New Adventures of Megaman, the Brazilian comic scene, and Juliana eating too much strawberry ice cream.

I was exploring comics online recently and discovered that someone translated these amazing Brazilian Mega Man comics from the 90s to English, and I also discovered the internet was shocked by it haha
If you've read my previous rant, though, you already know we were raised a bit differently...

So the first video I watched was a very funny and short one by Death Battle with over 650k views already, but the really cool one is a two parter, almost one and a half hours long, by The Cellar, that analyzes the whole comic and tells a lot of cool stories about it. I had a few issues back then, but I didn't know any of this, so it was a really great watch. Both channels, though, highlight the insanity of the first writer José Roberto Pereira, also known as BK around here, and his "xenophobia".

So BK was very frustrated with early critics because of the poor quality of the comics - yeah, when I said "amazing" in the first line I was overselling it haha. It's pretty funny, though. People, and include myself on that, didn't understand why this third world project with literally zero funding, which was being made for free, didn't hold the same standards of Marvel productions with huge teams and tons of money behind. The Cellar points out how amazing this actually was, it was done by fans, some of which were just teenagers - and others that ended up getting an international career in comics working for Marvel and DC. So you may think this was not a big deal, just a third world country, but at the time Brazil was the 5th most populated country in the world. Imagine being in high school and having a comic that you've drawn being distributed nationwide in a country that big. That's pretty damn cool, if you ask me, and as The Cellar says, with all its faults, the only thing this comic never felt like was "corporate". It was a very authentic work made out of pure love for comics.

Well, the other part is how BK complains about American comics, and how they were "destroying the Brazilian comic scene"... but what the hell is that!?

 

So I'm sure when BK is talking about American comics he is not actually talking about all comics from the USA, just the corporate, mass produced, generic Marvel and DC superhero vanilla crap. I'm no scholar, but I think to talk about comics in Brazil we would have to start with a magazine from the early 70s called O Grilo - which the name already references local counterculture. It would publish Schulz's Peanuts side by side with other great American comic artists like Robert Crumb and Richard Corben, along with tons of European artists, and also Brazilian artists like Sérgio Macedo that went on to work in France with Métal Hurlant. So, yeah, kids reading Peanuts were also reading Fritz the Cat and a bunch of stuff with strong social and political commentary and takes on morals and ethics.

Another important context here that people may not know is that we lived under a bloody Military Dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, they killed journalists and intellectuals that they considered too subversive, arrested and tortured those that were too well known to get rid of, and dozens had to flee the country and live in exile. At the time we also had a newspaper called O Pasquim that was of huge political importance due to their opposition of the government, and everyone that worked there was arrested and kept in prison for months. No trials, no defense, no anything, they were just being bullied, and some big names of our comics worked there, like Ziraldo, Millôr Fernandes, Jaguar and Henfil. They were all put into surveillance and considered dangerous to the State because of their comics. Henfil's sister-in-law was arrested and tortured by the regime for being a leader of the students' movement, and after the physical torture they would play a record of children screaming and crying in the next room and claim they were torturing her daughter. There are real records of our dictatorship torturing pregnant women, little kids and even babies, so she lived in real fear not knowing what happened to her child. After some protests, the political prisoners acquired the right to one hour of sunbathing and to read the newspapers, aware of this Henfil made a little comic strip that was published on a newspaper with a guy telling a kid "Juliana, stop eating so much strawberry ice cream, you are going to have the shits!" so this seemingly silly strip of a relatable casual life interaction that was just humorous because of the informal language used in a newspaper allowed his sister-in-law know that her daughter was with him, she was safe and having a lot of strawberry ice cream... and I can't even imagine how much it meant to that mother... you know, going back to my previous rant and that comic about moral infants, I catch myself thinking about grown-ass men saying they got emotional when Captain America lifted Thor's hammer... then I think about comics here being repressed for being a threat to fascism, and being used to bring hope and peace to political prisoners. Henfil's little comic strips became the symbol of the democracy movement, and the slogan he created "Diretas Já!" started with only a few dozen of people in 1983 and ended up with a million and half marching for democracy in 1984. The Brazilian comic scene meant counterculture and resistance!

