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mischief-lies-and-stories · 8 months

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The Significance of Loki's Tarot

In Defenders and Defenders Beyond Doctor Strange forms the teams (and in Defenders Beyond it's kind of from beyond the grave but I don't know what's going on in the comics so I don't know what the context is for this) to fight various multiple-cosmos-level threats in the comics by drawing tarot cards. The cards he draws not only represent the people he summons with the cards he pulls, but also by some magical means of the universe, the characters' likenesses are printed upon the tarot cards. (I really want this tarot card with Loki on it. I found a tarot card on Etsy with Loki on it, but it's not the right one. Anyway, I digress.) So he draws cards that match their story arc in Defenders Beyond and where they're at in their story arcs in the comics at the point that he's pulling these cards, and to a certain extent their personality, and who they'll represent for the team.

So strap in for a long as hell post. Obvious spoilers for Defenders and Defenders Beyond, many Loki comics, MCU Loki, etc. await. (INCLUDING Scarlet Witch #8 a little!)

The card Strange pulls for Loki is in the text called the ten of coins. Coins is not a suit I have heard used, and I'm not sure why Ewing uses coins as the suit. It's pentacles. I don't know enough about tarot (and didn't actually research it, sorry) to know the nuances about the distinction. The websites I looked up for more information did not say anything about the suit also being called coins. My thinking is one, Ewing is British, and maybe there are differences between US and British decks that I don't know about. And that may have slipped past a cultural translator (or whatever that person's job title is), who maybe didn't know enough about tarot to know, or did notice the discrepancy but decided it wasn't that big of a deal and chose not to change it. Or maybe I have a UK copy by accident. Or maybe everyone calls them either coins or pentacles, and I'm just unaware that it's interchangeable. I dabbled briefly in Pagan religion for like two years but I didn't really do much with this kind of practice, and when I did, my divination tool of choice was ogham staves because my following was more Celtic (or at least attempted to be more Celtic). So I'm not that qualified to determine why he used coins versus pentacles when naming the suit.

Anyway, his card is the ten of coins or the ten of pentacles. And the interesting thing about the cards Strange pulls in both comics is that most of them are reversed. And when you draw a card in tarot that's reversed (or upside down), it changes the meaning, sometimes almost completely opposite the upright meaning.

Now, you may be wondering why it's ten of pentacles. And I was wondering that too, because I did not remember it being in the minor arcana. (I didn't remember what it was, but I definitely did not remember it being in the minor arcana.) So I have not seen any interviews or anything of Ewing explaining this (if he ever does), so I'm just speculating why he didn't choose other cards or why he didn't choose anything from the Major Arcana. First of all, it should be noted that all the cards drawn in Defenders Beyond are ten of a suit, so he limited (or challenged) himself in that respect by making it all the same number card.

Now to clarify (with my limited understanding) if you are unfamiliar with the Major versus minor arcana: There are two groupings of tarot cards. The Major Arcana tends to have more significant roles in readings if they come up and in the deck itself. They're almost like face cards in a regular deck. They're not face cards, because there are like King of Pentacles, Page (which is basically a Jack) of Wands, but they're more important and more easily recognizable than the suit cards. And then the minor arcana are the suit cards: pentacles, swords, wands, cups. They're numbered, but like I said they also have face cards.

So now you may be wondering (or you may not be), that's cool and chill and all about all the cards being tens, but why would Al Ewing bring in the minor arcana anyway, into a comic book, with readers of a multitude of different understandings of tarot, and who probably don't care that much about tarot anyway, and maybe only have a passing understanding of the Major Arcana. (If that. It's probably that meme of like, the average person can only recognize half the Major Arcana, and then don't even take into account that they can only recognize the Hanged Man.)

(I spent the last ten minutes finding and editing this meme instead of adding to this post.)

Anyway, first of all, here's some reasons why I think Loki's card is not a Major Arcana (aside from the fact Ewing apparently chose a number and made sure the suit of that number fit the person). First of all, Strange is not going to draw the Magician card for anyone other than him. Now, the Magician does not get drawn in Defenders Beyond, and technically speaking, Strange isn't even doing the drawing, but he's engaging Blue Marvel in doing it for him, which is essentially the same thing. Regardless, he is drawing these cards at random (Strange is, not Ewing), but there is intent behind the cards that you are drawing. And in the world of Marvel comics, where magic is way more overt and exists in a way that is different than how believers in tarot would describe it existing in real life, it is entirely likely that Strange's intent in drawing these cards has significantly more pull than it would in our world. Like IRL, you can shuffle the cards as much as you want and be like "I'm going to draw the Magician now," and if you've legitimately shuffled them, there's still a 1 in 78 chance that you're going to draw the Magician card. But Strange, on the other hand, is freakin' made of magic, so I don't think he has a 1 in 78 chance of drawing that card. I personally don't think he's going to draw the Magician for anyone other than him. And even if it is just the universe's doing, the universe isn't going to draw the Magician card for anybody but him. The universe needs him as the Magician archetype. We've already seen how Loki as Sorcerer Supreme plays out and it doesn't end well for anyone involved (including Loki), so I don't think the universe is going to try to play that game again. If someone else, especially Loki, gets the Magician card, it's going to cause a conflict in this comic that is not relevant to the storyline. And in terms of storytelling, Loki can't be the magician, because the most obvious magician is the one pulling the cards (which, again, technically isn't Strange in this case), which is a magician move. And also these cards are magic, both in the comics and to the people who use them regularly IRL. So Strange has to pull the Magician card if anyone's gonna pull it; it has to be him.

Personally, I wanted Loki to draw the Hanged Man card. Upon looking at meanings of these cards to make this post, I have come to the conclusion that I actually don't know what I thought I knew about the Hanged Man. So the symbolism that I was associating with the Hanged Man is not necessarily the symbolism usually associated with the Hanged Man. I just felt like it was a good card for Loki, especially because this comic comes directly after Loki: Agent of Asgard in canon (for Al Ewing, specifically, and in canon for this version of Loki). There are nine years IRL in between the end of AoA and DB, during which time (and I've talked about this) someone fucked up Loki in my opinion. But in Ewing's continuity and in the Loki that he is bringing to DB, the events of DB occur directly after AoA, meaning more or less, directly after his ego-death. So I personally felt like he should have had the Hanged Man, just because of the symbolism that I associate with that card, which is not the symbolism that anyone else associates with it, so that's one reason why he did not draw the Hanged Man for Loki. The other reason why, is because even if Ewing somehow linked brains with me and drew on my symbolism for the Hanged Man, that arc has passed. Loki in this moment is going through another crisis, while at the same time pretending that he's not. He's pretending like his character arc has been fulfilled, because that's what he thought he was doing at the end of AoA. But because of that nine-year chunk in between, of other writers fucking up the character development that Ewing gave him, he's discovered that Loki, and is grappling with that shit right now. But because of the way he's behaving, and because of comics continuity, that arc has passed. Part of DB is Ewing kind of letting go of this Loki, and this Loki kind of letting go of what he thought he was going to be doing after this ego-death. Because people fucked him up, and now we all have to live with it.

Off my soap-box (for now). I don't think Ewing wanted to draw on the Major Arcana as much or at all in DB, because in Defenders, when he introduces the concept of Strange drawing cards to form a team, he used all Major Arcana cards. In doing so, he introduced to the reader this concept with cards that were approachable and recognizable to a certain extent for most people. So now he can branch off from that. Also, there were several characters in Defenders, like Cloud (and probably some other characters, but I don't really know a lot of side characters from the comics so I'm not gonna say that certain characters were set off to the side for several decades like Cloud, because I don't know if that's true), that have not been in the comics for so long, and so using the Major Arcana to introduce them, so the readers have something to go off of that they recognize (or at least kind of recognize) is helpful. So you may not recognize Cloud, and you may have never seen a tarot card with The Lovers on it (and we'll get to that later, I'm mad about that choice), but at least you can look at that and make your own associations with what's going on. Like Red Harpy (Betty Banner) was the High Priestess, and I don't know a whole lot about the High Priestess card but I do know a little bit and Strange talks about the meaning behind the card briefly, but I really don't know who Red Harpy is. So that really helped me to gain an insight into her archetypal character so that I could better understand who she is going into this book. However, with DB, a lot of the main characters are characters we've seen very recently in the comics, or either have seen or will see (I'm not sure about timing specifically around when this was published) in the MCU. Like America Chavez is in it, and Loki obviously. So we've seen these characters before. We haven't seen Cloud since 1985, but we've seen America Chavez, at the very least, in Doctor Strange trailers (if the movie isn't out yet), so we recognize her. So drawing on minor arcana is okay, because he's doing the reverse. We know the character already, and now we're getting to know the archetypal card that is associated with them through the minor arcana. Because when you see the ten of pentacles, you don't really know what that means; that has to be explained to you. But when you see The Lovers, you may not necessarily know how to interpret that, but you at least have these pre-existing understandings of what that might symbolize, as opposed to the ten of pentacles, which makes no sense at all if you know nothing about the minor arcana.

So now that I've talked ad nauseum about why Ewing may have chosen against using literally any other card in this 78-card deck, let's chat about the ten of pentacles. So the site I used to get some further background is labyrinthos.co, if you want to get more information on the different cards and their meanings.

I'm going to start by talking about the suit of pentacles in general. So the pentacles are associated with the worldly and material, as well as nature, body, and stability. It deals a lot with financial matters, like career and wealth, but also security and health.

So I want to talk about what Ewing has chosen to pull out for the ten of pentacles, and then also any added meaning to it that I would personally associate with Loki's journey both in this story and then also moving forward for Immortal Thor as well as the MCU. Because the way that I associate Loki is at different points, he's either one conglomerate character, or he's separate based on the media that he's in. So I'm irritable and blame other authors of the comics if they fucked him up but I will also bring in little things that I liked from the comics. I say that Al Ewing's Loki is superior to everything else, but also, most of what I write is MCU Loki. While at the same time, disregarding the fact that they fucked up the genderfluidity and bisexuality of MCU Loki and substituting my own, which is sometimes Al Ewing and is sometimes me being genderfluid and bi projecting onto Loki. Anyway, moving on.

So, the comic interpretation: "The ten of coins, reversed. Material success as a trap. A kingdom unwanted-- a future, yawning like the grave."

...So I hate everything, after reading Scarlet Witch. Because I read this, a week ago (after calming down from that damn trailer), when I was planning this post and had to go back to find the tarot card. And it had a slightly different meaning for me then. It was worrying, I still didn't like "yawning like the grave." But I hate it even more now. (What with, "I don't know how or when... but this path will cost me my life. I can live as a liar or die as a hero. Either way...I am to be punished.") (I'm sorry, I didn't mean to spoil Scarlet Witch in this post, but as I said, I take everything into canon.)

Okay, so. "Material success as a trap." He's not happy, being king of Jotunheim, in The God Who Fell to Earth and the Loki miniseries and in Scarlet Witch. To the point that in Immortal Thor, he says that he drops it.

