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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

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71151: May 27th 2017 at 9:20:43 PM

He goes back to the pills on his own, though. Kozlov doesn't even ask him to come back— Will wants in. And then he takes a way higher dose than he's told to. His judgment is impaired, but there's a definitely implication that it's further impaired at least in part because he likes it that way. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#71152: May 27th 2017 at 9:21:33 PM

Like, if he was just a piece of shit, I wouldn't have such a problem with him. But he's messed up, and the show, like you said, brushes it aside because he's not special enough to actually care about.

My various fanfics.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71153: May 27th 2017 at 9:24:44 PM

I don't think he's brushed aside or that his trauma or tragedy are ignored. But he's culpable in his actions, the way a drunk driver or addict bear some responsibility if they kill someone while under the influence. It'd be easy to simply dismiss him outright, but that's not what the show does, just what Jessica does.

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#71154: May 27th 2017 at 9:25:24 PM

Will isn't the only "soldier" in Kozlov's program, though. We see several throughout the series and none of them are like Will — Will explicitly got out of the program and then got back in when he realized he needed to be stronger. But he's not like the other soldiers either — in fact, he pretty explicitly kills the other soldiers when they try to bring him in, because he's gone so far into toxic masculinity that he thinks he must be the only one to kill Kilgrave. None of this applies to the other soldiers, who all seem fairly stable.

So in conclusion: he's crazy not because of the program but because of his own issues. But the program didn't help.

edited 27th May '17 9:26:09 PM by alliterator

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71155: May 27th 2017 at 9:27:32 PM

Yeah, I don't think that's meant to be the takeaway. I think Will is the worst case scenario, but it's meant to be more of a situation where this could happen to anyone, if they let it, and that's the real problem.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#71156: May 27th 2017 at 9:33:46 PM

We can't say, though, because we never get focus on the other soldiers. It's entirely possible they didn't become as aggressive as Simpson because they never endured any psychological trauma to the effect of Kilgrave's mind control or if they did, were better prepared for it.

To me, the problem was the show ended up setting up a bit of a Ambiguous Situation (probably by accident) if Simpson's aggressiveness was sheer testosterone blinding him or an actual cerebral deficiency as a result of the experiments done on him. When I first watched JJ, I was a bit confused on whether Simpson's rampage was just him being a dick or if Kilgrave's actions and related trauma triggered (as in the psychological sense of "triggered") him and this snowballed into murderous anger because of Kozlov's process. The moment he threatens and then kills Clemons, for example, always felt to me more as the actions of someone whose brain chemistry isn't working straight (his entire speech patterns change, he speaks in a much more fast-paced and erratic way, and he switches subjects very quickly and can't seem to decide on what conversation strategy he's pursuing) than just a proudly masculine man.

edited 27th May '17 9:34:31 PM by Gaon

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71157: May 27th 2017 at 9:40:01 PM

People are complicated. He's fucked up, but he's fucked up because of the decisions he made— it's something he did to himself, not something that just happened to him, and as with Kilgrave, no matter how fucked up you are, that's not a free pass for the shit you do.

I'm feeling like they're probably setting up a subplot for Trish, though, if those pills ever come back into the picture. She got a taste of power, she wants to be a hero considerably more than Jess, and Hellcat is a thing. So we'll see where that leads.

edited 28th May '17 11:53:52 AM by Unsung

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#71158: May 27th 2017 at 9:46:24 PM

In either case it's not an excuse for his actions (as Jessica's trauma doesn't excuse some of hers either, as the show points out), but if it's just testosterone blinding him, he was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, he was always an asshole and the only problem is they didn't find it out sooner. If it's an actual mental defect, he's a man who, while murderous and deserving of his punishment, desperately needs help.

In either case he isn't excuses, but in the second scenario, he's a lot more of a Anti-Villain than the first, is the issue.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71159: May 27th 2017 at 9:50:18 PM

Nuke's kind of sad even in Daredevil: Born Again. But it's a scary kind of sad.

edited 28th May '17 12:20:51 PM by Unsung

ExplosiveLion Since: Mar, 2016 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#71160: May 27th 2017 at 11:25:27 PM

Will pulled the It's All About Me card, simple as that. He became obsessed with Kilgrave because of what he did to him, and him only. Several people have pointed out before me that, if he was truly such a Nice Guy, he'd have left Trish alone. He'd have truly helped Jessica, instead of losing his shit once it became clear that their goals weren't the same; Jessica, for all that Kilgrave made her go through, didn't want to kill him.

