Why the MCU Is Cool: Bringing the Funny

[This is the third post in a new series.  You may want to begin at the beginning.  Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]


I want to take a brief tangent from my planned outline to discuss something while it’s fresh in my mind.  Just as this whole series was originally inspired by one of the MCU movies,¹, this post is inspired by our recent viewing of Ant-Man and the Wasp.  This movie, like the first Ant-Man movie, exceeded my expectations mainly because I had very low expectations.  And the reasons for that are actually fairly complex.

The thing about Ant-Man is, while he’s actually an original member of the Avengers, Ant-Man the superhero isn’t actually very important to their story.  And part of that is because Ant-Man is a fundamentally stupid superhero: he has weird powers that don’t make sense when put together as anything other than a plot device, a dorky costume, and a lame name on top of everything else.  In many ways, what Aquaman is to the Justice League, Ant-Man is to the Avengers.  So why is he even there?

To understand this, we need to understand how superhero groups work (I already touched on this last installment, but now let’s expand on it properly).  There are two basic types of superhero groups: the “event” group, and the “collective” group.  (To be fair, there’s also sort of a third type—the “non-group”²—but that’s really just a variation on the collective.)  An event group is a group that’s invented lock, stock, and barrel, specifically for an event ... the event almost always being issue #1 of the group’s new comic series.  The quintessential event group is probably the Fantastic Four, although certainly the X-Men are a pretty popular one as well.³  On the DC side, event groups are a little more rare; the Legion of Superheroes is probably the most famous, and even they are not that well-known.  The Watchmen got a high-profile movie,⁴ but they’re only an event group because DC refused to let Alan Moore use the collected heroes he had in mind, since he planned to do terrible things to nearly all of them.  Other DC event groups, such as the Doom Patrol and the Metal Men, are fairly obscure.  Contrasting with the event groups are the collective groups, which consist of pre-existing heroes gathered together into to form a new series.  If you loved Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman on their own, you’ll love them even more together as the Justice League!  If you thought Iron Man and Thor and the incredible Hulk were amazing individually, you’ll be blown away by the amazing Avengers!

These two types of groups are created for very different reasons.  An event group is the shotgun of superhero creation:  If you invent one superhero, and nobody likes them, you’ve failed.  If you invent a whole mess of superheroes, chances are that at least one of them will succeed, right?  Contrariwise, collective groups are about two things: crossover appeal, and reflected glory.  Crossover appeal means taking the Superman fans and trying to turn them into Batman fans, or Wonder Woman fans, assuming they’re not already.  And it definitely works: if it weren’t for Justice League, I’d know practically nothing about Superman, and very little about Green Lantern; for folks like Black Canary or the Atom, I’d likely never have heard of them at all.  Reflected glory means that the creators of the group hope that you’ll come for the big names, and learn to love the guys you never heard of before.  I mentioned last week that the Martian Manhunter fulfills this role in the Justice League: although he had been around for 5 years before the League was formed, and was probably the strongest superhero of the group—he has all Superman’s powers, plus shapeshifting and telepathy—he wasn’t very popular.  Most of those fans who bought JLA issue #1 were probably seeing him for the first time.  Undoubtedly the creators were hoping the Manhunter would get some of that sweet, sweet reflected glory from Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and the rest.

Which brings us full circle back around to Ant-Man.  Ant-Man was introduced in 1962, a time when any ol’ moronic idea could be a superhero.⁵  The following year he acquired a sidekick, the Wasp.  As sidekicks go, Wasp was very unusual: instead of a young boy who idolizes the older, wiser superhero (e.g. Robin, Bucky), Wasp (a.k.a. Janet van Dyne) is a beautiful lab assistant and later fashion designer.  She is independently wealthy and generally independent; though she initially suffers from some sadly-period-appropriate personality traits (such as desperately chasing after Ant-Man in a one-sided romance), she quickly becomes a feminist icon, including campaigns to introduce more women to the Avengers and even becoming the second-longest-reigning team leader.  Even though she’s supposed to be Ant-Man’s sidekick, she is in fact infinitely cooler than he is.

And poor Ant-Man flounders in the Avengers (much as Martian Manhunter does in the JLA).  The writers just don’t know what to do with him ... nearly immediately they scrap the whole ant motif and make him Giant-Man, then they make him stuck at giant-size and call him Goliath, and eventually he ends up with the same powers as Wasp and dons the moniker of Yellowjacket.  Yes, that’s right: here’s a superhero whose ultimate form is to become a knock-off of his own “sidekick.”

