There are quite a few reasons that Age of Ultron is not a good movie, but I think one of the main things that turns people off is something they don't even realize. The movie pretty explicitly makes the case that when you take away the Avengers and the insistence that he is a hero, it's pretty clear that Tony is a villain.

Saw someone say that "with the reveal of Mysterio, Tony Stark created 7 villains" and I'm just adsfghmjsadfghfd *incoherent screeches of rage*

FIRST OF ALL, Tony didn't freaking do ANYTHING to Obadiah, Whiplash or Mysterio to "create" them. Obadiah freaking LITERALLY RIPPED OUT HIS HEART to get his tech and his company, Whiplash was pissed about something HOWARD STARK did that Tony didn't even know about until he told him, and Mysterio MADE TECH FOR TONY'S COMPANY, WHICH TONY EXHIBITED IN A BIG TECH DEMO THING. HE DIDN'T STEAL THE TECH, THE GUY WAS WORKING FOR TONY!!! Of course the head tech designer and owner of your company has a right to name the tech whatever he wants, dickhead. And even though they don't tell us outright, I find it reeeeeeeallly hard to believe that Tony "Always Buried to His Elbows In Tech To The Point That He Seemingly Rarely Sleeps" Stark, who was also trying to work out deep-seated emotional issues with the help of said tech, didn't have a direct hand in its planning/blueprint/creation. Plus, I think maybe, JUST MAYBE Tony was RIGHT to fire the "crazy" guy when he wanted to make a PUBLICLY, WHOLEHEARTEDLY WEAPONS-FREE COMPANY BUILD HIM WEAPONS, AND his solution to being fired was to PUT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AT SEVERE RISKS AND EVEN ATTEMPT MURDER SEVERAL TIMES.

SECOND OF ALL, his role in the "creation" of Killian, Zemo, Vulture and Ultron was freaking TINY. He played a kinda mean prank on Killian ONCE and then the dude decides that makes it A-Okay to start EXPERIMENTING ON HUMANS AND MAKING THEM EXPLODE??? FUCK him. Vulture got dealt a bad hand but I'm kind of on Tony's side on the whole "don't let regular people get their hands on highly dangerous and volatile alien tech" thing. Plus, the one who was mean to the workers directly wasn't even Tony! It was some random lady! I'm pretty sure if Tony had been there he would've made some sassy remark but still paid some compensation to the displaced workers (gift giving is his love language after all, and he's NEVER EVER been shown to be stingy with his money). And as for Ultron (+Zemo)? I think this post says it all better than I could, but TL;DR I don't think Tony should be blamed for his creation. Even if you don't believe that, the fault should be EQUALLY SHARED between him, Bruce and Wanda BUT SOMEHOW NO ONE GIVES THE OTHER TWO ANY SHIT ABOUT IT.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WANDA "BLAME THE GUN-MAKING COMPANY CEO INSTEAD OF THE FREAKING GUN SHOOTER OR THE GUN DISTRIBUTOR FOR THE MURDER" MAXIMOFF

Sorry for the long rant, it just makes me SO FREAKING MAD ASDFXCGHJASDFGSDZFG I WILL DIE MAD ABOUT THIS.

The MCU's relationship with Tony Stark is something that will always just piss me off so so much and is proof of how the MCU's musical chairs act with writers/directors/etc can lead to the most ridiculous mistakes/plot lines/etc.

Why do you hate Sylvie but defend Wanda???

Listen, most of my dislike of Sylvie stems from how absolute garbage the show treats Loki and the creators are so convinced they made the best character while failing to put a lot of basic effort into writing and production. 

I resent Sylvie for stealing focus from a character I've loved for a decade. Honestly, she could be written the same but have Loki written with respect and care and I would not be on this hate train.

Wanda's pain isn't being pitted against anyone else's. It's never framed to show how she had it so much worse. More importantly, we see where her pain comes from. We see the twins only having each other and caring about each other. We got to know Vision so we understand why it's painful for Wanda to not just lose him but be the one who has to kill him only for that to be a pointless act. That is real gut punch for the audience.

We just mostly told Sylvie a backstory. That makes less and less sense the more you think about it. Again, how it's framed. "Sylvie grew up in all the apocalypses and Loki has never walked half a mile." We the seen Loki's story what drives him . Ten years and four movies seeing what drives him. Sylvie's one flashback and an awkward conversation doesn't endure me to the character.

There's a difference between saying someone is not a villain and claiming someone is a hero. Wanda, both in Age of Ultron and WandaVision, was presented with a choice. Your wants and feelings vs the well-being of others and, both times, Wanda chooses others. Sylvie is given that choice and she chooses herself. Wanda has made mistakes, but when confronted with the harm she's done, she makes the effort to fix it. That is why she is not a villain, because she will sacrifice her own happiness to make things right. 

Waldron straight up called Sylvie a hero on a crusade when what is shown on screen is someone who only wants revenge and disregards everyone else's life and smiles at causing harm. No one called Wanda a hero. That's not the point of her story and a when she causes harm she expresses guilt.

I defend Wanda as a grey character. Sylvie could have been great grey character too, but just to much favoritism for that to be pulled off successfully.

Lastly I won't lie the fact that Wanda is a long established character I'm familiar with compared to the Frankenstein mess that is Sylvie is another factor.

If you had the chance to fix some comic storylines that you thought were bad or a waste of potential which ones would it be.

I'm taking this as an excuse to tell you how I would rewrite every GOTG run barring 2008 and 2020.

2013

I think this run would've been. so fucking cool. if original sin dropped the bombshell that the Peter Quill we've been following this whole time is the Peter Quill of the Cancerverse and 616 Pete is still trapped in the Cancerverse with Rich.

