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

First Iron Man movie was good. Strong story and clever lines. Everything else I've seen has been middling. I do like that they got Kenneth Branagh to do the first Thor movie -- that was a clever choice.

Tuomas mostly OTM upthread about the MCU villains so far. I don't think the issue is so much that they've tried to 'grittify' them, though, so much as the rogue's galleries of the heroes who've starred in movies so far just aren't very deep or exciting or Marvel don't own the rights to best of them. Like, an Iron Man vs Doctor Doom movie could be aces but will never happen if Fox have any say in the matter. Whiplash just isn't on the same level.

I think Avengers is the best so far, as it should've been.

True, but they haven't really done a good job with the rogues galleries' they do have available either... Like, the Mandarin thing in Iron Man 3 was a clever plot twist, but that just meant the real bad guy was yet another corrupt business type. (Obviously they couldn't use the comic book Mandarin as he was originally conceiced, since he's a Fu Manchu style racist stereotype, but they could've made him into a R'as al Ghul style righteous terrorist or something, and make him have actual superpowers.) And one of the reasons Thor 2 was worse than Thor 1 is because they Malekith into a totally generic baddie, even though the comic book Malekith is a cool villain (a gende-bending shapeshifter elf), and they even had a good actor playing him. That was a total waste of what could've been a potentially great villain.

(xpost)

There was a lot of talk around the release of Thor 2 that Malekith had suffered at the expense of reshoots which expanded Loki's role in response to universal admiration for Hiddleston. They definitely did a terrible job with Malekith and Kurse; I wonder if they were less dull in the original plan for the movie.

I was a huge comic-book fan as a kid. I dip in and out now as a 33-year-old and still enjoy them, but I've kind of lost interest in following the ins and outs of the Marvel comic-book universe. What I admire most about the Marvel movies is that they've taken the core things I loved about the characters I read as a kid and put them more or less wholesale on the screen.

I was a huge comic-book fan as a kid. I still passionately read massive amounts of comics as a 33+-year-old [I spent $770 just on posting comics home to myself in two months in the US last year] and the Marvel comic-book universe can eat my balls. What I admire least about the Marvel movies is the way they make literal billions of dollars and return none of this to the people that created these IP or wrote the specific stories the films are based on.

Plus, if they don't want to limit themselves to "canonical Iron Man villains" or "canonical Cap villains", there's a whole bunch of cool Avengers they could use: Kang the Conqueror! Count Nefaria! Masters of Evil! Korvac! The Absorbing Man And Titania! It definitely seems to be like they've decidedly used the more "realistic" villains, and left out the ones with more fantastic powers and larger-than-life personalities.

(xxpost)

Def. pisses me off that Stan Lee gets a cameo in the new Cap America movie, a character he had nothing to do w/ creating

I don't think Kirby or Simon were available

sic, are you objecting to the MCU on the grounds of lack of monetary compensation for creators or because you don't enjoy them as movies? I'm not disagreeing with the former - I think it's utterly shameful - but I wasn't clear on the latter from what you wrote.

Ah, this debate again.

Anyway, Loki def. the only villain with presence thus far in these films. Which is odd, because I think they did a good job with the Spider-man villains so far (at least with the Raimi ones), and X-Men villains. Maybe it's just a matter of casting the right actor? Like, Red Skull is a great villain, but maybe Hugo Weaving was not the best choice? But then, Iron Man has faced nothing but generic baddies so far, actors be damned. Didn't Thor fight a giant robot in the first movie?

What I admire least about the Marvel movies is the way they make literal billions of dollars and return none of this to the people that created these IP or wrote the specific stories the films are based on.

While I agree that this is shitty, it's pretty much the standard practice with all entertainment franchises, no? Like, does the guy who wrote the original Wrath of Khan screenplay get any royalties from the Star Trek: Into Darkness? I doubt he does.

There's a rumour that Gerry Conway is banned from the premiere of the new Spider-man film, despite it apparently being based on one of his most famous issues.

(Google suggests this might now be resolved after the director took the issue to Sony.)

I've enjoyed at least a third of these movies.

So, dud.

A third of each movie, or a third of the movies total?

sic, are you objecting to the MCU on the grounds of lack of monetary compensation for creators or because you don't enjoy them as movies? I'm not disagreeing with the former - I think it's utterly shameful - but I wasn't clear on the latter from what you wrote.

I won't see them for this reason, so I don't have any view at all on their quality.

