Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Reverend]

^Well that's the thing, there was no DCEU until just a few months ago, there was just one (very white) Superman movie that wasn't all that well received.

And I wouldn't exactly credit BvS (which incidentally is about one white bloke manipulating another white bloke into going after yet another white bloke because reasons...) with having a massively diverse cast since most of them are little more than cameos. Even Wonder Woman is barely in it and has very little in the way of agency or character development.
You don't just get to have a bunch of non-white faces wave at the camera and call that diversity. That's just tokenism.

Indeed, you can even apply this to gender because in that movie because both Martha Kent and Lois Lane are worse than useless. Lois is actively stupid because the screenwriter didn't have anything for her to do and needed someone to create an artificial crisis.

Again though, I agree that Marvel should have done better, at lest when they finally did do it, they did it right.
If you want to draw a direct parallel between BvS and Civil War (a movie about one white bloke manipulating six white blokes, three black guys, two women and an android into all going after each other because *actual* reasons) then Black Panther has the equivalent role to Wonder Woman and he was a MUCH more fully realised character. You got what he was about right from the first scene, he behaved believably and acted with agency, not just in accordance with the needs of the plot and he had a full character arc with a beginning, middle and end.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Personally, I think Marvel is generally in a tight spot: more than half of their best minority/female characters still belong to fox, and most of the rest were almost completely unknown prior to the MCU. Considering the risks they were taking trying to set up their own studio, I can absolutely understand that phase 1 was all about the characters which seemed most likely to be popular. The fact that all of those characters were white guys is a simple (and unfortunate) fact of history - they got there first, and so often are much more popular than characters that came later (not an iron rule, but still a clear tendency). I can also absolutely understand that phase 2 was primarily about soldifying their position with sequels, because most of those movies had to already be in development before Marvel even knew if avengers was going to succeed or not. The only outliers were Guardians, which was a calculated risk specifically designed to expand the universe and set up the cosmic side of infinity war, and Ant-man, which only existed because a big name director wanted to do it. Phase 3 is the moment where they can really start opening things up, and I don't think it's going that bad. Civil War made better use of minority characters than anything so far, we're getting Black Panther next and Captain Marvel before phase 3 is over. Yes, we're also getting Dr. Strange and Spider-man, but those were pretty much unavoidable: again, Marvel is trying to recreate the comic universe on screen, so somebody had to spearhead the magic side of things, and Spider-man is Marvel's answer to Batman in terms of popularity, so not making movies about him would be ridiculous.

There are some moments where they could've done better: the Ant-man movie missed a huge opportunity in setting up Hope as the 'obvious' choice for the suit only to leave her out of the action altogether. Guardians could've done a bit more with Gamora and Nebula, or perhaps even included some more female characters anyway (I understand there are several attached to that franchise). Theoretically I suppose they could have done a Black Widow movie in phase 2 or 3, although I have no idea where it could've fit in. I'm still reserving judgement on whether or not Captain Marvel really needed to come out so close to Infinity War - supposedly it's because her story ties into IW heavily, but if that turns out not to be the case, then pushing her back so far is also problematic. But overall, I think their decisions have been generally understandable.

I also really don't get the whole 'after 18 movies' thing. It's not like they decided to make 18 movies about 18 white guys. The company is built on franchises, and the majority of those movies have been sequels to established franchises which are needed to pull in money to launch the newer franchises. Not to mention, Iron Man came out in 2008 with Black Panther scheduled for 2018, yet somehow DC is supposedly a huge improvement with Cyborg or Green Lantern (both scheduled for 2020), when Man of Steel already came out in 2013? Yeah, it's a little faster comparatively, but not much and it's still slower in real time.

DC gets points for clearly putting some thought into this (and the idea of a Polynesian Aquaman sounds totally awesome to me, just in terms of story, so bonus points for that as well), but they're not exactly worlds ahead of Marvel even based on their plans - and at this moment plans are really all they have. We honestly have no idea how many of those plans will actually even work out in the end.

 

[apollo1984]

9/10 I hate diversity in movies, now that is not because I am sexist or a racist, but because most of the time it is being done for being done sake and that when they do I always feel as if the notion is being pushed down my throat as they try too hard to force it on people.

