Who says he'll be playing things for comedy? He's really good at straight drama as well. I'd say better.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
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Who says he'll be playing things for comedy? He's really good at straight drama as well. I'd say better.
I still find him a highly annoying presence. Again, no thrill here.
I'm not a fan of his comedy, but I've enjoyed his dramatic work. He was excellent as Abie Hoffman in "The Trial of the Chicago 7".
Some actors have a presence that just rubs me wrong. He is one of them.
I know it was kind of a joke on the show, but I actually really enjoyed the song. I'm a huge fan of musicals, and that really felt like exactly the kind of song I would expect to see in a MCU Captain America musical. Honestly, I would love to see them do a real life version of Rogers the musical.
I'll admit, when I read the first few Spider-Man issues a few months back, I found the dialouge a little cheesy, but I think a lot of that was just the way comics of that era were written, and even then wasn't really bad, it was a very different style from what we're used to today. But pretty much everything else about them, the characters, stories, ect were great.
I think most people would agree that Stan gave us one of the best superhero origin stories ever with Spidey's.
Stan Lee definitely deserves all of the love and respect he got for his writing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the reason we never got a full Mark Ruffalo Hulk movie has something to do with Universal continuing to have the distribution rights for standalone Hulk movies.
I'm not sure this is really true? I mean, to give two examples from Phase 4 at the box office, Eternals has a very austere/serious tone, and Love and Thunder is mostly a screwball comedy. Both of them were pilloried for veering too far away from the MCU format.
Turning to TV, while none of the MCU shows are perfect, other than The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (which was generic and disappointing, largely because it was afraid to be too political) they all did things which made them not fit into the generic MCU movie format. She-Hulk just finished, and it's a semi-episodic workplace comedy for crissakes!
My issue with the MCU these days is more that the stakes are just set too goddamn high all the time. Every movie can't be about something threatening Earth/all of reality, as it makes the higher stakes of the Avengers movies not mean anything. We need more projects like She-Hulk or Werewolf by Night which aren't afraid to tell smaller-scale stories within the MCU.
Yes, he does drama as well as comedy.
Yes it was. There have always been full-comedic comics alongside the less comedic ones. Just because one doesn't like them or didn't read them doesn't mean they never existed.
The Universal issue is part of it, but i'm also talking about the contrast between Norton and Ruffalo's version. Norton captured the kind of personality Banner (in the intended "more like the comics" movies) should exhibit, as opposed to Ruffallo's stammering routine in most of his pre-"Smart Hulk" phases.
Interesting that you said that, since there were and continues to be screams from some parts of the fanbase (echoed by certain YouTube shows--even those who are not identified as being on the sociopolitical Right) who accused The Flalcon and the Winter Soldier of being "too political", "woke", and resented the entire Bradley/Wilson statements on the nature of the black foundational journey in American history, and the expected reception to a black Captain America (which Spellman wisely aimed at viewers as much as characters in the story).
That's the sameness / conveyor belt approach to the MCU; Thanos and now Kang, et al. Its all "the biggest EVARRR!!"--rinse and repeat, which was a problem with Marvel's comics in the 80s-forward. Silver and Bronze Age Marvel had large conflicts in the pages of The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, but it was not the planned "event" on top of "event" which became company mission in the 80s. The MCU is clearly taking its cues from that creative model, and no one should ever expect it to change.
They had outlier shows like that back in the Netflix days, where Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, The Punisher and Daredevil had their own unique, strong identities / manner of story development which were not all pointing to a farm's worth of Easter Eggs and teases to Massive, Galactic Conflict #3,000,000,000.
"Never on the level..." is not saying it "never existed." Lee's Spider-Man scripts were never a quip-fest akin to what is in the average MCU script, and Amazing Spider-Man's scripts steadily moved away from what little humor was there into the markedly superior Romita/Lee/Conway/Kane eras of the title.
And this conversation has always been about more than just Spider-man. I haven't read the old Spider-comics, but there absolutely ARE comics, even old ones, which are 'on the level' of the average MCU movie. And there are comics that are far jokier than any MCU movie currently in existence.
