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And I am really okay with that. I think it’s healthy to know that not every genre movie fired out of Hollywood is aimed at or intended for you (the Royal you, I mean). I frankly think it’s exhausting trying to keep everything straight these days. I am looking forward to The Flash movie, though.

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Nice essay, and it reveals to me why I'm not nearly as interested in the MCU as I once was. I had a much older brother-in-law give me a lot of Marvel comics in the late 60's. Spiderman #1, FF #3 where they get their costumes, Avenger's where Cap joins and Hulk leaves, and Strange Tales where Tony Stark offers the directorship of Shield to Sgt. Fury. I missed Hank Pym as Ant-Man. I remember him mainly as Giant Man and later Goliath. I had the issue of Tales of Suspense where Hawkeye was introduced as a villain. My knowledge of Marvel disappears by the early 70's. I kept up with Superman and Batman until sometime in the 80's. So all the newer stuff, from Guardians of the Galaxy (with the stupidest person ever leading them), She Hulk (actually, I've never liked the original Hulk much either), etc. have absolutely zero interest for me. So obviously it's a generational thing for me, being a tail-end Boomer. I'm no longer the target market. You everyone knows how much Boomers hate not being the target market ;)

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I remember a conversation in a Comic shop in the 90's. I think we were talking about the latest Batman, and the typical (even then) reactionary remarks about this that and the other thing that "wasn't the same as the comics". An acquaintance of mine opined "they don't make 'em for us", and that sentiment has informed my comic book viewing ever since. I didn't read the Ant-Man titles back in the day, though I was sort of familiar with the long. tortured life of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. I have enjoyed the Scott Lang/Paul Rudd version since the git-go, and this latest installment is icing on the cake. I was guardedly excited about a certain large head showing up in the film, and while it is certainly not the figure of menace I remembered from way, way back, his appearance was logical enough in context, though subordinate goon is not quite what I was hoping for...(Kit-me Kate brought me up to speed a bit on that character's long progression from freakish menace to comic absurdity. My last memory of him was his appearance in a seventies HULK comic wherein he transformed Betsy Ross into the Harpy. So, yes, it has been awhile. Tried, but couldn't make it through the first episode of the Netflix animated series. Shrug.)

Lush, magnificent realization of the 'Quantum realm' (Fess up, did you have expectations of Annihilus from the trailers? I did, and I won't discount the possibility that an ambitious Ant might take up the mantle) and I agree with your musing that at some point this will include or link to the Negative Zone.

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