 

[ichab]

Oh, I definitely agree that diversity is not enough to save bad movie, I was just pointing out how much more diverse DC's casts are.
You do have a point about them trying to rush things to much with DC, but I still don't really think Marvel has a real excuse for taking so long to diversify it's leads. I could see maybe not wanting to rush out with a whole bunch of movies with non-white and women leads, but they still could have started diversify their leads somewhere before the 18th movie.
I absolutely love the MCU, the movies have been consistently good to great, but I do think this is the on area where it's really been lacking.
And of course I know about all of the Superman and Batman movies they've been releasing, but I was specifically talking about the DCEU since the article was just talking about the MCU.

Their leads were portraying well established white male superheroes. And its not like the movies lacked diversity with many of the supporting cast being female and minority. I would have liked to have seen Black Panther sooner but lets be honest, he is not exactly a household name like ironman,captain america, the hulk and thor.

 

[Reverend]

Iron Man wasn't a household name until they started making Iron Man movies, that's why it was seen as such a gamble. After Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and the X-Men he was very much a B-lister. Same for Thor and to a lesser extent Captain America. Lesser in the sense that more people knew his look and design, but nobody knew or cared much about him as a character.
To most who were even partially aware of him he was a cornball jingoistic boyscout, a silly relic akin to the Adam West Batman, only not taken as seriously or thought of as fondly.

Really out of that first batch, only Hulk was well known thanks largely to the old Bixby show and that the Ang Lee movie was still relatively fresh in the memory. Ironic considering that amongst those, 'The Incredible Hulk' is seen as the least successful.

It's not like this was the *only* lineup they could have started with, but it was the safest and yet it was still a gamble.

As for where a Black Widow movie could have been fitted in: preferably between IM2 and Cap1. Or better yet instead of Iron Man 2, that way nothing gets pushed back. You could even have kept the basic plot, but have Widow as the main character having to infiltrate and babysit Stark who's in the middle of a meltdown while five other super-spy things are going on, with Downey Jr as a supporting character.
That would have been a bold move and a damn sight more interesting than what we got.

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I think Marvel is generally in a tight spot: more than half of their best minority/female characters still belong to fox, and most of the rest were almost completely unknown prior to the MCU. Considering the risks they were taking trying to set up their own studio, I can absolutely understand that phase 1 was all about the characters which seemed most likely to be popular.

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor were not that well-known to the general public before their movies came out. They weren't featured because they were "likely to be popular," but because they were what Marvel had left after licensing out all their more popular characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men. So that argument doesn't cut it. Hell, nobody'd ever heard of Luke Skywalker or Han Solo before 1977, and that didn't hurt Star Wars. If prior familiarity with a character were required, then how would any new characters ever get off the ground in the first place?

9/10 I hate diversity in movies, now that is not because I am sexist or a racist, but because most of the time it is being done for being done sake and that when they do I always feel as if the notion is being pushed down my throat as they try too hard to force it on people.

Then you should be able to understand how nonwhite, non-hetero people have felt their entire lives having white, hetero heroes constantly pushed down their throats in virtually every movie out there. That is, if you're able to look beyond your own self-interest and recognize that you are not the entirety of the population. People from different demographics want to be able to enjoy movies too, and for generations, they've had virtually no movies that catered to them the way that most movies have traditionally catered to you. Can you really think about that objectively and consider it fair that you get to have your preferences sated but nobody else does? If you're really so upset by the existence of movies that don't center on people who look like you, can you really be so completely unable to empathize with all the other people who've had virtually nothing but that for their entire lives?

 

[Marsden]

Then you should be able to understand how nonwhite, non-hetero people have felt their entire lives having white, hetero heroes constantly pushed down their throats in virtually every movie out there. That is, if you're able to look beyond your own self-interest and recognize that you are not the entirety of the population. People from different demographics want to be able to enjoy movies too, and for generations, they've had virtually no movies that catered to them the way that most movies have traditionally catered to you. Can you really think about that objectively and consider it fair that you get to have your preferences sated but nobody else does? If you're really so upset by the existence of movies that don't center on people who look like you, can you really be so completely unable to empathize with all the other people who've had virtually nothing but that for their entire lives?