It'd do a lot to explain the wonky characterization-- and it'd give the Guardians themselves a clear-cut mission. the 2013 kind of meanders a lot with no clear goal, so it'd benefit from a straightforward "save x from y" type of mission.

Peter & Rocket's friendship would be a big focus here; I think if Pete was replaced, Rocket would be one of the first to pick up on it

Plus, Adam could show up <3

2015

Extrapolating the Wanted arc into something more- by this point in the GOTG comics, they've pissed off every major empire (Kree in Black Vortex, Shi'ar in TOJG, Spartax by Peter's existence, Badoon by Gamora's existence, etc) and it'd be fun if it was just... every galactic empire is gunning for their heads & they've got to keep up the whole guarding the galaxy through that.

I'd have Cammi come back in this, like if we've gotta have her with the Ravagers then fine, she's there to take them in 'cause she's pissed that they never found & she got stuck with Arcade.

It gives Drax some limelight & focuses on how he navigates being a father

Nebula as the main villain, having the Graces as arc long bad guys for the team to fight. Neb obviously has her 616 personality & is in this for the bounty - but Gamora can take it personally due to the drama with the Graces

All New All Different/2018

Magus as the main villain this seems so obvious to me

I'd keep the Infinity Wars stuff, just in a way that makes sense. Gamora is working with Magus to get her soul back because he's also got a part of him stuck in there

It's all a scheme by Magus & Goddess to escape Soul World; Goddess has shown to be able to brainwash Gamora before, so we can put that on that

I'd also not. downplay the Ultron side of things. Conquest was fucking traumatizing for this team

Gamora's past with the Phalanx would also work well with the Magus/Goddess thing; maybe she's got it in her head that if she gets her soul back, she'll have purpose again

Mantis would be there for the Ultron side of things

I would work Phyla's resurrection in there somehow. 616 Phyla, specifically, like I don't think anything fancy needs to be done at all, Thanos has been resurrected so many times it'd be simple to say Oblivion brought her back to combat Magus&Goddess

Can work the Groot stuff into the themes of Soul & Trauma like... Groot died in Conquest, he was lit on fire, and grew back as a little stump. So the Groots are killing worlds... but it's always worlds that Ultron was going to target & it's a fucked form of mercy

2019

In stories that focus primarily on Thanos & the Universal Church of Truth as the antagonists, I would simply not make it the Peter Quill show & instead let Gamora & Warlock take the lead

If Starmora has to happen, I'd have Peter's arc be more about trust & how to keep it, contrasting with Gamora's arc of learning to give second chances after people hurt her

I'd also. address how Adamora broke up, like delve into why, bring in Atleza in at least a mention, etc

2023

I'd keep Grootfall as some kind of corrupting force in the Manifold Territories but not as the reason they're there

Instead

I'd use the whole "the Manifold Territories are from beyond the known universe" and have Peter be the one insisting they go. Have him aware of the risk this could pose to teammates (maybe have it have something to do with damaged souls-- Gamora's & Drax's are healed after Infinity Wars, etc, but Groot is still vulnerable from the Gardener) but he does not care because if it's beyond the known universe, it's beyond the sun

He's trying desperately to get back to Morinus

Mantis has brainwashed the others into coming & it becomes an inverse of GOTG2008; instead of Peter doing all of this for altruistic reasons, it's because he wants to go home

Continuing to inverse 2008 - show how the GOTG have changed each other through their refusal to kill Groot. Peter shot Warlock; now, years later, he can't do that to Groot. Being a Guardian has changed him

Like show the positive & negative effects that the Guardians have had on everyone

A big reason why I like the Black Panther films is that you can totally ignore everything else and the story works fine. You can forget Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame, just watch the first film and then its sequel. I didn’t like Captain America having his third film be changed to Avengers 2.5 just because marvel wanted to compete with Batman V Superman that same year, or Planet Hulk getting a half-assed adaptation in Thor 3, or Wanda stealing the show from Doctor Strange in his own sequel. Cameos can be fun but those were a bit much. The worst offenders are the mcu Spider-Man movies because Peter is shown being pretty dependent on characters like Iron Man, Nick Fury, Doctor Strange, and even versions of himself from older movies. And both Iron Man and Doctor Strange were responsible for the villains showing up in those films.

I will say due to the...really badly handled introduction of Skaar in She Hulk, its likely we could potentially get a Planet Hulk adaption down the line hopefully, but at the same time, as you pointed out, they already took half of that adaption in Ragnarok with Hulk landing on another planet due to leaving for space at the end of Age Of Ultron (another set up that went in weird places...at least it didn't go nowhere I guess like most MCU set ups lately). And your not wrong on the others: Civil War was basically MCU trying to compete with Batman Vs Superman (and yet somehow, Batman Vs Superman is the one getting dragged still when I'd happily rewatch it over Civil War) while also giving Captain America's film to Iron Man basically, and Wanda basically took over a film that wasn't hers to the point every character is depowered just to make her look better as remember: Doctor Strange is meant to be a powerful sorcerer as is Wong and the other sorcerers and even Miss America in the comics is pretty powerful, but they all depowered just to make Wanda this powerful villain that takes over his film that should have been him facing Mordo with the set up first Doctor Strange did, but nope I guess (and given how they planned to have Wanda kill Mordo before it was cut from film...maybe Mordo escaped being in this film...at least main universe him, anyway...).

And oh god, don't get me started on the MCU treatment of Spiderman. At least when you watch the OG trilogy and Amazing Spiderman films, you know they spidey films and you see Peter doing everything on his own with his villains having some form of connection to him. MCU???? Tony Stark caused the first two villains and Peter just happens to get caught in the messes each time and No Way Home can try all it wants: Strange should have told Peter about the spell PRIOR to doing it and therefore, if Peter did still do his stupid mistake, it would be his fault, but no, Strange doesn't, and therefore Strange's fault too. Plus its funny as hell they clearly wish they got to do Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and Electro and Sandman, but they didn't, so they drag the prior Spiderman films versions of them into this Spiderverse rip off and force a connection between MCU peter and Spiderman films Green Goblin via fridging Aunt May, because beyond that, MCU Peter has zero connection to these villains and the other two Spidey's have more development with the villains then he does.

