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Reviewing Marvel Rising Shorts — Description
Hey everyone. This is SofiaBlythe2014. Considering the success of the DC Superhero Girls franchise, it was only a matter of time before Marvel hopped on the train of girl targeted superhero franchises. The shorts I’m reviewing today are for something called “Marvel Rising”, with the Initiation shorts having aired on Monday, with the Secret Warriors movie slated to come out in fall. The basic gist of it involves a team of superheroes composed of Ghost Spider/Spider Gwen, Miss Marvel, Squirrel Girl, Captain Marvel, America Chavez, Quake, Inferno, and Patriot. That’s pretty interesting.

The writer for the shorts and movie is Mairghread Scott, who has quite a reputation in this field, having written for Ultimate Spiderman, Avengers Assemble, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Transformers Prime, Transformers Rescue Bots, and Justice League Action.

The director is Alfred Gimeno, whose credits go as far back as Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Pinky And The Brain, to more recent material like Pound Puppies (2010), The 7D, and Puppy Dog Pals.

With that introduction out of the way, let’s review the six shorts. Also, I will slip in some tidbits about the voice cast.

Ghost Hunter

So, let me run down the gist of this short. It starts with the NYPD having surrounded an old building, asking Gwen Stacy/Ghost Spider (voiced by Dove Cameron) to surrender herself. She then webs them all up, but reluctantly, and escapes. We then cut to her father, Captain George Stacy (voiced by Steve Webber), and he asks Patriot (voiced by Kamil McFadden) and Quake (voiced by Chloe Bennett) to bring her in. We then cut to the end of the short, where she quickly hides her costume before band practice with Glory Grant (voiced by Skai Jackson) and company. So, right off the bat, we get some interesting character dynamics established. Gwen is shown to be a bit impulsive and reckless, but is also shown to be loyal and contemplative. She doesn’t like being branded a criminal due to the supposed murder of her friend Kevin, but feels like she has to stay a vigilante in order to show how she operates on her own rules while still being a hero with standards who wants to keep others safe. Her father is rather stern, but we also see he’s a loving father since he wants the supposed killer of his daughter’s friend to be brought to justice. Patriot is shown, albeit briefly, to be a loyal hero like Captain America, even being trained by him, but wants to be able to live up to what he stands for. Quake is shown to be the brains of the group, given how she analyzed the footage of Ghost Spider’s escape and saw the light briefly turn off during the event. This is a great start. Let’s go to the next short.

Floor Toms And Spider Webs

This short is divided into two halves, a more grounded first half and a more action packed second half. The first half revolves around band practice with Glory and a few friends, like Mary Jane Watson (voiced by Tara Strong). After finishing for the day, we then see both her dynamics with Glory and Kevin. We see why she regards Kevin (voiced by Max Mittleman) as her best friend. He was a genuinely nice guy who didn’t freak out upon seeing that she had powers, and did what he could to protect her. It then cuts to his funeral, where it’s discovered afterwards that she was trying to fight the mysterious villain that murdered him. This helps add a nice level of intrigue to Gwen’s character, showing that she’s trying to avenge someone who knew her well. While Glory feels that Ghost Spider is the murderer, she also does possibly consider that Gwen is right and that she’s innocent, showing how she be straight laced and stern, but still loyal like he is. It’s quite interesting. The second half mainly revolves around her trying to get to the villain that caused this, but is stopped by Patriot. The tone changes in the short work here due to building escalation. That’s good. Let’s keep going.

BFHF

“Best Friend Heroes Forever” is such a corny title, but it has charm to it. Let’s dive into this. This short starts with Squirrel Girl (voiced by Milana Vayntrub), her pet squirrel Tippy Toe (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), and Miss Marvel (voiced by Kathreen Khavari) in the mood for some celebratory cupcakes. They run into Ghost Spider, who’s at first apprehended by the little squirrel before out two heroines step in. This short focuses more on setting up the dynamic of our heroines here, which works. Squirrel Girl is shown to be excitable and energetic, but is also a bit impulsive and tries a bit too hard to act cool, which makes her endearing. Miss Marvel is shown to be similarly excitable and dorky, but is also a bit of a tech wiz, and unlike her BFHF, she’s more into the belief that Ghost Spider is bad. Even Tippy Toe gets a moment to shine, with him relentlessly gnawing down Gwen’s webs as she keeps trying to get away. This short admittedly focuses more on the comedy, which works here. Well, let’s move onto to number 4.

Two On One

This short is more of a direct continuation of the last one, so I won’t have as much to talk about. This time, we actually get to see the fight between the two girls and Gwen, and we do get a good taste of their battle styles. Squirrel Girl literally decides to take cues from anime and be all upfront in confronting Ghost Spider. Miss Marvel prefers a more direct approach, but we can also see how it backfires given how she’s not prepared for the unexpected when Gwen keeps shooting webs in different places when in large form. The money making scene comes near the end where she flat out says that no one has asked her if she actually did the crime or not. And that leads to our next episode. Yeah, I said this short didn’t give me much to talk about, but it’s still good.

The Stories They Tell

Well, this is where things start getting interesting. So, we continue off from the last episode with Squirrel Girl and Miss Marvel confronting Gwen, and they ask to prove her innocence. We then get a backstory. She was friends with Kevin since they were in second grade, and he was hit by a mysterious green energy wave that gave him Inhuman powers. We then see them testing them out. On the first night of patrol, she discovered him in the warehouse, murdered by the mysterious woman. She used a weird, green knife that apparently killed him, and made Gwen really old with barely a scratch. If the above episodes didn’t do it, then this really adds more layers to Gwen’s character. She and Kevin were close in more ways than one. He truly understood her, and he was just taken from her. That’s pretty sad. The short then ends with her on the run again, but she at least has two people who know she’s good.

The Secrets We Keep

Well, we have reached the sixth and final short, and it’s definitely quite exhilarating. Let’s talk about. The first half focuses primarily on Patriot and Quake trying to take down Ghost Spider, while the second half focuses on the arrest scene. This short helps show off more of Patriot and Quake’s dynamic in battle. Patriot still retains the altruism, but is also shown to be more skeptical and willing to fight more than reach out. Quake is shown to be a bit more reasonable. She realizes that Gwen is Ghost Spider, and thus innocent, when seeing how nervous she was around her father. She secretly frees her, and gives her an assignment to track down the mystery woman’s operation. It helps build on the “opposites attract” ideology.

So far, I call myself impressed with the shorts. They have some slick action, humor, interesting character dynamics, and themes on second chances and self worth run quite a bit through them. I call myself satisfied. I’m sure the movie will be good.