#as for the mcu I would like to think it was hawkeye or hulk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jor-elthatendswell · 7 months

Text

It's a well worn topic at this point but the imminent release of The Marvels has me thinking about how militaristic the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, with Monica Rambeau aka Photon, a habour patrol member in the comics, reimagined as a captain in the US Air Force.

She follows Hawkeye, who was changed from an argumentative former circus performer with a heart of gold (a character so staunchly against lethal force he once revoked his own wife's Avengers membership because she sort of, maybe, subconsciously allowed a villain to fall to his death) into a hard-nosed black ops assassin.

Sam Wilson/ Falcon made his celluloid debut as an army man with twin submachine guns attached to his wrists. It’s a far cry from his print counterpart’s introduction as a social worker by day who uses his skill at falconry to protect his neighbourhood.

If we allow the argument that modern cinema goers are accustomed to a sprinkling of realism to make their superheroes palatable (and it’s a strange argument really- why should realism be a desirable quality in summer blockbuster escapism?) then what actually constitutes “realism”.

Sure, a man who learnt uncanny skill with a bow and arrow growing up with a travelling show couldn’t possibly hold his own alongside Hulk or Thor in the real world (and, yes, there isn’t a Hulk or Thor in the real world; as I say, this is a strange argument), but if he learned those exact same skills in some kind of military context then that somehow passes the bar for realism? The sinister upshot is that these children’s heroes become more warlike just as, globally, they reach more children than ever before.

Increasing the realism of superhero stories only serves to make them problematic. DC Comics' Batman, who is the frequently subjected to “realistic” treatments, is the prime example. If, in real life, a billionaire tooled himself up with the best weapons and body armour money can buy and began dispensing violent “justice” with no accountability, then of course that wouldn’t be a good thing. If they wore a costume with pointy ears and started calling themselves “Batman” then of course we would question their sanity. But Batman isn’t real; it’s a story. Nobody thinks The Muppet Show advocates animal cruelty. Quite the opposite, if anything. ("Not unless they're watching it", as Waldolf once heckled) Yet if a filmmaker decides they’re going to make a “grounded and realistic” remake where Fozzy is played by a real live bear wearing a pork pie hat and spotty necktie, then that's a whole other story. Suspend your disbelief and superheroes are less like the police or army and more akin to volunteers and activists, doing what they can with what they have to improve the lives of those around them. Their actions take the form of crime fighting only because that’s what makes for exciting colourful adventure stories for children.

In the MCU, even Marvel’s poster boy, Spider-Man (another champion of non-lethal solutions, known for his compassion even to his enemies and who possesses an enduring appeal to young children) is given a literal sheen of the military-industrial complex in the form of “Stark Tech” armour, replete with military grade strike drones. Tony Stark even thought to equip his 15 year old protégé-cum-child soldier with an “Instant Kill Mode”. In a moment played for laughs in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man rejects his on-board AI's attempt to activate this feature but seems untroubled that such an option exists and, indeed, come Avengers: Infinity War, he voluntarily deploys it. It’s not clear if Spidey actually does kill any of his alien adversaries, but it seems reasonable to assume that one doesn’t say “Activate Instant Kill Mode” without the intention of ending lives. Fans are expected to smile or applaud as Spider-Man says these words, recognising the call-back to Homecoming, rather than find it a gross misrepresentation of Marvel’s most beloved character or an alarming depiction of a children’s favourite.

The MCU Avengers as a whole are a US government ��initiative “. The reluctant superheroes need to be cajoled into putting their differences aside for the greater good by army top brass Nick Fury. In a tweak from the source material, the ‘H' in Fury's organisation, SHIELD, stands for ‘Homeland’, making SHIELD as explicitly American venture as opposed to it being ostensibly intergovernmental in the comics.

There is a comic book precedent for this military take on Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the form of The Ultimates, a 2002 series by the British team of writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch. The Ultimates ,however, was satire. Millar was an unreformed lefty of the old school – someone who has boasted of voting Brexit for left-wing reasons, someone who once appeared on Russia Today as a guest of George Galloway. The Ultimates took swings at the gung ho jingoism of post 9/11 America. Captain America's “Surrender!!?? You think this letter on my head stands for France?“ is not supposed to be a badass one-liner, but rather a parody of the kind of things US media outlets were saying as Jacques Chirac proved less keen than Tony Blair to follow George Bush in bringing gunboat diplomacy to the Middle East. As Millar commentated at the time:

“The Ultimates is completely different because it's a character-driven piece and (something only a few people have noticed) my attempt as a left-wing writer to tell stories about an essentially right-wing concept and cast. It's very much the Anti-Authority, if you will. Captain America and so on are fully-paid members of the US military machine and this means a very different book and approach from a gang of slightly arrogrant, left-wing, superhuman utopians like The Authority ".

Wildstorm Comics' The Authority, which both Millar and Hitch worked on (although not together), was a precursor to Ultimates, featuring a team of similarly “any means necessary” heroes, albeit with a left-wing bent. The Ultimates does have something of The Authority’s utopian streak; Nick Fury and Tony Stark genuinely want to make the world a better place for everyone. It’s very idealistic – what if the head of the military and the biggest tech billionaire actually had the people’s best interests at heart? – and arguably closer to true superhero ethos (basically “with great power there must also come great responsibility “) than those characters more pragmatic MCU equivalents.

Yet, as Millar's one time writing partner Grant Morrison (who actually ghost-wrote at least one issue of The Authority under Miller’s name) observed in Morrison’s major nonfiction work, Supergods, the likes of The Authority, The Ultimates and, by extension, the MCU represent a “capitulation” to the view “that it was really only force and violence that got things done and not patient diplomacy, and that only soldiers and very rich people had the world figured out”. If the MCU is realistic, then it’s a sad indictment of the real world where the heroes are the ones with the best tech, the best guns and no compunction about using them.

Regardless of intent, The Ultimates left a door at Marvel’s “House of Ideas” just enough ajar to allow a malign notion to creep in: “These soldier superheroes are pretty cool. What If they were like that all the time? Wouldn’t they be more popular then”?

Certainly the navy SEAL aesthetic Bryan Hitch brought to the costumes (replacing the colourful tights and capes with pouches, straps and body armour) was soon adopted by superhero tv and film productions even pre-MCU. In fact, Hawkeye's journey from carny to commando mirrors the changes in superhero attire. Most famously, Superman's appearance with the red “overpants” derives from that of circus strongmen, but seeing any photography of early to mid 20th century carnival and circus performers makes it clear the early superhero creators had them in mind when they first put pencil to paper.

In an interview (found in Marvel Spotlight: Captain America, published in 2009) Hitch related how he showed an initial Ultimates drawing of Captain America with a machine gun to Grant Morrison, which Morrison then “described as the most obscene Captain America image [they’d] ever seen”. (NB: Morrison has since adopted gender neutral pronouns). Perhaps Morrison said this with glee, in on the joke with their friends, but in the years since, Cap with a gun became a common sight, even in family-friendly movies (where it was divorced from the irony of The Ultimates).

By a 2015 interview, Morrison lamented the fact that “the Avengers work for the government, and it's been like that since Mark [Millar] did The Ultimates” and said they were “bored with the idea that the best superheroes can represent is some aggressive version of the military. [...] They're supposed to be champions of the oppressed, they help ordinary people, they make things better for people. They don't prop up our grotesque, doddering culture of war and aggression”.

That same year Morrison introduced a new comic book superteam in the pages of The Multiversity. Pointedly the text likens this group, named “Justice Incarnate”, to a “cosmic neighbourhood watch” rather than any formal military or law-enforcement institution.

Millar himself reunited with his Authority collaborator Frank Quitely to create the comic Jupiter’s Legacy, which comes across in part as an apology for The Ultimates and all it begat. It concludes with the protagonists, Chloe Sampson and Eddie "Hutch" Hutchence taking up superhero mantles and promising not to make the moral compromises of their predecessors:

“No more bowing to authority and insitutions. No more deference to people in power”.

“There's a dignity in public service we mistook for old-fashioned, and a humility in having a secret identity, living among the people we protect.“

The Avengers, Marvel’s breakthrough billion dollar box office 2012 movie, by contrast, concludes with Iron Man dropping a nuclear bomb on the “Chitari”, an invading alien army and it seems likely this influenced Morrison’s comments on modern superhero stories.

In Supergods, Morrison

describes their childhood dread of nuclear weapons. The child of “ban the bomb” activists, the “gruesome hand-drawn images of how the world might look after a spirited thermonuclear missile exchange” which illustrated their parents anti-nuclear literature struck terror into the young Morrison. Therefore they seized upon superheroes as being an idea powerful enough to counteract – and overcome – the idea of the bomb.

“It’s not that I needed Superman to be “real,” I just needed him to be more real than the Idea of the Bomb that ravaged my dreams”.