"We want to vote" "Go back home, the people are illegal"

 

During the Dictatorship we had real government censorship agencies, newspapers would publish cake recipes when their news were censored, musicians would sing "La La La" when their lyrics were censored, and so on, so they had to be really smart to be able to get a message across. In 1985, though, with the end of of those dark years, censorship was no more and other great comic artists like Angeli, Laerte, Glauco and Luiz Gê started a magazine called Chiclete Com Banana, where nothing was too sacred to not be made fun of and being sued by politicians and religious authorities was just another Tuesday. Another publication I can highlight is Níquel Náusea with names like Fernando Gonsales and Spacca, that also worked on O Pasquim and Radar. Comics at the time were highly connected to counterculture, there were stories with hippies, punks, beatniks, jazz musicians, they'd talk about social and moral themes and didn't shy away from sex and drugs. Our comic scene was subversive as fuck!

So there was another thing going on during that time, something pushed by our corporate mass media. I feel like my parents' generation had a far richer cultural background in the 60s and 70s, stuff coming from the USA represented a big portion of what was consumed here but not the biggest, it wasn't just local art, we would watch movies and listen to music and read comics and books coming from Europe and Latin America as well, and it was here because it was good not because it was part of a media bundle. Quino's Mafalda was immensely popular, and I feel like that generation has a really good grasp of history and geography just by growing up reading Asterix and Tintin - instead of shit like Superman. Somewhen during the 80s it changed, mass media conglomerates got exclusive contracts, we started to only import stuff from USA, and during the 90s when I grew up all that was on TV, movies, radio and comic book stands were corporate American productions. We even had a name for it, we called it the "American canned goods", because they all felt like mass produced industrialized crap. And here is where BK's rant about American comics destroying the Brazilian comic scene comes into place:

Chiclete Com Banana ended in 1991 but it continued with a magazine called Tipinhos Inúteis. It died in 1995, though. Níquel Náusea died in 1996. That year Novas Aventuras de Megaman started being published, a work with absolutely no backing, and we see BK's rant. So publishers and sponsors could put their money on cheap bland industrialized corporate American canned goods they didn't need to produce, that came with a huge marketing aided by TV cartoons, movies, toy lines, clothing lines, footwear lines, video games, fucking cereals, chicken nuggets and shampoo bottles to help the sales... or they could put their money on local artists with none of that... what do you think happened? Do you still think BK was just being xenophobic?

Don't get me wrong, I was a part of it, I was a kid in the 90s and I loved everything related to X-Men and Spider-Man, but a few years later when I was in high school and got my hands on some Chiclete Com Banana I saw a completely new and authentic world. It was daring, informative, thought-provoking, subversive, and already buried by corporate media.

 

It's Worth mentioning that there was one last breath for local comics in the late 90s, although it was already very disconnected from that subversive and transgressive comic scene from the 70s till the mid 90s in the vein of European and underground American comics, and linked to manga and Japanese culture instead - surfing in the local anime explosion of the time. Besides Mega Man, somehow Brazilian artists got the rights to make Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat comics as well, and those had a far higher level of production. Trama Editorial did an amazing job holding the line, but it fell by the mid 00s.
I have to mention too, although periodical publications aimed at older kids, teens and young adults kinda died, when it comes to comics aimed at little kids nothing ever beat A Turma da Mônica (Monica's Gang) here. Many of us learned how to read with it.

Back to Mega Man, which I absolutely love, my main exposure to it as a kid was with a cousin that had Mega Man 7 for SNES, where our hero is out of fucks and was straight up going to murder Wily in the ending, and Mega Man X5 for PS1 that another cousin acquired a few years later. With all the robot uprising and post-apocalytic background adding to the New Adventures of Megaman I had read a few issues, I always thought the series was darker and more mature. It was a big disappointment when I got to read American and Japanese Mega Man comics in recent years and discovered it's actually very childish and silly.

ps: Another Brazilian comic I find legendary is Banda Grossa, for this one I wasn't too late to the party, and had read when it was released in 2006, and it was only possible because they got public funding, but it turns out that they told the city they were going to make a tourist's guide to hotels and restaurants and when they were cleared to press they sent their comics instead haha
Besides being sued by the city, they were also sued by a church. Among other stories, one that left a mark on me was "Armless Jesus". In the first part he is taking a shit and calls his mother "Mommy, I finished." and she says "Go clean your son, Joseph." to which Joseph replies "Oh, so now the son is mine!?" haha. In the last part he finally rose to the challenge to fulfill his destiny. He is captured by the Romans and is going to be crucified... but how, if he has no arms!?
Checkmate!
These are great comics right there!

ps²: That disturbing Mega Man page, it's not anything pedo, she was just a homeless orphan that was kidnapped with other girls and was chosen to be cut open and have her organs sold in the black market while her brain is used for human experimentation. Nothing to worry about.
I had that issue, it made me quite sad because I loved Roll and she suffered a lot... I also always thought this was canon haha

ps³: I briefly mentioned Ziraldo. When I was a kid I didn't know his work on O Pasquim and how dangerous he was considered to fascism, being arrested three times by the regime. He died this last April and I just want to take this opportunity to thank and praise him. O Menino Maluquinho (The Nutty Boy) was the first book I ever read and was my absolute childhood favorite.