We can also look at this for AoA at Old Loki, who has everything he wants. Supposedly. He's intermittently called King Loki. What he's king of, I'm not quite sure, because Thor is king of Asgard. I think periodically he says he's king of Midgard, but he's really just king of a pile of skulls at that point, because he kills everybody. And he's just the constant villain of Asgard, the constant rival of Thor, continually trying to just get one over on Thor, occasionally trying to take over Asgard. But he's aimless; he's got no reason why he's doing this. He doesn't actually want to rule Asgard, he doesn't actually want to kill Thor, as we see in King Thor (which is not written by Al Ewing and I think comes way after, but I'm counting it anyway). Because the most ultimate truth of Loki is, no matter what he does, no matter what he claims in any sort of universe, he doesn't really have an end goal if he's the villain, because he's always so self-aware. He knows that he's going to lose, but he also knows that he's going to get away. So nothing has a point. He just does shit, for the temporary amusement of it, to possibly hurt Thor or to hurt somebody else, to giggle about it for a little bit and temporarily have some power. And then, inevitably, he fails, he loses that power, he gets hurt, he goes off to lick his wounds, and then he comes back and does it again. Because he's so aware of the narrative that he knows how it's going to end, but he also knows that it's not really gonna stick. But he's not happy. Ultimately, (and I don't think that when he first decides to do it that he even realizes what he's doing, but by the time AoA Loki tells him that he's doing it, I think he's already figured it out) to the point that Old Loki specifically goes back in time to change it. Now he claims that he goes back to bring about his future, but no one in his past did that, he just brought his future about himself. So there isn't any need to change the past to bring about his future. That's not why he goes back. He goes back because he's not happy. He goes back to give himself a support network, to give himself friends, to break himself away from this Sisyphean cycle of trying to do better under the thumb of the All-Mother that's never gonna get him anywhere. To give him the means, and the courage, and ultimately, the catalyst to make him confess to Thor earlier than he would have about what he did to Kid Loki, thereby making Thor angry, and more or less disown him. But the thing is, this is a past that Old Loki hasn't known, but he still knows how it's going to end, because he knows Thor, and he knows that Thor will come around in the end. And he knows that, after this has all calmed down, this Loki is going to have a better relationship with his brother than he ever did. And I don't think he really knows what ego-death is, but ultimately, ('ultimately' counter: I've lost count) he's also pushing his past self to the brink of ego-death, which is going to bring him to this point. If later writers had done right by Loki, his character would've been substantially different than it is now, and Al Ewing would not be forced to say good-bye to this character in this manner in DB, but I digress again.

So we can think of this material success as a trap as Old Loki is successful, but he's not happy. And even AoA Loki is successful, not necessarily materially, but in ego-death, in making his full character arc, and then it doesn't matter. He still has to go back at the end of this, and deal with the same thing, put himself back into the narrative. Ultimately (argh, sorry) for the greater good, but it's a bittersweet ending, and I don't think it's a good ending. It feels sour to me, almost like Ewing didn't even believe his own ending.

And then bringing it back to Scarlet Witch. What he said at the end of SW, that I quoted above, he's still trapped. No matter what he does, he's always going to be trapped in this narrative. Because no matter how many times he goes through ego-death, no matter how many times he breaks free from the narrative, he's still stuck in a fucking comic book, so he's still gonna be stuck in the fucking narrative.

"A kingdom unwanted." He didn't want to rule Asgard (I'm dipping into the MCU a bit here, sorry), even though he claimed that he did. All he wanted was to be Thor's equal. He doesn't want to rule Jotunheim. He isn't happy there; he never fit in there. He never lived there until he became king of Jotunheim; he doesn't want to be there. Old Loki claims to be king of Midgard but then fucking murders everybody. So like, what are you the king of? You have no kingdom. You're standing on top of a wasteland and calling yourself king, that's nothing.

"A future, yawning like the grave." Death is still staring this guy in the face. And you can twist it in a positive light, like Loki has just committed ego-death. The very last page (of AoA) is him walking through a door that says "Next" and it says something like "Would you know more?" Like he's moving on, he's moving forward. He's writing his next chapter, as he says in SW. But it has this counterbalance of he's walking out of the narrative to in the end circle back around and walk right back in again. At the end of this book, he's going to go back to where he was. The last time we see him, he's sitting on his ice throne in Jotunheim as the king. And he's gonna try to be better, and he's gonna try to be different. But how long is that going to last? Because the second he wiped his memories, it all left. And then he regains his memories, and now he's gotta figure out what the fuck he's gonna do now. With that sword hanging over his fucking head the entire fucking time. And now we're in Immortal Thor, and it's implied that he sent Utgard-Thor. Huh? Why? What are you doing now? Are you fast-tracking your own "future, yawning like the grave" so you can get into the grave as fast as possible? I don't understand what's going on.

So that's all that's said in the book about the card. So let's look at the website.

"Reverse keywords: family disputes." The last time (as of DB) that Loki interacted with Thor (that Thor knows about), Loki just told him that he killed Kid Loki and stole his body. And Thor was not happy about that. Thor beat the shit out of him and then tossed him to the frickin' Warriors Three and the rest of Asgard to deal with him after that. So, family disputes? Hell yes. And we don't see Thor again with a Ewing Loki until Immortal Thor. And now everything seems fine? Despite the fact that Thor just went toe-to-toe with Utgard-Loki and then Loki showed up and was like 'Hey, I've been here the whole time! But I'm also not king of Jotunheim anymore, so why am I here? Who knows!' And Thor's like 'Okay, funny joke! Moving on with my life.' And then Loki fixes the Bifrost. So I don't know what's going on, y'all, but that's for another post. This one's already long as fuck.

"Fleeting success." We already talked about that, "material success as a trap." I'm skipping over all the money things, because I don't think Loki cares about money. "Bankruptcy, debt, conflict over money," I don't think that affects him.

"Instability." He's figuring himself out, but directly post-ego-death Loki was a little bit unstable. He was all over the place, and I loved her so much. Verity was like, 'What the fuck's going on with you?' And I was like, 'I don't know, but I love it! Let's keep going with this.' Anyway.

"Breaking traditions." Yes, that's Loki to a frickin' T! Ego-death Loki, breaking everything! Breaking the narrative, breaking the 4th wall, breaking traditions; he walks away from the fucking throne of Jotunheim by the beginning of Immortal Thor. Why the fuck does he do that? I don't know!

Moving on to the description. "It could point to problems and hiccups later in life, even though they may not currently be an issue." DB opens with Loki seeing his...honestly, I don't know what self it is. I don't understand how time's working in this story. I think it's his future self, but it might also be his past self, who knows? Not me! But another version of him, and he's like really frickin upset about it. He's like, 'Did you kill Thor? I bet you did!' And then he kisses him on the temple like he did with Old Loki. (Dude, I don't know what's going on.) And then he just kind of like heads off, he's like, 'I'm not gonna think about that, because I'm leaving this shit forever. I'm not gonna deal with this nonsense.' But then by the end of the book it comes back to bite him in the ass. So yeah, may not be an issue right now, but becomes an issue in the future? For sure. He's like, 'I'm not gonna think about this, I'm not gonna deal with this, I'm not gonna acknowledge this, because this has nothing to do with me. I've written myself out of the narrative. I'm writing my own future. I don't even care about Verity at this point.' And then he has to go back and be that Loki. Who still doesn't have Verity. Where the fuck is Verity? I'm annoyed.

So for MCU Loki the phrase that pops out the most is "a future, yawning like the grave." He's escaped the timeline. He can't go back on that timeline now. That timeline's been pruned, and the main timeline's moved on without him. And with Sylvie having killed He Who Remains, the timeline is fucked. I mean, it's not just Sylvie's fault, it's also Wanda and Strange and Peter's faults, but cumulatively, we've fucked the timeline. So there isn't really anywhere he can go, and also there's everywhere he can go.

"Yawning like the grave" is interesting, though, because he's essentially escaped his death more or less. If we assume that what we saw in Infinity War is his death on the main timeline, which I don't accept. I think that's bullshit; I don't know why they would've had him say that throwaway fucking line if he wasn't going to come back. I mean, I do, the Russos kind of suck, but you know. That's one of their wives' son, don't be mean to him (I don't know whose wife played Frigga)!

And to a certain extent, I feel like they are kind of moving this Loki (gradually, poorly) towards merging him with AoA Loki. The way they're going about this redemption arc seems kind of AoA-ish. I don't love it, because I think this means (unless we go with my theory about the main timeline) we're not gonna get Loki on the Young Avengers if we get a movie or tv show eventually. And I'm not happy about that. But also one, it might mean we get him in the fucking Coat with with some fucking nail polish maybe, and two, ultimately I want AoA Loki in the MCU somehow some way, and if Tom has to play him, then okay. I don't mind Tom. So if season two is like MCU Loki and AoA Loki gradually merging with more similarities via this tarot prediction, I'll take it.

Also, page one of DB, he basically walks through a Time Door. I mean, it looks different, and it's not functioning as a Time Door, but he basically walks through a fucking Time Door, let's be honest.

Now, I want to talk about the fact that I think Al Ewing is wrong. I think there's a better card for Loki. Of both upright cards and reverse cards. Now, I don't do tarot and I did maybe ten minutes of research, which I think is significantly less research than Ewing did, but I still think I have a better idea for Loki's card. I have several, actually. (That's right, baby, this post is still not done. Strap in.)

We're gonna start with the Major Arcana, because although it makes sense to me why I think he went with the minor, I don't care. Major makes more sense to me. It's more approachable, and also I know it better.

The Hierophant, reversed: Ewing already used this (reversed, as well) in Defenders, but again, don't care. "Reversed keywords: rebellion, unconventionality, nonconformity, new methods, ignorance." I'm basing a lot of this on ego-death, because it's my favorite event that has ever taken place where Loki is concerned. Loki is subverting all expectations for him, both in-universe and IRL. So as the hierophant, reversed, he's rebelling against this box that they've put him in. And he spends the entire DB resisting being put back into that box. And at the very end we see him, back in that box, but with a new means of working his way through that box. He's got a new tool, and he's got his memories from before, and he's got a new purpose. So in theory, he's gonna stay in the box (think of it as a comic panel), but he's gonna do what he needs to do in that box. Not necessarily within the confines and rules of that box, just in the box. Also, the hierophant is a religious figure, and Loki's a god. And it's very similar to magic, and if we can't make him the magician, here we go. He's sometimes referred to as the High Priest, as a counterpart to the High Priestess. And Loki's genderfluid so he could also be the High Priestess.

This is a little on the nose, even without ego-death, but Death, either upright or reversed: It pretty heavily relates to Loki's conflict throughout DB. Upright represents "end of a cycle, beginnings, change, metamorphosis" which is like all of ego-death, but also how he's behaving in this. He's spending this entire time clinging to what he thought he gained through ego-death, and then finally taking this moment to let go of some of it in order to finish changing. He's not done transforming. He thinks he's done, but he's not. And then the reverse is "fear of change, holding on, stagnation, decay." He's holding on to this part of himself that he thinks is fully transformed, because he thinks going back into that box is going back to who he was before and he doesn't want to do that. He's afraid of going back to who he was. He doesn't want to go back into the narrative, he doesn't want to be held under the confines of what other people tell him his story is. But he has to go back in order to finish changing. He has to go back in order to finish the cycle of ego-death. So, death. That one, I think is the best option. If we went with Major Arcana, it would have to be Death, because it ties together both AoA and DB, because it's his conflict throughout both of them. His conflict changes slightly between AoA and DB because of that lynchpin of ego-death, but he's still that same person who's afraid of being put into that box, who doesn't want to be put into that box, who wants to break out of that box. He keeps trying to find ways to break out of that box, and what changes in DB is that he thinks he's finally figured out a way to break out of it, and now he feels like he's being shoved back into it. And he doesn't want to go. And so he needs Cloud, primarily, and then a few other people on the team, to be like, 'But you're not going back. Not completely. You are changed. You are different. You're not going back to who you were when you started this. You've already made those changes, and now you're returning to the narrative to finish the cycle of ego-death. To finish the cycle of change, so that you can truly be the ultimate person that you're supposed to be. That you want to be on your terms. Just because you're in the narrative does not mean you are on anyone else's terms but your own.' And he needs someone to tell him that before he can go back and before he can finish out the cycle of death and rebirth. Because he comes back in AoA and immediately leaves. And he leaves partially because the world's about to die, but then the world cycles back. And he doesn't want to go back to that, but he has to, in order to finish out the cycle. Because he hasn't fully assumed who he's meant to become through the process of ego-death if he's just fluttering around the cosmos.