Within the narrative of the movie, Iron Man takes the only option available to him to save New York. Destroying thousands of alien lives to save thousands of human ones. But The Avengers isn’t a documentary; the scriptwriters could have written a satisfying denouement which didn’t involve mass murder. They could at least have included some words of regret by the heroes over what it took to win, acknowledging that killing is not the ideal solution. Instead the Avengers trade banter and eat shawarma, collective conscious clear.

There is a moment in another Grant Morrison work, Final Crisis, which always brings the MCU to mind. In Final Crisis #3, drawn by JG Jones, (published in 2008, the same year the MCU began) “evil gods” from a higher plain of existence have been reincarnated on Earth. In order for the Justice League to counter this threat, a “draft for Superheroes” is implemented. Green Arrow (a Batman-a-like character who was subsequently reinvented to embody the countercultural sentiment of the late 1960s and has since served as the social conscious of the superhero set) responds to receiving his draft notice thusly:

“If anybody falls for this authoritarian, militaristic crap, it’ll prove I’m absolutely right about absolutely everything!... “

Cue the next page, where the drafted heroes have gathered en mass (including Green Arrow, impotently shaking his fist.)

Such an assemblage of characters in usually a triumphant moment in a summer "event" story, but here is framed as a sign that evil already has it’s hooks into reality. This world has fallen to the darkness and the superheroes who inhabit it are too morally compromised to realise it.

54 notes · View notes

animebw · 6 months

Text

So I've been stewing a bit with the whole concept of "MCU Fatigue" after my disappointment with The Marvels, and I think I've come to a realization.

See, most people when they shit on the modern MCU act like they're been putting out tons of terrible stuff. But looking at their track record, that's not actually true. In fact, I'd argue that the majority of their Phase 4 and 5 output has still been above average. The only real misses I'd count are FATWS, Dr. Strange 2, The Marvels, and maybe What If if I was feeling particularly uncharitable (and I guess Secret Invasion, but the bad response kept me away from that one so I've never watched it myself). Other than that, Marvel's still putting out a lot of good stuff.

The problem is they're not putting out a lot of great stuff.

Like, we need to take a step back and realize just how fucking insane the MCU's track record used to be. They didn't just put out good movies on a regular basis that put every other franchise to shame, they regularly released some of the most iconic superhero blockbusters of all time. They cranked out all-time classics on such a consistent basis that at this point, at least half of the top 20 greatest superhero movies of all time list would be taken up by MCU projects, maybe more. That's how they built trust with the general audience; not just consistency, but the promise of greatness. People flocked to the MCU not just because there was a near guarantee of a well-made fun time at the cinema, but because that was a strong probability you were going to see something truly spectacular.

Seriously, just look at the studio's track record through Phase 2 and 3. Iron Man 3, Captain America 2 and 3, the first two Guardians movies, Thor Ragnorak, Black Panther, Infinity War and Endgame... you could argue that over half of their movie output from this period was unqualified home runs. And sure, maybe Thor 2 was a dud and Avengers 2 was disappointing, but it didn't matter because there was always the promise of another masterpiece waiting in the wings. People weathered the occasional misstep because they could trust the MCU to always find its way back to greatness.

But now consider: how many all-time bangers can you name from Phases 4 and 5?

Like, I can name a few. Wandavision, Black Panther 2, Guardians 3, Spider-Man 3, maybe Ms. Marvel if I pretend episode 5 doesn't exist (and I've heard Loki season 2 was also great, but that's another one I haven't seen yet). But the ratio of Big Deal Events to Just Another Marvel Thing has gotten much steeper. Between the movies and the Disney+ series, Marvel's cranking out more stuff than ever, but it hasn't been cranking out landmarks any faster than it used to. It's just shoving a lot more padding between the properties that really set the world on fire. And it's training the audience, unintentionally, to no longer associate the MCU with guaranteed smash successes every other weekend.

And I still like most of the MCU's current output! But I don't love it as much as some of its older stuff. Black Widow and Shang-Chi are good, but not quite great. Eternals I will defend to my dying breath, but it was destined for cult classic status. Love and Thunder I would argue is actually pretty fantastic, fuck you fight me, and Quantummania is fine, you guys, but I wouldn't die defending them the way I would, say, Iron Man 3. And as much as I enjoyed Hawkeye, Moon Knight and She-Hulk, you can only watch so much Pretty Good TV before it starts to feel like a chore.

This deluge of content hasn't resulted in tons of more Great Marvel Stuff. It's just resulted in tons of more Good, Okay, and Not That Great Actually Marvel Stuff. It's resulted in audiences feeling like you can't trust Marvel to regularly crank out classics that change the way you view superhero media. And it turns out, it gets a lot harder to justify spending so much time on such an overstuffed time-sink of a franchise when it can't guarantee you a steady stream of masterpieces on a regular basis.

Especially with so much more of it coming out now in such a painfully short timespan. Even in Marvel's busiest years, they used to max out at three movies per year and a couple spinoffs like the Netflix shows that you didn't need to watch to feel up to date. You went out to the movies a couple times a year and were basically guaranteed a good movie every time, and that was it. Now, though, with the Disney+ content, it feels like a constant battle to not fall behind, to keep up with tons of stuff you're just kind of enjoying to justify getting to the increasingly few nuggets of true gold. This stuff would need a track record just as good as the Phase 2/3 days to justify sitting through so much of it, and it just... doesn't. And the second you drop off from exhaustion, it's already roaring ahead and leaving you with too much to ever reasonably catch up on if you're not prepared for a couple days of heavy bingeing.

The shared universe model is fucking hard. Every studio's failed attempt to copy Marvel's playbook is a testament to that. The fact it even maintained its cultural domination as long as it did is nothing short of a miracle. Because it turns out, even being consistently good isn't enough to maintain the level of trust and engagement necessary for such a long haul. You need to be consistently excellent. You need audiences to come away from every other event singing your praises as the new gold standard of blockbuster cinema. And the second you can't maintain that standard anymore, all that goodwill slowly bleeds out as more and more people decide that the effort it takes to keep up with everything is no longer worth the reward.

Does the MCU recover from this? I don't know. At this point, what it needs to do more than anything is slow the fuck down instead of overloading audiences with too many shows and movies to keep up with. Maybe it's not the dominant cultural force anymore, but with a little patience and willingness to sacrifice quantity for quality, it can at least re-establish itself as a franchise worth sticking around for. Marvel used to be special; with a little luck, maybe it can be again.

#marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #not anime

13 notes · View notes

jemgirl86 · 4 months

Text

I want someone to explain to me like I’m 5 why that post is in the Sam Wilson tag?

Unless I missed it, they don’t even mention Sam’s name in their rant. They mention the sambucky ship, but they mention it in passing, and they mention it in the same way stickies always mention it when they’re focusing their hate on Peggy - still dismissive, but they’ve reserved all their crazy for her 🤪

Lord I’ll be glad when What If s2 is over, for a variety of reasons tbh.

Again, these Stickies do not give a damn about Sam, they’re just using him as a “valid” excuse to hate a character we all know they hated before Sam even entered the MCU, and that’s when they even remember to mention his actual name in their unhinged rants 🙄

Anyway, would I have loved to see Sam in in What If (as something other than a zombie for five seconds last season)? Of course. Can I think of like 5 plots off the top of my head right now that would’ve been neat to see play out with him? Yup. Hell, can I think of at least 5 post TFATWS projects (NWH, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Ant-Man 3) where he could’ve been referenced or had a seamless cameo? Absolutely. Like, I want to see Sam too. But I’m not about to pretend that the same fandom that has always had smoke for his character suddenly cares lol, and I’m not gonna pretend that they haven’t always hated Peggy either 🤷🏾‍♀️ The North remembers lmao. They would kill that fictional character if they could, and it ain’t got shit to do with her carrying a shield 😭😭

#sam wilson #captain america #i’m so tired of going to sam’s tag and seeing some sticky’s 4 page letter about their ship #at this point i’m willing to go in my pocket to cover their copays because this is ridiculous #spoiler alert: it’s tagged with sam’s name ‘cause they’re truly trying to use this captain carter nonsense to draw ppl into their crazy 🙃

9 notes · View notes

nostalgia-tblr · 11 months

Text

For anyone keeping track (no one), I have started watching the first Avengers film (MCU not the 60s TV show) but only while eating lunch so it's gonna take a while. So far Nick Fury has been assembling the Avengers (the film was initially released in the UK as Avengers Assemble - because of that 60s TV show - but it's not called that on D+ so I'm calling it what the Americans called it, just FYI) even though there's not yet anything for them to avenge as That Suit Guy (j/k I know his name too!!) isn't dead yet, and now they're on THE FUCKING VALIANT FROM DR WHO and I assume we're gonna continue assembling for a while as they're not all there yet.