"And that’s when everyone discovered that he hadn’t been a nutty boy.
He had actually been a happy boy!"

Update: I was talking to my mother about this, and she told me that when she was in middle school, in the 60s, there was a very popular comic book artist among kids, Carlos Zéfiro. His distribution was limited, so he was mainly found in the big cities, but there was a comic book stand near every school, where kids could acquire it... the stories? Some very nasty taboo porn haha
His comics were nicknamed the "catechesis", as it was most kids' introduction to sex in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Legends say that at some point some kids from higher-ups in the government were caught with it, and the comic was forced to add a "Strictly prohibited for minors under 18 years of age" sticker to the cover - which, of course, meant jack shit haha
Another important context about our dictatorship's censorship is that it was very political, they didn't want anyone questioning or denouncing the regime, its corruption and crimes, but they weren't overly culturally moralistic, in fact, the most popular movies being made at the time were of a genre we called Pornochanchada, which was softcore porn comedies mostly involving taboo themes. The government quite liked people being distracted by pornography, as it moved the focus from previous highly subversive movies like the Oscar nominee and Palm d'Or winner O Pagador de Promessas (The Given Word), and the Palm d'Or nominees Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Black God, White Devil) and Vidas Secas (Barren Lives).

Genocyber, Sheltered Kids and Stupid Adults

I have posted Genocyber a few times already in my blog/page, and I find it funny how shocking it is to the world that this aired in an over-the-air kid's show at 6pm between Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya, and any kid any age could watch in my country. I was even called a liar because people can't conceive entertainment without massive censorship and control... well, a great writer here once said there is no sin on the south of Equator, and to talk about it I will have to talk about growing up in the wild lands of Brazil before globalization and internet culture taking over.

Often I'm talking to foreign friends and I feel they find it kinda weird I mentioning reading stuff like Spawn when I was 8 years old or so, or having watched Akira and Genocyber even before that, like I'm trying to sound tough, "I was hardcore since I was little", but no, this was just Brazil.
The culture shock goes both ways. I was very surprised to discover that stuff like RoboCop and Terminator are 18+ in the USA, while I always thought they were just regular movies any kid could and should watch. I remember taking my RoboCop doll to school in the first grade, and I didn't know any kid that haven't watched those, because they were on over-the-air TV in the afternoon with Tremors, Predator and so. In my perception it was all movies for kids and teens, while movies for adults were romances and dramas with intricate plots and character development that actually required some emotional and rational maturity to enjoy - not dumb action stuff.
I only discovered people in other countries actually cared about movie ratings when I saw a controversy about Deadpool. Some local celebrity was criticized over the internet for watching it with his kid while the movie was supposed to be 18+, it was quite shocking because with all that juvenile humor I could swear their target audience was 12yos... this controversy would be unthinkable here until the end of the 00s and the raise of social media in the 10s. Then I discovered how fucking stupidly dumb these fanatical ratings are, that locks a bunch of important coming-of-age themes outside of teenager's reach; movies like Ken Park, Thirteen and even fuckin' Christiane F. are barred to the audience that should be watching them - not to mention Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, that have done a way better job than any corny D.A.R.E. campaign. I'm very glad I watched Kids at school in fifth grade with a teacher talking about sex and drugs, and it's NC-17 in USA, as if it's at 18 that you should be having that talk... no surprise, the most religious states are the ones with the highest teenage pregnancy and STD rates.