So, despite the fact that Ant-Man is a founding member of the Avengers, I was never that surprised to hear that he wouldn’t be part of the team in the MCU ... except that Ant-Man’s secret identity Hank Pym is actually crucial to the story of the Avengers.  Pym is the calm, rational genius to Tony Stark’s brash, impulsive genius.  Pym probably designs more of the Avengers’ tech than Stark does, and it’s Pym who invents Ultron, who goes on to become one of the team’s greatest foes.  So shortly after my entire lack of surprise at hearing there would be no Ant-Man in the Avengers, I started wondering how they would manage having no Hank Pym in the Avengers.

But they managed it perfectly well.  All the tech gets desgined by Stark—who is, after all, a weapons designer—and Stark invents Ultron.  When they need a counter-genius, they just use Bruce Banner, which is actually very smart (Banner is almost criminially overlooked in the vast majority of Avengers comic stories).  Poof: no Pym required.  So at that point I naturally assumed we’d never see Ant-Man appear in any MCU property—not even a brief appearance in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.—and the thought that we could get a major motion picture which featured Ant-Man ... why the very idea was pure madness.

And then it happened.

And it wasn’t even Pym!  They went with the Scott Lang version, which makes absolutely no sense, because the Scott Lang Ant-Man is twice as useless as the Hank Pym Ant-Man because at least Pym is an interesting genius.  But somehow they made it work.  Well, I say “somehow,” but obviously Ant-Man works for the same reason that Iron Man works: they found the perfect actor to portray him.  I never cared much for Iron Man, but Robert Downey Jr makes me love that character.  Scott Lang is boring and Ant-Man is stupid, but how can you dislike Paul Rudd?  I don’t think it’s humanly possible.

Which brings us to why Ant-Man and the Wasp ultimately works: humor.  All of the MCU movies have utilized humor to some extent or other: with Joss Whedon at the helm, that was a foregone conclusion.  Whedon knows that making shows like Buffy and Firefly funny—not just the occasional mild chuckle, but rip-roaringly funny, on a semi-regular basis—somehow makes the emotional moments even more emotional.  There’s something about having laughed along with characters that makes you cry even harder when they hit those inevitable crushing defeats.  Nearly every MCU property has a couple of those moments in it: Hulk’s hilarious first encounter with Loki, the obligatory and highly comical clash of egos when Iron Man first meets Dr. Strange, Agent Coulson’s obsession with his car, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage exchanging origin stories on their first date (“Accident.  You?”  “Experiment.”).  But lately we’ve been getting movies which are pretty much centered on the humor.  Ant-Man gave us that, and Thor: Ragnarok doubled down on it.  Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn’t quite reach the levels that the latter film achieved—Yes Man is no What We Do in the Shadows, after all—but note that, just like Taika Waititi, Peyton Reed is primarily known for directing comedies.⁶  And the MCU is capitalizing on the comedic talents of these directors (and actors) in quite literal fashion: Ant-Man and the Wasp has already passed half a billion dollars on an estimated budget of less than $200 million, so the capital in this case is quite real.

And, let’s face it: humor is the only saving grace for a superhero who is still, fundamentally, stupid.  When your main character shrinks down and talks to ants, you better embrace that and not be afraid to make fun of yourself.  I’m a bit disappointed in the role they’ve relegated Hank Pym to (and Janet van Dyne, for that matter), but I can’t ignore the brilliance they’ve shown in turning what I assumed would be the worst idea for a superhero movie ever, and actually getting me to watch two of them.  And I wouldn’t say no to a third, either ...

So humor is important.  But it’s not the end of the story either.

⇐ The Heroes I Like

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1 That would be Captain America: Civil War.

2 Such as the Defenders or the Suicide Squad.

3 The original X-Men were an event group.  Later incarnations did a little of both; the more famous X-Men group from the 70s consists of 4 previously extant heroes (though most were fairly obscure), and 4 newly-created ones.

4 And an excellent one at that.

5 Have I mentioned B’wana Beast?

6 Of course, Guardians of the Galaxy is probably the most consistently funny series in the MCU, but James Gunn is whole different animal.

Another week, another excuse ...

Last week I totally flaked and ran out of time and didn’t even put up a post saying I wasn’t going to put up a post.  In a perfect world, last week would count as my off-week and this week would be a full post week.  But, alas, life conspires against me, and this weekend has left me not much more time than the last one.  Well, enough time to write this lame-ass excuse, I suppose, but nothing beyond that, really.

Next week, I’m going to get you the next installment of my series on the MCU.  For realsies.

Saladosity, Part 12: Always Be Prepared

[This is the twelfth post in a long series.  You may wish to start at the beginning.  Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

To be prepared is half the victory.

