Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Jhamin]

17 hours ago, Tjack said:

 

    Well....This does confirm a long held belief of mine.   Peter Quill is a moron.  He couldn’t pour pi$$ out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the sole. The episode does however show what a clever character can do when played smartly. (All players & GM’s should take notes.)

 

No disagreement there, on the other hand T'Challa is by all accounts a pretty above-average person even without the heart-shaped herb.  So we went from Starlord being a man-child with daddy issues to being one of his generations greatest.  Apparently they instill that nobility of character young in Wakanda.  

My memory of the old "What If" comics was that everything was horrible in the new world like 60% of the time, different but about a draw about 30% of the time and unambiguously better than the prime timeline about 10% of the time.  I feel like Captain Carter was about a wash in terms of universal good/bad, it just substituted Peggy's sacrifice for Steve's but the Red Skull still got stopped and presumably the Nazis still lost WWII.  

 

I'm really kind of digging that T'Challa as Star Lord is just an unambiguously better universe for most everyone.  Thanos, Nebula, TazerFace, Korath, Drax, The Collector's servant girl and his prisoners, and about half the universe seem just much happier with life.  The Black Order fared about as well as in the MCU universe.  The Collector may or may not be worse off..

 

The only thing I couldn't come up with a fan-theory on was why he was still called Star Lord.  Peter insisted on that name because that is what his Mom called him.  I'm not sure why T'Challa would use it.

[mattingly]

5 hours ago, Jhamin said:

The only thing I couldn't come up with a fan-theory on was why he was still called Star Lord.  Peter insisted on that name because that is what his Mom called him.  I'm not sure why T'Challa would use it.

 

Otherwise, they'd have to call him Robin Leach.

 

[Bazza]

Easy. He is Wakanda royalty to that covers the "Lord" and he is within the cosmos, so "Star". 

[Hugh Neilson]

7 hours ago, Jhamin said:

My memory of the old "What If" comics was that everything was horrible in the new world like 60% of the time, different but about a draw about 30% of the time and unambiguously better than the prime timeline about 10% of the time.  I feel like Captain Carter was about a wash in terms of universal good/bad, it just substituted Peggy's sacrifice for Steve's but the Red Skull still got stopped and presumably the Nazis still lost WWII.  

 

I'm really kind of digging that T'Challa as Star Lord is just an unambiguously better universe for most everyone.

 

Looks like I am the outlier in wondering just how T'Challa could talk a bunch of amoral pirates over to the Greater Good, much less convince Thanos to abandon his plans.

 

To the broader "recalling the old comics", the other thing I recall was a mix of re-telling classic Marvel history with a slight twist (which Captain Carter did) and telling a wild story with familiar looking characters but pretty much entirely unrelated to "mainstream marvel" continuity, almost like a single issue of an alternative universe Marvel comics (which is definitely T'Challa as StarLord). But there were also a few that were actually "untold stories" of the main MCU (I recall "...the Invaders remained together after WW II" and "...the Avengers formed in the 1950s").

[Greywind]

As I recall, those were retconned in later.

[Hugh Neilson]

I don't believe the writers ever said "well, this one is mainstream continuity" so much as there was nothing that precluded them being mainstream continuity. Although the 1950s Avengers were being watched by five current Avengers who aligned with them (Thor/Venus; Beast/GorillaMan; Vision/Living Robot; Iron Man/Marvel Boy; Cap/3D Man).

 

From https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/What_If%3F_Vol_1_9

 

Quote

For many years, the Beast's question of whether he was viewing the past of Earth-616 or another dimension went unanswered. In Avengers: Forever Vol 1 4 it was finally revealed that he had tuned in to another dimension, when heroes from Earth-616 visited that dimension (named Earth-9904) shortly before it was destroyed by Immortus.

 

Agents of Atlas would have likely been easier if they had left it in mainstream continuity, though.

