Crisis on Earth-X reaction post: The Flash & LoT

Before I start - if, as a certain spoilery image I saw late last night implied, we're getting canon queer Len Snart - I want him to be a widower. Literally. I want that to be why there probably is no Mick Rory on Earth X. I'm not convinced that is something they'll give me, but I want it anyway.

The Flash

Why have they not been processed? Why have the heroes been dumped in the KZ camp with their uniforms, with their hair, with no identifying triangles?

Also, Jax has no manners.

There's a certain irony in Cisco getting a taste of his own horrible illegal private prison.

Seems awfully wasteful, first sticking the heroes in a KZ camp and then marching them straight out to be shot.

Hey, Len!

For someone who is has visited several Earths, Barry seems slightly not quite clear on how the doppleganger thing works. And Earth-1? Wasn't that just the numbering system Team Flash was using?

While I sympathize with the heroes wanting to go home, I also think the General has a point. Besides, some heroes - they are on literal Nazi Earth and they just want to go home? No helping the good fight?

Yay! Canon queer Leo Snart! But oh, why did it have to be with Russell Tovey's character?

I'm still not clear on how Thawne is even alive? The Black Flash is such a slacker.

Even the Waverider has been nazified :-(

Leo being all offended by Len's approach to planning :-)

Didn't anybody ever tell Stein not to split up Firestorm while fighting Nazis? I don't like where this is headed.

Legends of Tomorrow

So, Stein was only mostly dead and gets to valiantly stagger and get shot a bit more? I assume he'll be dead by the end of this episode.

So, apparently Ray can do creepy things like embiggening his hand now?

Mick has his priorities straight, I see.

Yes, Barry. You should have just eloped. Superhero weddings never run smoothly.

Okay, so Leo meeting Mick is less emotional and more ridiculous. Well, clearly emotional for Leo. And of course Earth-X Mick died in a fire - except. A police station. On an Earth where the Nazis won the war ages ago, Mick saving police officers - wouldn't those be nazis? Did the show actually mean to imply that or is that just spectacularly bad writing and the writers not realizing what they just implied?

Where do they keep getting more nazis from anyway?

I get they are making Leo the opposite of Len, a believer in justice and law, but - they are all fighting evil invading nazis. Why does he care about Mick roasting one?

Since when can Cisco fly the Waverider?

Landing on the ground or landing in a steeled-up Nate's arms? Both should probably have broken bones, even on Kara.

Awww, Leo wanting to hug Barry.

Is anybody else constantly getting mood whiplash from this crossover?

So - we've got nice person Leo Snart, who appears to be in a committed relationship with the Ray, staying for a bit on Earth-1. Meaning if he flirts and kisses anybody, he'll be an asshole. Guess the Captain Canary shippers are going to be less than thrilled...

Barry? Stop kidnapping people without warning.

Everybody's married. The end.

Okay. Final thoughts: I actually liked it. The crossover. I still think the whole thing would have worked just fine with vampires instead, and really, they shouldn't have killed Stein, but - I don't think it glamourized nazis, at least? Though I'm not sure I'm the person to judge here. And the story itself worked well enough. It felt far more cohesive than last season's crossover.

Wednesday Reading Meme - actually on a wednesday

I guess I haven't been doing much of interest these last couple of weeks. I went to see Justice League - it was underwhelming. Not even terrible, just - meh. Watched the DC CW shows crossover, as you might have noticed. That sort of thing. Caught some Farfetch'ds. Have yet to participate in a Ho-Oh raid. The raids have started stopping earlier in the evening since we switched to winter time. It's annoying for a working person like myself.

What I've recently finished reading

Christina Vorre: Forladt: fortællinger fra 20 ubeboede danske øer
Reading this book - which is a short collection of stories from a number of formerly inhabited, but now abandoned islands in Denmark - we've got so many, many islands, most uninhabited - made me think of the the current "war" between Copenhagen and Outer Denmark, which mostly seems to exist in the minds of the latter. These islands were the exact same story, just earlier. The entire modern period has been the movement away from small, lonely country areas, and probably a lot of that has to do with the fact that small and remote areas are actually hard to get all the modern conveniences we require out in. I mean, who wants to live somewhere where you can't even expect a cellphone to get a signal? What if you need to call an ambulance?

Grant Morrison: Wonder Woman: Earth One vol. 1.
Well. That was a trainwreck. What the fuck did I just read? Amazons being - very, very, very into "loving submission", and canon lesbian Diana wanting an African-American Steve Trevor to put on a collar and lovingly submit and in general? This is a trainwreck of a comic? WTF? I just - I adore the character of Diana, but the Azzarello comics I read were just weird and this is? Why can't I find a nice comic about Wonder Woman? Am I just getting the wrong ones?

Mike Mignola: B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs

Siri Pettersen: Evna
And so the tale of Hirka ends, with the Ability restored and Ymsland needing to do some serious rebuilding. I liked this trilogy. And it vaguely amuses me that, if this ever makes it into a movie, that the filmmakers will have all the excuses in the world to include all the leather bikines and bondage gear.

Katrine Sommer Boysen & Sophie Engberg Sonne: Filmens københavn: hovedstaden i levende billeder
Gorgeous book. Not deep, but lovely.

Kojo Svedstrup Jantuah: Odyssey to Elsinore: reconciliation with the past in order to move forward
On one hand it's an interesting book. Written by a Ghanese academic, telling about his youth, where he travelled across Sahara, following the same dangerous routes the current migrants use, his work for reconciliation after the history of slavery, and his visits in Denmark to search for his relatives, as he's a descendant of one of the last Danish officers in the Danish African colonies before we sold them to England. It's a lot of interesting subject matter. Sadly, it's not really a very engaging book, but I'm not sure if that's because Jantuah is not a skilled writer, or because he's writing in a narrative tradition that I'm not used to reading and therefore not quite capable of appreciating properly.

Fred Van Lente: Ivar, Timewalker: Making History
I'm giving it one more volume.

Warren Ellis: Injection vol. 1.
I am not entirely sure what's happening, but I'm intrigued.

What I'm reading now

Jan Guillou's 1968 and Neal Stephenson's The Rise and Fall of DODO.

What I'm reading next

All the fanfic, probably.

Total number of books and comics read this year: 181