    — Miguel de Cervantes

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

    — Abraham Lincoln

Today we’re going to talk about veggie prep.  Part of my secret to saladosity (if there even is one) is this: always have a bunch of chopped veggies in the fridge.  I’m telling you from experience: if I keep chopped veggies in the fridge, I will eat salads just about every day, and never get bored doing it.  If I don’t keep chopped veggies, I will wish I could eat salad for a little while and then give up and eat something terribly unhealthy.  Look, it may be a bit of a cliché to point out in this day and age, but today’s modern life puts a shitload of demands on your time.  Whether it’s realistic or not—hell, whether it’s even real or not—we all at least feel like we never have time to do things.  If you have to chop veggies every time you want to eat a salad, you will hardly ever eat salad, simply because you don’t want to take the time.  If you set aside an hour or two once a week, you can chop enough veggies for the entire week and eat healthy every day.  If you don’t believe me, just try the experiment.  This coming weekend, chop a big bowl of veggies as I suggest below then record how often you eat salad the next week.  The following weekend, don’t.  Then see how often you eat salad.  Compare numbers, then return here.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So we’re going to chop a big batch of veggies and we’re going to stick it in the fridge and keep it for a week.  With proper preparation, you can manage to keep almost anything for a week after it’s been chopped (and we’ll cover the major exception below).  You may be able to push it for a few days beyond that, but I wouldn’t count on it.  So the big trick is to work out how much salad you can eat in a week.  Once you get that down, the rest is pretty trivial.

So here’s my pro tips:

Prepping for the Prep

From our last post, you’ll need your chef’s knife (or Santoku knife, if you prefer that style), your vegetable peeler, your cutting board, and your salad spinner.  Also, although I didn’t specifically cover it in my equipment post, take a tip from Rachel Ray¹ and get a large bowl to hold your ends and seeds and peelings and all that.  It’s much easier to dump it all at the end.

Most of your veggies need a quick wash.  Unless you’re doing something crazy like leeks, you probably won’t need to soak.  But certain things—especially celery—need to be disassembled during the washing process to make sure you’re getting all the dirt from between the stalks or leaves.  Rub your thumb along any particularly dirty spots; that’s normally sufficient.

Scallions and onions (and other allium relatives) need special attention.  For onions, remove the outermost layer—not just the papery part!  The outer layer is usually not that great, and onions are cheap.  Scallions are similar but I dont always remove the outermost layer: just check that layer, and especially the long leafy part of it, to see if it’s wilted or bedraggled or starting to get a bit slimy.  If so, remove it.  In both cases, make sure you get the transparent membrane between the outer layer and the next layer.  Rub it hard and it should come right off.  If you know how to get the “skin” off a hard-boiled egg, this is the same principle.

Bagged Greens

You don’t have to buy greens in bags, of course.  Feel free to buy whole heads of lettuce or what-have-you and chop it or shred it by hand.  But that’s a pain.  The nice thing about buying greens in bags is that most of the work is done for you: the greens are washed, separated and/or chopped, and all the really bad leaves have already been tossed.  Plus you can typically get a lot more options when it comes to bagged, and often even blends of different greens, which can save you the hassle of buying a bunch of different ones and combining them yourself.

Which is not to say that using bagged greens is no work, of course.  You still need to pick out the really good leaves from the not-quite-as-good leaves.  You’re not looking for leaves that are so bad you wouldn’t eat them—you’re not going to find many (if any) of those.²  You’re looking for leaves that will be bad in a few days.  You know the expression “one bad apple spoils the bunch”?  Same principle, only with lettuce leaves it’s much more likely and will happen much more quickly.  Be ruthless: discolored spots? wilted consistency? brown around the edges? looked at you funny when you picked it up?  Toss ’em all.

There’s various things you can do with the rejects.  If you compost, that’s a fantastic destination for the not bad leaves.  If you’re particularly budget conscious, you can always just make a salad out of them right on the spot: remember, they’re not bad yet.  Personally, I feed them to our guinea pig.  Certain lizards, fish, or turtles/tortoises are other good choices.  Hey, your fuzzy and scaly children deserve good organic food too, right?

Do not underestimate this step.  You’ll end up with a nicer (crunchier and tastier) salad that will last significantly longer.  On the other hand, don’t stress over it either.  When you see a piece that has a bit of a spot on one side, either let it pass or just rip it in half and let the pieces go to the appropriate receptacle.  When you get to the bottom and it’s all little dinky bits, just toss those in with the guinea pig fodder: lettuce is cheap and your time is worth more than a few stray leaves.  I do this with my salad spinner on one side and my garbage bowl on the other, sorting two-handed.  With a little practice, you can do this surprisingly quickly.  But I won’t lie to you: the first couple of times, it’ll seem like a giant pain in the ass.  Perservere.  Trust me, your patience will be rewarded.³

Chopping Veggies

Now, in general, you’re better off searching YouTube, because a video can teach you chopping hints with a shorter time investment and a clearer visualization than any large quantity of words I could spew out.  But I’ll hand out a few tips:

Onions.  I like to cut the non-stem end off, then cut them in half.  This is the only time I cut the stem end, which minimizes the amount of crying.⁴  Then each half gets a radial cut, then cross cut to make a lovely dice.  One half I chop fine, which means I try to line my radial cuts with every “stripe” on the onion, and the other half I do a rougher chop, which basically just means I go with every other stripe.

