How "DELTARUNE" One-Ups "UNDERTALE"

The tenth-most-popular post I've ever written on here was a rant about "UNDERTALE", specifically with how it handled the ending of the so-called "Genocide Path" (which I opted to call "The Guilt Trip" for reasons I detail in the piece itself).

I do say, however, that I enjoyed "UNDERTALE" a great deal, and actually thought the ending for the "Neutral Path" was damn near perfect tonally and thematically. I thought the "Pacifist Path" ending was too treacly, and the "Guilt Trip" ending was too didactic and presumptuous. But really, the main thing that bothered me was how the game had important, story-relevant content that you could only access if you went along every route, and one of those routes permanently leaves a black mark of judgment upon your save file.

That said, I've always hoped that Toby Fox would continue developing video games, because despite my problems with some of his choices, "UNDERTALE" was kind of a triumph of interactive storytelling. It was self-aware without sacrificing narrative tension or immersion, the combat mechanics were clever and varied, the characters were distinctive and infectiously fun, the music was incredible, and like I said, one of the three endings is absolutely fantastic.

So I was very happy to find out that Toby Fox had released a demo of a new game he's hoping to make. It's still unclear whether or not the full version of this game will ever actually happen since he apparently needs a team in order for it to be viable, and he has no experience leading a team in making a video game, so there's a halfway decent chance that it will fall apart and this first part is all we'll ever get.

This game is called "DELTARUNE", and in case it's not immediately obvious, that name is an anagram of "UNDERTALE". That name is fitting, however, because it's a good symbol for how this game is related to its older sibling. It's not a sequel or a prequel, but it involves familiar themes and characters, has similar mechanics, and definitely makes references to its predecessor throughout. It's not exactly an "alternate universe" either, because typically, alternate universe stories have clear points of divergence. "Red Son" is an alternate universe where Superman lands in Soviet Russia instead of the United States. "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" is an alternate universe where Voldemort is vastly more intelligent. But "DELTARUNE"? There's no clear point of divergence. It takes place somewhere new, but all the old, familiar characters are there. A number of the characters are doing what they were doing at the end of "UNDERTALE", but they may or may not know any of the characters they ought to know. And despite this universe greatly resembling the state of the world at the end of "UNDERTALE" (specifically the "Pacifist Path" ending), the presence of certain characters makes it seem almost like a prequel. So, like the name, it's "UNDERTALE", but mixed around until it becomes something new.

It's a bizarre choice given how invested the fandom was in the established timeline and characters, but it also makes the game accessible to a newer audience, even though you'll get more out of the game if you've played "UNDERTALE". Toby Fox advises that you play "UNDERTALE" first, but all that really means is that a lot of references will fly over your head. Nothing about the plot really hinges on your knowledge of the previous game, so I'd probably recommend trying out "DELTARUNE" even if you haven't played "UNDERTALE". You can probably get through it in about 4-6 hours and it costs nothing, so I recommend giving it a shot before you keep reading this post.

SPOILERS beyond this point.

So now that we're on the same page regarding what "DELTARUNE" is, let me just say that I absolutely loved it pretty much from the beginning.

The game starts up with character creation, which immediately threw me. "UNDERTALE" had absolutely no character creation mechanics whatsoever, so it seemed like a big departure right out of the gate. I chose my head, my torso, my legs, my personality, and my name, and then the game... threw it all away.

"No one can choose who they are in this world," the game coldly informs you.

WELL THAT'S ONE WAY TO START A GAME, HUH?

And that's not the only time the game does stuff like this. Twice, a character asks you a question, but interrupts you before you have a chance to respond. Later on, you get to design a siege weapon, only to see it unceremoniously blow up a few minutes later. This game has a lot going on, but probably one of the biggest departures it makes from "UNDERTALE" is...

Your choices don't matter.

Oh, they matter a little. It'll change how certain characters respond to you, and small details about the ending will change if you make it through the game without killing anything, but by-and-large, the game doesn't give a crap about the player's morality. In fact, the game doesn't seem to care much about the main character, Kris, at all. The only character with a clear arc in the game is Susie, a new character and one of three characters that make up the party.

Yeah, that's right. Now there's a party system. Evolving from the scaled-down "Earthbound"-inspired combat of "UNDERTALE", "DELTARUNE" moves closer to "Final Fantasy" in terms of its combat. Now you juggle three characters instead of just one. In addition, there are now spells that can be cast that use up a new resource called Tension Points (TP for short), which refills when you defend or narrowly avoid obstacles during the bullet-hell segments, which are still very much a part of the game.

That said, despite these differences, the combat is largely the same. You can still FIGHT or ACT, and once your enemy is willing, you can SPARE them to avoid having to defeat them with violence. But having multiple characters means you can now do fun things like use Kris to ACT so that a different character can SPARE on the same turn, allowing you to finish up combat in a single turn under certain circumstances.

