Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Written & Directed by Ingmar Bergman
At the start of the 20th century, the Ekdahl family are living a luxurious and free life. Helena is the matriarch of this clan, followed by three sons at various stages of life. Gustav is a boisterous restauranter, Oscar manages the theater Helena and her husband used to own, and Carl has fallen into ill repute as a result of a drink. The family is seen through the eyes of Oscar’s son Alexander during their last Christmas Eve as a complete unit, and then tragedy strikes. A series of rash decisions leaves Alexander and his sister Fanny in a dire situation and their family grieves while trying to find a way to reunite them all.
Jaime Reyes continues his tenure as the Blue Beetle, but this time he is given a mentor in Ted Kord, the former Blue Beetle. Over the course of this volume, Jaime investigates but fails to resolve the mystery of kids from his high school disappearing. He also learns his mother is providing medical services for The Posse, a gang of teenage metahumans that are sometimes antagonists for Beetle. In the background, Dr. Fate issues enigmatic warnings to Ted Kord about the true nature of the Scarab, the object which gives Beetle his power. Everything Jaime thinks he knows about this item appears to be wrong.
Harley Quinn is living on Coney Island, New York with the former members of a traveling carnival and apparently, Egg-Fu’s son and a Deadpool knockoff? Well, an alien lands on Earth and gets chopped up into some ground meat causing a zombie apocalypse to break out. Poison Ivy shows up to help with that one. Then a gang of armored medieval knights attacks a mailman which leads Harley to put together a punk band. All of that is done by order of the New York mayor. Yeah, this is Harley Quinn.
Who is Cyborg? The first reaction to this question would be to say he’s former NFL hopeful Victor Stone, but this opening volume of the Rebirth revival asks us to think about that for a second. Cyborg is still operating under the watch of his father, Dr. Silas Stone, partnering with STAR Labs colleagues Dr. Thomas Morrow and Sarah Charles. In the shadows, a dark cybernetic being watches Cyborg and other robotic denizens of the DC Universe (Red Tornado, Amazon, Robotman, etc.). This being unleashes the alien technological entity Kilg%re on Cyborg as a test which leads to a behind the scenes shake-up in the protagonist’s personal life.
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