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My favourite change so far is that Amber is an actual fleshed out character this early in the story. In the comics they start dating on a single page with no elaboration and she doesn't get a decent storyline until much later. Show Amber is extremely likeable and independent. The comic does suffer a bit with female characters being sidelined as motivation for the male characters. Show Debbie is improved for the same reason. Episode 4 was the highlight of the season so far for me. Mahershala Ali made a great Titan and Machine Head's voice was very groovy. Battle Beast somehow lives up to being one of the coolest characters in the comics I love reading spoiler free threads, the theories are so awesome and getting to discover the story all over again through new viewers is great 
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Apr 10, 2021 02:09
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Yeah, this thread is a lot of fun, I’m loving the angles everyone’s coming at the story from.
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Apr 10, 2021 02:14
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I saw who voiced Machine Head and desperately want them to return as a down and out crime Lord, betrayed by his own organization. "My name is Machine Head. I used to be a crime boss, until..."
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Apr 10, 2021 02:25
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Battle Beast is the best and I'm stoked that they got a good voice actor for him and did a good job demonstrating how completely terrifying he can be
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Apr 10, 2021 02:40
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Good Citizen posted:Battle Beast is the best and I'm stoked that they got a good voice actor for him and did a good job demonstrating how completely terrifying he can be I just looked it up and its Worf! Goddamn thats perfect casting lol.
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Apr 10, 2021 03:55
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Elite posted:Also robot seems like he used to be human - he seems to get sort of upset that people view him as 'just a robot' and seems to relate to monster girl not being seen for what she really is. Have you seen Rex's abs?
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Apr 10, 2021 05:09
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It may not be a rational decision, it may be Robot got pushed over the edge by Monster Girl's comments and resolved to clone a new body for himself where he can experience all the stuff humans do. And, as the base, he picks the most impulsive person he knows whom he's been observing getting his freak on for years as a member of the Teen Team.
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Apr 10, 2021 12:13
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I thought Omniman was just a villain and we'd get to reveal or twist at some point, but all this speculation in the thread plus the latest episode has me thinking maybe Omniman is playing everything straight but he volunteered because he was just a reject or something and now that Mark has powers, he's doing his version of making Mark strong by throwing him face first into adversity, and part of that was just taking out the strongest heroes other than himself so that Mark has to save the world more often. So a mashup of a few theories floating around. Unfortunately, I have to stop speculating because my friend just dropped off the entire comic run but I'll definitely be following along with the thread.
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Apr 10, 2021 16:48
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He killed the Avengers. How is he not a villain? I mean, part of the point of this show is deconstructing simple "good guy bad guy" narratives, see: last episode. But beyond that, unless you're Omni-man, he's a bad guy. Even his wife is starting to turn on him. Its only a matter of time at this point before we have a "Mark realizes his dad is a dick" episode.
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Apr 10, 2021 17:47
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Your dad didn't kill a bunch of people to help your career? Oh man that's kinda sad.
