Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger is far better than DC’s Black Lightning

So, the first two episodes of Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger have just landed on Amazon Prime – which is odd, cos most other Marvel series like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil, The Defenders and Cheesy Iron Fist have appeared on Netflix. Strange that Marvel have changed platform? Well, Netflix had already shown DC’s Black Lightning, you see, so Cloak and Dagger would have been far too similar to what the Netflix audience had already seen.

Which one is better: Black Lightning or Cloak and Dagger? The latter, by quite a margin. Where BL is very hammy, preachy and cumbersome, C&D is nuanced, ambiguous and non-expository. Both series deal with serious issues about what it is like being a person of colour in today’s America, but BL is moralising and about taking individual responsibility, where C&D is about empathising with those who are victims/creations of their circumstances through no fault of their own. Put simply, BL is old-fashioned and stereotypical goodies v baddies fare, whereas C&D is real-world and morally confusing. Where BL’s storyline jumps around illogically in order to permit a big set-piece fight scene (always popular), C&D is about two young people coming of age, fearing the adult world into which they are emerging and seeking to suppress their incipient powers that will make them even more of a target. The two series are almost photonegatives of each other in terms of story-telling approach and plot organisation. They have competing philosophies, fundamentally.

Cloak and Dagger is not only better than Black Lightning as a TV show, but also it is markedly better than its own original comic strip. I grew up reading Cloak and Dagger (from their first appearance in The Spectacular Spider-Man), and they were a simple pair of heroes representing light and dark as superpowers, fighting an array of very silly baddies. There was no actual social context within their stories. Yes, Cloak was a person of colour, but literally only in how he was coloured in – there was nothing about his ordinary travails in the real world – and there was no real attempt to deal with (or discuss) their implicit inter-racial relationship. The TV show on Amazon Prime, by comparison, is fully ‘woke’ (if you’ll forgive the term).

The young pretty blonde who is Dagger is a petty thief. The way she steals from others is quite distressing to watch – and her crimes become less and less justifiable. We do empathise with her, because we’ve seen her upbringing and abusive mother (and she is as pretty as she is well acted by Olivia Holt), but at the same time we are increasingly horrified by what she does. Then there is Cloak, who is a young black guy who is morally upstanding but still ends up getting into no end of trouble (in part because of his colour). Dagger rides her luck and uses her colour to her immoral advantage, whereas Cloak (as buff as he is well played by Aubrey Joseph) does the right thing but always has his colour as a disadvantage. It’s a fascinating juxtaposition and complementarity. Their lives are a mess – and, we ironically suspect, things will only get better when they embrace their opposite. Roll on episode 3! So far, it’s an 8.5/10 from me (not more yet cos of the incipient evil-corportation cliche).

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The Alienist – a new gothic classic #alienist #netflix

The Alienist is set in the New York of 1896 – a Victorian, very Jack-the-Ripper sort of place. There has been a spate of child murders. The police are unable to make any progress in tracking down the killer… and some may actually be protecting him, as the suspicion is that he is the son of a powerful family. In desperation, the police commissioner (who is the historical character of Theodore Roosevelt) tasks his psychiatrist/alienist friend (Laszlo Kreizler) with assembling a team to find the killer.

Psychiatry is still in its early stages, as are the sciences of police forensics and profiling. Kreizler has to fight misconceptions, his own preconceptions and a corrupt society. All the while, the clock is ticking… and children are dying. He is frustrated and panicked by his inability to make immediate progress and lashes out at his companions, who are fighting their own demons. Indeed, it is the telling character interactions and growing self-awareness of his team (the feminist, the indolent dandy and the Jewish anatomists) which really make this compelling viewing (along with brilliant acting by the likes of Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl, Dakota Fanning, and others). The series refuses to indulge in excessive exposition – instead, we pick up clues about the protagonists’ past lives and associations by how they react to their various situations. Each of them has a hang-up, each of them has their own moral code, each of them has skeletons in the closet. The audience is effectively one of the team in having to read the clues and make sense of the narrative. It’s utterly immersive.

And we are immersed in some very psychologically-dark deeds that would only make sense to a dreaming or otherwise altered mind – a mindscape, if you will. It’s the definition of the gothic. The show is gory, in a surrealist way. It is full of disjuncture, false starts, misgivings, bizarre clues and circularity. But it’s thrilling, exciting and daring.