(Liked the first Iron Man on a cheap matinee, second one was far less good, wasn't interested in Thor or Hulk 2, wasn't interested in Cap 1 and Marvel getting a summary judgment against the Kirby heirs in the week of release made me go "eeesh, I can't pay for any of these that I might be interested in in the future." Mantlo's brother specifically asking people with financial qualms to go see Guardians Of The Galaxy means I might, but my reason for interest is Pratt and Gunn. Maaaaybe I'd watch Avengers on TV, but I doubt I'd enjoy it as much as Cabin In The Woods or Much Ado.) [I'd have been curious about watching maybe half an hour of Winter Soldier to see how the Russos' style might translate to an action film.]

― bizarro gazzara, Monday, April 7, 2014 10:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While I agree that this is shitty, it's pretty much the standard practice with all entertainment franchises, no? Like, does the guy who wrote the original Wrath of Khan screenplay get any royalties from the Star Trek: Into Darkness? I doubt he does.

I'm not interested in Star Trek Into Darkness either!

Anyway, no: the creators of most of the Marvel characters were specifically promised financial participation that they were never given; if Meyer doesn't get residuals from home video sales and TV broadcasts of Wrath Of Khan, it's because he specifically agreed to forgo them in whatever arbitration took place over his credit; under Levitz, creators who'd had story elements inspire aspects of DC movie plots quietly got appreciation cheques [this has ended under Nelson, obviously]; George Lucas got lots of the money from at least five out of six Star Wars movies; J.K. Rowling earns about $400 million a year from Harry Potter.

People being fucked over wrt media properties doesn't have to be a rule: every time someone is, it's because other people have made an active decision to do so.

I read an interview with Brubaker where he was like "it's great that this is the first time Marvel have made a movie where there's a book with the same name as it out there so hopefully I'll get some more royalties". It seems crazy that he won't see any money directly

I mean, I was mainly saying comic books /= Marvel.

xpost - Brubaker only gets domestic royalties at all because he's currently signed exclusively to Marvel. They don't pay them as a matter of course, and IIRC haven't paid foreign royalties since the 1980s.

Meyer didn't create Khan, of course (character pre-exists the Wrath of Khan)

sic, do you read Marvel comics?

With all the talking Feige does about the decades worth of stories they have to draw on, the original comics being the perfect storyboards etc. you'd think he's find a way to get the original creators some cash (even just an appreciation cheque)

I've seen Iron Man and The Avengers, didn't really see the fun in either. I'm fine with dumb action if it's done with a bit of style. These movies have huge visual effects but never anything really cool going on style-wise.

Stan Lee cameos are horrible

the loudest manifestation of mass-culture lobotomy

sic, do you read Marvel comics?

I've read Marvel comics.

But in North America last year I bought comics by Oily Comics and Yam Books and Desert Island and USS Catastrophe and Traditional Comics and Study Group Comics and Retrofit and Picturebox and Drippy Bone Books and Floating World and Paper Rocket and Mille Putois and Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics and Adhouse Books and Alternative and Knockabout and Tundra and Last Gasp and The Overlook Press and Escape and Aardvark-Vanaheim and Bergen Street Comics and A Fine Line Press and Blank Slate and Eat More Bikes and Copra Press and Buenaventura Press and Pigeon Press and Look Mom, Comics and Space Face Books and Revival House Press and Koyama Press and Fontanelle Press and Jackie No-Name Books and Matrix Graphic Series and Igloo Tornado and Perfect Day Publishing and Tugboat Press and Hic & Hoc and Cartozia Press and Art & Soul Comics and Hidden Fortress Press and Catastrophe Comics Group and Hotel Fred Press and Robin Bougie and World Protector and New Reliable Press and Red Ink and Secret Prism and Kilgore Books and Thuban Press and Iamwar Pubs and Breakdown Press and Rotland Press and Sequential Artists Workshop and Wishbone Studio and Penguin Books and Marlowe & Company and Harper Collins and Coach House Books and Henry Holt & Co., and five by Marvel (four early-90s reprints of 1964-1972 Doctor Who comics, and a Paul Tobin quarter-bin back issue [it was bad].)

Cool, thanks for the clarification.

classic. these have definitely contributed to the high standard of children's movies we're currently experiencing.

Stan Lee cameos are horrible

Topped only by the most unworthily self-congratulatory rounds of applause to be endured anywhere.

Happily, Stan Lee will be 105 in 2028.

DC really needs some Funky Flashman cameos to mock them

Noah was better than all the DC comic movies but worse than all the Avenger Marvel comic movies but about the same as the X-Men/Skateboard Spider-Man Marvel movies.

Dr Morbius, I don't suppose you named yourself after Morbius The Living Vampire? He was a doctor before he was a vampire. I think the comics code insisted on "living vampire" because a regular vampire was deemed too scary for children.

I lean very far towards DUD, for the reasons Charles Hatless (who I'm assuming is Charles Hatfield)and others listed.

