Sticking the Landing - Thoughts on "Avengers: Endgame"

It should go without saying that there will be massive SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame in this post. Proceed with caution!

Yeah, yeah, I know. There was once a time when I would have had this written down mere moments after seeing this movie on opening night. All I can say is that adult life is a bitch and we didn't have the time or the funds to see it until tonight.

I did manage to stay mostly spoiler-free, however. Even after the embargo was lifted a week ago, I still didn't see too many spoilers, which I didn't expect. So, way to go Internet. You did something right for a change.

Anyway - my thoughts on this capstone of over ten years of comic book superhero movies -

It is very rare that a series with huge ambitions in the beginning manages to stick the landing at the end. I mean, just this morning multitude of Game of Thrones fans are complaining that this final season is not living up to expectations (meanwhile, I am vindicated in my choice to not get into it, even though there were times where I felt like I was missing out on something. Turns out, no - I really wasn't). Once Upon a Time fizzled out at the end. The DC movie universe is kind of... not. The less said about Universal's Dark Universe, the better. And, of course, the most infamous example of a series turning out a massive pratfall and pretending that all is well while also insulting the fans who are presenting legitimate criticisms - the less said about Star Wars, the better (never thought I would prefer the prequels, but I'll gladly take another Jar Jar Binks scene if my other choice is some hipster-beard asshole soy-splaining to me how I just don't get the glorious vision of Kathleen Kennedy subverting audience expectations by vacillating between utter laziness and preachy bullshit).

But, somehow - the Marvel Cinematic Universe pulled off the impossible. It stayed the course for 22 movies, with minimum flaws, sticking to the plan, and not churning out a single sub-par entry. Mediocrity was never an option. Even some of the MCU films that weren't quite up to snuff with their comrades are VASTLY better than anything else the imitators are trying to present. I mean, I would happily watch Thor: The Dark World when compared to some of the offerings of other studios lately.

I loved Endgame. I don't know if I'll get to see it in theaters again, but I'd love to. This was a love letter to these characters and this entire series. It went against everything I expected to see, but in a way that I enjoyed. Sure, I expected them to go after Thanos in the aftermath of Infinity War, but to have that confrontation happen and be done within the first act, it's like "Okay, what do we do now?"

We jump ahead five years later and have Scott Lang show up with the Applied Phlebotinum to save the day. That's precisely what we do now.

Who knew those memes about Ant-Man being the hero, rather than Captain Marvel, were actually pretty accurate?

Did I see the time travel plot coming? Nope. Did I enjoy it? Hell yes, I did! It was even explained fairly well (using pop culture references as well as scientific explanations in a way that the audience could follow. I appreciated that effort).

Remember what I said about this movie being a love-letter to all the movies that came before? This is how you make that work. The first Avengers movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, every Captain America movie, Doctor Strange, even Thor: The Dark World had a nod within this sequence (Thor reunited with his mom here was great). And in between, there are nods to other moments in the MCU and how it all connects together. This makes me want to re-watch all of the MCU movies in order, and now I'm not under a time-crunch to do it in. I can do it at a leisurely pace and enjoy myself as I do.

A few things that I did know going in, but I didn't really have context for - I knew about Thor letting himself go, but I didn't know that it was because of his guilt for not "going for the head." But the joy on his face when he finds out he's "still worthy" of Mjolnir - that was worth it. Also, I knew Black Widow died, but the reason for it and how it went down, was absolutely gut-wrenching.

Nebula was outstanding, even with the problem of her inadvertently alerting Thanos to the Avengers' plans (who knew that future!Nebula would have been on the same outer-space-wifi network as past!Nebula?) I loved that she got the chance to shine in the fight against Thanos. I'm even more excited that she's not only a Guardian of the Galaxy, but also an Avenger (but it's Karen Gillan - I already have a soft spot for her in general).

Banner-Hulk was adorable, as was Rocket (though I ought not to let him hear me say that). Tony's little family was unexpected, but lovely. I'm glad that he and Pepper finally got to live their lives together - also that Pepper finally gets what makes Tony tick. Seeing her as Rescue in the ending was great.

The cavalry at the end - everyone coming in through those portals behind Cap when he's facing down Team Thanos, seemingly on his own. If nothing else, THAT is what I mean when I say this movie - this whole series - stuck the landing. Nothing short of everybody showing up was going to be satisfactory enough. And it didn't feel like they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. It actually WORKED (with a few minor exceptions that I will mention shortly, but those were hardly enough to be a bother).

