Book and comic reviews, and more from Amy Walker, a trans, disabled writer and reviewer from the UK.
Thursday, 11 August 2016
Lance Henricksen Cast as Obsidian on Legends of Tomorrow
Veteran sci-fi icon Lance Henricksen will be joining the cast of 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' as Obsidian, a member of the World War 2 superhero team The Justice Society of America.
There's no information on whether Henricksen will be playing Obsidian in modern day, as the character is traditionally one of the younger members of the group, or if the producers have chosen to flip expectations and have Obsidian become one of the older heroes of the group.
In the comics Obsidian is Todd Rice, the son of original Green Lantern Alan Scott and villain Rose Canton, Thorn. Obsidian has the ability to merge with and manipulate shadow energies, but despite trying to be a hero has inherited his mother's mental health problems and often falls victim to his darker impulses, verging on becoming a villain himself.
Henricksen is a long time science fiction actor and voice actor, having appeared in Aliens, Terminator, Mass Effect, Millennium, Transformers, The X-Files, The Legend of Korra and Call of Duty to name just a few of his roles.
Season two of Legends of Tomorrow is set to air this October and will feature the return of Rip Hunter, Heatwave, Firestorm, White Canary and The Atom as they work with the Justice Society of America to take on the Legion of Doom.
Amy.
xx
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Legends of Tomorrow Introduces Star Girl and Reveals Look at JSA Headquarters
The hit CW show 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' has revealed their latest superhero addition as the casting of Sarah Grey is announced for the role of Stargirl.
Stargirl is the latest member of the Justice Society of America to be added to the series, featuring alongside Hourman (played by Patrick J. Adams), Commander Steel (played by Matthew MacCaull) and a new version of Vixen (played by Amaya Jiwe). The characters of Dr. Mid-Nite and Obsidian have also been announced, though no casting has been revealed for these roles as of yet.
A sneak peek at the team's HQ has also been revealed in a tweet from series Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim, revealing the iconic meeting table.
Another classic component of the Justice Society lore will be added to the series in the form of the Legion of Doom, which will feature villains from across the CW's shows, including Malcolm Merlyn, Reverse Flash, Damian Darhk and Captain Cold.
Amy.
xx
New Luke Cage Trailer Gives Fans Amazing Easter Egg
The latest trailer for the upcoming Marvel Netflix series 'Luke Cage', the latest installment in the Marvel Defenders line of shows following Daredevil and Jessica Jones, shows off some amazing action pieces, a big look at the series antagonist, and an amazing nod to the main character's comic book past.
Luke Cage stars Mike Colter in the title role as a man given enhanced strength and invulnerability in an experiment who takes to the streets of Harlem to help the downtrodden and become a hero.
Amy.
xx
Sainsbury's Staff Tell Gay Couple To Stop Holding Hands - Offers £10 Gift Card As Apology
Thomas Rees and his boyfriend Josh were asked to leave the Hackney branch of Sainsbury's and told that a complaint had been made about them holding hands, claiming that they were 'touching inappropriately'.
Mr Rees has spoken out about the incident to ITV News, saying 'My boyfriend and I went to our local Sainsbury's holding hands as we normally do, just general public display of affection and we didn't notice anything untoward or weird. In East London it's not uncommon but we noticed the security guard staring.'
After the couple had paid for their shopping and were about to leave the store they were pulled to one side by the store security guard, who proceeded to leave the store with them before explaining to them that another customer had complained about them holding hands in the store and that they had to stop doing so.
Speaking about the incident Mr Rees has said, 'My blood boiled. I was shaking and dumbfounded and unable to respond. He kept repeating that the customer felt our behaviour was inappropriate.'
After the incident Mr Rees took to Twitter to vent about his experience, where a representative for the company attempted to resolve the incident, by offering him a £10 gift card as a 'goodwill gesture'.
The offer of the gift card has been turned down, with Mr Rees saying in response that he simply wants the retailer to train their staff around LGBT+ issues.
