Marvel Cinematic Universe by Slider_Quinn21 (Page 10 of 15)

By the way, I finally saw Ant-Man and The Wasp, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The humor landed well, as well as the emotional arc of the movie. It's not exactly the biggest think-piece of our time, but it did what it was supposed to do, in a well considered and well executed fashion.

I just wanted to make the point that I'm not an all-around Marvel hater. When they do good, I applaud it. It just doesn't happen very often.

I didn't know that about Frank's darkest secret.

I've never read a Punisher comic, and I'm afraid I'm very unfamiliar with the comic version.  But your description actually coincides with a premise that, not only was on TV for a very long time but was universally accepted by critics until its later seasons - Dexter.  Dexter is a man whose childhood twisted him into a serial killer, but he was raised by a police officer who recognized his tendencies and did his best to train him to 1) get away with it and 2) use his bloodlust for something good.  So, like your description of the Punisher, Dexter uses his training to find people who the criminal justice system couldn't condemn.  Most episodes revolve around Dexter finding a bad guy (rapist, murderer, etc) that gets released from prison.  Dexter does his homework to make sure the guy is guilty, and then he arranges a "murder room" to kill the person, dismember their body, and throw them in the bay.

Dexter is a calmer, less armed version of the Punisher.  But he's still essentially a man "addicted" to murder.  Who cannot control his addiction and so he channels it in a way to do some good.  So it can work, and it has worked.

I'm a bit deeper into season to of Punisher. I promise, Frank's dark side comes out a bit more. While I think that he would love to have a normal life, with a normal family, I think his Punisher side is unavoidable. He's not presented as someone who necessarily needs the thrill of killing people, but he's someone who needs to do what he sees as the right thing, and doing it with as much finality as possible. I don't see him as a psychopath or a sociopath, but someone who sees what he thinks is the right thing, and doesn't care what the law says is the right thing.

That's probably different than the comics, but I think that when you're doing something in live action, with flesh and blood human beings, you have to be careful of what you're glorifying. It's like I've said with Avengers and how there was so much chaos and destruction in that movie, but none of the weight of live action was placed on it, so it felt awkward and wrong. Meanwhile, a lot of weight was placed on the flesh and blood people in Man of Steel, and that also caused some people to react negatively to the chaos and destruction (though I still argue that it all made sense in terms of character and situation, I can see how it was off-putting).

So far, I like season 2 of Punisher. There was a thing at the end of an episode that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I won't go there because you haven't seen it yet.

We should have a Dexter post. Because I think the story of Dexter was the story of a child whose trauma was manipulated and twisted by two adults who wanted to create a "justice" machine. I don't think that Dexter had to become what he was. We can see that he is capable of connecting with and loving other people. Dexter isn't capable of feeling remorse. He's shown that he's capable of considering the safety of others (his son, his step-children, his sister, etc). He's shown that he does care about his work and his family. He can feel empathy (and is often manipulated by people who he sees as being similar to himself, because while he has empathy for them, they don't have empathy for him). He can feel fear. Outside of his killing, Dexter isn't drawn to dangerous, reckless thrills.
Yes, I think Dexter was messed up by his mother's murder. However, rather than try to treat that trauma, Harry and Evelyn fed into the darkness and created the Dark Passenger. If they didn't create it, they certainly didn't try to kill it.

Basically, they saw the traumatized and confused child and decided that he would become the Bay Harbor Butcher. Whether they did this intentionally, or out of wanting to do good, I don't know. I think Harry was probably dealing with his own issues, and Evelyn saw an interesting opportunity. Either way, I don't think that Dexter was born a psychopath and I don't think that he needed to become what he did. I think that a lot of how he saw himself was based on what he'd been taught by others. Even on the show, he's not like the other truly psychopathic killers.

To be fair, I cannot speak all that intelligently about Dexter.  I haven't seen the show since it ended.  I actually wasn't in the group of people who hated the ending - I felt like it was a lot like the ending to the Shield (which people loved).  It isn't the ending I would've gone with, but I didn't think it was the dumpster fire that most people thought it was (and have since made fun of nonstop).

I do think that Harry had his own issues.  Maybe he wanted to be a serial killer, or maybe he got some sick thrill about getting away with it.  He obviously had the idea to kill bad guys that escape the system, and he wanted to use Dexter (instead of himself) because he'd probably be able to escape prosecution if Dexter was ever caught.  The whole show was about how he could've been a better person, and how he is able to become a better person, despite tragedies continuing to befall him.

I don't know if I have enough to say about Dexter to create a new post.  But it's a show I'd be interested in revisiting at some point.  My friend is watching it now, and I'd forgotten that Rita already had kids.

When the Punisher was first created, he was shooting jaywalkers and Spider-Man took him down. But the design of the character was a hit, so it was later revealed that he'd been under mind control in his first appearance. Some very good writers like Chuck Dixon and Steven Grant wrote the character, but the Punisher's massive overexposure matched with a thin characterization (he's a murderous thug who massacres villains) eventually flattened sales along with the collapse of the comic book market.

In the late 90s, horror writers Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski relaunched the Punisher as an angelic demon hunter with heaven-empowered weaponry, a sincere effort to add some dimension that was met with universal mockery.

A second late 90s relaunch saw Garth Ennis dismiss the angelic Punisher instantly with a few captions about how the angels punished the Punisher for disobedience by stripping him of his powers and putting him back on Earth, not realizing that being surrounded by criminals to kill was everything he wanted. The angelic Punisher has never been spoken of again. Ennis presented the Punisher as a straight-laced mass murderer (of villains) in a black comedy where all the villains were grotesque monstrosities and it was a pleasure to see the Punisher eviscerate them one by one.

