This is my spoiler-free review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you’ve seen the movie, you know why I picked that title. (The packed theater erupted into cheers at that particular Moment of Awesome.)
Captain America 2 sets out to raise the stakes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a tall order, and easily screwed up. The movie doesn’t screw it up. It succeeds, and it does so beautifully. Continue reading
Agents of SHIELD has been very disappointing. My high hopes for the show haven’t crashed so much as just petered out due to boredom. I nearly dropped out of it before Elizabeth said it was getting better, and I caught up on Hulu only to find myself meh’d again. However, there might be a little hope for the show. (Spoilers follow.) Continue reading
Sorry, Marvel. ALL heroes are super.
“Superpower” is a technical term used by some writers and editors, myself included. It’s awkward when used in superhero fiction, but generally speaking it’s a great term packed with a lot of information.
Your protagonist must have a superpower. Your secondary characters usually need them too. Your villain always has a superpower, but an antagonist doesn’t always need it. (Yes, there’s a difference between a villain and an antagonist. There’s also a difference between main characters, protagonists, heroes, and viewpoint characters, but that’s another blog post.) It’s advisable to have a kryptonite as well, but that’s not as important as long as you’ve practiced.
So what is this superpower thing? Flight? Super-strength? The ability to leap tall buildings faster than a speeding bullet while running alongside a train?
It can be, but it’s not necessarily supernatural. A character’s superpower is defined as anything they can do better than anyone else in the story. Similarly, a character’s kryptonite is that which forms an obstacle they cannot overcome. Continue reading
Novel Ninja 