So says Captain Carol Danvers, a.k.a Vers, a.k.a Captain Marvel, the protagonist in the latest hotly anticipated release from, uh, Marvel. Of course, she does really, carrying the burden of that vast creative empire so soon after the explosive finale of Avengers: Infinity War, as well as joining Wonder Woman on that lonely stage marked 'female protagonist' at a time when frothing, toxic masculinity is a day-to-day hazard. She has a world of expectation to overcome, and the character struggles valiantly with these preconceptions as she does with the array of villains and the occasionally sluggish plot.
The film begins with a miasma of half-recalled memories that introduce our main character, Vers, and that hazy uncertainty clings to much of the film like stubborn weeds in an overgrown pond. She is a warrior for the proud warrior race - sorry, 'heroes' - the Kree with no explanation coherently provided for why she's a white Caucasian on a planet of blue-skinned comrades. Equally white and handsome is Yon-Rogg, her superior officer as played by the insufferably smug Jude Law who leads her on a mission against the grey goblin-like Skrulls, shape-shifting invaders who threaten all that is great and good amidst the shining spires of Vers and Yon-Rogg's homeworld.
Except all is not as clear-cut in this post-truth world, either in the movies or in reality. So, in the true spirit of escapism Vers is dropped on Earth, circa 1995, straight through the roof of a Blockbuster video shop. Here is where the movie's wry, subtle but superb sense of humour really takes hold. A cardboard cut-out of Arnie advertising 1994's unremarkable action-comedy 'True Lies' takes an energy blast to the face, which I could definitely read as Brie Larson's role-model sticking it to the tired 90s movie tropes and Schwarzenegger's model of masculinity as a whole.
Shortly after the film is truly stolen by baby-faced Agent Nicholas J. Fury, just finding his feet in the superhero security world, years before he becomes the powerful puppet-master of SHIELD and the Avengers. Samuel L Jackson's undeniable skills are put to great use and he slips effortlessly into the role of comic sidekick and foil to Larson's lead - not that she isn't a rounded character with a great line in comedy herself. She's witty, dry, compassionate, proud, outraged and angry and sad throughout the film. Her resolution of her murky origins, her self-appointed role and discovery of a strong moral code all help resolve a film that occasionally suffers from a vague plot, and a rotating carousel of half-identified allies and enemies without a clearly defined threat or goal.
There are regular breakouts though, such as a welcome return / debut from understated rookie agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), or confident and defined pilot Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), or the hilariously expressive Talos (Ben Mendelson) who stand-out from an often cluttered cast and myriad of stories.
The fight sequences seemed to be spread a little thin, but on reflection this gives more room for the characters to converse and develop, and heightens the impact of battles such as a high-speed pursuit on an LA train, or a aerial chase through a canyon that slotted in well to the referential 90s action theme. In the climax, Danvers - fully realized of herself and unrestrained of her power - throws a staggering amount of power at the villains. It solidifies in my mind the understanding that Captain Marvel is definitely one of the most powerful heroes we have seen in the MCU to date, and justifies her stepping in as the salvation - somehow! - for Avengers: Endgame.
I came away amused, entertained and satisfied if not overly challenged or surprised by this film which does the rules of a Marvel movie well, lightly garnishing it with great characterisation, snappy comedy and a superb soundtrack. I went in with no preconceptions about its feminist overtones and did not feel they impacted the plot at all. It wasn't until the credits rolled and I noted the major involvement of Anna Boden - director, screenwriter and storywriter with partner Ryan Fleck - that this movie is very much a product of, and celebration of, women.
The short montage, also seen in trailers, where Larson rises from a setback with a look of fierce determination, was utterly heartening. A hundred leading men have done that sequence before, to the point where it's almost hackneyed. When Brie Larson rises from the dirt she's been put in by men telling her to know her place, when she gets back up after a defeat, stronger than before - when she rises to save the day and cement herself into the male-dominated superhero pantheon, I felt a thrill of excitement at the utterly formidable expression on her face.