Superheroes occasionally guest-starred and were presented as ineffectual parodies of how they'd normally be written and the Punisher easily humiliated Daredevil, Wolverine and Spider-Man. Eventually, Ennis sought a more serious approach and re-relaunched the character with THE PUNISHER MAX, set in a more real-world universe without superheroes and more realistic villains (rapists, human traffickers, child pornographers, etc.), but aside from the loss of humour, the approach was the same.

Eventually, Ennis tired of the title and did a final PUNISHER mini-series set back in the mainstream Marvel Universe with his original black comedy approach to end his run. At this point, Marvel split the Punisher's continuity in two: the mainstream version (who had experienced all the MAX adventures) got involved in CIVIL WAR, was killed off and resurrected as a Frankensteinian monster who continued hunting criminals like nothing had changed, and was then de-aged by a decade or two (to account for how he could still be a Vietnam vet).

The MAX version of the Punisher continued as a separate series for 22 by Jason Aaron and what Ennis had implied, Aaron made overt. Aaron revealed Frank's darkest secret (even if his wife and family had lived, he would have abandoned them) and exposed Frank as addicted to murder. These 22 issues have Frank accidentally kill a police officer due to age and slowing reflexes (as the rejuvenation never happened to this version of the character) at which point he's hunted by the police and any pretense of heroism evapourates. THE PUNISHER MAX ends with Frank killing Bullseye and Wilson Fisk but suffering fatal wounds and dying.

Meanwhile, the mainstream Punisher continued during an interesting time in Marvel when most of the heroes after Civil War were considered no less criminal than the Punisher, and when Norman Osborn assumed control of the US Government, the Punisher's renegade role was deepened even further. There was also a neat storyline where the Punisher thought he found legitimacy when Captain America declared himself the ruler of the United States and drafted the Punisher into service, only to discover that Cap had been replaced by a Nazi when the real Captain America returned.

I can't say I enjoyed any of the Punisher's comics, but they were *interesting* and written by excellent writers. The most successful version of the character was probably the comedic Ennis version as it could be enjoyed by those who enjoyed the ultraviolence and those who found it palatable because it was funny. Ultimately, the Punisher isn't a character I enjoy, and I get the sense that the Netflix show is run by people who have exactly the same feelings I do about the comic book character who are as uncomfortable with this character as I am.

The Marvel brand is in the business of heroes, and the TV version of Frank Castle has only the the surface-level aspects of the character. If they'd had full access to the Marvel library at the time, I could see them wondering if maybe instead of a Netflix Punisher show, they ought to instead do LOGAN... probably not with Hugh Jackman. Maybe Justin Hartley or James Marsters.

Wolverine really isn't supposed to be male model youthful. He's old and grizzled and I can see both Hartley and Marsters playing different sides of the icon and creating a great character.

I'm excited for it. All I ask is that we not make Informant watch it.

Watching Episode 10 and [spoilers]

Karen shows up in Frank's darkest hour and demands to know why he wasn't there for her in Season 3 of DAREDEVIL and shrieks at Frank that she was nearly impaled and repeatedly stared down gun after gun and people died right in front of her and WHERE WAS HE? Frank apologizes and says he wasn't on the call sheet for those shooting days and had his own show to star in.

No, I'm just messing with you, she doesn't even bring it up. Which has me assuming then that Frank was there, off camera. :-)

I have total trust in the AGENTS OF SHIELD showrunners. I rewatched the entire show a few months ago and saw them struggle through the restrictions of Season 1, create their own mythology in Season 2, rebuild their own version of SHIELD in Season 3, delve into the magic and reality-bending plots of Season 4 and leap into the future with brilliance and aplomb for Season 5 and with a drastically reduced budget. I think they are splendid and I have complete faith in their creativity and commitment.

**
So, Marvel-Netflix. I finished THE PUNISHER's second (and probably final) season and... it's fine, I guess. It's a Marvel-Netflix show and I've come to the reluctant conclusion that Marvel and Netflix have the completely wrong approach to superhero stories.

Like all Marvel-Netflix shows, THE PUNISHER has an excellent cast, thoughtfully scripted dialogue, gripping action sequences, expensive location filming and in-depth characterization. It also has entire episodes of characters standing around talking with no progress made.

THE PUNISHER has enough plot for maybe six episodes (Frank wandering and getting involved with Amy who is hunted by John Pilgrim; Frank returning to New York City to face Billy Russo; Frank and Amy confronting John Pilgrim). It's padded out to 13 through having the characters sit around having solemn conversations. However, the conversations are about the characters as opposed to THE DEFENDERS where the conversations were about "the substance" and "the city."

Frank, Amy, Madani, Pilgrim and Curtis have strong arcs that are unfortunately slow. Russo's arc with his therapist is awkward; Floriana Lima is a great actress who doesn't convey why Dr. Krista Dumont would shelter and bed a murderous psycho and upend her life as a successful health care professional.

The script indicates that Dr. Dumont has sadomasochistic tendencies, but Lima either by decision or direction, plays her role as very rigidly in control with only brief glimpses of madness, so brief it's forgettable. As a performer, Lima seems best when she plays active characters like Maggie Sawyer on SUPERGIRL. She's a great actress; she's just the wrong actress to play reactive passivity in the Marvel-Netflix house style of standing around talking solemnly.

DAREDEVIL's third season showed greater concern for episodic progression than previous Marvel-Netflix shows. By the end of each episode of DAREDEVIL S3, we'd learned something new, gotten somewhere different. With THE PUNISHER, the episodic endpoints are arbitrary. Aside from the first two and the last two episodes, there is no real thought given to giving each episode specific developments.