Like, there's fun little cameos everyone whose seen prior stuff can enjoy (Doctor Who coming to mind here along with DC's Shazam! and Black Adam), and then there's the MCU having the cameos take over the whole film somehow, meaning your forced to watch prior stuff to understand. And as much as I can agree Black Panther is easy to watch because it doesn't rely on prior stuff (with the only set up being in the end credits where we see Bucky), gonna have to sadly point out Wakanda Forever does have that stupid Valentina stuff shoved in to set up Thunderbolts, though gonna assume that was on higher up's end and not Ryan Coogler's end, since its basically apart of their pattern in the MCU at this rate.

most marvel villains going to dc would get fucked up but ultron going over would fucking tear and be scary as hell, especially given its level of dominance over tech shown

Whoever the MCU tasks with handling a "Wanda Maximoff redemption" story is going to obviously face a uphill hurdle, as the comics had to do with her following House of M.

Like, with House of M, Wanda was the sacrificial lamb to help Marvel editorial deal with two issues they felt they had. Namely that they 1) had too many mutants running around, and 2) Avengers comic sales were down). The damage done to her character was such that she was shelved for five years because nobody knew what to do with her, and after that it's taken another decade of redemption stories and retcons to get her relatively back to being normal and heroic.

Whoever writes Wanda next for the MCU will have to face an even larger hurdle because MCU Wanda is 50-50 on appearances where she's a hero vs. ones where she's a villain.

And even that's not exactly an accurate statement, because MCU Wanda has spent more screentime as a bad girl than as a good girl. Across the three projects where she's a hero from start to finish (Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame) she only has 23.5 minutes of screentime, and is relegated to being a supporting player in an ensemble cast. Whereas she gets more focus in the projects where she's a villain. She has 30 minutes of screentime just in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is seven minutes more than she had in the entirety of the three Infinity Saga projects where she's a straight up hero. Then add to that the 12 minutes of screentime she had in Avengers: Age of Ultron (where she starts out as an antagonist and then joins the Avengers for the final act; so maybe 7 minutes as a villain and 5 as a hero? 🤔) and 2 hours 7 minutes of screentime in WandaVision, and yeah you really notice how lopsided that scale of "screentime MCU Wanda has as a hero" vs. "screentime MCU Wanda has as an antagonist/villain" is. 🤨

I very much agree. It will be an uphill battle to make anyone who isn't already devoted to her like we are believe Wanda is a hero again.

The fact that Wanda has barely been shown as a hero on-screen but has had copious amounts of screentime as a villain drives me up the wall. Even in WandaVision she only felt like herself in the final two episodes, and there despite not being evil she was very much not the hero of that situation. Even in her roles as an unabashed hero people still demonize her.

She needs a solo project where she is allowed to be the out-and-out hero that you and I know she is, but a lot of people seem to think she isn't.

I'm gonna be honest, if one hero in the MCU had to do a heel turn, I think I would've gone with Tony Stark instead of Wanda Maximoff. Because the things Tony does in the movies that follow Iron Man 3 all play like the kinds of things a villain would do. I mean, when Wanda says, "Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that?" in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I think it says a lot about what she views Tony as. The things he does afterwards only reinforce Wanda's line, because Tony was all for the Sokovia Accords (a document that strips away the freedoms and rights of enhanced individuals and subjects them to the control of pencil-pushing bureaucrats who don't work on the front lines); and then there's the matter of him building EDITH, a Project Insight-esque weapon (as others have pointed out, even The Dark Knight made a point of saying that no one person should have access to all this private information about random civilians). The later projects make Ultron look like a start of villainy for Tony...not to mention that I think the comics Iron Man has acted very much like a villain every so often.

Oh yes, I particularly like these panels with Thor after Stark had made a clone of his.

I agree with you but to be honest I think he did make that turn, right after AoU. Everything he does after that is Stark being a villain: he's a man who was told about the Accords 3 days before Ross showed up in the compound, and he told no one so Ross could try and pressure them into signing.

He refused to listen to Steve in the airport then when he went to the Raft and saw this...

... but did absolutely nothing to get them out of there. He saw Sam's face, he knew he had been hurt several times there and he lied to him, then flew to Siberia and tried to murder Bucky

And in IW he refused to call Steve even though the entire planet and universe were in danger, all due to his own ego. And in EG he gave a Hydra speech:

Then as you say there's Edith.

So he did make that turn, he just happened to be framed as a good guy the entire time, but if he had been given the Wanda treatment they would have shown the entire team fighting him. This is a guy who actively fights against human rights, who goes straight for vengeance and cold murder and doesn't give a damn if he's killing an innocent man, who wears a suit of mass destruction even though he's in no way stable enough to be wearing it, and who puts his needs and wants before anyone and everyone else. The only difference with whatever Waldron did to Wanda in MoM and Stark is that the audience was told to believe he was good while they showed Wanda descend right into villainy and every character around her reacted negatively to it.

how did u get into trabsformers n such? ive always recognized you as a fan of it butwas curuous how long youve been into it! and whether uve ever liked skmething like bionicles, other mechs, etc

I was first exposed to Transformers as a kid! I don't have an exact age but I was probably around 5 or 6? Because I was shown the first few live-action movies. I also watched the Transformers Animated cartoon, which was produced around the same time. So I was familiar with it but never super engaged? Until a few years ago when I watched some more of the then-recent cartoons, and that hooked me into becoming a full-fledged fan!

