Category: MCU

A Rant About the Silver Surfer Casting, but Not the One You May Expect #MCU #SilverSurfer #comic #movie #FantasticFour

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I don’t read comics, so my knowledge of them is spotty. Also, I’m far more concerned that Marvel hire actors based on their talent rather than whether they remain faithful to the comics. Ergo, having no sentimentality towards the print medium, changing up the characters doesn’t affect me. But I get that it may affect others who love that medium and the particular characters as written. All that said, I still need to ask this question: What’s the big deal with the Silver Surfer casting for the Fantastic Four movie?

According to Wikipedia (sorry, that’s my source), Shalla-Bal is a canon Silver Surfer in an alternate universe (i.e., not the 616-universe of the MCU), and all the reporting claims that the Fantastic Four movie will be based in an alternative universe. Therefore, it makes sense that Shalla would be the Silver Surfer. Now, maybe your objection is that you prefer Norrin Radd, and that makes sense, but how do you know Norrin won’t be in this movie too?

According to Wikipedia, Shalla and Norrin were co-Silver Surfers in that alternative “Earth X” and “Universe X” universe (whatever that is). Just because Norrin hasn’t been cast yet doesn’t mean he won’t be. We currently have no reason to assume that you won’t get your Norrin Radd too, and maybe having two of them creates a better dynamic, if not in the comic, in the MCU, which is all I’m talking about and the source of your complaints.

As always, these complaints are coming far too early in the filmmaking process, and I suspect they’re based on assumptions rather than logic. Consider the complaint, “Krypton isn’t going to be destroyed in Man of Steel! I know! I saw a quick clip of an undestroyed Krypton!”

Spoiler alert!

That turned out to be hysterical nonsense, didn’t it?

Dirtbaggery aside, Jonathan Majors was awesome as Kang, so other than his unforeseen legal troubles, his race-swap casting worked out very well. But this isn’t even a swap. Shalla-Bal is a canon Silver Surfer as is, and Julia Garner is killing it (e.g., Ozark on Netflix). I’m not just disagreeing; I don’t even see the issue here.

One respondent on Facebook pointed out that many people don’t want the Silver Surfer in this movie at all, whether male or female, because we’ve already seen it. They want Dr. Doom. This response makes at least some of the following assumptions:

  1. Dr. Doom won’t be the main villain in Secret Wars (or elsewhere);
  2. Dr. Doom won’t be the main villain in Fantastic Four;
  3. The Silver Surfer wasn’t cast merely as a cameo to set up Galactus as the next big bad evil guy for the next couple phases of the MCU.

All we have right now is confirmation of a casting. Everything else being thrown around is mere speculation. Everyone should just relax. If the movie (like its predecessors) sucks, you’ll have plenty of time not to watch it then. If it doesn’t, but you insist on hating it anyway, it’s your loss.

Everybody just be cool.

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Why the MCU’s Current Phases are Failing #Avengers #Endgame #InfinityWar #MCU #MsMarvel #MoonKnight #Thor #SecretInvasion @russburlingame @MarvelStudios

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I mentioned in my last post that I’d be writing this one. It took a little longer than I expected, but here it is. “Failing” may be a strong word here, but bear with me. It’s all relative.

During or soon after the quarantine, Russ Burlingame and I had a conversation about the MCU. Getting to the point, he felt that the Infinity War Saga was “lightning in a bottle” and suspected that they wouldn’t enjoy the same success later down the road. In hindsight, his prediction came true. The current phase is not as popular as the others, but I think Russ’s prediction should be seen not as an indication of accidental or unsustainable success, but rather as an indication of complacency and failure to evolve. The difference between the two explanations is that, if the latter is the proper one, then it didn’t have to be like this.

Sure, Ms. Marvel was geared towards a specific (and thus limited) demographic, and Secret Invasion had some weak writing, but let’s look beyond that. After all, sooner or later, they had to do a show geared more towards kids, and Secret Invasion could still have been well-received because it serves the larger storyline, so neither were necessarily disasters, but it’s Secret Invasion that holds the key as to why the current phase is failing.