I really, really like the new combat system. The TP mechanic encourages you to be more daring during the bullet-hell segments, the new "Pacify" spell cast by the new character, Ralsei, creates alternate ways to non-violently (or at least non-lethally) defeat opponents, and having to play around Susie's initial inclinations to just hit everything that moves creates some pretty compelling challenges for players who want to avoid resorting to violence.

That said, there is one major flaw with this new structure, and it has to do with the first major departure that I mentioned. There is really no in-game incentive to avoid violence.

The game itself actually literally prevents you from killing everything. Most enemies will just run away instead of dying, and some enemies can only be defeated through ACTing in the first place.

In a post on Twitter, Toby Fox himself acknowledged this problem:

"I think [the lack of multiple endings is] part of the reason why the ACT / FIGHT system feels so vestigial in this one."

To a certain extent, he's right. There's really no in-game reason to have the ACT system, except, of course, for the fact that the ACT system was probably the most distinctive thing about "UNDERTALE". And yeah, if the choices don't matter for the story (as they did in "UNDERTALE"), why have them?

Well, one could say the same thing about the "Metal Gear" franchise. Almost every single one not only has a nonlethal way to play the entire game, it actively encourages you to do it. Playing that way almost never actually affects the story, but it's always there, and the games are all better for it. The same holds true here. No, I didn't NEED to use the ACT system over the FIGHT system, but I chose to anyway because I wanted to.

Furthermore, I LOVE the fact that Toby Fox isn't doing diverging story paths this time.

As I've made abundantly clear at this point, I thought that the multiple story paths idea in "UNDERTALE" ultimately hurt it, because if you wanted to understand the full story, you needed to experience all three playthroughs, but then the game itself chastises you for doing exactly that, mistaking your natural curiosity for sociopathy. And furthermore, despite HAVING multiple endings, it was pretty obvious that only one of them was considered to be the "true" ending, and thus, every other ending might as well not exist.

This time around, Fox decided it was better to just have one good ending rather than one good ending and a bunch of mediocre ones. Maybe he did that to keep an already complicated game from getting more complicated, but regardless of why he chose to take this direction, I'm very, very glad he did.

Even better, by including multiple characters, you still get to have multiple perspectives, essentially allowing you to get what you would have gotten out of having three different playthroughs all at once. Kris plays the neutral party, Susie represents the nihilistic "shoot first, ask questions never" attitude of "The Guilt Trip", and Ralsei represents the naive and treacly attitude of the "Pacifist Path". It allows the game to have the same moral depth found in "UNDERTALE", but without forcing the player to replay the game three times and then making them feel like a monster for doing it. Susie and Ralsei's ideologies regularly clash, and Kris is never really put in a position to have to choose between them. The game still has something to say about its own mechanics and the ethics of interacting with fictional characters, but by making Susie the focus, it can talk about those things without feeling like it's actively judging the player.

That's not to say that it doesn't seem to have some deep things to say about the player and the supposedly neutral Kris. The ending certainly suggests that Kris has a lot more going on than we might initially imagine. But for now, I'm going to judge the game based on this demo, which, again, may very well be the last we ever see of this project if Fox can't get a solid team together. There's no use pontificating on what the full game may or may not be like.

And based solely on this demo, I think "DELTARUNE" is quietly brilliant. It takes what worked best about "UNDERTALE", removed the excess baggage by having it all in a new alternate universe, and built clever, ambitious new ideas on top of it.

Now, that's not to say I liked everything about the game. Kris' pointed lack of agency allows Susie and Ralsei to shine, but I'm not sure if I really get the point of that. Maybe it would make more sense in the context of a completed game, but within the demo itself, it mostly just makes you feel like an outsider looking in. In that regard, I'd say "DELTARUNE" is a lot less immersive than "UNDERTALE" was, which is not necessarily a big deal-breaking problem. Not every game has to be immersive so long as it's still engaging in other ways, and "DELTARUNE" absolutely is. My only concern is that Kris' lack of agency might make it difficult to understand or relate to whatever conflicts they go through in the larger game (if it ever gets made). It's not a problem in this first chapter, but now that Susie's character arc is more or less finished, the rest of the game would presumably have to depend on delving into the mystery of Kris, and when the player has literally no ownership over the direction Kris takes, it might make it difficult to empathize with them.

But aside from that, I was really into "DELTARUNE" and it seemed to address my biggest problems with "UNDERTALE" while also improving the things I loved most about it.

I really hope Toby Fox gets to make the rest of it and that we don't have to wait 7 years to get to play it.

"Avengers: Infinity War" Nitpicks

So I don't have a formal review for "Avengers: Infinity War" yet. It's another one of those movies that I need to watch twice so I can see if it works as well without the elements of surprise, anticipation, and peer-pressure.

That said, I probably loved it. I definitely think critics are underrating it, possibly because "Black Panther" made them raise their standards. Meh, critics also didn't much like "Doctor Strange", and that's easily in my Top 5.

