i wanna be part of the human race

AHHH only two days until I fly to Baltimore to meet up with colls! And then we'll be driving up to Toronto to meet up with skieswideopen! We're gonna go to FanExpo and hang around Toronto. IT'S GONNA BE FUNNNNNNn. I'm excite! But also a bit nervous. I'm sorry in advance for my extreme awkwardness

I've only knocked off like 1/3 of my to-do list. BUT I've got all my clothes and most of my toiletries packed so there's that. I think I'm going to be able to get everything I need packed into two carry ons. (Well one carry on plus "personal item".) I really don't want to pay to check luggage, what a pain. This is the farthest I'll ever have traveled by myself, so I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And I'm sure I'll forget something super important.

fandom things:

I watched the new Doctor Who. I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, so I'll just say.. that one episode was enough for me, I'm done, I'll be back to try the show on again with the next Doctor (or next showrunner, more preferably).

Hawkeye is ending. Maybe? Fraction is done writing it, I think he's done with issue 22 which is a few issues away. I'm not sure if they're going to continue with a different writer or not. I'm going to miss the comic, because it is really great, and it's what made me fell in love with both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. It was the first new comic book I read; it was basically my gateway drug into comic books. And while I'm actually okay with Clint story's ending for now (since he'll be in 837593 Avengers books I'm sure) I'm slightly nervous about what will happen with Kate. Young Avengers is no more, and if Hawkeye finishes, what will they do with her? The idea of her dropping back into obscurity and me not getting my regular Kate fixes makes me very sad. :( If anyone's heard anything about that please lemme know. I DON'T WANT TO LOSE MY HAWKEYE.

Speaking of comics, though, right now is really mostly a great time to be a Marvel fan if you love lady superheroes. Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, and Black Widow are all AWESOME books and I recommend them all. Right now Ms Marvel is having a mini team up with Wolverine and it's surprisingly amazing. (I LOVE UNEXPECTED TEAM UPS.)

I was really hoping to be able to add Spider-Woman to that list but the hullabaloo over the artists is making me ugh. It's hard to imagine that Spider-Woman will be a very feminist-positive book when the art is all being drawn by Greg Land, who is known to literally trace and copy screenshots from porn. And then there's that variant cover which is basically soft core porn, drawn by Milo Manara. (Spider-Woman gets the worst treatment I swear to god.) And Manara wrote a tl;dr rambling diatribe on facebook about how women are attractive and sexual so he can't help but draw them that way, plus some convoluted bonus racism against Islam (I DON'T EVEN KNOW. THE RANT MADE NO SENSE.). Oh he also said there are more important things to worry about, like ebola. Ffs. I don't know anything about the writer, I don't think I've read anything of his before. But the writer tweeted "I can promise you we have no intention of blatantly sexualizing any of the characters in our story." and "I don’t have any input at all on covers. You have my word that our story treats Jess with the utmost respect." so I'm still willing to give the book a shot. And it's Spider-Woman, she's like, my fave tbh, I've been wanting this book for a long time and now it's almost here.. I will get it and just hope that the writer makes good on his word and that we get a new artist before long.

I'm probably getting my hopes up too high, but I'm kind of crossing my fingers that one of the upcoming, not-yet-named Marvel movies is going to be focused on a lady superhero. I've been thinking a lot about who they might choose, if they do.

Here are my top 3 most likelies:

Captain Marvel - Strongest contender. She's very popular right now, and she's the one that fandom is loudest about. My only thoughts on why they might not do a Cap movie is because 1) it could be a little on-the-nose to have a character named Captain Marvel in a Marvel movie, and 2) she is a Captain, Captain America is a Captain, and Hollywood generally thinks movie audiences are dumber than a bag of rocks, so maybe they won't want to "confuse" people. Even so, if I were betting on this, I would bet on Captain Marvel being the choice.