I can only hope a legion of female fans look up at the screen, at a triumphant and successful woman in a massively lopsided genre, and feel they can rise above where they've been put by inconsiderate others.
Do stick around for the mid-credits scene which links into the upcoming MCU release with some familiar faces, and the final post-credits scene which comically sums up one of the most remarkable story strands in this film. I must sing the praises of the soundtrack designers, but boggle at the idea of packing the movie with 90s references that are probably lost on the vast part of the audience! Back to the present (or the future?), and bring on the Endgame and more of Captain Marvel - please!
The internet is, essentially, a horrible place. The last great frontier of humanity - the deeps of the ocean, of space, of other worlds and dimensions can all be traversed - and probably will - by highly trained professionals.Conversely, the internet can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection and requires no training at all. It's all but ungovernable, with only the strangest of government legislation, like the Investigatory Powers bill, that will permit the Security Service to flick though your sexts in the name of protecting freedom. It's a churning well of bizarre cultural mashups, beyond-the-curve trends, sexual disinformation, unfiltered violence and microtransaction mobile games.
And of course, the memes. The often surreal graphical snapshots that convey an often extreme concept in a crudely enhanced manner. They were suddenly potent weapons deployed in the high level political skirmishes of 16-17, a conduit from the crazed fringes of the internet right to the heart of mainstream culture. We're suddenly up to our shoulders in incomprehensible mutated comedy, a world where the Right Honorable Jacob William Rees-Mogg, the stereotypical Home Counties Tory's stereotypical Home Counties Tory, has his own #Moggmentum, a meme-producing teen online machine.
It is Facebook, ironically enough, that is the great incubator for this insanity. Zuckerberg's advertising hothouse, where your parents learn about emojis and share incoherent hatred from MailOnline and the Daily Express, doesn't immediately strike you as the oven for half-baked political ideology masquerading as a poorly-drawn smirking frog. But it's that huge audience set up with sharing tools that enables chain-reaction content to launch itself halfway around the world, whilst 4chan squats solitary at the bottom of the barrel and Reddit is left eating its own tail. Even Twitter, at times feeling like a tap on an ocean of ill-informed and badly-spelled hatred, still has some internal braking system, its very architecture allowing forces to marshal rapidly and as a group boost a signal or beat down a message.
Not so with Facebook, the central nervous system of the 'normies', the vast crowd of humanity for whom life isn't actually a quest for OC and screaming at strangers in another country at four in the morning. Yet it is so very easy to fall into that world, and nowhere are the barriers between one reality and the next thinner than in Shitposting groups.
There's one for every conceivable entertainment project, from Star Wars Sithposting to The Office (US) to America's first family, The Simpsons. To step into one is to enter a crass and crude hall of mirrors, with every reflection an incomprehensible distortion of some vaguely familiar joke. Memes whirl, collide, mutate and recycle in a never-ending merry-go-round with updates several times an hour, constantly as members from around the world log on to post updates, bicker, insult, fight, block and post memes at each other. Rock Bottom is another Simpsons group and they have a contentious relationship with their bigger brother - users are accused of 'spies', battle lines are drawn, and the ban hammer often descends from the heavens.
Who indeed would play ringmaster in one of these insane circuses of awkward adolescent amusement? The Admins in shitposting fall into one of two groups I feel, silent masterminds who either police their fiefdoms with draconian severity... or public spectacles who become one with the meme machine, the strangest of all mutations in a world where comedy is measured by the obscurity and subsequent random alterations a joke, character, scene or phrase can go through.
They no longer make the memes, they are the memes. With hundreds of thousands of fans packing out each and every community this weird wave continues to rise and may never crest, for as long as Facebook - with its own inability to police itself properly - allows them their voice, they will continue to shrill at the top of their surreal voices. This is the generation that has suddenly turned out in droves for the latest general election, this is the generation that will start setting the political agenda, and this is the generation that communicates every concept through a filter - an instagram filter - of chaotic comedy.
