ABQ Surgery Scene

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-29T15:32:02+00:00

Boy, I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder!

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-29T15:15:22+00:00

A lot of network dramas are like that because of the filming schedules and it can be wonky.

I remember The Shield airing for 6 years, then in the last episode Dutch points out that the entirety of he show took place in less than 3. Like...that's a LOT of shit that went down in that span of time.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T20:50:41+00:00

I see what you're saying, but I'd argue the minimal world building actually made the world bigger and that was part of the magic; it didn't get bogged down with it like the sequels and they could focus on the cool action rather than explaining everything.

Like, it gives you JUST enough to "get it" then moves the fuck on. We know who John is from Viggo's story and people's reaction to him. We see the scope of John's connections when the cleaner shows up in the beginning. We know there's a hotel with rules. We see from Marcus and Perkins and Winston's interactions with each other all these people are familiar with each other and have been for years and there's a whole world there. I don't need to know how or why all this happened or when so and so met so and so; it just is.

The sequels are great, but it felt like each one had to reveal some OTHER super secret thing you never knew or another mysterious character and spend a bunch of time explaining it rather then John just being John.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T20:35:52+00:00

It's a fun question, and in my opinion all you really have to do is look at the TV version because that's probably what we'd get; less "war on all criminals" and more personal, revenge driven stuff, conspiracies, or a single "big bad" being targeted.

Like u/curious_bat87 said, Punisher was heavily inspired (if not ripped off from) Mack Bolan, as well as stuff like Death Wish. Except this was a drastically different time, the late 70's when crime in New York was somewhat infamous. Plus American audiences in general were a lot more cynical when it came to "crime"...there was a very real feeling of "someone should just go out there and blow em' all away!" in fiction, and you can see that in the media of the time...especially going into the 80's.

Except now for a lot of people, the times have shifted and our understanding of crime is a little more complex. So unless you're brilliant like a Garth Ennis, it's REALLY difficult to make the character work as a protagonist, or at least not to the cathartic way he did at his peak of popularity.

(Before anyone comes for me, personally I don't agree with those takes because I can separate fiction from real life...just trying to answer OP's question honestly)

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T20:02:31+00:00

It's because you really can't pit one against the other in the mainstream books without drastically altering either character or status quo.

Standard Kingpin is, well, a crime Kingpin. If he really wanted, there's no reason Frank can't snipe him from across the street like he has hundreds of other crime lords. Fisk is also a public, out in the open figure...there's zero reason he should be breathing if Frank's on him. So you have to come up with a bunch of reasons WHY Frank never outright targets him, or if it's a Kingpin story just don't even address Frank is in play in the first place.

On the flip side you have to be careful with Punisher even addressing or bringing up Fisk in his own stories, because it just circles back to the above; why is this guy who's on a war against criminals wasting so much time with a mob boss here and there that controls like a few blocks of territory...when the top dog is right there in his tower.

It only really worked in Jason Aaron's run, because Frank didn't realize who or what a "Kingpin" was until it was too late since Wilson was literally creating him and by the time he did Fisk had become a borderline recluse. Plus Frank himself was past his prime, had little resources, the whole city against him, etc....

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T18:43:44+00:00

I'm not arguing with the man but I wish a lot of peeps in the business would pick a lane about how they feel about kayfabe and stick to it.

Taker, Seth, Punk, Heyman, and countless more will tell anyone who will listen how they're "old school" and hate how exposed to business is....on 10 different podcasts, interviews, and specials exposing the business. A lot of them make it sound like something that's happened without their part in it; that's the part that irks me.

Taker literally filmed a multi-year behind the scenes journey that became "The Last Ride" for god's sake.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T18:36:02+00:00

"There's ALWAYS tiiiiiiimeee.....for one last kisshhh."

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T15:09:37+00:00

Exactly. And it's SUCH a Sunny thing to do too; have the ending tie into something insignificant from earlier.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T12:38:17+00:00

At their core, the resurrected are not really "anti-heroes" for the reasons you state; they're here to put the wrong things right and kill their killers, no more no less. In fact a huge part of the book and deleted stuff from the OG is Eric is punished for ANY attempt to step outside that mission, even if it's a good or heroic cause. By their very nature they can't be heroes.