SunshineDanceParty fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Apr 11, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 18:06
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Zaphod42 posted:
Leveraging the systems that you have access to--even if they're ostensibly 'criminal' in the sense that they participate outside the realm of legality--is a very real and very complex thing for better or worse. Titan taking over Machine Head's organization makes sense because it has infrastructure and exists as part of an already existing power dynamic within Titan's community, and that presents an opportunity to use that infrastructure and power to take care of the people he needs to take care of. Viewing things through the framework of criminality is a luxury that's only available to people who don't have to constantly make the choice to either break the law or starve. This setting isn't different enough from the real world to make me think that Machine Head's removal alone means that anything actually gets better for Titan's community. They lose an active violent oppressor and gain the same passive one we have IRL--if Titan lives up to what he says he believes then his community might actually be safely housed and fed, which is more than the government does in the real world. Nothing about his characterization makes me think he's using this shift to gain power and cash. I haven't read the comic, but this is my take on the show so far: Invincible fits comfortably into a category of storytelling I think of as "In which we realize 'they' won't only not save us, but have actually been killing us all along." 'They' being the systemically privileged and powerful, though it's often just boiled down to The Rich(TM) or The Olds(TM). Think the kind of realization that most Millenials had when we realized that the poo poo Boomers said about being able to do or be whatever we want was a loving lie--and that the only reason it's a lie is because of systems and direct actions they put in place and upheld. Or the realization that The United States isn't actually the good guy in charge of making the world a better place, but instead revels in bombing children and literally killing the planet. I get the feeling Omni-Man is just one analogue of this we're gonna see. Doesn't get more overt than murdering the absolute gently caress out of a group of legitimate heroic figures for some--presently--nebulous preservation of power. This kind of theme and storytelling started getting big in the 80's and has progressively gotten more blatant over time. More Text, less Subtext. The initial focus on Mark's high school drama and relationship issues is really solid analogue to how a lot of us grew up--it's a balancing act between trying to live the lifestyle you want and expect while slowly realizing the world is a vicious, violent, cruel place. It is absolutely not a coincidence that the new Guardians of the Globe consists of teenagers, two disabled heroes in the form of Monster Girl and Black Samson, and a leader that is Othered even by the members of his team despite clearly being just as human as they are. We see this a lot in queer storytelling and how it can and often is still othered--often violently--within already-oppressed communities. The deaths of a nebulous Old Guard that we don't actually see a whole lot of history for, but have a mythology that allows us to fill in the blanks even if that mythology isn't actually what happened--forces the replacement with a New Guard of massively underprepared and out of their league individuals who have to desperately struggle to keep their heads above water. Or in one piece, in this case. I'm curious to see how the show ends up realizing this theme. It's fairly common for these kinds of stories to fall into the trap of letting the heroes win after a long struggle. It's cathartic, but unrealistic specifically because the real world analogue--the young, oppressed, and suffering--have not won and we do not know that we will. It's actually kind of reassuring to hear the comics are known to be kind of mean-spirited and vicious the real-world themes they're exploring are unambiguously mean-spirited and vicious. It's easy for a lot of these kinds of stories to fall into the trap of having feel-good endings, to give the readers a sense of hope for the future, but it's a trap that has a huge history of creating real-life harm in the form of breeding catharsis-over-realistic expectations. The prognosis our society, species, and planet has is terminal, and giving it a neat ending creates the illusion that there is a success-state that isn't an indefinite, painful, exhausting struggle to salvage poo poo from the Omni-Man's and the systems that allow Omni-Man's to exist. This might not make for a particularly fun viewing experience, especially since a lot of people constantly feel this reality anyway, but it's a much more important one than anything a hyperviolent coming-of-age superhero story with a happy ending could tell. It's gonna make people uncomfortable, but that's the only reason it'd be worth paying attention to.
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Apr 10, 2021 20:37
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Really enjoying the show even though I have no idea if it'll stick the landing and I'm terrified of spoilers. Omni-Man gives you The Boys vibes, but I keep comparing it to Rick and Morty in terms of its sci-fi weirdness and inherently fantastical sci-fi world-building. Only with less cynicism, and more heart, including the consequences that having a heart entails as opposed to throwaway gags, though it dips its toe in that. It's a stark comparison to Falcon and The Winter Soldier which is taking it's plot down very predictable, safe, well-worn paths. Falcon know what beats it needs to hit but they're struggling to write their Marvelly-safe, non-specific characters to actually get them from A to B, so there's contrivances or jarring logical leaps. Whereas with Invincible you can tell the writers are actually trying and asking themselves questions about interesting ways to take scenarios and archetypes while actually building it all into the characters. There's a few examples of small beats that stick out to me where you can tell that 99/100 shows would've gone a different direction and milked for cheap drama because it's the done thing. - When Mark says "Make me." to his mother in the first ep: there's no dramatic musical sting or generic shock and guilt OR even a weak "Don't make me get your father" gag. Instead she surprises you by calling out the inherent weakness of leveraging a power dynamic like that with no hesitation. "Does that make you feel strong? Knowing that I can't physically make you?" - The morals of making the alien invaders in ep 2 pretty irredeemably murderous, allowing us the cartharsis of watching Omni-Man....commit genocide? Gee, typing that out doesn't feel so good. - It's almost heavy handed in terms of the scenes building up the notion that, hey, this Titan guy's not so bad...But "You want to die for minimum wage? Or do you want to just shoot your guns in the air and look like you made a valiant effort." was legit funny and creative, and I think few showrunners would resist the urge to just have more bloody violence there. - Literally just Atom Eve being super supportive to Amber about her relationship with Mark.