I must do things wrong, then. I watch movies that look interesting to me, I don't pick them on the basis of what color or sex or any other types of people are in them. I'm very eagerly looking forward to the Black Panther movie, because I've liked Black Panther since Avengers issue 47 (or whatever number, it had Grim Reaper in it and Hank, Jan and Hawkeye were presumed dead but only in a "coma" until Black Panther undid it with Grim Reaper's weapon). The fact that he's African neither adds nor detracts from my interest. It's a great part of his backstory, but that's it. I'm not going to skip a movie because there isn't a fill in the blank in the role and I'm not going to see one for that reason, either. I've never watched or read Captain America and thought or felt, "oh I'm so happy he's white! Now I can enjoy this! And a Man! And NOT Gay! Yay! Because I only narrowly restrict myself to things that are just like me!" When Matt Salinger played Captain America, I was really disappointed with that movie, but he was white and male, so I should have enjoyed it, right? This narrow minded bullshit is what is fracturing our society.

 

[Christopher]

I must do things wrong, then. I watch movies that look interesting to me, I don't pick them on the basis of what color or sex or any other types of people are in them.

Easy to say when you can easily find movies that include people like you. If you'd lived your entire life seeing people like you routinely marginalized or demonized in movies and almost never allowed to be the heroes, you might have a different perspective. Adding diversity is not about forcing things down your throat, because it's not about you at all. That's the whole point of adding diversity -- it's recognizing that there are other audiences that have just as much right to share in the process. As long as you filter your perception of it strictly through your own tastes, you're not getting the point. Try to look at it from someone else's perspective and take yourself out of the equation for a moment. That might give you a different understanding of what the reason behind diverse filmmaking really is.

 

[Marsden]

I've always thought people like me were Human people. They are all like me. Until we have contact with Vulcans or other aliens, all people are Human. I think that many forget that. And they marginalize themselves because of it. Almost anyone can make themselves in a "minority" of some kind. I don't think looking at something from artificial perspectives is helpful, just like I don't like restricting people by these so called differences.


I'm sorry Christopher, I'm not directing this at you personally even though it's your post I replied to. I think we need differing opinions, like we have, to achieve balance.

I also am not trying to trivialize anyone else's feelings, if I offended anyone, I apologize.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Iron Man wasn't a household name until they started making Iron Man movies, that's why it was seen as such a gamble. After Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and the X-Men he was very much a B-lister. Same for Thor and to a lesser extent Captain America. Lesser in the sense that more people knew his look and design, but nobody knew or cared much about him as a character.
To most who were even partially aware of him he was a cornball jingoistic boyscout, a silly relic akin to the Adam West Batman, only not taken as seriously or thought of as fondly.


Really out of that first batch, only Hulk was well known thanks largely to the old Bixby show and that the Ang Lee movie was still relatively fresh in the memory. Ironic considering that amongst those, 'The Incredible Hulk' is seen as the least successful.

Yes, in comparison to their much more popular characters which they didn't own the rights to, these guys were b-listers. And all the other possibilities were c and d listers.

It's not like this was the *only* lineup they could have started with, but it was the safest and yet it was still a gamble.

Exactly. They played it safe. Was it brave of them? No. Could they have pulled off a riskier attempt? Maybe. We'll never know. But for a completely unknown company trying to break through, playing it safe is a perfectly understandable option.

As for where a Black Widow movie could have been fitted in: preferably between IM2 and Cap1. Or better yet instead of Iron Man 2, that way nothing gets pushed back. You could even have kept the basic plot, but have Widow as the main character having to infiltrate and babysit Stark who's in the middle of a meltdown while five other super-spy things are going on, with Downey Jr as a supporting character.
That would have been a bold move and a damn sight more interesting than what we got.

It's a common answer, thanks to the dislike of Iron Man 2, but marvel couldn't possibly base their decision off the after the fact knowledge that people didn't like Iron Man 2. They obviously thought people would like IM2, which is why they made it. And using a sequel to the most popular (at the time) character they had rather than a solo movie for an even more unknown character was, again, the safe choice for a company that still hadn't really made itself a big name in the industry.

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor were not that well-known to the general public before their movies came out. They weren't featured because they were "likely to be popular," but because they were what Marvel had left after licensing out all their more popular characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men. So that argument doesn't cut it. Hell, nobody'd ever heard of Luke Skywalker or Han Solo before 1977, and that didn't hurt Star Wars. If prior familiarity with a character were required, then how would any new characters ever get off the ground in the first place?