MEANWHILE Loki (who is neither an alligator nor a woman in this???) is in a SECRET UNDERGROUND LAIR with a bunch of his stans who are... idk something technobabble that involves irridium and anti-protons. He is there looking for the tesseract on behalf of ???? who I know will be revealed 47 films from now as... no, wait, it wasn't, was it? That was just announced on a website or something? So it could be LITERALLY ANYONE. The Avengers (in-progress) also seem to be after that thing, but I have already forgotten why everyone is wanting it, assuming it was mentioned (it probably was).

Thor hasn't shown up yet, but Arrows Hawkeye is working as a Loki Stan and there's Steve Rogers and THE HULK and The Only Woman One, whose power is that she's a Cold War assassin (??) and I think this one is the film where she gets called a cunt (!) and honestly I am not sure which of the men she's getting officially shipped with, I think Arrows Hawkeye though? Fairly sure, as the alternative is that a man and a woman like each other as people but not in a lusty way, which would never happen obviously. (Hey I may ship mostly het* pairings but I don't always like it!)

Based on the Valiant (if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!) I am guessing that the film ends with Loki dying in Thor's arms romantically but then I remembered that I know it can't because one of Loki got kidnapped from... either the end of this film or the start of the next one or POSSIBLY just from a later film's time-travel bit (???) but like... maybe they've edited this film secretly and I was right after all? But nobody else has watched it on Disney + recently so nobody knows yet? IT COULD HAPPEN.

Not sure what to make of this film so far, a lot's been going on yet also not much has been going on, and the one I like best so far (Suit Guy) is gonna die (NOT EVEN IN THOR'S ARMS ROMANTICALLY) and god Iron Man really hasn't aged well now that we have that one tech billionaire being a twat in public all the time to remind us what such people tend to be like. WHERE IS THOR????

*I say het but everyone in everything is bisexual, I know this because I thought of it and announced it on tumblr and will now say "I don't make the rules" to make it an objective FACT. I don't make the rules!!!

#the avengers (mcu edition not the 60s one)#(though if u close one eye and tilt ur head the black widow looks a wee bit like emma peel maybe?)#i like to think the lair of loki stans exists after this to post angrily on social media about how actually he did nothing wrong etc etc #let me know if loki's just working from a subway station that's still in use in this that'd be hilarious he'd be so annoyed by it all #torn on the tortured-by-thanos issue so far he does look messy but he might just have the flu and didn't want to back out #a lot of people are depending on him to jumpstart a movie superhero franchise he can't just take the day off can he #if loki took care of himself thor would be LITERALLY UNEMPLOYED how could he? how could YOU?#(the 'god of thunder' thing isn't a job he doesn't get paid for it so it's just a hobby)#(he doesn't even monetise that hobby! you think iron man would give you storms for free? EXACTLY. he'd have a patreon AT LEAST)#(“if you enjoyed this torrential rain pls tip me on ko-fi which is not pronounced like you think it is because it's a really BAD pun”)#mcu tag i guess #and whatever the fuck my loki character tag was #like i said i really do need to categorise my lokis more it's been bothering me for a while #reminder: i am here because they cast a woman in a previously-male role and SHE'S NOT EVEN IN THIS FILM. OR ANY OF THEM. D:#don't think the alligator's gonna turn up here either :( :( :(#otherwise it's just kind of fascinating what this film assumes i do and don't know about these characters #nick fury's a goth right?

19 notes · View notes

s10127470 · 2 days

Text

The MCU Synergy Problem

It’s been a month since X-Men ‘97 came out, and just about everyone’s has already pointed what makes it so good.

-Staying true to the spirit of the original while still striving for its own identity

-Staying true to the characterization and depiction of the characters, and in some cases, improving on their characterization such as in the case of Jean Grey and especially Morph.

-Introducing new concepts, elements and characters that haven’t been explored in other adaptations yet.

-Having so many callbacks to the original while not coming off as nostalgia pandering.

-The animation and action! MY GOD! The animation and action!

Really, the only problem people have with this show is the weird love triangle between Rogue, Gambit and Magneto.

We already had to deal with the infamous love triangle Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine in the original, we did not need this.

Not only is this just unnecessary, it’s also just weird since in the original, it was never even implied that Rogue or Magneto had any sort of history between each other at all.

But here, they met during Rogue’s days with the Brotherhood. And I think when they met, Rogue was still a teenager.

During that time, the two grew an attraction towards each other and although it’s not explicitly stated, it is implied that they did….ya know…

youtube

Man….

Although I do enjoy Magneto, unlike a lot of other people, I can acknowledge that he’s kind of an awful person.

He’s a supremacist, a terrorist, a mass murderer, a violent, abusive psychopath, and a deadbeat father (well, when he used to be a father but we’ll get to that soon).

But never though that “groomer” would be an addition to that list as well.

All I can say is that….if this show took place in the modern day, Magneto ain’t beating any allegations.

youtube

But besides all that, another major positive people have with this show is just how….comic booky it feels, which is something that’s been lacking with a lot of Marvel content for the better of a decade now.

But before we get into that, let’s take a little history lesson.

Marvel was founded all the way back in 1939 by Martin Goodman….but it wasn’t called Marvel at first, it was actually called Timely Comics. But by 1951, the name of the brand was changed to Atlas Comics.

During this era, the comics saw the introduction of several characters include The Human Torch (the android), The Whizzer, Miss America, The Destroyer, the original Vision and The Angel.

But the two most notable characters introduced during this time were none other than the patriotic fighter of justice Captain America and the anti-heroic aquatic incel Namor the Sub-Mariner.

But Marvel would become the comic book powerhouse we know them as today starting in April of 1961, when Altas Comics was changed to be part of the newly-named Marvel Comics brand, helmed by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

And over the course of the 1960s, Marvel would not only quickly become the biggest name in the comic industry (only being rivaled by who else, but DC), but also introduce many of their most recognizable stars.

This would include the likes of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Iron Man, The X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, The Inhumans, Black Panther, The Silver Surfer, Black Widow and Hawkeye, and of course, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

And in addition to tons of, in the words of Yogurt…..

youtube

Marvel would also see plenty of entries into the wider world of television.

From the anthology series Marvel Super Heroes, to the acclaimed five-season run of The Incredible Hulk starring the legendary bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, to the absolute meme-fest that was the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon.

But Marvel really found their footing amongst the public consensus in the 1990s, largely thanks to their animated shows.

We had X-Men ‘92, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Fantastic Four ‘94, and The Incredible Hulk ‘96.

What made these shows stand out from their predecessors was that they strived to actually be adaptations of their respective comics.

Yeah, prior to these shows, all of the cartoons were largely villain-of-the-week shows with little to no continuity and apart from the characters, didn’t really take a whole lot from their source material.

But these shows actually went out of their way to actually adapt storylines from the comics, had ongoing plots, and much stronger characterization than before.

And even besides that and of course, merchandising, Marvel was making quite the name for itself in the world of video games. Most notably the ones that were made by Capcom, which included the likes of The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, and most famously of all, Marvel vs. Capcom.

Their status among the public consensus became even stronger when the 21st century rolled around.

This was largely thanks to the multiple films based on Marvel Comics properties that came out during the 2000s.

This included the likes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk film, Tim Story’s Fantastic Four duology, Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, and (Sirs whose names will not be mentioned here at all)’s X-Men series.

And apart from the merchandising (which was stronger than ever before thanks, the 2000s would also see some of the best video games based off the Marvel Comics and its IPs.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: A New Age of Heroes, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Legends and its sequel Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Spidey himself had a multiple of great games from this era.

From ones based off his cinematic outings, to ones based off his alternate universe escapades (Ultimate Spider-Man), to ones that featured the characters’ worst voice actor to date and was responsible giving us that famous depressed Spidey walking meme (Web of Shadows).

But everything would change for Marvel in 2008 with the release of….

youtube

This film would not only serve as the invincible armored Avenger’s first outing on the big screen, but would also be the start of one of the most well-known and influential pieces of media in Marvel’s entire history…..

The Marvel….Cinematic….Universe….

Just about everyone knows about the MCU.

It only not made the characters of Marvel even bigger than before (along with introducing some of the more lesser-known characters to the general public), but also helped popularized the concept of the shared cinematic universe in general.

The franchise has gone on to become one of, if not, the biggest and most successful film franchise in history and has left a major impact on the world of cinema and even Marvel themselves.

And unfortunately, not really for the better…..

Everyone has already pointed how much of a negative influence the MCU has had on the media we consume.

From the multiple failed attempts from studios who desperately wanted to trend chase by making their own cinematic universe, only for these attempts to end up being massive failures, to a lot of writing in many films post-Avengers having this quippy and observational sort-of-write that while beloved at first, has gone on to become seen as annoying and tiresome…..

But I really want to focus on the effect it’s had on Marvel as a whole.