To start, we had Iron Man. In it, there was no real connection to the larger storyline, the Infinity War Saga, but there didn’t need to be. We were just starting out. We didn’t even know that there was and Infinity War Saga at that point. I don’t think Marvel Studios had any idea whether Iron Man would be a success and allow them to continue. Put another way, as viewers, we didn’t know what we were missing, and the post-credit scene hinted only at the Avengers as a team. As far as we knew, we would be getting a couple of sequels, and that’s it. Eventually, that changed. One of the more maligned Infinity War Saga shows, Thor: The Dark World, introduced the reality stone, so even if you didn’t like that movie – shame on you; Thor is awesome – you could more easily brush it aside as setting up what was to come in the remainder of the saga.

Eventually, the Infinity War Saga fostered within us an expectation that each show, good or bad, is part of an important and grandiose larger whole. That is, each movie is analogous to an episode of an entire season of a television show. You don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon a show simply because one episode is weak. In fact, if you’re being fair, you understand that, sooner or later, there has to be a bad episode because its function is to advance the larger story, and sometimes that means dealing with the boring set up.

Now that we’re spoiled by that, we now need to see that in the early movies, not just the newer ones, but have we? Do you have any idea how Shang Chi, the Eternals, Moon Knight, or Ms. Marvel connect to Secret Wars/Kang Dynasty (if at all)? We didn’t need a direct connection from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame, but now that we know it’s coming, we need to see that now, and I don’t mean just post-credit scenes. I expect Loki, season 2 to be the first time we start to see a coherent grand plan for the Secret Wars/Kang Dynasty, but that’s too late, and will possibly be too little as well. After all, the TV series are supposed to be optional viewing. Many people aren’t going to watch Loki at all, so even if it’s a masterpiece, how are those viewers going to view the current MCU phases? I’ll tell you how. They’ll see them as inadequate.

It may already be too late, but if the next movie doesn’t give us a clear sense of where the larger storyline is going, it certainly will be.

Jonathan Major’s legal troubles appear to be requiring a massive change in course, and that won’t help.

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Rhodey, Part II (Secret Invasion Spoilers) #Avengers #Endgame #InfinityWar #CivilWar #spoiler #MCU #skrull #Varra #Rhodey #SecretInvasion @DonCheadle @MarvelStudios

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It’s been a while since I wrote about the MCU, in no small part because the current phase hasn’t lived up to the last ones. I have my own idea as to how to fix that, but I’ll save that for another post.

I recently read this article, which prompted me to write this post.

Umm, Spoiler Alert?

It’s a TV show, and the episode in question is over a week old. Your grace period has ended.

Sexy.

Secret Invasion revealed that Rhodey has been a skrull for quite some time, though exactly how long is unknown. The only thing we’ve gotten out of the MCU powers-that-be is that he was replaced at some point prior to Avengers: Endgame. The suggestion in the article is that it occurred in or after Captain America: Civil War. Sure, maybe. As a hobbled guy, he was easier to subdue. But I don’t care. Here’s my point.

Rhodey being a Skrull after Captain America: Civil War changes how fans see every interaction he’s had since. His reunion with Team Captain America and tense conversation with Thunderbolt Ross suddenly don’t have the same emotional impact anymore. The same goes for his fun banters with his fellow heroes while they gear up for the time heist in Avengers: Endgame.

Umm, no. At least to that last sentence. Rhodey’s “fun banters” in Avengers: Endgame were actually Rhodey being an asshole. I explain how that’s the case in a prior post, so I won’t repeat that argument here (other than to link to this video). However, the fact that he was a skrull at that point is is a great explanation as to why he was being such an asshole to everyone. He wasn’t their friend and didn’t care about them. Sure, he kept up appearances with Tony Stark, but only because he knew that would be the relationship that couldn’t suffer. Any distance between those two would have been a red flag.

On the flip side, he seemed to get along with Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon, in Infinity War, even showing concern that he couldn’t find him while he was being dusted. Why no animosity? Because Sam Wilson didn’t paralyze him. I mean her. It was a female skrull, Raava (mislabled Varra in the article), that stole Rhodey’s identity. We all just assumed they buried the hatchet in the downtime, but the truth is that Raava didn’t have a grudge against Sam.