Eight of Swords, also either way: Depends on what Ewing wants to gain from the card draw. Are we foreshadowing the conflict or are we foreshadowing the resolution? Because upright eight of swords represents the conflict. "Imprisonment, entrapment, self-victimization." He's like, 'I don't want to go back to who I was. I don't want to go back to the narrative, because then I will be trapped again.' Versus the reverse which represents the resolution of his arc: "Self-acceptance, new perspective, freedom." He's back in the narrative, but he remembers what happened, and he has new insights and new tools to make change and to be better and to be the person that he wants to be without anyone else telling him who to be.

Two of Swords, upright or reverse: Which ultimately represents my feelings about the ending, as well. Upright: "Difficult choices, indecision, stalemate." Reversed: "Lesser of two evils, no right choice, confusion." Like, I was so fucking mad, that Loki had to go back to where he was and who he was and wipe his fucking memories. Now on the last page, he regains his memories, of everything that happened in DB and his ego-death experience, and so he's changed, and he remembers that he has this tool to help him, and all that shit. And like, as I started to understand why we had to do this, because people between AoA and DB fucked with Loki's character arc, it felt like there's no right choice and this is the lesser of two evils, because there's nothing else that we can do to give him a proper send off in DB other than doing this bullshit. For continuity's sake. And I was annoyed. But here we are.

I think the best one would've been Death. But like I said, there was a reason why he did minor arcana and then he decided to do all tens.

And finally, this book is where I met Cloud, which prompted me to read Defenders, because that's where Cloud makes their modern comic debut. (Their better comic debut.) And so my hot take is that Cloud's card in Defenders should've been The Star rather than The Lovers. But that's a different post.

#nobody was demanding this post #but if youve been waiting here it is long as hell #loki #loki theories #loki comics #defenders: beyond #the defenders spoilers #defenders: beyond spoilers #al ewing #al ewing comics #marvel comics spoilers #marvel comics #scarlet witch issue 8 spoilers #loki spoilers

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daredevilexchange · 1 year

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What’s your fannish ID? Udekai! Friends call me Stu. Stu came from the first OC I ever had- which was essentially just a blue scribble with a bowler hat.

What types of fanworks do you create? I've done mostly art throughout my whole campaign, but fic has become a bigger and bigger thing over the years. I've always been good with literature, and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. The only reason art got so big was because it's easier to doodle on the margins of your schoolwork than brainstorm a story. That turned into dabbling in animation; I only have the energy for a couple of those a year, but I feel like I've gotten pretty good at it!

What are your favourite types of fanworks, when you’re not creating? Nothing- and I mean nothing- beats a good AMV. Fics are a close second, but something about seeing something move in time with the beat of a good song is just beautiful.

What do you like in particular about this fandom? I definitely should have watched Daredevil sooner. I've been keeping up with the MCU since the first avenger and my cousin said "watch Daredevil." I said I love angst and my cousin said "please watch Daredevil. I started kickboxing as a means to cope with stress, and my cousin fell to his knees and begged me to watch Daredevil. I didn't actually watch it until I was reading Deadpool fics after reading all his comics, and found Team Red. I was enamored immediately. I came for the show and stayed for the people. So far, everyone I've met is an absolute peach. Everyone's extremely accepting, mature, and communicative. I'm partial to Mattfoggy as a ship, with some dabbling in Kastle. Best friends to lovers has always been my favorite trope, followed closely by hurt/comfort, so there's no wonder why that one spoke to me.

Do you like participating in fan events? I do! I didn't use to, because deadlines intimidate me, but that is a great motivator to actually. Yknow. Finish things, which I can have a little bit of trouble with. They've been teaching me to be okay with publishing things that I haven't had the chance to pick apart and overthink. I'm also making way more than I would be without somebody offering ideas and schedules to work on. I've never done a con, nor do I really see myself doing one in the future, just because I get so flustered when fawn over my work.

What about your creating process? It's a different story every time! I live in a kind of chaotic environment that I have very little control over, so I tend to opt for headphones to keep out noisy distractions. Sometimes, though, even that's a little much to work around, and I have to go find somewhere quiet. My process with fics would make every literature teacher I've ever met weep. There's a fic I have right now that's 250k words, and the planning document reads like I just scrawled it on the walls of my living room. It helps with writer's block sometimes to just type out a stream of consciousness, all of the "uhms" and "no that doesn't make sense" included. As for inspiration, half the time I start out with a single scene in my head and build around it. That goes for fics, animations, and art. I like to get heavy with parallels between canon and whatever I'm doing, and by the end, I can almost guarantee me brain's a massive cobweb of ideas. I find being comfortable is also really important. And I mean physically comfortable. I steal the computer chair to write at the kitchen table for its back support, because when I create, I do it for literally days on end. I try not to begrudge myself the 20 minute scrolling breaks; pressure to work on something always has a way of taking away the enjoyment, and by extension, my ability to actually think creatively. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Do you interact a lot with other fans? I do! I've always been in a lot of discords, but now almost half of them are Daredevil related. I've got my beloved mutuals on Tumblr, and all these people who participate in events. I'm not exactly wanting for company, but anyone who knows me can vouch that I'm a little bit of a social butterfly.

Is there any particular piece you'd like to showcase for this post? That 250k fic I mentioned earlier: Incarnate. I mention it because it's my pride and joy and because I need to finish it.

Do you have other fandoms you'd like to talk about? I tend to do one fandom at a time. They take up my entire headspace. No vacancy.

Where can your fanworks be found? I can be found at Udekai on Ao3 and Tumblr! https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udekai/works I only post fics on Ao3, but you can find art of mine under #my art!

Thank you, @udekai !

banner by @context-is-for-kingpins !

#marvel #matt murdock #mattfoggy #daredevil #daredevil fic #daredevil art #daredevil fanart #content creator spotlight

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 2 years

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okay so who wants to write the Multiverse of Madness AU where [spoilers]

Wanda’s mom instincts go further than her own kids and/or she’s able to resist the Darkhold’s corruption for some reason, and a good part of what’s going on is actually a big misunderstanding where she’s really sending demons under her control to protect America from way worse interdimensional threats, because yes she would really like America to help her find her kids if she’s willing to do so but also she saw this tragically orphaned kid and went

and, you know, maybe genuinely liking and wanting to help America is what keeps Wanda from falling to the Darkhold’s influence so much, and obviously there’s some other source of conflict here that doesn’t involve turning one of the MCU’s tiny handful of female title characters into half a villain while still letting her be powerful and conflicted and complicated, and ultimately maybe America finds a universe where Wanda sacrificed herself to protect her kids and they’re now in dire need of a mom, and things are generally still kinda tragic all around because they’re not quite this Wanda’s kids (except they’re pretty sure they’ve dreamed about Westview, once or twice), and America’s moms are still gone, and even White Vision is still in the wind, but...there’s at least hope that they can make it work

also Loki at least gets a cameo, c’mon

(this fic idea is free to a good home because I would love to see this written but it’s definitely* not something I’m going to write, in part because I haven’t even seen the movie or for that matter WandaVision, I’m just frustrated with a lot of things Marvel’s been doing with MCU Wanda and a lot of the misogynist, ableist nastiness they seem determined to repeat from comics Wanda’s storylines even though they have exactly zero excuses for not knowing better)

(and I’m irritated that I now definitively can’t say “616 Wanda” and so on to distinguish between the comics character and the MCU character and have it mean anything at all, but that’s a completely separate and much less important issue)

*I mean who knows, now that I’ve said that maybe I actually will, because this would be one incentive to finally catch up on a lot of Disney+ stuff I’ve been meaning to watch for ages, and although a fic like this would be better if it were longish and plotty, it wouldn’t absolutely have to be

#fic ideas #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #wanda maximoff #america chavez #marvel cinematic universe #fanfic #wandavision #multiverse of madness spoilers #doctor strange 2 spoilers #doctor strange #scarlet witch #wanda maximoff defense squad

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hellou-i-guess · 1 month

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Listen, I respect marvel for their infinity saga and I think it's great.

However

I do not know where that planning went. Because it's a mess currently, and I'm not talking about quality of the writing I'm talking about the gaping hole in the story.

And that would be the Eternals.

Like, it's such a logical successor to Endgame it's almost painful.

And for the risk of sounding like a cospiracy theorist

Think about it.

The whole plot of the Eternals feels like it was written for another storyline which was abandoned and never mentioned again and that's why it feels so off. Like some of the not so great MCU movies were saved because they intrconnected into the syory great and Eternals at the current point can't do that. That train has already left the station. And if they try to bring them back I don't see how that fits.

So a rewrite? Yeah, it would make so much sense.

So evidence?

Obivously we have Earth and space side to the Infinity saga. The space side very obiously being Guardians of the Galaxy.

What do they introduce? Celestials.

Great? Where are you going with this you may be asking?

You have Thanos who wants to destroy half of the Universe for balance and going by comics and MCU canon Thanos is either an Eternal with Deviant syndrome or at the very least connected to the Eternals.

His motivation for balance may very well be that he has seen what the Eternals can do and why they do it, so he wipes out half of the universe in order to stop Celestials from being born. Plausable. Especially since we know from Eternals that that is exactly what happens. The emergence is delayed by five years. And then all Thanos did gets reversed and it's back in full swing.

And then you have conflict between the Eternals about following or going against Celestials.

And I do believe they said something along the lines like 'oh, the eternals are the next big thing'.

How come?

In the comics and in the MCU we see that the Eternals are some sort of mind controlled/have their memory wiped every time a celestial is born. I think they are enslaved in the comics, but I may be confusing canons there.

Anyway, there you have a team and some of them start to break against that control and at the end in true hero film fashiom all come togheter to save the world. But oh, the cliffhanger, some of them are going to get judged by the Celestials.

This could be very interesting as it:

1. Explores Celestials and ecplains their birth

2. Puts Eternals as a group in that more important position

3. Sets up your next big bad - Celestials, probably Arishem

And like the Celestials got set up in GotG, set up the multiverse slowly in this new Celestial Saga i guess?

And back to the aformentioned rewrite.

We have this whole new Celestial Saga now. And ulike the Infinity saga this one focuses more on the space side of things - GotG, Eternals, Captain Marvel (maybe). This puts less focus on Earth side amd gives that the time to breathe and introduce new heroes and build up their characters, as well as give closure to Endgame and those lost.

We have a big bad now. We have the setting and characters. We lack the plot.

As I said the eternals would have much more important role - it's about them. Since Thanos is Eternal adjecent being and Starfox/Eros being an Eternal that works outside those we know, that van only mean that there are more of them. Like 100 if we are going by the comics.