'I just don't understand why he needed to take us outside and why he needed to tell us to stop holding hands. There was no sense of humility' He said whilst speaking to Buzzfeed. 'I refuse to believe that this would have happened to a heterosexual couple - we just stared in disbelief. The issue here is it felt like 1960's Britain.'
A spokesperson from Sainsbury's said, 'We sincerely apologise to Thomas and Josh. We are an inclusive retailer and employer and do not tolerate discrimination in our stores. We will take appropriate action once we have concluded our investigation with our security contractor.'
Amy.
xx
Sunday, 7 August 2016
Star Trek Beyond Review
This review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, if you do not want certain plot points or story spoilt, please do not read further.
I don't like the new Star Trek films. I love the franchise, the television shows are great and I absolutely love Deep Space Nine, but I absolutely hate the new film series. I think that they're too different from the source material, they've tried too hard to explain how they're 'different' and 'modern' compared to older Star Trek, there's too much trying to be clever with their stories and it looks absolutely horrible with way too much lens flare.
Despite these issue Star Trek Beyond is actually really good. Everything that was wrong with the previous two films (other than Chris Pine) has been thrown out for a fairly basic sci-fi adventure story that manages to capture the spirit of the franchise a lot, lot more than the other JJ Verse films.
The film picks up three years into the Enterprise's five year mission into uncharted space as the ship heads to a massive space station called Yorktown for resupply, maintenance and shore leave for the crew. It's here that we find that the long mission has begun to have a negative effect on the crew, with Spock and Uhura having ended their relationship and Kirk wanting to give up command of the ship.
Before any decisions about the future of the Enterprise can be made, however, an escape pod emerges from a nearby unexplored nebula with a sole survivor aboard. The alien woman reveals that her ship and crew are stranded on a planet inside the nebula, and as such Kirk and the Enterprise are sent to their aid.
The plot takes a turn when the ship arrives at the unknown planet, however, as they come under attack from a technologically superior foe who literally tear the Enterprise apart. The alien's leader, Krall (Idris Elba) boards the ship to steal an artifact in the Enterprise vault as the crew abandon the crippled ship.
With the Enterprise in pieces the saucer section crash lands onto the planet below with a handful of the command crew managing to escape whilst Uhura, Sulu and the remaining crew are captured by Krall's troops.
Once on the planet Scotty befriends a stranded young woman, Jaylah (Sophia Boutella) who enlists Scotty in helping to fix her 'house', an old NX class star ship called the Franklin (Star Trek Enterprise), helping the command crew to rescue the captured Enterprise crew in return.
Using the repaired Franklin the crew chase after Krall to Yorktown to stop him from unleashing a deadly bio weapon that will kill the millions of inhabitants.
The film may be full of plot holes, less than believable solutions and characters having to explain to the audience exactly what's happening because otherwise you'd get lost, but it has enough of the spirit of fun and adventure that the original series had that the film manages to get over these faults to deliver an entertaining experience.
You can tell straightaway that the people behind the cameras have changed since 'Star Trek Into Darkness', the script has more fun and pop to the dialogue, with flashier set pieces, and the direction is a lot crisper and easier to digest. No more god damn lens flare in every scene!
The film doesn't try any of the 'mystery box' rubbish that Abrams did with 'Into Darkness' with his whole 'Cumberbatch isn't playing Khan, I swear he's not Khan, definitely not Khan, okay, it's a Wrath of Khan remake' rubbish that made the build up to the film slightly more annoying and awful than the actual film turned out to be.
Instead of getting a film that spends its whole running time explaining the change to the time line or a sub par remake of a film we already had we get a Star Trek film that feels like a Star Trek film, that stands on it's own and actually lets the audience have a little fun.
Some of the film might be silly, with some of the dialogue being a little too clunky to be funny and using Beastie Boys to destroy the unstoppable enemy army being absolutely ridiculous, but it feels a lot more forgivable than a lot of the missteps that the previous two films made.