THE PUNISHER has many of what Darren Mooney on The M0vie Blog calls "narrative cul-de-sacs" with Frank and Amy and Madani waiting on or pursuing a plot point that doesn't advance the story but fills out the length. And unlike the other shows, THE PUNISHER's plot doesn't allow standalone stories.

The other four shows could have given the heroes a few one-off villains or cases to add bulk. THE PUNISHER, however, features Frank being drawn back into a war he's trying to leave behind; neither Season 1 nor 2 lend themselves to one-off situations. THE PUNISHER would have worked better by telling its Season 2 story in six episodes -- and then coming up with a new story for the subsequent seven, perhaps with a brief hiatus between the two segments.

I think we've only got 13 Marvel-Netflix episodes left: JESSICA JONES, Season 3. We're near the end (unless I'm wrong!). And, looking back, the Marvel-Netflix deal was a mixed bag. DAREDEVIL's first season was excellent, JESSICA JONES was terrific but the cracks showed with Kilgrave repeatedly entering and leaving and entering to stretch the story to a 13 episode size.

LUKE CAGE did well for six episodes and then fell into disarray in the second half. DAREDEVIL's second season was incoherent with three movie length plots (Elektra, the Punisher, the Hand) stretched across 13 episodes. IRON FIST was a disaster. THE PUNISHER S1 was adequate. THE DEFENDERS featured all of the Marvel-Netflix characters but also all the problems. DEFENDERS' vivid characters were muted by the dull tedium of the series. Overall, the Marvel-Netflix aesthetic is that of people standing around having solemn conversations. If that's the sort of story that Marvel and Netflix want to tell, then superheroes are the wrong characters to feature in these stories.

Audiences watch superhero shows to see them using their powers and dealing with the results; audiences want to see superheroes investigating plots, fighting villains, saving civilians, protecting their secrets, cracking wise, training their abilities, solving problems and engaged in action. Even the worst episodes of SMALLVILLE had Clark using his superpowers to save somebody and SMALLVILLE is one of the stupidest superhero shows ever made.

I don't know what Marvel TV and Netflix were thinking. Audiences who want to see characters standing around talking are unlikely to watch superhero shows; they would find a different genre where characters aren't so defined by their physical actions and abilities. The Marvel-Netflix aesthetic is a creative death sentence for superheroes.

Shockingly, the aesthetic of a Marvel-Netflix show is the same as a Season 5 episode of SLIDERS -- episodes where showrunner Bill Dial rewrote scripts for the budget by cutting anything expensive and then filling the massive content gap with scenes where characters re-state previously established information until the timeslot is filled. His rewrites on "The Great Work," "Please Press One," "Map of the Mind," "The Java Jive" and other episodes where characters meander aimlessly while repeating information is precisely the Marvel-Netflix model.

Which leads to my guess that despite the high production value of location filming on New York City, the budgets weren't sufficient and that's why action on these shows was constantly isolated and restricted to individual episodes with the bulk of the content featuring overstretched, elongated scenes.

JESSICA JONES and LUKE CAGE had solid second years with CAGE's showrunner even apologizing for the last six episodes of Season 1. (Informant disagrees with that.) IRON FIST's second season was good and DAREDEVIL's third season was masterful. Overall, these four showrunners had either found their feet with their budgets and episode counts or learned from their predecessors. And THE PUNISHER's second season was absolutely fine, at times great and often very slow with long conversations to stall the plot. It was a Marvel-Netflix show.

I would like for this era to receive a proper conclusion with a short second season for THE DEFENDERS. But to be honest, I'm not really broken up about Netflix ending their partnership with Marvel. All the shows found reasonable(ish) points of conclusion. And the Marvel-Netflix shows were very inconsistent, often overstretched, shockingly short on superhero action and frequently dull.

These shows were constantly boring. Season 3 of DAREDEVIL defied this reputation, but in totality, there were just too many episodes of Matt, Jessica, Luke, Danny, Frank and Sigourney Weaver having slow and solemn discussions. All too often, it was like watching Season 5 of SLIDERS, specifically "Map of the Mind" in which the sliders perform a procedure to heal Diana's brain damage -- then perform the procedure again -- and then describe what they just did to Diana as though the viewers needed a third iteration of the same action.

It's repetitive, it's tedious, and it's been an interesting experiment and I'm sorry it's ending, but I'm not sorry to move on. Anyway. I might copy-paste some of the above after JESSICA JONES airs its third (and probably final) season.

https://www.superherohype.com/news/4355 … y#/slide/1

Yeah, you might end up in a Sliders situation where you get back Charlie Cox but most of his supporting characters are missing and story threads (like Bullseye) could get completely dropped.

I don't think it will happen, mostly because of the delay.  But if the people making the show really enjoyed it, I'd tune back in.

I'm four episodes into The Punisher season two.  It's fine.  One thing is bothering me, and it's bothering me to an annoying point.

Ben Barnes plays Billy Russo.  In season one, everyone kept saying how pretty Billy was.  That he's such a good-looking dude that he had this vanity to him.  By the end of season one, Frank busts up Billy's face.  It was clear what they were doing - Billy has always used his looks as a weapon, and Frank is taking that weapon away.  Billy, if he survives, ain't pretty no more.  Billy Russo is now the Punisher villain Jigsaw.

Flash forward to season two.  Billy is in the hospital, and he wears a mask with a jigsaw-like face drawn on it.  He's presumably wearing it to hide all the hideous scars on his face.  When he finally escapes the hospital and removes the mask, he's on a bus when a man teases him about his hideous scars.  How he's a freak.  The fact that Billy is essentially in a comotose state as he's talking doesn't matter - it's all about his freakish face.

Later, he visits a man that used to run his foster home.  The man keeps bringing up the fact that Billy used to be so good looking and look at him now.  Scars all over his face.  He's not pretty anymore.