Where are they? Scattered around the universe and/or maybe in direct service to the Celestials. You can introduce some of these characters. And if we go by Thanos and Eros they can apparently reproduce and by comics this is true as well.

Put the plot that moves slowly towards taking down Celestials, may they do with other characters as they will.

This is already very long and I think it would take me a very long time to plan out where every group is and write that down. So I'll just put down some point which would be interrsting to see.

Celestials have to have someone working for them, I propose the Kree and other Eternals

The Kree would bring the whole Skrull plotline under the umbrella.

The Eternals are obivous choice mainly because they already do but because the movie differs from the comics canon in how their hierarcy works and powers, hear me out, Gaian Sisterhood.

We know nearly nothing about them, one of them litteraly never appeared in the comics. Their names have titles like Of Times Past, Of Times Present, Of Times Future. Give them the powers to see into the past, present and future and the role of advisors to Celestials (willing/unwilling or both in order to create conflict) instead of the leadership of Eternals.

Two of them litteraly have children in the 10 that are in the movie - Thena and Ikaris. Go off of their pain and fate and create yet more conflict.

The Secret Invasion happens - we build up more on the Kree

GotG also build up on the Celestials

Have Captain Marvel face Kree, show that they are dangerous, have her lose - set the stakes

Slowly introduce new character who would become the Young Avangers

Leave Wandavision and NWH and rewrite multiverse of madness, so that it starts with Dr Strange thinking about opening up the multiverse for Peter and Wanda somehow finding that out

Build up on the lore of darkhold, don't show it yet

End the movie with introducing America, essentialy splot MoM in 2 films Dr Strange dealing with the consequences of NWH and Wanda trying to get her hands on the way he did it and the second part more horror like fight we see in MoM

When it comes to mutants and how to introduce them - easy. Have Eternals be at the end of human evolution. So you have Homosapiens -> Mutants -> Eternals. Build up on this in the Earth side of the saga.

Have the characters at the end come together to fight the Celestials only to realise 'Oh no, they are responisible for building worlds! Universes!'

And the mess that comes when you disrupt the balance by taking out the Celestials by having a disbalance in the Multiverse by introducing Kang to the story (ouside of Loki i mean)

This would end the Celestial Saga and start the Multiverse Saga.

The Multiverse saga should not introduce nothing new in my opinion because where do you to from there? What is a bigger threat than that? End it there and finish MCU with a big bang of a movie.

Thanky for reading all of this!

#i do not know how this came to be #the words just started coming out #i think it may be incomprehensible but if you can get the point kudos #hellou rants #mcu #marvel #avengers #multiverse saga #marvels eternals #guardians of the galaxy #dr strange #wanda maximoff #rewrite #or at leat the attempt #captain marvel #marvel cinematic universe

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britesparc · 1 year

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Weekend Top Ten #582

Top Ten MCU Deaths

Ah, back to the good old MCU. This week I’m celebrating the imminent release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the concluding chapter in James Gunn’s comic space opera. And what better way to lionise the final instalment in a series noted for its ribald humour and larger-than-life characters engaging in all manner of witty banter than to revisit all the times when people straight-up died in Marvel movies? Yeah that tracks.

Actually, no, it makes sense. Because I’ve got a feeling Guardians 3 is going to be totes emosh. We know this is the final film in the series; sure, it’s a fair bet some of the characters will go on to further films within the wider MCU, but the finality of the trilogy closing means some characters definitely are bowing out here. That doesn’t necessarily mean death – it could be “moon stuff” like Steve Rogers – but it’s still going to be a goodbye. And let’s face it, some of them will definitely cark it. At least one. I think two or three.

There’s something about a comedy that makes tragedy resound all the stronger. If you create a group of funny characters, then I think it helps engender a kind of familial bond between the story and the audience; especially if it’s an ensemble. We’ve laughed along with famously huge turds and Jackson Pollocks and being invisible and Kevin Bacon. We’ve grown to love these goofy dudes and their weird interactions. And now some of them are – probably – going to die. And maybe it’ll be heroic or maybe it’ll be tragic but it’s definitely going to be sad. James Gunn – despite his reputation for caustic comedy – is great at tugging heartstrings, and I just feel it’s as good as certain that we’re going to get some really big emotional swings here.

And so we have this list, a list of the greatest, biggest, saddest, most impactful deaths in the MCU. I’ve struggled with an adjective really – hence, er, no adjective – but this isn’t just, like, spectacular deaths or important deaths. There’s no villains exploding or fading to dust or whatever. These are the deaths that meant something. Really, really strong character exits that stick with you throughout subsequent films. I remember that for quite a while the MCU was criticised for not killing off characters; back when it seemed every film ended with some kind of arial battle, it also seemed that Marvel was reluctant to write off a character for good. Even within this list, you’ll see that some of them have sort of come back to some degree. But Marvel persevered, telling stories that mattered and that resonated, with characters we loved; and as they died, it became a big deal.

So that’s what we’re celebrating here; really big deal deaths within the MCU. And it’s a fair bet that when I’ve seen Guardians 3 there’d be another character challenging this list. Maybe more than one. After all, we are Groot.

Oh: spoiler warning. It’s all below the fold, so to speak.

Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014): already we’re checking in with those universal A-holes, and we go back to my point about comedy making tragedy hit harder. Groot is largely comic relief, a giant talking tree who can only say three words – specifically three words. He’s a goofy heavy, a foil to the grumpy Rocket. He’s a supporting character. But then when the Guardians are going to crash and die, he spreads out his branches to protect them all, knowing the act will kill him. His reasoning? “We are Groot.” It’s a superb heroic sacrifice – my favourite type of death, as we’ll see here – but also in its simplicity and its subversion of a comic line, it rams home Groot’s actions and their consequences in an incredibly powerful fashion. Can any death in Guardians 3 compare? Oh, and this definitely counts as a death because the Groot in subsequent films is technically this Groot’s offspring.

Phil Coulson (The Avengers, 2012): in a similar way to Groot, taking a beloved and more-or-less comic relief character and then brutally offing them is certainly a way to tug on the audience’s heartstrings. And it’s something Joss Whedon has form in, the bugger (leaves on the wind, sob). Coulson was the affable, loveable face of SHIELD, contrasted against the no-nonsense Maria Hill and the nominatively determined Nick Fury. Closely following events throughout Phase One, he stands up to an Actual God and is stabbed through the heart for his troubles. It’s the tough death of a brave man against impossible forces, but is used (rather callously, by Fury) as a rallying cry to get the other Avengers to band together. It’s sad, it’s heroic, it achieved something. His return (well, multiple returns, spoiler alert) in Agents of SHIELD I think we can safely presume is now the business of a separate universe.

Tony Stark (Avengers: Endgame, 2019): he had to be there somewhere, right? We love him three thousand. The face of the MCU, the spine of the Infinity Saga, RDJ’s Tony was not just where it all began but why it all continued; he set the Tone in more ways than one. His whole deal was about trying to protect everybody – a suit of armour round the world – even if his actions were sometimes counter-productive and even destructive. Going into Endgame, I think most people assumed Steve would be making the sacrifice play, but it all makes thematic sense for Tony to be the one (in 14,000,605). It also makes perfect sense that we would use his quick wits and ingenuity to basically trick Thanos, and his expertise with technology – his ever-evolving armour, reaching its apex here – to steal back the stones. And – hey – it’s a hell of a last line. Pepper telling him that he can rest now is so sad, too.

May Parker (Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021): a death I don’t think anyone saw coming, and working to make Tom Holland’s Spider-trilogy essentially an extended origin story for the character. We’d all assumed that an Uncle Ben had died on this Spider-Man, too, giving him his famous mantra; but here it’s May who assumes the role not just of emotional backbone and wise, nurturing parental figure, but also the one who tells Peter that with great power – you know the rest. It’s a cruel scene, too, knocking her about then letting her get back up, making us think she’s fine. It’s a shock death, a tragic death, and thematically it does everything the traditional Uncle Ben death does to Peter, but in a whole new way. Clever writing, emotional storytelling.

Yondu (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017): ah, we’re back once again, ready to get all tearful. There’s definitely going to be another Guardian on this list if I do it after the third film, isn’t there? Anyway, Yondu is another mostly-comic character, funny because of how nasty and gnarly he is (Michael Rooker is great) but also showing some hidden sweetness. Returning to rescue Peter, he sacrifices himself to save his adoptive son (“He may have been your father, but he wasn’t your daddy”). It’s an act of heroism that seems to make up for his rather abusive past behaviour, and the way the Ravagers turn out to honour him is so touching it even makes poor Rocket tear up.

Loki (Avengers: Infinity War, 2018): we had to get to him eventually, yeah? After at least two fake-out deaths, he finally bites the dust at the hands – well, hand – of Thanos. His arc across the Infinity Saga was one of the highlights: with slights against him both real and imagined, he betrays his family to seek power, doubles down on his wicked side (he killed Coulson!), before his reluctant need to team up with Thor ends up rekindling his familial feelings. At the end, despite it all, he really does try to stop Thanos and save Thor, only to be rather viciously murdered. It’s a rather sad, pathetic death for someone who once had lofty, grandiose ambitions, but at least it was more-or-less honourable. It’ll be interesting to see how the version of Loki in, er, Loki pans out; are we looking at a second tearjerking end for the God of Mischief?

Natasha Romanoff (Avengers: Endgame, 2019): kinda shocking really that she’s this low down the list; almost as low as the floor when she fell off that cliff, hooooo. Natasha’s death was a really shock, though; we knew she had a solo movie on the way so even us nerds who think we can predict it all were blindsided. Sure, we can expect her to sacrifice herself; we knew she had it in her. But doing it not so much to save the world but to save Clint was the heartbreaker. Two best friends fighting each other for the right to sacrifice themselves; it’s the pinnacle of heroic tragedy. And this one really felt like it meant something, because removing her from play halfway through the film meant she was absent for the final battle, for the cheesy “women of Marvel” moment, and for Tony’s funeral; all the big Avengers Assemble stuff, where we got to see just about everyone on screen at once. She deserved pride of place as an OG Avenger and the first woman on the team, and whilst it’s gutting that we were denied that as an audience, it’s also testament to how strong a moment her death was.

Vision (Avengers: Infinity War, 2018): Vision’s death is obviously sad, but it’s the brutality of it that really hits home. A whole film’s worth of shoe leather is spent trying to figure out a way to keep him alive despite Thanos coming for the midget gem in his head, but I think deep down we knew he was a goner. Like Chekov’s gun, there are only so many times you can be told Wanda is the last resort for destroying the gem; and, sure enough, she has to kill her boyfriend to save the universe, with Viz reassuring her and consoling her the whole time. It’s awful. And then what happens? Old Nazca Line-chin reverses time, brings Vision back to life, and then proceeds to tear the Mind Stone from his skull. It’s revolting and one of the most violent scenes in the MCU, somehow apparently okay because it’s all wires and metal and not, y’know, organic brain matter. Anyway, it’s a nasty, horrible death, with one of my beloved Heroic Sacrifices literally undone before our very eyes.