The biggest gripe with the film is that it doesn't spend a lot of time explaining things before moving on, we don't get a real explanation for how the Franklin ended up on the planet, we don't really get an explanation for exactly what the bio weapon is, and reveal that Krall and his men used to be human is so skimmed over it could have easily derailed the whole final act of the film.
Luckily the cast manage to play the whole thing in such a way that you can forget about a lot of these plot holes whilst the film is actually happening and find yourself enjoying the experience. Boutella manages to slip into the main cast nicely, and her double act with Scotty is a particularly enjoyable thing to watch. Perhaps with the announcement of a fourth instalment she could return to the crew, possibly taking over for Chekov.
A moment has to be taken to talk briefly about Anton Yelchin and his recent passing, with this film being the first to be released since his death that he has appeared in. I went into this film very aware of the loss of Anton, and was pleasantly surprised at how much screen time he was given in this film in comparison to previous instalments. Chekov gets teamed up with Kirk whilst stranded on the planet's surface, and gets to be involved in some big set pieces and action sequences. This was something that I was really, really pleased about as it's given Yelchin, and the character of Chekov, a chance to shine in his last appearance in the Star Trek franchise.
'Star Trek Beyond' isn't a perfect film, and whilst you will enjoy the film as it's happening you will quickly begin to pick holes in it once it has done it's certainly not the worst in the new reboot series, or the franchise as a whole. It's fun, action packed and over the top, with great character interaction and banter that makes it stand apart from previous instalments.
xx
Pokemon Go Review
Pokemon Go has been out in the UK for coming up to a month now, and I've had a good while to play through the game and start to get a feel for what is one of the riskiest, most innovative and popular Pokemon games since the series began.
After years of trying to get players to get out of the house and interact with other people in their Pokemon training and trading efforts, and their attempts to get gamers active with the Wii, Nintendo may have finally succeeded in creating the most physically active in history, and one that millions of people are eagerly playing.
Creating a MMO that uses the real word, rather than a purely digital one, that actually encourages people to leave their homes and walk around their home towns and beyond is one of the most simplistically brilliant ideas that they could have had.
The game is so simple in its design, with little more created other than an incredibly basic map screen, creature animatics and a woodland capture minigame. Yet, despite having so little in comparison to even the first Pokemon game it's managed to capture the hearts of so many people by its simple gameplay mechanic. Everytime I go out I check to see if there are Pokestops along my route, and every time my phone buzzes I'm on the lookout for what Pokemon has arrived on the scene.
Whilst occasionally I may be happier to sit at home and play one of the other Pokemon games whilst watching TV I've found that in the last few weeks I'm excited to leave the house and go for walks to find new Pokemon, get fresh supplies and hatch my next egg.
Pokemon Go was also something that added a lot to my recent holiday. Whilst my partners and I always do a lot of walking when we go away, this year we had an added incentive to our physical activity, something that encouraged us to go to new places and explore where before we would have only stuck to the main areas.
It might seem like a simplistic game, and it's not without it's glitches and failures, there are a lot of issues that need to be worked out to make the game a lot better, but it's so enjoyable that I can't help but love this game.
I've liked Pokemon since the very first generation, and my girlfriend is absolutely mad for the franchise (one of our rooms is wall to wall plushes, and that's not even the whole of her collection!) so we were guaranteed to be playing this game since it was first announced, but seeing so many other people falling in love with the game and talking about Pokemon is something I never thought I'd see. The days of Pokemania may have ended a long time ago, but the franchise is definitely getting its second big push, and that can only be a good thing.
Pokemon Go might not be a perfect game, but for a free game that captures the spirit of the series and actively encourages people to get walking and get fitter it's a pretty amazing game, and one that I hope to see continue on and go from strength to strength for years to come.
Amy.
xx
Thursday, 4 August 2016
Pope Francis Condemns Transgender People
Pope Francis, the man who many short sighted people like to refer to as the 'progressive' Pope has once again demonstrated that he is not a friend to the LGBT+ community.