Cap lifting Mjolnir was amazing. But what was even more amazing was Thor shouting "I knew it!" Meaning that he wasn't jealous of Steve's worth - they're a team and they all had common goals. But admit it - seeing Cap control Thor's lightning was pretty kickass.

Everyone reuniting with their friends - Scott and Hope, Tony and Peter Parker (oh man pull out the tissues for THAT one), Steve and Sam and Bucky, Groot and Rocket, all the Guardians showing up - just everybody. Wanda coming back and being utterly PISSED at Thanos (that was another one that I was cheering to get a good crack at Big Purple Ugly). I admit, I am looking forward to the Wanda/Vision show on Disney Plus.

One minor quibble of a moment that I thought was too on-the-nose and kind of took me out of the story for a bit - the Girl Power thing when Captain Marvel was trying to get the Infinity Gauntlet to Scott's van... eh, was that entirely necessary? I mean, everyone's already shown up to fight this insane threat. Would it really be so bad if, like, Thor or Black Panther or Doctor Strange or Drax helped too? It's not like Scarlet Witch or Wasp or the Wakanda warrior ladies really know this butch chick from outer space. Did they all have some weird estrogen wavelength moment where they all decided they were going to run block for her because, X-chromosome or something?

Then again, Girl Power was a huge deal in the '90s. It's kind of passe at this point.

But that's neither here nor there. It doesn't last that long and soon enough, we're back to everyone fighting toward the same goal - stop Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones again. And, honestly, having Tony be the one to do it was the best way they could have done it. This whole saga started with Iron Man - both in universe and as far as the success of the first Iron Man movie in the real world - he deserved to be the one to finish it. And it made sense - Doctor Strange even said that if he told Tony what he'd seen, it wouldn't happen.

But just that final "I am Iron Man" - I knew it. I mean, I figured that this was going to be RDJ's last hurrah as Tony Stark. And it wouldn't do for him to go out with anything less than a bang. Didn't make it any less heartbreaking (especially considering little Morgan Stark is now without her dad).

And then Cap wraps up the rest of the story by putting all the Infinity Stones back where they need to be - and then he gets to choose what he does with the rest of his life. And THIS - this part right here - this is what sealed the deal for me. Because from Captain America: The First Avenger, I have been the biggest hardcore Steve/Peggy shipper. I didn't get too carried away with it, though, because everything I've seen indicated that it was simply never going to happen. But I adore Steve Rogers and I adore Peggy Carter - both in their own rights as individual characters (honestly, I'd trade any future seasons of Agents of SHIELD for just one more round of Agent Carter). And once Banner and co. were all "Where's Steve?", that's when I knew what he'd done. He retired and went back to find Peggy and live out his life with her.

Funnily enough, I didn't get too weepy at any part of this movie. But at that moment - when Old!Steve came back to bequeath his shield to Sam Wilson and Sam commented on Steve's wedding ring - that's when the waterworks started.

What's weird is that, out of everything that happened in this movie, that's the thing that pissed some people off. Because their Tumblr slashfic of Cap and Bucky didn't get realized on screen. Honestly, if you have a problem with Captain Steve Rogers getting his happy ending with Agent Peggy Carter, First Lady of SHIELD and all-around classy badass, I really don't want to talk to you.

So - who's left? Thor's gone off to be an Guardian of the Galaxy (I think). Banner and Falcon and Bucky are still at Avengers HQ (what's left, anyway). Spider-Man's getting another movie in a couple months. After that, who knows?

And the credits - man, I think anyone who ever had a significant role in this universe got a mention in the credits. Which is more than appropriate. This is the capstone to an insanely ambitious project that started out as a pie-in-the-sky idea and that somehow - through the intervention of Fate, Kevin Feige, and the Disney Company's checkbook - came together and smashed all kinds of preconceptions and traditions in film. It has been imitated from studio boardrooms, but I don't think ANYONE is going to do this again. If the damn Academy could ever get off their high horses and stop huffing their own farts, Team Marvel deserves some kind of special recognition award for pulling this off (they'll never do it, because the Academy is about celebrating their own egos, not anything to do with actual film and culture). This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, for which I thank all involved for putting this all together.

It all worked. Everything just worked. There's nothing left that I have questions about (at least, nothing that I can accept belongs to future stories). I will probably have other thoughts as I have more time to process the movie. But I'm just feeling great about how this ended. Will I go see more Marvel movies? Um... not sure. I kind of want it to go out on a high note. I don't want to risk it hanging on longer than necessary and getting run into the ground (as inevitably happens with a lot of long-running series, see the list of failures mentioned at the beginning of this post).