Black Widow - Second strongest contender. The only reason I don't think Nat has a better chance than Carol is that she's already been in a few movies. They've missed their chance to do her origin story, most likely - because would they really suddenly do a movie set in the past when the whole Marvel movie universe is on a clear chronology? There was the first Cap movie but that was ages ago. Dunno if they'd do that again. Also, I find it possible tptb's attitude on Black Widow is that she has been "done." Of course I don't personally think that, but she has been in a few of the MCU films now. They might want to do a new character. But points in her favor is she's a known quality, fans know and like Black Widow and Scarjo, so the chances of people not seeing a Black Widow movie are basically nil.

Sharon Carter - There was a whhhoooooole lotta talk about her being in Cap 2 and then.. well.. her role was pretty underwhelming. I feel like her being in the movie was really just a taster for a larger role she'll have elsewhere. Possibly in her own movie. I've never really been like a huge Sharon Carter fan, but she could be the kind of movie echo of the upcoming Agent Carter show - secret agent lady, kicking butt and taking names, without the help of any special powers. I would love to see that.

Here are my top 3 movies I most want but I don't think there is a high chance:

Spider-Woman - Jess is basically my fave and I would sign my soul over to Marvel if they'd do a Spider-Woman movie. But I doubt they ever would because, again, a) Hollywood thinks audiences are dumb, and Spider-Woman is too close to Spider-Man and people might be ~*~confused~*~, and b) they might just not want to even remind people of Spider-Man, since those movie rights are with Sony, and even though Spider-Woman and Spider-Man have basically nothing to do with each other, they probably would just not want to go there.

She-Hulk - A LAWYER/SUPERHERO MOVIE, IT WOULD BE SO GOOOOOOOD. hahaha. But her origin story isn't particularly exciting, and they would probably consider it too much of a retread of the Hulk's story overall. Even though I disagree heartily since Jen doesn't have the issues that Bruce does. I just don't see this as likely.

Wasp - If she gets into any movie, it will be Ant-Man, and the rumors I've heard so far haven't given me much confidence of her having a large role there (if any). Also I have a lot of rage against the Ant-Man movie when tptb talk about how Ant-Man is a key Avenger and I'm like ok but Wasp was one of the co-founders of The Avengers tho. She is also a key Avenger. There's only been one cast announcement for a woman, which is Evangeline Lilly, but they haven't said who she is cast as. I could see her being Jan in the Ant-Man, and I think it is likely. I'm going to be crushed if she is not the Wasp in it though, know what I mean? If she's just "Jan the love interest."

Some others I think that are just not going to happen:

- Elektra or Echo. Based on the nuggets of info coming out about the upcoming Netflix series, either Elektra or Echo is going to be in it. And I personally think they're not gonna touch Elektra with a ten-foot pole after that one dismal failure of a movie.

- Sif, Valkyrie. They've got Thor and Loki, too many more Asgardians would be overkill, and Sif and Valkyrie don't really have reasons to be on Earth or associated with it. But then again, they made Guardians of the Galaxy, which likely is going to have very little to do with Earth. So who knows?

- Any ladies part of a team. Kate Bishop (see also: "too confusing for audiences"), basically any mutant (except maybe Firestar?), Sue Richards, etc.

- Any newer characters, like Ms Marvel, Miss America, or Darla Deering.

It is also possible they'll pull some more obscure character out to make a movie about. Also I'm not the biggest expert on Marvel comics or anything, there's probably some really well known characters I'm not even thinking of. They might branch out - bring in Inhumans maybe? Medusa? Maybe Mockingbird? (I would love a Mockingbird movie actually.)

IDK I've just been thinking a lot about it, trying to predict what Marvel might do. (Which is hard sometimes since they do manage to keep surprising me! I'm hoping I will be surprised yet again. :D)

Does anyone know of a reputable place (DW, livejournal, other website, wherever) for comic swapping or something of the sort? I know of a reddit sub but I don't trust reddit that much in general so if I can avoid it I'd like to.

MOST OF ALL I just noticed that I do not have Pretty Deadly #2. Due to switching from an internet-based pull list to one at my newest non-shitty local comic shop, I ended up missing that issue. I also ended up with doubles of a few things (Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Young Avengers), so I am in need of swappageeeeeee.

I also decided I do not like the newest X-Men so I'm getting rid of my collected copies.

( My full have/want list for my own reference and also if any of y'all want to swap some stuff let me know! )