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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.
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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

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72726: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:03:31 AM

Yes and both the Hulk and the Leviathan are part of the "otherwise noted" part of that sentence.
The concrete block Abomination threw, the shrapnel that cut up the Hulk, the gravity of the planet he was falling on, the ground he impacted, etc. are decidedly not, however. Thus I'm scaling the fictional entity to the real entities to determine the fictional entity's properties.
I'm sorry, what, exactly, are the Abominations superpowers (aside from turning into a big monster like the Hulk)?
Superhuman strength, toughness, and speed.
And how do you know it's tougher than the Leviathan?
Because Abomination overpowered the Hulk?
1) When someone says something is made out of titanium, they generally mean a titanium alloy, rather than pure titanium. Even if that's not what Tony meant, it doesn't change the fact that his armor exhibits strength and hardness far beyond what real life titanium or its alloys can achieve.
He says gold and titanium. The Iron Man 3 iPhone specifies that the armor is 94.5% titanium, 4.5% gold. This is actually an example of Shown Their Work, as alloying titanium with gold does strengthen it. And no, it doesn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary for titanium.
2) Since we don't know how much the Hulk weighs, it's hard to say for sure, but the two falls from airplanes shouldn't have that much different impact, due to him reaching terminal velocity.
He didn't reach terminal velocity on the second one. He only fell for a few seconds. Also, it was a helicopter.

EDIT: The circumstances are also very different. He transformed into Hulk AFTER hitting the ground in this scene. While when he impacted in the Avengers, he was already the Hulk. Could also be a simple difference of how he landed, which we didn't see either time.

3) I haven't been able to find a clip online to confirm, but I'm pretty sure that when the Chitauri are blasting Hulk, all their energy beams are hitting his body, so there's no reason for the roof to be damaged. But if they were hitting the roof and doing no damage, then that's just further proof that the power and effectiveness of attacks is wildly inconsistent, since we know the Hulk is bulletproof, so attacks that weak shouldn't harm him.
Nah, tons of their shots are missing and hitting the roof. It's also not an inconsistency; we saw that 40mm grenades, individually, affected him more than the Chitauri bolts.
4) Thor can swing his hammer with such force that the impact of it hitting Cap's shield creates a shockwave so big it knocks trees over, yet this somehow doesn't let him take the Hulk down with one half-strength hit.
He was pretty obviously holding back with Mjolnir there to not damage the Helicarrier/Hulk as demonstrated by the complete lack of collateral that is present in every other fight featuring Thor.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:14:02 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72727: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:04:34 AM

Guys, it's pretty clear that the Hulk's strength and toughness are changing throughout his appearances. I say we ignored Monsieur Thenardier and just get back to praising Squirrel Girl.

PRAISE BE, SQUIRREL GIRL!

And how do you know it's tougher than the Leviathan? Because Abomination overpowered the Hulk?
So the Abomination overpowering the Hulk is an example of the Abomination being tougher than a Leviathan...as opposed to an example of the Hulk's fluctuating strength? Because...you said so?

Nah, I'm going with the other one, the one that actually makes sense.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:06:44 AM by alliterator

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#72728: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:06:50 AM

PRAISE THE SQUIRREL.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:06:58 AM by SonOfSharknado

My various fanfics.
MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72729: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:09:14 AM

So the Abomination overpowering the Hulk is an example of the Abomination being tougher than a Leviathan...as opposed to an example of the Hulk's fluctuating strength? Because...you said so?
You seem to not understand how this works. How about this, you made the positive claim that it was an example of strength fluctuation. How about providing some proof of this? How does the Hulk killing a Leviathan and then not immediately killing the Abomination prove that his strength was different in those scenes, rather than the much simpler and more logical explanation that the Abomination is simply tougher than the Leviathan?

Pretty sure any viewer would tell you that the latter is true, and so would the writers and directors of these movies.

