Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

It is weird that I might want people to have engaged with a thing they're discussing rather than talking about some nebulous idea of what that thing is about, I agree.

Thank u 2 Fred, though. I'm not going to argue that the conversation is like the height of sophistication but it's certainly more nuanced and ambiguous than 'superheroes = fascists'.

Yeah, this idea that it's bad to seek to know what you're talking about is really annoying to me. There's a wide area inbetween uncritically reproducing bad stuff, and not knowing anything about it at all.

And yeah, it is nuanced and ambiguous. In some way a lot of that is because a lot of writers are writing the same story at once, and some of them, like Bendis, are really not that good at writing about anything other than eating takeaway. But I also think the semi-fascist undertones are somewhat important, and can add a lot to the stories. The X-Men are best when they remember that they aren't just a persecuted minority, but also are legitimately powerful and scary. Hickman's no vision of them as basically Zionists is so good, also in the way it makes Zionism so utterly understandable, yet also very scary.

(Plugging my 'ears' @ discussion of Hickman X-books which I have yet to read.)

I think Nick Spencer is an interesting writer in this vein inasmuch as I have yet to discern his personal politics even though he clearly has a lot of complicated (if occasionally messy and ill-considered) thoughts about these issues. But yeah, there are obviously lots of other writers who don't GAF and just want to write slug-em-ups.

I'm thinking the biggest thing Spencer has done so far is the Sam Wilson / Steven Rogers Cap run, but is there anything else I should specifically read?

/thread

"I have a personal problem. I respect the creativity that goes into superhero films, but in real life and in movies, I can’t stand people wearing tight-fitting clothes,” he told Variety when asked if he’d consider directing for Marvel. “I’ll never wear something like that, and just seeing someone in tight clothes is mentally difficult. I don’t know where to look, and I feel suffocated. Most superheroes wear tight suits, so I can never direct one. I don’t think anyone will offer the project to me either. If there is a superhero who has a very boxy costume, maybe I can try."

https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/bong-joon-ho-marvel-movie-tight-clothes.html

xpost That's mostly what I'm thinking of, too. I've liked some of the other runs he's done (eg Ant-Man and Secret Avengers) but they're way less politicocentric.

LOL, Bong Joon Ho with a unique objection to the superhero film that I can respect.

also a clear path to a modok movie!

If only Marvel hadn't decided to waste the character on one of those dumb animated Hulu series.

The costumes could be so much tighter!

thinking the biggest thing Spencer has done so far is the Sam Wilson / Steven Rogers Cap run, but is there anything else I should specifically read?

The only two things I’ve read by him are fun:
most* of a little run on Jimmy Olsen, as a backup feature in the Paul Cornell run on Action with Lex Luthor as the lead. *At some point it got bumped to its own book so you had to rebuy 2/3 of it, and then the main feature got embroiled in some crossover bullshit and I dropped the whole book.
the first volume or two of The Fix, a sunny crime comedy with Steve Lieber. (I’d read the rest but the library only has most of it as ebooks.)

It's about a revolutionary who wants to force through superpowers 4 all, but the 'heroes' stop him because they hate equality.

well, all the kidnapping and murdering was something of a factor, as well as deliberately setting a death robot loose on the city so he could stop it but screwing it up massively.

Yeah, that's a terrible reading of "The Incredibles" (I assumed Frederick was "taking the piss"...)

I rarely enjoy the pleasure of saying "Fred otm" but Fred otmfm, it's a Triumph of the Will cartoon that nearly put me off Pixar for life

It is no such thing -- but this feels like an argument from 2004, so I'll bow out.

Yeah, I'm just not even going to engage with a starting point that posits The Incredibles as "Triumph of the Will", other than to say that is quite possibly the worst take I've seen in quite some time.

It's true, though

Incredibles is super super Randian (I feel like even Bird stans acknowledge it as his most Randian film?), but "fascist" feels like a reach. Depends how much daylight one sees between the two ideologies, I guess.

It is more Fountainhead than Triumph tbf

Always kind of amazes me when people don't see the objectivism because they're cute or something, Ratatouille dabbles in the same pond imo, but I guess an aristocracy of the special was a Disney thing for a long time

I've had the misfortune of reading The Fountainhead, and The Incredibles ain't it.

Free’s reading of the Incredibles is correct imo

No, it’s an edgelord-y, deliberately perverse misrepresentation of the basic plot, as anyone who’s seen the movie will recognize immediately.

Oh the way Glenn Miller played

Like I don’t know who you guys think you’re gaslighting, this isn’t some reddit forum!

Songs that made the Hit Parade

c'mon. it's totally in the film that Dash is not allowed to use his superpowers to win races (suppressing his gifts to fit in with ~the normals~), and then at the end he IS allowed to, so long as he only does it a little, and this is supposed to be the happy ending to a story where the bad guy wanted to make "everybody super" so that "no one is." efforts to maintain equality are revealed as a sham by the envious and selfish. those with special powers should use them.

why i think this is randian but not fascist is that mr. incredible is altruistic. he does miss the excitement of superheroics but really he's in it to save people. whereas buddy is motivated by his desire for glory and power, and willingness to murder etc.