During a closed door meeting with bishops in Poland last week the Pope has spoken out against the transgender community according to transcripts (Link to Transcript) of the conversation released by the Catholic church. The Pope has complained that children are being taught that gender is a spectrum rather than a binary.
'Today in schools they are teaching this to children - to children! - that everyone can choose their gender.' He complained, according to the transcript.
Pope Francis condemned the increased visibility of trans people on 'ideological colonizing' by textbooks 'financed by wealthy people and institutions in very influential countries'. He even went so far as to say that the acceptance of the transgender community to be a 'terrible' thing.
He even quoted his predecessor Pope Benedict, 'Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well and clear in his mind, he was telling me, 'Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator, he's intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite'.'
The comments made by Pope Francis have been heavily condemned by members of the LGBT+ community.
Amy.
xx
'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Book Review
This Sunday saw the release of the rehearsal script for the Harry Potter sequel play 'The Cursed Child' in book form. Whilst many Harry Potter fans were excited for the release of the story negative reviews were quick to surface online by those who were unhappy with the story and the way the book read.
Whilst the book is incredibly short in comparison to the previous Harry Potter novels, it's worth remembering that this is because this book is not a novel but a script. The writing is basic, with little to no text beyond dialogue and simple scene descriptions. If you can get over the way the story is presented, which from the initial fan reactions many were not able to do, there is something of an interesting story to be found.
'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' takes place 19 years after the end of the last Harry Potter book, and follows Harry's youngest son Albus as he attempts to navigate his way through his early years at Hogwarts and deals with his less than perfect relationship with his father.
A lot of the play deals with this poor relationship between Harry and Ablus, with much of Albus' issues stemming from living in his fathers shadow and failing to believe that he is living up to the Potter legacy. Albus is sorted into Slytherin House and struggles during his lessons, leading to many within the school to mock and tease him, something that helps to solidify his friendship with Scorpius Malfoy, who receives similar treatment.
I found this shift in how the young Potter characters navigate school to be quite a welcome one, with Harry having been the fairly popular heroic Gryffindor student and Albus being the shunned Slytherin outcast. It helps to not only show how different Albus is from his father, but makes their arguments and difficulty in connecting feel more natural and nuanced.
There's also no way I can not mention at this point just how much I love Scorpius Malfoy. He's without a doubt one of the nicest, warmest and just all round likable characters in the whole book, possibly even the whole Harry Potter universe. His relationship with Albus feels so genuine and full of love that the two of them read as a more natural friendship than the main three character from the original book series.
Whilst the book has the underlying story of Albus and his father trying to work on their relationship the main thrust of the story comes when Harry and the ministry manage to find an illegal Time Turner, which Albus decides to try to use to save the life of Cedric Diggory following a visit from his elderly father.
Cedric, as fans will surely remember, lost his life during the events of 'The Goblet of Fire' when Voldemort first returned to life and murdered him during the graveyard battle. Going back to stop this means that the story dips back and forward into the three Tri Wizard tournament challenges, three of the most iconic set pieces from the series.
Whilst Albus and Scorpius first try to save Cedric's life during the first event they return to their own time to find that not only did Cedric still die at Voldemorts hand, but their have been subtle changes to history. Hermione and Ron are no longer married, erasing their children from history, and Hermoine has gone from being Minister For Magic to a rather nasty Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.
Trying to once again change history the two of them travel back to the second challenge and manage to humiliate Cedric out of the Tri Wizard tournament, saving his life. Unfortunately, when the time turner returns them back to the present Scorpius finds Albus gone and a much darker world awaiting him.
This is the part of the story that I liked the most, and a setting that I really want to see explored further, and one that I'm sure will produce a lot of fan fiction. In this new timeline the humiliated Cedric blamed Harry for what happened during the Tri Wizard Tournament, and after suffering torment at the hands of his fellow students fell in league with dark wizards.
By the time the Battle of Hogwarts came around Cedric was a full blown Death Eater, and during the events of the battle murdered Neville Longbottom. The knock-on effects of this were huge, as Neville was no longer able to kill Nagini which meant the horcux's were never destroyed and Voldemort was able to win the war.
