That’s a word? Never seen it before. Kind of like it.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
- Start date
It's my own coinage for my superhero-themed Troubleshooter prose series, though I didn't think of it until after the publication of its debut work, Only Superhuman. I coined it no later than 2014, but its first appearance in a published work was in my 2018 Troubleshooter novelette "Aspiring to Be Angels" in my collection Among the Wild Cybers: Tales Beyond the Superhuman. I've been trying to get it to catch on ever since.
I don't think this is an unrealistic expectation. The Disney+ shows were explicitly marketed as "counting" in a way that the ABC, Netflix, and other random shows (Runaways, Cloak & Dagger, Helstrom) did not. They were, at best, MCU adjacent.
I disagree with this pretty strenuously. I mean, turning to Star Trek for a second, remember how much people griped about how Discovery and Picard repeatedly threatened the earth/galaxy/multiverse in each season? There's bit of "boy who cried wolf" situation here. You keep up with high stakes repeatedly, and the stakes don't mean much any longer, because the artificiality of it all is clear to fans.
Also, the stories are not considered in isolation - they are cross compared. Because why wouldn't fans do so. For example, it's almost become a trope how Marvel Studios sticks overblown, stupid CGI battles into the finale even when it doesn't make sense narratively. Consider how Shang-Chi is about the fight between a father and a son, but a giant dragon is just inexplicably thrown in. Or the wonderful exploration of grief in Wandavision is almost undone by the stupid witch-fight with Agatha. Hell, even Black Panther (a Phase 3 movie most people love) is notorious for having a lackluster final combat scene. At this point, it's more notable when Marvel projects subvert this, like in Loki.
Humor and quips have been a normal part of the MCU since it was Whedonized. That said, the series operates on a comedy spectrum. Something like The Winter Soldier is probably as serious as it gets, where latter-day Thor is as comedic as it gets.
I'd put Quantumania in the middle. It has jokes, yes, but the overall tone is still pretty dark - notably darker than the first two Ant-Man movies.
They had even less of an arc than Scott. The only character who arguably had an arc was MODOK.
Andrew Garfield denies that he’s going to be in Spider-Man 4, but also acknowledges that after his vehement denials that he’d be in NWH, nobody is likely to believe him!
variety.com
Andrew Garfield Says ‘Spider-Man 4’ Casting Reports Are Not True: ‘But I Know No One’s Gonna Trust Anything I Say From Now on’
Andrew Garfield says he is not signed on to star in Marvel's "Spider-Man 4," although he knows no one is going to believe him.
variety.com
Echo is impacting the street level narrative they've been setting up since Hawkeye. It was a sequel to Hawkeye, and appears to be setting up where Kingpin is in Daredevil: Born Again, and it's more connected to the rest of the MCU than Moon Knight and Werewolf by Night are
Yes Quantumaia was still a comedy, it had plenty of humor in, a lot of it coming from characters like MODOK, and the gelatinous guy who was obsessed with holes.
The main point of the movie was to explore what Janet did while she was in the Quantum Realm, and to give more development to Cassie and set her up as Stature or whatever hero name she goes with.
Since the very beginning. "No gang signs."
Just the bits and pieces that can be put together from the casting announcements.
We know that Foggy, Karen and The Punisher are all returning from the Netflix series and that it will introduce the MCU's version of The White Tiger and Muse.
Yeah, "quip" is Tony Stark's middle name.
We know Bullseye is also returning.
Most of this is blatantly untrue.
Talokan never attempts to take over the world in WF. Namor considers war with the surface world pretty inevitable, but he's not in any hurry to start it. His only goals are to keep his people hidden as long as possible and - one way or another, through violence or alliance - to eliminate the threat that Wakanda poses because they now know about Talokan.
The Spider-men do not save the multiverse by themselves - they don't even save the multiverse at all. Dr. Strange does that (and he's literally the only Avenger other than maybe Wanda - who was busy being evil at the time - that would even make sense to call for this problem). But realistically, none of that is actually the stakes of this movie in the first place because Strange can fix the problem very easily and almost instantaneously, but Peter *doesn't let him*. Because the real stakes of the movie are the lives of the five people Peter is trying to help, not the end of the world which is clearly not going to actually happen either way.
And the idea that the Eternals should not include the potentially world-ending threat of the Celestials just because it's a 'solo' movie (it isn't, though) and that should be saved for team-up movies is so far gone that it's just completely lost all sight of the most basic rule of good storytelling. You focus on the story and characters you're currently building above all else. Pitching an Eternals movie without the Celestials is like pitching an X-men movie without the Mutant Problem. It's foundational to the concept.