Jane Foster (Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022): the most recent death on this list and another one that I think came as quite a shock. There was a sense, post-Endgame, that Marvel was clearing the decks of the old guard – the OG Avengers – to make way for new blood. A new Captain America, a new Hawkeye, Ironheart instead of Iron Man; so Jane Foster as The Mighty Thor seemed to track. Presumably Chris Hemsworth would bow out and give Natalie Portman a couple of films and an Avengers movie to shine. So when she succumbs to cancer at the end of the film, it’s surprising and sad, and tonally resonates with the film’s undercurrent of accepting loss as a part of life. It’s also sad on a kind of metafictional level because Jane was rather underused in previous films, and Portman didn’t enjoy making The Dark World by all accounts, so we’ve been deprived of a decent romantic pairing; seeing them get back together was great on a number of levels, and Portman was really fun in a more engaged, superheroic role. To cut that short after only one film heightened the sense of loss.

Gamora (Avengers: Infinity War, 2018): another shocking and surprising death, and another that deprived us of a heroic sacrifice or moment of celebration for Gamora. I’d argue she received more character development in Infinity War than in either of the two Guardians movies, and her relationships with both Peter and Thanos resonate strongly. Yes, she’s disposed of brutally, killed in order to service the plot machinations of a man; but I’d argue that’s the point. It shows how ruthless Thanos is. She struggles against it, even tries to kill herself before he can kill her, but to no avail. And in many ways her death sets in motion a huge string of events, not just because it means Thanos has the Soul Stone, but because of how her death affects Peter and her sister Nebula. It’s also another example of heroes struggling with all their might to fight Thanos, and ultimately losing. Sad!

Quite a few that I didn’t have time for here. I love Killmonger’s dying speech in Black Panther; I love Pietro’s “never saw me coming” heroic sacrifice. I thought about lumping the Illuminati from Multiverse of Madness as one entry, just for how horrific those deaths were (especially Black Bolt, eurgh). But the one that very, very nearly made it was actually Frigga in The Dark World; a relatively minor character, really, but comes into her own with a badass fight, and has a sweet funeral, and her death is really thematically important for Thor going forward.

Anyway. Time to steel ourselves. Some of the Guardians are definitely not coming back. See you on the other side.

#top ten #marvel #mcu #comics #movies #guardians of the galaxy #guardians of the galaxy vol 3 #avengers

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mydisorganisedreligion · 1 year

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Me, several times while watching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, yesterday! *** NO SPOILERS *** What an emotional ride. I knew it would be good, but it was so, SO GOOD. And I'm glad. (I later saw a handful of "meh" and outright negative reviews on IMDb, and I had the cliched reaction, "Did we watch the same movie!!?) Wakanda Forever, for me, was moving and engrossing, and everything from the plot and story, to the performances, to the visuals, to the score and soundtrack, to the costumes were completely top-notch. Most of the more recent MCU movies have left me... underwhelmed... to say the least. By stark contrast, THIS... was one of the best movies I've seen in ANY genre in quite some time.

The quality of production values are evidence of filmmakers who have a genuine passion for their craft, not just for cranking out product (as is too common anymore). More than once I thought to myself, as I took in the gorgeous visuals and costume design, that Wakanda Forever, much like its predecessor, is in fact art in filmmaking. I have an inkling that was not an easy film to write and produce in the wake of the loss of the lead actor. But the filmmakers not only succeeded, IMO they exceeded all expectations. The death of Chadwick Boseman/T'Challa is acknowledged very appropriately and sensitively, in the intro and in references within the story. Many of us are still mourning Boseman's loss, not just the actor, but the human being that he was. The wound has not healed, and this film functions very much as a catharsis for us fans, and I imagine for those who actually knew and worked with Boseman. I considered that, in filming the scenes -- particularly with Letitia Wright/Shuri -- where a range of grieving emotions was called for, that not much of a "performance" was necessary.

Don't misunderstand: Despite the image I posted, Wakanda Forever is not a maudlin sob-fest. Yes, there is appropriate and difficult grieving by the characters and it proves important to the story (although some on IMDb apparently don't agree). Furthermore, it would have been callous to have glossed over it and simply recast T'Challa with another actor, or mentioned it once and never again. I think it was not only handled the best way it could have been, but in a way that actually adds a special depth of meaning to the story. Boseman's presence or, others have said, absence (same difference?) is of course felt through the film, which is not a strike against it, at all. It is both a tribute and a continuation of the Black Panther/Wakanda mythos.

I thought Wright did an amazing job, moving up from supporting actor in the previous film to the de facto lead, as much of the story focused on her. With this, she has proven herself entirely capable of carrying a film -- even one in which she is stepping into some pretty big shoes. (Somewhere, Chadwick Boseman is smiling proudly at his "little sister".) In fact, Wright, Angela Basset, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, new antagonist Tenoch Huerta Mejía, and -- in a gripping cameo -- Michael B. Jordan, all delivered the kind of strong and believable performances that are the important distinction between a merely entertaining popcorn flick with explosions and action and gadgetry, and a very relatable and human story. I'm pleased to say that this film has plenty of both in just the right amounts.

I don't think it's far off-base to consider so-called superhero movies (and the comics from which they originate) to be the modern form of mythology. Once upon a time, we carved such figures into statues, painted them, sang about them, told stories about them to wide-eyed children, and committed lengthy tales about them into written form, some of which survived through the ages. Today, our preferred mediums are mass-printed paper and film, and these stories allow a similar means of expression and entertainment. I will repeat: several times during my (thus far, first and only) viewing of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I thought to myself that this was visual artistry, in every sense of the word. And I was deeply moved and grateful to experience it -- and will again. Thank you to everyone involved in this fantastic film! It was not only the sequel we wanted, it was the one we needed. Rest in Power, "King T'Challa" Chadwick Boseman. #BlackPanther #WakandaForever

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fabianocolucci · 2 years

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Regarding the meta-narrative competition between the MCU and the DCEU

When it comes down to the two biggest comic book cinematic universes, there is no doubt that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is perceived as much bigger, more successful and more critically acclaimed than the DC Extended Universe.

Of course, there could be many reasons for that. The MCU came first, which gave the DCEU the aura of “you are merely an attempt to follow a successful franchise”, there isn’t a Kevin Feige-like figure who has supervised the DCEU from the start, one had set a path to follow through (leading up to Infinity War) while the other simply seems like a collection of movies that just share the same universe, and so on.

However, I have always felt like there is some narrative in how the people seem to enjoy that the MCU is more successful, even to the point of rooting for it.

You see, in the years before the first Iron Man movie premiered, Marvel had a lot of monetary issues, and they had to undergo through many choices in order to stay afloat. One of these choices was to sell the movie rights of their superheroes to various studios.

This is why, between 1998 and 2008, there have been more Marvel movies than ever before, since those studios obviously bought those rights in order to use them. The biggest heroes (X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) had more than one movie, even though it was the Blade trilogy which technically kick-started everything.

As a result, when Marvel Studios was launched, they basically had to work with whatever superhero they could get the rights to. It was pure coincidence that some of these heroes (Iron Man, Captain America and Thor) were core members of the Avengers, which led to the plan of making movies about them, in order to lead towards their big team-up. Other heroes were considered to get a movie in that frame, such as Ant-Man and Shang-Chi, but they would only come in later.

This feels like a good story of someone hitting rock bottom and trying everything they could to not sink further, only for them to rise so high above that everyone wishes they could be like them.

DC, on the other hand, never had this issue, as it has always belonged to one movie studio (Warner Bros.), which means they never had to deal with “I can’t use this character in my movie because of their rights”. Sure, on their TV side, the story may be another one, with many cases like “you can’t put this character in your show because maybe we could be making a movie about them” (for instance, Wonder Woman never appeared on Smallville because they planned to make a movie about her. Said movie came out six years after Smallville, which ran for ten seasons, ended), but that’s something for another post, maybe.

As a result, they could bring in their big guns from the get go. In fact, while the MCU’s Phase One was all about introducing movie goers to the members of The Avengers, the DCEU first started with an origin story for Superman… before jumping straight into making a sequel where the Man of Steel literally fights Batman before teaming up with him and Wonder Woman, all while other important characters like Aquaman and The Flash make cameo appearances.

DC could do that because they didn’t feel the need to introduce Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman to moviegoers, since they are definitely more common and well known than, say, Iron Man before the 2008 movie.

Their cinematic universe felt like it was safe, to the point where they took its success so much for granted that, back in 2014, when they only had one movie released, they revealed their plan for the following six years, including not one but two Justice League movies. Not to mention, one of them was a Suicide Squad movie, which could have been felt as another gigantic power move, since, back then, MCU villains were criticised for how poorly they were developed, while DC had the ability to literally make them the stars.

Everything was set for the triumphant takeover of DC, which would have seen its shared universe become the bigger one.

And yet, what happened?

Well, Batman v. Superman “only” grossed 873 million Dollars. Mind you, this is by no means a failure, but, meanwhile, Captain America: Civil War, released a few weeks later, grossed about 300 millions more.

The first time DC’s biggest superheroes have met in live action did not outperform a movie where most of the main characters had been brought to mainstream audiences within the last 8 years, with the obvious exception of Spider-Man.

Many factors may have contributed, but that proved that the DCEU was not going to dethrone the MCU.

The subsequent movie, Suicide Squad, while managing to win an Academy Award, failed to please many critics and fans, and, while Wonder Woman was a much better film, it had the challenge of going against Spider-Man Homecoming, which managed to gross more once again.

On top of that, Justice League’s troubled production meant it was a box office bomb, compared to Thor Ragnarok. We’ve gotten to the point where the first silver screen iteration of the Justice League couldn’t even perform a team-up movie between Thor and the Hulk, whose previous solo movies are, to this day, still seen as weak spots within the MCU.

That, from a moviegoer perspective, seems like a form of justice, some sort of validation. The MCU had to earn its place among the big movie franchise. In order to have 10 of its films gross more than a billion Dollars, they actually had to flesh them out and develop them onscreen. In fact, only one movie out of those 10 featured a character that had not appeared anywhere else prior to that film, and that is Captain Marvel, and that was 11 years after the franchise had begun.

Seeing a company trying its best in order to stay afloat become this successful feels like the just triumph of blood, sweat and tears. Seeing its biggest rival, who wouldn’t even have to try so hard in standing in their place, fail seems like karmic retribution.

You may have noticed how much people enjoy seeing the DCEU not live up to its potential by how many videos and article about that pop put, especially when an MCU movie proves itself to be successful. Seriously, it’s as if people think “alright, Marvel is successful again, time to remind you of how much of a failure the DCEU is”.

And you know what? It seems like an interesting scenario to study and discuss about.

Of course, this is merely my opinion. I am curious, though: what do others think? Is there some sort of meta-narrative in how those two franchises are perceived? Let me know. Meanwhile, I head out.

#DCEU #DC Extended Universe #DC Films #MCU #DCEU vs MCU #MCU vs DCEU #Marvel Cinematic Universe #random thoughts #Kevin Feige #beb #horse plinko #happy zozz!#zozz is even better than zozi #metanarrative

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

#Loki #spoilers #episode 5 #review #Rolling Stone #Alan Sepinwall

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mk-wizard · 3 years

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Big Hero 6 The Series: It could have been better

Hello, friends. Today, I will be analyzing a TV series based on a movie that I fell in love with for its colourful themes, deep plot, compelling characters, great CGI and memorable messages. Before I get into it, I want to take a moment to say that I have quit doing videos. They are too big of a pain in the petunia to make and I write better than I speak, so I will stick to writing essays, reviews and more. Anyway, onto the analysis.