The new world is one where Voldemort rules supreme, Harry Potter was killed at the Battle of Hogwarts, Delores Umbridge runs Hogwarts and Scorpius is a thoroughly evil person. Trying desperately to find a way to correct the timeline and bring back the world as it should be Scorpius turns to the one person he finds who he believes can be trusted, Severus Snape.
Despite still being the Hogwarts potions teacher in this new timeline Snape is still acting as a double agent against Voldemort with all that remains of the Order of the Phoenix, Ron and Hermione. Using the time turner they manage to go back and prevent Albus and Scorpius from changing history, though it costs the three rebels their lives.
Despite being an alternate future and the events essentially being erased I loved these scenes, especially the ones with Snape. I found Snape's story in the books to be one of the most heartbreaking, and think of him as one of the biggest heroes of the series, so to see him still caring for Harry long after his death, to be willing to fight to save him and give his life yet again to do so is so wonderful.
Once returned to the present, now repaired, the two boys find the true enemy of the story hidden in plain sight the whole time, Delphi Diggory, Cedric's cousin who had been helping them to try to bring him back. Delphi steals the time turner from the duo and reveals herself to be a dark witch, intent on bringing Voldemort back to power. Having learnt from Scorpius of the alternate timeline that was created she's intent on doing the same, leading to the three of them battling across time.
They firstly end up back in the Tri-Wizard Tournament's third task, where Delphi fails to change history, leading her to follow a new plan, travelling further back to 1981 to prevent the original fall of Voldemort when he tries to kill the baby Harry Potter.
It's at this point, with Albus and Scorpius trapped in 1981 and their parents searching desperately for a way to save them in the present that the disturbing truth of Delphi's identity is revealed, she's Voldemorts daughter.
Thanks to Albus and Scorpius being able to leave a message through time for their parents the adults are able to travel back with a second time turner and together are able to defeat Delphi shortly before Voldemort arrives and kill Harry's parents, ensuring time runs to course.
A lot of criticism has been levelled at the story by fans for it feeling like 'fan fiction', and I guess that's part of the danger of using time travel so heavily in the story, especially as it features some of the more memorable parts of the Harry Potter series, but on a whole I found the story interesting and entertaining. Yes, it wasn't the best book in the world, but it was never meant to be a book, and I'm sure it translates well to stage as the play has been receiving 5 star reviews.
That's not to say that there aren't some issues with it, I don't like the fact that Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange had a child, and they clearly had no idea what to do with Ron now that he's an adult, but these flaws are small in relation to the overall enjoyment I got from the story.
I hope that I get to see the play at some point so that I can see the story the way that it was actually intended to be experienced, or that perhaps J.K. will choose to re-write it as an actual book, though I doubt that will actually happen.
'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' isn't the best story in the world, and it does have some flaws, but then so did the rest of the Harry Potter series.
Amy.
xx
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Katie Hopkins Doesn't Think NHS Should Support Transgender 'Lifestyle Choice'
Daily Mail columnist and radio personality Katie Hopkins has been skirting controversy once again (what a surprise) as she this time takes aim at the transgender community.
Speaking on her weekly show on LBC Radio the former Apprentice contestant has lashed out at the transgender community, claiming that they should receive no help or treatment from the NHS, especially fertility treatment, pointing to long NHS waiting times for other treatment as a reason to not help the trans community.
'Is it okay that we are paying for these individuals and their lifestyle choices? I don't think so as it goes.
'As much as I love to wave the rainbow coloured banner as the next individual. As much as I see that's the way the world is going - I may need to catch up with that. I don't agree with it.
'I don't think that we should be paying for trans people to have their eggs frozen on the NHS. If we live in a world of endless resources... If money fell from the sky in a golden shower, of a quite different making... then well of course, there would be no problem with the amount of cash available but the fact is we are 2.4 billion pounds in debt with our NHS.
'The fact that we've got cataract operations being cancelled, three out of four trusts now do not perform cataract operations until the patient is perfectly blind because we don't have the funds to approve them.