...Oh, did I forget to review "Black Panther"? Crap. Well, it was amazing. And comparing it to this movie makes about as much sense as comparing a meal prepared by a 4-star chef to a "Ziggy Pig". They serve different purposes, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, though I'm not ready to review "Infinity War", I did have a bunch of spoiler-y nitpicks I wanted to run through because I need to get it out of my brain. Also, because I imagine some people will find it entertaining. Also, because it should be possible to love a thing and still be able to nitpick at it.

SPOILERS ahead.




- Really guys? Did you REALLY have to kill the black guy first? Heimdall couldn't have sent Hulk to Earth AFTER Loki died?
- I'm annoyed that we just have to take it for granted that Thanos was able to take on the entire Nova Corps and steal the Power Stone without the Guardians of the Galaxy even hearing about it. I get that the scene with Hulk, Thor, and Loki establishes just how badass Thanos is, but this is still Thanos WITH the Power Stone. We never get a sense of what Thanos is capable of without any Infinity Stones, and the missing Xandar scene would have been the perfect way to demonstrate that. It also makes you wonder why Thanos ever bothered using Ronan in the first place if he had Ebony Maw on standby.
- Where's Valkyrie? Are we just supposed to assume that Valkyrie, Korg, Miek, and everyone else just died off-screen?
- Where's Kraglin? I saw in the credits that Sean Gunn was still doing the mo-cap work for Rocket, so why not also have him play Kraglin?
- Where's Lady Sif?
- I prefer Thor with the eye-patch (though I love that he gets the prosthetic eye from Rocket).
- No offense guys, but we're never going to care about Scarlet Witch and Vision. It's not really anyone's fault. OK, it's Joss Whedon's fault. Trust me, I wanted to like them, and I do, just not enough to put them at the center of so much attention. We had a lot more time to get to know the other characters. Scarlet Witch and Vision were introduced in an Avengers movie (and also one of the weakest MCU movies overall) and the next time we saw them ("Civil War") it was another team-up movie, so they never really got time to develop much there, either.
- Also, why can't Vision use the Mind Stone's mind-control powers? Probably would have been useful in a number of these fights. Do you need the Scepter for that? Or is it using all of its mojo to keep Vision conscious?
- Also, where did Wanda's accent go? I mean, I'm glad they stopped trying, but it is pretty weird that it's just... gone.
- How did Thanos know the Collector had the Reality Stone? Or that Doctor Strange had the Time Stone? Or that Vision was in Scotland? As far as we're aware, the only people who knew the location of the Reality Stone were Thor, Loki, Sif, Volstagg, and the Collector himself. And no one outside of Kamar-Taj's inner circle should know the Time Stone is even on Earth. And the only person who should know Vision's in Scotland is Wanda. Even so, Thanos was not only able to locate the Reality Stone before Thor could get to it, he also sent Ebony Maw to New York, where the Time Stone happened to be, and Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight not only find Vision, they manage to ambush him. They seem to have a way of locating the Infinity Stones, but it's never even mentioned, and it's never explained why they can't use it to find the Soul Stone. Hell, if they just shuffled the plot around a bit, they could have made the Soul Stone be the first Infinity Stone he got, and then they could just say he used that to locate the other 5.
- On that note, if it was so easy for Thanos to find, why, exactly, did Loki think that the Reality Stone would be safe with the Collector?
- And on that note, what exactly was Loki's arrangement with Thanos? We never really learned what exactly happened to Loki between "Thor" and "Avengers". We just know that Thanos trusted him with the Mind Stone to go get the Space Stone for some reason. But why use Loki at all and not, say, Ebony Maw? It just feels like Thanos' efforts to get the Infinity Stones were pretty half-hearted until now, when suddenly he just sort of casually collects them all without much apparent effort. I mean, what was Thanos even doing all these years? Was he just waiting for Asgard to blow up? But does that mean he grabbed the Power Stone AFTER Asgard blew up? I imagine it would have had to happen pretty recently given that the Guardians didn't hear about it, so if it was that easy, would Asgard really have posed much of a threat?
- No, I'm not letting the Thanos thing go. This is basically what Thanos did: We know he was doing his genocide routine at least since Gamora was a kid (let's say 20 years in the past). At some point, he started targeting the Infinity Stones. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that he didn't have the Black Order yet. He sent Gamora to find the Soul Stone, she found it, but lied about it. At some point, he got the Mind Stone. He then stumbled upon Loki, who I guess found out about the Space Stone while tumbling through the multiverse after falling off the Bifrost. Loki presumably gets Thanos to lend him an army in exchange for retrieving the Space Stone, promising that the Earthlings would be easily dominated. By using the Mind Stone, he was able to create a bridge through the Space Stone and come to Earth. Loki opens the portal, army shows up, Avengers beat him, take the Mind Stone, and send the Space Stone to Asgard. Thanos decides Earth is too tough to beat so easily, so he sits on his hands for three years, then sends Gamora and Ronan to get the Power Stone when he finds out where that is. They fail, Gamora and Nebula betray him, and then he grabs an Infinity Guantlet and says "I'll do it myself". Except he apparently had to commission the Infinity Gauntlet from the dwarves, and when they finished, he killed everyone but Eitri and shut Nidavellir down. So he's got a gauntlet, he knows where the Power Stone is (and apparently it's not hard for him to get), he knows where the Space Stone is, he knows the Mind Stone is on Earth, and he suspects that Gamora knows where the Soul Stone is. The Reality Stone and Time Stone were apparently pretty easy to find since the movie never explains how he learned their locations. So he grabs his Infinity Gauntlet and... waits another two years. Why? I have no clue. If anything, wouldn't he want to be in a bit of a hurry? I mean, it's clear the Nine Realms were going to crap under Loki's rule, but it's pretty ballsy to assume that he wouldn't notice Nidavellir was shut down for TWO YEARS. It just makes no sense. Personally, I blame Joss Whedon for including that "I'll do it myself" scene after "Age of Ultron".
- OK, I'll say it. It's officially weird how the movie and TV/Netflix universes aren't on speaking terms. The movies keep acting like S.H.I.E.L.D. is defunct and that whatever remnants are left are led by Nick Fury and Maria Hill, but that's completely incongruous with the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." TV show where neither character has had any presence in the organization for a REALLY long time. At first, they seemed to at least try to make sure they didn't step on each other's toes, but this really feels like passive aggressive spite at this point. Can someone just put Ike Perlmutter in a nursing home already?
- I'm fine with Stormbreaker being created to replace Mjolnir, and I'm even fine with it being an ax instead of a hammer, but I would still like to see Beta Ray Bill at some point.
- We did not need, like, five separate scenes that all boiled down to, "End my life for the greater good!" "No!" "Do it!" "No!" "Do it!" "OK! Oops, it didn't matter anyway." Gamora did it, Vision did it, Cap did it, Thor kinda did it... I mean, I get it, sacrifice and loss and cost are big themes in this movie, but it's already a cliche. You might have gotten away with doing it once or twice, but not THIS much.
- As much as I loved the ending, I kind of wish I believed that they'd actually make good use of it. We all know that the dusted characters are going to be fine eventually (though I imagine the other dead characters will stay dead). It would be rad as hell if they took their time bringing them back, made the next "Spider-Man" movie about Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker and made the next "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie about the classic team they teased at the end of "Vol. 2", but I don't think anybody actually expects that to happen. They're probably going to act like it COULD happen for the next year until "Untitled Avengers" comes out, but I doubt it will.
- That said, if Marvel's big surprise is that they're actually going to stick to this in some capacity and they really do have a "Spider-Man" movie without Peter and a "Guardians" movie without Gamora, Star-Lord, Drax, Groot, or Mantis, and a "Black Panther 2" where either Shuri or M'Baku wear the mantle, then well-played, Marvel. Well-played. For now, though, I'm going to keep wearing my "skepticals".
- Also, I'm guessing they'll reveal the title for "Untitled Avengers" at the end of "Ant-Man and the Wasp" with "Ant-Man Will Return In *INSERT TITLE HERE*" at the end of the credits.

