I mean, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you’re wrong. Love and Thunder was, at minimum, a completed movie. The self-parody went way too far, and it wasted what was potentially the best villain since Loki. More Gor and less of an Australian actor trying to do a Greek accent that ended up sounding French. Also, it had screaming goats, so it was not a good movie. But it was a fully-rendered, complete film with some cool visuals and at least a semblance of an engaging story.

Jane is dying of cancer, and becoming Mighty Thor protects her but also accelerates her demise.

What about the nature of power, and who is ultimately responsible when bad things happen?

Is faith justified by the (in)actions of higher beings?

What does it mean to be “worthy”?

Love and Thunder was the third act of Thor’s character arc, where he discovers what is important, and what his purpose is. Is he a hero? A king? A protector? A petulant braggart? A leader? A killer? A God? What does he really want to be? What would he wish for?

He finds the ulitmate boon, the thing he’s been looking for since the first Thor movie, his life’s purpose. He returns “home” fully changed and seeking new adventures not for glory, but to break the cycle of oppression sought by the powerful.

Love and Thunder is not well done, and the message is muddled, but Quantumania is just bad. There are a few funny bits, Paul Rudd is always charming, and Kang was portrayed by a good actor who may or may not be a bad person (not the point of this discussion). But it suffered from the same self-parody problem as Thor, and it didn’t look good. The quantum realm wasn’t interesting, the story was internally inconsistent, ants developed weapons and saved the day because time shenanigans(!?), MODOK happened and was a huge disappointment (I did laugh out loud at him becoming an Avenger), and it all looked like they were rehearsing scenes while they waited for the sets to be done being built. Quantumania was an aggressively bad movie with almost no redeeming qualities or character development. Cassie grows a bit (pun intended), and Scott learns to see her as a young adult (and, dare I say, a Young Avenger), Janet slays some of the demons from her past, Hank learns his wife was fucking tiny Bill Murray, Hope is also in the film, and Kang is set up to be the next big threat to the Avengers Multiverse (except forget that bit because reasons). The stakes could literally not be smaller.

Isn’t it likely that in the microsecond after they all return to human size, the ants developed a whole new oppressive civilization using the remnants of Kang’s technology and their own, subjugated all the subatomic residents, and are a potential threat to the larger universe? Kang was going to escape, why not the techno-ants?

All the post-Endgame movies and shows have been about introducing the Young Avengers lineup. Wiccan and Speed, Patriot, Hawkeye II, America Chavez, Kid Loki, plus Ms Marvel, Phyla Vell, Skaar, and Riri. Obviously Stature will be there, but I would argue that Love is set up to bring more to the table both in power set and pathos.

That’s not to say Love and Thunder was a good movie. But it had good within, and isn’t that what really makes us all worthy?

I sunk hours into NetHack, and I still occasionally dive into the dungeons. I also have a NES emulator on my phone, but it’s just not the same. I’ll play Zelda or Metroid for the nostalgia, but it’s not the same as sitting on the couch with friends.

I’m glad you have data, because I was just thinking that cultural attitudes towards tattoos and nudity don’t seem to be related, but I can’t prove that.

I just love seeing all the books from my childhood coming to life on the big screen, and being able to talk to friends about comic book nerd stuff. Marvel, at the very least, has been respectful of the source material and given the filmmakers resources to create an interconnected universe. I don’t care if they make a few stinkers as long as they keep trying to make better movies.

Sony and DC both have transparently disrespected the source material and the fans. They have made bad decisions about how to bring those comics to life, and created films that were inexcusably bad.

DC at least makes me hopeful with the new Superman trailers, but I’ll reserve judgement until I actually see it.

I’m hoping we get more Ms. Marvel where she explored the full strength of the Nega Bands.

And the Kree were clearly targeting planets that didn’t just have air and water, they were trying to hurt Captain Marvel. The movie didn’t do a great job at expanding on the idea, but Dar-Benn (had to look that up) was on a revenge mission. I don’t know if it was the actress or the writing, but she was just so forgettable that it was hard to keep track of her motivations. But first she went after the Skrulls, then the planet where Captain Marvel’s husband lived, then the Earth. The fact that she killed millions of Skrull refugees and billions of singing people didn’t seem to bother anyone too much.

But even factoring in all of those problems, it’s nothing as bad as Shazam 2 or fucking Madame Web, I just cannot get past how shitty that god-damned movie was. There wasn’t one single redeeming quality about the movie. Black Adam at least gave us a decent Doctor Fate. Flash bright back Keaton for Batman. Sure, those characters

Back in the before times, I remember Sony’s deal was that they had to keep making movies in order to hold onto the rights.