....

Except that's how it's written.  In reality, Barnes has a couple minor scars on his face.  He's still very-much Hollywood handsome.  The scars are sometimes not even noticable - not enough to be mentioned over and over again. Definitely not enough for some punk to notice from across a bus.

I read that Barnes pushed for more scarring, but the producers convinced him to go with a more subtle approach because it was more powerful if he thought his outer scars were bad but it was really his *inner* scars that were the worst.  His face isn't terrible, but *inside* he's Jigsaw.

Which I think is just an excuse not to put Barnes in makeup for an entire season, but it also doesn't work.  Because if Barnes is fine on the outside but wrecked on the inside, why are 100% of the people Russo has interacted with speaking to him like he's got Jigsaw-like scars on his face?

It's like the decided later to change it but forgot to change the script, even when they were shooting.

(if either of you guys brought this up, I'm sorry.  I don't read your reviews until I'm done watching).

Worst kept secret in the world is out - the Punisher and Jessica Jones have both been cancelled.  Even though Jessica Jones still has a season to air, they went ahead and got it out of the way.

About 9 episodes into the Punisher.

What's really odd about this season is the way it's structured.  I think they're trying to do one of those "blur the lines between hero and villain" things, but it's coming off sorta awkward to me.  Billy doesn't even know who the Punisher is until the very end of episode 7, and even then, Billy doesn't even know what's going on.  As of right now (with four episodes to go), it's clear that Billy wasn't faking it.  He was plotting to get his revenge.  He's still a killer and a monster, but he's essentially a new character.

And our hero, Frank, is the same guy, and his only goal is to find this guy and kill him.

It's a weird situation.  I find myself, at times, wondering how this narrative would work in reverse.  If Frank were beaten up at the end of season one and left for dead.  He wakes up from a coma and doesn't know that his wife and kids are dead.  And he's terrified by nightmares of this man with a jigsaw face.  And he's trying to find out who he is while this pyschopath keeps attacking him for reasons Frank can't possibly understand.

It just feels sorta disconnected because the hero and villain have this history that only the hero really remembers.  It makes for a complicated villain but a complicated story structure.  Then you have Pilgrim thrown in, and I don't have any idea where he's supposed to fit in.  Frank barely knows who he is at all, and I don't think anyone on the hero side knows his name.

Yeah.  I can't argue there.

The problem with the Marvel Netflix shows is consistently a refusal to write any sort of "case of the week" stories.  And I just don't understand why none of the shows ever did this.  Daredevil is a lawyer.  Luke Cage and Iron Fist are heroes for hire.  Jessica Jones is a friggin' PI.  There are built-in ways to tell a story that doesn't involve one guy fighting one guy for 13 episodes.  I know "freak of the week" stories got old on Smallville, but I think television has evolved since then.  The Arrowverse regularly pads seasons that are twice as long with stories like that.

They wouldn't have to forget about their primary villains.  While Frank was trying to bust up a gang of human traffickers, Russo could still be in therapy.  Pilgrim could be chasing down the girl.  They don't have to ignore their character building to busy up Frank in an engaging story for an episode.  We could see Kingpin's rise to power while Matt Murdock is trying to get a falsely-accused guy out of prison.  Kilgrave could be abusing his power while Jessica Jones tries to find a missing child.

Give the characters a season-long arc, but it doesn't have to be *only that*.  I mean, Hell, in the X-Files, they did so many case of the week episodes that people actually prefer them to the mythology episodes.

I feel like it almost has to be something from the higher ups at Marvel TV or Netflix.  Because there's no way that we'd have 12 seasons of this stuff and none of the writing rooms thought "Hmmm...what if we had Frank do something in this episode instead of having him hang out on a rooftop casing a joint for 40 minutes so we can do the 10 minute fight sequence that is the only reason we're doing this episode."

I think Captain Marvel is going to be Marvel’s first misstep in awhile now.  I thought the problem might be that they’ve emphasized the “first woman” aspect too much - playing with fade-ins on titles to read “HERo”; releasing the movie on International Women’s Day; etc. The effort felt like a gimmick and it was off-putting to me.  But when you look at it, Black Panther did the same things - Black in the title, released during Black History Month; etc - and yet I always felt excited to see Black Panther and thought it would be a hit.  So what’s the difference?

The trailers and likely by extension the movie.

For the months preceding Black Panther, we had a commercial with a dramatic leap from above onto a moving car where Panther stops some bad guys.  For Captain Marvel, we have had a stoic Brie Larson riding in a car with Nick Fury.  We also have Brie fighting constipation on top of a train.  Oh!  And Brie punching an old lady.

To add more fuel to the fire are the reviews for Captain Marvel.  A recurring mention?  The cat steals the show.  The best thing about it...is the cat.  I see Marvel trying to damage control too - mentioning that the first Iron Man movie wasn’t a billion dollar movie and these things can take time to build up.  Not exactly comparing apples to apples.  The first Iron Man movie had little studio support behind it.

If you have a good movie to promote, the advertising gimmicks fall to the background and you don’t notice them. They become almost subliminal.  If it’s a weak movie, all you see is the gimmick.  I’ve become increasingly repulsed every time I see them pushing the movie as “it’s a woman!”; and I’ve come to realize my repulsion is because I think that’s all the movie has going for it.  It’s a shame too, because there’s nothing wrong with Captain Marvel or Carol Danvers - it could easily be great with the right writers, directors and actors.