I never had any Bionicle but I did like the look of them! (As far as Lego goes, I was a Ninjago guy myself :] - And Ninjago did have a giant samurai mech I loved actually!!). I did recently rediscover how much I like Ultron from the Earth's Mightiest Heroes show, and he's a Marvel villain who's a sentient robot. There's a couple other androids from DC/Marvel that I've always loved too, like Red Tornado and Aya the Green Lantern. The more I think about it, the more robots and mechs I can remember liking that probably helped contribute towards my tastes now!

My Unfiltered thoughts on Wanda's

Note: this is regarding MCU Wanda. I am not going to touch the Comic storyline today.

To me personally, I Think Wanda Maximoff Aka the Scarlet Witch is an amazing character. Although the Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness showed the true side of Wanda ( the scary villain from the comics), it surely didn't do her justice. Yes, at the end she becomes good and saves the multiverse (if think this is a spoiler, the movie was released a year ago so it is a old movie) but still the audience felt unsatisfied, especially the ones who saw Wanda grow up since Age of Ultron.

Wanda and her brother Pietro were first introduced in Age Of Ultra. since then Wanda had met new friends, challenges and many loss. Her experience in battle was shown clearly in Captain America: Civil War and also in Infinity War. The biggest loss she encountered was when Vision died. She had Vision and other Avengers who consoled her when her brother died. But when Vision, her only hope for a normal life and her salvation and peace, died twice in front of her (once she killed him and next, The Mad Titan killed him), no one was there to console and give her hope of a future. We can't blame the world or the Avengers who also suffered a great loss and was also reunited with their loved ones.

Now look I loved WandaVision, the show gave me Shutter Island vibes and it dived more into Wanda's past. It had a straight plot but the only con was it was slow and missed the expectation. But we can agree it did justice to Wanda and to be honest it was the perfect transition from the little scared girl from Sokovia to a menacing Villain. The Scarlet Witch had so many great story lines in the comics and the fans expected more of Scarlet Witch. When I heard Scarlet Witch was in the next upcoming Doctor Strange Movie, my head was about to burst out of excitement. Well that was until I saw the movie. And boy, was I... let's say disappointed

First of all Scarlet Witch was never felt has a true villain, because the Scarlet Witch was just born and she is like a new born baby trying to figure out her way towards total evil. But when I saw the Scarlet Witch in MOM she felt truly grown, and no trace of Wanda was found inside her. And surely enough The Scarlet Witch died in the same movie and a single minute after Wanda dies with her. I would have rather see The Scarlet Witch come to full power at the end of the movie and defeats Doctor Strange. The Scarlet Witch had the potential to become the next big bad after Thanos but yet she felt like mere Villain rather than a super Villain she was supposed to be. Doctor Strange would have needed more than a pep talk to defeat The Scarlet Witch.

The New Agatha Harkness series feels unnecessary now because Wanda is dead now. I don't know the necessity for Agatha to still exist in the MCU

Yes, there is a rumour Wanda will Boba Fett out of the situation (if you didn't get it, I meant she would come back to life although clearly she died in front of our eyes) or there is even a possibility we will meet a multiversal Scarlet Witch. But to me she would not feel like our Wanda but rather someone else. the one who We saw and grew up with, the Wanda from EARTH-199999 is dead in my book.

Please follow for more

*SPOILERS For Dr. Strange MOM.

Also, a long rant on the similarities and differences between the story progression of Daenerys Targaryen and Wanda Maximoff. 

I know that Wanda’s villain turn was very controversial, but I actually liked it. And this is coming from the person who vehemently hates the tropes of ‘women with power cannot handle that power and go mad’ or ‘evil queen’s or the like. I still have somewhat of a problem with it in that sense, but if you’re going to turn a powerful female character heel, I feel like this was the way to do it. 

Throughout the movie, I kept comparing Wanda’s heel turn to Daenerys’. Famously (or at least I talk about it enough lol), I HATE and LOATHE and DESPISE Daenerys’ ending for many reasons. 

Something I’ve reblogged multiple times and love is this quote: “Burn them? I wouldn’t do that.” “You will. I’ve written it.” “No, I won’t. I won’t do it. You can write it, but I won’t be there...and all your readers will know.” 

I love this quote for Daenerys, because it feels exactly right. Daenerys wasn’t there in the end. That wasn’t her. 

But for Wanda, I didn’t get that feeling. I don’t think it’s so much of an acting thing (because I believe both Elizabeth Olsen and Emilia Clarke are amazing actresses who play their roles very well), I think it’s a writing thing. It’s an ‘understanding the character’ thing. 

Wanda was there. In all her pain, torment, desperation, and despair, she was there. Wanda did villainous things, but at no point did I view her as a lost cause. At no point did I not feel sorry for her or understand her. Wanda was the same girl we got in Age of Ultron; grown, matured, and different of course, but she wasn’t a completely different person from who we were shown and told she was. 

And at the end, Wanda remained true to who she was. Because, yes, she messed up. Her story started that way, when she originally sided with Ultron. But Wanda cares about people. She doesn’t want to be a villain, she doesn’t want to be a monster. Daenerys was the same, but we don’t get to see her for who she truly is, who we spent years seeing the heart of. Daenerys also did villainous things. She lost her way, even before season 8. She was capable of making great mistakes, but we were continually shown that at her heart, she cared. She didn’t want to be a villain or a monster. She wanted to save people, she wanted to love and be loved. Wanda is the same, but Wanda’s story felt right to me. 

Wanda was a tragic character who went down a dark path, but she was still Wanda. She was influenced by the dark hold, pain, and tragedy, but never at a point did I say “she’s not here. Her character, the essence of who she is, it’s gone.” It’s not the same as it was with Daenerys. 