But for now - let me enjoy this.

I Am Not a Scolding Librarian, So Please Don't Ask Me To Be

I could blame my lack of blogging on the stresses of being a parent and holding down a job and just general life. But if I really had anything to write about - and that I wanted to share publicly - I could find time to blog. It's just that I haven't had anything I wanted to talk about in front of the entire world. Privately, yes. I guess I'm just kind of over having my personal life and philosophy laid out for all to see and critique.

However, today something happened that's got me connecting a few dots and, yeah, I want to share my conclusions.

When I'm on the reference desk, I get TONS of questions from people. Some are straightforward: Can I help someone find Book X or Movie Y? Can you help me with the printer? Where's your copy machine? Where's the bathroom? Some are a little more complicated, like how to check out an ebook or use the online Consumer Reports database. All fairly manageable and routine. (Though anything that involves calling the police, I hand over to the Librarian in Charge - thankfully those instances have been few and far between in my experience.)

And some are simple on the surface, but then they stick with you all day and makes you worry just a bit.

I had a mother bring her teenage daughter to the library today. Nothing out of the ordinary - lots of parents escort their kids to the reference desk looking for books. But this mom was out to prove a point to her child. The first thing she asked me was if there was anything "like Stephen King in the teen section, but not Stephen King." Meaning something that could be classified as horror, but that wasn't overly graphic in terms of language, sex, and violence. She kept bringing up Stephen King, which clued me into the fact that her daughter liked reading Stephen King, but the mother strenuously objected to it.

Maybe this is more like what she expected to get? I dunno...

Already, I can tell that I am not the librarian this mother wants to take on this task. Sure, Stephen King isn't exactly my cup of tea, but that's not to say he's a horrible writer (just in some cases). He certainly has his fans, nothing wrong with that. But this mother wants me to play the finger-wagging scoldy librarian who will introduce her daughter to the wonders of dusty old "classic" literature that only the high and mighty ever understand (in the service of irony, have a link to an article on that subject). Or at least squeaky-clean literature where no one ever, ever says a bad word or has dirty thoughts and no one ever dies in terrible, violent ways.

If I could have shown this mom the contents of my Kindle, she would have passed out on the fainting couch.

As is my habit in these cases, I turned to talk to the girl. If I had to guess, she's probably 14 or 15. Certainly no younger than 13. I asked her what she liked to read. She didn't want to answer. Okay, maybe a reluctant reader, this is not my first rodeo. What about her favorite TV show? Her answer? Supernatural. Got it - that's something I can work with. What does she like about that show and would she want to read something similar?

I had to pry these answers out of this girl. She looked like she would rather be anywhere else than in front of me with her overbearing mother. Because at this point, Mom jumps in with "But not Stephen King. None of that - ew - gross horror stuff."

(Here I started thinking "I didn't bring up Stephen King, lady. You're the only one mentioning the guy.")

Mom suggests a few titles that I can tell the girl is not going to like. All teen paranormal romance titles, which Mom thinks the girl is going to like because there's vampires and spooky magic stuff in them. The girl is annoyed, but doesn't say anything. Looking back with the benefits of hindsight, it seems this has been a point of some contention and the daughter is tired of trying to make her point.

In the interests of being the helpful librarian (see also: my day job) - I come up with a few ideas. I first bring up Maura McHugh's Twisted Fairy Tales and Twisted Myths, which are both anthologies of traditional fairy tales and classic myths, respectively, with a horror twist (not a far stretch in most cases) that I read during Halloween and enjoy for their macabre atmosphere. Mom put the kibosh on those on the grounds of "That looks too scary."

"Polka will never die!"
(It makes sense in context. Pic from here)

Okaaaaay... how about the Dresden Files? The girl says that she likes Supernatural because the guys investigate things like ghosts and otherworldly creatures. (I can honestly say that I couldn't think of a damn thing in the teen area because it's all Twilight and Hunger Games love-triangle knockoffs.) I even describe the scene in Dead Beat where Harry resurrects a T-rex skeleton in the Museum of Natural History and rides it into battle. And I swear, the girl's eye lit up like a frickin' Christmas tree.

BINGO.