Who Is Julian Dennison Playing in "Deadpool 2"?

The full official trailer for "Deadpool 2" landed today.

Looks good. In particular, I think Zazie Beetz seems like a great fit for Domino.

But I'm not just here to be excited. There's one other aspect of this trailer that piqued my interest quite a bit. Specifically, the reveal that Cable has apparently traveled back in time to hunt down (and probably kill or something) the character played by young Julian Dennison.

As of now, it has not been revealed who Julian is playing. The only hints we have are a few glimpses from this and other trailers where he appears to have fire powers (AKA pyrokinesis).

This, along with Dennison's heritage as a Māori (indigenous Polynesian/New Zealander) has led to the common speculation that Julian Dennison will be playing St. John Allerdyce, also known as Pyro.

This makes some sense. In the comics, St. John Allerdyce is Australian, which isn't QUITE New Zealand, but it's a lot closer than pretty much any other mutant pyrokinetic in the comics. Plus, Pyro is probably the most well-known pyrokinetic mutant character in the comics, so it would make sense that he would be chosen.

There is a pretty huge problem with this theory, though. Specifically, the X-Men film franchise already HAS an interpretation of Pyro that appeared in "X2" and "X-Men: The Last Stand". Granted, he wasn't Australian, but his name was John Allerdyce, and this version of Pyro was probably one of the best aspects of "X2", so ret-conning him would be a little... well, risky.

There are other problems with this theory, too. Why would Cable need to kill Pyro? He's not that powerful. Also, why would the marketing team keep his identity secret? It's not a huge spoiler or anything, at least not as far as I can guess.

So even though this theory is probably correct, as a big fan of Deadpool and comics in general, and as a weirdo who occasionally likes to indulge in overwrought, pointless speculation, let's consider less obvious possibilities for who Julian Dennison is playing.

The Other Pyro

Since there's already a John Allerdyce in the X-Men film universe, they COULD go with the newer incarnation of Pyro, Simon Lasker. He's less well-known, but a Pyro's a Pyro, and I doubt anyone would care if Simon's heritage was changed. If John could go from Australian to American, then why couldn't Simon go from American to Māori? Still, this doesn't really change the problems with the character being Pyro (why would Cable care and why keep it a secret?), so I doubt this is likely.