So back to movies: It's not just the kids that could watch anything, I never met a parent that cared unless they were extremelly religious - you know, the kind that thinks Harry Potter is satanic. Sleepovers were a very common thing, so we'd rent some movie for the night, "Oh, the kids want to watch Hellraiser? Whatever, just don't wet the bed". The only thing that was really restricted was porn, and I mean hardcore porn because hardly anyone cared about softcore porn either. Kids having Playboy magazines wasn't such a taboo, although not something we'd show our parents, they'd just pretend to not know. There was a TV channel that would show softcore porn after midnight one day of the week and this was the talk the next day at school, "Hey, did you watch the last episode of Emmanuelle in Space?" - actually, there was a day they showed a hentai, it was a big event and I missed it. Everyone was shocked by how bizarre it was and all I know is that, at some point, the demon tentacle monster that was raping girls gets a giant dick and destroys a building with it, and I hate having missed it haha

But how nobody cared? Well, this is Brazil, and Carnaval is really big and traditional here. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have huge parades they spend the whole year preparing for it and it's shown live on TV. A lot of celebrities and other women that participate in those parades go completely naked, with only bodypaint over the genitals - yes, on prime time live TV, and a month before it our biggest TV channel puts a short video at every damn commercial break all day long with the Globeleza girl dancing naked telling people to watch the Carnaval. Here is a short collection of clips from 1992 to 2002

The foreign friends I showed this couldn't believe it, the thought of some tits all day long dancing on TV and any kid being able to watch it haha - and honestly, the only thought I ever had about it is that it was annoying, that damn song playing all day long.
But it was just nudity, no spread up genitals and penetrations, this was actually considered tasteful because nudity wasn't such a taboo, it was normal in art and life. From heroic nudity in Hellenistic and Roman art, to Renaissance and Liberty Leading the People, the world wasn't so fucking prude as the stupid puritan USA's dark ages culture being dictated now through Twitter's trending topics. From Ness in Earthbound needing a pajamas because he was naked on his dream, the censor of whole humoristic sequences of little Goku's willy in the original Dragon Ball, to controversy over the Nevermind's album cover, who the hell looks at a naked child and think "hmmm... sex...". Kurt Cobain's compromise for censorship was a sticker over the baby's penis saying "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.", and he was absolutely right.

I only got familiar with the USA's political discourses and trends when I got to Facebook in 2011 or so, and I was shocked by the moralism of even the so called progressives. All the parts in that discussion, well, they felt like the grown up version of the kid from the 1998 comic at the beginning of this post... so fucking sheltered from everything that they can't conceive anything different from the little bubbles they were raised in and respond to everything as either being outraged or triggered. No wonder, the culture these fuckers were raised in didn't get them to use their brains until it was too late, everything was put out of range and being called "mature". If you treat kids like they are stupid, you are raising stupid adults.
I feel like the reaction to The Boys comics, which I talked in this post, is also caused by that. The stuff on it is so alien to the readers that they think it's "edgy", but, hell, if you didn't grow up as a stupid sheltered kid then you don't get shocked by the sex and violence and understand it's just conveying humor through the absurd and you can actually see the story, the political and social commentary, the parodies and everything else on it.

I don't think censoring and sheltering is only so explicit and direct, although creating taboos over words without context is another culture shock for me - yeah calling someone a nigger and a faggot is offensive and a jerky thing to do, but the words themselves aren't offensive, they are just fucking words, and calling it "n-word" and "f-word" - not to mention the so fucking feared "f-bomb" - sets a dangerous precedent to a neurotic moralistic culture. The Boys TV show is also a good example of sheltering: Butcher's father would be a prime example of toxic masculinity, he considered any sensitivity and attempt to show emotions a weakness, something for faggots, he was proud of being stupid and violent, and would get drunk and beat his wife and kids. Butcher was raised to be stupid and violent as well, he was a drunkard emotionally castrated bully that would pick fights at random because he hated himself, and was on fast track to become his father until he met a woman with more clit than he had balls, but they couldn't have an ignorant brute calling other people fags in the TV show, so instead that character is a Spice Girls' fan...
Butcher calling everyone fag, poof, dyke, etc, is actually very pertinent to his character. He was raised like that, people are raised like that, they exist doesn't matter how much you try to shelter kids from it (Limp Wrist's Thick Skin song comes to mind), and because he is not being directly prejudicial towards gays, lesbians, and so, he doesn't think he is being homophobic for using those slurs. Another important part of the comics is that Hughie is very annoyed by Butcher's words, but when they get into a gay club it's Hughie that gets uncomfortable, so his higher moral ground claim was, as always, just a big hypocritical virtue signaling. This is later revisited when Hughie goes back to his home town and discovers his childhood friend is transexual, and he is forced to face his prejudices... well, all discussions left out of the show because they can't have an "hero" sayng the "f-word".
And this veiled sheltering is way more common than you think, look for example at Hollywood adaptations of Insomnia and Open Your Eyes (Vanilla Sky), both movies have asshole main characters that USA tried to turn into tragic and sympathetic for its audience. Let the assholes be assholes, we don't have to identify with every main character. Let's rationalize and think about action and choices, about morality and ethics, instead of trying to get us emotional.