It's spontaneity, the elusive spark of creation that fires an insane idea right around the world, leaving professional communications and marketing professionals gnashing their teeth and turning green in envy.
So it was with #DrummondPuddleWatch, where a Newcastle-based media strategy company decided to livestream the efforts of commuters to navigate a large puddle outside their offices.
The internet latched on with all its explosive and unpredictable enthusiasm. By the time twenty thousand people were streaming the feed through Periscope, it attracted the attention of the press and social media.
Between them, they magnified the experience - more and more people signed in to see what the deal was. Chain reaction, triggering ever more social media posts exclaiming surprise and confusion (like shock and awe, but less dangerous), ever more media coverage, and ever more visitors to the feed.
I have a few theories about the success of the Drummond Puddle. I think I spoke to the intrinsic nature of the British, an entire nation fixated on our temperamental weather system, especially after the rigorous storms and destructive flooding recently.
Note also the popularity of memes when snowfall disrupts the British transport system so effectively each time; if any nation on the world can cope with heavy rainfall, surely it should be Britain!
Ultimately, it typifies that British stereotype of reservation, fussiness, our passion for the passionless. "So British!" came the cry again and again, across every social media channel as they observed our endless battle with the slightly annoying elements of a few more inches extra rain.
#DrummondPuddleWatch is the most British thing to have ever happened on the internet.
The company at the heart of it all, Drummond Central, insisted to the world's media they weren't in fact staging a massive PR coup. I believe them - they were coy via their own social media channels, retweeting the best bits only.
Not so every other major band, latching onto the passing coattails and ultimately dragging the Emperor's New Clothes down in the muddy puddles. Mashable posted a great digest of some shameless cashing in from huge brands that, many claim, were second only to the spambots for ruining a good hashtag!
Yet that is their job - or, more accurately, their job is to somehow anticipate these kind of phenomena and if possible co-opt them for their clients. That can be the ultimate kiss of death to something that thrives on spontaneity - remember flash mobs? Before they were used in cringe-inducing adverts set in train stations?
There was no future in the Drummond Puddle of course. Well, I mean, it's still there and probably will be for some time, based on the forecasts. But the madness, the inmates running the asylum, the whole social media furore had to pass, like a storm in a muddy puddle. I was lucky enough to stop by and see the triumphant last minutes.
Afterwards, a Drummond Central employee hastily scraped some water into a bottle. "You aren't going to put it on eBay are you?" I asked wonderingly. "No," he laughed. "Just a memento from the day we broke the Internet!"
Well, Newcastle's insufficient drainage did, for a few hours anyway, achieve second-highest worldwide trending topic on Twitter and level pegging with the gleaming buttocks of a Kardashian. You can't break the internet with content like this, of course. It's the fuel the internet needs to grow, baffle, amuse, entertain and - ultimately - to advertise.
Glienicke Bridge, Berlin, adapted for Bridge of Spies
Photo by Biberbaer
At the culmination of Tom Hanks' espionage thriller, "Bridge of Spies", there is a tense exchange of intelligence officers over Glienicke Bridge between East and West Berlin. For KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel it is a return home - except that he was actually born in the shadows of bridges far removed from the battlefields of the Cold War! Abel was in fact born William Fisher, in Benwell, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
His father was a revolutionary exile from Tsarist Russia at the start of the 20th century, caught spreading Marxism in the company of Lenin himself, in St. Petersburg. A German by birth, Heinrich Fischer faced deportation back to his native country and either conscription or imprisonment. However, he was a skilled engineer and easily found work in the booming industrial North-East of England.
Not that Heinrich left his revolutionary ideals behind, and preached to British socialist groups in the area. He was even murkily involved in a plot to ship arms from Newcastle to rebels in Russia, but escaped conviction after his links to the group couldn't be established clearly enough. After exoneration, Fisher and his young family - Henry, born in 1902 and William, born in 1903 - moved to Whitley Bay, where the sons were enrolled at Whitley Bay & Monkseaton High School in 1914.