They were the safest choice in popularity because out of the characters available they were the biggest names historically in the source material audience, and they were pretty much the only characters left that the General Audience had ever even heard.

And building a brand new universe with no expectations simply isn't comparable to Marvel Studio's intent to recreate a comic book shared universe on the screen. They were using pre-existing characters, preferably with a least a little bit of a pre-existing fan base, and they had to stand up and be successful not just in their own movies but as pillars of a shared franchise. There was already more than enough risk in the entire concept itself, so, imo, complaining that they didn't include other characters who were potentially even bigger risks simply isn't a credible complaint. At the end of the day, they do have to make money, and they do have to be able to choose how much risk is too much. In this case, there were some unfortunate side effects to that in terms of representation, but they are actually steadily improving (despite a few missteps, as I've already mentioned) and those side effects were almost certainly at least partially inevitable, considering the unfortunate state of the source material itself.

 

[Christopher]

I've always thought people like me were Human people. They are all like me. Until we have contact with Vulcans or other aliens, all people are Human. I think that many forget that. And they marginalize themselves because of it. Almost anyone can make themselves in a "minority" of some kind. I don't think looking at something from artificial perspectives is helpful, just like I don't like restricting people by these so called differences.

There's nothing artificial about it. What's artificial is treating white people as the default in movies and failing to represent the actual demographics of the nation or the world. What's artificial is setting a movie in New York City or San Francisco or Washington, DC -- all of which are nonwhite-majority cities -- and populating it with an almost exclusively white cast, as Limitless or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or Minority Report did, respectively. What's artificial is dramatizing a true story that happened to a Japanese person in Japan and casting Natalie Dormer in the role, as The Forest did; or dramatizing a true story about a Latino CIA operative and casting Ben Affleck in the role, as Argo did. Increasing diversity in the movies is about removing the artificial pretense of a white-dominated universe and reflecting the actual state of the human race more authentically. The "restriction" is that people of color are rarely allowed to star in movies even when those movies are about people of color. Fighting that bias is about removing a restriction, not adding one.

It's easy for a hetero white male to assume that what we see in movies is a fair and legitimate representation of the world and that changing it is some kind of forced, artificial thing. But that's an illusion that comes from living in the bubble of privilege that we've grown up in. Nobody who exists outside of that bubble can see things the same way. Movies are deeply non-representative of reality. They are systemically exclusionistic toward women, people of color, LGBT people, and others. That is what is artificial. That is what is forced. That is what imposes restrictions. And pretending that that injustice doesn't exist, that the status quo is already fair and egalitarian and that it's the people who challenge it who are biased, is just trying to ignore the problem. Acting like the problem's already fixed will not magically make it disappear; it will just help to perpetuate it.

 

[Star Wolf]

I still maintain the biggest error of the MCU was ignoring the racism of 1944 America in The First Avenger which they tried to roll back in the second season of Agent Carter

 

[Reverend]

^Where exactly would said racism have fit into a pulp adventure movie mostly taking place on the battlefield and only featuring (iirc) two PoCs in minor supporting roles? Besides, it was hardly ignored, or did you miss "I'm from Fresno, Ace." ?

 

[JD]

Personally, I think Marvel is generally in a tight spot: more than half of their best minority/female characters still belong to fox, and most of the rest were almost completely unknown prior to the MCU. Considering the risks they were taking trying to set up their own studio, I can absolutely understand that phase 1 was all about the characters which seemed most likely to be popular. The fact that all of those characters were white guys is a simple (and unfortunate) fact of history - they got there first, and so often are much more popular than characters that came later (not an iron rule, but still a clear tendency). I can also absolutely understand that phase 2 was primarily about soldifying their position with sequels, because most of those movies had to already be in development before Marvel even knew if avengers was going to succeed or not. The only outliers were Guardians, which was a calculated risk specifically designed to expand the universe and set up the cosmic side of infinity war, and Ant-man, which only existed because a big name director wanted to do it

I can understand why they picked the characters they did, but I really think once things were solidly established with the first Avengers they could have taken a chance on a movie with a woman in the lead or a person of color. I like Iron Man 3, but maybe instead of it they could have given us Black Panther, or even Black Widow. I absoultely love Guardians of the Galaxy, but if all they wanted was to set up the cosmic side of the MCU there's no reason it had to be GotG, and not Capt. Marvel.