And as we have seen in Wanda’s story time and time again, she realized her mistakes and did better. She chose to be the hero, even when she sometimes acted as the villain. Even when she had every reason to be the villain, and to feel justified in that. In the end, she chose to do the right thing. 

Daenerys was the same, but we don’t get the satisfying ending of her remaining true to who she was. Instead, we got this lame, disrespectful, and unsatisfying ending where they blamed everything on her being a Targaryen, on being mad, on being paranoid. They chose the plot over the character’s true progression and essence, and it showed. Daenerys wasn’t there, in the end. This character that I loved and adored was gone. I couldn’t even truly sympathize with her because she just wasn’t there. It was so supremely upsetting. 

Other things that I think played a role in how their endings/characters were perceived: 

1. Wanda had a reason for everything she was doing. Even when she took it too far, we all knew exactly why she was committing these horrible acts. There was no reason or point to Daenerys destroying King’s landing. It didn’t serve her at all. 

2. While Wanda was definitely influenced by the darkhold, there is never this cop out ‘she went mad with grief or power,’ not like how that was the explanation for Daenerys. 

3. It didn’t feel quite so blatantly sexist. (As I mentioned above, there is still a troubling problem with tropes though.) Wanda was powerful and incredible, but it wasn’t her power that corrupted her, it was an outside influence. And even then, the corruption had nothing to do with her power or greed. There’s this concept people put on Daenerys which is “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It’s a shitty cop out excuse for why she would do what she did, and it shows. It’s not used for Wanda, which is why Wanda’s story in MOM didn’t piss me off. 

4. Wanda was allowed to be a tragic villain. She cried, she raged, she wanted to be reasonable, she begged, she was in pain and you could see every second of that. Part of why Daenerys’ turn in the end doesn’t work is because we get so little of that grief or pain. All we see is this disconnected version of her flying overhead on Drogon. Her whole character arc at that point was completely disconnected because they were trying to portray a tragic villain but they weren’t actually showing us a tragic villain. 

5. Wanda was allowed to be powerful and unstoppable. This idea of ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is kind of pointless when you’re killed so easily. There was no one capable of stopping Wanda, only temporarily holding her off. No, Wanda had to stop herself (with a lot of help from America). Wanda had to confront her own demons and pain. Daenerys was completely delusional at the end. There was no confronting her own power, pain, or truth. It was an unsatisfying end to a beloved character. 

6. Wanda was not ‘put down’ by a man. Again, we see the sexism. Dr. Strange was the main character of the movie, but he couldn’t stop Wanda, nor do I think he would have killed her. She wasn’t a rabid, feral monster that a man had to kill for the greater good. Obviously, we can see how that isn’t the case with Daenerys, who was ‘put down’ for being rabid and feral by her own ex-lover. Yikes. 

7. It’s incredibly difficult to side with heroes who don’t seem very intent on saving people, but especially the villain (and especially in circumstances where the villain was once a hero who knew the heroes). At a certain point, there was no sympathy for Daenerys from anyone around her. It was all fear, weariness, and betrayal. No one really acknowledged all she had lost. In contrast, we see Wanda continually sympathized with. (Though I will say, I think they could’ve done more in this aspect). Strange tried to speak to Wanda, Wong tried to speak with Wanda, America tried, and even the Wanda from another universe, whom she had physically tortured, sympathized with her. The heroes weren’t just heroes because they saved the day, it was because they acknowledged the pain and suffering of other people, and it made it all feel more organic and honest. You could root for the heroes in MOM because they cared more about the people in their stories than being considered the hero (if that makes sense). In that regard, it also enhanced Wanda’s story. It wasn’t just about the audience sympathizing with her, it was the other character’s too. It was validating. 

Who hasn’t been cast in the MCU yet that you would absolutely LOVE to see, and who would you want them to play?// I've been stanning for character actor Marton Csokas for 20+ years, so I'm always here for him getting parts and paychecks. He usually gets casts as a bad guy though. He was originally a finalist for Baron von Strucker in Ultron but lost the part.

Is there any character that hasn’t shown up in the MCU yet that you’d like to see him play? If he usually plays villain roles, maybe Victor Von Doom? 🧜🏻‍♀️

Any villain (from any media) that you genuinely despise? And not in the good ol’ “love to hate em” kinda way, a villain that you truly can’t stand. An explanation would be appreciated for whatever villain or villains you choose.

Yeah, I have a few notable ones. Let's do my Top Five LEAST Favorite Villains of all time:

5. Alexander Pierce (Captain America: Winter Soldier)

Gonna be honest, I had to look up his name because I forgot it. That should tell you all you need to know. Literally the only thing about Pierce that I could tell you off the top of my head is that he filled the role that belonged to Dell Rusk (the Red Skull's alter ego). That's literally it. This guy was the most bland and forgettable villain I have ever encountered. The MCU might stumble a lot in their villains, but even still, when you have to stack up in a universe with Loki, Red Skull, Kingpin, John Garrett, Grant Ward, Thanos, Ultron, Hela, Obadiah Stane, Kilgrave, and even villains I dislike like Adridge Killian, you've got to go big or go home.

The movie sets us up for a intelligent and thought-provoking discussion of the faults of America, but then everything bad in American history just gets pinned to Hydra. It's the same type of thing people do in real life with things like the Illuminati: oh, a shadowy, faceless organization is the cause of all evil in the world. It encourages looking for boogeymen than actually work towards societal betterment, so that type of conspiracy narrative just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention, of course, that everything about Hydra is just a bunch of bland and boring politically correct versions of Nazis, and they've rarely ever been used effectively. This was no exception either.

