaming. It’s noted in every GW rulebook “forging the narrative” is the most important part of any game you play and telling the story of the game is always tremendous fun. It may look like a bunch of static models standing next to a little painted house, but that squad of Dark Angels is actually taking cover from traitor marine fire after their Rhino was immobilized. That plastic plane isn’t awkwardly balanced on that resin wall, it crash landed there and disgorged a squad of angry, wounded Deathwing terminators to hold my faltering right flank. None of that is happening of course but in the minds of the players it is happening. It’s the same thing my sister and I used to do with my TMNT and dinosaur action figures; creating our own stories and adventures with little plastic avatars.

And that’s the power of imagination to me, and it’s something I just have a sense is being pulled from entertainment more and more as it becomes more “scripted” and more digital. Less abstract and more “real.” And the push toward only this form of entertainment might be stealing the chance for imaginations to blossom like they did for my generation.

I’ll leave it with this:

Final Fantasy VII was an amazing story and a fun game filled with memorable characters…and this was our hero:

We knew what Cloud looked like from the artwork, but for most of our experience this was our lead character and how we interacted with the world. He, like my Warhammer models, represented the character with my own imagination filling in the gaps and remembering fierce battles and epic journeys of what was a polygon character in low-res world.

So I have to wonder…is this Cloud any better?

Will it make the game better now that he’s all shiny and “real”? Will it make the story better? I’m not such a Luddite that I believe advancements in technology and narratives aren’t important. I just hope as we advance we don’t discard everything that worked, because it worked for a reason. When you experience a piece of art or entertainment that is so scripted and meticulously created that it gives you everything you need to see and do you’re experiencing someone else’s vision, which is ok some of the time. I just hope we are also still allowed to forge our own narratives and experience them our own way some of the time as well.

Story of the Month: Search for a Slush Puppie

On April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 By James CastroIn Story of the MonthLeave a comment

I mentioned in a previous post I attended a conference in Las Vegas last month.

While most guys my age would be excited to see the sites, do some gambling, maybe take in a show or take part in some kind of illicit activity I had only one goal in Las Vegas: Get a Slush Puppie.

I lived in Las Vegas 1985-1986. One of my most vivid memories is walking back from the air show at Nellis Air Force base, stopping at the local 7-11 and getting a Slush Puppie.

I live in the south east now and we have Icees. Everywhere are Icees. They’re good…but they’re no Slush Puppie. Slush Puppies are icy, thick, crunchy…all the greatest aspects of an iced fruit dessert. They live somewhere in between Sno-Cones and Sonic Slushes. But with a flavor that is all their own. I haven’t had one since the 80s…and I wanted one. Specifically cherry. I remembered RED Slush Puppie.

20160308_095256 — The Bellagio…they had no Slush Puppies…

I stayed at the Bellagio and searched Google maps for a 7-11. I found one on Koval lane and walked from Las Vegas Avenue, down Flamingo, to Koval. I discovered a couple things quickly.

First, Las Vegas is an awful city to walk around in. You can’t cross at every intersection. The sidewalks go up and over the streets in many places which sounds like a good idea, except a lot of the time they send you back the way you came or (cleverly) back through a hotel.

Second, the gloss of Las Vegas Avenue wears off about a block after the hotels. it gets very suburban commercial very quickly.

Third, though this may have just been new to me, the HUGE building that says it keeps books is not in fact a book store. Turns out it’s a bookie’s. Again that last one may have just been me.

So on I walked to Koval and, to my horror, discovered the 7-11 had a slushee machine! Thwarted I walked back down Koval, the Am-Pm had an Icee Machine, as did the Shell station. So I went back to Las Vegas Avenue.

20160308_095711 — Caesars Palace…sans Slush Puppies.

Walking back up LVA, I found that every convenience store had some kind of drink fountain. I proceeded past Caesars and then walked back down toward New York, New York, stopping in two Walgreens and a CVS. Two had Icee machines one had a generic iced beverage fountain.

I was on my own walking around in search of a Slush Puppie for around three and a half hours…to no avail.

The next night a friend and co-worker of ours who lives in the area took us to Old Vegas. I actually loved Fremont Street far more than the glitz of New Vegas, but still was desperate to find a Slush Puppie. We stopped at Container Park and a couple of souvenir shops in Old Vegas…again all of them had drink fountains…none had a Slush Puppie.