Literally Any Other Pyrokinetic Mutant

While we're at it, let's just knock out a bunch of other random pyrokinetic mutants that Fox would have had the rights to before the whole Disney acquisition thing. None of these are really any more or less likely than Pyro, but let's just get them out of the way:

- Ben Hammil/"Match"

- Germaine Caruso/"Hothead"

- Neal Shaara/"Thunderbird"

- Vincent Stewart/"Redneck"/"Skybolt"

Those aren't ALL the pyrokinetic mutants, but they're the ones that came up in my quick research that could be altered to fit the role. Keep in mind, Negasonic Teenage Warhead was not a major comics character when they made her a prominent character in "Deadpool". It's possible they'll be once again be picking an obscure character and building a mostly new character on top of the foundation. Again, not really all that different from just using Pyro, but it would at least keep people like me guessing if they just want to create mystery for mystery's sake.

"Bobby Wright"

Now let's get into more interesting possibilities. If the character is introduced as Bobby Wright, there's a good chance most people in the audience won't know who that is, even among X-Men or Deadpool fans. And in truth, "Bobby Wright" isn't actually a real person at all.

See, there's this Skrull emperor named Kl'rt. He's also known as the Super Skrull. His history is... long and complicated, but essentially, he's known for being able to replicate other heroes' superpowers, most commonly the powers of the Fantastic Four.

Which would include the Human Torch.

But the other thing Skrulls are known for is shapeshifting. They're very good at infiltration and can go deep undercover for months, even years without detection, usually through implanting false or copied memories of the person they're masquerading as.

At one point in Kl'rt's character history, he pretends to be a young boy named Bobby Wright, who just so happens to get super powers and becomes "Captain Hero" for a short time.

This is not super likely, given that the Skrulls themselves have never been in any of the Fox films (even though they technically shared the rights) and the Captain Hero storyline is obscure and mostly connected to Iron Fist, not the Fantastic Four or X-Men. But this would at least explain why he's a serious threat and why they haven't revealed his identity in marketing yet.

Rusty Collins

Russell "Rusty" Collins was one character that just popped up in my research. I'm actually completely unfamiliar with him. Essentially, he was a member of X-Factor, he went by Firefist, he started out when he was 16 (about the same age as Dennison), and he was eventually killed by a being from the Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295) known as Holocaust, who basically sucked the life-force out of him to sustain his own.

Firefist isn't exactly a beloved character, so tweaking him won't piss anyone off. His age is about right, his power set is about right, and the Fox X-Men film universe has introduced Apocalypse. We don't know much about this version of Cable, so it's possible they've merged a lot of his history with the Age of Apocalypse stuff. In that case, Holocaust's nemesis in the Age of Apocalypse universe is apparently Nathan Grey, the Earth-295 version of Cable.

So to pull it all together, it's possible that Holocaust (or Nemesis if they want to use a name with less cultural baggage) is going to travel back in time, drain the power from Rusty, and then proceed to use Rusty's power to take over the world. In that sense, Cable could be trying to kill Rusty so that Holocaust/Nemesis' plan will fail and the future will be saved. Or, more likely, they'll just keep the same basic idea and replace Holocaust/Nemesis with Black Tom or some other Cable-related villain.

John

I know what you're thinking. "Who the Hell is John?"

Well, he's a young pyrokinetic mutant who appeared in only two comic book issues, died, and was never really heard from again.

So what's so special about that?

Well, those two issues were issues of "Deadpool".

Specifically, this was during probably the least interesting part of the first volume of "Deadpool". Frank Tieri took over for a few months, and his first arc was "Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X". During an interlude in "Deadpool #57", we're introduced to John (though we don't see him) as he accidentally sets his home on fire and accidentally kills his family and goes on an uncontrolled rampage throughout Iowa.

In "Deadpool #58", Deadpool and Kane (a former member of Cable's team Six Pack) are tasked with hunting him down. They do, but initially they're overwhelmed by John's uncontrollable inferno. After Kane fails to take him down, Wade tries to talk him down by making him laugh. This strategy works and he finds out that John is just a mutant kid who hasn't learned how to control his powers. As he starts to get to know the kid, though, Kane shoots him from behind, killing him.

This one's admittedly a long-shot. Tieri's run was short-lived and not fondly remembered. I honestly had forgotten about this character until he came up in my research for this post. But it's a character directly related to Deadpool, he's a kid, he's a mutant, he has pyrokinetic powers, and he was killed by a character closely associated with Cable. Also, calling him John would throw off people expecting Pyro.

It's hard to imagine why Cable himself would time-travel to kill this kid. Maybe he accidentally burns down something (or someone) important to the future. But in a way, that's kind of the point. Deadpool has to not be able to understand why Cable would want to hunt this kid down in order to want to defend him, and John is a canonical example of a young, pyrokinetic mutant character that Deadpool stuck his neck out for.