4. King Stefan (Maleficent)

Pretty much the mortal wound that made Maleficent a bad movie rather than just a kind of boring one. His badness is a poison that just drags everything around him down. First of all, his acting is terrible. He looks like the part well enough, but whenever he opens his mouth with that nasal voice that showed no complex expression, it was just cringe worthy. He's also an in-universe example of the Ron the Death Eater trope, where a hero gets portrayed as a villain to make the woobie villain look better.

In the original film Stefan was a good king and loving father who seeks only to protect his daughter from a maliciously invoked curse. Here he's reduced to a one-dimensional evil king so that the woman who curses a baby to death can look heroic, and I'm just not here for that. But upon rewatching it, the biggest problem with him kind of slapped me in the face: we barely get any sense of his existence or relationship to anything. For the main antagonist driving our conflict, he's barely in the movie and most everything from his motivations to his entire history with Maleficent is exposited to us via the narration rather than shown through any scenes or interactions where he's on screen. It feels like any opportunity to get a feeling for who he is just gets glossed over.

Hell, he and Maleficent don't get to have any dialogue in the big climax. For a relationship that formed the backbone of why Maleficent turned bad and why any of this was happening, it's just... nothing. There's nothing there. Everything with him needed to go deeper if this movie was going to work, but it's cut down to the point where the movie feels like it just rushes through its entire story and he's so flimsy that it feels like things just happen rather than connecting to things.

3. Dawn Bellwether (Zootopia)

Sometimes I have deep and thoughtful gripes with character writing and commentary. Sometimes I just hate characters because they're stupid. This is the latter category. She's SO fucking annoying. She felt like one surprise twist villain too many, and it really made me groan when I saw that they were basically just doing Hans over again with her (like almost EXACTLY note for note). The other major irk I have is that she's a Disney villain, that brand I've obsessively collected for all of my life. If you're a Disney villain without grandiose evil plans, vibrant colors, or a charismatic personality, then really I have very little use for you.

Also I feel like her social commentary was VERY muddled and not at all the comprehensive look at bigotry that movie tries to portray. With all her talk of being the little guy and her heavy workplace discrimination she gets from Mayor Lionheart, it's really not a stretch to read her ultimate reveal as the villain who instigated the entire conflict as implying "Super scary SJW is the one creating real prejudice." And, yeah, I'm sick to death of that bullshit in every form. But even if we completely decouple the movie from any real life parallels, she's still way too easy of a solution to an issue built up to be highly complex by the narrative. She's a scapegoat (scapesheep?) that gets treated like the source of all of the systematic prejudices, and... just no.

2. Sauron (The Lord of the Rings)

Here's the big thing that I have to admit: there's a lot that I actually DO like about Sauron. I like the whole evil overlord trope, I like how powerful and mysterious he is, I like the stuff that's implied about him, I like the backstory scene in the prologue, and I like a lot of the aesthetic choices surrounding him.

But, as I've said many times before, he's not a character. He has no personality. He never does anything. There's absolutely no pay off to three whole movies of him being the invisible hand. And intellectually, I understand that a lot of the point of him is to be more of an idea than a character. More like a metaphor for evil or as a stand in for the devil than the actual main antagonist. And I feel like, even if they weren't going to have him show up and get involved personally, it still COULD have worked if they played it more like he was the god/patron of the actual main villain. Maybe even if they kind of toyed with the question of his existence sort of like True Blood did with Dionysus in the Maryann storyline. They don't do that, of course.

But the thing that ends up being a stake in the coffin is that there's not even really another villain who fills the physical antagonist role that Sauron is absent from. At least not in its entirety. Part of why I think Fellowship IS the strongest LotR movie is because Saruman and the Nazgul very directly full that role. They are the main villains and Sauron is their cause that they're fighting for the background. The Two Towers is all Saruman, which is fine except he doesn't do much in that movie himself either so blah, and then Return of the King gives us the Witch King to fill that role. And the Witch King is kinda blah and generic, but he has a cool design and motif... but then he gets killed by a side character and no one seems to even notice that he's gone even though there's still like an HOUR of movie left to go after he dies. Sauron's front man is gone, and there's still a lot of movie to go where Sauron should FINALLY be doing something himself but isn't. Sauron IS the final villain and the spanning villain of the franchise, but he does nothing so the entire conflict with him just kinda feels like dudes clanging swords with no oomph behind it.

Also I got cyberbullied pretty badly by LotR fans back when I was thirteen because I didn't put Sauron higher on a Top Ten Villains Video. And I'm a petty bitch who holds onto things. They ruined me for ever liking Lord of the Rings and Sauron in particular is the cornerstone of my over a decade spanning vendetta.

The High Sparrow (Game of Thrones)

Never have I ever encountered a villain who has made me more physically ill than this fucker. I can stomach a lot of horrible bad guys who do horrible things, but the High Sparrow literally made me nauseous when he was on screen. One of my personal "triggers" (for lack of a better term) is that scenario of fanatics using religion to justify murdering and torturing those who they perceive to be "sinners," which is particularly visceral for me as a gay man. Real life things like the Pulse Nightclub shooting and the former Vice President of the United States advocating for electro-shock therapy for gay people are persistent reminders that the LGBT community still isn't really safe or accepted.

I live with the burden of those worries, and this guy's treatment of Loras in particular (but also Cersei and Margaery too) caused all of that to boil up. Everything this guy did was just so unpleasant and gross and honestly it's not something that I actually want to devote my time to watching. I came very close to quitting Game of Thrones altogether over him. Yes, I know in the books, he never goes after Loras, but he still goes after Margaery and Cersei for "adultery" and the Penance Walk for Cersei still happens and that's still gross.