So, back to not being treated like a retarded when growing up, but just for a bit of culture shock: There was a band here called Mamonas Assasinas that'd play every other weekend on popular live TV shows. They were literally a band made for kids, and they had very explicit songs making jokes about orgies (Vira-Vira) and zoophilia (Mundo Animal), among other stuff, things that were fun for you to joke about if you were six or so, but it was a bit awkward if you were still a fan at ten or twelve, because it was a band for little kids. Their song RoboCop Gay might be a bit of a mindfuck to modern politics, because it's sung by a satirical stereotypical ultra gay character for the joke of it and to make the kids laugh, followed by an anti-homophobia chorus telling you to open your mind and respect gays.
But apart from little kids singing Mamonas Assassinas songs on TV, like the Vira-Vira chorus that goes like "Turn, turn and spin, spread the circle and come, in this damn orgy they already grabbed my ass, and I still haven't fucked anyone", what I truly find beautiful, more than Globeleza and Genocyber (and other stuff like "Banheira do Gugu", that would have celebrities getting naked live on TV every other weekend haha), is this video of the metal punk band Ratos de Porão singing a song about alcohol abuse, drug addiction, violence, depression and suicide on a kid's show in 1991. Yep, we weren't sheltered the least.

I was in fifth grade I had this English homework to use a Portuguese-English dictionary to translate a song of our choice and then presenting it to the class, I picked Paranoid from Black Sabbath, which a cousin of mine had recorded on a cassette for me - thankfully all that stupid satanic panic from the USA missed us here too. Perhahps the lyrics are a bit disturbing for a 10yo? Well, not something that any adult mentioned, as I said we weren't treated like retards and I could rationalize and understand it, but anyway, I realized translating songs wasn't so hard, and even though I probably got a lot of things wrong, I started translating the songs from the CDs I had at home: Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails... stuff my older sibilings had, and there were songs with some deep psychological and philosophical themes that just got me thinking about their meanings.
My mom was really into esoteric stuff, she knew how to make all the calculations to draw astrological maps, had books about Kabbalah, would tell me how the Church altered the Bible to hide that first woman was Lilith, and she was punished by God and sent to the dark side of the moon because she didn't want to submit to Adam, so God created Eva... anyway, I was 12yo when I first watched Evangelion and I was like "Cool, a cartoon I can totally relate to!" and then I go on the internet today and read a bunch of grown-ass people saying stuff like "Oh, just watched Evangelion and it fucked up my mind", "I need therapy", and I really wonder how sheltered those people were growing up, how can themes on Evangelion be so alien that it's disturbing to them. Yeah, my previous contact to esoteric stuff was a privilege of my part, but the psychological part should be all around in movies and music - and damn inside of us, if we stop to think for a minute, unless the fucking parents hid everything following the MPAA ratings and Parental Advisory stickers and prevented their kids from ever trying to fucking use their brains!

I've seen people saying Evangelion is not for kids... but it's a coming-of-age show, it relates to kids reaching puberty. Sorry if you were stupid back then.
Obviously I also saw people calling it edgy.
Nope. You are just a sheltered normie.

BioShock: Frank Fontaine is the man Andrew Ryan dreamed to be

Why should the great be constrained by the small?

BioShock is one of my favorite games ever, and it's taking so long for me to post it in the blog because I wanted to really dedicate myself replaying it. I don't think the following observation of BioShock characters is controversial like the rest of the content of this blog, though, unless you think Ryan is cool somehow...

I'm sure Ryan thinks he is a "self-made man" and it was the sweat of his eyebrow that built his fortune, and not finding oil in his property. He has a lot of views about himself and so proudly boast and babbles them. Socially inept, he built himself the image of the hero he wanted to be, and pathetically spent all his money to convince people of it, but he is none of that. No, Ryan is not a cold individualist that only cares about himself, he pretends to be, but he is actually an attention whore craving acceptance, and that's why he built a city and invited people in instead of building himself an ivory tower surrounded by armed men and doing whatever the fuck he wants there with no one to bother. Like all adepts of his ideology, Ryan is completely delusional about the world and people, he judges them to be as petty and small as himself, and created his whole character revolving around it. He blames other people and institution for not being the hero he believes to be, and in his Mad Max-fantasy ideal world, where he will finally be able to be the hero he dreams of, people will abide to unwritten and unenforced rules like "non-aggression principle" and whatever, because otherwise, weaklings like him would succumb... but why should the great be constrained by the small?