Marvel has decided that the only director who can replace James Gunn for GUARDIANS 3 is James Gunn.

https://deadline.com/2019/03/james-gunn … 202576444/

I think Marvel genuinely fired him. But, over time and with investigations and further soul-searching, it became clear: Gunn is not a pedophile. Gunn is a rape victim who was making 'jokes' about a childhood trauma. Furthermore, Gunn made no excuses and cast no blame for his behaviour, declaring that he understood Disney's decision to fire him and all of that made it easier to rehire him, especially when Taika Waititi declined the job of directing GUARDIANS 3 before he'd even been offered the job.

So I saw Captain Marvel.

It was fine.  I thought Brie Larson was good in the role - she was fun and lively and sarcastic.  I found her to be an odd combination of Tony and Steve - funny and focused like Tony and duty-bound and honorable like Steve.

I also thought it told a relatively complicated story efficiently.  I thought they had such a big story to tell that we sorta lost Carol's character growth for a lot of it.  Since her character is sorta distant, Nick Fury becomes the emotional core of the movie for a bit of it.  And I'm not sure I buy Carol's motivations for almost anything she does in the movie.  But I feel like these are things that could be shown in a sequel (or even in Endgame) and not really be a big problem.

All in all, I thought it was fine.  Better than Dr. Strange, not as good as Spider-Man: Homecoming as far as first movies go.  I also thought they did some weird gymnastics to tie certain things in (the SPOILER is what powers the lightspeed engine), and they didn't do enough to tie in other stuff (Ronan maybe should've been on the team instead of just a fringe villain, Coulson has virtually nothing to do).

And after all the hype about feminism, I didn't really think they did much in the actual movie.  There's way less feminist stuff compared to the racial stuff in Black Panther (which I also didn't think was too much).  Carol is strong, and no one really doubts her because of her gender.  There's some stuff about her emotions getting the best of her, but it's more tied to her memories than her gender.

It was fine.  Very ready for Endgame to be here.

I saw Endgame last night.  It was a wonderful culmination of 20+ films and 10+ years.

SPOILERS for ENDGAME

I thought INFINITY WAR was a good film, just not for me. I thought ENDGAME was good and I enjoyed it a lot. In comics, Iron Man and Captain America don't ever come to endings, so it was lovely to see them come to conclusions here. The battle sequences did a great job of showing all these heroes from different movies sharing the screen together. Scott Lang's reunion with Cassie was very touching. Nebula is a delight onscreen. Thor is hilarious. However, INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME have perhaps unwittingly raised a moral, sociological and scientific question that it doesn't seem able to address. Should Thanos cutting the population in half be undone?

Natasha notes that the world governments have managed to keep things running. Carol says the universe remains filled with life and planets in need of her care. Steve sees humpback whales closer to cities because fewer ships have meant less pollution. Thanos should have been stopped. The heroes failed. Should they try to change what he did when he's left them with a world that is beginning to heal from environmental damage and overpopulation? Does having the power to repopulate and overpopulate this planet give them the right to do so without further consideration?

It's a conundrum that ENDGAME can't handle because the Avengers are the wrong superheroes to address it. The Avengers are, in reality, fighting for the Marvel copyrights to continue existing to produce content in films, TV and streaming services.

Few superheroes are suited to confront such dilemmas; there are only four who could possibly confront this question and they are Quinn Mallory, Wade Welles, Rembrandt Brown and Professor Arturo. And even they hesitated to come to a definitive answer: in "Luck of the Draw," the Professor conceded the philosophy of limiting population while abhorring the methods to do so.

ENDGAME can't go there and instead fills the screen with superheroes and assures you that it's good. They might have side-stepped further it with a line from Carol declaring that most planets and spacefaring civilizations can handle population just fine and it's just Earth that seems to be singularly inept, and yes, more people means more conflicts, but they all had the right to exist and Earth is just going to have to manage.

The time travel was handled a bit strangely at points. The film does a good job of explaining why taking the stones and Thanos and his army and Gamora and Nebula out of their timeframes doesn't alter the past of this movie, it only brings the pieces to the present day gameboard while creating an alternate timeline that our main characters don't experience.

However, then the Ancient One declares that all the stones must be returned to the moment from which they were taken so that she can resume her job, but it wouldn't make any difference to the modern day Avengers. It's simply a measure to prevent death and destruction in other timelines. That's fine too and explains how Loki can appear in a future Disney show while still having died in INFINITY WAR.

Except, but by that logic -- why is Steve Rogers back in the prime timeline at the end? It's wonderful that he was reunited with Peggy at some point in what I assume is the 1950s. It adds a kind coda to the unfinished arcs of the AGENT CARTER television show, declaring that regardless of what did or didn't happen in the never-filmed Season 3, Peggy and Steve found each other again -- except that would be an alternate timeline that wouldn't connect with our own. The same way there's now an alternate timeline where Thanos and his army disappeared nine years ago. And an alternate timeline where Loki stole the Tesseract and escaped after the first AVENGERS.

Steve should have simply disappeared, never to return -- unless the Steve at the end of ENDGAME actually travelled from his timeline to this one to assure Bucky and Sam and Bruce that he was alright?

It was strange that Gamora wasn't present at Tony's funeral and that she isn't aboard the ship as Thor joins the Guardians; one would think she'd stick with Nebula.

Is Chris Hemsworth contracted to be part of the cast of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY III?

Is AGENTS OF SHIELD's sixth season going to be set five years after the events of Season 5 the way ENDGAME is set five years after INFINITY WAR? If Netflix hadn't cancelled the Marvel shows, how would they have integrated the five year disappearances into their stories?

Regarding Endgame (SPOILERS if you haven't already stopped reading this thread).

You're right - because of the way they left it, that world might have huge legal and existential problems.  Peter's going to go back to school with all his friends that were snapped, but he's going to have a lot of friends who are emotionally scarred (and now 5 years older).  They'll probably be in college now, and those friendships are almost-certainly never going to come back.  Those scars weren't unsnapped.