On top of the triggering elements, I've never really been fond of characters with no build up coming in and shattering the status quo (see my whole aversion to the "Xemnas Complex"). It's just always been a plot that frustrated me because I'm constantly sitting there knowing that in an earlier installment, X character could have ended this very quickly and the fact that the likes of Cersei or Olenna or Baelish couldn't just squish the Sparrows easily just doesn't feel right to me. These are a handful of religious fanatics against the most powerful and intelligent people in the kingdom. Common people support or no, it just doesn't make sense to me that the High Sparrow could get away with everything he did for so long.

When season six rolled around, I thought they'd kill him off in the first episode of the season at the hands of Frakenmountain, but NOPE he was there ALL SEASON LONG. His plot was such a drag throughout. King's Landing was my favorite plotline in the show and he made it unpleasant and completely devoid of plot momentum. And his ultimate motivation for all of this? He had a bad hangover once. Really? REALLY? That's fucking stupid. While Cersei may have been behind the explosion of the Sept, a development I really did like, I completely blame the High Sparrow for the deaths of Margaery, Loras, Kevan, and Mace, who all deserved so much better. They were casualties of the High Sparrow underestimating Cersei, mistakes none of them would have made if the Sparrow hadn't paraded their humiliating penance out and then stopped them from leaving. Because he was so self-assured by his gods that he was on top of the world, he cost the show four of its best characters.

GOD I HATE HIM. His death was incredibly satisfying, and he shall not be missed. Worst Game of Thrones character by far, and I'm nauseous just thinking about him.

You know mcu really can make favorite and top characters be hateble or they hated by viewers. Like me hate Wanda in MOM. I really hate her in there.

I kidnrhave problem with Wanda in age of ultron, I meant while she told her past (wjy she and her brother hate stark) we never really see HOW avengers suddenly just pardon her and her join. They definitely will suspicious with her first. So that still bothering me

Then in wandavision, I definitely have mixed feelings for that show. Specially with what Monica said and Hayward stupidity and well many. And the ending...... Yeah, no wander many saying that wanda 'too much have free consequences tickets '

And in MOM ho ho ho, it's definitely the worst and before you said she corruption by darlkhold, the book corrupt your moral but not your memories, and in mom Wanda just care with children that she had for 4 days. And before you said they her childrens so of course will want them. Yeah but why she not seaeing vivison, her brother or her parents too? Some viewers said 'she move on fromrthem ao that is why she want the childrens'.

And then wanda go crazy killing spare in ever place while can hypno I first place. My God, what the f&*$ was that? And they said that darkhold in mcu is same like darkhold in agent of shiled. And so far AoS darkhold is make 'evil'/ corrupt but it not make you have killing spare for first chance it got you. Wanda sound very cruel and insane in MOM, and it's too much, and wprse of it she sound like she choose be corrupt, The F

Seriously they manage me hate her so much in MOM

The entire point of WandaVision is that your clearly meant to feel mixed and uncertain about Wanda. For the first few episodes we don't know what really going on. It isn't until the Agetha reveal where it is shown Wanda isn't doing this maliciously or even all that deliberately. It's just something that's happening around her and she's determined to keep it that way.

Here's a point where it's clear we're not meant to be fully on Wanda side. In this confrontation clearly Vision is who meant to be sympathized with. Yes, Wanda fatal flaw in WV is selfishness, but it's a selfishness born out of desperation and denial. She genuinely did not know she was hurting people.

To discuss Wanda in good faith it needs to be understood that she did not mean hurt others and when she found out she tried to get them out if the hex before accepting to take down all together.

My opinion is that Wanda is not a hero but she's also not a villain. She is mealy a broken person with a power she doesn't have a full grasp on.

The no consequences is she doesn't get imprisoned in the end, but she still ends up alone and hated with no one to blame but herself.

By the end there also nothing anyone can do. Not without Wanda herself going along with it and even if they arrested he she would still be owed a trial that took her mental state and powers in mind. She would also still be owed therapy, that would just be for everyone's benefit considering she's a reality warper who's power that are linked with her emotions.

and yeah MoM is bad, but for me I'm mad at the writing not at Wanda. She went from a character not willing go through hurting and killing people who did her no wrong to just no guilt sending monsters through a major city and killing a teenager to get what she want. Not only is she learning the same lesson again that's not the character she was by the end of WV.

It would be like if Tony Stark not only fully went back to building weapons for the government but he himself was dropping them on civilians. Like, I have been critical of Tony, but that extreme would not be in-character. At that point I wouldn't be mad at Tony anymore I would be mad at the writer.

There were ways for Wanda to have a villain arc and it still fit within her character arc from WV and it just need some time and Waldron outright said he skipped over writing an arc he just Wanda to be the villain of the movie. So, she takes this turn from being in tears realizing she was hurting people to just being eh, I just want what I want. To me the end goal, the want or whether her kids or real or not is moot point because it is A) wrong regardless B) a lesson she already learned.

Never understood why Wanda stans think it was character assassination for Wanda to be the villain in Multiverse of Madness.

This is a character who:

Willingly and knowingly joined Hydra, a Nazi offshoot. I know there's some bullshit in a spinoff comic that says she thought it was SHIELD, but unless she is an idiot, there's no way she could have missed how obviously evil Hydra is. They are glaringly evil.

Attacked and mentally raped four out of five Avengers, which would have been five out of five if Hawkeye hadn't stopped her.

Triggered the Hulk into attacking and destroying part of Johannesburg.

Willingly worked with ULTRON and only changed sides because he was going to kill her and her brother.

'Lost control' and killed people in Lagos. The reasoning of this is ridiculous. Wanda is never shown to lose control of her powers any other time, and is shown with a high level of control in AOU, when she uses her powers to evacuate Novigrad. There's nothing in the film saying or showing that she's inexperienced, new to her powers or untrained.

Sent Vision- whom she claimed to love- through several stories. That's domestic abuse.