Peppers.  Cut the cap off, then reach in and just yank out the guts by hand.  Tap the sides to get the remaining seeds.  Chop it in half, slice the little puckered end off each side, then flatten it as best you can and, holding your knife parallel to the pepper, slice the ribs off.  Do them one at a time at first; eventually you’ll be able to do 2 at once.

Cucumbers.  Peel them first, then chop the ends off.  Cut them the long way, once for thinner cucumbers (like most Persians), or twice for fatter models (like most Americans).  Then just chop along the length.

Celery.  You can buy pre-cut stalks, but I find those go bad more quickly.  So just buy whole hearts and cut them yourself.  At the cut end, just slice an additional sliver off to remove that unsightly part that’s starting to brown.  At the stem end, cut off the really really white part (which is also pretty tough), and maybe anything that was so dirty or streaked that it wouldn’t come clean.  Slice each rib in half the long way, then chop down the line.

Scallions.  Chop off the very tip of the bulb, where it’s “hairy.”  Now just bunch them all together and chop down the length until you get into the fully green parts.  Now begin to stop every 4 or 5 chops and look at the leaves; any that are looking sad or too woody or too flat or anything unappetizing, pull them out and toss them in the garbage bowl.  Then chop 4 or 5 more times and keep repeating that process until you don’t have any leaves left.

Other Stuff.  You’re own your own for other veggies, because that’s all the veggies I personally chop.  Fruits I always chop for the particular salad at the time I make it.

Refigerator Storage

Believe it or not, the best way to store the majority of your veggies is right in the salad spinner.  I dump them directly in there from the cutting board tray.  Spin it a few times, then stick in the back of the fridge with the lid on.  Every time you take it to make salad with, leave the lid off it for a while to let some of that moisture evaporate, then spin it a few more times and back in the fridge.  The only other consideration I’m going to give you is this: if it so happens that you go for a day or two without making a salad (and I think you’re going to be surprised how rarely that happens), take the salad spinner out anyway and let it breathe and spin it.  The trick with keeping veggies fresh in the fridge is that you have them keep them moist, or else they dry out and get gross, but you can’t let them get too moist, or else they get slimy and then they’re gross.  So keeping that moisture at the perfect level is key.

However, there are exceptions to keeping all your veggies together.  Let’s talk about the most important ones.

Onions.  I don’t actually use yellow onions in any of my main salads, but I use them all the time in cooking, and I like having them around.  And, if today is veggie chopping day anyway, why not do ’em all?  So I store the onions in separate containers.  I also like to store a few of the pepper and celery bits separately, and then I can have trinity ready at all times.⁵

Cucumbers.  People give iceberg lettuce shit for being mostly water, but honestly that will last in the fridge just fine (although certainly butter lettuce is better).  Cucumbers, however, are really all water, so they get mushy fast, and you don’t want them to take the rest of your salad down with them.  I like to cut about half as many cucumbers as I think I’m going to need (which, if you’re doing the big, fat Americans, is probably just one), and then store the pieces in a container lined with a paper towel—that helps keep the moisture level about as perfect as you’re going to get.  You may have to cut up another cucumber in the middle of the week, but it’s better than gross, mushy cucumbers, right?

Romaine.  I like romaine lettuce, but I had to give up on it, because it goes bad if you just look at it funny.  Seriously, romaine will pretty much instantly decompose and take down everything around it, which can be super-tragic.  I swore off the stuff long ago.  But, if you insist on using romaine anyway, just don’t cut it until immediately before you’re going to eat it.  I know that’s a bigger pain—and that’s exactly why I don’t eat it any more—but there just isn’t any other decent option.


Believe it or not, after 12 installments, we’re finally done getting ready.  Next time, I’m going to show you the simplest of our primary six salads.

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1 And many other chefs who know what they’re talking about, I’m sure, but I learned it from Rachel.

2 And, if you do, please consider using a different grocery store next time.

3 As Alton Brown is wont to say.

4 It is of course possible not to cut the stem at all, but I find that method more unweildy, and plus I like cutting the two halves differently, as we’ll see.

5 Trinity, by the way, is not only excellent for all forms of Cajun cuisine, but is amazing for omelettes or scrambles, Italian dishes like Italian sausage in marinara sauce, or even on pizzas.  Yes, I put celery on my pizza.  Deal with it.