First, Wednesday May 1st was my 25th Wedding Anniversary, and Sunday May 5th was my *mumble mumble* birthday.

So, if this is less coherent than normal, blame it on old age.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to ignore or pretend that a lot of the jokes about Thor in this movie didn’t exist.

And I should probably say SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

1st, the fat suit.  Honestly, really?  If I have to explain to you why that’s not ok, you have obviously not been paying attention.  Why couldn’t they let Hemsworth just slack on training for a bit and go with that?

2nd, laughing at PTSD and trauma. There are a lot of jokes at Thor’s expense, in this movie.  From his “letting himself go,” to finding humor in his substance abuse due to all of the trauma he’s faced.  I mean, think about it.  He lost his brother, who admitted that he basically hated him and wanted him dead, then got him back, then lost him again, lost his mother, got Loki back again, lost his father, had to fight a sister he knew nothing about to the death in the process destroying his home and that of his people, then losing his brother again pretty definitively to Thanos, losing a big chunk of his chosen family and people to Thanos, and when they think they’ve found a solution, losing that.

That’s not particularly funny.

He’s a king without a kingdom, without family, he’s hurting, drowning his sorrows in booze like so many real combat veterans and other victims of PTSD, and Endgame uses this as a punchline.

Yeah, I have to say my estimation of the Russo brothers has plummeted with every film after Winter Soldier that they’ve done.

And before anyone says, “They weren’t the writers.”  No, they weren’t.  They were the directing team, and as the directing team, they have just as much responsibility for the content.  They can ask for re-writes.  They can say, “Guys, this is shit, do it again.”  They can say that while the treatment of women is better than Infinity War, it can be better.  AND they can say, “We don’t use trauma and PTSD as a punchline.”

They didn’t.

Thor wanting to see his mother wasn’t amusing, it was heartbreaking.

(And the fact that he did, if we follow some rules of time travel, lends credence to the theory that she didn’t actually die, just got sick of Odin’s shit and faked her death.)

Don’t tell me it’s just a comic book movie, either.

Comics have touched on these subjects, both well and badly, before.  Captain America comics in particular have examined PTSD and what losing everything does to you.  The parts of the Winter Soldier storyline in the comics where Cap starts doubting his own sanity, at the end when the Tesseract restores Bucky’s memories and he has to come to grips with everything he’s been and done.  Comics can do trauma and PTSD well.

The movies really haven’t.

Do better.

If you like what you read here, or want to help fund my therapy, seriously, PTSD sucks, please consider donating using the link at the top right of the page:  Keep Us Geeking, or checking out my Patreon.  Thank you!

Also, if you’d like to see what sort of fiction I write when left to my own devices, please feel free to check out my fiction Patreon, Nothing Nice Comes Out of My Head.