To start this off, let’s look the place where this MCU effect has been the biggest problem…..and it’s ironically enough, the comics.

Ever since MCU began, Marvel has been adapting elements from the MCU into the comics, which became especially more apparent after the first Avengers film.

And while Marvel is no stranger to adapting elements from Marvel media outside the comics, it’s never been to this extent.

This synergy has seen major changes in the appearances and characterization in many of its characters, including…..

-Iron Man being portrayed as far more snarky and quippy than he previously was. At first, people were on board with this change, not only because people liked Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal, but also because during the mid-2000s, Iron Man was not a popular character. Not in the frankly overused and tired “nobody knew who Iron Man was prior to the release of the first film” way. But more in the sense that everyone hated him during that time. This was largely thanks to the absolute clusterfuck known as Civil War, which turned Iron Man into a full-on villain. Plus he was indirectly responsible for One More Day, aka the worst Spider-Man story ever written.

-Loki became far more heroic and started looking and acting more like his MCU counterpart. Hell, the Loki we know today isn’t the same one introduced back in the 1960s. That Loki died all the way back in 2010, and the one we know today is essentially his reincarnation. And this reincarnation was not only introduced in the exact same year that the first Thor movie released, but in the exact same month as well!

-Thor started acting far more goofy and air-headed like his MCU counterpart following Thor: Raganrok.

-Hawkeye started giving off what could be best described as “uwu small bean tired dad” in the Matt Fraction run, which started just 4 months after the first Avengers film.

-Agatha Harkness having her appearance changed into that of a much younger woman following Wandavision.

-Introducing the Ten Rings following Shang-Chi, and having the titular hero being the user of them instead of just being Bruce Lee like he had been for last 50 years.

-Literally everything involving the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Its also led to tons of the characters getting somewhat phased out like….

-Iron Fist, due to the poor reception of his MCU show and complaints towards him being a “white savior”.

-Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, aka the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, who were also two of the five founding members of the Avengers. But despite that, neither of them appeared in the first Avengers film. And although it was a loose adaptation of The Ultimates, Hank and Janet were still present in that story as founding members of the titular team. Hell, Hank definitely has this the worst as he was killed off back in 2015, and was only recently brought back from the dead…..and he’s an old man now. I wonder why?

-Valkyrie, who was not only killed off permanently after Thor Ragnarök, but replaced with not one, but two characters very similar to the Valkyrie that appears in Ragnarök.

-The Inhumans, who had a major push in relevancy in order to promote their upcoming movie and TV show. But after the former got cancelled and the latter ended up being a massive flop, they ended up being banished to the shadow realm and barely acknowledged anymore. Also, the reason for their push plays into a later point.

-Quicksilver, which also plays into that later point I just mentioned.

-Black Panther, who Marvel seems to be somewhat edging out in the comics literally because of Chadwick Boseman’s passing.

And worse of all, retcons……such as…..

-Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being revealed to have never been Magneto’s children nor mutants at all….shortly after the release of Age of Ultron.

-Shang Chi’s biracial heritage being rewritten to have him being fully Asian shortly after his film.

-Nebula, in addition to being made to look and act more like the movie version, also was revealed to be Thanos’ adopted daughter and Gamora’s sister….just like in the movies.

-Ms. Marvel being revealed to have been mutant all along instead of an Inhuman…..just months before the release of The Marvels.

-Thor and the other Asgardians are not mythical beings, but actually aliens who were mistaken for gods by humanity….who just so happen to use magic (yeah this is a weird one because it constantly keeps flip-flopping between one or the other).

-Nick Fury being revealed to have had an illegitimate son who looks exactly like the MCU Nick Fury, who himself was based on the Ultimate Universe version of Nick Fury, who was African-American and modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. This is really weird because if they wanted a Samuel L. Jackson inspired Nick Fury, they could’ve easily just waited for the 2015 Secret Wars event and just had the Ultimate Nick Fury be one of the surviving inhabitants of the Ultimate Universe to be brought over to the 616 Universe along with Miles Morales, The Maker, and that son of Wolverine everyone forgot the existence of (even Marvel themselves!).

So yeah, as you can see, this is quite a problem.

Marvel has essentially been trying to make the comics resemble the movies rather than the other way around.

Which has not only gotten annoying and tiresome, but it’s also pretty disingenuous.

I mean, you’re pulling from a source material that has literal decades of content and lore to use, and now you’re actively trying change and contradict that lore just because of a series of movies adapting said source material?

This is obviously because they’re trying to appeal to new Marvel readers who came right from the movies.

But for some reason, Marvel seems to believe that general audiences have never heard the word “adaptation” before.

But this isn’t just an issue for the comics, it’s also an issue for…..pretty much every medium Marvel can be represented in.

For over a decade, Marvel has been essentially trying to push the MCU as the default everything.

Anything Marvel related: it all has to be similar to the MCU and barely anything else. And if it can, just utilize any of the comics written post 2010.

It’s pretty much the same problem that a lot of recent Spider-Man media suffers from.

When they’re adapting stuff, it’s almost always from the cartoons, Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man.

And this has often come to the detriment of many of the non-MCU projects released during the 2010s.

Three of the best examples of this I could think of were Avengers Assemble, Square Enix’s Avengers, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.

Avengers Assemble is famous for being the Marvel cartoon that was only created just to ride on the success of the first Avengers film.

But in spite of this, it was apparent during the first two season that this show was striving to have its own identity. Specifically utilizing some of the lesser-known faces of Marvel.

But as the series went on, the MCU got bigger and bigger. And as a result, the show started to get bogged down by MCU synergy.

From having storylines that were obviously done to tie into whatever movie came out not that long ago, or even changing characters appearances in order to better reflect their MCU counterparts.

The best example of the latter was with Falcon, who was a member of the main cast.

During the first three seasons, he actually stood out from the rest of the team visually as his outfit wasn’t trying to emulate the MCU.

It wasn’t emulating the comics either because I think that outfit of his was wholly original to this show.

But during season 4, Falcon ends up going through a time warp. And when he comes out, he’s been aged up from a young college-aged man to a grown man around the Avengers’ ambiguous age range and is wearing an outfit similar to his MCU counterpart.

Now we come to Square Enix’s Avengers.

My God…..was there anything this game did remotely right?

Or at least competently?

And one of the many flaws of this game was its roster.

And this actually plays into another major point on how stifling MCU synergy is.

Ever since the first Avengers movie, whenever the titular Avengers appear in just about anything, they’re almost always shown having the same roster.

That being Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Sometimes there will be other members like Falcon, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Vision and Captain Marvel, but that’s because those guys are also major names in the MCU as well.

Like for God’s sake, switch it up a bit!

For the next major thing the Avengers appear in, how about we have a roster based on like…..

The Heroes Return roster, or the Hickman roster, or the Englehart roster, or the New Avengers roster, or the Stern roster, or the West Coast roster, or even the Classic roster!

But back to the Avengers game, they didn’t even commit to that never-changing roster I just mentioned!

When the game released, the Avengers video game had Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Black Widow as the main Avengers roster until Ms. Marvel joined up.

Yeah, Hawkeye didn’t appear as a part of the roster until his own DLC with Kate Bishop!

As for the other additions to the roster, we had Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier and the Jane Foster Thor.

youtube

Yeah, when looking at this game as an adaptation of the comics (which it barely was), the roster is absolutely pathetic when you look at the INSANE amount of members the Avengers have had over the decades.

And when looking at this game as an adaptation of the MCU, it didn’t even commit to that!

This is even more of the case when you look at the list of characters they initially had planned, but they obviously had to drastically cut all that for the sake of time constraints.

Hell, if you want to see something really sad, just look at the villain roster.

Over the 3 years this game was around, it only gave us 4 (yes 4) villains.

M.O.D.O.K., Taskmaster, The Abomination and Klaw….

Yep! Just these four schmucks!

No Red Skull, no Mandarin, no Baron Zemo, no Leader, no Ultron, no Kang the Conqueror, no Absorbing Man, no Wrecking Crew, no Enchantress, no Whirlwind, no Crimson Dynamo, no Circus of Crime….

Hell, they don’t even have Loki, the most popular and well-known Avengers villain!

It’s even more sadder when you consider the DLCs, i.e Spider-Man, who despite having undoubtedly the most well-known rogues gallery in all of Marvel, not one of them appear at all in his DLC!

youtube

In the wise words of a young redheaded YouTuber who likes to talk about Spidey….

“How easily you got showed up by Fortnite!”

If you want more detail on the history of this game and what went wrong, I suggest watching Matt McMuscles’ What Happened video on the game, but basically the reason that the game was the way that it was due to the laziness and apathy of Square Enix, the inexperience and slight incompetence of Crystal Dynamics, having WAY too many cooks in the kitchen (i.e., they worked with five studios, all of which were located in different parts of the world), and most of all, the utter greed of Marvel.