. Phase 3 is the moment where they can really start opening things up, and I don't think it's going that bad. Civil War made better use of minority characters than anything so far, we're getting Black Panther next and Captain Marvel before phase 3 is over. Yes, we're also getting Dr. Strange and Spider-man, but those were pretty much unavoidable: again, Marvel is trying to recreate the comic universe on screen, so somebody had to spearhead the magic side of things, and Spider-man is Marvel's answer to Batman in terms of popularity, so not making movies about him would be ridiculous.

There are some moments where they could've done better: the Ant-man movie missed a huge opportunity in setting up Hope as the 'obvious' choice for the suit only to leave her out of the action altogether. Guardians could've done a bit more with Gamora and Nebula, or perhaps even included some more female characters anyway (I understand there are several attached to that franchise). Theoretically I suppose they could have done a Black Widow movie in phase 2 or 3, although I have no idea where it could've fit in. I'm still reserving judgement on whether or not Captain Marvel really needed to come out so close to Infinity War - supposedly it's because her story ties into IW heavily, but if that turns out not to be the case, then pushing her back so far is also problematic. But overall, I think their decisions have been generally understandable.

I also really don't get the whole 'after 18 movies' thing. It's not like they decided to make 18 movies about 18 white guys. The company is built on franchises, and the majority of those movies have been sequels to established franchises which are needed to pull in money to launch the newer franchises. Not to mention, Iron Man came out in 2008 with Black Panther scheduled for 2018, yet somehow DC is supposedly a huge improvement with Cyborg or Green Lantern (both scheduled for 2020), when Man of Steel already came out in 2013? Yeah, it's a little faster comparatively, but not much and it's still slower in real time.

I understand why they picked the characters they did, but there's no reason they couldn't have taken a break from those sequels to give us something else.

I must do things wrong, then. I watch movies that look interesting to me, I don't pick them on the basis of what color or sex or any other types of people are in them. I'm very eagerly looking forward to the Black Panther movie, because I've liked Black Panther since Avengers issue 47 (or whatever number, it had Grim Reaper in it and Hank, Jan and Hawkeye were presumed dead but only in a "coma" until Black Panther undid it with Grim Reaper's weapon). The fact that he's African neither adds nor detracts from my interest. It's a great part of his backstory, but that's it. I'm not going to skip a movie because there isn't a fill in the blank in the role and I'm not going to see one for that reason, either. I've never watched or read Captain America and thought or felt, "oh I'm so happy he's white! Now I can enjoy this! And a Man! And NOT Gay! Yay! Because I only narrowly restrict myself to things that are just like me!" When Matt Salinger played Captain America, I was really disappointed with that movie, but he was white and male, so I should have enjoyed it, right? This narrow minded bullshit is what is fracturing our society.

I have to admit, I tend to be the same way, but I think that is actually part of the problem. Most of the movies I'm interested in tend to have white leads, but for the majority of those movies there's no reason the leads have to be hetero white men.
I'm not talking about quality of movies here at all, and I'm not saying that giving a movie a PoC lead would automatically make it better, all I'm saying is that it would be nice to see more mass appeal big blockbusters with more diverse leads. I would like to see more movies that appeal to me with non-white leads.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not talking about quality of movies here at all, and I'm not saying that giving a movie a PoC lead would automatically make it better, all I'm saying is that it would be nice to see more mass appeal big blockbusters with more diverse leads. I would like to see more movies that appeal to me with non-white leads.

When I was a kid, I noticed how many shows there were like Star Trek or Barney Miller that had ethnically diverse or multicultural supporting casts, but inevitably had a white American man in the lead role. Even though I was a white American male myself, I instinctively recognized that that didn't seem fair. Why couldn't other kinds of people get to be the lead from time to time, just for the sake of balance and variety? Maybe it's because I was always a social outcast and a bullied child, so I couldn't help sympathizing with the people who were being systematically left out. Heck, it may have been partly just that I was kind of OCD about symmetry and didn't like seeing patterns that were out of balance. But either way, the bias stood out to me. That's why I've always tried to "cast" inclusively in my writing. I don't see it as imposing an artificial agenda, I see it as avoiding one.