If you can imagine a mix of Mindhunter and Penny Dreadful, then you know what’s in store. If you can imagine a mix of historical fact and fiction, of romance and horror, of depravity and tenderness, of revulsion and compulsion, and if that intrigues and inspires you, then you will enjoy this show immensely.

It’s right up my murky, dangerous alley, this series. I score it 9 out of 10.

Black Lightning rejects the American Dream #BlackLightning

A high school principal asks his students to reject violence in favour of reason and obeying social and moral codes. But waiting beyond the school gates are gangs with weapons, forcing youngsters into whore houses and using drugs. The police seem powerless to protect the students, because they are underfunded and probably corrupt anyway. The students have little choice but to pick up weapons to defend themselves, some getting themselves killed in the process, and some becoming as bad as the actual gangs. All hell starts to break loose. The principal feels forced to resurrect his secret superhero identity (Black Lightning) in order to keep the streets ‘safe’. He has deep misgivings because he is thereby becoming a hypocritical vigilante. He feels (and very much looks) uncomfortable in his skin – in his lumbering, cheesy superhero disguise. It is an augmented suit too, one that takes a personal toll on him physically and mentally – he starts to become a monster at home, driving away all those he loves and wants to keep close. It is a physical symbol and enactment of his moral and spiritual conflict. It represents the damage done to the psyche and a person’s sense of identity (particularly a black person in an underprivileged area) in today’s (Trumpian) America.

This Netflix tv show (an adaptation of the DC character) will at first seem cliched and naff to viewers. But stick with it and you’ll find that your (genre) expectations are defeated time and again. A mother grieving for her son seeks to confront and shame the gang members who killed her boy. Our innate sense of justice expects her to win out where the cops have failed, or expects Black Lightning to turn up and save her when the gang members turn on her. But the gang members kill her. Outraged, we expect the community to rise up against the gangs, or expect Black Lightning to finally deliver justice. But most people shrug and look to carrying on with their lives. Black Lightning tracks down the killers, only to have a suit malfunction, get a proper kicking and become a laughing stock.

Wow. This is a dark series. It’s not bleak, as it keeps looking for a new way out or solution. Hope and humanity drive it on. One episode, we turn to the Church for answers, and the Church organises a peace march, only to have it shot up by the gangs. In another episode, we hark back to better times, when the local newspaper could name and shame, and hold people to account. But the old editor is now too terrified for his life to print anything too critical of anyone. A different solution is tried in every episode, with Black Lightning muddling through as best as he can, trying to keep faith in himself and justice. Is he a deluded fool? We root for him, but we find it harder and harder (with each set-back) to believe he can ultimately win out. We admire him, sympathise with him, but ultimately fear for him.

This is real life, then. It’s not some escapist superhero caper. The goodies don’t win. The baddies always seem to win. Welcome to the world, boys and girls. And Black Panther… you have no idea.

Marvel goes brutal! #ThePunisher

Marvel’s new series on Netflix has an 18 certificate, and with good reason. There is plenty of brutal violence in The Punisher, violence that is occasionally gratuitous and stretches credibility. For all that, it is a compelling watch and actually has… heart (a bloody and eratically beating one, but one that just about keeps going) . You see, the writers have made it all character-driven and there are no throw-away characters. Each protagonist and antagonist has a moral dilemma and a rationale for how they behave. We pity Frank Castle (the war vet whose family have been murdered) as much as we root for him as he seeks a vigilante’s vengeance. There are bigger themes explored too, including how far two human beings should risk trusting each other, how society uncaringly uses people, how lying can protect others, and so on. All in all, then, it’s well worth the viewer’s time.

It isn’t perfect, of course. In addition to the graphic and voyeuristic violence (no, it isn’t doing something clever with this), the plot tempo suffers in individual episodes and there is a lot of annoying repetition (presumably to remind dumber viewers of what’s going on). Yet such things are entirely forgivable when there are genuinely moving scenes, neat plot twists and great acting from Jon Bernthal in the lead (you might know him as the Deputy Sheriff in The Walking Dead), from Ebon Moss-Bachrach (a humorous techno-geek side-kick who keeps Frank Castle in touch with his humanity) and from Ben Barnes as the baddie.