And funnily enough, this game ties into my next talking point…

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite! The fourth and possibly final game in the series….and is regarded by just about everyone to be the weakest game as well.

Just like Avengers, one of (if not) the biggest criticisms of this game was the roster.

Infinite had a roster of about 36 characters, having the second smallest roster in the series’ history, only surpassing Clash of Heroes’ 15.

This was quite the surprise when compared to the previous game, 3’s 48 characters and especially 2: A New Age’s 56.

As for the roster itself, it was made up of both veteran characters and new characters.

Returning from the previous game, we had Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Ghost Rider, Nova and Rocket Raccoon.

Also returning were two faces that hadn’t been seen since 2: Venom and Thanos.

As for the new characters, we had Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Gamora and Ultron.

Yeah not exactly the most interesting roster.

And I’m sure many of you noticed by now, there’s something notable characters missing from the roster.

Namely the X-Men, their villains and Doctor Doom, all of whom have been staples of the franchise since the beginning.

And there’s a reason for that….

A very, scummy reason….

I already mentioned this in my X-Men: The Next Mutation post, but it does bare repeating her.

As the MCU became more popular, Marvel became focusing on pushing the Avengers as their premiere superhero team, with the Fantastic Four and X-Men essentially being dethroned.

Along with that, their relevance in the comics notably began to degraded, and barely began making appearances in media outside the comics.

The reason for this, apart from Marvel focusing on cashing in on the Avengers, was because despite still owning the overall rights for the FF and X-Men (which, why wouldn’t they?), their film rights were still owned by 20th Century Fox.

Since Fox was pretty much a rival company to Marvel until Disney bought them out, Marvel basically saw any form of FF and X-Men representation as free-marketing for Fox.

So they decided to essentially not to allow any FF or X-Men related characters to appear in any media outside the comics and even reduced their overall presence as well.

Which is why Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the other non X-Men mutants were retconned into not being mutants, why Quicksilver himself has been sort of been an afterthought in recent years, why the Inhumans were pushed so hard, and why the FF and X-Men characters weren’t in this game.

Plus the justifications and excuses for this from the developers are absolutely hilarious, because you can just tell that they’re lying through their teeth while being held up at gunpoint by a bunch of Marvel executives.

Oh yeah, let’s bring up the other biggest elephant in the room and want led to Square Enix developing Avengers.

After Infinite came out and got quickly abandoned by the player-base, many people at Capcom have come out to reveal just how awful is was working with Marvel and Disney.

They weren’t just pushy with who and who couldn’t be in the roster.

They were also pushy about how the characters that would be in the roster would be portrayed (specifically wanting them to heavily resemble their MCU iterations) and even changing their themes to be exactly like the MCU ones.

Hell, this pushiness was so bad that for the trailers, they did not want the Marvel characters to be depicted as losing!

This was also an issue back during 3 as well, but it was essentially amplified during this game.

This really shows just how petty Marvel really is….

They’re willing to ignore and downplay the existence of two major players of their brand that people have loved for decades and were created by the two men them helped make the company they are today.

They’re unwilling to compromise and it has to be their way or the highway.

And this pettiness eventually came to bite them in the ass as Capcom’s statements about working with them eventually reached many of the other big video game developers.

And soon enough, when Marvel was trying to find someone to develop Avengers, none of the big game developers wanted anything to do with it!

Eventually, they did find a developer with Square Enix, who already had experience working with Disney via Kingdom Hearts.

It’s actually ironically hilarious that the heads at Marvel believed all three of these projects would actually be successful because of the MCU synergy, but they all ended up being flops because of said MCU synergy!

But this desire for MCU synergy has not only negatively affected non-MCU project of this time, but even ones that either came out before this desire or….never came out at all.

I’m sure many of you remember The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

This show was essentially a love letter to the Silver Age comics of Marvel and strived to be an near-faithful adaptation of many classic and even recent Avengers storylines, while also having its own unique spin on it.

Hell, in some cases, the EMH versions of these storylines are actually better than the originals, especially in the case of Secret Invasion.

Sadly, the show got cancelled in 2012 after 2 seasons and 52 episodes…and to this day, EMH probably has one of the dumbest and scummiest reasons for cancellation in television animation history.

The reason this show was cancelled because Marvel wanted to replace with it a show that was more in-line with the MCU, aka Avengers Assemble.

Yep! Not low ratings. Not bad critical reception. Not budgetary reasons. Hell, not even bad toy sales, which was a major reason for a lot of action cartoons around this time getting the axe!

And it doesn’t get much better from here.

During the 2010s, there were a lot of promising Marvel projects that never saw the light of the day, with two of the most notable being the animated Deadpool series and Marvel Era.

youtube

Following the success of 2016 film, FX and Marvel Television decided to collaborate to created an animated series based on the merc with the mouth, with Donald Glover (yes, that Donald Glover) being one of the main showrunners, alongside his brother Stephen.

However, the series was cancelled almost a year within its development, with the main reason being that Marvel wasn't particularly big on the vision that the Glovers had for this series.

And apart Donald speculating racism on Marvel’s part (which given that Jeph Loeb was meant to be an executive producer on this series, that possibly could be the case), another possible factor for the show’s cancellation was because of Deadpool’s connection with the X-Men, and during this show’s production, Marvel was still in their “the X-Men don’t matter anymore” phase.

And it really sucks because the pitch animation for this was really good and made this seem like it was going to be a very fun show.

New we come to Marvel Era.

youtube

Out of all the cancelled projects, this was perhaps the most interesting.

Marking a first for their animated shows, this would’ve been an anthology series released in 2014 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Marvel Comics.

It was going to be produced by Powerhouse Animation (best known for Netflix’s Castlevania series) and it was gonna have 7 stories, with each one being themed around a different decade and focusing on a different character.

There would’ve been a 40s story focusing on Captain America, a 50s story focusing on either Wolverine or Namor the Sub-Mariner, a 60s story focusing on the X-Men, a 70s story focusing on The Heroes for Hire, a 80s story focusing on The Punisher, a 90s story focusing on the aforementioned Deadpool, and a 2000s story focusing on Captain Marvel.

This honestly seemed like it was going to be a really great show, which was enhanced by the absolutely gorgeous animation of the pitch trailer.

Unfortunately, Powerhouse announced that the project was cancelled because it wasn’t what Marvel Television were focusing on.

Which is code for: Marvel didn’t want it because it wasn’t MCU adjacent….

To wrap this up, I just wanted to bring up the reason I made this in the first place.

Over the last few weeks, there was a leak for a upcoming episode of X-Men ‘97, which showed a shot of Captain America’s shield.

And this led many people to somewhat groan, believing that this was yet another case of MCU synergy.

And although this was proven to be false, it really does speak volume with how much influence the MCU has had.

Although it has brought lot of Marvel’s star characters into the mainstream, the MCU has shaped and changed them so much, that it seems like they can no longer exist as characters who have existed for literal DECADES.

They always have to be associated with a film franchise that has existed for about 1/6 of their existence in fiction.

But I think the biggest takeaway to all this is that this constant MCU synergy kinda shows a lack of reverence for Marvel’s legacy.

Look at this merchandising from the 2010s and 2020s....

In most of this merchandise, the character roster featured is almost always the same.

The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Web Warriors, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Inhumans were also apart of this roster until, as I mentioned earlier, got banished to the Shadow Realm....

Occasionally you'll get some of the other cosmic characters like Nova, She-Hulk and some of the street-level heroes like Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and The Heroes for Hire.

But those are few and far between.

But other than that, it's largely the four I mentioned earlier.

Because they're the main faces of the MCU, and as we all know, everything has to be related to the MCU in some way....

But now let's compare that to some Marvel merchandising from the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s....

Upon seeing this, you can tell that there’s a far greater sense of appreciation for Marvel.

This merchandising pulls from nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe you can think off and features characters from the heavy hitters, to the borderline obscure.

Plus it still heavily features the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters, who, may I remind you, spent a good chunk of the 2010s having their presence greatly reduced and their existence constantly threatened or denied because of movie rights!

All in all, Marvel really needs to stop the MCU synergy.

In spite of what they think, it’s clearly done nothing but harm and stifle many potentially good (even great) projects.

Not only that, but it’s also gonna start harming the Marvel brand itself with how homogenized they’ve made everything and the rapidly increasing lack of interest in the MCU.

Plus its also brought out the worst in Marvel.

From cancelling projects for stupid reasons, to showing a lack of respect for the legacy they’ve build, to literally being difficult to work with because of how they want everything to be their way.

But things do seem to be looking up a bit….

There’s been the multiple of Spider-Man media of the last few years , which has been one of the few Marvel projects that aren’t bogged down by MCU synergy.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur also ended being shockingly really good, and although it does have some MCU synergy, it’s pretty minor.

And now we have X-Men ‘97.