Most significantly, the phase 4 and 5 'solo' projects actually make *far less* use of world ending stakes than the earlier phases. Phase 3 had 5 world ending films (Dr. Strange, GotG 2, Ragnarok, Black Panther, Captain Marvel) to 4 lower stakes films (but still not universally *low* stakes, Far From Home for instance wreaked havoc in multiple cities around the world). Phase 2 was world-ending in literally every film except IM3 (which was again, still not actually low stakes, just the US govt. instead of the world). Even phase 1, out of 5 solo films, had a Captain America film with the Red Skull actually aiming to rule the world and two Iron Man films where Tony has to stop his super-powerful technology from proliferating around the world and killing countless people.
My count for phases 4 and 5, on the other hand, is 10 world-ending stories to 14 others. And that's an incredibly generous count, including Spiderman and Ms Marvel on the world ending list but not on the other one (even though the real stakes of NWH are the lives of five people and Ms. Marvel's actual finale is all about saving one single person) as well as ignoring the existence of the animated/not really in continuity shows which could easily pad out the numbers on the second list.
That is, for the record:
World Ending Stakes:
Eternals
Shang-Chi
NWH
Quantumania
Marvels
Deadpool
Moon Knight
Ms. Marvel
Loki season 2
Secret Invasion
Other:
Black Widow
MoM
LaT
WF
GotG3
WandaVision
Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki season 1
Hawkeye
Guardians Holiday Special
She-hulk
Werewolf By Night
Echo
Agatha All Along
The dragon is far from inexplicable. It represents him perfecting his connection to his mother and her heritage. The movie isn't just about his relationship with his father, it's about him learning to embrace and understand both sides of his heritage. It's also an absolutely gorgeous third act that still relies very heavily on and does an excellent job portraying the confrontation between Shang-Chi and Wenwu.
WandaVision is also nearly unique in the genre in it's willingness to not let everything be decided by a fight. Yes, the fights are there because the audience expects them, but the Vision fights end with a literal philosophical discussion about the Ship of Theseus and the 'stupid witch-fight' turns out to be a ruse as Wanda pretends to fight and lose just to keep Agatha from noticing that Wanda's binding her power right in front of her.
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Marvel Studios Rumored to Be Bringing Beloved 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Character Back for D+ Series - Murphy's Multiverse
With the D+ premiere of Daredevil: Born Again creeping closer each day, fans of the Netflix Daredevil series…
www.murphysmultiverse.com
Could they bring AOS back maybe why not but I prefer not to believe rumors like Ghost Rider project until they are officially confirmed.
I think there's a happy medium to everything and the notion that using a character from another movie/series is 'requiring viewership of that other movie/series' isn't really a necessary thing.Marvel Studios Rumored to Be Bringing Beloved 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Character Back for D+ Series - Murphy's Multiverse
With the D+ premiere of Daredevil: Born Again creeping closer each day, fans of the Netflix Daredevil series…
Could they bring AOS back maybe why not but I prefer not to believe rumors like Ghost Rider project until they are officially confirmed.
Just because Detective Munch showed up on the X-files didn't mean I needed to have watched all of Homicide...
So there's a difference between having characters appear in different stories/shows/movies and attempting to FORCE viewers to watch ALL of the shows/movies because plot-points are interconnected.
If you're like "hey, I kinda like this character. Maybe I'll go check out whatever other show movie they were used in to see more." that's cool (and should be probably a hope of an appearance)
Where it becomes too manipulative and forced is being like "you're going to be less informed about the plot of this movie unless you watch 6 episodes of these other two shows before it comes out."
Yes, exactly. Connections are supposed to be a bonus, not a barrier to entry. The primary goal is to make the individual stories or series work well on their own. Any connections or crossovers are just extra value for those who are curious about it. It's about giving the audience more choices, not taking their choice away.
And every story is connected to things outside itself -- events in the characters' past, the nature of the larger world they inhabit, etc. It's the job of the story to explain those things to the audience, whether they've been seen elsewhere or not.
The character's appearance is a bit more toned down from the comics than I expected. I knew they weren't going to be as exaggerated as the comics, but I was expecting more than that
What is LaT? I couldn't think of anything with those initials and I even looked at the Phase 4 & 5 pages on Wikipedia and couldn't find anything with those initials.
You should though. I mean the part of watching all of Homicide. One of the best cop tv shows ever!