Those who are coming to The Punisher just because they’re Marvel fans won’t be disappointed either. There is crossover with Daredevil via the Karen Page character and with Luke Cage via The Turk (a fave petty criminal of mine). Certain plot moments figure significantly in the Daredevil series, but they are told from a different perspective in The Punisher series.

The ‘mood’ of The Punisher series is far closer to the gritty and realistic Jessica Jones series than it is to anything like the hammy/cheesy Iron Fist or The Defenders. (That’s a good thing, believe me.) And the plotting is far, far better than in Luke Cage. And the issues explored are smarter than in Daredevil. So… The Punisher is a definite step forward in many ways. Check it out.

Will Smith v. orcs, elves and fairies #Bright

So, in the Netflix movie Bright, we follow a human cop (Will Smith) who is partnered with an orc cop. Orcs are generally despised, and the film starts out as some sort of allegory concerning modern race relations. Then everything swerves off into a thriller movie about corrupt cops wanting magic for themselves. They all die and then the movie becomes a chase action movie of sorts. You see, there are renegade elves who have a magic wand with which they could have raised the Dark Lord (who died two thousand years ago), but didn’t because the wand was stolen by another elf. The wand and pretty elf then have to be protected by Will and the orc. Will, fortunately enough, turns out to be the Chosen One of prophecy (NOT actually a spoiler because we are told at the beginning by a crazy naked man that Will is blessed) and pretty much the only human capable of wielding the wand. The pretty elf can also use the wand, but only knows one or two magic words, so is therefore limited. Happily, Will doesn’t need to know any magic words to use the wand, so uses the wand to kill the evil elf who wants the wand to raise the Dark Lord, but didn’t choose to when she’d had the wand before. What a brilliant plot! Utterly superb. A work of genius. Such clever twists. No cliches at all. Not a waste of Will Smith (who does his very best) or Noomi Rapace (the evil elf who gets about five lines in the whole film).

Sheesh. What a load of old toss. It’s even worse than the derivative book called Elven Sacrifice that I wrote when I was 14. Bright’s plot doesn’t even have a basic logic. The whole thing is bogged down with exposition, exposition that actually undoes any basic logic or continuity (the Dark Lord was defeated by a human army two thousand years ago? but that means we’re not in the real world? why then attempt to set it in our real world?) There is no characterisation to speak of, except for Will and his partner. The wand is a terrible ‘mcguffin’, which Will uses and then ‘drops’ and forgets about at the end. Kill me now. Has fantasy really come to this? Netflix, what have you done? After all your fine work with Star Trek Discovery, Mindhunter and The Good Place! Argh. Want my advice? Go watch the old sci-fi TV series Alien Nation. Far, far better.

Refreshing deadpan humour of Norsemen

Described by critics as a cross between ‘Monty Python and A Game of Thrones’, the new show Norsemen is a refreshing and subversive take on the current Viking vogue. It has an authentic setting (period, place and Norwegian actors) but then has characters discussing the importance of team-work, leadership skills and modern relationships, even as they raid, pillage and slaughter. The juxtaposition is dark and hilarious. It’s also refreshing and does a lot to highlight/expose the tired cliches of A Game of Thrones (the first book of which was written back in the 1990s, remember).

And it’s not all dumb – for there are strong echoes of the Beowulf tale, both in terms of plot and value-system. The concepts of ‘money’ and ‘art’ are alien to the Norsemen in the show, and provide hilarious moments as a Roman slave tries to explain the bizarre notions of ‘theatre’, ‘statues’ and ‘a creative director’. Such moments give the Norsemen a certain innocence and likeability but also serve to satirise the contrivances of modern life.

Each episode stands alone, but there is also a series arc concerning a cowardly, murderous Viking intent on stealing the throne from his brother. Implicitly, the show questions the nature of heroism, adequacy and masculinity. Gender roles are challenged as are issues of sexuality. But, don’t let that put you off! There’s still plenty of wanton violence and mindless brutality. Phew. They wouldn’t be real Vikings otherwise.

Definitely worth a look. It’s available on Netflix at the mo and scores 9 out of 10 from me. (I’m not giving it 10 because there aren’t any actual dragons.)