(just in case ppl don't know, ratatouille is also directed by Brad Bird, so this may not be a generic Disney/Pixar thing)

The bad guy wasn't bad because he wanted to sell technology that he claimed would make "everybody super"; he was bad because of (as Eliza pointed out) all the killing he was doing, and the destruction and more killing that was about to result. The family didn't get involved to stop him from marketing some dodgy tech (much less because they "hate equality") -- they got involved to rescue Mr. Incredible, who was about to be the next to be killed. Then they saved themselves from being killed, and stopped the robot from destroying the city.

And, yes, it's a humorous & happy ending when superheroes find a way to live as part of society, something that has eluded many comic book heroes. Ever see Peter Parker dodge a punch and have to resist the urge to knock Flash Thomson into the next zip code?

it's been a minute but i'm pretty sure Buddy's POV on "supers" and what to do with them is played out as Villain Monologues with ominous music and closeups and stuff. and his whole motivation is envy of mr. incredible having superpowers while buddy is merely ordinary, etc.? but again it's been a minute.

it's only a happy ending for Dash. for the kid who gets third place and doesn't know Dash is cheating, it probably kinda sucks.

wasn't Syndrome trying to become the only superhero himself by killing all of the other superheroes?

prior to selling the inventions, that is?

I think he was using the other supers to perfect his tech, they died as his robots became better.

xxp What's your solution, a separatist homo superior program? The movie's working thru "what it would be like if superheroes really existed" -- much like Watchmen (to which it pays homage with the island, supers coming out of retirement, etc.)

There is an element of Mr. Incredible grousing about "everyone gets a trophy," blah blah -- but that's not even Ayn Rand, that's just, like, circa-2004 standup routines. Even if you choose (for some reason) to see the supers as a metaphor for "naturally superior" people in real society... well, even then, it sure doesn't play out like an Ayn Rand novel.

(let alone TRIUMPH of the F-ING WILL)

I would think the argument is that any depiction of superpowered people exercising restraint and good judgment is itself fascistic in how it misrepresents the psychological effect of absolute (or near-absolute) power.

🤔

so we're all collectively Brian Cox's character from X2?

If what Simon said is truly “the argument,” then someone should make it — citing actual superhero comics (and they better show that they’ve actually read a lot of them).

For one thing, superheroes usually don’t have absolute (or near-absolute) power. Even the most powerful among them live in a world where their powers are cancelled out by all the other super-powered beings that are bumping into each other all the time (heroes, villains, aliens, Celestials; Watchers, Guardians of the Universe, Galactuses; Greek/Roman/Norse Gods...).

It’s not our world! It’s not even (really) a metaphor for our world. That’s why it’s notable when something like Watchmen or The Incredibles does the “thought experiment” of bringing them into something like our world.

(Also, when there weren’t a lot of superheroes around yet, I understand that the power fantasies they represented may have been a little bit relevant to WWII-era U.S.; in which victory against actual fascism wasn’t yet assured. Buy war bonds!)

I would think the argument is that any depiction of superpowered people exercising restraint and good judgment is itself fascistic in how it misrepresents the psychological effect of absolute (or near-absolute) power.

― Simon H., Wednesday, November 20, 2019 5:17 AM (one hour ago)

this is an interesting point, though it might not apply to superheroes who don't come from earth -- like, superman would not necessarily have the same type of psychology as a human, which might be one reason he doesn't abuse his power despite having few constraints on it

I mean I would think that this explains the appeal of the Snyderverse Superman, who can't seem to help but exhibit a wanton disregard for human life once he leans into his powers

(feel free to read that as being more about Snyder than anyone else, and I won't argue)

it's been a minute but i'm pretty sure Buddy's POV on "supers" and what to do with them is played out as Villain Monologues with ominous music and closeups and stuff.

― weird ilx but sb (Doctor Casino), 20. november 2019 06:07 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes. He says 'If everyone is special... Nobody is special' and the music is really evil. That's it, that's the moral of the film. It's true that they make sure to point out that Buddy is evil and bad and incompetent in a lot of ways, but that doesn't change what the moral is.

The implication isn't just that it's good and right that some people are better than others. It's that it's so important that some people are better than others, that we shouldn't even try to help better the lives of other people. There's a complete disregard in the film for anyone who isn't super, Mr Incredible is 'altruistic' in the same way a billionaire who gives away ten percent of his wealth is, but who is absolutely shocked at the idea of a six percent wealth tax.

While I agree that the Incredibles is a shitshow, the point of money is that it's transferable.

(as an attempt to bring more sanity to this discussion, my reference point is that any statement that says "all superheroes" has to apply to Spider-man, which makes 50% of the statements itt fairly silly)

There's definitely a post 9/11 George W. vibe to a lot of "The Incredibles," coincidence or not. The key line that jumped out at the time was Elastigirl's mini-monologue:

Remember the bad guys on the shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys aren't like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you are children. They *will* kill you if they get the chance. Do *not* give them that chance.

this conversation is a lot of fun to read while watching the first season of the legend of korra