[Tjack]

6 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Looks like I am the outlier in wondering just how T'Challa could talk a bunch of amoral pirates over to the Greater Good, much less convince Thanos to abandon his plans.

 

    Well, you start off with having a 30 Pre....

[Trencher]

In the movie Starlord were just some goof that fell into different adventures and had to be saved by his friends all the time. 

His chief virtue was that: "He is not a complete dick".

Starlords iconic status (if it is iconic at all) only exist to us the viewers, the rest of the universe sees him as a nuisance. 

Its not exactly a role that needs to be filled in the eyes of the people. This is a step down for the Black Panther character who popularity is about him being an African high tech king and hero. With the whole lost world aesthetic going on. If anything him going to space should lead to a Wakandan space empire like they have in the comics, not him being a rouge trading adventurer! No matter how much more successful he is at it than Quill was. Because Quill kinda suck. He has lots of flaws. His approach if you can even call it that have nothing in common with Tchalla at all and those two would definitively not go on similar paths. Black Panther in space should be something way grander and more epic than just "same as Quill but more successful".

I cant get over the fact that this is just executives playing around with different brands. 

 

And I tell you something else. While "What if" had lots of good stories over the years they also had a lot of bad and I think this "what if blue hat man put on a red hat"  kind of approach to stories infected the mainstream comics too and made them worse.

 

Time travel- Alternative dimensions - Alternative timelines - All mean two things. We are going away from the streets. "The world outside your window" and we are just getting the same characters over and over again just in different variations. These two factors wounded the comics long before the usual suspects came along to finish them off. A wound I suspect did a lot more damage than the casual observer thinks.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

New Eternals trailer dropped. The last one before November. 

 

 

a few elements become clearer, but this trailer, for me is not compelling. Director Cloe Zhao’s painterly approach to epic landscapes, and muted colors, that won her last year’s Oscar seems to be her trademark. 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

2 hours ago, Trencher said:

 

Time travel- Alternative dimensions - Alternative timelines - All mean two things. We are going away from the streets. "The world outside your window" and we are just getting the same characters over and over again just in different variations. These two factors wounded the comics long before the usual suspects came along to finish them off. A wound I suspect did a lot more damage than the casual observer thinks.

 

 

I’d have to agree. I used to spend about $50 a month for comic books, even after I moved to L. A. but that tapered of to less than  $10 after 2007, then mostly independents. It dropped to nothing in 2016. The old writers and artists aren’t around much any more and the quality of writing is just awful, especially in the last 4 years. 

[Lord Liaden]

Personally, I wouldn't lay that all at the feet of the concept of alternate worlds and character variations. I attribute it more to writers and artists taking over these properties who don't like or respect the comic-book genre, or understand the appeal of the characters. They want to change everything to be "edgy" and "provocative," as though that was the same thing as "creative." Artists forego graphic story telling in favor of showing off with big flashy splash pages. Ego also plays a big role IMO. If the fans don't take to their efforts, they blame the fans for not "getting it."

 

The success of the MCU comes from being led by people who are not only capable, but who grew up with and love the old comics, and understand what made the genre popular. Their adaptations may change the letter of the characters and stories, but remain true to their spirit.

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

New Eternals trailer dropped. The last one before November. 

 

 

a few elements become clearer, but this trailer, for me is not compelling. Director Cloe Zhao’s painterly approach to epic landscapes, and muted colors, that won her last year’s Oscar seems to be her trademark. 

 

 

 

I like more than I expected to. They managed to explain some of their origins, what they are here for and why they didn't fight Thanos without revealing too much(hopefully) and they teased the Deviants and Celestials well.

[Greywind]

21 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Personally, I wouldn't lay that all at the feet of the concept of alternate worlds and character variations. I attribute it more to writers and artists taking over these properties who don't like or respect the comic-book genre, or understand the appeal of the characters. They want to change everything to be "edgy" and "provocative," as though that was the same thing as "creative." Artists forego graphic story telling in favor of showing off with big flashy splash pages. Ego also plays a big role IMO. If the fans don't take to their efforts, they blame the fans for not "getting it."