Selfishly refused to allow Vision to sacrifice himself so billions could live, meaning the Wakandans had to risk their own lives to buy time. This is the third time she endangers Africans. The white Nazi woman repeatedly endangers Africans. Funny that.

Mind controlled and brainwashed an entire town because she was grieving, which is not an excuse for using people as puppets. She is not the only person who has lost people. Thor has lost pretty much everyone- his parents, his brother, his best friends, half of his people- and he isn't hurting people and using his grief as an excuse.

So it is, in fact, a character assassination to insist she's a hero. She is not.

Marvel Weekly #1

Hello peeps, this is SLJuke here with the first edition of MARVEL WEEKLY. This will be coming to you every week and sometimes there might be delays but this will always happen and if any “BREAKING NEWS” happens, y’all will be hearing it that day so it depends so there might be only 1 thing per week or there might be 5 or more. Also THERE MIGHT BE SPOILER WARNINGS SO TURN AWAY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM. Anyways let’s start the news! Just last night, Kang actor Johnathan Majors got arrested and is charged with strangulation, assault, and harassment. If he did do that, then Marvel Studios is going to have to delay a bunch of projects and push projects forward and have to rewrite stories so they can find themselves a new actor to play Kang The Conqueror, let’s hope that he didn’t because he was one of the only good things about Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantamania (my opinion). On other news an insider named KC Walsh said that Secret Invasion which was supposed to come out in February and then got pushed back to May is getting pushed back to June and won’t move anymore. Samuel L. Jackson got spotted in a Scottish Town called Livingston filming a ‘Top-Secret’ Project and it’s rumored to be either the Marvels, which is coming out in November or Secret Invasion, my take is it's Secret Invasion. This next report comes from the Cosmic Circus and they’ve learned from their sources that Secret Invasion gives of spy thriller vibes that are reminiscent of Captain America The Winter Soldier and that there is a portion of the show that is appearing to take place in Russia at an abandoned power plant that is potentially Chernobyl but it isn’t confirmed whether or not Marvel Studios will tell us whether it is or not but it is confirmed that it is a hideout for Rebel Skrulls and that they’re using the underground levels of the plant to build a device that is shown in the D23 trailer and the theory for the device is to make Super Skrulls(I’m paraphrasing some of this stuff so go along with it lol). Ultron is supposed to return in Armor Wars and be played by James Spader again. Rumors say that Marvel may be turning to their old ways with darker tones in Captain America: New World Order and Thunderbolts. The tone for Daredevil Born Again is heard to go darker than what is shown in the MCU. Insider MyTimeToShineHello has been talking about multiple TV-MA and Rated R MCU projects. The scooper named thevscooper showed us some upcoming suits for Daredevil Born Again and the first one is an upgraded version of the Netflix one, the second one is a fully red one, and the last but not least one is a fully dark one and the DD Logo that Daredevil has in the comics might appear in some of the suits. In the last megadump of information from The Marvel Studios Spoilers Subreddit before it got taken down with a ton of leaks with Secret Wars getting split into two parts, Phase 7 is a phase that takes place in Battleworld, a Wakanda Series done in animation, a Mephisto Halloween Special Presentation shooting alongside Agatha Coven of Chaos, The Sentry who’s supposedly the main villain of Thunderbolts is getting a Special Presentation shooting alongside Thunderbolts and take the first two with a grain of salt but the rest have been corroborated by sources that have been very reliable and some I’ve already talked about. The other projects that were there are More I Am Groot Shorts in 2024, Man-Thing Halloween Special 2024, Silver Surfer Holiday Special 2024, Vision Quest Tv Show 2025, Young Avengers, Midnight Angels TV Series, Ghost Rider Halloween Special 2025, Nova Holiday Special 2025, Spider-Man 4 (Tom Holland’s version of the webslinger), Strange Academy TV Series Late 2025/Early 2026, Doctor Strange 3 2026, Ms. Marvel Season 2 2026(This show was amazing and I would wonder what would be in Season 2), Moon Knight Season 2 2026(I loved this show and I really hope we get this), Midnight Suns 2026, She-Hulk Season 2 2026 (I hope this is not a thing and if it is I will scream), Untitled Halloween Special (Don’t know what it is), World War Hulk 2026 (What we’ve been waiting for, bezerker Hulk to be back), Untitled Holiday Special 2026 (Don’t know what this is either), What If…? Season 3 2027(Idk if this would happen but there’s so many stories, maybe we might get an episode where it’s what if the MCU was comic accurate and didn’t underpower or overpower people), Eternals 2(Same thing as She-Hulk Season 2), Illuminati Show 2027, and finally 2nd part of Avengers Secret Wars (If it’s a thing, I think this would probably be bigger than Avatar and if not true, Avengers Secret Wars will still be bigger than Avatar). There was a few projects that got trademarks like Captain America Red, White, and Black, Celestials: End of Time, Nomad, The Black Knight: Origins, and Avengers Eternity Wars. These projects that got trademarked were also in the leaks for the trademarks for The Multiverse Saga, The Eternity Saga, The Timeless Saga, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, Avengers: Secret Wars, Thunderbolts, and Captain America New World Order. Midnight Sons was trademarked on there and this stuff is amazing to hear with all of these projects. I’m sorry if this is so long lol but I want to tell you one more thing, it’s called the Geekly Weekly, it’s another thing like this that I’m going to start the week after Christmas because that is the week after Aquaman 2 comes out but that weekly will be just like this but it will be movies, tv shows, games, etc. with DC, Star Wars, TMNT, Power Rangers, etc. Please dm me if you have anything that you want me to talk about but if you don’t thank you for reading this long thing which will take a while, I’m SLJuke and this is Marvel Weekly, Love y’all,

 Sources: Den of Nerds, MyTimeToShineHello, thevscooper, and Cosmic Circus.