All I can say about Big Hero 6 the series is that it had a great concept, it presented some great ideas and tried hard to be a cartoon of the times, but it could have and should have been a lot better. The show’s downfall all centers around trying too hard to be kid friendly which makes the shame sting all the more because Big Hero 6 was already kid friendly even with its dark themes, sharp edges and intelligent writing. If anything, even the brightest kid friendly cartoons (Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc.) had those things and actually benefitted from them. By needlessly trying too hard, character development got scrapped, the edges were all smoothed out, storytelling was subpar, the humour was too silly and the executive meddling in the end produced a dismal final season. However, I don’t want this analysis to be one lengthy negative rant about how awful the series was because in its defense, awful is an unfair word. It did have potential and ideas which are worth carrying over to a reboot that I hope will be done someday in the future. Also, we should root for a reboot because Big Hero 6 would not be the first story that needs it before striking gold. Just look at how many times Spider-Man was rebooted in film before MCU found the version that worked. Anyway, I will list all the things in Big Hero 6 that could have been better in my opinion;

1- Go easy on the laughs and be more generous with the action. - I love adding comedy to my own writing because I think a good sense of humour makes everything better, but Big Hero 6 is not a stand up comedy routine. It is a superhero story where we expect action, suspense and life or death situations that are to be taken seriously first. The comedy should be for relief and with the right timing. Also, the chibi cutscenes and having characters act like fools aren’t funny. Ren and Stimpy are the exception not the standard and their way of making you laugh doesn’t fit an action series. In a show as big as Big Hero 6, real life physics and danger matters.

2- Make the villains menacing and gritty. - I admit that after having a movie villain like Yokai who was the stuff of nightmares, it is going to be a challenging act to follow, but it was obvious that the writers were trying especially with some villains who could have easily gone into some dark relatable territory. For example, Mr. Sparkles (the gentleman in the photo above) embodies social media and Internet personalities. Right off the bat, you have a long list of things which embody the dark side of that like scams, fraud, using social media to dox or harass, driving people to suicide, online predators, the Internet personalities being very depressed people in real life, and much more horrifying things. When you stop and look at it, Mr. Sparkles even looks like the Joker which hints how dark and scary he could have been if the stops were removed. The same goes for enemies like Hardlight who embodies online gaming, Liv with cloning, Obake an amoral and insane scientist, and Trina and Noodle Burger Boy (more on him later) being evil robots. Globby especially should have been painted and written in much darker colours rather being played off for laughs because he has many parallels with Clay Face. The only two villains who I can say were supposed to be campy, charming and comical were Baron Von Steamer and Supersonic Sue because they were a satire of the Adam West style villains.

The rest of them needed to be dark and threatening including Mr. Sparkles. In fact, I would love a rebooted version of Mr. Sparkles who gives me the heebie-jeebies. Going back to Noodle Burger Boy, I must confess that I was actually excited when I heard that he was going to be the main villain of the final season because I thought he was going to fulfill his master’s final wish and as a reminder, Noodle Burger Boy was based on a super robot for military purposes.

It would have been fantastic if Noodle Burger Boy was upgraded into a full military war machine with a new threatening look. For that, I think all of the villains deserve to be rebooted and have their full potential unlocked for better or for worse.

3- A show about geniuses merits genius level art quality. - I am usually forgiving towards art styles, but in the case of Big Hero 6, the oversimplified style with minimal details and lack of textures did not suit the show. The characters blend in with the background which makes them look flat and the special effects were extremely dulled down. I also know for a fact that Disney can do a lot better than this because I saw how superbly Tangled the Series was drawn.

You can see and almost feel the difference in quality, the number of layers and level of detail between the two styles. I think there was no excuse Big Hero 6 was not done in the same style and at the same level if not better as Tangled.

3- Don’t dumb down or flanderize amazing characters. - I absolutely detest it when characters are flanderized because it makes them one dimensional and grating. For example, Go Go is tough as nails and extremely calm, but she is not cold or hesitant towards helping her friends. She doesn’t require very special episodes for us to know that. If anything, the movie version of Go Go reminded me a lot of Garnet in how she deconstructed the broody character. She isn’t cold or emotionless. Just calm and mature. Another good example was how Honey Lemon was rewritten to be overly positive to the point of toxicity, naïve and oblivious with a juvenile obsession with stickers. Then you have poor Fred who was rewritten to be an incompetent fool. The spark that makes Big Hero 6 shine is that they are a team of geniuses meaning they are all intelligent. Even Fred is genius in his own way just not a scientific one. He has a vivid imagination, he is resourceful and can get himself out of tight spots. Please, don’t turn characters into dummies especially if their intelligence is a part of them. It doesn’t make them better or funnier. It ruins them.

4- Tadashi needs closure and honour. - I am all for Hiro making peace with the loss of his brother, but Tadashi is to the Big Hero 6 team what Uncle Ben was to Spider-Man. His loss was the catalyst if not the reason. He should never be forgotten. Moreover, there was never any true closure to him especially with the possibility that he may still be alive up in the air. After all, like Callaghan, his body was never found and it turned out that Callaghan was still alive.

With that said, who is to say that Tadashi was not secretly still alive and just hiding or being hidden? This is something that Disney really needed to clear up if not for the fans, then at least as a service to such an important character. Never just forget about them.

5- The format can only be episodic with a deep plots, continuity and character development. - Random episodes with a mere monster of the day is an outdated format which doesn’t fit Big Hero 6′s modern and bright setting. In seasons 1 and 2, when the episodes were plot heavy with character development, the series shined brightest. It also helped move the story along, but with the final season, plot was removed, closure was abandoned or poorly written if any was given, and characters were disallowed from growing. A good example at how plot and character development could have made this series and its characters better was the relationship between Hiro and Megan. Would it have truly survived or would they have broken up?

Would Richardson Mole have eventually lost interest in his obsession with besting and bullying Fred or would his obsession consume him compelling him to become a super villain? I do see quite a few similarities between Mole and Reverse Flash.

Then you have Karmi who is in my opinion, the biggest wild card of the bunch. She was intentionally introduced as an arrogant, prickly and unlikable yet complex character who rivaled Hiro bitterly.

Yet had a huge crush on his alter ego and as time went on, started to grow up and even form a friendship with Hiro. What would have happened further down the road with her? Would she have become a super hero herself? Or maybe even another love interest for Hiro kind of like how Black Cat is for Spider-Man?

Is Obake really gone?

What does the future hold Diana (Liv’s clone), Liv herself or the Sycorax the genetics company?

Is Alistair Krei going to become an ally to Big Hero 6 or an antagonist? There is also the issue at how little we know about the other Big Hero 6 characters other than Fred, Hiro and Baymax. What are Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Go Go’s backstories? These questions matter and while not every mystery can be solved, leaving none of them solved is lazy writing.

6- Executives, kindly stay out of the writing and any other part of the creative process. - I’m sorry, execs, but there is no nice way to say it. History itself proves that every time executives got involved in the creative process of any media, it got worse not better. Leave the writing to the creative team and the execs should only handle the legal stuff. Please. We understand that TV is a business, but writing itself is not. It is an art which you just don’t have a talent for. Let the creative people do their thing with the freedom necessary and you do your thing, deal? Deal.

7- Focus on Hiro and Baymax. - The are the main characters so keep them at the heart of the series no matter what happens around them. That is all I can say.

And that sums up all the things that could have made Big Hero 6 the series better, but this is all just my opinion. What is yours?

PS: I am well aware that the Big Hero 6 series is being retconned because a new series called Baymax is in the works as well as the long awaited sequel to the first movie. I am looking forward to both with an open mind. PPS: I also am aware that some people liked this show the way it was including the art style and I am cool with that. An analysis for art that includes cartoons is never right or wrong. It is solely based on opinion. I may have thought this series could have been better, but there are people who make arguments that it could have been worse.

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insanityclause · 3 years

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There’s a moment that every child who aspires to movie stardom dreams about. They practise it in front of the mirror: graciously thanking their parents, their first drama teacher, their favourite hamster; smiling; waving; trying valiantly to cry. No, it’s not an Oscar’s acceptance speech – at least, not anymore; it’s the moment that super-producer Kevin Feige offers you his hand across a conference table and tells you you’ve landed a Marvel movie.

Yesterday came the first reports that Olivia Colman is in talks to slip into full-body lycra and join the MCU, via the studio’s next small-screen series Secret Invasion. The news follows a recent clutch of arrivals of actresses of a similar age and calibre to Colman to other Marvel projects, including Kathryn Hahn’s show-stealing turn in WandaVision, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ surprise appearance in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Such casting choices may once have sounded insane. Why would the woman who just two years ago won an Academy Award for her grief-stricken, crumbling performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite, and who is up for another one this weekend for The Father, choose to submerge her pristine brand as the reigning monarch of British acting, both on-screen and off-, in a barrel of brightly-coloured, pop-sountracked, quippy-scripted comic bookery?

Secret Invasion sounds even more deranged than the average Marvel project: it will likely focus on the race of green, reptilian aliens called Skrulls (Ben Mendelsohn will reprise his role as Skrull commander Talos from Captain Marvel), as they invade earth by shapeshifting to imitate superheroes. Colman as an alien reptile? It’s hard to think of a more unlikely piece of casting since Judi Dench dressed up in a catsuit.

But over the last decade, a foundational piece of Marvel’s strategy has been signing-on not just fresh-faced stars like Chris Evans and Tom Holland, but some of the world’s most serious performers: inde darlings (Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson), BBC-drama-grown Brits (Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch) and awards-laden powerhouses (Annette Bening, Scarlett Johansson, and even Anthony Hopkins, Colman’s co-star in The Father, who is also up for an Oscar) have all rocked up in the MCU. Much as the Harry Potter franchise once was, the films have become a who’s who of Oscar after-party invite lists.

So why would the great and good of Hollywood acting willingly attach themselves to a franchise that one of the greatest directors of all time not so long ago declared to bear a greater resemblance to theme park rides than cinema? Marvel films are delightful but they are also frequently silly (inevitably, in the transition from cartoon comic book drawings to full-sized, three-dimensional adults leaping around on-camera dressed in skin-tight lycra suits and capes, some space for ridicule is opened up).

The studio is fully aware of this, which is why these films are comedies, but that does not make them any more obvious as vehicles for artists interested in rendering psychological depth on-screen. In 2012, Kiwi wunderkind director Taika Watiti told Interview magazine that he was suspicious of the way feature films can often “turn into commodities”. Yet five years later, his own Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok, hit cinemas.

The financial incentives to any actor are obvious and no doubt play a part but there is something even more valuable to someone like Benedict Cumberbatch – not exactly strapped-for-cash following Sherlock, The Imitation Game, and The Hobbit films – inextricably wound-up with those mega pay packages. That something is audience size. Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar’s re-release in China in March last year, took $357 million at the domestic box office on its opening weekend.

In America, the average price of a cinema ticket that year was about $9 – that means, by the roughest of calculations, that within 48 hours of the film’s release, 12% of the population, or some 40 million people, had seen the film. An actress like Colman has not exactly been confined to niche audiences – The Crown is not a small show – but even so, the prospect of such unparalleled exposure must be seductive.

The dream of a Marvel movie has not replaced the dream of an Oscar – it all but guarantees it. A symbiotic relationship is emerging between the franchise and the Academy, as the popular reach of one feeds and is elevated by the prestige of the other. There is no better example of this than the tragically-curtailed career of the late Chadwick Boseman.