The Fisher family in 1917,
William at rear on left.
From The Kremlin's Geordie Spy,
Dr. Vin Arthey
The First World War broke out across Europe at the same time, and for Russia concluded bloodily in the October Revolution of 1917. Finally, the Russian Marxists had seized power in the motherland, and in time the Fishers would return to what had now been proclaimed the Soviet Union. In the meantime, young William left school at fifteen and became an apprentice draughtsmen at Swan's Hunter Yard in Wallsend, builders of many famous naval vessels.
However, as post-war depression seized England and William's father Heinrich found it harder to keep working, he began considering a relocation to Lenin's Russia. His sons, nearing eighteen, seemed destined for university places he could never afford, and the possibility of revolution in England seemed less likely every day. By 1921, the Fishers were on their way to Moscow, now the capital of the Soviet Union, and William Fisher left behind his home in the North-East and Newcastle, for good.
The young William's life developed quickly in the new Russia. Tragedy struck first, when his brother Henry drowned late in the summer of 1921. The family fractured irreparably from this accident, and it formed in the developing William a quiet reticence that would mark him for the rest of his life.
His past is somewhat difficult to decipher, as befits an intelligence officer. It is stated that, like many young men in Russia, he was part of the Komsomol, the Red Army as a radio operator, and then the OGPU, the Russian state security organisation - which, after many years and changes of name, would become the dreaded KGB.
Academic and writer Dr. Vin Arthey, whose book The Kremlin's Geordie Spy inspired this article, includes an anecdote related to him by Fisher's daughter Evelyn about William's recruitment into the OGPU;
"In this document you say that you're German. Here you say you're Russian. Here British. What are you?"
Fisher replied, "I don't know what I am according to your rules. I'll be whatever you say I am."
"You're Russian."
Indeed, by 1929 William had a wife, Yelena, and a daughter, as well as a brand new name for his Russian life - Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher. He would begin to move about Western Europe, working within established communities of Soviet spies, often as their radio operator. Returning to Moscow in 1934, the OGPU became the NKVD and Fisher found himself training the next generation of spies in radio work - including the infamous Kitty Harris, lover and KGB contact for Donald Maclean of the "Cambridge Five".
Fisher narrowly dodged Stalin's purges from 1938, receiving only a dismissal instead of a bullet, but was reactivated for duty with the intelligence service in 1941 as Soviet Russia reeled from Nazi Germany's lightning invasion, with a dearth of skilled intelligence operatives after the Purge.
After the major battles of Stalingrad and Kursk turned the tide in favour of the Soviets, Fisher was involved in several successful operations, including the astounding Operation Berezino.
Certainly, Fisher emerged from the war unscathed and awarded the prestigious Order of the Red Banner. Powerful individuals high in Soviet state security took more notice of Fisher, and he received the most prestigious assignment for a Russian spy - North America.
From 1948, Fisher was to resurrect the 'Volunteer' network, which had smuggled atomic secrets out of Los Alamos during the war. Within the space of a year from Fisher's arrival, the Soviet Union detonated their own atomic bomb, a near-replica of the American design. Conversely, he dodged the fallout from the arrest and execution of the Rosenbergs in 1951, who confessed nothing and left the network more or less concealed.
It would be the enemy within that would ultimately bring down Fisher, however. An assistant was assigned by Moscow, Reino Häyhänen, who posed as a Finnish-American and joined Fisher in 1954. However, Häyhänen had none of the drive and self-control required by an intelligence operative, and was an abrasive drunk. The first message he received upon being assigned to Fisher's New York based network was concealed in a fake nickel, which he subsequently lost. It was discovered, a year later, when a paperboy dropped some change and the nickel cracked open.
Colonel Rudolf Abel, aka William
Fisher, arrested in 1957.