20160309_202413 — Circus Circus taken from the car as we drove by…they don’t have Slush Puppies there…

On the way back I saw Circus Circus, the only casino I visited in Vegas when I lived here in the 80s. It was good to see the big creepy clown again…but the lack of Slush Puppies made the trip far less successful than I’d hoped. Bereft of Slush Puppies I returned to Nashville.

20160309_181705 — Old Vegas Casinos…which don’t serve Slush Puppies.

After returning home my boss, who had to hear my various schemes to get a frozen dessert surprised me at work with a bag. In the bag were ten little pouches…each pouch had a Slush Puppie I could put int he freezer and have whenever I wanted.

Turns out the Slush Puppie I looked all over Vegas for was available at home, in the stores. Not quite the same (I’d kill for one from a fountain machine!) but after cracking one open I soon found I was also after the wrong puppie! I remembered strawberry.

It goes to show you…you may go thousands of miles in search of something…and find that maybe what you wanted was a lot closer to home than you thought.

Jim Sterling Sued: Digital Suicide

On April 20, 2016 By James CastroIn OpinionsLeave a comment

Well it happened.

Our Lord and Savior, Jim Sterling, has been sued by Steam “developers” Digital Homicide.

I can actually remember watching his original play through of their terrible game, “The Slaughtering Grounds” and the immediate childish response his criticism received by these so-called game devs. At the time it was just another case of a terrible developer having an amazing tantrum over a YouTube personality’s negative reactions, however as time went by the animosity escalated. Jim would criticize Digital Homicide games, and they responded by adding his likeness to their games, calling him with threats, and attempting to dox him in an interview.

Now, clearly, I’m a fan of Jim’s. I think the service he provides is an excellent and entertaining one. I purchased one of the earliest “early access” games on Steam (one that has to date still not come out) and I’ve bought some games on the service that looked terrific but turned out to be half-finished drek.

Jim is one of the only reviewers who focuses on PC’s largest digital retailer and its laissez faire policy of user developers selling on their service. He covers those who try hard but simply lack the talent necessary to create a decent product, those who consciously make garbage in order to cash in or get publicity, those who literally sell pre-made assets as finished products, and those who make genuinely great games. It’s through him that many of us were made aware of Steam’s lax policies on who can sell their games, the problems with Greenlight abuse, the troubling nature of asset flips, and the now widespread abuse of “early access.”

Jim’s personality isn’t for everyone. He’s harsh in his critiques, pulling no punches in his personal experiences and disappointments with certain games or the Steam service. At the same time you can hear the joy and shock when he discovers a decent game in early access or a Greenlight trailer to get excited about. He truly loves the medium and his criticisms are grounded in his distaste for those who sully it with poor products. This does include so-called AAA companies and games, and he spends more of his time criticizing the likes of Konami, EA, and Ubisoft in his work than he does anyone else. However it’s always the indie devs who have caused him the most problems. The likes of Digital Homicide, Cobra Studios, and Digpex Games have files erroneous DMCA takedowns of his videos. They’ve penned letters to the media and attempted funding pages and psychotic anti-Jim leagues to stop him. All done by devs whose poor products he merely criticized for being poor.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding in the media about the specific lawsuit filed by the odious Romine brothers of Digital Homicide. It wasn’t for the numerous videos he did about their games but from a comment in a written article he later corrected once it was clear the facts were potentially different. That piece of the lawsuit is the one that potentially stands a chance, based on the laws of the state in which these junk merchants have chosen to have it heard.

The rest of the case is clearly nonsense. They claim he sent his fans to harass him. Which not only is impossible to blame him for, is also patently untrue. He has made comments in more than one video appealing for calm and requesting his fans NOT harass developers or those he criticizes. He hasn’t even sought out a lot of Digi-Hom games to critique. He outlines in another of his videos how he criticized a number of games that were published under different guises only to find out later they were actually under the Digital Homicide umbrella. In at least two lets plays he praised the company for making products that were of acceptable quality and has stated on numerous occasions he would be the first in line to congratulate them if they ever made a decent, successful game. Given his attitude toward the games they released that bordered on competency I’m inclined to believe him.

The worries of the “far-reaching implications” of this case aren’t really merited given the limited nature of the lawsuit and what it’s going after. It’s not a case about YouTube criticism; it’s a predatory case a couple of hacks are using to get revenge on a terrific critic and famous YouTube personality because he hurt their feelings when he called their bullshit “bullshit.” They’ve sought the most vulnerable part of his small corner of the internet to attack, his website. What is more concerning is that this kind of behavior can occur and potentially be rewarded. Jim mentioned in a recent Podquisition (jokingly admittedly) that he’s spending the money he could be saving for a settlement on boglins and collector’s edition video games. While the nature of the law in AZ may make aspects of the case difficult for him to win, and he certainly has much better legal advice than I could give, I really hope he doesn’t have to give them a thing.