It does appear that there’s some kind of movement in Marvel to actually start making projects again that aren’t being made to be a glorified MCU circle-jerks.

And hopefully, this could led to some really unique and interesting projects, specifically for this year.

Since remember, this year marks the 85th anniversary of Marvel Comics, so that’s pretty big!

But then again, their corporate overlord had an utter embarrassment of a year for their centennial….

And Marvel themselves also contributed to that as well….

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #mcu synergy #disney #xmen 97 #avengers assemble #marvel vs capcom #deadpool #but seriously please the stop the MCU synergy it’s has been so. fucking. annoying.#avengers earth's mightiest heroes #Youtube

5 notes · View notes

makkarisbelova · 2 years

Text

Y’all my jaw is still ON THE FLOOR I am so fucking ecstatic that we are getting MATT MURDOCK BACK!!! We’re getting him in She-Hulk, we’re getting him in Echo, but most importantly we’re getting 18 FULL EPISODES OF DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN!!!

Now as soon as I saw that title it had me so stoked because, if you didn’t already know, one of the most iconic Daredevil comics in existence is Frank Miller’s Daredevil: Bon Again. However, season 3 of Daredevil was already (very) loosely based off of this comic which made me confused as to why they would name the new series this as well. But there are so so SO many things that happen in Born Again that never happened in season 3 and so many potential things that they could do in these 18 episodes so I’m going to break down the stuff they might end up including in the show! Let’s get into it:

So in Born Again, Fisk is still very much the main villain which would make sense considering Marvel’s re-introduction of Kingpin in Hawkeye so they clearly need him for a reason. Fisk in this comic is BRUTAL though. He makes Matt’s life a living hell. Matt’s identity gets exposed, Fisk has Matt’s accounts frozen, forces him into homelessness, and frames him for bribing a witness which he doesn’t end up getting arrested for but still gets disbarred. (He also ends up working at a diner— that later then gets blown up but that’s not the point— which I think would be so funny to see in the new series, because Charlie’s Matt is so not the waitor type and so he’d have such a “fuck my life” expression while taking orders— plus the blind waitor jokes would probably be numerous LOL)

Now I know we’ve already seen Fisk vs. Matt and if they were to simply bring that rivalry back I think it might be a bit tired, but I think the idea of Matt Murdock’s identity being exposed would be a really interesting element to play around with in the show because heroes like the Avengers and the majority of the heroes from phases 1-3 were accustomed to their human identities being known and it was the norm, so having it be an adjustment for Matt would be kind of fun. Plus, Peter in NWH met him and Matt represented him so even though he’s technically supposed to have forgotten Peter, maybe Spiderman popping in to help him through the tough bits of being known might help? And it would be the perfect way to have Peter re-introduce himself!! Just saying!! (she says casually, while secretly trying to manifest it in her head with the determination of a thousand suns)

Obviously there are other parts of Born Again I reaaaaally do NOT see them ever adapting, such as the part where Karen flees to New Mexico and gets AIDS from being a solicitor, and Matt’s other girlfriend breaks up with him and then hooks up with Foggy as like a rebound thing which just— no. The Nelson & Murdock we know have a bromance too strong for that shit.

But who knows? There are plenty of things that happen in this comic so there’s a lot of potential, and there are hundreds other comics they can pull inspo from— and that’s not even including what they’ve already set up in the MCU!!! Let me know your thoughts on what you’re hoping to see in the series!

#marvel #mcu #matt murdock #foggy nelson #karen page #daredevil #daredevil: born again #born again #frank miller #charlie cox #marvel phase 5 #sdcc #phase five #mcu phase 5

60 notes · View notes

litcityblues · 5 months

Text

Loki Season 2 & What Should Have Happened With The MCU

I think it’s safe to say that at this point, the MCU has hit a rough patch- but the weirdly frustrating thing about navigating said rough patch is that a lot of the content they’ve put out has not been bad. In fact, some of it has been good to downright excellent, but the problem is that there’s been way too much of it.

Loki is firmly in the ‘downright excellent’ category. You actually see some of that old MCU magic at play here. There’s a unique visual style. Good characters. It’s obviously a key piece of the multiverse saga, but the frustrating part is that they didn’t really treat it like that until the end of the second season where Loki’s position in the multiverse becomes very apparent indeed. (Also that there gets to be a Multiverse full stop.) Leaving aside the Kang speculation for awhile, I think it’s worth looking at everything that’s come out since Endgame and really assessing what was necessary and what wasn’t. I think (and you won’t convince me of anything else) that a firehose of content was what undid them here. When it becomes a chore to keep track of whatever is going on in the MCU, you’re going to see diminishing returns and that’s exactly what has happened.

So, if I’m an agent of the TVA and going back in time to try and fix this, this is what I’d probably do:

Far From Home: Keep

Black Widow: Keep

Shang-Chi: Ditch- though you can make a case for doing a release purely aimed at the Asian markets and/or making this an Iron Fist sequel where you clean up the obviously problematic things– but this movie was decent, but wasn’t really an ‘event’ for me.

Eternals: Ditch- I don’t mind the Eternals and it feels like an unusual departure and an attempt at trying something a little different for Marvel, so points for that. But without a plan of how to integrate them into the wider narrative, it feels like a wasted opportunity. (And they hinted at that with the Black Knight/Harry Styles cameo at the end- and then nothing happened with either of those characters as far as I can tell. Plus people keep rightly pointing out that there's a GIANT HAND coming out of the ocean that NO ONE in the MCU has mentioned since.)

No Way Home: Keep

Multiverse of Madness: Keep

Love and Thunder: Ditch- Something’s gotta go?

Wakanda Forever: Keep

Quantumania: Ditch- If the Eternals were trying something new with no integration into the wider narrative, Quantumania had the opposite problem. It was a chapter of the wider narrative that completely subsumed anything entertaining about the film. This should have been Avatar for the MCU.

GoTG 3: Keep

The Marvels: Keep- but I saw some decent criticism that pointed out that it’s hard to root for a character who is so damn powerful. Hopefully, the introduction of The X-Men gives them the opportunity to explore some storylines.

WandaVision: Keep

The Falcon and Winter Soldier: Should Have Been A Movie

Loki: Keep (obviously)

What If?: Keep

Hawkeye: Keep

Moon Knight: Should have been introduced somewhere else, but I appreciate the concept and how they portrayed it, but I’d say Ditch.

Ms. Marvel: Keep

She-Hulk: Keep

Secret Invasion: Should Have Been A Movie

Loki 2: Keep (obviously)

So, you’d go from 21 projects between streaming and movies down to 14 and suddenly the fire hose becomes a bit more manageable to me. I would have also led off with Loki as soon as practicable after Endgame so you could lay down the seeds of Kang (or whomever) and establish the Multiversity of it all. Wandavision does lead into Dr. Strange 2 quite nicely and the Spiderman movies tie in quite nicely as well with Dr. Strange and then the Spider-verse uniting with Andrew Garfield and Toby McGuire in No Way Home. Making Loki more of the centerpiece and turning down the firehose of content would have made the impact of the end of Season 2 land more impactfully I think.

Whatever you do- if you're moving into a Multiverse Saga then everything should have some connective tissue to that central concept and a lot of it doesn't-- some of that is probably down to the business of movies-- you're going to have some sequels, but again. 'less is more'.

(I am a big believer in the idea of ‘less is more’ for the MCU– but fight me in the comments if you don’t like what I’ve pruned from the timeline.)

But, Loki Season 2: The story picks up from Season 1- where Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) has killed He Who Remains and thrown the TVA and the timeline into chaos. Without He Who Remains guarding the sacred timeline, the branches are growing out of control and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been afflicted with time-slipping that he cannot (at least at first)- but he and Mobius (Owen Wilson) go to TVA Technician Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) to try and figure out what's going on with Loki and prevent the Time Loom from going critical and exploding- which Loki sees in a vision of the future before he time slips again.

Loki, Mobius, and their allies in the TVA decide they need to find Sylvie-- but it turns out that's not the answer to their problems either, so they try and track down Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) and Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and find another of He Who Remains variants, Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors) instead. Everything keeps coming back to the Loom. They keep trying and trying to save it but eventually, Loki realizes that there is only one thing he can do to save his friends and, perhaps more importantly, reality itself: he goes out into the Loom and it explodes anyway, but Loki keeps going, realizing that his abilities can rejuvenate the branches and, rearranges them into a tree-like structure and becomes not the God of Mischief, but the God of Stories, overseeing the branches alone at the end of time.

The TVA dedicates itself to finding the variants of who remains across the timeline and stopping them and Mobius retires from the TVA.

Overall: Satisfying and perfect and a great way to wrap up this character's journey through the MCU, Loki Season 2 should be the capstone to Tom Hiddleston's role. Don't bring him back. Don't reboot him. Don't. Do. Anything. Else. (Unless it's very well-written and MAKES SENSE in terms of your larger narrative.) I love the sets in this show. I love the color palette of this show. I love the cast in this show-- Jonathan Majors gives an excellent performance as Victor TImely. Ke Huy Quan is a perfect addition to the cast as OB and they bring the story to a close perfectly.