 

The success of the MCU comes from being led by people who are not only capable, but who grew up with and love the old comics, and understand what made the genre popular. Their adaptations may change the letter of the characters and stories, but remain true to their spirit.

 

Artists do nowadays in the hopes that they can resell their work.

[archer]

On 8/19/2021 at 8:55 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Looks like I am the outlier in wondering just how T'Challa could talk a bunch of amoral pirates over to the Greater Good, much less convince Thanos to abandon his plans.

 

 

I thought that was sad and lazy storytelling.

 

The pirates could almost have been doable since if he convinced Yondu, the rest would follow the captain as long as they got paid on a regular basis.

 

But Thanos?

 

> gag <

[Scott Ruggels]

Marvel Series, The Armor Wars has acquired its writer.  The show stars Don Cheadle as Warmachine. 

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/marvel-series-armor-wars-finds-its-head-writer-with-yassir-lester-1235000698/

 

 

[unclevlad]

From what I'm seeing...well, I've said I'm not gonna bother with anything streaming.  I remember liking SOME of the What If... series, not that I can remember seeing a lot of them.  I do think they weaken the credibility of the entire comic universe, but probably not as bad as insanely over-the-top finger snaps, or bringing in the Celestials, or retcon after retcon after retcon.  (OK, DC was more guilty of that.)  All of it says, nothing the characters do matter.  Everything is writers' whim.  While that's true...don't rip the curtain into shreds, then incinerate it.  We know the curtain is there, but it's *good* to leave it.

 

 

[BoloOfEarth]

I remember one three-in-one What If where the radioactive spider bit Gwen Stacy, Flash Thompson, and John Jameson rather than Peter Parker.  (Three separate stories, not all together.)  IIRC, they all ended with each of them dying heroically... and Peter extracting the venom from the dead spider to carry on their legacies.  

 

Though my favorite had to be the Assistant Editor's Month What If, with such bits as "What If Reed Richards never invented unstable molecules", "What If Tony Stark had an eating problem rather than a drinking problem", and "What If all the heroes in New York City moved to Toledo, Ohio."  Not that any of that would transfer over to the televised series, but a lot of it made me laugh.

 

 

 

 

[Greywind]

What If the Fantastic Four had been the original Marvel bullpen?

[mattingly]

[Bazza]

That answers the question “what watches the watchers.”

[Scott Ruggels]

Disney wants to force Scarlet Johansson’s lawsuit to arbitration. 
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/disney-scarlett-johansson-arbitration-1235046169/

[Hugh Neilson]

A lot of legal agreements provide for arbitration rather than the Courts as a dispute resolution mechanism.  It's generally perceived as a lower-cost, quicker approach to dispute resolution.  The confidentiality aspect is only one reason for that approach, but can be a significant incentive for those in the public eye.

 

If the agreement Disney signed backs up her claim that the Disney+ release breached that contract, she should be compensated for that breach.  If the agreement she signed says that disputes will be resolved by arbitration outside the Courts (and/or that they are to be handled on a confidential basis), she needs to honour her contractual obligations as well.

[zslane]

Most if not all of the legal arguments fall in Disney's favor on this one. In addition to being free from any "plain" (i.e., real) breach of contract claim, as pointed out by Variety, Disney can also invoke force majeure and put the whole thing to rest. ScarJo's team wants it to remain public because shaming Disney through the trades and social media is really the only tactic available to them. When you don't have any real legal ground to stand on, you make shrill accusations of misogyny or sexism or racism or whatever, and then hope all the unions stand together and strike when the next contract renewals comes up.

[Hugh Neilson]

True - especially for a PR sensitive entity like Disney, if you can get a favourable ruling from the Court of Public Opinion, the actual facts and law don't matter all that much.

[Lord Liaden]

It's not unusual for law and justice to be different things. It's why law evolves over time as new cases highlight its shortcomings.