Simpson was a real Macho Man that got emasculated by Kilgrave. And his way of regaining control and proving himself he's not a helpless victim is to go batshit insane.

If anything, he himself shrugged away his own issues before anyone else. And, if anyone treated him as if he was a hidrance, it's because his attitude was clearly not helping anyone.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#71161: May 27th 2017 at 11:52:52 PM

The funny thing is that Will was right. It just took everyone else seven episodes to realize it. I remember a guy on a podcast said it best after watching Jessica Jones and then Daredevil season 2

"The Punisher would have resolved the entire Kilgrave plot in thirty seconds."

And he wasn't wrong.

"His name is Killgrave. But if you get too close to him, he can tell you to do something and you'll do it."

"Super. I have a sniper rifle with a range of like a hundred yards."

My various fanfics.
ExplosiveLion Since: Mar, 2016 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#71162: May 28th 2017 at 12:59:41 AM

Nobody's saying he was wrong about that. We're saying that:

  • a) He's not as heroic as he'd like everyone (including himself) to believe.
  • b) He did it all for the wrong reasons.
  • c) His state of mind was already pretty fucked, even before he got the pills.

Also, comparing him to the Punisher kind of proves our point. I mean, he thinks he's the ultimate upholder of justice, he wants some form of moral redemption yet he behaves in the exact same way that the Punisher behaves. And, I don't think I have to remind anyone, the Punisher is one homicidal, emotionally crippled, mentally unstable, batshit insane dude that at no moment even pretends he's a good guy.

edited 28th May '17 1:06:31 AM by ExplosiveLion

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#71163: May 28th 2017 at 1:35:57 AM

Also, on the subject of Jessica's perspective being the one we're supposed to accept as true simply because she's the protagonist, remember that this is a noir story. Or at least, heavily noir styled. A protagonist so deeply jaded by the world that their perspectives and actions are twisted if not outright amoral is a mainstay of that genre, and it shows here.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#71164: May 28th 2017 at 3:51:07 AM

He is not quite right...Will would have killed Kilgrave with no care whatsoever who else dies in the process. If Jessica had managed to pull what Kilgrave did into the light, it would have not only helped Hope, but a number of others of his past victims, too (like the guy who wasn't allowed to see his child anymore). In addition, what actually went wrong is not on Jessica but on Hogarth. But that is the genre for you....in firm noir, you just don't get a happy end. Meaning if they had followed Will's plan, the result would have been a number of victims, Jessica, Trish and Will being hunted by the police and Kilgrave still at large. That's just the rule of the genre.

Sometime abused people react by becoming abuser themselves. Will is the male example of that. (There is also a female abuser in the show in Robin, though the dynamic she has with her brother has nothing to do with Kilgrave).

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#71166: May 28th 2017 at 10:43:49 AM

The other thing to remember about a noir protagonist is that they're often wrong, and they spend much of their stories operating under misconceptions that ultimately blow up in their faces at the most inopportune times.

[up]Pretty cool that they built their city out of recycled crayons.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#71167: May 28th 2017 at 11:45:35 AM

Well, they are paper people.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#71168: May 28th 2017 at 3:42:34 PM

You know, watching the first Guardians again recently really made me appreciate the difference between Marvel’s approach and DC’s. DC does awful shit to beloved characters for shock value; fans are still livid over what Batman v. Superman did to fan-favorite characters Jimmy Olsen and Mercy Graves, introduced to the film for no other reason than to die horrifically.

I realized something while watching Guardians. In Ronan’s establishing character moment, a nameless Nova corpsman is restrained and pleads with Ronan that his actions violate the treaty with the Kree. Ronan responds mercilessly, using his hammer to invoke the Chunky Salsa Rule.

This scene is enough. It tells us everything we need to know about Ronan, it establishes the political state between the Kree and Xandar, and it’s just gruesome enough to incite an emotional response in the audience. For the purpose of setting up Ronan, it’s all we needed.

