I Think I Broke Yahoo

I’ll admit it, I’m just like every other sucker on the Net. I’ll click on a Yahoo article if it’s about something I’m interested in. Especially any news about Supernatural, but other, real-life stuff too. Most of the time it’s clickbait, with very little substance and usually not much style. Sometimes I’ll find something of genuine interest that’s occasionally informative.

As a rule I don’t leave a comment, positive or negative. At least, not until the other day. This is where our story begins.

I’d gone over to Yahoo to check my email. First I scrolled down the page to see what’s going on in the world. They had an article posted on “19 films featuring MCU actors currently appearing on Netflix”—basically a Netflix commercial, with “MCU” (Marvel Cinematic Universe) actors as the bait to lure you in. It worked on me, and I clicked.

The article delivered what it promised. It listed films featuring Scarlett Johanssen, Anthony Mackie, Chris Hemsworth’s new action picture, stuff Samuel L. Jackson did besides Pulp Fiction, a Chris Evans movie, and so forth. An innocuous piece of fluff, but as I skimmed through it I realized there was one movie missing that featured not one but three MCU actors that apparently Netflix wasn’t running, that certain segments of the fandom might enjoy.

Which brings us to Wonder Boys.

Debuting in 2000 and based on the novel by Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys draws us into the life of college professor Grady Tripp, who years ago wrote a bestselling novel but was never able to finish a second one. As the movie opens, his current opus stands at two thousand pages and counting. The plot, such as it is, follows Tripp around for a weekend as he deals with his life, his stalled writing career, his visiting editor, a troubled student from his creative writing class (who’s a talented writer in his own right), and his affair with the dean’s wife, who’s pregnant. I considered it an okay movie, funny in spots but a bit disjointed.

The draw for me was the subject matter (writers) and the casting. Repeated viewings of Ant-Man for some reason stirred in me a belated interest in the work of Michael Douglas. He was just so much fun as Hank Pym. Since I don’t have Netflix or any other streaming service, I scoured the county library system and found Wonder Boys on DVD. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that the film also stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tripp’s editor and Tobey Maguire as the weirdo writing student. That’s Hank Pym, Iron Man and Spider-Man (well, a version of him) in the same flick. It’s like a pre-Marvel Marvel movie, at least in terms of casting.

So, if Netflix is so keen on running movies that feature MCU actors, why aren’t they featuring this one?

Maybe because it’s not an action pic. Maybe because it flopped during its original release. Or maybe it’s because Downey’s character is gay and takes a shine to Maguire’s character. Which led, at one point in the film, to this:

There you have it, Iron/Spider shippers: Tony Stark in bed with Peter Parker. Probably not the kind of thing Netflix would want to promote. Disney sure as hell wouldn’t want news of this to get out.

But good ol’ me, I’ve gotta tell somebody. So I made my first and so far only comment on a Yahoo story, naming this movie and pointing out the scene. I consider it my duty to keep Marvel fans and completists informed.

Comment posted, I continued on with my Internet business. Maybe a half hour later or so I checked back. The story and my single comment were still there. I logged off and went on to other things.

Later in the day I logged back on to see if there’d been any reaction. The story, my comment included, had vanished. Nowhere at all on the Yahoo page. I Googled the story and found it on its original site, but without comments and no way to leave any.

To date, that particular article has not returned to Yahoo.

Was I silenced? Did Netflix panic and yank the article? Did Yahoo? Did Disney? Or is it all just coincidence?

Looks like my career commenting on Yahoo stories is over before it began. Yeah well. I got a blog post out of it. And so did the five or six of you who appear to be tuning in. Enjoy it while you can, before Disney comes after me. Never eff with the Mouse…

A Woman's Secret Weapon

Huh. Would you look at that. I’m actually getting some traffic on this blog. Not bad, considering I haven’t updated in years. It’s probably just Russian bots, but hey. A click’s a click.

For the record, I'm okay. I don't think I've got the virus. So far, so good. I had a bout of bronchitis in February,right before everything went to hell. Maybe that scared it off. I had to get home WiFi because all my sources of free WiFi disappeared literally overnight, and I need to download and send files if I want to keep getting paid. Other than that, for me it's been business as usual. I was working at home and anti-social to begin with. All the virus did was governmentally sanction my normal behavior.

And now I find people are looking at this. So here’s some brand-new content, for you, my devoted fans.

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If you’re a fan of superheroes, and tend to hang out with other fans, sooner or later the question arises: who’d win in a fight between Hero X and Hero Y? The pairings generally end up being either Thor vs. the Hulk or Superman vs. Thor or the Hulk. This is because heroes are usually judged by their powers or physical strength, and Thor, Hulk and Superman (in whatever order you choose) are the top tier, physically. (For the record, if it’s Batman vs. anyone else, the winner is always Batman. Just so you know in advance.)

