TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Go To

Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules still apply.

  • This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
  • While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
  • Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.

If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.

    Original post 
Since Thor and now Captain America came out this year, I wanted to get what Tropers thought of the concept and execution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. Personally I love the idea and wonder why this idea hasn't been seriously tried before. It sorta seems to me like the DCAU in movie form (And well, ummm, with Marvel), and really 'gets' the comic book feel of a shared universe while not being completely alienating.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25401: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:10:24 PM

@Badwolf: And you can say there is a canon all you want, but that doesn't mean there is one.

@Sharknado: Thank you. That was a riveting discussion.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:10:59 PM by Mukora

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#25402: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:11:53 PM

They'll probably have Thanos give a monologue about the gems and their purpose during the opening of the movie. The Guardians can also explain things to the Avengers whenever they meet.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#25403: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:12:10 PM

Well, you're not exactly being open for discussion either. Basically all you're saying is "Canon is stupid. Everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want, because making sense or having continuity is for stupid poopoo heads with no creativity."

My various fanfics.
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#25404: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:12:35 PM

Who the fuck gets to decide if there's a canon? RTD said there wasn't. Moffat said there wasn't. Canon wasn't even a thing when the show started. It was a dumb joke obsessive Sherlock Holmes fans were making about their tendency to treat Doyle's writings as a Biblical text.

The oldest showrunner available at the time this obsession started, Terrance Dicks, claimed that canon was whatever the writers could remember on a given week. Two of the show's most prolific writers, Terry Nation and Robert Holmes, would openly contradict their own work when it suited them.

The earliest piece of EU material was a novelization of the first ten episodes that completely ignored three of them and was taken as gospel by fans for over twenty years.

If there is a canon, it's built out of straw and string on a foundation of quicksand.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:14:21 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#25405: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:16:12 PM

Kostya: If I'm being honest, I don't really know. While they would technically be publishing comics, I don't know what comic trademark laws actually entail. Would one graphic novel featuring the Avengers every year be enough? What about all the other characters? Is it a single graphic novel a month, featuring rotating characters?

Pretty much the only thing I do know is that in order to continue calling themselves "Marvel Comics", they need to have a character with that name in publication at pretty much all times. And as far as I can tell, comics is the only medium where that's even a thing that can happen. So their rules are kind of screwy.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:18:17 PM by BadWolf21

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#25406: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:16:19 PM

Saying something is canon is simply saying "This happened in the universe of the show/book/movie". Now ideally it doesn't contradict anything and focuses on a single medium to make things simpler but that's not a requirement. Doctor Who has a canon. It's a very convoluted and contradictory one but the show uses "Wibbly Wobbley Timey Wimey" to explain away any inconsistencies.

[up]Okay, follow up. Does it matter if their trademarks do lapse? They would be out of the comic business so it's not like someone is stealing the market from them.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:18:24 PM by Kostya

Khfan429 Since: Aug, 2009
#25407: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:16:48 PM

Canon, at its most basic according to Wikipedia, is "the material accepted as part of the story in an individual fictional universe".

Which means that it boils down to: are things that happen in Doctor Who acknowledged to be part of the story? Yes? Then there's a canon. If they say there isn't a canon, then they mean there isn't a particularly stable canon because they couldn't be bothered to keep track. But going by the definition of canon, there most certainly is one.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:17:17 PM by Khfan429

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#25408: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:16:59 PM

Looks like I partly missed this topic but whatever.

Especially since the guys they apparently beat up and arrested look more like average joes than evil supervillains.

That was actually lampshaded. When they created the "50s Cap and 50s Bucky were different guys" explanation, it became canon that half the time the people they were beating up were ordinary joes who the duo had thought were communists as the serum drove insane.

Speaking my opinion, I actually like the retcon, as it mined a lot of new material. 50s Cap/William Burnside and 50s Bucky/Jack Monroe were great characters, and it didn't seem implausible that the government would try to cover up Cap's death for a while. Some retcons are indeed terribly forced (my Marvel Encyclopedia has a glorious time trying to explain Gwen Stacy being "the love of Peter's life" and "mother of Normon Osborn's children"), but I don't think 50s Cap was one of them. They might even turn up in Agent Carter season 2, as hinted by some interviews.

wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#25409: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:18:14 PM

There's definitely canon in Doctor Who, besides the whole "fixed point in time" thing. End of Time and Day of the Doctor both definitely happened. Martha, Donna, etc. were all still his companions in the past. And so forth.

BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#25410: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:20:30 PM

Wack'd: That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just that it's flimsy, and only if you a) look at extratelevisual (not a real word, just having fun) material, or b) go back far enough in time that the writers weren't terribly concerned about it.

For a less absurd comparison, stuff that happened back in the '70s still happened as far as the show is concerned. You have characters like Sarah Jane Smith showing up in the revived series, and the Brigadier being heavily referenced a couple of times in the most recent seasons. That is canon. Period.

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25411: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:21:06 PM

I never said anything like that.

I never really made my position clear at all, really, and that was bad. Let me try to actually explain.

The way I see it, the entire concept of "canon" is an extremely limiting factor in certain media. Its only purpose is to tell writers they can't do something. Or tell them that if they try to do it, it will have to be an alternate universe or different continuity or whatever. This is fine if your work is, say, a crime procedural that's meant to be grounded in reality, or a super serious fantasy story like Game of Thrones. But it really doesn't work in comics. All it does is make it so they have to come up with ridiculous excuses when they inevitably want to bring a character who previously died back, or label the story where that character died as an "AU". It's a restriction that serves absolutely no purpose.