If this was a DC movie, that corpsman would be credited as “Richard Ryder” for no reason other than to establish that he’s dead and will never show up in a film again.

edited 28th May '17 3:43:01 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#71169: May 28th 2017 at 3:46:16 PM

This is surprisingly accurate.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#71170: May 28th 2017 at 4:04:03 PM

So I've been watching the scene with Killgrave and his parents perhaps more time than a healthy person should and I realized that, for my money, that's the most tragic scene in the show.

I'm serious. I'm not trying to be a Killgrave apologist or a male apologist or a meninist or whatever but like... it's powerful, to me. From the minute Killgrave's parents show up, he's on edge. For the first time in the series, he's uncomfortable. Even when Jessica was beating him to death, he was smug and in control, playing up for the cameras and for Jery and Trish. But with his parents, he's genuinely upset. He's tense and then he's screaming, he's a wounded animal. It's the first time you see Killgrave emotionally raw and as a real person.

"I had a tantrum, like a normal child! I didn't know what I was doing, you didn't explain to me, you just left!" Part of it is Tennant's performance but you really just see the pain in his eyes and the anger all over his face. He's enraged and even when his mother comes closer to him, speaking to him softly, he's still furious. He's waiting for the trap. The lie. He's waiting for them to hurt him again. How defensively he curls up when she touches him, the anger in his face. He's angry but he's also afraid. He doesn't know how to react to contact that he doesn't initiate, to someone coming close to him and touching him without their being told to do so.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, mum." I love this moment. When you just watch how Killgrave's face changes as his mother is touching him, stroking his hair. The fact that Killgrave actually says the words "I'm sorry." That's the one moment in the show where Killgrave realizes the he's been wrong this entire time. When faced with unconditional love, he finally understands what he's been doing all these years. He completely falls apart and it's beautiful. The whole show might have been over in that moment because Killgrave might have been convinced to turn himself in.

Then it all goes to hell when Killgrave's mother stabs him with the scissors. He's angry again, and he's hurt, both literally and figuratively. But almost immediately, he's calm. Because he realizes he was right, not wrong. His own mother wants to kill him. She says so to his face. He's not in the wrong because nobody's better than he is. Everyone's a monster. Everyone's an animal. Which is what allows him to, completely calm and free of guilt, order his mother to kill herself and do the same thing to his father as he makes his escape. After all, they're just like him, right?

My various fanfics.
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#71171: May 28th 2017 at 4:34:52 PM

@Tobias I fail to see how that's any better. It's still killing a character to show his evil the villain is and that doesn't change whether we know the name or not (and really how many people in the audience would care?)

Also see Quicksilver in Ao U. And just because it happened once in a DC movie does not mean it will happen all the time or that Marvel is incapable of it (see again Quicksilver)

I get it you hate DC. You've made that much clear but this is just petty.

edited 28th May '17 4:36:49 PM by windleopard

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#71172: May 28th 2017 at 4:36:47 PM

[up][up][up][up] This scene is even more gruesome than most realize...remember how the scene starts, with Ronan emerging from this weird pool thing and the ritual throwing of the black stuff on his face. When the Xandarian gets killed you can see how his blood is funnelled into the pool Ronan just came from...meaning the guy is literally bathing in the blood of his enemies and then wears it as make-up the whole day.

edited 28th May '17 4:37:39 PM by Swanpride

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.
#71173: May 28th 2017 at 4:39:28 PM

[up][up] There's a difference between killing nameless extras and killing actual, important characters from the comics.

edited 28th May '17 4:40:10 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#71174: May 28th 2017 at 4:40:37 PM

By that same token, there's a huge difference between killing off nameless characters and killing off big name characters without developing them enough purely for shock value.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#71175: May 28th 2017 at 4:44:15 PM

More specifically they killed off the character known for being the Kid Sidekick Plucky Comic Relief, which sums up what people generally disliked about the franchise. No fun. Everything must be serious and bleak. If you don't believe us here's a pointless scene of the character best remembered for being Superman's cute kid sidekick being violently executed by terrorists.

The MCU is not immune to crappy deaths (Quicksilver) but doing that to Jimmy was a mean spirited move emblematic of the problems with the first few movies.


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