Avengers: Endgame ... and Infinity War

Yesterday, I saw Avengers: Endgame. I thought I'd put my thoughts here where I can probably finagle some spoiler-font, and I'm going to discuss both Infinity War and Endgame as if they were one movie released in two parts, because they were. Fair warning: If you loved the movie and don't want to hear anyone bad-mouthing it, you should probably leave now. Because I didn't. I went in knowing I wouldn't, and the movie didn't do enough to change that.

Okay, here goes: Spoilers Ahoy!

These were not good movies. Sorry, they weren't. And the problem stems from Marvel, itself, which announced its continuing plans for their Cinematic Universe long before Endgame came out. So we knew that when Doctor Strange, Spider-man, The Scarlet Witch, Quill, Drax, Groot, Mantis, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier, Falcon, The Wasp, the original The Wasp, the original Ant-Man, and Nick Fury and Maria Hill turned to dust and when the new Ant-Man was left in the Quantum Realm, they were all going to come back. Because there were going to be more Black Panther movies, more Spider-Man movies, more Guardians of the Galaxy movies, more Doctor Strange movies, and probably another Ant-Man movie. So the entire first movie was a cheap stunt to guarantee an audience for the second movie.

And if half the population (presumably of the universe, after all, Drax and Groot had never been to earth), disappeared, why were so many of the Avengers and Avenger associates destroyed? It sure seemed like of all the cast of all the MCU movies, we were left with 5 Avengers, Ant-Man in quantum space, and a talking racoon. And Nebula, who's still finding her inner anti-sociopath. It defied all statistical logic. Then again, I suppose we should be glad Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) made the cut, because otherwise, Fury's last-ditch SOS would have gone to nobody.

Then there's the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff ( © Doctor Who ). Marvel, for some strange reason decided to make their own time-travel rules that completely ignore reality. Why can't they go back in time and kill Thanos as a baby? Tony Stark's answer: Because you can't. Thanos grew up. It's reality. You can't change reality. But the reality of time-travel is that of course, if traveling through time were possible, you *could* but that there would be consequences and we don't know what those consequences are. This is why you can't go back and kill Hitler as a baby: despite how horrible he was, the outcome could just possibly wind up worse. (Example: Nazi Germany conquers the planet *without* World War II.) Okay, so they created that rule. Then they broke it, at least twice. First, when Thanos of the past finds out that the Team was gathering Infinity Stones and decides to come to the present/future to take them, which might be Thanos of the Past's future, but it was Dead Thanos of the Present's past-which-didn't-happen. Then when Steve Rogers gets to go back in time to the 1940s and live happily ever after with Peggy Carter, which we know didn't happen before.

Then there's the math. If Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr) was born in 1970, I was the Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys (also in 1970). Sorry, Robert. You had your film debut in 1970. Admittedly, you were 5, but there's a big difference between 0 and 5. Also in the same year that Captain America and Iron Man went back to, Captain America gets to see Peggy Carter (but not let her see him). On the up-side, it means the end where he goes back to her in the late 1940s, that doesn't come out of the blue. But if she's living the happy homemaker life in the 40s and 50s, did she come out of retirement to be at that military base in 1970? And only have aged about 5 years instead of 25? And I suppose when 38-year-old Captain America (I'm being kind and ignoring the fact that most of Endgame occurs 5 years from now) goes back to the late 1940s, does he then jump back forward in time when he hits 75 (circa 1982 - 1987) so he can be 75 when he meets Sam Wilson (The Falcon) again? Because otherwise, dude looks pretty good for 110 years old.

Final issue is the animal: I don't care about the horrible storage unit that van was put into. Hell, maybe it was an impound lot, although it looked a lot more like random storage (no idea who would have been around to put it in storage since apparently no one's collecting garbage anymore … not that anyone used much over five years) … No, the problem is that this Quantum Tunnel Controller that takes three nuclear physicists to operate to send Scott into the Quantum Realm can be reactivated to bring Scott back by an animal jumping on it and pressing some random button. I guess it's a good thing the people who put that van into storage didn't try to figure out what that machine did.