'Do we really need to pander to the trans community and their whims? I say no.'
The NHS currently offers trans people the choice of freezing eggs and sperm so that transgender people can have children later in life, in a similar way that this choice is open to cancer patients and people facing other treatment where fertility may be affected, though quite often trans people have to pay for this service themselves.
To blame the transgender community and the meagre treatment that we receive on the NHS for the major debt and delays faced across the entire service is ludicrous and shortsighted in its ignorance, and no better than saying immigrants are responsible for people having problems finding jobs. It's a snap judgement that doesn't hold up upon closer examination of real world facts and figures and is informed by nothing more than bigotry and blaming of minority groups.
As it stands at the moment transgender people face a waiting list of more than two years to receive their first gender clinic appointment so that they can receive medical aid in their transition, a period of time that is excessively long and leads to huge amounts of distress for those awaiting their appointments.
Katie Hopkins is quite clearly just lashing out about a situation she knows little to nothing about, with an opinion formed without any research and based on fear mongering headlines and tabloid stories, but then what do we expect from someone who writes for The Daily Mail, a 'newspaper' that was actually responsible for the death of a transgender woman, Lucy Meadows.
From a personal point of view I would like to say the following to Hopkins, being transgender is not a 'lifestyle choice' I made. I did not choose this for myself. I did not make the choice to paint a target on myself for every hateful bigot in the world. I did not choose to face harassment in the streets. I did not choose to face discrimination in the workplace. I did not choose to receive death and rape threats. I did not choose to become massively suicidal and depressed. I DID NOT CHOOSE THIS.
Being transgender is not a choice, and it most certainly is not a 'lifestyle', and I will argue that point with anyone who claims otherwise until I am blue in the face because those kind of accusations are ridiculous.
Perhaps you should learn to do a little research on a subject before you open your mouth in the future Ms Hopkins, otherwise you just make yourself look stupid, like when you told your listeners that the M25 would close for a week because you believed a spoof article. Educate yourself and stop spreading hate and lies about our community.
Amy.
xx
Monday, 1 August 2016
Scholarships For LGBT+ Students Branded 'Reverse Discrimination'
Following the introduction of a new programme in Australia that would award educational scholarships to LGBT+ students television personality Sonia Kruger has lashed out, calling the scholarship 'reverse discrimination' for straight students.
The new scholarships are worth $7,000 over a three year period will be awarded to high potential students facing significant economic, family or social challenges. The scholarship application form asks candidates to identify their gender as male, female, transgender or prefer not to say, as well as asking if they identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or prefer not to say.
Kruger appeared on the Australian Chanel Nine's 'Today' program this morning and spoke out on the issue, saying that she believed the new programme to be a form of reverse discrimination against straight people that unfairly favoured members of the LGBT+ community.
'It sort of feels like reverse discrimination to me, in a way. To ask a student if they identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, you're asking someone their sexual preferences and I find that a really odd thing to do, in any kind of capacity, whether it's a job or a scholarship. I think a scholarship should be given on merit.'
To be fair to Kruger, asking someone's sexual preference is something that shouldn't really play much part when it comes to things such as job applications, in the same way that job applications shouldn't ask people their race, ethnicity, marital status or religious beliefs, yet they do. As a straight cis white christian woman though she somehow doesn't feel the need to challenge these, simply the one that would allow LGBT+ students from less advantaged backgrounds better chances at a higher education.
This kind of reaction from Kruger shouldn't be too much of a surprise, however, as just a few weeks ago she called for the Australian government to ban people of Muslim faith from entering the country as she appeared to accuse all Muslim people of being terrorists in a racist rant.
Thankfully, 'Today' had an opposing voice on the panel with Kruger, who spoke out in support of the new scholarships. David Campbell, well known for his pro-marriage equality beliefs, said that there are many scholarships not given out to LGBT+ students, and that anyone who questioned the new programme was 'living in the Dark Ages'.
Amy.
xx
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