Antagonist Vs. Villain

Howdy!

I am a big nerd! I may not be all about books, but there are films and TV shows that were inspired from novels and comic books that brought the characters to life. As you probably know I am a big fan of superheroes; mostly on the Marvel side than DC or any other comic books. I don’t know how it started exactly, I just remember being in the living room lying on the couch watching X2 with my dad and that’s how my obsessed with Wolverine and Rogue started!

I’ve wrote a couple of different X-Men posts over the years. Starting with Mutant and Proud after I watched X-Men: First Class and we were introduced to our favorite mutants a whole lot younger! I’ve always seen Erik/Magneto as this troubled mutant who basically hated the human race. When I watched this film though, I finally understood why he was like the way he was and what changed him. In all honesty, I understood both sides of the argument of Charles’s way of blending in and controlling their powers. Whereas Erik was more about embracing your true self, letting yourself have everything and don’t care about what everybody thinks. Somehow after watching First Class and then changing direction and watching Man Of Steel the story of Superman, I wrote Waiting For Superman explaining how I saw the stories of these characters in a different way. Trying to explain to the reader that people and young kids with disabilities feel the same way. We’re being pulled both ways of attempting to blend in and embracing yourselves. It’s a complicated process that never really ends.

I didn’t want this post being about my previous posts, I wanted to discuss the theory that we’re looking at villains all wrong. What we think is a bad guy may not be. Several weeks ago, the question was asked during a Twitter chat for nerdy bloggers, like myself, “is there a difference between an antagonist and a villain?” I first said Draco Malfoy was more like an antagonist than a villain because he mostly wanted to impress his father and the rest of Voldemort’s party. I never thought he was a bad guy, he just had a lot of bad influences around him. And then I started thinking about Magneto and how in ways, he’s not exactly a villain either. He genuinely had a good heart; he hid it very well, but it was still there. He showed it for other mutants that were being abused by others who wanted to use, and ultimately destroy them.

Everybody is born with good intentions, even our most prized super villains like Dark Phoenix, Mystique, and Magneto. We keep forgetting–I keep forgetting–that people have a breaking point and they just lose it. The good runs out and the evil overcomes them. The ego takes over and controls their power, but like Professor X, you have to dig deep to find the good in that person. Everything can harden, but you can’t harden your heart. No matter how you try, of course, you have to also understand that not everybody can be saved either.

Are there any characters in books, movies, and TV shows that you’ve found more like an antagonist rather than a villain? Why do you believe in them that they can change?

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REVIEW | Supergirl

I think I should mention this before we even start this review. I’m going to be VERY honest with this so no if you disagree with me that’s fine, just keep it to yourself.

I’m still slightly confused why I decided to record this Monday night. I hadn’t heard much about it, only that Claire Holt was up for the main role and Jenna Dewan-Tatum was going to play Lois Lane’s sister Lucy Lane on the show. I didn’t think I would watch it after what happened when I watched Man Of Steel for the first time. If you want to know what that’s about just read this. I didn’t have any expectations for it and I decided to look at that as a good thing and see what all the fuss was about and I’m glad I did since that’s what everybody is talking about the day after!

I hope I don’t give too much away, but it’s about a young girl named Kara Zor-El who is a cousin of Kal El, aka Superman. She was sent to look after him just before their home planet was to explode. She has all of the same powers as Superman, but after Krypton was destroyed her shuddle was thrown off course and she was trapped in space. When she did make it back to Earth, the world already knew of Superman and his powers so he sent Kara to live with a foster family. She decided to become a normal person, so she is somebody’s assistant at a big newspaper company. She only breaks her normal life to save her sister Alex and other passengers on board a plane that’s about to crash, and after that everybody finds out they have another superhero on their hands. Not everybody is happy about it of course! I’ve decided to leave it like that, a little cliffhanger!

First thing, the whole storyline isn’t that bad. There were a lot of things in the pilot episode that I liked, but of course I also had a lot that I hated about it too! When I first heard about the show, I thought Supergirl? She’s going to be a teenager, baby sister to Superman. I thought she was going to be a lot younger, around 15 or 16 years old and had a lot of knowledge about Krypton and their families and basically save the world right along Kal, but like always I was wrong! She’s my age and living a normal life. Which is fine, but she’s a 24 year old woman not a girl. What I was looking for were the younger years of when she was busy adjusting to life on Earth not being a protection for baby Kal like she was supposed to, how was family life like after seeing her home being blown up? How did she control her powers? What was it like with her and older sister Alex like, especially when Alex was recruited into that agency? And maybe we’ll see that later on in the season, I doubt it since the story is pretty big without it.

I understand that there are big differences between the superhero films converting into TV shows, most importantly the ways of special effects. I had to readjust to it when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered on ABC (and I know it’s not right to compare Marvel and DC Comics but at some point we all do!) the funny thing was, the special effects used in that show doesn’t necessarily look computer generated, it basically look real in almost every scene. So when I was watching this show, I felt as though it was corny. I’ve seen a lot of shows that use big effects and I have to say this was my least favorite out of every show. Every time they would go to show Supergirl flying and fighting scenes would be WAY too fast and I wasn’t like excited to see her in the whole rescuing frame of mind. It almost went too fast, the whole show and maybe it was because I was watching it through my DVR and I don’t know.

I don’t really have an opinion on the cast except for Laura Benanti as a villain role? Perfect!! I am seriously so stoked to see her as the ultimate evil person to this new superhero. I know a LOT of people watched the first episode and apparently liked it, but I was unimpressed. However I am going to watch the second episode next Monday. I want to see what happens and see if things can get better or not.

Okay, your turn! What do you think of Supergirl?