What about people like the man at the therapy session who was dating again?  If someone lost their spouse and then remarried, what would happen to the second marriage?  What would be the legal ramifications of the first one? 

What if the president was snapped?  Would he have a legal claim to the remainder of his presidency, or would he lose it since he was technically incapacitated?  What about Wakanda?  Someone was king while T'Challa was gone, and it seems like he's just king again when he gets back.  But what if Wakanda thrived under the other king?  Even if the king was okay giving it back to T'Challa, would Wakanda?  Would other countries in other situations?

And it doesn't even have to be at huge levels of power?  If the sales manager at Marvel Paper got snapped, they'd have replaced him in 5 years.  Does he have a legal claim to his old job?  Technology would've improved in 5 years, if not at a slightly slower rate.  Some people might be (slightly) less qualified than people that weren't snapped.  Would there be a protected class for people who were snapped to catch them up or to find them work?

Then there's weird entertainment stuff.  I assume TV and movies still happened (they talk about missing the Mets and show an abandoned (?) stadium, but I assume entertainment would go on).  How many shows would've had to write in character deaths and then would have to awkwardly write back in resurrections?  How many shows would write the snap into them?  Would something like Blackish or AP Bio have a snap-related arc?  Or would they just pretend it never happened?  Would there be a new Bond film where 007 flies into space to take on Thanos?

The people are all back, but the world wasn't restored.  And, honestly, just because of Morgan Stark, you could argue that the world is much more complicated and possibly damaged.

Some of this could be dealt with in a future movie, but Spider-Man: Far From Home doesn't look like an existential piece.  And since most of his classmates look like they're on a class trip with him, you gotta thing *all of them* got snapped.

**************

I'm sure we've talked about this, but while it would be an insane tragedy to have 3.5 billion people disappear...I don't think it would've accomplished what Thanos was going for.  We'd still have 3.5 billion people on the planet...and that would've simply put us back to the late 1960s in terms of world population.  Unless there was some sort of pushback to keep the population down (either out of fear of another snap or because of worldwide sadness), the world would be back to its pre-snap population in 50 years.  Thanos' plan would need to be much more aggressive to have the impact that he's looking for.  It took us over 200 years to get from 1 billion to 7 billion so if he snapped everyone but 1 billion, that might actually save the planet.  Taking half might only delay the inevitable.

Two thoughts on the Black Widow movie:

1. My first thought is that it'll be about the Budapest incident that's been referenced so many times.  It'd be cool to get a period piece that goes over what happened there.

2. Was the Black Widow movie fake?  Will it actually come out?  Or was it put on the schedule to throw fans off, and it'll be some sort of "gotcha" by Marvel?  Considering the scene that happened in Endgame, they could even avoid criticism from people wanting another female-led solo movie by replacing it with an A-Force movie.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Force

And, curiously, the directors Joe and Anthony Russo take the view that Steve lived in an alternate timeline, but made a return trip to the original timeline to hand Sam his shield. This is the view supported by the film as Bruce declares that you cannot change the past to alter the present; travelling to the past makes it your present. If you leave the past and return to your point of departure, you return to the original timeline which has none of the alterations made during your trip.

This is supported entirely throughout the film: Gamora's past self travelling to the present does not undo her actions in previous films. Thanos travelling to the future does not undo the events of INFINITY WAR. Loki escaping custody does not undo the events of DARK WORLD or RAGNAROK. The only reason the Avengers need to return the Stones is to avoid creating destruction in a parallel timeline even if they'd never experience that themselves.

My guess is that the writers scripted a scene that declared that only removing the stones creates an alternate timeline and that time travellers cannot alter the past, but they can make supplementary additions. This view of time travel is present in DOCTOR WHO with "fixed points" in history where the Doctor must follow how history is recorded but can add details to pay off later.

I imagine that this scene was then cut by the Russos, resulting in two contradictory opinions between the writers and directors.

In the movie, when Steve and Bucky say goodbye, Bucky is clearly aware before the younger Steve time travels away that they are making their farewells. It indicates that the older Steve made an earlier visit to Bucky to explain the situation  before his return to greet Sam. This is reinforced when Bucky directs Sam to speak with the older Steve and in fact seems to know where the older Steve will be before he even appears.

As for choosing Bucky or Sam as the new Captain America -- all I can say is that there's a certain value to a black man wielding the shield, but Bucky in the comics was extremely popular as the replacement Captain America. Maybe they could alternate every other week.

One thing I'd like to see -- I'd like a three hour movie, CAPTAIN AMERICA: STONE UNTURNED, where Steve returns the stone to be guarded by the Red Skull. In the first hour, Steve lands on the planet and finds the humble, repentant Skull. Refusing to hand the stone over to a man Steve knows as a Nazi mass murderer, Steve turns away, but when attempting to leave, the Skull attacks him, demonstrating Tesseract powers.

Steve is beaten half -to-death but is then saved -- by the Red Skull -- another one. The hostile Red Skull attacks them both and Steve and the Skull who saved him are trapped in a sealed cave.

In the second hour, we see the Skull and Steve with nothing to do but talk. The Skull apologizes for his misdeeds, but Steve won't hear it, saying the Skull isn't sorry. He just lost his power and whatever's outside the cave may be a time traveller or from another dimension. The Skull says he was made by deranged fascists and Steve was made by kindess and sacrifice that the Skull mistook for weakness. The Skull has changed. Steve replies that if the Skull could get his power back and return to Earth, he would instantly resume his campaign of terror. The Skull confesses that is true and asks Steve to share his exploits since WWII.