However- as I said above, if Marvel had slowed down the fire hose of content and committed to investing in fewer shows with higher quality writing/sets/casts, etc- I think they'd be in a lot better position. That's not to say that both seasons of Loki aren't important in the current scheme of the MCU-- they obviously are, but because of the firehose of content that Marvel unleashed, they are decidedly not the appointment viewing that they should have been. It's not quite as frustrating to think about as it is when you watch Secret Invasion which was a criminal waste of both Samuel L. Jackson and Olivia Colman and should have been a movie, but there's some frustration here. This show is very, very good. It got robbed of some of its flowers because Marvel decided that more is more, when in fact, less would have been better.

My Grade: **** out of **** One of the best MCU shows hands down. Could have been even better though.

#loki season 2 #mcu #marvel

2 notes · View notes

quietfounder · 1 year

Text

Everyone remember this series?

This was the first Marvel live-action show I actually got into.

I know it’s been almost four years since it was canceled but I’ve been hoping it’ll eventually be revived since it’s streaming on Disney+ and it has continued shows from other networks.

Although, if it does end up on there, I’ll have to consider what it’ll mean for the series in the long run if it streams exclusively on D+ because based on most of their marvel stuff, they don’t really “do” seasons:

WandaVision (9 episodes)

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (6 episodes)

Hawkeye (6 episodes)

Moon Knight (6 episodes)

Ms. Marvel (6 episodes)

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (9 episodes)

But it’s not always like this with Loki (renewed for season 2) and What If...? (renewed for seasons 2 and 3) being examples so I guess I’ll have to wait and see for their future content.

However, if that does happen I think we have to consider how the MCU has this tendency to have everything connected and most of the shows I listed are just setting up for something else (ex. movies) and I would like very much if Cloak & Dagger remained its own thing, outside of a few references.

If not on Disney+, I can see Cloak & Dagger continuing on Hulu with it already streaming there.

It could work they probably would have drop Marvel from their name in order to continue, like with Hit-Monkey though that was under different circumstances I think. I seriously thought that series was canceled until I heard it got renewed for season 2 this year.

Or maybe Cloak & Dagger could come back as an animated series. I mean Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt voiced their characters in the Spider-Man 2017 series so it could happen.

#marvel #marvel's cloak and dagger #cloak and dagger #cloak & dagger #disney+#disney plus #hulu

8 notes · View notes

jovenshires · 6 months

Note

If Spencer is Spider-Man, do you have any ideas on who in the Smosh crew would be certain Marvel heroes?

okay SO. i have been thinking ab this a little bit, bc i would like to expand the spidey au universe to other heroes. BUT im not gonna talk ab what im gonna do with the spidey au (spoilers lads <3). instead im gonna talk ab vibes. who do i think these people could be hypothetically! there's like one spoiler in here but otherwise none of this has anything to do with the canon for my spidey-spencer-verse.

also i wanna say before i get into this - DISCLAIMER: idk jack shit ab comics and i don't keep up with mcu anymore so. we're flying blind baby! i am making shit up as i go!

amanda: @blandview and i talked ab this and i think we came to a few conclusions: either she'd be black widow yelena OR she'd be an anti-hero of some kind. think elektra, think black cat... yeah she's got options.

angela: okay blandview also suggested this one: kate bishop hawkeye. we are taking no criticisms at this time.

anthony: god...... i could go so many directions but my heart longs to make him a villain/anti-hero. he's so morally gray-coded imo. magneto perhaps. other options are loki and wolverine.

arasha: there's so many options here too but i kind of like miss america for her i think!!

chanse: i mean he's miles morales. spencer is peter parker and he is miles morales end of sentence. BUT if i had to pick a non-spidey option, probably wiccan. i wanna give him magic powers so sue me!! oh or maybe iron lad. those are my faves for him

courtney: SO captain marvel coded for many many reasons. like i don't even think i need to explain this one tbh

damien: okay im thinking of making him part of the hero verse in the spidey fic so i am seriously considering this one... on the one hand like. cyclops. he is so classic x-men to me. daredevil could be fun and sexy for him. oh OR the hulk bc he's bruce banner-coded.

ian: so ive got some ops here: to match anthony. professor x. obviously. OR ant-man. do you see my vision. he looks like that.

jackie: scarlet witch was my first thought! mostly bc i could see her tearing apart the universe for love tbh (i did not watch wandavision but that trope sticks with me)

keith: does keith even want to be part of this. no probably not. maybe gambit or star-lord?? i literally cannot picture him doing this non-reluctantly and that's clouding my vision i think DKNGKNGK

kimmy: specifically jane forester thor perhaps. dazzler or jubilee could be fun for her too!!

noah: out of Everyone, noah is voted most likely to be deadpool imo. i could also see him as quicksilver bc little shit (affectionate)

shayne: i mean. thats captain america. look at him. once again i am done speaking thats it.

tommy: god... tommy is the toughest one. he's so normie in a hero world to me. like 'same shit as always' going to work while everyone out there being insane. angel?? he's also kinda x-men coded to me. otherwise....... winter soldier? i'll be real i got Nothin for that one chief.

anyway hope this was not too much of a disaster love ya bye xxx

#ask #asks #anon #anonymous #long post

3 notes · View notes

spidermook · 9 months

Text

Ranking the MCU shows cause I'm bored and think I have controversial opinions.

1. Wandavision (Feel like this one is obvious.)

2. She-Hulk (Pure fun for me, has problems but all of these shows do and I see through this one the most.)

3. Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Seeing the boys hanging out is worth the price of admission for me. Wish villains were better.)

4. Loki (Character interactions are very fun for me but I felt this was over-hyped. I just never really understood why this is considered so good, maybe I need a rewatch)

5. Hawkeye (I still enjoyed this one! Even though it's pretty low on this ranking, I really liked Kate Bishop and hope to see her again soon.)

6. Ms. Marvel (I really liked the first episode but the plot got really bloated and convoluted real fast. Kamala is still really charming though.)

7. Moon Knight (I didn't enjoy this one much, I almost fell asleep during the finale. I rewatched it to make sure I just wasn't biased but I still don't find much to latch onto here. Characters aren't super interesting, Action is okay. I don't think this is bad, I just can't call it good either.)

8. Secret Invasion (I kept waiting for the rug pull that would make this show amazing. I was waiting for some crazy twist that they were saving would amaze me and make this all feel worthwhile. It didn't happen.)

#marvel mcu #mcu #disney plus #secret invasion #wandavision #hawkeye #loki #moon knight #she hulk #marvel tv

4 notes · View notes

dvaderstark · 1 year

Text

My opinion on the Multiverse Saga so far.

So I know that Phase 4 was incredibly divisive and with Quantumania’s reception Phase 5 has already started the same trend. I don’t know if I am just easily pleasable but here are just quick thoughts on the Multiverse Saga.

WandaVision- Outside of having mild issues with the finale, great show. 9/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier- Loved Walker. I mean I liked other things but by himself I loved this show. I thought the Flag Smashers were interesting but not too sympathetic in the grand deal. 8/10

Loki- Fantastic show. Enjoyed every character. HWR is fantastic in the finale. Favorite D+ show so far. 10/10

Black Widow- Fairly standard MCU movie. I liked Natasha and her family, Yelena especially. Also while I was not outraged, Taskmaster was boring. 6.5/10

What If?- Outside of some continuity issues, namely I am still confused as to how Thanos got 5 stones in 2015 in the Infinity Ultron episode and thinking that the Thor grows up as an only child episode could have gone in a more interesting way than he becomes a party fratbro douche, I really enjoyed this show. Hyped for the Tony and Gamora episode once Season 2 happens. 8/10

Shang-Chi- Just rewatched it last night. Fantastic, one of the best origin movies in the franchise. 9/10.

