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Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 6 – Le Crime du Drag Express Power Rankings

March 8, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 6 was Le Crime du Drag Express, a murder mystery acting challenge in the style of Agatha Christa paired with a “Tenues Saxy” saxophone runway.

I think this was one of the strongest episodes of the season. That’s not only because we are now down to a smaller group of queens. I think this is a cast that benefits from attacking structured material rather than writing, constructing, and choreographing it all themselves. This was a well-written acting challenge by Drag Race standards and it had incredibly high production value compared to the green screen affairs of the American franchise.

Also, the subject matter was especially appealing to me because I got my start as a performer acting in Agatha Christie plays! My high school produced an Agatha Christie play every other year, and I went from being a bitchy butler with one scene as a Sophomore to the lead investigator with 115 pages of dialog as a senior! That made it fun to see how these queens dealt with roles of different sizes and differing levels of plot intrigue.

Of note, one of Christie’s main recurring characters was mustachioed investigator Hercule Poirot – a former Belgian police officer.

(Sometimes it seems like I’ve got a personal backstory for every kind of Drag Race challenge! I swear, this is just my actual life! I think I just grew up in the perfect period to catch many of the campy references that Ru and the producers still bring to the show, and I’ve now spent decades in both the performing arts and in marketing. That’s why I love this show so damn much – it really does draw directly from my life experiences all the time.)

With just one more week before the finale, our Power Rankings have gotten incredibly tight compared to last week’s Snatch Game power ranking. I think we have an obvious winner, but there is still tight competition for the 2nd and 3rd spots – and one queen could wind up playing a major spoiler next week

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 13 2024

March 7, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 11th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics March 13 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics March 6 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Thor’s most-titanic stories yet, a collected hunk of multi-versal Deadpool, Black Widow & Hawkeye team up, Carnage crosses over with Venom, Ghost Rider’s Final Vengeance, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics March 13 2024 Collected Editions

Deadpool-Verse: Deadpool Corps
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302958527 / digital)
See Guide to Deadpool. Don’t confuse this collection with the “Marvel-Verse” digest-size books collecting scattershot all-ages stories for their focus character like the Wonder Man volume below. This is actually a very chunky standard-size paperback collecting all of the Deadpool Corps material from the Prelude mini-series and the 12-issue main series.

This is one of the main “Deadpool in the multi-verse” sorts of stories, which tracks well with the themes of the Deadpool & Wolverine film from what we’ve seen in the marketing material.

Immortal Thor by Al Ewing Vol. 1: All Weather Turns To Storm
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954185 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – Odinson. This run is a massive blockbuster that somehow manages to tell a Thor story even bigger than the two runs that came before. However, if you like Thor throwing his hammer at a clearly-defined villain, this one’s not for you. It’s about the concept of Thor, of godhood, and of stories. Also, it looks absolutely gorgeous. More on this run below in the single issue section!

Marvel-Verse: Wonder Man
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954543 / digital)
Hmm, I don’t have a guide to Wonder Man, but with Marvel pumping out collections in anticipation of his debut in the MCU maybe I need to move him up the priority list! This digest-size intro to the character collects Avengers (1963) #9, Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #78, Wonder Man (1986) #1, and Avengers (1998) #14.

Moon Knight Vol. 5: The Last Days of Moon Knight
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950910 / digital)
See Guide to Moon Knight. Jed MacKay brings his 30-issue Moon Knight series to a spectacular conclusion. Normally I’d say, “don’t start with the final volume!” However, this opens with a truly outstanding issue in the giant-sized #25, and I think you could read this brisk conclusion in order to catch up to the new Vengeance of Moon Knight (2023) title and be left hungry to catch up on the four volumes that came before. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 13 2024

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 9 – “See You Next Wednesday” Neo-Goth design challenge Power Rankings

March 3, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 9 was a third design challenge – a “See You Next Wednesday” Neo-Goth look inspired heavily by Netflix’s Wednesday series.

This has never once come up in over 23 years of blogging, but I was once a teenage goth! I wasn’t living the full-time goth lifestyle, but when I was at the start of my glam rock phase I wanted to be in all black, all the time with a pale white lip. I was all about looking svelte in black vinyl, pleather, or satin pants with diaphanous black shirts.

That meant my version of glam was always teetering on the edge of Goth – and, in Philly teen counter-culture at the time there was a strong Goth + Glam + Punk alliance. Or, at least, that’s what a typical night on South Street looked like, And, as luck would have it, the one Philly club that had an underage night had a room spinning all goth music!

