Garth Ennis - The Punisher MAX #25-36

Thinking about how the red pill/blue pill metaphor was co-opted by racists and shitheads, the blame has to be laid at the feet of David Icke, doesn't it? If he wasn't the first to steal the idea, his online and in-person popularity must have opened the door for all sorts of peddlers of conspiracy ideation. From the Matrix to reptilian infiltrators to FBI crime statistics and great replacement theories. A shameful trajectory that dishonours this great film.

It's symmeTRY, goddammit! SymmeTRY!

Exit the generals, spooks, and games of chicken missile. Enter horror. The things that man does to woman. The things that power does to us all. Let the noir shine in, illuminating the dark weakness of our hero. Watch him fight against the odds, stoic red, and get revenge for us all. https://mindlessones.com/2008/05/01/superpowers-are-real-goran-parlov/

Little disrespect to Gordon Chan in the title of this episode, I admit. Jet Li did not direct this one. But, really, no one showed up to this event for Gordon Chan. He did a good job, don't get me wrong. But this is a Jet Li movie. And what a Jet Li movie it is.... "So, it's about energy. But tell me something, does a rock have as much energy as an opponent would?" [Slices a leaf floating in air with hand]

Witness the film that PROVES that George Lucas traveled into the future in order to steal the secrets of martial arts success. He brought it back to the past and profited. With his ferocious nature, he bent the fabric of space/time, all so that Jet Li could become Luke Skywalker. From then to before and now to now. 

Hinged wooden tripod flashes, fire capturing flame, the fall, the blurred chaos of love and family and loss, a trouble-making box that, once opened, refuses to hide its promise, bodies be damned. "Whenever there's trouble, we Chinese suffer."

Aristocrats and royalty wear armour and carry swords. They buy and sell what they need and lie about the rest. Our hero was once on track to aristocracy but gave it up in a fit of conscience and a brush with mortality. Not so our villain. Like all established royalty, he wants to sit upon a throne of fear and desire. "You know what keeps going through my head? Where's my sandwich?"

Gender and Apocalypse. Hear me out. Laurie's mom pushed her into it, right? And Jon, that guy was pushed around by pops so badly, he didn't even have an 'h'. Both waltz around like binary stars. But neither collapses. Instead, centre lost, they hurtle outwards, yin and yang, and then back together. Up until the end. "I--I'm scared. I feel like there's big invisible things all around me."

The gloves removed hit the floor like lead, puncturing lungs, bleeding red, untold bodies left for dead. All this, despite the concussive rounds, remained unsaid, silent infrared exploding heads. The gloves removed hit the floor. The world changed forevermore. "Roth, don't get sentimental on me, okay?"

Why should we not gamble, we at the bottom whose lives are without glory? "Well, we have nothing to lose but our futures."