And yeah, that could just as easily be Pyro or any of the other pyrokinetic mutants I mentioned, but I like the idea of referencing a throwaway tragic character from a brief run nobody remembers. It would be weird, but so is Deadpool.

So those are all the possibilities. Again, it's probably just going to end up being Pyro or a completely original character, but I had fun speculating all the same.

UPDATE: Screen Rant also floated another possibility that's way more plausible than any of mine: Kid Apocalypse. I never read the "Uncanny X-Force" books and he didn't show up in Marvel's list of pyrokinetics when I did my half-assed research, but supposedly, Kid Apocalypse has the potential for any superhuman ability, so the apparent pyrokinesis on display in the trailers could just be misdirection. Given that the revised X-Men timeline involved Apocalypse and that Deadpool was a part of the Kid Apocalypse story in the comics, I'd say this theory is by far the most plausible I've heard.

How I'd Reboot "Clarissa Explains It All"

I grew up in the heydey of Nickelodeon on TV. They say your earliest memories tend to be when you're around 3-5 years old, and for me, that would have been around 1991 when Nickelodeon dominated my early media consumption.

"Rugrats", "Doug", "Ren & Stimpy", "Pete & Pete", "Salute Your Shorts", and "Clarissa Explains It All" composed the vast majority of my early media diet. "Welcome Freshman" was there too, but I didn't care for it. All I can really remember about that show was how everybody always sat in chairs backwards because they thought it made them look cool or something. There was also "Hey Dude", but that show always bored the crap out of me and I usually just watched it when it was on before something else I wanted to watch. Oh, and of course there was "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" but I was honestly too scared as a kid to watch it. I didn't watch it until I saw reruns as an adolescent. There were also a bunch of game shows, but we can't be here all day.

Anyway... Those other shows? They were my jam.

"Rugrats" obviously had the most long-term success, even though the series pretty much lost my interest after the first three seasons.

"Doug" ended up migrating to Disney and, frankly, I thought that version was much more entertaining while it lasted.

"Ren & Stimpy" was pretty much the only show my dad enjoyed watching with us, and those early episodes definitely influenced my taste in comedy.

"Pete & Pete" was comparitively short-lived, but captivating and well-grounded in kid logic.

"Salute Your Shorts" was not the best, but I liked a bunch of the characters and thought their love-hate relationship with camp counselor Ug was fascinating.

But honestly, one of the shows I looked forward to watching the most was "Clarissa Explains It All".

That probably seems weird. And it is. Frankly, I have a hard time explaining it myself. There are a few smaller reasons why I suspect the show resonated with me.

1) It was the only show, other than "Pete & Pete", that depicted main characters who were siblings, and that was something I could relate to, especially once my younger brother was born. I think I related better to the dynamic between Clarissa and Ferguson than with Pete and Pete because the Petes were friendly with one another while Clarissa and Ferguson had more rivalry going on.
2) You tend to see that a lot of TV shows aimed at younger audiences have protagonists that break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience. While the other shows I mentioned often had narration, "Clarissa" was the only one that consistently broke the fourth wall, and that probably made it easier for my younger brain to keep up with the show and the protagonist's shifting goals and feelings.
3) It was probably tied with "Doug" for the catchiest theme song of the bunch.
4) As a prepubescent boy with a STRONG distaste for romance, I was relieved to see a show where the female protagonist with a male best friend DIDN'T end up crushing on him.
5) I'm a visual learner and Clarissa always outlined her problems through visual lists and images used to explain her predicaments in excruciating detail. Hence the title.

However, probably the biggest reason by far that I always looked forward to "Clarissa Explains It All" was because of one particular conceit of the show.

Specifically, Clarissa had a computer.

More than that, Clarissa would regularly figure out how to solve the problems in her life by creating a computer game based on her problem and playing it.

Now, in hindsight, that conceit is absolutely bonkers.

Making a computer game, even a pretty simple one, is insanely hard work and requires a lot of special knowledge. At no point in the show is it ever established that Clarissa even HAS this knowledge. Heck, she barely seems interested in programming at all. She spends more time obsessing over bands, cars, and eventually journalism. This was just a thing she did to essentially role-play through her dilemmas. It was the 90's. Nothing had to make sense yet.

I've talked about this before, but that conceit drew my attention to the show like you wouldn't believe. My tiny mind was already blown by the mere idea of computers and video games, but the idea that you could just MAKE a video game and that they could reflect your problems and worries and help you work through them was an infectious one for me. Even during episodes where I might not have completely understood the problem or where I might not have otherwise cared, I still kept watching and wondering what video game Clarissa would make to help her tackle it.

Whatever, I was, like, 5.

That said, I think that this show (perhaps combined with the game show "Nick Arcade") really solidified my fascination and love of computers and video games from an early age. Similarly, I actually think these shows are one reason why I never thought of either thing as a strictly "male" activity, but I digress.