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#72730: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:13:47 AM

How about the fact that the Hulk punches the Leviathan hard enough to stop it in its tracks and burst its shell open (while slamming through a skyscraper or getting hit with all of Iron Man's ordinance did nothing) and yet his fist isn't turned to bone shards and hamburger from the impact?

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
Searching
#72731: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:15:42 AM

He just cracked its skull with a punch equivalent to medium semi-truck impact. It's a couple orders of magnitude higher than his next best striking feat, but it's not exactly something that puts him above (or anywhere near) modern ordnance. I mean we know Leviathans are not particularly dense, given that they don't collapse the buildings whose roofs they land on.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:16:30 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72732: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:16:35 AM

He just cracked its skull with a punch equivalent to medium semi-truck impact.
Okay, prove it.

I mean we know Leviathans are not particularly dense, given that they don't collapse the buildings whose roofs they land on.
You seem to think that roofs are not durable, but some are. They can hold incredibly heavy things, especially if those heavy things are stretched out and not in a single spot.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:19:36 AM by alliterator

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#72733: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:16:41 AM

So....anyone else realizing that this might be the best year for Superhero movies ever? I mean I didn't watch Logan because I really, really don't care about Wolverine, but it is universally praised, Got G Vol 2 did justice to the first part, Wonder Woman is finally a watchable DCEU movie (so happy about the character being successful) and now Homecoming does well, too. And in-between there was the Lego Batman movie which was apparently quite funny. Even if the rest of the bunch is not delivering (though I have a good feeling regarding Racnarok), we didn't get that many good Superhero movies since 2014.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#72734: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:18:48 AM

I'd really debate Logan being a superhero movie. Like, I know it has Logan and Xavier, and I know all the stuff about how the superhero movie isn't a single, unified genre, but everything already happened and everyone's gone. It's just Unforgiven with claws instead of guns.

My various fanfics.
MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72735: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:19:55 AM

Okay, prove it.
Yo.
You seem to think that roofs are not durable, but some are. They can hold incredibly heavy things.
They can't hold tens of thousands of tons, however.

[up][up]Pretty much, yeah. Logan, GOTG 2, and perhaps Wonder Woman all place in my top five favorite superhero movies ever (if WW isn't five then it's six, surely).

[up]It's based on comic book superheroes. The main character can regenerate in minutes from bullet wounds, lift a grown man by the neck with a single outstretched arm, shrug off being crushed by a truck, and cut through anything with the invincible claws that grow out of his knuckles. He even has comic books about him in-universe. Yeah, it's a superhero movie. Its genre just happens to be "Western" rather than the typical action movie.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:25:53 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#72736: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:21:40 AM

Less about the genre, more about the subject matter. Logan is a movie about people with metal claws, a telepath, and some cyborgs, treated seriously and well-received by critics. This is something that almost no genre film and certainly no superhero-tangential film could've aspired to not very long ago.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#72737: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:27:12 AM

Whether or not the films count as superhero films or not, I'd say it's more the most uniformly quality showing so far. All three big companies came out with strong showings. No Fant4stic, BvS, or X-Men Apocalypses bogging the year down.

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72738: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:33:53 AM

Apocalypse > Homecoming because of Quicksilver's scenes alone.

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72739: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:34:10 AM

Yo.
Okay, so, several things: this person is assuming a lot. They write "For the weigh of the armor, I figure we can scale from real-life plate armor." But the armor of the Leviathan is nothing at all like real-life plate armor — the armor of the Leviathan can withstand all of Tony's lasers, which makes it incredibly tough. This is far more tough than real-life plate armor. They also try to argue the Leviathan's weight by scaling up a blue whale, but, again, the Leviathan is an alien being — we have no idea of what's inside it, of how many organs it has or how much they weigh or what material its bones are made of, so saying that it's the same weight as a blue whale the same size is silly.

So, taking all that into considering, their argument is a big fat nothingburger. So wrong, now moving on.