But I digress. I think we can all see things that can be rationalized to justify that the switch occurred. All of this is to say that, especially in hindsight, we can easily make sense of the fact that Rhodey has been a skrull, but the “fun banters” don’t take away from that. They’re very much a part of that. They weren’t fun. He was being an asshole.

Side Note #1: I want to say one good thing about Rhodey/Raava. It makes sense that the two personae are played by different actors. They did that only because of the sex-swap, but they should have done that with everyone. What are the odds that Nick’s love interest, Priscilla, had a similar face to her alter-ego, Varra? Every skrull should have been played by a different actor than the one they appeared as in human form because their forms would have been completely different. Instead, Varra just looks like Priscilla in makeup.

Fourth wall break!

Side Note #2: On the other hand, what are the odds that two of the major characters had the names Raava and Varra. Why wasn’t there a Cink Rufy as a counter to Nick Fury? Stupid.

Raava was an asshole.

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“That Doesn’t Seem Fair” #MCU #TV #movie #science #Falcon #WinterSoldier #ScarletWitch

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This meme popped up in my Facebook feed last Wednesday.

I’ve already (re)shared it to all of my social media accounts, but I find it funny that just one year later, Wanda’s line in Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness.

Like all things, it’s probably the fault of the Darkhold, but it’s still hypocritical of her.

The MCU is so meticulously planned out that I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional.

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Beating a Dead Horse #TTRPG #RPG #DnD #OGL #MCU

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I see this meme from time to time.

It seems familiar. Wait a second! This reminds me of something!

Fixed it for ya!

Yeah, I know.

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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)


MCU Theory: Ultron Won #MCU #Avengers @Avengers @MarvelStudios

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So, here’s stupid theory for you, but one that doesn’t turn out to be so stupid in the end (in a meta sense). Short version: Ultron defeated the Avengers in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

This guy doesn’t look like a loser to me.

He did so by imprisoning them in a virtual reality. That’s what we’ve seen played out over the course of the films since and including the first Ant-Man film. There are many issues with this theory, not the least of which is a lack of any hint that it occurred, which is why it’s stupid.

However, this is something that the Marvel elites should keep in their back pocket. One of these days, the MCU will have to be rebooted. When that happens, this gives them a decent way to do so without strictly invalidating what happened in the prior movies. Obviously, none of what we saw really happened, but it was what the heroes really experienced, and there’s at least some logic behind it. What they saw was their opportunity to pass the torch to the next generation so that they could retire in peace. Sure, there were some tragedies, but only enough to maintain the verisimilitude of the illusion (c.f., the Architect’s explanation of the Matrix). Of course, this isn’t as elegant a solution as the multiverse, but it works if you want to use the same actors to do the torch passing. That lessens the blow of rebooting for the crowd attached to those actors.

Still, some of those who saw these movies as kids, teenagers, or young adults would complain, “You’re ruining the MCU!” Yeah, yeah; we’ve seen this before with Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. fanbases. But much like me now, these people won’t matter at that point. It’s always the younger crowd that has the disposable income, and that’s for whom screenwriters, musicians, etc. create art. If you’re lucky, you’ll turn out like me (in this narrow regard) and just roll with the changes.

<Goldmember voice>”REO Speedwagon”</Goldmember voice>

Try to remember, kids, that the old stuff (Star Trek: The Original Series for me) still exists, and you can watch it anytime you want. The new stuff doesn’t have to be the same (though sometimes it is). If it’s different but still likeable, watch it even if it violates canon. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it, and stick with the old stuff. After all, you will also be old at that point. It’s really that simple. Whether or not this theory is used to reboot the MCU after I’m dead, one way or the other you’ll be in my current position. Choose to be okay with it. This sort of thing isn’t your lawn.

Getting old sucks, and it’ll happen to you too.

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Spoiler Free Comments on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever #BlackPanther #Namor #MCU #spoiler #GoodWatch #DerrickBoseman @chadwickboseman @theblackpanther @MarvelStudios

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I saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever this afternoon. It was fun, but it was more about setting up Namor and his culture than it was about Wakanda itself. The first sequel is usually about the enemy, so this isn’t surprising or a bad thing. However, because they certainly intend to use that culture again in the MCU, it was more of an origin story than you usually get. When you have 2 hours and 41 minutes of movie, there’s time for that.