Eternals- It’ll have to take a rewatch, but I remember liking this movie in theaters. Maybe it was just because the sense of scale was impressive and made it an experience but I enjoyed it. Also some of the characters were great (Druig, Makkari, Thena, Gilgamesh) but it was kind of a mistake to have 10 new characters. 5.5/10

Hawkeye- Really liked this show. Great checking in on an underrated character, great seeing Yelena again and Kate is a great addition. 8/10

No Way Home- Loved this movie. Cemented Holland as my favorite live action-Spider-Man. Just an experience to watch it in theaters. 10/10

Moon Knight- I really hope Isaac comes back in some other project. He made this show. Other than that, nothing too special though the ending of the fourth episode is about as stunned as I have been watching anything ever. 8/10

Multiverse of Madness- Definitely requires a rewatch but I remember liking the movie for the most part but thinking that in spite of Olsen’s amazing performance, Wanda’s story was mishandled. Also the trailer did seem to imply the multiverse aspect would be played up more. 7.5/10

Ms. Marvel- Loved Kamala, loved Bruno and thought the first 3 episodes and finale were great, but the villains sucked and the 4th and 5th episodes were fairly boring. 7.5/10

Love and Thunder- I do think this movie has some good parts. The ending was great, when he did have screentime Gorr was great, Thor and Jane’s romance felt real unlike in the Dark World. But I agree with the point of the movie was too jokey. Also Korg seemingly dying but being reduced to a face that still makes annoying jokes and stating the obvious annoyed me almost as much as 3PO seemingly dying in Rise of Skywalker and then there being a back up memory file. 6/10

She-Hulk- Liked this show. Didn’t think there was anything special about it good or bad. Thought the last 2 episodes were great. Liked the fourth wall breaking though disliked Matt and Jen having sex since I was a huge Matt/Karen shipper from Daredevil Netflix. Also while the CG wasn’t that good I never thought it was terrible. 6/10

Werewolf By Night-Just really liked this, hope they do this sort of special more often. 9/10

Wakanda Forever- Loved this movie. While Ironheart’s introduction was a little clumsy and Ross’s plot is also clearly all set up, everything else is great. Namor is a great villain, I thought Shuri was thankfully a way better character than she was in any prior movie and Ramonda was just sublime. 9/10

Guardians Holiday Special- Just loved this special. Gunn has done no wrong in the whole franchise. Can’t wait for Guardians 3. 9/10

Quantumania- Loved Kang though his introduction has been clumsy. Scott is great as always and so was Janet. Also parts of it were just so wonderfully bizzare. On the other hand, Hope was just so irrelevant, and Cassie’s character change was kind of too abrupt. 6/10

Guardians 3- Just I have basically no words. It's absolutely fantastic. Rocket and Star-Lord in particular are done so well but it is just such a great finale to Hunt's trilogy. 9/10

Secret Invasion- This show generally sucked. Good first episode and the individual performances are great and Sonya is fantastic and that's it. Hated Talos's death, hated the Rhodey reveal. Hated the surprisingly low amount of intrigue and surprise. Also insane that Fury couldn't find the Skrulls a planet considering that Thanos's planet with the garden is empty. 3/10

Loki Season 2. Fantastic. If this is Loki's finale then it was a great ending to one of the best MCU characters ever. OB is fantastic the expansions to every old character except for Sylvie is done really well. OB is fantastic. In spite of his real life issues Majors is awesome. 9/10

The Marvels- Loved Kamala, The primary dynamic between the three leads is great, the Young Avengers setup was cool. The sequence where the Flerkens eat the SABER people was actually really funny. Kamala's family are great. Fury is entertaining. On the other hand the movie is too short and Dar-Benn is not a terrible villain but could have been great. 7/10

#pro mcu #pro multiverse saga #pro phase 4

4 notes · View notes

imperiuswrecked · 2 years

Note

Don't get me wrong, i'm glad that MCU/199,999 Wendy is dead, but i'm still hate MU/616 Wanda, mind you, this is the same woman who killed Jack of Hearts, tortured Wonder Man, turned She-Hulk into mindless rage Hulk, brought Wasp into coma, turned the Vision into a bomb, let Hawkeye die and erased 98% of mutant population in the world. Even after she had to stop Phoenix and restore mutant population in AvX, Mutants are still hate her.

Like....Wanda is the worst.

I don't care that you hate Wanda. I literally do not give a single fuck if you despise her.

And why would you think it's appropriate to say this to a person who is OBVIOUSLY a fan of Comic Wanda? Like do you really lack Fandom Etiquette or are you just being a Jerk on purpose? I certainly don't go into the inboxes of others and tell them how much I hate their fave blorbos.

I'm not gonna defend Comic Wanda to you for any reason. I don't have time to waste on people who hate my faves. I have alot of criticisms about how Comic Wanda's character is handled but I still love her character.

#wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #imp answers #dont come back anon

27 notes · View notes

aburningpotathoe · 2 years

Text

MCU PHASE FOUR PROJECTS FROM SDCC

So its kinda weird how abruptly they announced the end of phase 4 but oh well. Thematically, it fits really well, as phase 4 is about grief and coping with the events of the war against Thanos (Wandavision, MoM, FatWS, Loki, Eternals, Hawkeye,NWH and ThorLT all deal with the aftermath of Endgame)

So ending it on a movie marked by grief not only on screen but in the cast too is fitting

anyway heres the information we have on the few projects left

She Hulk: Attorney at Law

This series will dive into the legal and administrative aspect of having a world filled with superheroes (honestly a nightmare) with she hulk representing superhumans in legal cases

Damage Cotrol (from NWH and Ms.Marvel) will likely be a part of that and we'll probably see why they were so pressed about Kamala getting powers

This series is probaly set closer tho Endgame than we think, given that Bruce is still in his professor Hulk form and not in the human form we see in Shang-Chi.

The amount of super humans coming out of nowhere they mention could be a way to introduce mutants as their mutant genes might have been activated by the cosmic energy surges of the different snaps

We get a look at frog man as well as many folkloric superhumans, and what looks like discussion groups about living with superpowers (again with the idea that many people randomly started getting powers and now have to cope with they ways it will affect their life)

Titania also appears and she seems to be a rival of Jennifer

It is likely that Jennifer will already have mastered her hulk form by the beginning of the series and then we'll see her origin story in a flashback episode.

Also we see her do the Hulk Thanderclap move. So slay of her.

We might get an explanation as to why Bruce goes back to human (him being jealous of Jen might be a reason why)

Dare fricking devil is here in his yellow suit from the comics. We can also hope for a Matt or even foggy Cameo in court (Manifesting it)

Jen is representing Emil Blonski in court after his crimes as abomination. 15 years after it happened. I would say they bring it up out of the blue but honestly the legal system is so tedious thzt it is almost realistic.

The wong cinematic universe continues as Wong appears in the trailer. He will probably work with jen on the legal aspect of some magic threats, as the world will face many events that human laws are not meant to cover.

Honestly it would be fun if this series was about Jen working through the legal aspect of phase 4 events, like the Westview situation, America Chavez popping out of nowhere, a random citizen by the name of Peter Parker just disappearing out of nowhere...)

The demolition team appears (is that the right name???) in the comics their tools get powers from Loki but their origin story will most likely be changed.

Jen breaks the fourth Wall like in the comics. The first time it happens even she seems surprised and it was honestly pretty fun.

It is rumored that this series will set up a World War Hulk project for phase 6, but we can only dream

Also i think i saw Thaddeus Ross in a scene but maybe im just tripping

Werewolf by night

No news about this project sadly but it is still confirmed to happen (right?? right)

Michael Giacchino confirmed he will produce this halloween special.

Gael Garcia Bernand will allegedly play Jack Russel (the werewolf)

Like the groot series, it will probably be considered soft-canon: the events happen within the MCU but will likely never be mentioned again due to this being a special

This character might appear in the upcoming blade movie, but honestly i dont see him having a major place in the MCU

Black Panther: Wakanda forever

Man talk about a trailer done right. It was the definition of no plot just vibes as we have almost no information ol the plot other than the war against atlantis and Tchalla's death

This movie will follow the Wakandan chzracters introduced in previous projects, as they fight agains the atlantideans, and Wakanda struggle to hold its political stance in the wake of Tchalla's death

The wakandans will obviously grieving the death of king Tchalla. We get shots that look like his funeral, as well as Shuri crying and queen Ramonda delivering a heart wrenching speech (give angela basset all the awards NOW)

We also get some shots of wakanda being flooded during the war against the Atlantians, as well as the Dora Milaje fighting in the open waters jumping off the deck of a ship

The conflict between the atlantians and the wakandan might originate from the vibranium mining operations we see in the trailer. It is rumored that Dr.Doom is the one ammassing vibranium, teasing is appearence in following marvel projects

Namor will probably be the second mutant introduced in the MCU and it seems like we are getting his backstory through flashbacks

Ironheart appears, meaning that her upcoming show will probably not be an origin story, she seems to build her suit during the movie out of vibranium most likely

We might get a romance between Ayo and Aneka (lesbian rights???? hello lesbians???)

A person is show in the black panther suit meaning that either killmonger is resurrected or they find a way to syntheticallt recreate the heart-shaped plant. I personnally hope it will either be Shuri or Nakia as bringing a character back from the fead in a movie centered around grief feels out of touch

There is a rumor that Nakia will give birth to Tchalla's son although the birth scene in the trailer seems to be Namor's birth.

The guardians of the Galaxy: Holyday special

According to James Gunn, this will not be a one off special but rather a project connected to the overall MCU. However, it wasnt mentioned during comic con, which might mean that its importance for future guardian projects might be minimal

15 notes · View notes