(Also, even they discuss the fact that the anti-gravity of the Leviathans can contribute to them falling on a roof and the roof not collapsing. So that argument is toast as well.)

edited 13th Jul '17 12:35:59 AM by alliterator

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#72740: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:34:36 AM

Homecoming>Apocalypse because no Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:35:21 AM by SonOfSharknado

My various fanfics.
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#72741: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:35:15 AM

Do you mean it's weaker than Apocalypse, Sharknado?

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
#72742: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:35:37 AM

I don't know what you're talking about, friend.

My various fanfics.
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72743: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:36:35 AM

Homecoming > Apocalypse, because the Vulture was scary and Apocalypse was goofy.

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#72744: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:36:43 AM

[up][up]

Darn you, Orwell.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:36:54 AM by AdricDePsycho

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#72745: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:39:10 AM

He just cracked its skull with a punch equivalent to medium semi-truck impact. It's a couple orders of magnitude higher than his next best striking feat, but it's not exactly something that puts him above (or anywhere near) modern ordnance. I mean we know Leviathans are not particularly dense, given that they don't collapse the buildings whose roofs they land on.

Again, we saw the Leviathan crash head first through a large building, the kind that would most likely have steel support beams, and not only was it completely undamaged, but it didn't even slow down. To burst its shell and bring it to a dead stop with one punch is well, well beyond a semi-truck collision.

Plus, again, Hulk got into a fight with Thor and was hit by Thor's hammer multiple times, and he didn't go down or even seem all that hurt. And we've seen what that hammer can do.


Getting onto a different topic, I think people are far too limited with what they label as a superhero story. By my standards, if a movie is about a character with superpowers using those powers to do heroic things, then it is a superhero movie, plain and simple (well, there's some grey area when it comes to what counts as a superpower and what counts as heroic, as well as what a given movie is truly about, but you get my meaning).

Ghostbusters, Dark City, Robocop, Men in Black, the Terminator sequels: by any objective standard, you'd have a much easier time classifying those movies as superhero stories then you would Guardians of the Galaxy, which is really a Space Opera story that happens to be set in the same universe as some superhero movies.

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72746: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:39:23 AM

Homecoming>Apocalypse because no Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique.
...point taken.
Okay, so, several things: this person is assuming a lot. They write "For the weigh of the armor, I figure we can scale from real-life plate armor." But the armor of the Leviathan is nothing at all like real-life plate armor — the armor of the Leviathan can withstand all of Tony's lasers, which makes it incredibly tough.
Not really, unless we know the power output of those lasers. Which we don't (the scene from Iron Man 2 that I know you'll bring up isn't applicable, since that was an entirely different weapon system based on one-shot packets). Steel, which plate armor was made out of, is also a very dense metal, making it a generous assumption. If you wanted to be an ass you could randomly assume their armor was as dense as tungsten or something, which still wouldn't inflate their weight by all that much.
They also try to argue the Leviathan's weight by scaling up a blue whale, but, again, the Leviathan is an alien being — we have no idea of what's inside it, of how many organs it has or how much they weigh or what material its bones are made of, so saying that it's the same weight as a blue whale the same size is silly.
No it's not, because it's still an organic creature made mostly of water as proven by the fact that when Tony blows it up, guts and blood go flying everywhere rather than metal. The density of its body therefore cannot be particularly high.
(Also, even they discuss the fact that the anti-gravity of the Leviathans can contribute to them falling on a roof and the roof not collapsing.)
The anti-grav was deactivated along with everything else when the ship was destroyed.
So, taking all that into considering, their argument is a big fat nothingburger.
Wrong again, sorry.