I’m glad they made the cultural shift for Atlantis to being Mesoamerican. I’ve commented on this blog before about this, and I know I’ve said this to friends: Because Marvel Studios is charting a cosmic direction for the MCU, I’m hoping they pull in more gods to match up with the likes of Thor. I’m a mythology nut, so I’d like to see those characters in their own stories. If they have Thor fighting enemies, why can’t they have Bast, Tezcatlipoca, Osiris, Shang-Ti, et al. being part of the MCU’s cosmic stories?

R.I.P.

The movie did a good job of respecting the loss of Chadwick Boseman. I hope his brother was satisfied. I know he wanted T’Challa recast.

Wakanda forever!

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Inktober for Charity, Day 18: Thanos #Inktober #JDRF #StillBrave @JDRF @stillbrave @KevinBednarz

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September’s series of musical selections is officially over! It’s October! Or should I say . . . Inktober?

Do you remember what happened the last time I celebrated Inktober? No? Well, you’re not going to like it. You’re certainly not go to like this one. You see, a friend posted to Facebook a list of Inktober assignments, and being the smartass I am, I’ve taken on (synonym: stolen) those assignments despite my . . . “modest” drawing skills. Look, mine will be funnier, okay? I’d link to his (which are going to be much better), but he protects his tweets. You’ll have to settle for mine.

He’s drawing for a charity by offering his drawings for sale, the proceeds for which go to the Stillbrave Childhood Cancer Foundation. Noble, but my choice of charity is the JDRF. Unfortunately, no one will buy my work, so until their link breaks, you can directly donate here. Or you can donate to Stillbrave. I won’t get angry. Here are the assignments:

I don’t know all of these things.

<< Prior | Next >>

And here is today’s entry.

Day 18: Thanos

As I said on Day 16, only Star Trek ranks higher for me as a film or TV intellectual property. I thought this one would be relatively easy.

Good gravy, I suck. At least they’d have a hard time suing me for copyright violation.

Before you laugh, try to remember that it’s for charity. Then laugh.

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Spoiler Alert: The She-Hulk Finale #SheHulk #MCU #spoiler #GoodWatch @SheHulkOfficial @MarvelStudios

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Spoiler alert!

I enjoyed She-Hulk immensely. As with every series that came before it, it did a few things that the previous series didn’t and carried with it its own tone. In this case, one of those somethings was breaking the fourth wall. I’m not a comic book reader, but I know that breaking the fourth wall is big in both Deadpool and She-Hulk, so doing so in She-Hulk is being faithful to the comic and not a cheap rip-off of Deadpool. In fact, she did it first. I get all that and have no (more of a) problem with She-Hulk doing it as I do Deadpool doing it. That’s to say that I think it’s overdone but doesn’t ruin either character, TV show, or movie for me.

Once again, spoiler alert!

That said, the final episode of She-Hulk overdid it. Once you get past the marvelous opening, it was ridiculous. The fourth wall breaking was too much. Consider when in Me, Myself, & Irene, Irene asks Hank, “Did you just refer to yourself in the fourth person?”

As you know, there is no fourth person in English grammar. Her point was to say that Hank’s use of grammar to describe a weird situation involving multiple personalities (as Hollywood defines them) was outrageous. In a metaphorical sense, Hank’s grammar was so bizarre that it would transcend known dimensions beyond what we could sense. She used a funny, shorthanded way of saying that and then moved along because all jokes get old eventually. If they linger too much, they quickly become cheap gimmicks that distract from the actual story. This is especially true where the specific way they presented it is screwed up. For example, I didn’t find “KEVIN” either funny or clever (though I did like the line, “Everyone signs the NDA”). I didn’t like the fact that she was supposedly outside of TV land, yet everyone treated her existence as normal or expected. Is she outside the fourth wall or not? That can work with the Monkees, but not with a huge, green superhero that can’t exist in the real world.

Moreover, when Jennifer Walters returned to TV land, she didn’t really get what she asked for. Sure, she got the ending she wanted, but that doesn’t address all her complaints. She was focused on how she wanted the story leading to the ending to play out. She didn’t merely want to win. How she won mattered. She wanted to be the hero, not Bruce. She wanted Abomination to learn a lesson rather than relapse. All we got from that new story was the conclusion with no showing of how exactly it played out to reach that conclusion.

