One year ago our lives changed in a drastic way. Every day since then, little by little, we’ve taken steps to change and adapt. That term, “change and adapt,” will mean something different to every person who reads this. You might have tried something new, ended something old, or continued on with a day-to-day as close-to-normal as you could.
With some of my newfound downtime with my family in the past year, we decided to watch our way through the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in timeline order. This means we watched the Marvel movies in the order that they would’ve happened in “real life,” chronologically, rather than by their theatrical release date.
In our case, we began with Captain America: The First Avenger, which was released in 2011, then followed with Captain Marvel (2019), then Iron Man (2008), and so on. (Of course, like all things in the MCU, the details are always up for debate.)
The Delaware County District Library played a large role in our discovery of the comic book world’s beloved characters like Thor, Groot and Black Widow. While many of the films can be watched using online streaming services like Disney+ or Netflix, some can only be watched on DVD while they’re still under contract with other studios. You can find them all at the library, with little to no wait time.
For something like the Marvel comic books, there is an entire world of information that you can easily find at the library to help you dig deeper. Recently, Disney+ released a mini-series called “WandaVision” to give the character Wanda Maximoff greater depth. With the series releasing its finale just a week ago, you might be craving a book along similar lines or themes – the multiverse, a little science fiction, trauma and its creation of superheroes (or villains), and so on.
Up next for our family: Star Wars. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Wish me luck.
I hope you take some time to yourself this week to do something you love, whether that’s watching a show, reading a book, taking a walk, or calling a friend. If reading a book is on your to-do list, and you enjoyed “WandaVision,” you might want to check out one of these titles.
• “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch. A mind-bending, relentlessly paced science-fiction thriller, in which an ordinary man is kidnapped, knocked unconscious, and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew.
• “Followers” by Megan Angelo. Decades after an ambitious writer and her A-list wannabe roommate abandon their ethics for social-media stardom, a government-appointed celebrity discovers a shattering secret from her past that her corporate sponsors would gladly exploit.
• “The Space Between Worlds” by Micaiah Johnson. A cross-dimensional examination of identity, privilege and belonging follows the adventures of a rare survivor whose counterparts in other realities have died and who stumbles on a dangerous secret threatening her new home and fragile place in it.
• “1Q84” by Haruki Murakami. An ode to George Orwell’s “1984” told in alternating male and female voices relates the stories of Aomame, an assassin for a secret organization who discovers that she has been transported to an alternate reality, and Tengo, a mathematics lecturer and novice writer.
• “Hench” by Natalie Zina Walschots. Temping for people on the wrong side of the law, Anna becomes unfairly unemployed before using her talents for manipulating data to expose how the heroes of her world do more harm than good.
• “Version Control” by Dexter Palmer. A woman deals with a strange and persistent sense of everything being slightly off, which may or may not be related to her scientist husband’s pet project, a “causality violation device” that might actually be working.
• ”The Regional Office is Under Attack!” by Manuel Gonzales. When a prophecy suggests that an insider might bring about the downfall of a powerful underground organization known as the Regional Office, devoted recruit Sarah and young assassin Rose find their respective lives clashing in a dispute that threatens everything they know.