Point is, I have a lot of love for "Clarissa Explains It All", but it's less because it was a great show and more because it was very much a formative show for me. In an era where marketing executives still insist that boys can't relate to unapologetically feminine protagonists, the success of "Clarissa Explains It All" pretty much drives home the winning formula: Boys can relate to girls so long as they say and do things that the boys can relate to.

I couldn't relate to Clarissa's crushes or her dreams of being able to drive a car, but I could certainly relate to her struggles with her annoying younger brother and her continual interest in video games. And the fact that she had a best friend who was a boy made me feel like I could be friends with her and it wouldn't be weird.

So anyway, it looks like apparently Viacom is looking to reboot "Clarissa Explains It All". "Reboot" actually might be something of a misnomer, though, since it sounds like their intention is to have Melissa Joan Hart still play the title character, but as an adult matriarch of a family of her own.

There was also apparently a novel released a couple years ago by the original showrunner called "Things I Can't Explain" which detailed her post-high school life, including, yes, an actual relationship with Sam that eventually ended on weird, ambiguous terms. I haven't read it, but my understanding is that Sam got a gig in Europe, Clarissa couldn't stay with him and had to go back to New York, she didn't hear from him for years, and then she finally got a letter from him and... didn't open it.

So the novel doesn't really make it clear what Clarissa's mid-life trajectory would be. It would be fair to assume that she could have somehow eventually ended up with Sam, given that their platonic friendship eventually did evolve over the years. However, it's left so ambiguous that I'm not going to take it for granted.

Given everything I've said, here's how I think they should handle the reboot. Finally.

For starters, I like the idea of Clarissa now being a parent. The recent show "Girl Meets World" (itself a reboot of a different coming-of-age sitcom "Boy Meets World") took a similar approach where the former protagonists are now parents. However, while "Girl Meets World" kept the focus on the young character and made the older characters the supporting cast, I actually think the "Clarissa" reboot should retain the focus on Clarissa rather than be "Clarissa's Kid Explains It All" or something.

That might seem like a bad idea for a kids' show, but allow me to remind you all that I maintained interest in "Clarissa Explains It All", a show about a 16-year-old girl, as a 5-year-old boy. I'm pretty sure making her a couple decades older and giving her a couple of kids won't suddenly make her unrelateable.

Furthermore, "Girl Meets World" ended up getting canceled. I was also a pretty big "Boy Meets World" fan as a kid, so I can pretty easily tell you why "Girl Meets World" didn't have the same staying power: It was a retread. It was just "Boy Meets World", but with a female protagonist and with the old characters in the supporting roles. Frankly, unless you have a hard time relating to Corey and Topanga, there's very little in "Girl Meets World" that you couldn't have gotten from reruns of "Boy Meets World". Similarly, I think that if this reboot was just "Clarissa's Kid Explains It All", it would have a hard time not just feeling like a retread of the original series.

So how would I make the reboot interesting? Well, for starters, let's point out why Viacom is probably thinking about this in the first place. Specifically, they're hoping that a bunch of Millennial parents will tune in and get their kids hooked.

In that case, that should be the focus of the show.

A number of my friends are now married and/or have kids. I myself am getting married in like a month. The struggles of adapting to parenthood is difficult, but it's particularly strange for us Millennials, who have been admittedly slow to transition to adulthood, or at least the kind of adulthood that we grew up observing.

A lot of Boomers and Gen-Xers rushed into marriage and kids, and a LOT of the media Millennials grew up with OOZED with regret over that tendency. All the songs, movies, and TV shows told us to enjoy our youthful energy while we can, take our time settling down, and not rush into lifetime commitments before we were ready. By and large, I think we took that to heart. Millennials are generally less likely to rush into marriage, more likely to go to college, and less likely to reach financial stability as quickly as generations' past.

So we've got a bit of an "arrested development" thing going on. This is largely why Millennials are blamed for things like not buying cars or houses or cable subscriptions.

But because we diverged so much from the models left by the generations that came before us, when we do finally reach that point where we start making big life decisions, not only do we get filled with anxiety over the idea that we're finally putting down the roots that we put off for so long, we also stress over whether or not we took too long to do it and that we are simply too old to become "true adults".

So, to me, I imagine Clarissa the mother actually hasn't changed all that much, and that stresses her out. She probably feels like she SHOULD be behaving more like how her parents behaved, but she can't, and that probably makes her worry that she's doing it wrong.

Now, technically-speaking, Clarissa isn't a Millennial. She's a Gen-Xer. But let's be honest... Gen-Xers didn't really watch "Clarissa Explains It All". Millennials did. That's the audience that has nostalgia for the show, so that's the audience I expect the show to try and focus on (at least partially).

In other words, I see this reboot as a show that Millennial parents would watch with their kids to essentially be able to relate to the experience of transitioning into parenthood. Unlike the original show which portrayed the parents as archetypes (quirky archetypes, but archetypes nonetheless) that existed to provide obstacles and advice, the reboot would focus on Clarissa failing to fulfill those archetypes and then eventually figuring out her own way of parenting.