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Apr 10, 2021 21:19
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Yeah. It’s really well written. It’s making me remember why I enjoyed a lot of the comic so much.
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Apr 11, 2021 00:13
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Never read the comics. Really digging the show so far. The voice cast rocks. I like a lot of the characters a lot, the only thing I worry about is how much they're expanding the cast of villains, I was kinda hoping this would be a one-season plot arc sorta thing but they spend ep 4 and 5 introducing tons of new threats. Re: Omni-Man's costume, I wonder if he simply kept it for sentimental reasons. It may be the only original Viltrumite thing he has. I do wonder why he kept it though. We saw Damien Darkblood in their walk-in closet, right? So he was very specifically looking for it. I think Damien's powers would allow him to see what happened that night if he got his hands on what Nolan was wearing at the time? I think Damien's book is gonna give Deborah a way to contact him somehow. I think in terms of overall plot the two most important lines Nolan has said are "Earth is not *yours* to conquer" and "as Earth's *sole* protector" (emphasis mine.) With Mark having powers, and there being lots of weird alien threats emerging like the Kaiju, the Martian thingies, whatever stuff Allen goes around testing people for, Nolan killed the guardians because he decided that it is time to move to the next phase of whatever it is he does. Make Earth completely dependent on Viltrumite protection. I also get vibes that he is hoping to send Mark away to do the same thing to another planet. But, in order to do these, we'd need to know what Viltrumites actually DO with a planet they control. Sure there's lots of stuff but it seems like they would need an enemy to be battling if they need more resources etc. that bad. I think we'll get something more than just "we conquer planets with our superpowers in a weird way to acquire generic resources." Something like, acquiring magic or other weird stuff Viltrum doesn't have, would be cool, but I feel like if that were happening, Nolan would show more interest in Damien Darkblood. I'm sure like at least 50% of what Nolan has told Mark about Viltrum and their society is just propaganda that he knows is fake. I don't care much about Mark's relationship drama but I guess it's always part of superhero stuff. I actually liked the school scenes a lot but the stuff we've seen the past couple eps feels like the perfunctory part of the story. This show has been really good at introducing new things, and some of the payoffs have been good so far, I'm just hoping it lives up to how hyped it has gotten me. I made the mistake of diving in thinking it was done airing (I remembered the first preview from a longass time ago I thought) and am kicking myself for having to watch week to week now. But I'm really impressed. I like how it's a mashup of various comics stuff and while it's deconstructing certain things it doesn't feel like it's in a hamfisted gritty edgy way but rather it's more like a respectful evolution of standard comic tropes.
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Apr 11, 2021 04:41
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Metropolis posted:Never read the comics. Really digging the show so far. The voice cast rocks. I like a lot of the characters a lot, the only thing I worry about is how much they're expanding the cast of villains, I was kinda hoping this would be a one-season plot arc sorta thing but they spend ep 4 and 5 introducing tons of new threats. Not really a spoiler, but one of my highlights of the comic is how Kirkman weaves different characters and storylines in and out so there's always moving pieces at play. I just love how fleshed out the world becomes as the series goes on.
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Apr 11, 2021 04:53
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There was like a whole Kirkman-verse where he created his own little DC/Marvel superhero pocket dimension, I don't know how many books he was putting out at it's peak but there are what like 8 different titles? So he doesn’t have sixty years of continuity to worry about and had his own editorial control. One of the best things about the book was that he would make interesting, status quo changing story and character decisions frequently and I hope they stick to it in the show. I don’t even care if they make major changes to the comics plot, as long as they're interesting. The changes they’ve made to characters seem universally better, as far as I've seen. Well except Isotope's hair...