From a handful of critically-lauded but quietly received biopics (42, Get on Up), he was propelled overnight to global stardom by his MCU roles as Black Panther, Marvel’s first black superhero, culminating in the Black Panther film in 2018. Now, just months after his death from cancer, he is a shoo-in to win a Best Actor award this week for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The opposite of a Marvel film in almost every sense – it’s claustrophobic, literary (it’s based on an August Wilson play), and tragic – it was Black Panther nonetheless that secured him the part.

This give-and-take between superhero flicks and prestige dramas extends beyond actors: Watiti, who has just wrapped shooting on another Thor film, was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for his German Resistance drama Jojo Rabbit, while Chloé Zhao, who is sure to win Best Director this weekend for Nomadland, has just wrapped her own Marvel movie, Eternals, which is slated for release in November.

Kathryn Hahn, meanwhile, was brought into WandaVision by director Matt Shakman, better known for directing prestige shows like Mad Men and Succession. His vision, in collaboration with the writer Jac Schaeffer, led to a formally wildly innovative show, providing the opportunity for Hahn and the show’s pair of stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany – both outstanding actors – to flex their comic and creative muscles. Such starpower behind the camera is itself an attraction for actors of Colman’s calibre, and while there is as yet no word on who will direct Secret Invasion, there are many exciting possible names in the mix.

A few powerhouse industry figures were instrumental in fostering this mutually-beneficial relationship. The first was Robert Downey Jr, the original posterboy of the franchise. When he agreed to star in the first film, 2008’s Iron Man, it was a huge gamble – director Jon Favreau had to battle the studio to accept him – as he emerged from a wilderness decade marred by drug addiction, but it was also a huge coup. Downey Jr had just been nominated for an Oscar for Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder and had recently starred in David Fincher’s instant cult-classic Zodiac; his personal reputation may have been in tatters, but as a serious actor, he brought chops.

His Iron Man would become the emotional and dramatic heart of the franchise over its next three phases. Kenneth Branagh, who directed the 2011 film Thor, also bridged the gap between the big flashy studio and his own thespy circle: he brought his protégé Tom Hiddleston, who at that point was best known for his British TV and theatre work, onboard to play Loki, a decision that Feige apparently described as the most important the studio would ever make. Hiddleston capitalised on rather than abandoned his roots: he approached the character like “a comic book version of Edmund in King Lear, but nastier.” It paid off: Hiddleston is a global superstar, frequently touted as the next James Bond, and his dedicated Loki spin-off show is the Marvel TV release of the summer.

Of course, there’s one thing that Marvel offers its actors that money simply can’t buy: a bit of fun. “If my actors aren’t having a good time on set, then I’m doing something wrong,” Waititi told Polygon in 2016. Reflecting on her playfully heightened performance in the early episodes of WandaVision in a recent interview with the New York Times, Hahn said that her husband said her performance had reminded him of her younger self in her college days. “I haven’t seen that part of you in so long – just you, hamboning it,” he told her. Colman, who is by all accounts is a mischievous on a film set, may simply want to bust out of those period costumes, slip into a bodysuit, and have a good time.

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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 2 years

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Science & Faith | Carlton Drake x Reader (10/?)

Words: 2265

A/N: I'm just going to try and keep posting this series when I can regardless. There are some elements that are from the comics added that I hope they introduce in the MCU.

Science & Faith Masterlist

The Estranged

Eddie sipped on his beer as the news covered the release of William Fisk. Cameras continuously flashed as he left the guarded gates of the prison to his car. Reporters instantly swarmed the armed vehicle, pounding on the glass and trying to take a peek through the tinted windows.

“What’s the point in bothering the guy?” the bartender muttered, “It’s not like he’s gonna say anything new.”

Eddie whipped out his phone and sent a quick text to you and Dora before paying for his drink. He slid off of his stool and headed out, worried about how vague your replies had been for the past few days. Whenever he asked about the blackout, you would say that your boss was looking into it and that there was only so much you knew about it.

When he had gone into Life Foundation to meet Dora, she had told him about the Super Collider that Doctor Octavius had been building for Fisk before he died. He wondered why you hadn’t told him about it, unless there was something else that you were hiding from him. It was clearly something important for someone to break into Life to steal the blueprints and powerful enough to wipe out the power lines in a big portion of New York City.

With that thought in mind, he sent another text, one to Anne to check up on you. If you won’t tell him what was going on, surely you’d tell Anne.

The key to getting the Spider Squad back into their own universes had finally been put together. The problem was, when they had left to look for the Collider, it seemed to have been tampered with or overloaded and broken. They hoped that there would be enough data left behind that could tell them what was going on.

“There were attempts,” Peter said, looking at the data, “of trying to get it to work.”

“But tampering with space and time isn’t like opening a door from point A to point B,” Tony added, crossing his arms. “These are rifts to different universes. Whatever went wrong had caused all of you to end up here. Which raises another question; who the hell is doing this? Fisk had been squatting in jail and Doc Ock had been killed from a lab accident. That building had been completely shut down.”

Gwen stood next to Peter, eyes scanning the data projected in front of her. If the person who had messaged her is who she thinks it is, that must mean that the failed Collider had brought her to this universe as well. But, that also means that it ruled her out as a possible suspect that could have tampered with the Collider.

“How’s Peni and Noir?” Peter asked her softly.

Gwen grimaced. “They’re dealing with it. Miles is helping (Y/n) and their team to monitor them. For now, they’ve got a temporary stabilizer working, but they need to go in every day to get it checked.”

“And you?”

“I’m feeling it more. So is Miles… We’ll figure it out, Peter,” she assured him.

“Yeah? Did you have a Peter in your universe that always figured things out?”

“I had. He was one of my best friends. He couldn’t figure out everything, but at least he admitted it… most of the time… and reached out for help. With all of us together, I know we can fix this.”

She squeezed his shoulder and walked away towards the elevator. There was something that she needed to be sure of, but she didn’t want to bring it up and distract Peter about the current task at hand. Gwen knew that you were currently with Peni and Noir and went straight to the lab.

You were reviewing different designs that could configure Tony’s iron glove into an atomic stabilizer of sorts while your team was doing their routine check up on Peni and Noir. Miles sat on the side nervously, eyes flicking back and forth between his two new friends and you. No one knew how long it was going to take to solve this and no one knew how long they had until they were ripped apart as their atoms tried to get them back to their original universes. Miles was a big help in relaying information to you, what it was like being pulled through the portal, when exactly each person started feeling the side effects, and what that experience was like, so that you had a better understanding of what you were dealing with.

Gwen sat down at one of the stools nearest you, waiting for the right moment to speak. Once Peni and Noir’s check up was finished, they made their way back to their rooms, doctor’s orders. Miles got up from his seat, glancing at Gwen who gestured for him to go ahead. He nodded, resting a hand on Peni’s head as the three of them left.

You turned away from the screen, raising an eyebrow at Gwen. She exhaled slowly, turning on the stool to fully face you.

“Who do you think would have tampered with the Collider?” Gwen asked.

You shrugged. You weren’t expecting her to ask you that kind of question, figuring that it was already something that had been discussed with the others. “It would have to be someone from this universe who could have used it, but all the ones I know from the top of my head wouldn’t have been able to, and yet -”

Your phone interrupted your train of thought, Anne’s name popping up on the screen. “I need to… hold on a second.”

Gwen nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Hello?”

“Hey, (Y/n/n), how’s everything over there?” Anne asked.

“It’s… complicated, to say the least. How about over there? Has Dora found anything yet?”

You heard her sigh, followed by a thud, which you assume was her briefcase. She must have just gotten home. “More like someone found her. Eddie had gone to see her when the lab was broken into. He made it just in time, too. Her and Scream had been locked in one of the symbiote test chambers by someone who really needed those Super Collider blueprints.”

“What? Who?” Your eyes caught Gwen shifting uneasily in her seat.

“I don’t know. Eddie said it was this girl in a black and gray costume. A red mask was covering her face. Oh, and she’s also from another universe. He didn’t really have the time or eloquence to properly explain it to me, but I think I got the gist. So, parallel universes, huh?”

“Something like that. Does this mysterious woman shoot webs or anything?”

Anne huffed. “She did. From her fingers, apparently. Would the Avengers know anything about that?”

“Yeah, we do, actually. I’m going to call you back later today, Annie, I just need to deal with something right now.”

“Alright. Please keep us updated,” Anne pleaded, “We were worried.”

“I will. Bye.”

You leaned an arm against your desk, taking a moment to process this new information. “There was another spider person that was brought here,” you started, “Is that why you came to me?”

Gwen nodded. “She… Cindy was a friend of mine. I thought I was the only one that got bitten by the radioactive spider, but she did, too. When our friend died, she didn’t take it too well. She lost her family not long after. It was like a switch had gone off and she suddenly became this other person.”

“Right, so she would have a good enough reason to set off the Collider, but she’s from your universe. There would be no way that it was her.” You plopped down on the seat next to Gwen, taking her hand. “She took the blueprints for the Super Collider, Gwen. I also want to know who activated it in the first place, but if she manages to get that machine up and running again, who knows what will happen.”

“I know. There’s so much going on right now and I needed to tell someone. She contacted me, that’s how I knew that she was here. If we go after her, she’ll be prepared to go against us.” She squeezed your hand, ducking her head as a heaviness settled in her chest. “I don’t want to fight her. I don’t want to lose another friend.”

“I understand,” you said softly. “Let’s hope it won’t come down to that.”

It took a while, but Eddie managed to contact someone to help hack into Carlton’s old computer and unearth his hidden files. Together, Eddie and Dora sorted through any potential leads that could give them answers about the Collider and anyone else who had access to it before the lab was destroyed. So many projects that were pitched to Carlton that he had saved and locked away.

He had his chance of being a hero, of making a difference. Tony Stark had even tried many times to reach out to him, and that was saying something. From the notes that Dora found, he had been exchanging correspondences with Doctor Octavius a few years back, discussions on possible project collaborations and the Collider.

Doctor Octavius found out why Fisk wanted the Collider and continued to build it for his own curiosity. If it were to fail, he’d make sure that Fisk would not have the blueprints. Thanks to the discovery of the symbiotes, all of that was put on the backburner as long as the blueprints were safely hidden from everyone. Fisk wasn’t the only one that was interested in interdimensional traveling.

Eddie had left an hour ago to see if he could get an interview with Fisk when a video call from Stark Towers pulled Dora away from the files. She answered without looking at who it was, writing down notes as she spoke. “I just found a couple of things that could be useful. I can send the files now,” she said.

“That would be great,” Carlton said, a small smirk on his face when Dora jumped.

“Doctor Drake, I… ,” she cleared her throat, taking a moment to compose herself. This wasn’t her boss Carlton Drake, the one who killed innocent people and threatened her family. This person hadn’t done anything to you, she reminded herself. “I’m surprised they allowed you access.”

He chuckled. “Yes, well, they’ve got an Avenger monitoring me, so it’s not free reign.” He glanced over his shoulder at Bucky who was watching him closely. “So, what skeletons have you found in my evil twin’s closet?”

Dora adjusted her glasses. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call him evil twin. For all we know, you could be lying about yourself as well.”

“That is true, but the Tony Stark from my universe can vouch for me on this,” Carlton countered. He lowered his gaze, frowning. “Why did (Y/n) stay with me for so long? Why couldn’t they just leave if I was so horrible?”

“You need to ask them yourself,” she said with a sigh. “What about you?”

“What?” He raised his head

“What about you and the (Y/n) from your universe. What happened?”