Because they don’t deserve it.

Digital Homicide doesn’t deserve anything. Not the attention they’ve received from being reviewed, knowingly and unknowingly, on Jim’s channel; not a place on Steam; not a single sale of one of their slapdash, low-rent games. Digital Homicide deserves obscurity and, though this may sound cruel, to have their company fail. Steam’s attitude toward curation has been to let the market dictate what succeeds. This means Steam customers, the tastemakers in the industry and their audiences, pick what will be successful. Jim shows Digi-Hom for what they are. People not in love with making games, but people in love with the idea of making easy money making games. They don’t have the heart and soul to put time and effort into making a masterpiece, just to throw as much wet trash at the wall to see if any of it sticks. Since they were called out for this behavior, they’re now trying to get that money from the critic who caught them in the act. A company made a bad product and this was rejected by the potential audience for the product. In this kind of market, the company should fail. With or without a Jim Sterling pointing out how awful they are or even if they hadn’t proven on numerous occasions that they are terrible businessmen and pretty awful people.

As a steadfast Jim patron I hope he doesn’t have to give them anything, dooms the company to the bankrupt obscurity it deserves, and he can turn his attention fully back to being our lord protector from shovelware and, more importantly, being the Dickensian circus barker who brings the attention of the public at large to little games we may have otherwise missed.

No matter the outcome, your audience is with you, Jim. Thank god for you…

Jim’s Patreon – Support him!

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Jim’s YouTube Page

Dragon Dredd: Judge Dredd Costume for DragonCon

On April 13, 2016 By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

This year is DragonCon for me. My friend Mike has been before and I decided last year I was definitely going to go. Not only go but go in costume as something.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I love the Dredd film from 2013. A great take on the character and also a design for Dredd that looks reasonable while still staying true to the comic artwork. I decided this year I’d be doing my first cosplay as Dredd.

After months of buying pieces here and there I’ve got the base for my costume. I’m still missing some pieces I can put together between now and September and have some work to do on these, but after lots of gluing, painting, and stitching, here is the base for my Dredd:

The helmet is fiberglass. I got it from a UK vendor. It came in plain grey and needed some trimming, sanding and finishing. I used a base of Rustoleum matte black primer in a couple coats, the masked off the entire thing except the trim and used Rustoleum gloss red for the accents. The brass badge is hand painted, I used Citadel Balthasar Gold actually, which matched relatively well with the brass I used in other parts. I still need to gloss seal the whole thing, add a visor (I’ll use a motorcycle visor) and add an insert that will make it actually wearable.

The shoulder pads were tricky. All my Warhammering got me prepped for textured painting but these are bigger and took some thought on how to mask and paint. I masked off all the black portions on the left pauldron as a test since it was an easier piece. It worked pretty well, but because of all the manipulation some gold got under the tape and in other places the tape pulled off the acrylic paint. I against used Citadel Balthasar Gold and Citadel Abbadon Black for touch ups and it worked pretty well. The spray paint was more Rustoleum, this time hammered copper.

Then there was this freaking eagle… Masking off this eagle made me insane. It was already primered black, but adding the gold was a process. I put in Terminator Genysis and ripped masking tape into various shapes and sizes in order to get it into all the nooks and crannies. It ended up working pretty well but had the same problem as the simpler pauldron, the ripped tape, because of its frayed edges, didn’t cover cleanly and some gold seeped through. It was the same process as the other shoulder pad, using Citadel paints to touch up mistakes. It still came out well.

With basing done I’m hoping to finish weathering over the next couple of weeks. After that it’s collecting the various other parts I need and finishing up the Lawgiver (I’m planning on LEDs in the display screen.)

I’ll post updates as it goes!

The Ghostbusters: Slimer!

On March 30, 2016 By James CastroIn ArtLeave a comment

So after last week’s Ghostbusters rant-a-thon I was in a real retro Ghostbusters mood.

To help channel that I was motivated to do some ghostly artwork. Starting first with one of the most iconic ghosts of all time. Slimer!

It started well once I got the eyes in his head he started to look like himself.

The bright green was encouraging and I was happy with the design.

Done! I ended up loving the artwork. And I can’t believe I haven’t done Ghostbusters art before!

Revenant Publications

Author: James Castro