Then comes Fontaine, the heroic self-made man from Ryan's fantasy. Whenever Ryan talks about his virtues he is actually describing his nemesis. Fontaine was an orphan, no family to support him nor properties and luck, he had to struggle and sweat for everything he conquered, and didn't let anyone or anything stand on his way, because he indeed only cared about himself and wasn't some frustrated attention whore. Little Ryan so firmly believed to not be a sheep, he left the door open for the real wolf.

Let's not talk about how incoherent it was to hold a monopoly by force, labeling contraband the free commerce, covering it with patriotic lies - such as doing it to protect their homeland from foreign menaces, and then taking over through violence the business of a man who built everything from scrap using only his intellect and will. Let's just remember Ryan saying "My strength is not in steel and fire, but in my intellect and will" - hehehe. In truth, people only cared about Ryan while he could provide them his cool resort for them to enjoy. Even after spending all his money, it was Fontaine who really conquered the people's hearts, and he wasn't afraid of reinventing himself and starting from the bottom again, always beating Ryan at his own game even with Ryan changing the rules whenever he was cornered. Ryan spent his fortune and life to build a city, babbling some ideological fantasy, wanting people to adore him, and Fontaine just came with nothing and conquered not just the people, but also the market that Ryan so thought to be the master of. I believe the best word to describe Ryan, used by his real-world ideological partners, is "beta cuck".

In his last moment, Ryan decided that it didn't matter that you were going to murder him, because right before it he chose to die, so he won and you lost. Checkmate, collectivists!

Unpopular Opinion: The Legend of Korra is way cooler than Avatar: The Last Airbender

I wasn't a kid when I watched those shows for the first time, so I got nostalgia glasses for neither. I watched The Last Airbender on TV when it was coming out, The Legend of Korra I watched a few years after it was completed, but haven't rewatched them till I started this page. Watching stuff for a second time always gave me a different pespective, there are movies and shows that I came to appreciate way more after a second watch, and others way less. Korra is definetely a show I came to appreciate more.

First is the animation, a total killer. Coming out later there was a lot of technology to help Korra look amazing. Better lighting, particles, and a lot of 3D effects for vehicles, buildings, props and background in general, that helps a lot with depth and dimension, but the overall directing for fighting and action scenes are also on another level. From the whole bending to aerial dogfights and people flying and being thrown while the camera flies through the scene... I can't really compare it to any other western TV animation series from its time or before.

The story and characters are way more mature. And this here is personal preference, but I like how dynamic and unpredictable it is - whereas Aang is an Epic, and in the 30 seconds opening it already tells you all you are going to be watching on its 61 episodes. Honestly, by how rich the story of each season of Korra is, any of them could be stretched into an epic too. The villains are also on another level. I love Azula, but Ozai is pretty unremarkable, they had a lot of time to build his character but he was ignored. Amon, Taarlock and Zaheer, on the other hand, are great! - well, I find Unalaq and Kuvira just ok, but still more interesting than Ozai.

I feel like Korra falls short in synergy between characters. Having way more of them, while an average 13 episodes per season, also doesn't help. Yeah, Mako, Bolin and Asami can't really compete with how great Katara, Sokka and Toph were together, and there is also the issue that the character's in Korra are always drifiting apart, and they didn't get whole episodes for each to develop them further like The Last Airbender had, so the main cast is not as memorable, but I find Korra a way more interesting character than Aang - and, Iroh aside, same for the supporting cast.

Fandoms tend to be just toxic congregations of manchildren sucking hard on the nostalgia cock, proclaiming whatever they watched when they were kids is the best thing ever and everything released after is shit (so many big franchises are on this endless cycle...). I remember back in the day Korra got a lot of hate, it was Avatar but it wasn't Aang so "Booo!", but Korra is a fantastic series, with way more mature and serious characters and better written villains and story in general. The Legend of Korra is way cooler than Avatar: The Last Airbender!