And if that sounds too focused on the Millennial audience, you're not entirely wrong, but I think that kids today have a different relationship to Millennial parents than us Millennials had with our parents. And I'm not trying to say "Millennial parents are cooler" or whatever, but I do think we Millennials are kind of obsessed with doing things differently than how our parents did them. Oftentimes this is hubris, but in general, the relationships that my friends have with their kids don't really remind me of the relationships I remember them having with their parents. One of those bigger differences is that I don't think Boomer parents were as inclined to watch TV with their kids. Growing up, most of the time I watched TV (even when at friends' houses) the adults would rarely join in, and if they did, they mostly commented flippantly, regularly criticizing what we were watching. Millennial parents, on the other hand (or at least the ones I know) seem to be more inclined to watch TV with their kids as a general rule.

So given that, I think it makes sense for "Clarissa" to evolve to a show that Millennials would watch with their kids so they could learn to better relate to one another.

But enough talk about the high-level concept stuff. Let's get more specific about what's changing and what's staying the same.

For starters, I don't see the reboot taking place in the suburbs of Ohio. Not just because Clarissa seemed eager to get out of Ohio and live in New York in the show, but because that's honestly what a lot of us Millennials did. We moved away. Not always that far, but with jobs becoming harder to get (and keep for that matter), and student loans ballooning out of control, we don't always get to choose where we live. A lot of us moved closer to cities and lower-income neighborhoods with real estate prices we can actually afford. I don't think I know any Millennial family that lives in a "white picket fence" suburban neighborhood like the one Clarissa grew up in. As such, I imagine Clarissa's family lives in a more modest home, probably closer to New York. She might not even own a home, she might just rent a decent-sized apartment.

Second, I think that, given her apparent state of arrested development in the novel (where she was in her late 20's) I'd find it unlikely that any of her kids would be older than 12. I'd probably aim at keeping them as young as possible. I wouldn't want the kids to be in their "rebellious" phase yet. I feel like the kids should not be old enough to see their mother as a burden (at least not constantly).

Third, unless the actor who played Sam is willing to come back as a regular and he actually can convincingly act as an adult version of the character, I think that Clarissa should be a single mom. For one thing, characters who break the fourth wall tend to be loners, and I think that it would be weird for her to have a husband that she met and fell in love with between the novel and the new series. Plus, being a single mom gives more opportunity for life drama since she'll have to juggle more. Also, divorce is a recurring presence in the series. Sam's parents were divorced, and apparently even Clarissa's parents separated.

Fourth, the show has to get the kids right. The kids can't be like the parents in the original series. They can't just exist to create conflict and occasionally show up to help Clarissa figure out the solution to her problem. Their problems have to be Clarissa's problems and vice versa. As I talked about earlier, the biggest challenge of the way I envision the reboot is making a show starring a middle-aged Millennial stereotype interesting to kids, and I think the key to that is making the kids relate to Clarissa the way they relate to their parents. It's hard for a kid to understand the perspective of their parents, but I think they try to more than we give them credit for. Also, being a kid can feel really powerless, something the the original show often touched on. Clarissa grew up frustrated with the limited control she had on her own life. Many of her conflicts arose from expectations and restrictions placed upon her by her parents. By instead making this show about the kids and the parent(s) cooperating to help solve one another's problems, kids might feel less powerless when it comes to their parents. Being able to see that their parents are just grown-up kids could be a powerful thing if done properly, and the relationship Clarissa has with her own kids will be important for establishing that.

And finally, one of Clarissa's kids should be a computer whiz who makes games every episode to help their mom deal with her problem of the day. Theoretically, Clarissa could still be the one to do this, but if the show's about her struggles as a single mom, it's probably a bit too much of a stretch to suggest that she still has the time to work out her problems by making video games. It's not a stretch at all to suggest that she still works through her problems by playing video games, but I think that this is a very simple way for her to be able to connect with at least one of her kids, get them involved in her problem-solving process, and reflect how video games can actually be a pretty good way to both bond with your kid and learn key problem-solving skills.

So that's how I imagine a "Clarissa" reboot. Pretty much an all-ages sitcom interpretation of Millennial parenthood where Clarissa has basically grown up to be the Wine Mom from BuzzFeed.

Honestly, I doubt the reboot will take the form I imagine. Mitchell Kriegman is a Baby Boomer, and while he was very influential to Millennials, I somehow doubt he's all that interested in continuing to explore the psyche of people my age. More likely, I imagine the show will be more like "Girl Meets World" where Clarissa isn't the main character and they instead do a retread of the original show, but with Clarissa taking the place of Janet. And if the show takes that route, I imagine it will do rather poorly.

But hey, I could be wrong. Kriegman definitely seemed inclined to take risks and maintain a specific creative vision with the original show rather than just do the easiest, most obvious thing to do, so maybe he might do the same now. Who knows? Honestly, there's a decent chance Viacom won't be interested anyway. Wouldn't be the first time a Clarissa reboot would get passed on. But if this actually happens, I think there's honestly a lot of potential here. There really weren't a lot of shows like "Clarissa Explains It All", and there really haven't been any other shows like it since then. Maybe it's time.