Ah, but there were some good moments. Not good enough to make it a good movie, but they were good. Apparently, after 22 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's now finally official! Steve Rogers, aka Captain America is not a homophobe. That's right: when he's running his support group for people who lost people in the purge, a man tells them that he went out on a date – with another man. And Steve isn't taken aback at all. Plus, we get our first gay character in the MCU … for about 30 seconds. Out of 48 hours and 11 minutes (including credits, because even though there were probably a lot of gay people listed in the credits, we can't count them as movie characters, and because I can't separate out the time of the credits from the movie run times). So, not exactly a great moment, but a nice little one. Emphasis on little. There were actually a few nice moments when people were brought back from the purge. No, Spider-Man and Iron Man hugging while there was a war going on wasn't one of them. But seeing Scarlet Witch come back, seeing the Ant Team come back, seeing All of Wakanda come back were. Not quite sure how Doctor Strange managed to get a message to all of those people that this was what was going on in the 10 minutes or so between the finger snap and when they appeared, but … it was off-camera, so I can't really complain about how it happened. Seeing The Women form a battle line to protect little Spider-Man was nice, although I would have liked to have seen Big And Powerful Captain Marvel actually whip Thanos' butt instead of just knocking him down a couple times. Hell, a few of them did *that*. Finally, a question: Did they give Black Widow blond hair for Infinity War just so she could have the red hair with blond ends in the Five Years Later portions of Endgame? I guess her hair dresser didn't make the purge.

Advice for Writers from a Dissatisfied Reader

I love to read. Or, rather, I used to love to read. As I got older, I got more and more frustrated by the heteronormative nature of mainstream books, and TV, and movies. This isn't really about that, though. It's just the introduction.

Because there is gay fiction out there. But, because there's a greater market for heterosexual fiction, the best writers, the best actors -- really, the best of everything -- they go to mainstream fiction. And we're left with slipshod work from people, some of whom have actual talent, but don't seem to be willing to work at it. And with the ease of self-publishing and vanity presses, it keeps getting worse.

So this is my first set of advice for writers. Whether you are writing straight fiction, gay fiction, trans fiction, science fiction, rom-coms, thrillers, whatever your genre, please consider the people you want to read or watch your work.

1. Proofread - For goodness sake, no one wants to pay $15 for a paperback novel where the words strung between two periods make no sense. Yes, when a book says, "Simon gazed deep Harry's eyes," we readers know that the characters aren't Simon and Deep Harry, but that's not our job. It's your job as a writer to write, "Simon gazed deeply into Harry's eyes."
1a. Know your grammar and spelling - This isn't a Facebook post. You are asking people to shell out their hard-earned money for your work. Know the difference between To, Too, and Two; There, Their, and They're; and all those fun grammar memes. And if you're going to use a word, know how to spell it and know what it means. Don't use "sentient" because you want a fancy word for "smart". That's not what it means. But if you do want to use "sentient," and it applies to the situation, please don't type "scentiant."
1b. The Oxford Comma - Honestly? It really doesn't matter. Read your sentence. If it makes sense, use it. If it doesn't, fix it. "We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin to the party" doesn't make sense. Neither does "We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin," or "We invited the strippers: JFK and Stalin." I DO NOT want to go to that party. You want to have a party? Invite your brother, your cousin, and your friends from work or school. Or invite your brother, your cousins and your friends from work or school. (See how with or without the Oxford Comma, that still makes sense? Of course, in this case, it's better with the comma because the comma separates the phrases, but leaving out the comma doesn't make it nonsense.) For breakfast this morning, I had a sandwich made from a waffle, egg, sausage and cheese. Yes, I do believe you can tell that I didn't have a sandwich made from a waffle, and then have egg, and then have sausage and cheese. I had all of those things in one sandwich. (It was GOOD!)

2. Descriptions - Some readers just read the words on the page and then turn the page when they get to the bottom, and on it goes. Others cast books using actors, other famous people, even people they know personally, to fill the various roles. For their sakes, please describe characters, and describe them early. I've read books where I had no idea whether a character was blond, brunette or red-head. In some cases, I'll just pick someone, and continue on. In others, I'll pick someone and then find out half-way through the book that the person I picked just is not right.

3. Be consistent - I'm currently reading a book, which I won't name, where two characters changed hair colors half way through. And they didn't go to a salon, or open a box of dye, the writer just apparently forgot what color their hair was and wrote a different word. To solve this, I keep a physical description of all of my major characters. But it's not just appearance. You're writing characters. This is a little trickier: a character can get upset with someone who lied to them and still lie themselves. But a character who was a lousy student probably should not suddenly be able to speak fluent French (for example) or know the chemical formula for Riboflavin. And a character who's left-handed shouldn't then sign his name with his right. If character number 2 picks something up, it should still be in character number 2's hand until you write in a change (he puts it down or she gives it to someone else), or there's a change of scene.

4. Names - Even if all of your friends' names start with the same letter, do not name your characters John, Jeff, Jack, Jay, Jim, Josh, and Jenny. Even if it makes sense that a couple would name their kids that way, it's confusing. And I imagine it will be confusing for you as a writer, as well. Please also consider that your reader may not know how to pronounce Schlaingelhiszczuk. I mean, sometimes you have to do it. Rumanian names are Rumanian, but use caution.

Okay, enough for now. These shouldn't even have to be said, not on a blog post, but my reading history tells me otherwise.

I invented all of the examples above, based on similar reading experiences.