The Boys comics are pure awesomeness, and you only like the TV show because it mocks Trumpsters

The Comics:

Man, whenever I post The Boys in the page now it seems to be a trigger. I don't know if Ennis was cancelled by internet folks or what, but tons of random people jump in to say how much they hate Ennis and everything he writes. Funnily enough, in my last post, you could see both people complaining that he is a libertarian and that he is a communist... seems like when they dislike something, they try to make it their political opposition... same people that call Ennis childish...

It really seems that most people get shocked while reading. They get uncomfortable with slurs, violence, sex jokes, etc. It's hard to conceive how fucking sheltered you have to be to lack the emotional maturity to handle that, and get hurt by words instead, but what surprises me the most is that they thought they were going to be reading a Rated G Super Friends comic? One wouldn't go watch a horror movie and then complain there was too much killing and blood, so why would one read a black comedy by Garth Ennis and say there is too much depravity?

My current description for The Boys comic's posts is: "A dark and cynical satire of the superhero genre, exposing the corruption and depravity of powerful people left unchecked.
Another Garth Ennis pitch dark black comedy with a powerful social commentary. Say what you will, The Boys is the best superhero story written after Watchmen."

I'm baiting, but also not baiting, with the last sentence. The Boys is a fantastic and incredibly down-to-earth story. We have powerful people on Earth, they joyride with their super cars, cause accidents and get away with it, use their influence and position of authority to abuse power... if you read too many superhero comics you may think powerful people would form a Justice League or Avenger Initiative, but what they really do is Epstein's Islands. If looking at the real world makes you uncomfortable, perhaps you have to grow up.

Really, the vast majority of comments say it's just sex and violence, a story "written by a 13yo" for "edgelords" and "incels". Meanwhile, the first issue the comics discuss is rape. But it's not rape in the way it's usually perceived by society, as forceful or with threat of violence, but rape using influence. A woman is thrown in the middle of powerful, self-centered, men and is presented with the choice of being raped or kissing goodbye to her career and everything she ever worked for her entire life... Ennis brought this discussion to the comic medium, of all places, way way before #metoo was even a mainstream topic. How men just get away with it, having a whole system built to protect them, and a stupid society that, even now, still thinks it wasn't rape because they didn't threaten her with violence. Starlight had a very conservative upbringing, that both taught her to be ashamed of her sexuality and to just submit and accept that men are like that. Her development shows her breaking free from her indoctrination and understanding how she was being abused - even by the company selling her image. Yeah, Ennis also touches the theme of hypersexualization of heroines in the comic book medium, very pertinent, especially after we had guys like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld breaking comic sales records in the 90s. She develops her self-esteem, learns how to stand up for herself, and even develops a healthy and positive sexuality on her own terms... how the hell is that a story for "incels"? "Edgelords"? It really seems the average reader is just plain dumb, and all the themes touched goes right over their heads because the imagery used is too graphic for their sheltered minds raised on Christian-approved entertainment.

It seems that most people read The Boys and think it's a "What if superheroes were bad?", but it's a parallel of real-world powerful people: Corporations corrupting the government, poisoning communities with chemicals, military-industrial war machine complex and its billionaire contracts, normal people as acceptable collateral damage for profits. Ennis is not being "edgy"; he is talking about Blackwater, Monsanto, Hollywood, about the real world... the way it's all ignored and reduced to superheroes being killed, I can only assume all the themes are really going over people's head - or they are too damn ignorant to even know what this is about.

Ah, yeah. Ennis takes a big and well deserved shit on the superhero genre as well, making a parody of its most common and generic tropes, because here is the truest of truths: Superhero comics sucks!
If you read my Comics section, I say there I've read a lot of superhero comics when I was a kid. I collected most the Marvel stuff from the 90s, but I wasn't ever really into Avengers and Fantastic Four related stuff, even then I found them boring, as uninteresting god-like characters and perfect beacons of morality (which is even truer for Justice League, and why I never got into DC). I was really into X-Men, a ragtag group with real diverse personalities and dealing with a lot of personal problems, and Spider-Man, a broke ass dude, with an asshole boss, trying to get a girlfriend. From X-Men and Spider-Man I also had tons of stuff from the 80s and 70s I bought for cents at second-hand stores. I'm a well versed in the medium, and of course there are great stories here in there, but the medium itself sucks, it thrives on black and white absolute morals for kids, and endless repeating mind-numbing tropes. After some time reading superhero comics I realized that none of what was happening really mattered, every intense emotional and tipping point by a writter was nullified by another one the next year, every character had died and came back to life, gone bad and forgiven, infinite universes destroyed and recreated, everything is of no consequence at all. Superhero stories are great when written by guys that are there to break conventions, to write novels, to put an end on their stories, but when written by superhero fans you get endless more-of-the-same happening again and again. "The good guys beat the bad guys again. Hurray!", or a pissing contest about which character can hold more exploding suns up their butts: "My character can bench press the sun", "Oh yeah? My character can bench press three hundred and two thousand billions suns", "Oh yeah? My character can hold six zeptabillions black holes on his hand!", "So what, my character can run fourquadrupedzillions the speed of light", "Oh yeah, and my character can destroy the universe", "And my character can destroy 52 of them!"... it's incredible the mediocre childish stuff that pass as "good comics" by people who hate the likes of Ennis...