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Apr 11, 2021 06:45
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I'm ok with the teenage romance plot because it's kind of a solid representation of everything silly and creepy in the Lois & Clark dynamic while being more tolerable because both are teenagers; The omniman and mrs. omniman relationship is also kind of a juxstaposition in the sense that such a relationship could only work if both partners are honest, you can't really have this quirky 'secret identity' romance in reality without things becoming unreasonable, like you missing out on a date because you just got pounded by a group of super mercenaries. e; you'd have an easier time hiding the fact that you're an evil alien overlord than you would trying to hide the fact that you are a superhero on active duty. emanresu tnuocca fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 11, 2021 07:04
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So why did the demon's notebook make the closet cold all the sudden? Surely they've entered the closet since he visited. Also I'm getting some strong Luke Cage vibes off of Titan. I'm going to guess he's heading towards running all the "crime" in the neighborhood while keeping out all the crime and using his wealth and control to make things better. Which would be kind of funny if Amber and Invincible are the only named people in the show who realize there's a change in the neighborhood. Robot is running a weird path right now where it seems obvious he's planning on body snatching Rex in some manner, but at the same time cares about Monster Girl and other member of the team. Doesn't give a poo poo about random people getting exploded though, as seen by his casual observation of the clone brothers mayhem and obviously not initially caring about civilian casualties. I wouldn't be too surprised if he's a contingency plan from the Batman copy or has something to do with The Immortal. Mostly because that guy is named the Immortal, I expect him to pop back up. Edit to spoiler because while I remember only 2 things we haven't seen, those being Nolan's goal and an additional "cast" member, I did read some number of issues of Invincible back in the day and info may be hitting my subconscious. Gyges fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Apr 11, 2021 |
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Apr 11, 2021 08:03
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Might want to edit out the second thing in your second spoiler block. While the first thing is an obvious question the second thing is a complete swerve when it happens
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Apr 11, 2021 08:21
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I checked the Amazon reviews and the three most upvoted are 1 star reviews from Chuds complaining about "politics in comics" I like that the show is pissing off people like that but it's depressing that any changes to be more diverse or socially aware are seen as some evil Marxist plot
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Apr 11, 2021 10:10
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Apparently it was the mere mention of feminism with Amber in ep 4, and the villain talking about the founding fathers being slave owners that set them off?
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Apr 11, 2021 10:13
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VagueRant posted:Apparently it was the mere mention of feminism with Amber in ep 4, and the villain talking about the founding fathers being slave owners that set them off? Lots of barely disguised racism in complaints about Amber, who is easily the character most improved by the show
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Apr 11, 2021 10:27
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I have literally no memory of Amber from the comics cause her character is so flat and boring.
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Apr 11, 2021 16:22
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undoubtedly funniest review
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Apr 11, 2021 18:03
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Just white-knuckling those pearls
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Apr 11, 2021 18:12
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Brexit really broke some blokes.
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Apr 11, 2021 19:29
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sliami posted:undoubtedly funniest review I'm the idiot that sees these weirdo reactionaries review something and clicks on their names to see what other pathetic reviews they've left. It's usually anime and funco pops. Anyone who's upset by the changes to Amber is totally out of their mind. She barely had a personality in the comic besides 'reacts to things mark does' and this is way better.
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Apr 11, 2021 19:43
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Yeah Amber is a cool character, and it's another reminder that even though Zazie Beetz is getting work she needs to be getting all the work. An issue I have with animated shows with great casts is I imagine a live action show with that cast, and a Beetz Gillian Jacobs show is something I want now.