Being of a different gender than the majority of comic book fans, I’ve been hankering to see a throwdown between Thor and Wonder Woman, because I’m pretty sure Diana would win. They may be evenly matched in physical strength—granted, Thor’s probably stronger—but when it comes to combat skills, armed or unarmed, Diana’s got the edge. She’s been trained in both by professional warriors. Thor’s reliance on his hammer has probably made him complacent. That, and his self-assurance that he can deck anyone with a punch, would leave him wide open to a skilled, experienced pro.

I can even picture it: Thor makes some chauvinistic remark about Diana’s outfit and she promptly knocks him on his ass. Thor gets up and—assuming he has more than two brain cells—reassesses the situation, wisely decides being an a-hole is going to get him pummeled, and rejoins the battle, which Wonder Woman wins anyway because, again, trained vs. untrained fighter. This is why you need to stay in school, kids.

Sidebar: back in the ‘70s DC put out a special one-shot tabloid-sized comic of Superman vs. Muhammed Ali. Google it if you don’t believe me. I just did to skim the plot, since I never read it. It turned out just the way I figured: they nullified Superman’s powers for the duration of the fight, making the two even in physical strength. Whereupon Ali mopped up the ring with Supes because Ali was a trained, experienced boxer. Superman just throws punches. Take away the advantage of super-strength, or pit him against someone of equal strength but better skill, and he’s liable to get flattened. Same for Thor. Maybe not the Hulk because the Hulk is too stupid to stop fighting. This isn’t about strength anyway. I’m about to get to my point.

Back to Thor and Wonder Woman. The above used to be my guestimated scenario, until Thor: Ragnarok came out. In that movie the God of Thunder underwent a serious power upgrade, emphasis on “god.” I’m not sure what Diana is: Amazon, demigoddess, mutant, who knows, but she’s no longer in Thor’s class. After the events of Ragnarok, we might have to leave the battle of the sexes to Thor vs. the Scarlet Witch. In spite of her strength and formidable skills, I don’t think Diana is capable of going toe-to-toe with Thor any more.

Unless…

There’s one trick Thor wouldn’t know but Diana would, if not from her Amazon instructors then from her female friends from outside Paradise Island. It’s the first self-defense skill girls are taught and every man’s afraid of. That secret weapon is The Knee. Delicately put, it involves the impact of a woman’s solid kneecap against not-so-solid parts of the male anatomy. It’s considered a dirty move, but when you’re in a bar and some a-hole’s hitting on you and he’s a foot taller than you are, outweighs you by a hundred pounds, won’t take no for an answer and starts getting belligerent, a dirty move is not only acceptable, it’s downright necessary. It’s that or pepper spray, guys. You get to carry guns, so don’t whine.

So here we have Thor and Wonder Woman on the battlefield. She’s got him beat in weapons and hand-to-hand. Then Thor decides to teach the uppity hussy a lesson and starts flinging lightning bolts at her. Now she’s in trouble. Until she remembers the first move taught to her by her mother the Queen of the Amazons, about the quickest way to put a stop to grabby demigods. And she realizes Thor, arrogant alpha-hole that he is, isn’t wearing a cup.

She gets in close and takes aim. Game, set and match.

Afterwards, hanging out in Valhalla with the guys, Thor will tell his buddies she was a worthy opponent and he let her win because he’s a gentleman. Loki figures out the truth and never lets him forget it. Diana never even bothers to tell the Justice League. She fought a god and won. No big. It’s all part of the job.

Which leads to the ultimate question: would The Knee work on Superman?

If he’s at the height of his powers, and if kryptonite isn’t involved, then probably not. Not even from Wonder Woman. She might cause him a little discomfort, but I doubt if she could bring him down. I don’t think it would work on the Hulk, either. Yeah, it would hurt, but he’d just get angrier and keep fighting. Not much stops the Hulk. Although The Knee from Superman might do the trick. Except he’s a dude, so he’d never even think of it.

His cousin Kara, on the other hand…

There’s the member of the El family who could take out the Hulk. Supergirl’s female, and she's spent half her life on Earth, among human males. You better believe she knows about The Knee, and if the Hulk came charging at her, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She might even use it on cousin Kal if he pissed her off. I don’t know if Kryptonians have to deal with PMS, but it’s probably wisest to stay on Kara’s good side.

So, in the case of superhero smackdowns, the winner would be … drum roll… Batman. Because he’s the goddamn Batman. Or Dr. Strange. I don’t care how strong you are, when your opponent waves his hand and flings you through a portal into another dimension, you’re pretty much up the creek. (Ask Loki, again from Thor: Ragnarok.) I just find it a shame guys don’t adopt The Knee as part of their skill set, if only as a last resort. Imagine if Iron Man had used it on Thanos. Infinity War would have been a whole different movie.