I very much agree with Jmm that superhero films are visually lacking in the extreme. I like Sam Raimi but I thought that was the main glaring flaw of his Spiderman films. I think Del Toro's Hellboy films and some stuff in the Burton Batman films are the only exceptions I can think of.

I'll admit that a lot of the reasons I dislike these films are not really to do with the film's themselves. I hate that they are motivated mainly by IP farming and that you can't really escape the franchises. Adverts when I turn on my kindle or go into my email inbox. Products in the supermarket. Seeing litter of sweet wrappers and wet discarded socks with Spiderman on them is horrible. As if James Bond and Star Wars weren't enough. How did Lord Of The Rings turn into a merchandise powerhouse? I thought the Tolkien family controlled everything and hated that stuff?
I do think of that story of Kirby turning pale at the mention of going to a toy shop, but I mainly just hate how inescapable all this stuff is.

I was kind of interested when I heard the possibility of Del Toro doing Dr Strange and Kirby's Demon but I don't think those are happening for him anymore. I'm glad Mountains Of Madness never happened. Joe Pulver said he'd like to do a Dr Strange book and that sounds interesting too but I'd rather he just did his own thing.

Isolating the films: I liked Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, Devito as Penguin, Nicholson as Joker, Ledger as Joker (my fave is still Bruce Timm/Mark Hamill Joker), Hardy's Bane, Dallas as Fandral The Dashing; but I don't like the film's all that much aside from moments here and there. Although I'd say Nolan's Batman and Raimi's first two Spiderman films are pretty good.

There is a problem with supervillains, in making them believable. There has been a fair number of costumed vigilantes in real life but costumed criminals I've never heard of apart from rapists in Malaysia who dress as the oily orange man of their folklore.

One thing that bothers me about the general approach to superheroes today is that it seems like it's all motivated by fanboys in denial about superheroes being silly(not necessarily a bad quality). Superman and Captain America have been made increasingly about certain concepts because people have trouble reconciling that they are historically important to the genre but not very interesting characters.
Fanboy says "oh my God it's so serious, iconic, relevant. This new event where loads of characters die and get raped is so fucking serious, it'll change everything forever! These heroes are so iconic, I need lots of statues and collectables to try and convince myself I haven't been wasting my time; these hardback collections aren't obscenely priced at all, these are important iconic modern myths. There's nothing wrong with Stan Lee's writing, people used to talk like that and state the obvious repeatedly. Blah blah blah iconic blah blah blah serious blah blah iconic super relevant modern myths that say so much about our times, blah blah blah iconic iconic iconic".

Bloody comic fandom overrun with an equivalent of rockists a hundred times worse than in music fandom. I weep and yearn for a day when I can be excited by comics industry again.

Richard Nixon in Days of Future Past might be the breakout villain everyone was hoping for.

the enterprise is notable for its audacity and scale, but in general I don't really care. I've seen a handful and they were okay, nothing I would really want to watch more than once.

sic otm in general

If they made an Adam Warlock movie, then I might go full fanboy.

It would take an uncommonly stylish Creeper, Silver Surfer, Namor, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing or Dr Strange film for me to get excited. That old Catwoman script with her fighting superheroes in a beach town sounded fun but also like a negative parody of superheroes which DC probably wouldn't appreciate. Maybe Swamp Thing, Sandman, Metamorpho, Shade The Changing Man.

Maybe great films based on DC and Marvel stuff would annoy me more because I'd rather talented people focus on new ideas.

dunno if this is still happening but it could be cool

Rumors in November 2012 suggested that Guillermo del Toro was working on a Justice League Dark film titled Heaven Sent. It would feature Deadman, the Spectre, Swamp Thing, Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Zatanna, Zatara, Sargon the Sorcerer, and Etrigan the Demon.[28] Del Toro later confirmed in January 2013 that he is working on such a movie, with the working title, Dark Universe, and is hiring a screenwriter for the film. Del Toro revealed Swamp Thing, Constantine, The Spectre, Deadman, Zatanna and Zatara were characters in the story.

I heard about that a couple of years ago and it does sound quite exciting (damn them) but I assumed it was just another thing heaped on the pile of things he's optioned but will never do. I'm genuinely worried he'll end up doing far more adaptations and remakes than original films (looking forward to Crimson Peak), but of all the adaptations/remakes, Dan Simmons' Drood sounds the most promising. He seems to have his heart set firmly on Frankenstein but I just can't get excited about that.

I do think that all the fan-service crap Marvel is beholden to really constrains and limits what's possible with this material.

What would be possible otherwise?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7f/Howard_the_Duck_(1986).jpg/220px-Howard_the_Duck_(1986).jpg

Dare to dream the impossible dream.