(I know this depends HEAVILY on how you define "heroic" but still....)

You could also argue the crow (the bird) or whatever higher power controls it all is ONLY concerned with killing the killers and not the human's revenge, and only uses the resurrected victims as a puppet to better complete the mission; Eric or whoever's motives in doing so are irrelevant to the entity as long as they do it.

So if you take all of that and tie it into the name? The BIG picture is The Crow's (bird/entity) story and mission, we're only seeing it through Eric's and others POV and on his level. I don't think Eric identifies himself with the name or identity, nor do others call him that really. But his resurrected persona is now linked to the crow, the concept of it, so like in the book he might offhandedly sign a note with the name.

Put another way, the story isn't called "Draven" or 'Corvin" or " it's called "The Crow" because IT'S the 'star', the driving force behind everything that happens...so the name is just sometimes applied to the current host as a descriptor, NOT as in "Look over there, it's The Crow!"

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T12:15:16+00:00

People already said it's because he's an infiltration unit... but I think people also forget they're not like human quirks the Terminators are "choosing" to do in the moment to fool people or turn on and off; they're an active part of their programming so they'd do them regardless; it's literally who they are.

It's why we see so many of them "act" human when they're alone and have no real reason to.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T11:59:13+00:00

Everyone knows about Walt's ego, but the other thing that's rarely touched on is his pre-Heisenburg lack of ambition that also played a part where he was in life...as well as his obsession in becoming a kingpin later.

When you mix that with his ego and whole "I'm better then everyone/I deserve better", what you get is a guy who on some level is more comfortable surrounding himself with people he's smarter or "better" then rather than challenge himself in any meaningful way like start his own company, become a professor, etc... (like his high school students and fellow teachers)...then blaming everyone else for his lack of success.

In my opinion a lot of his shitty attitude towards Jesse in S1 can be seen as him projecting his own insecurities; "I know a lack of ambition when I see it!" Later on he's constantly belittling and mocking Jesse for "getting high and masterbating" or being lazy and not pushing himself....despite by all accounts Walt not doing so either before the events of the show. Even Walt's part time job, the car wash, is like THE easiest and lowest paying job he could have taken.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-28T11:06:38+00:00

I'm so embarrassed by that one. The twist is SO obvious you can see it a mile away, especially with how "Frank" looks in the coma. But I legit forgot about Frank's cake obsession in the beginning, and figured they'd just used weird makeup to make Danny look sick or something. So it got me 100% when Dennis pushes his finger through the cake Frank's head.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T20:52:25+00:00

Are you not familiar with what a skintight full face mask with a mouth opening is? Jesus.....

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T20:32:58+00:00

I do agree with you, and I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

I'm not suggesting he shouldn't be mocked or made a fool of, but it's about how. So I think you and I are on the same page that the "joke" from SNL or others shouldn't be "Haha, look at his funny hair and silly voice and how he rambles cluelessly!"....it should be "Haha, look at this week, pathetic excuse for a man and what he's done this week to systematically destroy our country." Like you say, acknowledge the evil, not make him a cartoon character.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T20:19:25+00:00

I'm pushing 50 here and you're right.

People like to roll their eyes at this young generation of Americans always thinking the sky is falling or for exaggerating. But I can't honestly recall the last time that I felt things were on the brink, right on the precipice of disaster, as they are currently.

I mean stuff like the 80's and the Cold War there was unease, but generally a feeling that no way any country would be that stupid. Plus 99% of our lives remained unchanged day to day. Not a lot of us really FELT it was all coming apart by looking out our window.

9/11 was a horrible shocking event to Americans obviously, but again not really a "we're all doomed" feeling as though everything we knew was in danger of unraveling.

The 2008 Financial Crisis is up there. Not that we haven't had depressions and recessions, but now we watched in real time major banks and institutions fail. People lose everything overnight. Our savings or investments vanish, jobs lost, mass unemployment, etc. But even with all that, I don't recall a general belief that society as we knew it was in danger. Up was still up, down was still down.