From History vs. Hollywood
The FBI analysed the encrypted message within, but luckily for Fisher were not successful. Less successfully, Häyhänen was finally recalled by Moscow in 1957, only to defect when he arrived in Paris. Returned to New York by the CIA, he provided the American security services with a description of his superior, known to him as "Mark", and on 21st June 1957 FBI and Immigration agents arrested William Fisher, identified as 'Martin Collins' according to one set of documents, in his Brooklyn safe house.
Fisher, under interrogation, claimed his identity as Colonel Rudolf Abel, a very close
friend; Fisher's motives for this new disguise were
seen as a way of communicating his situation to his superiors in the KGB, without
actually admitting to his real birth name of William Fisher. Sadly, Fisher had no idea the real Abel had passed away not long after Fisher's final mission to the US had begun.
This total unwillingness to supply any information to the Americans - even when offered reimbursement for defection - could have stymied the entire operation against him, leaving the US Government no legal place but to deport 'Abel' as an illegal alien and nothing more.
Nevertheless, with the alcoholic Häyhänenin the stand, testifying about Fisher's activities, there was sufficient grounds to bring charges of espionage against the United States. Going before a grand jury, the Bar Association had to appoint a lawyer for Abel's defence, as no-one would volunteer for the role.
They chose wisely it was seen, in the form of James B. Donovan, now an insurace lawyer but at one point had served as Assistant Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials of 1946, and had also served as legal counsel to the Office of Strategic Services; he was eminently qualified to handle matters of espionage and law.
He was also an honorable man, determined to ensure his client received a fair trial under the requirements of the Constitution of the United States. Abel would be facing three charges
Conspiracy to transmit defense information to the Soviet Union
Conspiracy to obtain defense information
Conspiracy to act in the United States as an agent of a foreign
government without notification to the Secretary of State
After only two days, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts, for which he received concurrent life sentences of thirty, ten and five years imprisonment. For the 54-year-old Abel, this was a life sentence in all but name. That he evaded execution, unlike the Rosenbergs, was in part due to the near-prophetic urging of Donovan prior to sentencing;
"It is possible in the foreseeable future an American of equivalent rank will be captured by Soviet Russia or an ally; at such time an exchange of prisoners through diplomatic channels could be considered in the best interest of the United States."
It was only a few years later, in 1960, when US pilot Francis Gary Powers was flying the high-altitude U2 spy plane over Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union, seemingly out of range of Russian air defences. A missile in fact successfully crippled his aircraft, forcing Powers to bail out - right into the waiting hands of the Soviet security services. He too was put on trial, and sentenced to imprisonment on 19th August 1960.
The ground was laid for an exchange however; the American press were calling for a swap of Abel and Powers, the CIA began making plans as soon as Powers was shot down, and Donovan had been receiving messages of thanks from 'Mrs. Abel' in Leipzig, which the US intelligence services believed to be a cover for the KGB to communicate directly with them.
It was indeed, and for the next two years delicate diplomacy between Donovan and an East Berlin lawyer called Wolfgang Vogel led to an exchange on the Glienicke Bridge that linked the West and the East - in many ways.
Donovan stood with Abel, and across the bridge stood Ivan Shishkin, a member of the Soviet embassy to East Germany, with Powers. The two men crossed, the Russian spy and the American pilot, joined their former colleagues, and were both whisked away for intense debriefing. After many months of careful, utterly secret negotiation, the exchange had concluded flawlessly.
Officials and guards await the prisoner exchange at Berlin's Glienicke
Bridge (top).
Soviet officials arrive for the prisoner exchange in the Bridge of Spies movie.
From History vs. Hollywood
Abel's career had concluded as well. No longer of use as a spy to the KGB, he had been 'burned' in the lingua of espionage, and was deployed more as a propaganda tool, lecturing high school students as the successful 'Colonel Abel' who had spied for nine years in the heart of America. His KGB superiors declared he would have to use the name Rudolf Abel to maintain this fiction - whilst privately acknowledging that Fisher had not discovered a single agent during his tenure in New York.