I pulled up the catalog entry with all of Jim Butcher's stuff and the mom asked "Is there bad language and violence?" At most, the Dresden Files contains a handful of swearwords, and very rarely the most objectionable. But even that explanation didn't fly here. Honestly, I probably should have lied and said that Harry Dresden is a paragon of the moralest of moral virtues and never says anything worse than "shucky-darn" (though his best friend, Michael Carpenter, certainly fits that bill - and he's also an awesome badass bonefide paladin soldier of God who owns a magic sword that contains a nail from the Cross. Oh man - and the relationship between his wife, Charity, and their daughter, Molly, would have probably hit home for this girl. Maybe she'll pick up the series on her own. I sure hope so).

This whole back and forth was really frustrating for me, and I could tell the girl was getting upset too. I so wanted to tell this girl to come back later without her mother and we'd talk. Or that I could have told Mom to go peruse the parenting aisle for a few minutes while I helped her daughter find something that she'd be interested in reading. As it was, I managed to find a kind of compromise with "The Last Apprentice" by Joseph Delaney. At least it was in the teen area.

And here's the deal - I can pretty much guarantee that this girl is going to read and watch what she pleases behind her mother's back. I know because I did that (the statute of limitations has far run out on these "crimes"). I had Sailor Moon on recorded VHS tapes and Animorphs books that I bought with my own money and that I had stashed away in a bottom drawer and in the back of my closet. Now, I wouldn't say my parents were overbearing about my reading habits - but there were a few things they didn't quite approve of at the time. But if I could do that in a time before the internet was ubiquitous and smartphones and ebooks weren't even a thing, what are today's teenagers going to get away with? And spare me the pearl-clutching, panic-inducing, scare-tactic, click-bait, pop-up-ad-riddled articles proclaiming this app or this website is going to eat our children in one painful swallow. While your concern is appreciated, your gullibility is less laudable. Correct it.

(Apologies to Lois McMaster Bujold with that last sentence.)

Here I come to where I start to connect the dots - I subscribe to a philosophy that more ideas, not less, is the ideal. Let people - adults, teens, kids - learn about things for themselves. True, you have to take into account maturity levels with certain subjects and materials. You can be a responsible adult and allow kids to experience these ideas and still do it in a safe and controlled (note, not controlling) environment.

But this Puritanical moral guardian panic attitude helps precisely no one. It didn't work in the '80s when parents groups were freaking out about D&D and saying that a game of make-believe is going to lead to their kids worshipping Satan. It didn't work in the early 2000s when parents thought Harry Potter was going to lead their kids to worshipping Satan. It's not working now when social justice scolds think a mention of Native American culture in a kids' book is going to lead kids to turn into bigots and worship... whatever their shitty version of Satan is.

I don't have to like everything that I put in a patron's hand. There have been times where helping a patron find a particular book has pissed me off so badly because I hated the book that they were looking for and my instinct was to warn them away from it. But by damn, if that's what they're looking for, I will help them find it and let them read it. I will save my internal rants for when I get home. There should be something in every public library that will piss off at least one person. If we tried to keep our libraries free of inoffensive content for everyone, we wouldn't have a damn thing on the shelves.

People probably associate me with the ultra-conservative religious right as far as politics go. In some ways, that is true. However, there is a lot that has caused me to diverge more into the small-l libertarian ways of thinking (and before some jackass starts, I really have no opinion about legalized pot one way or the other, so don't even ask). Meaning, you leave me alone, I leave you alone, and you can do as you wish as long as you don't steal from, injure, or kill somebody. Pretty straightforward.

(An acquaintance once characterized it thusly: "I want my gay-married neighbors to be able to protect their pot garden with AR-15s.")

And yet, there are people who not only want to police what they themselves say, do, and think, but they want to make rules for what we ALL say, do, and think. I used to be a little more secretive about the media I enjoyed, but that made me feel like some kind of criminal (or at least a junkie that had to indulge her bad habits on the sly). But I've come to a point in my life where I don't give a crap if people know that I read trashy romance novels or watch anime or read books with violence and bad language, but have interesting stories and well-written characters. If they want to scold me for my choices, that says a lot more about them than it will ever say about me.

I've sure come a long way from that scared kid trying to navigate middle school and endure snotty comments and snide looks from her classmates. With any luck, this girl that I tried to help will also learn some valuable lessons along the way.

Sigh... I can only do so much. Which is why I plan to let my kid's friends come over and read whatever they like, especially if it's something their parents give them crap about. I'll even provide the snacks. Probably won't make me popular with the adults in the neighborhood, but I'm starting to learn that social sphere is kind of overrated.