Crushing Krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 10 – Werq the World “Power” & True Colors runway Power Rankings

March 10, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 10 was a mash-up of a Girl Groups songwriting challenge and an election year voting challenge with Werq the World “Power” – a legit funk tune produced by Leland with a message of empowerment. Plus, a “True Colors” runway that let the queens play to their strengths (even when that turned out to be a weakness).

As a rock music nerd, I cannot tell you how excited I was to see a band on Drag Race credibly miming along to a track. “Power” is a legit funk pop and I love the nasty hook that uses Dorian Mode to give us a tritone of the major sixth against the minor third.

(The melody on the hook is E – F# – G – D – C#. In E-Minor, that C# would be a C. An E-Minor scale with a sharp 6th is called Dorian Mode. The G-(D)-C# leap is a tritone – it’s using the flatted 5th of the G to make a discordant sound even though they’re both a part of the Dorian Mode scale. Think “The SIMP sons” but as “The sons SIMP.”)

Pushing the queens to put on a high-energy performance to such a rocking track gave us one of the most energetic, entertaining music challenges we’ve had on the show. I’m only able to make some of the nitpicks I do in the Power Rankings below because I’ve rewatched this so many times!

This funky challenge proved the power queens have to control their own fate on this show when it comes to challenges that hinge on pure talent. In last week’s Neo-Goth design challenge Power Rankings I had Morphine Love Dion locked in for elimination because the judges weren’t giving her many positive notes. She week she delivered a decisive win, schooling the entire cast on what it means to show up and show out in a singing performance while other queens struggled. That means some major shake-ups in the Power Rankings… and not from the queen you might expect.

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

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 5 – Seven!: The Rusical Power Rankings

March 9, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with more coverage of the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 5 – Seven!: The Rusical, a live-singing blend of Rusical and Girl Groups challenges with a “When I Glow Up” redemption runway of past looks.

Seven!: The Rusical is a direct lift from SIX, a rock/pop opera musical staged like a concert delivered by the six wives of Henry VIII – two of whom we met last week in Snatch Game! The Drag Race version of the musical is slightly less rangy in pop styles, mostly coming off like five subtle remixes of “Express Yourself” with a pair of unusual outliers rather than seven distinct songs from different music genres.

Much like “Drag Race World” in Episode 3, I think this episode (and the queens) suffered from poor production choices in what could have been an all-time great episode given their level of talent.

This Rusical was subtitled, “Confessions of a Drag Queen,” but Ru never fully defined what those confessions ought to be. In the original SIX, each queen confesses the story of her own love affair via a catchy pop tune. Each song could be effortlessly excerpted to radio without revealing it originated in a musical. Here, all of the queens merely confessed the stories of their runs on the show, trending towards tepid lyrics in the category of “look at me, I sashayed away, I’m gonna snatch the crown!” Only one queen (La Grande Dame) fully broke out of this model to deliver a verse entirely about herself.

Beyond the lack of direction for the songwriting, there was also a lackluster “vocal coaching” session with pop artist Self Esteem. After seeing some truly brilliant singing and songwriting advice on the recent Canada’s Drag Race Season 4, Self Esteem was a real letdown as a coach.

On Canada, the performance coaches treated the songs seriously – as if they were responsible for making improvements to a song that would really be released to radio with their names on it. They edited lyrics, revised melodies, and coached queens on delivery and support. By contrast, Self Esteem left the queens stuck with some easily-fixable problems… and for at least one queen she made her verse worse.

I’m not sure if Self Esteem was too starstruck by being on the show or if she simply isn’t a very talented songwriter, but she failed these queens. (Her lip sync track would suggest the latter.)

Finally, there was the failure of the choreography – or, lack thereof. I know next week is a full-on dancing challenge, so it didn’t make sense to have this challenge also hinge on learning professional choreography. Yet, a Rusical without choreography just doesn’t hit the same – especially on the same day we got an American franchise episode choreographed by Jamal Sims. (More on that tomorrow!) That’s what made this more of a Girl Groups challenge than a Rusical despite the title – the choreo was mostly walking and pointing.

I’ll make my own confession: I’m fully annoyed to be delivering this week’s Power Rankings, with a newly-solidified Top 4 compared to last week’s Snatch Game Power Ranking. This episode made clear that one queen who is crushing the season isn’t in true contention for the crown, while another queen delivering barely-adequate performances is Ru’s chosen one. Meanwhile, the three queens between them continue to deliver terrific performances each week.

(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 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!