In the third hour, to pass the time, Steve describes some of his adventures and the Skull tells Steve that the Skull finds solace in knowing that the evil of the Nazis has, in a very small way, contributed to the good of Captain America. Steve replies those are easy words when trapped on a cave and also on a planet from which the Skull has no escape.

In response, the Skull leads Steve into the caverns of the cave which reveal numerous dimensional portals, some of which lead back to Earth. The Skull found them after the first several centuries of his imprisonment. He could have left at any time since then but chose not to, wishing to pay for his crimes with his isolation and fearing he would resume his old ways if he left.

At this point, the Tesseract powered Skull outside the cave finally catches up to the imprisoned Skull and Steve. Steve fights the Tesseract-powered Skull but eventually realizes: this isn't the Skull, it's a manifestation of his hatred for the Skull brought into being by the stone. So long as Steve does not forgive the Skull, he cannot give up the Stone.

Steve chooses to let his hate go. He forgives the Skull. The hostile Skull disappears. The stone leaves Steve and is returned to the Skull once more. The Skull shows Steve the portals once again and says that while the Skull will remain, Steve might make use of them now or in the future. The Skull wishes he could tell his mother good-bye, the Skull wishes he could visit each of his victims and apologize. But he can never allow himself to leave.

Steve looks at all the portals, seeing the 616 universe, the Ultimate Universe, the Spider-Verse, CAPTAIN AMERICA TV movies, the direct-to-video feature, the 90s Captain America who guest-starred on the SPIDER-MAN TV series, the HEROES REBORN Cap and others.

Steve also sees a portal leading back to Peggy Carter and one leading to the time machine in his original timeline. Steve says he doesn't know which one to choose. The Skull suggests that he choose both.

Three hours is too much? Oh. Well, maybe this could be one of those MARVEL ONE-SHOT short films. I guess a 15 minute length might make more sense.

I do think a lot of was cut out for Steve and Bucky.  I thought the scene, the way they did it, worked.  But if Bucky and Steve didn't talk, it would be highly disingenuous to the characters.

My guess is that Cap did talk to Bucky first.  My guess is that Steve offered the shield to Bucky first.  My guess is that Bucky turned it down.  He's a character who's working hard on redemption, but I don't think he's a character who will ever truly forgive himself for what he was forced to do.  I think a part of him is afraid that he'll always be the Winter Soldier, and it'd do more harm than good for Steve's legacy if he was ever activated again while donning the Captain America suit.

If I had to guess (again), my theory would be that the Bucky/Falcon show will be about this on some level.  That Sam is the new Captain America, but that he wasn't the first choice.  And it'd be somewhat about that and somewhat about Sam proving that he was the right choice - which I think Bucky would actually agree with.

It's just weird that they didn't go with Bucky since they'd alluded to him having the shield so many times.  I agree that a black Captain America is a good thing for many fans, but I'd like the Sam/Bucky show to make us believe that it actually makes sense in-universe.

Because it feels a little like the end of the Dark Knight Rises.  Sure, John Blake is a good man.  Yes, he has proven himself to be a hero.  Yes, he has access to all of Bruce's toys.  But John Blake is not Bruce Wayne, and I have real fears that he'd get killed in his first night as Batman.  Sam is a hero.  But while he'd have Cap's shield, he doesn't have Cap's strength or his years of experience.  Bucky does.

Yeah, that's fair. In the comics, it made sense when Sam became Captain America. Temporal Flux knows his stuff, so this post is more for others, but in the comic book CIVIL WAR, Steve died on the courthouse steps on his way to trial for going rogue. The Red Skull brainwashed Sharon Carter (Peggy's descendant) into shooting him to death. Bucky became the new Captain America, continuing Steve's battle against the Superhuman Registration Act and other evils including Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) taking over government oversight of superheroes and the Red Skull infiltrating American economics.

In CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN, Bucky discovers that Steve isn't dead, but unstick in time due to the gun that shot him being a temporal bullet that ripped him out of time. Bucky and Sharon save Steve. Steve visits President Obama who grants him a pardon, but Steve says he is out of touch with America and cannot be who he was. Steve then tells Bucky to keep the shield and remain Captain America. After Osborn is defeated and removed from power and the Registration Act is overturned, Steve assumes Osborn's position, wearing the WINTER SOLDIER version of his costume with no mask and using an energy-based shield. However, Bucky's exploits as a Russian assassin are revealed and Bucky is prosecuted and can no longer be Captain America. Later, Bucky is seemingly killed during the FEAR ITSELF event, but it turns out he faked his death and will continue to do good but as the Winter Soldier and Steve becomes Captain America again.

In another later storyline, Steve is aged into his senior years due to a sci-fi contrivance and is physically incapable of being Captain America. This time, he gives the shield to Sam. Sam assumes the role until Steve is restored to youth by a reality warping device. However, it's later revealed that this device altered Steve's history to make him an agent of HYDRA. At first, Steve's work is covert, but when he reveals himself and has HYDRA overthrow the US Government and take over America, Sam has to resume his once-temporary role as Captain America. Later, it's revealed that the HYDRA version of Steve was created by splitting Steve's timelines in two; the original Steve remains in limbo but is able to return, defeat and imprison his doppleganger and redeem the name of Captain America.

I think Falcon being Captain America made more sense when Bucky had been Cap for a time but eventually found the position untenable due to his past as a Russian assassin coming to light.

I get the sense you're all agreeing that there isn't a market for a three hour film of Steve and the Red Skull sitting in a cave and talking.

