Daniel Dickinson, Author, Adventurer

Back in January, I made a push to get us to as many shows this year as possible, with the help of Arizona Authors Association, or rather, sponsoring us being at the events. While sponsoring can cost a wide range, buying a booth is often cheaper. Which is fine, when you just want to bring in local Arizona Authors to one of the largest book festivals on the West Coast.

The Tucson Festival of Books is a free annual book fair held in Tucson, Arizona during the second weekend in March. According to Wiki, the first annual of the festival featured around 450 authors and welcomed over 50,000 regional visitors. The largest Festivals in 2018 and 2019 reached an estimated attendance of 140,000, and the most recent iteration almost returned to pre-pandemic levels with an estimated 130,000 visitors in 2024.

But, I didn’t know that. Not at that time. As it got closer and I started prepping for the event, I realized that the scale was akin to the Phoenix Fan Fusion event, and I knew that was massive. I began to panic. Were we in over our heads? We booked our hotel, and headed down to Tucson, stocked full of books, flyers and pens. Setup, and let the day progress.

And…. It was massive. While I didn’t get to look at the entire event or partake in any of the events (which is fine, I was there to interact with everyone, rather than watch), the vendor area ran the length of University of Arizona. It was chock full of authors, vendors, publishers, bookstores, and everything in between.

I met some amazing people and got to help support the authors within the Arizona Authors Association.  Would I do Tucson Festival of Books again? Absolutely. I can’t wait. I just hope I can get some new offerings out before then!

Just got back from watching Captain America: Brave New World. It was… A movie. Let’s dive into it though, because I don’t believe it deserved ALL the hate it got. It certainly wasn’t the best.

The trailer, if you’ve seen it, pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it. And that’s a problem. Probably not for the reason you might be thinking, though. The movie starts off with some pretty good fight choreography. Sam has some backup now, with the new Falcon taking up the mantle. Come to find out, they were recovering Adamantium. The metal used in everything from Silver Samurai’s armor, Wolverine, Cyber, Lady Deathstrike… List goes on. With Marvel finally addressing the giant Celestial in the middle of the ocean, you’d think that the stakes it starts to lay down raise some of the tension. Some of the story. Countries are fighting over the Celestial and its resources. With Ross coming in, trying to barter a treaty between several countries, all the while, a mastermind is pulling the strings.

Just writing down all these plot points, I begin to think, wow, this movie should be great. Ross, Leader, Captain America, a new Falcon, a discount Black Widow… This should have been a high-steak political story. But it just never gets there. The theme of the story is pretty good: redemption and changing as a person. This story could have been great, given it had time to breathe. Clocking in at just under 2 hours, the film moves along at an ok pace. There were pacing problems, don’t get me wrong. They had to fight A LOT in this movie to make it work. Yet, it never finishes a thought, it doesn’t finish the theme to a satisfactory conclusion. And honestly, I think the problem is… This shouldn’t have been one movie. And it shouldn’t have been just a Captain America movie. This should have been a Hulk movie. That aside, I feel that had Falcon and Winter Soldier set up its themes with Isaiah Bradley better, then this movie and Isaiah’s arc would have been better hitting, and in turn, would have made Cap’s arc better as well.

 Captain America: Brave New World is better than some of the most recent MCU offerings, but Disney/Marvel still doesn’t seem to understand what made some of the previous Marvel movies so good. It was it’s story. It’s heart. It’s dedication to staying true to the Marvel way of storytelling. Hero fatigue is not a thing, it’s an excuse to ignore the real problems with the MCU. Captain America: Brave New World is a step in the right direction, story-wise. But it can’t overcome the “mid” feel this movie gives off. When the story works, it works. Like when the two cameos stop by to punch in an exclamation point on a particular moment. That moment WORKS. The reason it works is because those characters have a bond. Ross and Sam don’t. Sam and Leader don’t. And THAT’S the problem.

It's super frustrating because the bones of a good arc are there. I can’t even say that had the movie gone over two hours, would that have made a difference? No, I don’t think so. At a foundational level, Captain America had no fight in the Hulk’s business… Hell, he wasn’t even one of the Cameos.

Marvel comics could move in and out of each other's stories because the heroes and the rogue galleries all knew each other; they all interacted with one another. There was rapport, there was history. MCU-wise, Cap has no history with Leader and very little with Ross. So from the onset, there was little tension, and the story never built it up enough to make the story anything other than mid.