Marvelous

You know, I could spend twenty minutes on the one thing I didn’t like about The Avengers: Age of Ultron, but who cares?  It was fantastic!  I loved it.  I loved it from happy, smiley Thor, right down to sad, [spoiler spoiler].  James Spader’s voice was brilliant.  Joss Whedon’s voice coming out of everyone was brilliant.  The only thing I would change surprised me, given how boring Thor is as a character, and how much I love Black Widow and Hulk.  See, I would have cut all the BW/BB romcomdrama, and put in more Lightning God.

What I love best about the Marvel Universe is that I can go into the theater and sit down, turn off my adult brain and just enjoy myself like the six-year-old I was seeing Star Wars the first time.  I can connect with my son over moments we enjoy, laugh, cheer, and cringe along with him, and we can walk out and spend the next few months quoting lines to each other, laughing, cheering, and cringing down the road on our way to school.  And I love how wide open and delighted my son is while watching.

I’d say you can’t buy that kind of togetherness, but apparently I can.

Now, about loving The Hulk.  I had two major, major crushes as a child:  Mr. Spock and Bruce Banner.  Both of them were brilliant and emotionally unavailable, a “type” I carried over into all my romantic attachments.  Someone tried to compare Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes to Spock, and I balked.  Certainly, Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is brilliant and emotionally unavailable, but he is also mean-spirited and a bit of a sadist.  Mr. Spock is not at all mean-spirited.  Neither is Bruce Banner, nor is The Hulk.  The Hulk just likes to smash, that’s all.

I was talking to a friend about literary and movie character crushes, and we were laughing about how she is a Mr. Darcy girl, and I am a Mr. Rochester girl, and never the twain shall meet.  We started playing F/M/K with some of our favorites.  Here is a short list of mine:

F/Heathcliff, M/Rochester, K/Darcy  (I know, but I really hate Darcy. More for you!)

F/Hamlet and Paris, M/Horatio and Mercutio, K/Laertes and Romeo

F/Han Solo, M/Obi Wan Kenobi, K/Luke Skywalker

F/Thor, M/Bruce Banner, K/Clint Barton

F/Sherlock, M/Lestrade, K/Holmes (Again with the I Know!  Again with the More for You!)

F/Loki (because satsifaction isn’t in his nature), M/Magneto, K/Joker

F/Henry VIII, M/Henry V, K/Henry III  (The King Henry Version–and yes, I know, syphilis.)

Finally

F/Superman, M/Aquaman (have you SEEN those pictures with Jason Momoa?), K/Batman