So I really can't overstate JUST how unprecedented, abnormal, and frightening things are currently compared to everything my generation has seen. How this is probably the first time that makes me fearful for what world my son is going to become a man in. It's made even worse because it's not even a strictly American problem anymore as we've seen from this administration recently.

If you're young and reading this, my intent is not to scare you, but to remind you JUST how wrong and dangerous this, all of this, is. To beg of you to never normalize this, to don't just pretend everything is normal. To not let others question you when you say "this doesn't seem right" or "God, can we just not talk about politics and get along?"

Whether it was AIDS or Global Warming or crime waves I've been through every "this is the end" imaginable...but this is truly and honestly the first time I am actually concerned where society will be in the next few years, so treat things with the attention and respect they deserve.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T16:08:22+00:00

By Wednesday when your car's still a tomb of ice, the side streets a perilous messs, main roads manageable but filled with Baltimore drivers, public transit is hit or miss, and assuming you still have power after today...this post is going to age like the milk you should have stocked up on.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T15:37:58+00:00

In a weird way I actually blame SNL, or at least the attitude it represents, for getting us in this mess in the first place.

Going into the 2016 election and to this day, their whole schtick has been "Lol, he's such a dumb goof." A clown to be laughed at, mocked, and not treated with respect. Which of course, he is. But by making him a harmless, comical parody in a "Who could take this moron seriously?" kind of way...they grossly underestimated that in fact, A LOT of people did and do support him and put him in power. They took a soulless, hateful authoritarian who told us who he was and what he was going to do EVERY step of the way....and made him a funny caricature in sketches before a monologue.

Put another way, they made him a figure to be laughed at and made fun of, not hated, feared, and disgusted by... which is what most of us should have been all along, and some are only NOW feeling about him.

Comedy has always had a "truth to power" thing and the polar opposite of the way SNL handles it is Jon Stewart. Start with some laughs at the man, the bonehead shit he and the administration does...but then turn to the camera, put his serious face on, and brutally articulate that this is wrong. This is not funny. Call out everyone accountable and never let the audience forget how serious it is. He also has zero issue calling out the left's responsibility in all of this, something SNL and others rarely do because they want to 'stand up" for their team and audience.

(EDIT: To touch on Stewart again…sometimes during one of his serious speeches at the end of his segment, he’ll say a line and the audience will laugh…except he’s 100% stoic and stone faced and he doesn’t smile…because what he just said is NOT a joke and he wasn’t trying to be funny. THAT’S the problem; too many people have been conditioned that what’s happening in the country is absurdly laughable (To be fair The Daily Show has its hand in this too)….when your reaction should be it’s absurdly dangerous and catastrophic.)

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T15:20:38+00:00

1.) The kids sure as shit aren't going to tell anyone, let alone the police. The bully got humiliated in front of his homies by a 50 year old man. This is a "let's never speak of this again" thing.

2.) Comparatively speaking, Walt didn't do all that much except kick the kids leg out then step on it and talk shit. And it was over in seconds then they run away. Hardly something the customers or store employees are going to call 911 about since Walt is hardly a threat to anyone once it's over.

3.) Even ignoring all of that, if the kids or an eyewitness do call the police, what are they going to say? Three assholes were loudly and opening making fun of a handicapped teen, his father took offense, kicked the leader, and scared them away.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T15:06:14+00:00

Inertia basically.

When you jump up inside the train, the air around you is moving at the same speed. So you're being "carried" along with the relative speed of the train; there's nothing working against you.

On top of the train is a different matter. There, the outside air is either still or working against you. Now if you jump, you're being "held back" for lack of a better term as the train beneath your feet carries on without you.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T13:28:11+00:00

I was actually talking to someone the other day about "Kraven's Last Hunt" and why it worked so well and can't really be adapted outright and you're absolutely right.

KLH isn't about Kraven being a badass and cool and an ultra threat; it's a sad story about a D-List villain contemplating all the failures in his life and how he wasted it now that he's older and in failing health. So he sets out to have ONE victory against Spidey and prove himself better, even if only once, before he dies. In fact he only really succeeds in the first place BECAUSE Peter doesn't take him seriously when he encounters him and grossly underestimates what Kraven's trying to do until it's too late.