His health was deteriorating rapidly as well. He referred to his vice of smoking cigarettes as "coffin nails", a slang term he recalled from his childhood and teenage years on Tyneside, and by 1971 had been diagnosed with lung cancer. His final words to his daughter, Evelyn, came in English and were "Don't forget we're Germans". In his later, final and bitter years, it is accepted that Rudolf Abel, aka William Fisher, came to regret the career of a spy that estranged him from his family, his country, and even his name.
He died on 15th November, 1971, and his ashes were interned in Donskoi Cemetery in Moscow beneath a headstone inscribed with the name Rudolf Ivanovitch Abel. A year later, his widow Yelena successfully campaigned to have it changed to Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, before passing away herself in 1974. Their daughter Evelyn died in 2007.
So concludes the odd story of a boy from Benwell, who ended up shaking the world from Washington to Moscow via Berlin in one of the greatest spy stories of the Cold War.
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Vin Arthey for writing The Kremlin's Geordie Spy and for answering the questions that helped form this article. I asked him if William Fisher had ever expressed a desire to return to his childhood home in the North-East. Vin replied that he had not, and even if he had, it would have been far too dangerous. Such, it seems, are the prices paid by spies.
The grave of Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
Donskoi Cemetery
From Find A Grave
My plan had been to write about a recent project launch I helped with the media on, which has some painful bearing on this article.
It kept sliding as these things do - and then was utterly derailed by today's heartbreaking, if not surprising, news that acclaimed writer Sir Terry Pratchett has passed away.
Pratchett started work as a journalist, then became a press officer before his books exploded in popularity - and now, we learn that the beloved author has finally succumbed to the encroaching, indefatigable and unusual variant of Alzheimer's Disease that plagued him.
A lot of Sir Terry's books are on my shelves, and I can appreciate the similarities now that I am a trained journalist, who works as a press officer - for the National Health Service's research department specifically tasked with looking into dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.
Just a few months ago, I was floating the idea that we might approach Sir Terry for some patronage, but he was already involved with the massively successful Dementia Friends campaign. Professionally, I regretted not being able to net such an influential and passionate patron. The awkward gangly boy who still lurks in my memory regretted missing what could have been a golden opportunity to meet a hero.
Even so, I do have a copy of The Last Continent, when the awkward gangly boy gangled up awkwardly to a tired man still dutifully signing books, a long, long time ago. The memories of that encounter are hazy - ironically enough - but the goose pimples and awe I recall feeling have remained indelibly marked on my mind. Here was someone who had shared the most valuable and incomparable gift of all with us - an entire world!
So, I hope Sir Terry will forgive me today, when I used the work account to mourn his passing - and mention how people could help contribute to research into dementia conditions like his. I hope he will appreciate how we can in some way benefit from what has happened, and work towards - hopefully - preventing such things in the future.
That was what the professional press officer did with Twitter, anyway. The gangly, awkward boy read the last tweets sent from Sir Terry's account, and grieved and mourned.
These two very unalike halves are nevertheless utterly appropriate for discussing the Discworld. It's where wizards and heroes, dragons and elves, vampires, werewolves and Corporal Nobby Nobbs - all fantastical and unreal creatures - nevertheless had a beautifully human, down-to-Disc side, that allowed Sir Terry to spear our world with such acidic, satirical brilliance. That's the side of all of us that grieves the most.
Much can be said about your work living on after you, that no person is gone until their creations are forgotten as well - but at the heart of it, the creator of those magical words, the living human responsible for an impossibly huge amount of work has gone.
Each of us felt a connection, through this vast and shared fantastical universe, and probably none more so than Neil Gaiman, an equally brilliant creator who collaborated frequently with Sir Terry. The tweet from his wife, multi-talented performer Amanda Palmer, struck a very deep chord with me.
woke up early, checked my Patreon feed & someone had posted the sad news about Terry Pratchett. went to bed, held neil, told him, held him.
— Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer) March 12, 2015
My heart goes out to every person today who needs to be held - because we've lost more than just an author. A world-maker, a brilliant and funny and kind and wise man who invented an entire world that so many of us lived and breathed in.
