Kawhi is human right? We’ve seen he has human parents? He definitely has an uncle, but I’m not sure Dennis is a human either. Kawhi is arguably the most uniquely talented player in the NBA and he talks about basketball with less enthusiasm than the lady at the DMV who told me where to get a replacement car title (long story). I love Kawhi’s game. He has Dirk’s flourish of midrange and technical footwork with the defensive ability of prime Scottie Pippen. He doesn’t trash talk, he calls out plays on defense. He doesn’t scream after a bucket, he turns around and gets back on defense. He doesn’t celebrate after hitting a game winning shot to go to the NBA Finals, he puts on a blank face. So who fits better with Kawhi than the king of mono-tone heroism, Martian Manhunter.
Martian Manhunter and Kawhi Leonard are both superbly exciting. Kawhi’s on a team that has one of the best odds to win the NBA championship and he’s playing some of the best basketball of his career. While there have been hundreds of iterations of MMM, the newest 12 issue series is weirder and more incredible than I could have ever imagined. Here’s a quote from co-creator Riley Rossmo about the comic from the Hollywood Reporter.
“When we were discussing the project and getting ready to go, the present timeline story felt kind of David Lynchy to me, and I thought that would be the piece that I could really dig into.”
There’s no NBA player that whispers quietly, “Put me in a David Lynch movie!” than Kawhi. Can you imagine? His heads spinning and laughing on a loop while Boban wears an old time bell hop outfit and yo-yo’s on a unicycle in a room with a projector playing a Russian version of It’s A Wonderful Life. I’m copyrighting this. Did that do it? I don’t understand copyright rules.
My directing dreams aside, the comparisons are bountiful between these dead eyed aliens. They’re stoic and conventional while being adaptive and thoughtful. Everything is done with an almost psychic intuition. Always calm, definitely a little odd “in conversation”, but happy to work with others for the greater good. But still do we know a single thing about Kawhi? Of the two, Kawhi still seems more mysterious than a man literally from Mars.
Does Kawhi even like basketball? Probably, but why do I have so many questions about someone who is a multi-time FINALS MVP?! Shouldn’t he be in every other advertisement and have already appeared on the front of 2K? He hasn’t, and probably for the same reason there is not a Martian Manhunter movie in production right now.
Being someone who only wants to talk about the mission isn’t always fun. It would be like watching Men in Black with JUST Tommy Lee Jones. Is Paul George Will Smith? I have absolutely no idea but Men in Black 3 is not good because it didn’t have Will Smith! it might have had Will Smith…I didn’t see it… Point being, Paul George isn’t Will Smith! He’s Chris Hemsworth. A good actor.. not Will Smith. In the playoffs you need Will Smith… but a Thor crossover might just work, we’ve just never seen it.
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written by Jorden @ EVRD
featured image created by Jorden Cultice
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