He licked his lips, his shoulders slumping. Talking about it was inevitable and he had been waiting for the right time to do so with you, but there was never a right time. Dr. Dora Skirth was one of if not the most trusted researcher at Life Foundation and also your close friend. Surely, she was safe to confess to.

“It wasn’t pretty. I was careless and the project just got out of hand. When (Y/n) tried to contain it, they got hurt. They got hurt pretty bad and, uh, our attempts to save them failed. They‘re gone now… because of me.”

The silence stretched on, tugging on his anxiety. This universe’s Carlton Drake was quickly established as someone that nobody could ever trust again, a danger to himself and those around him due to his ambitions. Now that he had confessed that his actions in his own universe had endangered you, what will they think of him now?

Dora let out another heavy sigh as she fixed her glasses. “Look…,” she paused trying to articulate her words, “I hope you know that our (Y/n) is not the same as your (Y/n) and that you’re not using them as some replacement.”

“No. No, of course not. I just… I just miss them, you know, and seeing their face again… Alive.” Carlton gave her a melancholy smile. “I wanted to get to know them more. We were supposed to sit down and talk, but my and the others’ condition is getting worse. We can only estimate how long we each have before it tears us apart.”

He seemed genuine enough. The rest was all up to you whether you wanted to interact with him or not. Dora trusted you to make that decision, so she didn’t continue with that subject.

“I’m sending you guys what I’ve found so far,” she said.

Fisk strolled through the desolate penthouse, surprised to see almost everything intact. He picked a competent security team. Or so he thought.

Striding over to his desk, there was an old file folder with a post it note attached to the top.

“We need a scientist and I know just the place to find them -S,” it read in neat script.

He flipped the file open, inhaling sharply at the contents. The blueprints for the collider. He can resume what he started. Whoever this person is, he’ll have to leave the rest to them.

#carlton drake x reader #carlton drake #Carlton drake imagine #venom imagine #marvel imagine #spider fam #doctor carlton drake x reader #dr carlton drake x reader

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cblgblog · 3 years

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So my issues with Irondad are well documented at this point, starting from their very first scenes. Specifically the utter tone deafness of Peter’s recruitment, by both Tony and the writers. Tony starts the movie being blamed for the death of a 20-year-old kid who was in the wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. That accidental death that can be put down to negligence on his part, is pivotal to what happens next. So pivotal he uses it in his pitch for why the other Avengers need to sign the Accords.

Tony, midway through the movie, deliberately brings a 15-year-old child into this conflict. A child he blackmails into going with him, because if you don’t, I will tell your aunt.

Charles Spencer was an innocent civilian, wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. He died. That tears Tony up, as it rightfully should. And yet, in the midst of his crusade about following laws and accountability, he lies to May Parker about taking her 15-year-old nephew out of the country and into a warzone. Ignoring some well-established laws about child soldiers.

Tony blackmailing a child who’s had his powers for 6 months into participating in this conflict makes no sense. Ever. It especially makes no sense in the context of Charles Spencer and his mother. Yet neither Tony nor the writers seem to comprehend this. Which is why Irondad has been bullshit from the start. Blackmail and kidnapping are not sweet, father-son moments, even if you ignore the fact, as the MCU wants to, that Peter had a father already, in Ben Parker. He has a loving adult parental figure in May Parker. Both of whom cared about him before he had spider powers that might be helpful to them.

All of this, I’ve said before, so have others. And then I realized that I actually hate Irondad more than I thought. That Feige and co. mishandled it even more than I thought, and why? Because of this.

We know the story. Peter was, supposedly, this kid Tony saved at the Stark Expo in Iron Man 2. Started out as a fan theory, and then was confirmed that yes, this is true, this is exactly what we intended.

Now, we know Civil War had different writers/directors than Homecoming or FFH did. We also know that, for all the lip service of, ‘It’s all connected,’ we know that the creatives in these different franchises do not always talk to each other, and that they often blatantly contradict each other.

Taking all that into account, acknowledging that…the dumbasses at Marvel did not think up the idea of Peter being the Iron Man 2 kid. They heard the theory, thought it was cool, then took credit for having meant that the entire time, yes, that was totally us.

We know this because it is never mentioned in canon. All those Tony and Peter interactions, all those times of yes, Mr. Stark, I just want to be like you, Mr. Stark, and Peter never mentions that? When Tony takes he suit from him in Homecoming and Peter says that he just wants another chance, wants to be like Tony, would he not mention that hey, you saved my life, Mr. Stark. You saved my life and I just wanted to be like you, and now I can be, now I can save lives like you, just please give me another chance.

If the Iron Man 2 theory were true, would he not say that? In FFH, when he’s all guilt-ridden, I didn’t save him, would he not mention that hey, he saved my life before I was Spider-man, before I was special, before I was anyone?

Now I know what you’re thinking. The Iron Man 2 thing isn’t that big a deal. It’s not a crucial thing. And you know what, you’re right. It isn’t, it’s just always annoyed me, in an eyeroll way, that the same people who couldn’t count properly between 2012 and 2017 (8 years later flashing in giant letters across our screens means that Homecoming was meant to take place in 2020), that these same people who let something so blatantly timeline breaking get through then took credit for a kind of cool, kind of clever fan theory. It’s annoying.

I’ve now realized, however, that it is far more than annoying to me. Because TPTB at Marvel did not think of that idea for themselves, but if they had, and if they’d run with that idea? If they had, it would’ve made Peter’s recruitment in Civil War so much more fucked up than it already is, but so much more interesting. So, so, so much more interesting.

I’ve talked about why Spidey’s own movies (as much as you can call them that given the level of Tony infiltration) prove that the theory isn’t true. Now let’s go to Civil War. Different writers, yes, but let’s talk anyway about why we can tell from CW that Peter was not that kid.

He gets home. May is like, look who it is, Tony Stark. Not, look who it is, the hero who literally saved your life. When Tony locks himself in Peter’s room with him (still fucking gross, Jesus Christ), Peter is just, nope, I got no idea what you’re talking about. That’s—no, I’m not a superhero, no. He’s defensive. He’s apprehensive. He’s trying to figure out what fresh hell this is. He’s trying to hide stuff from Tony. If this is the guy who saved him at the Stark Expo, why this reaction? Why not, oh my god, you saved my life, I thought I’d never see you again, not, not up close I mean. When Tony asks him to do a thing, why is it not, well yeah, duh , you saved my life, where do we start? Or even, okay, I don’t really wanna do this, but, you saved my life, I owe you?

So, nobody wrote a fucking word of any of Peter and Tony’s interactions under the theory that he was the Stark Expo kid.

But what if they had?

Tony shows up at May’s place. He does not know who Peter is, in relation to their “meeting” before. He’s expecting to have to do some level of smooth talk to get in here but, nope. May’s just, oh my god, you saved my boy’s life, come in, come in!

We don’t know for sure that Peter was orphaned by the time of the Expo, but if we base it on comics and prior films, he likely was. Most versions seem to have him fall under Ben and May’s care between 2 and 6. O1’ birthday means he would’ve been around 9 at the Expo. So, more than likely, Ben or May or both were the ones there with him. They may credit Tony with saving their lives as well.

So, Tony starts the movie being called out by a grieving mother. Going down this route, we’re at the midpoint…and here’s a different mother telling him how great he is. How he saved the most important thing in her life. How if Ben were here (May’s wearing her wedding ring around her neck btw, you can see it in the scene), Ben would say the same thing. Shake his hand. Hug him.

Now, Tony’s got a sharp ass mind, when it’s not clouded with booze or drugs or the like. Since he wasn’t wasted at the Expo, there’s a good chance that, given some details, he remembers saving this kid. He remembers how small this little boy actually was. He remembers how light this kid was when he grabbed him. It was a few seconds in a long ass night, that he hasn’t thought about in years, but to May Parker, it’s everything.

So maybe at this point Tony’s rethinking this. He’s remembering that little boy, realizing how young he still is. He pulled that boy from danger. And now here’s this woman who invited him into her house, told him how her husband just passed recently, things have been hard, especially for Peter but God, he’ll love to see you. Maybe Tony’s rethinking this, coming up with a way out, when Peter shows up. And then, aw hell. The kid’s just a mess of excitement and shock, possibly tears…okay now it’s just gotten harder to make an exit.

Let’s pause here to say that May Parker is not fucking dumb (“Cut the bullshit. I know you left detention. I know you left the hotel room in Washington. I know you sneak out of this house every night.”).

May is not dumb. Letting the 50-year-old dude go into her nephew’s room with him, alone? Arguably dumb, even if it is Iron Man. Letting him grab the kid for some Stark…thing, and take him wherever Tony said he was taking him on 12 seconds notice? Even more arguably dumb. CW as it’s written dumbs down May’s character for the sake of an already questionable plot point. Especially since she literally says she’s not a fan of Tony in Homecoming. Yes, her comment there comes after the “internship,” her noting Peter’s distraction and stress because of it. But still, it’s fucking weird that she’d let this man take her kid out of the country, alone, in CW. It makes her dumb for the sake of plot.

But if Stark saved Peter’s life not so long ago? It at least makes a bit more sense. He’s a hero. Peter literally wouldn’t be here without him. Why would Tony hurt him now?

So, back to the scene. Peter’s probably less paranoid about showing his stuff to Tony. Probably not spilling everything himself, but when Tony notices things, Peter’s probably less panicked over it, more willing to confirm. Yes, he’s got these powers, okay? And he hasn’t had them for long, but he’s trying to do good, like Tony. He’s trying to do the right thing, like Tony.

Now, this kid has such literal hero worship going, and he’s so damn inexperienced, he admits that. And Tony’s still got Charles Spencer’s mom in his head. He’s dead, Stark. And I blame you.

Can Tony really take this kid—actual minor kid younger than Charles was—take him and put him on the field against the goddamn Avengers? That woman out there with the dead husband and the ring around her neck, what’s he going to say if Peter gets hurt, or worse? Sure the kid obviously has skills but, can he risk another grieving mom?

So, maybe Tony’s rethinking this. Maybe he can still get out of this, improvise a Plan B. But then there’s a text from Nat or Ross. Where are you? We’ve only got a few hours, what’s the play?

Special circumstances, nobody in that group is really gonna fight to kill…it’s special circumstances, and he can keep the kid mostly sidelined.

This time, he doesn’t have to blackmail Peter. He doesn’t have to threaten to expose his secret. Peter’s willing, either because he genuinely wants to, or he feels he owes Tony a debt. So there goes the dick factor of Tony literally blackmailing a child. And the lack of questions Peter seems to ask about what he’s fighting for, the acceptance of vague answers, that’d also make more sense in this context.

In this version, Tony is both more and less of a dick. He’s doing less active threatening and manipulation…but he’s also being doubly manipulative. His genuinely good deed gives him an easy in with the Parkers. He’s playing on the credibility of an earlier, at least somewhat better version of himself. One who saved Peter Parker and hadn’t yet ended Charles Spencer.

Look, I won’t lie, I legit don’t know what I’m saying anymore, except that Marvel sucks for taking credit for a thing that they definitely do not have credit for. Which isn’t particularly new for them, and wouldn’t particularly matter if the thing they took credit for (and didn’t do anything with) could’ve offered some interesting story possibilities.

#anti tony stark #anti irondad #iron man 2 #peter parker #may parker #kinda fuck marvel though really #spider-man #civil war

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