The show was just so weird because it seemed to be going in one direction, and suddenly changed course. Karli and her cause are clearly meant to be sympathetic, and Sam wants to side with her, but then she starts killing people just because she has to be the villain. Even worse is how the series sets up John Walker to be the actual antagonist of the show, and then gives him a half-hearted redemption arc in the last episode for no particularly good reason. It should have ultimately been Sam/Bucky siding with Karli against John Walker.
The show did have a few cogent things to say about race (basically the only time race is addressed in the MCU other than in the most shallow manner imaginable) but why it walked back from the much less controversial "sometimes revolutionaries have a point" for centrist pablum I'll never understand.
I'd argue though that tonally Netflix Marvel was much more samey though. Everything's grounded/street level, everything is dark and gritty, everything's taken a bit more seriously, etc.
I always thought that Spidey was notorious for talking constantly in the middle of combat?
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Oh, yeah. He never shuts up.
I'm reminded of the episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man (now on Disney+, after having formerly been on Netflix where I rewatched it recently) where he'd bonded with the pre-Venom symbiote as his costume and it was starting to take him over, and the "costume" dragged him out to fight the Sinister Six in his sleep, and the bad guys realized something was off with Spidey because he wasn't saying anything.
That was always the appeal for him as one of the (few) comic book characters I actually enjoyed.
Karli's devolution was a comment on the failure of certain forms or activism turning to radicalism and how some believe (ultimately) violence and self-sacrifice is the only way to fight, hence the reason why her surviving followers (in the final episode) were hesitant about agreeing to Karli's call for everyone to be willing to give their lives. Sam only supported her in the broader statement on post-return / government-sponsored relocation / deliberate failure to allocate resources, but he flatly disagreed with the Flag Smashers' violence.
Well, Disney/Marvel being Disney/Marvel, the Walker redemption arc was all to set up his appearance in forthcoming the Thunderbolts, so despite a larger, serious main story in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, setting up another production had to be inserted in an otherwise great, rare chapter of Disney/Marvel.
Yep--Disney/Marvel's talking heads love to tell everyone how "progressive" they are, but the companies have an utterly abysmal record where race is concerned in its main theatrical releases, save for expected commentary in Black Panther--but that's just the problem: for the franchise, it was as isolated as a Very Episode, because its never addressed with any honesty or depth anywhere else. That lack of even a sub-plot in the majority of the endless MCU films sends a very clear message about what is not a concern or priority--and they receive no White Liberal-minted gold star for the production of Black Panther (and its sequel) alone. As you point out, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier addressed race, but again, its isolated when the characters--ALL MCU productions share the same world, yet race and its impact is a neglected subject for a self-identified "progressive" media company and its production subsidiaries.
I see the Netflix shows as having their own voices, but collectively, they were a rare contrast to business as usual in the MCU.
Spider-Man would argue, plead, mock and express other emotions, but post-Ditko era, he was not a quip-machine to the degree of anything seen in the MCU.
Anyways, coming back to actual Marvel news...
Charlie Cox talked to the Hollywood Reporter yesterday about his appearances in No Way Home and She-Hulk, along with Born Again where mentioned that while he hasn't seen any scripts yet, he's hoping for some familiar faces to return, specifically mentioning Jessica Henwick:
Cox also talked about the possibility of Tatiana showing up, which they both want, but he honestly doesn't know any of the writers' plans and he won't dare to speak for them.
Lastly, the interview linked to this fun moment of ping-pong on set.
Charlie Cox talked to the Hollywood Reporter yesterday about his appearances in No Way Home and She-Hulk, along with Born Again where mentioned that while he hasn't seen any scripts yet, he's hoping for some familiar faces to return, specifically mentioning Jessica Henwick:
“She’s amazing. Look, I agree with you, wholeheartedly. I could also say that about a number of people that I worked with not only on Daredevil, but also on the other shows we did there. So I don’t know what they’re thinking, but I will absolutely put in a good word. And you’re 100 percent right about that. [Jessica] is awesome. And I did get a lovely text from her the other day saying that she read the news and was thrilled for me.”
Lastly, the interview linked to this fun moment of ping-pong on set.
That's a recurring problem. Riddler had the same problem in "The Batman"...he was too sympathetic and his motives were too understandable, so they had to randomly have him and his followers decide to murder innocent people right at the end to make it clear he was evil.
