Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

liked this a lot! The fourth episode was the right moment for a change of pace - as enjoyable as the sitcom+eerie bits format was, it was getting a little stale for me.

v happy to see they brought Kat Dennings (I've only seen the second Thor once but the part where she goes "meow meow!" is burned into my brain) and Randall Park back for this too.

The one Avenger they should be calling is Dr. Strange, but I have a feeling whatever happens on this show will have something to do with his movie anyway.

Yeah, won't be surprised if he appears at the end of this show, especially if they formally tie Wanda's powers to MCU Magic.

Another bit - besides Debra Jo Rupp, love that they likely cast Dennings and Park as major characters in this because they both lead sitcoms.

As mentioned upthread, Wanda will be in the next Dr. Strange movie, so a cameo isn't out of the question.

Yeah, this is a good direction for the show to go in now. No real surprises for anyone who has been reading the comics and watching the movies for decades but super well executed.

I only wish they could've found a way to weave the narratives more evenly and not do three episodes of sitcoms and then one X-Files... but I can cope. Getting real Arrival vibes from the base camp sequences!

signed, former neighbor of forks who ain't been in the neighborhood in a year, misses Kensington/Ditmas Park and wonder what it has been like, and enjoyed the company of Forks very much

I was just reminded that this is officially a limited series, and for that reason perhaps maybe designed *not* to answer questions and more made to *introduce* questions that might be answered in "Dr. Strange 2" and maybe the next "Spider-Man." I actually don't mind the idea of them using the TV shows this way, it sort of reminds me of the way limited series' work in comics, not so much stand-alone and more a narrative bridge to introduce new ideas/themes/costumes. Certainly it would help Disney control its broader (er) vision, in that they won't have to worry about the shows stepping on story toes. In fact, limited series like this might solve some movie problems in the process but negating some need for huge exposition drops. Like, the way they introduced Spider-man in Civil War, for example. Just skipped the origin story entirely and simply introduced him in another movie.

it sort of reminds me of the way limited series' work in comics, not so much stand-alone and more a narrative bridge to introduce new ideas/themes/costumes.

perhaps 0.00000000184% of limited series in comics history have been designed for this purpose

That's fine, I'm not a comics dude. But it's what I remember from when I was a kid.

limited series' raison d'etre is to tell a standalone story; the narrative shifting etc is done to make them matter

this is literally the first MCU thing i've ever seen, and i'm enjoying it

really hoping that the resolution doesn't require knowledge of two decades of movies/series/comics. and that kat dennings' character becomes bearable

Just seconds before we pushed play on episode 4 Friday night, my wife turns to us and says, “you guys might need to carry on with this without me, might be the first Marvel thing that makes me tap out, I’m not feeling it”.

As soon as the credits kicked in she goes, “well, dammit, I’m all in now”.

I’m guessing at least 30% of that comes from her fondness for Kat Dennings, but I think she enjoyed the loose ends being tied up.

Have faith in the Feige!

There are plenty of valid gripes about the MCU, to be certain, but the long term vision and deftly bringing a full universe to life and intertwining even the more minor characters is fun to watch.

(Overly earned corny fuxxor statement ahead alert)

Watching the loose threads come together and seeing the links reminds me of why I fell in love with comics when I was a kid - beyond the stories of good versus evil and stronger than life heroes, it was the slow piecing together of an entire universe that only revealed itself in bits and pieces that appealed to me. I love that MCU has emphasized this thread and it’s why the DCEU leaves me cold.

Now, if they could just get Quasar into the MCU (second series, after the Avengers, that I subscribed to).

“Overly earnest” that should read, damn phone.

finally started WandaVision. Vision singing "Yakety Yak" had me in hysterics

Something I've wondered about: they've yet to refer to her as Scarlet Witch in the movie or shows, right? So I wonder if a) people unfamiliar with any of the comics have been confused by some of the coverage ("wait, who is Scarlet Witch?") and b) I wonder if this show will culminate in renaming her character.

Comic book movies don't tend to use the codenames unless they were already very well known before the movie, like Spider-Man or Batman. I don't think the names Captain Marvel or War Machine or Quicksilver of Hawkeye have been mentioned onscreen either, or maybe just once or twice fleetingly. I guess non-comic readers learn them from promo materials?

I think they actually do invoke the codenames a lot in the movies, but it might not seem like a lot because when they're talking to each other they just use their human names (like the great Spider-man/Dr. Strange joke in whichever movie that was). Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, though, afaict were the only two iconic characters in all of these movies to have their codenames outright ignored. Right?

Pretty much, yeah. Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Falcon are all referred to by their SHIELD code names, Rhodey gets called War Machine a lot, and Scott runs up to everyone all "CALL ME ANT MAN" to much eye-rolling.