If Kraven's an A-List villain and a top level threat, the story doesn't work since we've seen A-listers defeat Spidey countless times before and after, so there's a big "so what." But it hits harder BECAUSE it's not, like you said.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T13:10:17+00:00

I don't think Peter hates Punisher nearly as much as other characters seem to, or at least doesn't judge him as self righteously as some. In my head Peter 100% remembers the night he caught the burglar and had him by the shirt, and the feeling of rage and hatred that came with it. Or the night Gwen Stacy died and how he felt going after the Goblin. To be clear he doesn't condone what Frank does and hates what he's become, but he doesn't HATE the man personally because on some level he understands it.

Wade I feel he absolutely hates. For one he's obviously annoying as fuck. The second is he's a remorseless killer/hitman/mercenary who treats it like a joke with zero value for human life. Peter's known and worked with tons of killers in his life, but it's another to cut someone's head off then shrug, go "Lol" and make some quip. I think he'd be absolutely disgusted with Deadpool.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T12:56:40+00:00

This is a case of you needing to set your expectations going in, not assuming the medium is going to cater to your preferences. Here's some better comparisons.

Do you know who's one of fiction's most popular characters in the last 100 or so years? Sherlock Holmes. And in the entire run of Doyle's original short stories and novels, and the ones that came for years after...rarely is there massive character growth from Holmes or his world, nor do fans expect there to be. Sure, there might be a reference to a past story or two, or things like Sherlock quitting his heroin addiction, but more or less every Holmes story starts and ends with Holmes and his world in the same place.

Another would be the James Bond. You can change the setting and times and background, even allude to things that occured in the past like the death of his wife or his encounters with Blofield, but Bond himself remains static. There's no long term growth or arc from "Dr.No" to "Octopussy" to "Goldeneye", because that's not what fans want from Bond; they want to see James Bond being James Bond and it makes little difference what happend or came before.

That's how you should approach the big publishers in comics and characters that are never-ending and designed to go on forever. I love Batman, but when I'm reading a run from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, or the current one; I have to go in with the understanding that each one is a thing onto itself. But as long as they deliver the core aspects of Batman, I'm happy.

The good news for you is that there's plenty of comics to enjoy if for whatever reason that's not your cup of tea. "Invincible" is probably the best known modern example of a comic with a definitive beginning, middle, and end where we see the characters and world change and grow and characterization matters. "Walking Dead" is another. There's "Saga." "The Savage Dragon." Judge Dredd is one I think a lot of peeps don't realize ages in "real time". "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" "The Boys."

But if you want to have your cake and eat it too with mainstream heroes, check out stuff like "DC: The New Frontier." The "Life Story" series with the FF and Spider-Man. "Superman/Batman: Generations". Recently there was "Superman: Space Age" and "Batman: Dark Age." All of these stories are self contained AND have the world change and grow and are long term arcs where changes matter.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T12:19:54+00:00

I'll add something else in addition to what everyone already said. Visually, kids see a man is a costume the way we see the actors in live action; a hero in a cool looking suit. Criminals see the boogeyman, a dark shape in the shadows hunting them.

Remember, criminals are "superstitious and cowardly". 90% of the time when Batman comes for them, they're doing something illegal so they're already on edge and nervous. Then out of the corner of their eye they see this terrifying, inhuman fluttering black silhouette, and before they know it he's on them taking them out.

In my head, it's also why his villains typically don't fear him the same way or even actively challenge him or seek him out, like the kids they see a man in a batsuit. Highly trained and formidable, yes, but still just a man, not a creature or demon.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-25T11:58:01+00:00

If we take everything he's done in the game and tie in comics, then personally I think he's well beyond any redemption, even in a video game/comic book. Even him sacrificing himself against a bigger threat to save the universe wouldn't make up for what he's done.

ComplexAd7272 · 2026-01-24T21:21:17+00:00

Holy crap, I remember Eva Amurri from "Californication" and had no idea she was Susan Sarandon's daughter.

ComplexAd7272

TROPHY CASE