I've got a bit sidetracked on the rant there, but back at The Boys: Perhaps all the violence and harsh humor isn't for you, doesn't suit your taste, gross you out, or whatever, all good with that, but like I said before: One wouldn't go watch a horror movie and then complain there was too much killing and blood, so why would one read a black comedy by Garth Ennis and say there is too much depravity? Just skip the comics if it's not your thing. I really don't get how it's so controversial.

The TV show:

The same way people so vehemently hate the comics, they also love the show... What!?

I'm really convinced people that hate the comics BUT really love the TV show only does that because how the show portrays their current political adversaries, and for that they ignore the gaping holes in character development. Yeah, all the dumbfucks in the cult that worshipes Homelander are actually the dumbfucks in the cult that worshipes Trump, it's not even subtle.

The show is a complete watered down version of the comics, they diminish the impact of the most important stuff on Vought's background. I really feel like it's avoiding criticizing war-driven economy, government corruption and military contracts after the first season (you can't really pin it down on Trump, but how much money did Biden administration funnel to war that broke off right after his election, and was in a country his family had involvement in shady business?), and instead focus on political marketing, celebrity culture, culture and information war (now, this you can pin on Trump!). But all the shock value, gore violence and crass humor is there... people exploding everywhere, blood bathes left and right, brains falling out while a guy is eating ass, gill rape, bestiality, a baby used as a weapon... what really seems to be different is that the show makes fun of Trump's cult - and the comics doesn't.

If only the Amazon series could decide if Homelander had mommy issues, daddy issues, or if, in fact, he is not attention-seeking at all and wants to give the spotlight to his son; and if the Boys were a methodical and pragmatic group or a disoriented bunch acting illogically on emotions… yeah, the character development and the writing is pretty bad. I really liked first and second season, watered down, but really enjoyable. The third season, however, is a clusterfuck of bad writing.

Stillwell is one of my favorite comic book characters ever. In the show they made him a woman, and that was ok, because Homelander got this hilarious Oedipus Complex going on. But since they killed his plot device in the first season, they had to come up with something else, and out of nowhere, they try to emulate his relationship with the Stillwell from the comics with Edgar, a character he didn't give two fucks about up until that point but now was craving his approval... What? They forgot his drive was the Oedipus Complex!?
Also, his own son is no different from Stillwell's son: Someone competing for attention. But now Homelander wants to give love instead of receiving it? ... What!?

But what really bothers me is how the whole group went full retard in the third season... you have M.M. trying to pick a fight with Soldier Boy, even though he knows he can't do shit, and that Soldier Boy is their best chance against Homelander. Everyone getting mad at Butcher for doing exactly what he has to do, like everybody lost all their resolve and character. In the last fight no one even knew who they were up against, they were just fighting aimless, even fucking Butcher pulled a Starlord out of nowhere and stopped Soldier Boy when he was about to fry all the V from Homelander and Ryan's blood and solve all their fucking problems... What!?!? Is that what they consider way better writing than the comics? This mediocre basic TV writing for mediocre basic TV audiences that can't handle "good" characters acting on logic and objectives instead of emotion and morality? No, just no, that's the opposite of The Boys, what you really consider "better writing" is the swings on Trump.

Conclusion:

A lot of people also talks about Ennis being pessimistic, nihilistic, misanthropic, etc. Pretty weird how the only two genuinely good characters were the ones that prevailed and managed to get a happy ending. The Boys is incredible optimistic lol.

And the lesson learned is that, for next The Boys comics' posts, I'm gong to limit comments to followers only from the start. I don't need other hundreds of shocked vanilla normies swarming in.

... wait a minute, all this buzz just increases my reach. Complain all you want. Dance, monkeys, dance.