The MCU has largely dispensed with the hoary notion of every superhero having a secret identity, which often precludes the need to constantly evoke an alternate superhero name when referring to the dude everyone knows and who isn't wearing a mask or anything.

Part of an overall shift in the genre that may be driven by Geoff Johns’ personal preferences too.

obv done first and 1,000,000x better in Giffbaum LSH.

I read somewhere that Marvel had considered dispensing with codenames entirely for Marvel Now! (or one of those eras), but decided against it.

If Mephisto turns out to be the guiding villain behind WandaVision, think it'll tie into Spider-Man 3 to roughly match the comic's solution to Mysterio unmasking him?

Though comic had him revealing his identity as part of Civil War, iirc.

aw HELL no

Wanda's accent vanished between movies too

From watching too much American TV.

btw, when that bee-keeper emerged from the sewer and Wanda looked at him and said "no" and the tape rewound (in ep 2 of Wandavision), my heart about skipped a beat

which coincidentally is what dr strange and thanos also essentially do at certain points

I have a new prediction: Given they didn't establish her as having reality controlling powers in her previous appearances, Wanda is *not* controlling everything but is being made to think she is. That seems like the sort of twist-y payoff this show could have in store. Like, throw that stuff in pretty early, in episode 4, for the nerds who know House of M, but do it as misdirection.

Do we see her at the funeral at the end of Endgame? We do, right? So she hadn't disappeared or run off yet by then.

yeah, and there's a bit of dialogue in that scene that implies she has some kind of spiritual contact with the dead Black Widow and Vision

Whoa, I do not recall that bit at all, I mean the dialogue Nhex refers to. Remember her being at the funeral though.

imply is probably too strong. but considering what's happening now + Doctor Strange 2 later...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs5nYcVhsS4

OK, just watched the ending and she's there and talking to Hawkeye, and he says "I wish there was a way to let them know we won," and she says calmly, "She knows. They both do." But that's it. She certainly doesn't look so distraught that she's about to run off and create her own universe, though.

Yeah, that scene, lol. Either way, she seems pretty chill.

Thanks! I did totally blank on that particular scene, but I remember it now.

jesus fucking christ, I'm caught up now and the appearance of dead Vision scared the shit out of me

in fact Wanda is terrifying as all Hell

^^^^ otm

re: Wanda's accent, there were some interesting interviews with Elizabeth Olsen where she talks about that:

https://collider.com/wandavision-accent-explained-elizabeth-olsen/

“So, the Sokovia accent was created by me and Aaron and our dialect coach because it’s a fake country and we could find different sources of Slavic sounds. And we wanted to make sure it didn’t sound Russian because Black Widow speaks Russian, and so we just needed to sound more like Slovakian. So we created these sound changes that worked for Aaron’s British accent going to Slovakia basically and my American accent so that we sounded related. And then all of a sudden, all these different characters had to speak it in different films. [Laughs] So the Sokovian accent took a lot of time. It hasn’t gone anywhere. There have been reasons for everything. It lightened up when she started living in the States, and in WandaVision she is playing the role of being in an American sitcom and so it’s not gone. It is absolutely still there.”

yeah i'm digging the idea that wanda has almost unlimited power and can (and will) cornfield away anyone who disrupts her fantasy

xp

I also do like that the motivation (as it's understood now by Rambeau and her FBI/S.W.O.R.D. colleagues) made perfect sense. she barely got time to grieve Vision before she herself was blipped, then she returns and almost immediately after return, Tony dies. to her, very little time has passed since Vision died, and everybody is grieving Tony, but she hasn't even processed Vision's death yet, or losing 5 years of her life, let alone this.

but based on what i'm reading from followers of the comics, i feel another couple of rugpulls are coming. esp since they weren't able to find out the identity of who was playing Agnes, suggesting maybe she's.....Agatha Harkness?

to her, very little time has passed since Vision died, and everybody is grieving Tony, but she hasn't even processed Vision's death yet, or losing 5 years of her life, let alone this.

reminds me a bit of liv tyler's character in the leftovers

I stand by my current prediction re: Wanda and her newfound powers, or perhaps lack thereof.

Bettany was great in this episode. Never heard Vision yell like an angry person before.

so excited to see where this goes next.

also Evan Peters showing up as Pietro/Quicksilver was a brilliant way of using the problem of X-Men being separate from MCU up until now. I was wondering if they might use this to their advantage one day and I now have my answer.

so this means she's creating alternate universes? and this can't be Wanda's doing purely now, since this shocked her.

sitcom intro/theme song was brilliant

yeah it was so perfect. right down to the male singer's intonation, BJ Thomas-isms

and the Family Ties-esque animation

The 'audience' is amazing work as well.

There's still 4 episodes of this left, and it's already pretty terrifying.