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Apr 11, 2021 20:15
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wow white power weirdos can even find something wrong with a show where the most super powerful race in the universe looks like white dudes? and there's a female character who's white and slim with long NON-POLITICAL hair who dresses in pink and has pink powers. and the guy who was against the founding fathers of the US and had an undergrad degree that wasn't STEM was a bad guy who got killed. not ironically criticizing the show for having these things just saying come on guys look for the positives if you're gonna be overanalyzing things from your weird viewpoints and giving a good show a one star review hoping to cancel it because you hate liberal cancel culture i would def. watch anything with both zazie and gillian in it, they turn my eyes into cartoon hearts irl. I think in the next episode we will probably see Mark join the guardians of the globe or whatever. He was definitely going to die if they didn't come save him and they didn't really have to. also i agree with the theory that it was Nolan who called it in because he saw it as a chance to both teach Mark a lesson AND deliver another teamwipe to the guardians. However, Nolan won't want Mark to join the guardians, but it will make sense since he got *stomped* by a city-level criminal. he also doesn't know how bad he hosed up on Mars yet but that will come out eventually too and he will realize he is nowhere near cut out for solo hero stuff yet. If his dad offers to just literally work as a team with him though then he would probably go for that. I am pretty curious as to Robot's origins. People seem to just not know or care who built him and why? Definitely something weird there. I'm more interested in that, than finding out what he's up to with a potential rex clone or whatever. though I do suspect he wants to be a real boy. I guess since he's sort of a play on Cyborg, who was a human with robot parts and member of the teen titans sometimes? he will become some sort of reverse-cyborg, a robot with human parts, who everyone sees as more real than machine. i also suspect it's not just the way he's viewed by others that motivates him, he probably really does want to see what it's like to be human.
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Apr 11, 2021 23:38
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SunshineDanceParty posted:Yeah Amber is a cool character, and it's another reminder that even though Zazie Beetz is getting work she needs to be getting all the work. An issue I have with animated shows with great casts is I imagine a live action show with that cast, and a Beetz Gillian Jacobs show is something I want now. I want to applaud and back up everything SDP said while confessing a slight crush on Zazie Beetz. She really is killing the VA work more than I expected. Really fun show so far and happy to see where it goes.
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Apr 12, 2021 00:39
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It bothers me his name is Grayson. Just makes me think of Robin. I guess its intentional?
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Apr 12, 2021 08:47
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Zaphod42 posted:It bothers me his name is Grayson. Just makes me think of Robin. I guess its intentional? I'd lean more towards his dad being an alien.
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Apr 12, 2021 10:48
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Gyges posted:I'd lean more towards his dad being an alien. Heck, it could be both.
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Apr 12, 2021 11:04
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sliami posted:undoubtedly funniest review People who get mad about the Queen are absolutely the funniest people.
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Apr 12, 2021 15:15
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Ccs posted:People who get mad about the Queen are absolutely the funniest people. I completely and utterly understand devout loyalty to the Queen and the whole Monarchy in general if you are 85 or above and white. You had the Blitz and all the fallout from World War 2, smog times, depression and the decaying Grand Empire of Olde. So yeah - a Tory bloke near or over 100 would definitely talk about sacrifice and stiff upper lip and all that. Anyone else makes me mightily confused. Could you like her? Sure. Could you think she is a decent Queen compared to many in the past? Absolutely. Even a rich white blue blood aged 40-65 should really care less. And to use multiple exclamation and questions marks? That is just decidedly unBRITISH! I am aghast sirrah!
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Apr 12, 2021 19:20
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Since he doesn't have a comics analogue, I'm really interested in seeing where this Jon Hamm bit part goes.
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Apr 12, 2021 21:29
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Jeffrey Donovan is an inspired choice for a hammy villain, i hope machine head comes back
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Apr 13, 2021 01:48
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So Omniman not only tipped off the Guardians, he also tipped off Machine Head in advance, didn't he? I feel like that entire thing was just trying to make a spiteful point.
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Apr 13, 2021 02:49
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sliami posted:undoubtedly funniest review Reading the title I was expecting the usual online unhinged rant against the evils of feminism or minority representation. I think I can live with some unhinged monarchy fanatism instead. 
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Apr 13, 2021 13:23
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Zaphod42 posted:It bothers me his name is Grayson. Just makes me think of Robin. I guess its intentional?
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Apr 13, 2021 17:22
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