Mary Sue | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “What If…?” and “Mary Sues”…

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist today. I’ve been covering What If…? for A Marvelous Escape, and it’s been a very fun experience. However, I have noticed that’s there’s a weirdly pervasive school of criticism that argues that the show has turned characters like Peggy Carter and T’Challa into “Mary Sues”, a criticism that has become increasingly common in discussions of modern franchise media.

Of course, it’s often very hard to come with a clear definition of what a “Mary Sue” is that doesn’t manage to encompass characters that the person using the description would never describe using such a term. It often seems like an “I know it when I see it” accusation, which can apply to Rey Skywalker but not Luke or T’Challa but not Steve Rogers. More to the point it demonstrates how blind some observers are to the appeal of these sorts of empowerment fantasies, and the double-standard that they appear to hold in an era where most franchise media is effectively fan fiction.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: comic books, Comics, fan fiction, fandom, Luke Skywalker, Mary Sue, rey, superheroes, what if | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner et al (DC Comics) (Review)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

The Ashes of Eden is effectively professionally published Star Trek fan fiction, written by William Shatner. The actor gets some assistance from veteran Star Trek writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, but it’s clear that Shatner is the driving force behind The Ashes of Eden. Indeed, an astute reader will spot quite a few thematic overlaps with Shatner’s much-maligned directorial effort, only without the rest of the cast around to temper his efforts to make this a story about Kirk and Kirk alone.

Still, The Ashes of Eden isn’t as bad as it might be. After all, just because something is fan fiction – professionally published or otherwise – says nothing of its quality. The story is probably best read as an exploration between Shatner and his alter ego, but it holds together quite well, providing a much more solid (if still far from perfect) exploration of the themes hinted at in Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.