[up]

Again, we saw the Leviathan crash head first through a large building, the kind that would most likely have steel support beams, and not only was it completely undamaged, but it didn't even slow down. To burst its shell and bring it to a dead stop with one punch is well, well beyond a semi-truck collision.
We don't actually know the composition of the buildings it went through. The punch has been calculated anyway; even if the Leviathan is paradoxically several times as dense as a whale, it's still in the range of a semi-truck impact.
Plus, again, Hulk got into a fight with Thor and was hit by Thor's hammer multiple times, and he didn't go down or even seem all that hurt. And we've seen what that hammer can do.
Exactly, we've seen what it can do... and what it didn't do when he fought the Hulk. It's a pretty clear visual shorthand that Thor is holding back so he doesn't kill Banner or anyone else. If he truly was going all out, he could've just nuked Hulk with that lightning that exploded the multi-thousand-ton armored serpents into tiny giblets.
Getting onto a different topic, I think people are far too limited with what they label as a superhero story. By my standards, if a movie is about a character with superpowers using those powers to do heroic things, then it is a superhero movie, plain and simple (well, there's some grey area when it comes to what counts as a superpower and what counts as heroic, as well as what a given movie is truly about, but you get my meaning).
Well, Batman's movies are considered superhero films, even though the titular character is in not a superhuman.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:44:10 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72747: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:43:51 AM

Not really, unless we know the power output of those lasers. Which we don't (the scene from Iron Man 2 that I know you'll bring up isn't applicable, since that was an entirely different weapon system based on one-shot packets).
Tony uses everything as his disposable, including the lasers from Iron Man 2. We even see him disgarding the packets after trying them on the Leviathan and they don't work. So sorry, your argument is wrong.

No it's not, because it's still an organic creature made mostly of water as proven by the fact that when Tony blows it up, guts go flying everywhere rather than metal. The density of its body therefore cannot be particularly high.
It being organic means nothing when it's an alien creature. You are assuming loads of things without any evidence.

But it's very clear that you won't accept anything where you are wrong, so you will continue posting about how you are right despite all evidence to the contrary. Again and again and again until the mods shut down this thread. Do you really want to do that?

The punch has been calculated anyway; even if the Leviathan is paradoxically several times as dense as a whale, it's still in the range of a semi-truck impact.
No, it's not. You are going off of flawed calculations.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:45:37 AM by alliterator

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.
#72748: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:46:53 AM

I suggest that you both put a stop to this, otherwise I think we will need to call the mods.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:47:02 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#72749: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:48:01 AM

I've trying changing the subject several times to Squirrel Girl.

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
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#72750: Jul 13th 2017 at 12:48:40 AM

Tony uses everything as his disposable, including the lasers from Iron Man 2. We even see him disgarding the packets after trying them on the Leviathan and they don't work.
The laser in Avengers can be fired continuously and uses the suit's main reactor. The lasers in Iron Man 2 ran out of juice after a couple seconds and were disposable. They're different weapon systems.
It being organic means nothing when it's an alien creature.
Yes it does. The fact that it's an organic creature that has blood and guts is indicative that the creature is mostly water, and thus, cannot be insanely dense. If, however, you have evidence that the creature operates on totally different biological rules than what has been established by real world science- and more importantly that the anti-grav tech was still active when we explicitly it shut down hence why they were crashing- please present it.
But it's very clear that you won't accept anything where you are wrong, so you will continue posting about how you are right despite all evidence to the contrary. Again and again and again until the mods shut down this thread. Do you really want to do that?
Nah, I just want you to either concede or at least make an attempt at using logical reasoning and evidence rather than fan fiction. I would remind you that you were the one who started an argument with your initial still unproven assertion that nothing could kill the Hulk... which this punch conversation was a tangent of, as it's still largely incidental to my counter-argument that the forces shown as capable of wounding the Hulk are far below what can be outputted by real world ordnance. As far as I know I'm still not in violation of any rules.

EDIT: I would also like to remind you that the Leviathan punch scene being quantifiable is what your argument depends on, not mine. If you're correct and there's no way to adequately measure this scene, then all this proves is that it is inadmissible as evidence as the Leviathan could weigh anything. In which case we're back to "thrown concrete block/swung piece of titanium/terminal velocity fall/helicopter shrapnel/40mm grenades/etc. KO'd/wounded the Hulk."

edited 13th Jul '17 12:53:43 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."

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