2024 - The Year of Thagirion, Flash vs Logan

Look, don't you understand, its different now, it's me!

 

Logan 5, Logan's Run

We've been exploring the way in which the Qliphothic hellscape we find ourselves trapped within may result in your ''possession'' by a fictional character from the cult movie used to structure the individual Qlipha (or year); if you are not careful you may Frank, you may Alex, you may Matthew and you may even Logan.  When you dig deep into the mind the extent to which anyone is anyone is questionable, your ''identity'' being a composite of the influences you have come under; fragments of a former lover's smile on your lips; changes in your voice, the pressure of different accents, intonations, words.  Let's face it the myth of a concrete ego only exists for the sake of marketing and therefore we have seen numerous examples of people going off the rails, their ego warping under the influence; how many were driven to ''Karen'' (Medusa) by the OCD delights the Pandemic Commercials had to offer etc how many still ''Karen'' to this day?  Maybe with the exception of Leos, where ''fixed'' concrete ego really means sluggish in transformation. Apply enough heat though and they will melt, burn or explode like everyone else.  In Leos defence they were generally more resistant to the vax campaign because let's face it Leos are already perfect in every way...  But as the Black Hole Sun of Thagirion (the anti Zeir Anpin) opens now we will watch those lionserpents Logan and Flash enmasse.

I remember Logan as a hero who comes to terms with the reality of life in the Smart City and the horrors of Carousel, bravely making it through the Run to the Outside and then returning to the city as a liberator.  But it really isn't like that.  Watching him like Van Helsing surveils a vampire he is about to slay lets face it Logan is arrogant, maniacal, bloodthirsty, condescending, selfish, treachorous, bred for superiority with destruction as his purpose.  Right at the end of the film he outright murders his best friend Francis 7, repeatedly hitting him on the back with a spear to make sure he is dead.  Watch it yourself, its clear Francis 7 is downed, Logan 5 could easily have grappled him, tied him up and reasoned with him about the Outside.  Did he know, for sure, that Francis 7 was beyond any reason or was Logan 5 just a bloodthirsty maniac whose killer instinct took over? Did he murder Francis 7 because in his pursuit of Logan 5 Francis 7 had inadvertantly become a Runner himself??? Upon Logan's return he destroys the AI and the Smart City with it plunging probably hundreds of thousands of people into a world they have never known and have no idea how to survive in while telling them There is No Sanctuary.  Thanks..? Cut to one month later, half of them are dead from disease, starvation, eaten by wolves, murdered each other, etc one of the survivors may have pointed to that ruined Necropolis they just left and said ''I think that might have been Sanctuary.''  As Jessica 6 says to Logan: ''I hate Outside.''  Cvilization always comes with a price in personal longevity, one way or the other, but improves the lot of the average.

Likewise Flash Gordon does not in any real sense ''save the Earth''.  Let me explain.  When Ming confronts him in Birdpersonworld before the final battle he offers him rulership over his planet and its incorporation into the Mingverse.  He tells him that the people of Earth will not be the same as the people he left, the travails of endless global disasters over the course of the movie making them more amenable to servitude.  Flash turns him down, the idea being that better dead than a slave.  With only seconds left on the clock when Flash finally triumphs, and the disasters having been ongoing until that point, how many ''free men'' does he finally truly save. Like one?  The heroes even seem quite sanguine about it in the end but maybe upon their return, like Logan, all they will find is one man sitting in the ashen ruins, babbling at cats. 

Lets face it, Flash was already in league with Vultan and Barin, he had the love of Aura, he was in a very strong position to save the planet first and then betray and kill Ming and free everyone shortly thereafter. I know it wouldn't make as dramatic cinema and I take no pleasure in trashing our cult heroes but I am trying to be as picky as I can here because out of all of them, Flash Gordon is possibly the most beguiling of the false heroes being sent our way because of the Righteousness and the Good Guyness about almost everything he does.  Honestly, and maybe this is a personal character flaw, I am very wary of these good guy white knight quarterback types, was he really trying to save the Earth or was he just trying to make sure that Ming didn't get his dick in Dale?  You kind of have to put yourself in the position of a groundling backlit by an erupting supervolcano triggered by Mings directed energy weapons as you ''Go, Flash, Go'' in unison with everyone else next year to maybe get where I am coming from.

All this does not mean that I am somehow pro-villain when it comes to these movies, just that there may be a better way of solving these situations, oh Leos mine, than simply destroying everything and everyone you can by going along with the Thagirion.  And, lets face it, who are these enemies really?  The thing that struck me most about the AI in the Smart City was that there is nothing really there, it really is simply a machine, Logan and the audience superimposing or projecting hostility or anger or cruelty or something onto her voice. She is code, like a lot of the people that fill her city; only code remains.  But defeating her is as simple as switching your phone off and going outside.  You don't have to obliterate everyone.  The evil in play in the Run is far more like Ahriman than Satan, an ossification of the soul not an immolation. Forgetting that you can even run as opposed to running around, flapping your arms, while on fire.

And who really is Ming the Merciless, with his fiery beams of destruction, this enimgatic emperor of mystery?  The Annunaki? Putin? Xi Jinping? Klaus Schwab? Well all I would say is in that skullcap he is a dead ringer for Merlin... both work with fire breathing dragons, both obssessed with kingship, both classically trained actors...

Personally, I would rather face Logan on a city busting rampage than I would face Merlin the Merciless in a dragon conjuring frenzy. Choose your enemies wisely, and use the same abundant caution when it comes to picking your heroes...  

Flash Gordon: I'm not a stranger exactly. You know my name.
Dale Arden: Who doesn't?  Number one draft pick.  Cover of people magazine.  What'd the Giants sign you for?  89 million?  Big deal!

 

Flash Gordon, 1980