 

[ichab]

There's nothing artificial about it. What's artificial is treating white people as the default in movies and failing to represent the actual demographics of the nation or the world. What's artificial is setting a movie in New York City or San Francisco or Washington, DC -- all of which are nonwhite-majority cities -- and populating it with an almost exclusively white cast, as Limitless or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or Minority Report did, respectively. What's artificial is dramatizing a true story that happened to a Japanese person in Japan and casting Natalie Dormer in the role, as The Forest did; or dramatizing a true story about a Latino CIA operative and casting Ben Affleck in the role, as Argo did. Increasing diversity in the movies is about removing the artificial pretense of a white-dominated universe and reflecting the actual state of the human race more authentically. The "restriction" is that people of color are rarely allowed to star in movies even when those movies are about people of color. Fighting that bias is about removing a restriction, not adding one.

It's easy for a hetero white male to assume that what we see in movies is a fair and legitimate representation of the world and that changing it is some kind of forced, artificial thing. But that's an illusion that comes from living in the bubble of privilege that we've grown up in. Nobody who exists outside of that bubble can see things the same way. Movies are deeply non-representative of reality. They are systemically exclusionistic toward women, people of color, LGBT people, and others. That is what is artificial. That is what is forced. That is what imposes restrictions. And pretending that that injustice doesn't exist, that the status quo is already fair and egalitarian and that it's the people who challenge it who are biased, is just trying to ignore the problem. Acting like the problem's already fixed will not magically make it disappear; it will just help to perpetuate it.

I doubt you'll get many who think that the studios did the right thing when casting whites to play minority characters in your examples. There is no excuse for that as there are tons of actors out there of all colors, shapes and sizes. They should cast the part right.

Getting back to marvel, the simple fact is that the majority of their super heroes are white males. There's no getting away from that. But the good news is thanks to the success of civil war many people I know cant wait to see the black panther movie.

And I highly disagree with your opinion about the Avengers characters not being well known because I knew who they were before the movies and rarely read comics. Those characters were chosen because they wanted to build a series of movies that culminated in the Avengers. Black Panther and Captain Marvel werent needed for that.

 

[JD]

Why weren't they needed? They've both been Avengers in the comics for years. There's really nothing that says that the Avengers only had to be Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Hawkeye, Thor and Black Widow. I know that is the classic group, but I don't really think it would have hurt anything if they had switched out one of the guys for BP or Capt. M., or even just added one of them to the team in the first movie.

 

[Set Harth]

And I highly disagree with your opinion about the Avengers characters not being well known because I knew who they were before the movies and rarely read comics.

I had an Iron Man doll.

 

[Reverend]

You guys may have known who the Avengers were prior to the movies, but the VAST majority of the movie going public didn't. Compared to the likes of Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, they (with the aforementioned exception of Hulk) were nobodies *outside* of comic book fandom.

I also happened to know about Iron Man and the Avengers before the movies (at least in general terms), but then I also knew about Mandrake the Magician, Elongated Man and B'wana Beast. We're all geeks here, so we're not exactly the most representative group in what the average person is aware of.

That said, aside from picking up the odd Marvel comic, my only exposure to Captain America prior to the MCU was that crappy 90's movie. Likewise, by only encounter with Iron Man was the not so crappy, but barely memorable (I only actually remember the title sequence, not any episode or character) cartoon from the mid 90's. Same deal for the Fantastic Four, Blade, Punisher and the X-Men.

Indeed I think it's a safe bet that more people first became aware of a lot of these comic book characters through the Warner Brothers & Fox animated shows than actually reading the comics. So for those that didn't even watch those shows...well, how *could* they be familiar with Cap, Iron Man or Thor other than on random t-shirts, pencil cases and that one very silly Bixby Hulk movie?

 

[Booji]

Captain America and the Hulk are probably the two biggest comic names after Spidey, Bats and Supes. To say people were not familiar with them is simply not true. Iron Man and Thor people might not know the details on, but peeps could at least say "they're, like, comic super people or something, right?"