I've only really read Mark Waid's run on FANTASTIC FOUR, but Doom is intriguing because he presents himself with regality and proclaims himself to possess nobility and honour -- but in reality, he's a petty, delusional lunatic who insists to no end that Dr. Reed Richards MUST have somehow sabotaged the science experiment that blew up in his face and scarred him. Doom is perpetually insisting on his generosity and grandeur of spirit only to do something sociopathic and insane and he's fascinating because he's completely convinced of his own excellence and doesn't realize how small-minded he is. His brilliance as a scientist and sorcerer exists alongside his pitiful behaviour and the contradiction is perpetually intriguing.

His powers are that his suit of armour is full of endless technology that could either manifest as telekinesis, super strength, energy projection and really anything Iron Man can do but unlike Tony Stark, Doom's mind is fuelled by a twisted and cruel psychosis that takes outer form in a seemingly suave and elegant form. In his main Mark Waid story, Doom approaches a woman he once dated and asks her to forgive him for his horrors and give him a new chance to love her. She's touched by his story and embraces him.

The skin promptly melts off her and forms a new layer of magical armour around Doom; as she screams, Doom tells her that in his youth, he chose science. He has now appealed to darker gods to choose sorcery instead; the price was to sacrifice the only person he's ever loved aside from his mother to form a new suit of armor made of magically strengthened human flesh.

**

Sooooo, AGENTS OF SHIELD in Season 6 is set one year after Season 5 -- but it will not address INFINITY WAR or ENDGAME at all:
https://www.thewrap.com/agents-of-shiel … me-marvel/

The problem: Marvel TV had no information on ENDGAME but assumed that time travel would resolve the INFINITY WAR cliffhanger. AGENTS OF SHIELD's sixth season was set one year after Season 5, thinking that would grant the show some distance. But ENDGAME is set over the course of five years. Jeph Loeb and Jed Whedon say they have written Season 6 without referring to the Thanos snap, and essentially written it the way LUKE CAGE, DAREDEVIL, JESSICA JONES and PUNISHER were written -- as though they take place before INFINITY WAR. But AGENTS OF SHIELD tied into INFINITY WAR with the final episodes happening concurrently with INFINITY WAR -- so how can Season 6, set one year after INFINITY WAR and four years before the ENDGAME conclusion possibly make sense?

Loeb and Whedon said they simply weren't going to explain it, that they couldn't, that SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME is tasked with presenting the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the events of ENDGAME and also, that Marvel Studios withheld any and all ENDGAME information from Marvel TV. Whedon asked that viewers go along with the story and not be distracted by trivialities -- except the disappearance of 50 per cent of all biological life forms is not a trivial matter and it would be inexplicable that absolutely nobody in the AGENTS OF SHIELD cast fell victim to the disappearances.

Whedon added that in his mind, there is an explanation, but that it may not end up onscreen and that it will need to be determined at a later date. (Later as in Season 7?)

Anyway. I think the simplest explanation: the Thanos-snap didn't happen after the Season 5 finale, but during the flight to Tahiti. Everyone was erased from existence. Five years passed. Tony restored all the disappeared and, of course, made sure that their surroundings (like a plane) were restored as well. As a result, the SHIELD team didn't realize that they had gone missing or that five years had passed. They touched down in Tahiti, bid their farewells to Coulson and May, flew off to space in search of Fitz and then one year passed between that and the Season 6 premiere. As a result, all the reactions to their disappearances and returns and Earth adjusting to the restorations takes place offscreen between Season 5 and Season 6.

Some Marvel phase four rumors on 4Chan.  They’re extremely likely to be garbage, but still some interesting thoughts in there.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/05/11 … -spoilers/

The interesting one is the synopsis for the Falcon / Winter Soldier series on Disney+.  It lays out the series as an adaptation of the 1980’s John Walker story:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agent_(character)

Steve Rogers doesn’t necessarily have the power to determine who the next Captain America will be - the Captain America name, design and physically the original shield are property of the United States government.  They have the ultimate legal right to decide who is next to wield the shield.

With a few tweaks here and there, it would be pretty easy to adapt the story to where the MCU stands now.  The original story even featured Falcon as a candidate for Captain America, but the government panel rejected him with the idea that America wasn’t ready for a black Captain America.  As it turned out, America wasn’t ready for someone with psychological problems like John Walker.

And while I don’t think Disney would go there, this did give me an interesting thought.  It’s hard for me to believe government today concluding that the world isn’t ready for a black Captain America; so how could the MCU end up thrown back to that kind of mentality?  Well, do we know if the Thanos snap was racially sensitive?  If practically all black people in America vanished for 5 years, what would the country look like when they came back?

It could be a soul searching moment of how much America has really changed versus what it just came to accept.  There is a difference.  Many black commentators have been talking about how America hasn’t really changed - people just aren’t paying attention to racism as much anymore.  This could highlight that.

I've enjoyed the episodes, and I feel like the TV writers have decided to simply return the movie division's favor and ignore the movies.  I feel like they've been the little brother for long enough, and they just want to do their own thing.  No more connections, no more mentions.  If a snap happened, it doesn't matter.  If there's an Iron Man and a Captain America and a Thor and Avengers, it doesn't matter.  Just like it didn't matter that the Avengers brought every hero of all time (including Howard the Duck) to fight Thanos, and there wasn't Quake or Inhumans or anyone else that could've helped.

And I think that's fine.  Daredevil supposedly exists in that universe even though it never felt like it.  It's sad because I think it could've been cool to introduce people on the show and have them bleed into the movies and vice versa.  While they were never going to get Chris Evans, it was cool that they got Jaimie Alexander.  It was cool that there was a plotline on AoS to explain how the Helicarrier got there in Age of Ultron.  It was cool that they had to react to Captain America: Winter Soldier and clean up after Thor: The Dark World.

But when the movies didn't seem like they cared, it's fine that the show decided the same.  Just do what the Netflix shows did - carve out your own little place and don't worry about anything else.