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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

M773982 Since: Aug, 2016
#66351: Feb 14th 2017 at 5:10:33 PM

He's Thanos. He butchered his own mother just for fun. Ultron was so convinced that Thanos would slaughter everything on the planet just for fun, that he had to try and kill off every living thing on the planet that wasn't completely indestructible just so he would be able to fulfill his programming parameters of stopping aliens killing earthlings. And Loki managed to lose his only Infinity Gem. The one thing he prizes above everything else. What in the 9 realms could Loki possibly offer that would be worth Thanos not ripping out his throat to him?

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66352: Feb 14th 2017 at 5:12:38 PM

A saucy puppet show?

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#66353: Feb 14th 2017 at 5:32:00 PM

That good old Hiddleston charm.

Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#66354: Feb 14th 2017 at 7:27:50 PM

Dating advice, obs. Wingman Loki is a go.

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#66355: Feb 14th 2017 at 7:44:11 PM

8 Simple Rules For Dating My Cosmic Daughter.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66356: Feb 14th 2017 at 9:42:37 PM

The main argument against it being Heimdal is that they brought the Aether to the collector because they didn't want two Infinity stones at Asgard. If Heimdal had one, too, they would have brought the Tesseract elsewhere. And as far as we know, they didn't.

Also, I don't think that Hela has the stone because of the Thanos Theory, but because it kind of makes sense. Hela has power over souls, right?

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66357: Feb 14th 2017 at 9:47:13 PM

Yes.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
eligram Since: Sep, 2009 Relationship Status: In denial
#66358: Feb 15th 2017 at 2:47:46 AM

I don't like that theory, as I find that Hela powers depending on a Infinity Stone while the others Asgardians powers are born-natural, un some way undermine her as a villian.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#66359: Feb 15th 2017 at 5:38:55 AM

The other Asgardians aren't that powerful to begin with. Across the board they're mostly weaker than they're depicted as in the source material.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66360: Feb 15th 2017 at 7:15:21 AM

She may normally have powers over souls but might be using the infinity gem to exceed her usual claim

That's what prompted the conflict between Thor and Hela in Walt Simonson's run. Hela was taking mortal souls she had no right to

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#66361: Feb 15th 2017 at 10:51:03 AM

[up][up][up] That's been happening a lot with the MCU, due to making everything center around the stones. Because of it, most extraordinary phenomenon have been due to the stones rather than having their own origins - which could undercut them, depending on how you look at it.

I understand why they're doing it that way, but it does sometimes make it seem like the stones are the only source of interesting things in the universe. After the stones are out of the picture, they're going to have to rethink how they present the MCU's concepts simply because they're been using them as a crutch for so long.

edited 15th Feb '17 10:57:08 AM by KnownUnknown

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66362: Feb 15th 2017 at 10:59:14 AM

Well the plots of Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 weren't driven by the stones. Neither was Thor 1, Incredible Hulk, Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, or Civil War.

First Avenger, Avengers, Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, Age of Ultron and Doctor Strange were.

That's 8 vs 6.

The Infinity Things are the arc plot currently. So some of the plot is going to be driven by them. But the ratio doesn't seem bad.

Even in those six, there are extraordinary phenomenon that aren't caused by the Stones.

edited 15th Feb '17 11:00:45 AM by Bocaj

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MasterGhandalf Since: Jul, 2009
#66363: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:05:17 AM

I'd even question saying that the plot of Doctor Strange was "driven by" an Infinity Stone. Strange used the Eye to resolve the plot, but it wasn't important to what Dormammu and Kaecillius were trying to accomplish the way Red Skull, Loki, Ultron, Malekith, and Ronan's plots were heavily focused around finding and/or using their respective Stones. The Eye was an important plot point, but not the central McGuffin like the others.

edited 15th Feb '17 11:05:29 AM by MasterGhandalf

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66364: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:06:50 AM

That's fair.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#66365: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:12:13 AM

I never talked about how the plots of the movies were driven by stones, let alone implied that all of them were driven by stones. I said that the most extraordinary things in the universe are all stone related rather than possible on their own.

Well the plots of Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 weren't driven by the stones. Neither was Thor 1, Incredible Hulk, Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, or Civil War.

The arc reactor is heavily implied to have been created in the first place as an attempt to replicate the Tesseract / Space Stone - so everything Iron Man related (except Extremis) came about because of it, including everything that uses the arc reactor (like the Helicarriers in Winter Soldier).

Likewise, in the films "gifted" individuals exist because of experimentation with the Mind Stone (the shows deviate from this, but the films largely ignore them). True artificial sapience exists because of the Mind Stone as well, and it's all but stated that even Tony would never have been able to accomplish it without the stone's presence.

Erskine's formula and its derivatives (which due to his death took a backseat to HYDRA's superscience - which is also based upon the Space Stone - and even so is rather tame in comparison) and Hank Pym's tech seem to be the only super-science that are completely not reliant in some way the existence of the Infinity Stones.