I think a lot of queens mistook the “Neo-Goth” brief to mean “all black” and it hurt their presentations. Goth looks aren’t about being black all the time – they are about starkness. You can get away with white, red, brown, purple – even pops of brighter colors! However, Goth looks aren’t about being loud – and that’s true even when they are all black. For me, Goth is about selling a certain amount of austerity and drawing the viewer in. Neo-Goth is just a more casual, ready-to-wear version of that – a slightly preppier, ready-for-daylight version of classic Goth fashion.

What does yet another design challenge mean for our Power Rankings compared to last week’s Season 16 Snatch Game Power Ranking? Not only did we lose a front-runner, but one queen lost a bit of momentum and another one started to get her groove back. However, the real story is that we’re now into the top half of the placements! That means every queen is under scrutiny with little room to be safe. For queens who aren’t a lock for the finale, surviving each week is a careful dance of game theory in hoping the right combination of other queens fail while you succeed.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 4 – Snatch Game Power Rankings

March 2, 2024 by krisis

It’s another week of the Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 4 was the UK vs The World Season 2 Snatch Game – “Family Edition”! that was paired with a nautical “Gone Cruisin'” runway theme.

Snatch game often produces the most-iconic moments of each season of Drag Race. This time around, it seems to be about exposing habits and biases.

The first big bias has to do with the Snatch Game format. This “Family Edition” is a thinly-veiled version of survey-based quiz show Family Feud. The UK had a version of Feud called “Family Fortune” that ran for two decades and was recently revived in 2020.

Ru loves game shows. In addition to her obsession with old Hollywood standards like Match Game, Hollywood Squares, and The Dating Game. Ru has appeared on a riotous episode of Family Feud and she even hosted her own unfortunately-titled “Gay for Play” and a revival of Lingo on CBS.

Yet, in the UK, comedy panel shows are equally as popular popular than game shows. It would make more sense to reskin Snatch Game to be a copy of Quite Interesting (possibly my favorite television show!) or 8 Out of 10 Cats, where the entire point is to humorously volley with the host. If Ru actually was willing to somewhat localize Drag Race, this would be an easy change.

The second bias is also Ru’s. This is the bias that her advice is always correct. We very rarely see a queen go against Ru’s advice and be rewarded for it. Gigi Goode’s Maria the Robot on the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12 Snatch Game might be the best example. And, if Ru is diabolical with her advice in America, she is doubly bad in the UK. This is the RuPaul who on UK Season 3 told Choriza to be Cher and Scarlett Harlett to be Macaulay Culkin.

In this case, Ru had her heart set against a certain queen’s (very good) impersonation, and when that queen knocked it out of the park on Snatch Game Ru served her Total Neutch in response.

Next, we come to the habits of the queens. We saw some repeat offenses in this episode. Queens who impersonate a straight cis man by suggesting he is gay. Queens who pick a character known for one iconic trait but have no plan beyond that one trait. Queens who pick someone much funnier than they are.

And that was just on one panel! There was also a queen who gave the same answer three different times… and she won!

However, this Snatch Game also addressed one particular fan bias – or, at least, a common complaint. Fans loved to harp on how some queens get fewer shots at answering questions in the finale edit. Here, we got two full rounds from each team, presented in a way that meant they couldn’t have been chopped up or reassembled at all. The flops still flopped! But, I do think this edit was better at showing which queens stood on solid middle ground.

Big biases and bad habits in the Snatch Game meant that every single queen changed rankings this week compared to last week’s Drag Race World immersive experience commercial power rankings. It feels like we have a fully-formed Top 5 with two queens on borrowed time. Will either one of them be able to turn things around in the next two episodes, or will the real game begin with the cut before the final four?

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 5 – Belgium Season 2 Snatch Game Power Rankings

March 1, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 5 was the Belgium Season 2 Snatch Game. Our queens came well-prepared for this iconic challenge! They were more unsteady for an “En rollers, baby!” rollerskating runway – both when it came to their balance and their fashions.

This episode was a great reminder of a critical Drag Race maxim: never reveal to something more underwhelming than what you started with. Both of our front-running queens and both of our bottom two queens made puzzling, underwhelming reveals this episode in both Snatch Game and on the runway.

In Snatch Game, one top queen made an ill-advised choice to switch characters in the middle of a well-played game. Meanwhile, a bottom queen hinged her entire performance on one gag reveal that landed with a splat.

On the runway, one top queen revealed to a pair of even-blander bottoms, while one bottom queen revealed to an even-blander top.

That left a clear path for a surprising queen to notch what I can only call a “pity win” after a disastrous Snatch Game performance (though it included no flubbed reveals). That gives two queens a swap in my power rankings compared to last week’s “Masquerade” Drag Government challenge power ranking – plus, an eliminated queen gone a week earlier than I expected.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!