I know, can't bite the hand that feeds

but it's not really that hard to imagine alternatives is it? keeping everything tied into a single continuity unique or unusual takes on characters

Another thing that would revert me to geekish excitement is a film starring Fin Fang Foom, Groot, Gargantus, Grogg, Rommbu, Gorgolla, Goom, Orrgo, Shagg, Scarecrow etc.

It'd be extremely unlikely but if it did happen there'd be no excuse for no money to Kirby's family. Because those monsters are about as Kirby as it gets.

DC should make a Fourth World film and pay the Kirby estate, just to fuck with Marvel (also it would rule).

xp I seriously do wonder, though. I feel like the shared universe is actually giving us more opportunities to see stuff like Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Whether they'll be good, I don't know, but they can't be worse than Elektra or Ghost Rider at their general competence level now.

I can see what you mean if there was something floating around like an adaptation of more serious/non-superhero stuff like Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, and so on, but nothing is coming to mind in the MU (lol thanks for reminding me of Howard the Duck - I had no idea it was even a Marvel comic for years after the fact).

aldo: Are DC and Kirby's estate on good terms? I wonder if the family was paid for their use in (for example) the various DCAU series

I'd say Marvel, quite justifiably, doesn't care what hardcore comics fans want to see tbh. They can't make blockbuster money off the 5,000 people who buy a non-X/Spider-Man/Avengers-related graphic novel.

yeah these films are consistent if nothing else

at the same time, wouldn't it be cool if there was room for non-continuity pitches, like, say a heist movie starring MU supervillains

xp

Are DC and Kirby's estate on good terms? I wonder if the family was paid for their use in (for example) the various DCAU series

they're definitely on better terms than Marvel and the Kirby estate (but I'll defer to the more knowledgable sic here)

one of those DCAU episodes was dedicated to Jack fwiw

Yeah, I rather doubt they are going with the Byrne take for the movie

I've read Tamaki's run, and as much as like her indie comics, IMO it was a pretty pointless deviation from how She-Hulk had been previously depicted since at least the '80s. Taking a female character who has power, who likes having that power and who's self-assured and confident, and making her into a more Bruce Banner -like figure who's full of self-doubt and who sees her power as a curse, was a weird step backwards, and I'm hoping they won't be basing the MCU depiction on that... But didn't even Tamaki's run end with the return of the previous version of She-Hulk, once she got her issues sorted?

Yeah I'm with you on that. Love her indie stuff, her X-23 series was fine, and I'm still interested in her future mainstream work. Hopefully the Wonder Woman run she's doing now pans out.

The whole thing was a weird filler after Bruce Banner was killed in Civil War II, before coming back as the Immortal Hulk (which is consistently still excellent). The concept wasn't bad - Jen dealing with the trauma of his murder and the courts/world acquitting Hawkeye of it, since most people hated the Hulk - but the book didn't really missed a lot of opportunities on that front. Also having a rageful female Hulk - could've been interesting. And yes, they reverted her to normal at the end.

BUT - after that, Jason Aaron put her into his Avengers run, and she was green again but also classic Hulk stupid, and possibly trapped in that form? And she's hooking up with Thor. They ignored Tamaki's run altogether, it seems. I don't know if they ever got around to explaining how she got to this state. They also seemed to ignore the whole Immortal situation which would seem relevant, but maybe I missed it.

if you did, then i did too.
Marvel Movies proper hasn't really properly done a full-film look at the jekyll/hyde thing and she-hulk seems a fair way to do it, plus female rage is selling right now.

It's probably only because Universal still owns the Hulk movie rights. (Was also kinda wondering a She-Hulk series is OK, but I just checked and she debuted in her own book rather than Incredible Hulk)

I think She-Hulk is going to be a D+ tv series, no?

If you're lucky.

lol

Well well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9J2ecsSpo

Well that looks cool as shit

Yeah I almost think the totally unplanned shift for the MCU to be TV-focused for a while may be a hell of a good thing, based on this.

Fred Melamed klaxon!

i assumed this was the tom king storyline but i guess they're going House of M instead? I would've thought that was a bad idea but this looks pretty intelligent. Outrageously good cast!

https://news.avclub.com/tatiana-maslany-says-shes-not-disney-s-she-hulk-actual-1845402493

obviously it's not in any way important but it's always nice when someone I respect doesn't get hoovered up into the MCU

We should probably start a new thread for the Marvel shows on Disney+

Looks like Shang-Chi is filming here in SF

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/Marvel-Studios-movie-filming-downtown-SF-Shang-Chi-15659724.php

Should we make a “Phase 4 and beyond” thread?

Probably a good idea!

I’m on Zing and idawanna

I did it. Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to chance your vote)