I’d argue that Sony was the reason for a lot of the superhero fatigue. The objectively worst MCU movie, QuantumMania, was still much better than Morbius, Kraven, and Madame Web. Some of the “bad” movies, like Eternals, Marvels, Love and Thunder, Multiverse of Madness, Black Widow, received disproportionately more hate than they deserved. As a lineup, it’s all very mediocre, but they were spread out over several years. For fans, they were fun (flawed) excursions into each of those character stories. For non-fans, they were yet another opportunity to gleefully shit on superhero movies to drive engagement or to push a political agenda or just because they think superheroes are the reason we don’t get auteur indie films anymore.

Eternals had too many characters and generic monster blobs. But the characters were nuanced and complex, and the plot wasn’t nearly as incoherent as critics said.

They also had a gay hero and a disabled hero, and they gender-swapped two of the male heroes. Certain people didn’t like that.

The Marvels had a boring villain and absurdly imbalanced stakes during the obliteration of two different plants and their native species. Also, a musical contrivance that I enjoyed more than most normal people.

They also had all female heroes, a female antagonist, and the first Muslim hero in films. Certain people didn’t like that.

Look, if you line 'em all up in a row, it’s basically the food court at the mall. There’s a wide variety of options, maybe one or two that are good, the rest are also there, and some bigots are grumbling about weird people who aren’t like them. That’s post-Engame MCU. Sony is like that kiosk near the court that definitely isn’t part of the food court, and they definitely don’t have the requisite plumbing to have a handwashing sink. Their poor hygiene practices have drawn bugs and rats, and they have a big sign that says that napkins and condiments are only for their customers.

Getting rid of Sony doesn’t make Marvel better, but it does reduce a lot of the strain on the viewing public.

Good.

Enjoyed with a double demitasse coffee with 2 half teaspoons of sugar and chilled steamed beef milk.

This will result in more unplanned pregnancies, more dangerous abortions, more suffering for women, more poverty, and fewer intelligent people in South Carolina as people with the means to leave do so.

I mean, it’s also entirely possible you’ve heard a failing magnetic drive, a humming battery, or a squeeky mechanical thing like brakes or bearings. Those are all strong indicators of a significant problem with the car, and should be fixed immediately. But if you hear it every time, as soon as the car starts moving in a parking lot, that’s the safety feature.

Looks like loose leaf lettuce on the bottom (the bright green, curly edge leaves), and there are cut strips of dried kelp or seaweed on top (the rectangular shiny bits) along with sliced green onion (the round ones).

Others have addressed your other questions, but I want to add that the “coil whine” that irritates you is probably the car’s slow-moving warning system. EVs are effectively silent at slow speeds because there is no engine noise or road noise, so they are required to make an annoying sound when maneuvering to get your attention. While it is an important safety feature, I agree some are very obnoxious.

Competition is good for the consumer. More options from more players will encourage more charging infrastructure and (ostensibly) more innovation. It’s not just Elon Musk vs China. Every automaker that wants to sell cars in the USA is on notice. If they want to compete in the EV subcategory, they need to focus on price and performance. People want budget-conscious EVs.

This is an easy case. Using published works to train AI without paying for the right to do so is piracy. The judge making this determination is an idiot.

Which is exactly what Frank would do with the same powers.

Fuck yes. I’ve always said that Punisher works best opposite Spider-Man. Daredevil was a good stand-in for the moral opposition to Frank’s brand of violent justice. Spider-Man isn’t just avoiding murder, he’s actively pulling punches to go easy on the criminals he fights.

It is what was missing from the Thomas Jane and Dolph Lundgeren films. We had lots of revenge violent rampage movies, and seeing the Punisher killing violent murderers in a violent world of murderers doesn’t have the same effect as when you have principled heroes in the same universe.

Is the question what it is? Or what it should be?

Which is like a normal amount of money for a book advance. It’s not like the publisher had matters before the court, or the judge was given free money and vacations for nothing in return. Justice Jackson wrote a book, and her book is a national bestseller.

Disney does not know where it wants to go or what it wants the movies to be. Blade seems like low hanging fruit, but what does an entire underworld of vampires mean for the rest of the MCU? Is it going to come up in Armor Wars? Will Kate Bishop start shooting stakes at fangers? The Wesley Snipes movies had him cut through hundreds of vampires in a nightclub where they had abducted hundreds of victims that they were bleeding for the sprinklers. Shield never ran across some weird bodies drained of blood through the neck?