And canon is not the same as continuity. You can have continuity without canon. You can have a character grow, and develop, and have your universe expand pretty much infinitely, but not have to say "Oh, this story didn't happen. And this one happened, but it was a different universe. And this one happened, but we're going to handwave it so it basically doesn't matter."

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Khfan429 Since: Aug, 2009
#25412: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:23:39 PM

[up]That is incredibly backwards.

Canon absolutely does serve a purpose, it is literally the why of continuity!!!

You claim you can have character development without it, but how do you explain that character development after the fact?!? The only reason the character development exists is because of that story, because that story is part of the canon!

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#25413: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:24:44 PM

Er, continuity creates canon. Continuity between two different comics would mean that those comics are considered to have taken place in the same universe. That means one book is saying "This previous book happened/counts" thus establishing a shared canon between them.

edit: Not doing that would mean you have an alternate continuity thus making one story non-canon with the other.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:28:22 PM by Kostya

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#25414: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:28:04 PM

I don't know if what works for Doctor Who would work for Marvel.

Doctor Who has the blessings of a limited recurring cast that basically can go where and whenever they want and if they even want to bother explaining discrepancies there's always time travel and negative space wedgies.

Marvel has a much more consistent setting and many many more recurring characters. I'm not sure it would work as well is all.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#25415: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:28:31 PM

Except no, you really can't. Because if someone tells a story where events happen that change a character, where the status quo should shift, and then the next story completely ignores that, then it's a judgement by the second writer that the first writer's work isn't worth expanding on. It's saying "these events don't matter, and therefore they don't play into my story."

For example, let's say that someone writes a story where Captain America and Bucky are on a mission, and something goes horribly wrong, and Bucky dies. Cap realizes that bringing a child into battle was a stupid idea, and goes through character development where he realizes that maybe the side he's on isn't the good guys 100% of the time; that sometimes, they do really fucked up things, like sending a brightly-dressed child to war. Cap changes as a result of this story.

If Bucky is alive and well in the next story, then that change is negated. There is no growth, or change. One story cannot affect another in that environment, unless a conscious choice is made to say "such-and-such story happened prior to mine" at which point you have the skeleton of canon.

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25416: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:28:45 PM

Well, apparently no one likes my "Doctor Who does it" explanation, despite it being probably the best example, so I don't know what to tell you. There are plenty of articles and essays out there that explain this shit better than me.

I've said everything I can about it, and if I haven't convinced you, that's fine.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#25417: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:32:16 PM

Lemme put it this way. Canon is not a thing Who has because no one involved with the show is interested in determining what, if anything, counts. No one is interested in declaring that Dr. Who and the Daleks is more real than An Unearthly Child, no one's interested in saying whether the Daleks were created by radiation or genetic engineering or both or neither, no one's interested in saying that, I dunno, the version of events we saw in one episode or another didn't actually happen and here's what really did.

That's why it doesn't have a canon. The viewer is free to pick and choose what, exactly, Sarah Jane's reappearance is deciding about all those past episodes and novels and audios and comics, and to interpret from their own experience with the show's past what her life looked like up until this point. We're free to do the same with any character, really.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:33:25 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#25418: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:39:09 PM

The writers not caring doesn't mean a canon doesn't exist. By having each episode of the show continue from the previous one they're creating a canon. They just don't worry about contradictions within that canon like some people.

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25419: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:41:00 PM

Alright, then. Let me use your terminology.

What I want is for comics to not worry about contradictions in canon. Does that make sense? I just want them to not feel the need to say "Yeah, this story takes place in Earth-657 and this one is in Earth 689, and this one is in Earth-616 but during the Post-Emo Blitz Era"

And not feel the need to do things like "Oh, that wasn't actually Bucky that died! That's Jimbob Morrison he's radiation Nazi Clone! The real Bucky is fine!"

edited 28th Jan '15 9:42:08 PM by Mukora

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Khfan429 Since: Aug, 2009
#25420: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:43:22 PM

[up]That would be fine, except that's not how they typically solve contradictions in canon.

Usually, alternate universes are used for exactly what they should be used for: to tell a story that wouldn't work in the current setting without taking everything in a completely different direction.

More often than not, when they decide to fix a contradiction in canon, they rely on plot twists and retcons within the pre-existing universe, they don't spin off a new universe and blame it on that.

BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#25421: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:44:56 PM

But again, Doctor Who has that too. However, their's is in the form of a couple short platitudes. "Time can be rewritten." "Fixed point in time." "Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff."

Those are Doctor Who's handwaves. Comics just tend to be weirder and more diverse about theirs.

[up] Also a good point. Explaining every contradiction away as being an Elseworlds is a hallmark of the Silver Age, not the modern one. It's a practice that was mostly done away with at DC after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and I don't know that Marvel ever really did it to begin with.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:46:02 PM by BadWolf21

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25422: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:46:05 PM

What I want is for retcons and alternate universes to not be necessary. If they want to do something that contradicts previous stuff then just do it. Don't explain it. Just let it happen. And if they want to bring that stuff up in a future story, cool! Do that too! And bring up that other thing that directly contradicts the first thing, as well!

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#25423: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:46:45 PM

[up][up]It's worth pointing out that those have never actually been used to resolve continuity errors, only to lay down groundwork for what rules of time-travel a given episode is using.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:47:13 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#25424: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:47:17 PM

[up][up]You're basically saying that they should do the same thing, just not state it, which would just be more confusing.

I believe the actual term for it is a "clusterfuck", or Continuity Snarl. Then there's not really a lot of great room for depth.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:48:44 PM by wanderlustwarrior

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#25425: Jan 28th 2015 at 9:49:45 PM

You know, I said I would stop arguing about this, because I'm definitely not qualified to or smart enough, so I'm going to try to actually do that. Sorry.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Total posts: 186,763
Top