The same could be said about the (ante?)penultimate scene. I don’t want to go all lawyer on you (<– lie), but why did the prosecution drop the charges against Jennifer Walters? The fact that they goaded her, even criminally, doesn’t relieve her of responsibility for her actions (i.e., she can’t justify putting all those people in harm’s way and destroying property as “self-defense” from an invasion of privacy that’s already resolved). Importantly, the script pointed that out! When her coworkers came to visit her in prison, Jennifer defended her actions, and then the attorney continued Jennifer’s story, adding additional facts that pointed out that Jennifer was still culpable. The attorney didn’t have to say that. She could have kept her mouth shut, and everyone would have assumed that Jennifer’s rant had legal merit. All the lawyers watching would have said, “Oh, yeah, drama wins out over law. Got it. We can move forward without complaints.” Instead, they made Jennifer’s culpability the fundamental basis of the episode starting with what was said in the previous episode, but they just abandoned it without explanation. Seriously, WTF? It would be as if She-Hulk were purple in the final scene, and no one seemed to notice or care. Well, I’d notice, and I’d care, and I’d write a post about it.

Wait a second. Purple Hulk is a thing? Okay then, imagine she was orange.

God dammit.

So, this isn’t a matter of me refusing to suspend disbelief in the law or science. If they say, “gamma radiation turns people into hulks,” “everyone’s entitled to one phone call upon arrest,” “vampires exist,” or, “Me, Myself & Irene is a treatise on multiple personality disorder,” I’m 100% on board, but they must stick with those premises. Otherwise, the show becomes an inconsistent and unsatisfying mess. Granted, some issues are trivial things on their own, but combined with everything else, you get a stupid episode without true resolution. The writers were just daring me to find things to dislike about it and left a bunch of things in there for me to find. (Do they think that’s what’s meant by “Easter eggs”?) Also, the structure for the episode can be summed up like this: “Once upon a time — here’s something that didn’t happen — they lived happily ever after. The end.”

So, I didn’t like the ending, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to miss it just because it ended poorly. It was a solid season introducing a fun character that should appear in the movies. Besides, you may not have a problem with the finale. Reasonable minds and all that.

You’re probably better off watching it — warts and all — than not.

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Mythic Watch: Moon Knight @moonknight @MarvelStudios #MoonKnight #MCU #GoodWatch

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So, Moon Knight. Today’s the season finale.

As always, I got up early to watch it.

This isn’t a traditional review that implicitly claims that a show is good or bad based on some make-believe objective standard. I hate that pretentious nonsense. Whether or not you like a movie, song, TV show, or food is purely subjective. Instead, my approach to reviews is to explain why I like what I like and hate what I hate. If what makes me like/hate it applies to you, then maybe you’ll like/hate it too. I say, “maybe,” because there are other factors beyond what I can possibly express, but at least you have a better chance of predicting your reaction.

So, here is the context to understand the place from which my feelings arise:

  1. I grew up reading about dinosaurs and mythology, so anything involving either one of them has an advantage in gaining me as an audience, but are still not all winners.
  2. I’m not a fan of the comic book genre. However, when I was in elementary school, I’d sometimes hang out with my cousin. When it was too hot or cold to play outside, we’d read his comics. I remember them oddly well, but there were very few that grabbed me.
  3. I’m an apologist for comic book movies.

So, what do I think of Moon Knight? I love it. Considering the context given above, I don’t think I need to say much beyond that, as the explanation has already been given. However, I don’t want any of you asking for your money back, so here’s a little more. As with Shang-Chi before it, Moon Knight is opening the door to folklore, legends, and myths of a culture rarely addressed in western media. I’m sure most (non-bot) readers of this blog get that, but for our society as a whole, these other cultures are untapped resources. Disney is just scratching the surface with Egyptian and Chinese cultures. Give me Quetzalcoatl! Give me Shango! Give me Raijin! But please keep Chris Hemsworth as Thor. 😊

I suspect the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder is going to have me lose my shit for the same reason.

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