Welcome again to We Have Always Live the Kraken, a pop culture blog transmitted directly to you from the belly of the beast. Here in the Notes we’ll show you this month’s posting schedule, but first, here are some thoughts.
So if you’ve been around here enough you know that I have a strange love for a somewhat niche Marvel superhero: Moon Knight. Now, describing Moon Knight has always been fun, because basically he is Batman with supernatural disassociative personality disorder. Moon Knight has slowly been coming more and more into the public consciousness lately because, well, he is awesome, and also this panel, which has become quite the meme.
Never get between a mercenary and his money, especially if you are Dracula.
Moon Knight began as a mercenary in the comics, but over time he has also grown into someone who wants to be a hero, even if he is a hero with some very violent and dark impulses that he has tried to control with limited success. All of this groundswell Moon Knight support has been building until now, when he finally achieved the mainstream success fans were hoping for with an upcoming show on Disney Plus. The show had long been rumored as a possible addition to the (also rumored) Netflix Marvel Knights show, which would have made sense for a number of reasons: Moon Knight is based in New York, and his aesthetic would have been perfect for the Netflix Marvel style. Now, though, he is going to be on Disney Plus, and well, I have some concerns.
Disney Plus is a family-oriented platform that is not going to allow any Rated R or mature content, which is kind of a problem, because that is what Moon Knight is. It makes even less sense, because Hulu exists for Disney’s mature content, and will have its own Marvel TV shows as well in the form of Ghost Rider and Helstrom. I had hoped that maybe Marvel TV and Marvel Film would have gotten past their petty bullshit by now, and be able to work together on things, but I can’t help but wonder if part of this is simply that Kevin Feige is going to have far more control of the Disney Plus shows than he is of the Hulu ones (which Jeff Loeb has more of a say in). Even if all that last bit is bullshit, it doesn’t change the fact that Disney’s control of Marvel means there are just certain stories that are going to be hard to tell because Disney wants to live on a world where everything is “family-friendly”, because what would the soccer moms think if there were movies or shows with the Disney brand that they had to actually think about before showing them to their children??? The horror… Excuse me as my eyes roll out of my head.
Look, ultimately I am happy that Moon Knight is going to exist in live-action form, but you can excuse me if I lack faith in a company that canceled their first show on Disney Plus because apparently when you tell the backstories of villains things might get dark, or that replaced the showrunner on High School Musical because he wanted to deal with the kind of adult themes that people in high school actually deal with.
-David
From the depths of the Kraken, here is what we are bringing you this month.
After going deep into the depths of the monster last month, we have opened up a new wing that will allow you to reflect on past works of ours whenever you might want so please enjoy these views from the not so ancient past.
Look back at when Keskel critiqued the effort to help anime to become more mainstream (oh how the times have changed).
Look back at a classic Atomika Vs… that examined Hollywood’s creative issues with women.
Catch of the Week Month:
Each and every week the residents here in the Kraken will offer one recommendation for the week that we think you all would enjoy. It might be a movie. It might be a book. Who knows? This is your… Catch of the Week Month.
Kyu: This month I’m recommending Die (Vol 1), a horror comic about (spooky fingers) the imaginaaaation. Actually, it’s Jumanji meets DnD, with all that entails, and when I say “with all that entails” I actually mean it. Here’s a comic about a group of friends who get sucked into a fantasy world when they’re teenagers, and return when they’re adults for the one they left behind–but unlike a jungle board game, Dungeons & Dragons naturally reflects who the players and Gamemaster are. This element of responsibility is one of the most fascinating aspects of the story: the players’ choices in this fantasy world have moral weight, and the world itself is shaped by their personalities, especially that of the mysterious Sol, the friend who never came home. Narratively, Die is a thrilling blend of fantasy deconstruction (like in one issue, that blends Tolkien with the Great War that influenced him), RPG reconstruction (its reinvention of the standard character classes is worth the price of admission all by itself), and a throwback aesthetic that reminds me strongly of the classic Vertigo ’90s horror comics. Writer Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + The Divine) is never too caught up in worldbuilding a clockwork army (“the Eternal Prussia”) or exploring the emotional conundrum of a seemingly cishet male character living for years as a straight female character to throw in, say, an eyeless corpse decomposing all at once on your face, while Stephanie Hans’ art, vivid yet blurred, evokes the impressionistic quality of Dave McKean while finding an aesthetic all her own–one that feels not so much dream-like as daydream-like, fluid with invention. Dense and whiplash-paced, I’m not sure I fully understand Die just yet, but Vol. 1 was a wild ride and I look forward to returning for the next session of this dark and deadly campaign.
David: Hmm, I am going to go with DC Universe’s Doom Patrol. This show is truly a weird and unique experience, as it uses everything you would expect from a comic book superhero show to twist, subvert, and celebrate everything you thought you knew. It is delightfully not like anything else, and DC would be wise to invest as much as they can into shows like this. Clearly, at some level they agree with me, because Doom Patrol will get a boost in viewership when it airs on the soon-to-be-launched HBO Max in addition to DC Universe. It will be some time until Season 2 airs, so in the meantime give Season 1 a shot, and enjoy a show that has exquisite character work, emotional beats that will really get to you in the most unexpected ways, and stylistic violence and action. This show is a blast, and you will thank me when you finally see it.
That’s it for this month’s notes. As summertime turns to autumn, a young Kraken’s thoughts turn to love… of crushing things. We suggest visitors enjoy the carnage from the safety and amusement of the Cranial Vantage Point viewing area. Flying debris hardly ever hits that high.