On the cosmic side, Asgardians on their own don't seem to owe their existence to the stones, but if the legends we hear are any indication many of their great historical feats are centered around them. And, especially with the idea that Hela uses the Soul Stone, several the powerful figures in the Nine Realms rely on stone influence (though there is the theme that bad guys in Thor rely on stones and good guys apparently don't).

edited 15th Feb '17 11:19:48 AM by KnownUnknown

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66366: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:20:37 AM

It seems unlikely that the super soldier serum was based on the Tesseract since Johann Schmidt was the Red Skull already when he found the thing in the tomb of the unknown viking.

Hydra's super powered weaponry certainly derived from the Tesseract but nothing was said about it being used to perfect the super soldier serum.

Cap was a success because good at heart etc, Johann became Red Skull because eeeeeevil.

And while the arc reactor may have been based on Tesseract research, it was useless as anything other than a curiosity and proof of concept until Tony miniaturized it. Which he did in a cave. With a box of scraps. Sans tesseract.

While two gifted individuals got powers from the Mind Stone and the movies ignore the shows, its still the case that the show is in continuity with the movies and there are so many Inhumans. So many many inhumans.

edited 15th Feb '17 11:25:25 AM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#66367: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:24:57 AM

The technologies that HYDRA and Stark developed aren't technically based on the Tesseract. They came up with the designs for the technology independently; the Tesseract and the Arc reactors are merely the power source.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66368: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:26:52 AM

Not to mention that nearly all the magic in Doctor Strange has nothing to do with the Infinity Stones.

Magic just is. And a lot of people can learn it. Some might say too many.

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KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#66369: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:34:17 AM

Though the most powerful bit of magic of all, the one that the originator of the magical arts evidently used to found the Order, is a Stone.

Besides, who's to say the Stones aren't magic? Them being so doesn't really diminish my point: that they're behind most of the universe's big innovations and powers in some way or another.

[up][up] That doesn't really change the fact that the Stones are responsible for their tech's existence. That the Iron Man armor would be a useless, empty shell without the Starks' attempts at replicating Infinity Stone power sources is kind of the point.

[down] I said that, too.

edited 15th Feb '17 11:38:15 AM by KnownUnknown

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#66370: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:37:07 AM

[up]x4 I think they were actually saying that Erskine's formula didn't have anything to do with the Stones.

edited 15th Feb '17 11:39:53 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#66371: Feb 15th 2017 at 11:37:57 AM

NVM

edited 15th Feb '17 11:38:06 AM by KnownUnknown

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66372: Feb 15th 2017 at 12:05:10 PM

Misread.

Although, the super soldier serum and its results (Cap, Winter Soldier, Hulk) are much more relevant than the tesseract powered Hydra weaponry or the SHIELD equivalent.

And since the Arc reactor was useless without Tony making it not building sized, I think we can split credit between Tony Stark and an unfathomable singularity of power.

I'm okay with the Infinity Stones having effects like that on the development of Earth. It saves them from the Reed Richards Effect. In the comics they're usually unfathomably powerful things that barely affect anything because they're usually locked up in someone's sock drawer when they're not being used to wipe out half the universe.

I think there's enough stuff that doesn't explicitly come from the Stones to make them important and influential without being the only thing the setting is based on.

The first two AIs may be Mind Stone based but the third is evil demon book based. Probably.

edited 15th Feb '17 12:07:05 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66373: Feb 15th 2017 at 12:06:15 PM

Currently we have six sources of power in the MCU: 1. Kree (which is the oldest one) 2. The Supersoldier serum (which is around since the 1940s) 3. The Infinity stones (the arc reactor, Wanda, Pietro and Vision resulted out of it) 4. Freak Accident (happened a few time in Agents of SHIELD before Kree became the to go explanation) 5. Technology 6. Magic

And then there are naturally real aliens, who have powers based on their race, like Thor. Of the remaining 13 Avengers, Three fall into category two (Cap, Bucky and the Hulk), four category three (Wanda and Vision through powers, Ironman and Warmachine use the arc reactor), two are simply really well trained humans (Black Widow and Hawkeye), two fall into category five (Ant-man and Falcon) and I guess Spiderman falls into category four (though it might have been a freak accident related the serum, who knows).

No idea what Black Panther exactly is, though.....

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66374: Feb 15th 2017 at 12:08:36 PM

All-natural herbs and plenty of pushups

Probably.

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PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#66375: Feb 15th 2017 at 12:13:13 PM

Didn't the novelization of Iron Man 2 specify that the 'new' element Tony created was actually Vibranium, with no connection to the Cube? Tony's first Arc Reactor didn't have anything to do with the Infinity Gems either; it was powered by a pre-existing element called Palladium.


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