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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

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.
#74001: Aug 25th 2017 at 3:45:18 PM

I don't believe you. I remember hearing that song years ago. Am I living in some kind of alternate reality where some of the songs I remember from my childhood are being made nowadays instead of years ago? This has happened before, with One Call Away.

Hellbore Since: Dec, 2010
#74002: Aug 25th 2017 at 4:12:00 PM

I just checked on Wikipedia *shrug*

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#74003: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:00:36 PM

[up][up]

Mandela Effect, mate.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
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.
#74004: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:30:31 PM

My life is a lie. I can't trust my own memories.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74005: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:33:45 PM

Welcome to adulthood, mate. tongue

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#74006: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:34:03 PM

You may be a Skrull sleeper agent, and not know it.

Skrull test: 'He loves you.'

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#74007: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:35:59 PM

I just finished episode 5 of Defenders.

Man, I was not expecting (major spoilers) Stick to take out one of the Five Fingers this early. He's so awesome. I feel a little cheated that we won't get to see all five of them together at the same time, though.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
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.
#74008: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:38:23 PM

Apparently, there's a theory that the Large Hadron Collider is causing this phenomenon by sending particles that can carry information back in time into people's brains. Sounds like bullshit, and it probably is, but it's a neat idea for a plot point in a work of fiction and I call dibs.

edited 25th Aug '17 7:08:18 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74009: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:53:28 PM

So what happens if I send a bunch of information back in time to make myself a better person in the past, but then I'm such a great person that the idea of sending myself information never occurs to me and I don't do it?

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#74010: Aug 25th 2017 at 5:55:14 PM

You create a pime taradox.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74011: Aug 25th 2017 at 6:08:30 PM

Drake! You can't do that!

The future will be changed! You'll create a time paradox!!

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74012: Aug 25th 2017 at 8:15:54 PM

Luke Cage, Episode 3!

Oh, hey, Genghis Connie's has a slat of wood in their broken window. Shit like this is what I love so much about the Netflix shows. It's the gritty realism. Anyone who's familiar with my reaction posts of My Little Pony or Power Rangers knows that one of my favorite jokes is to take the events happening onscreen and slice a little bit of Reality Ensues into them. Those kinds of jokes are much harder to make about the Marvel Netflix shows because there's so much reality already present onscreen.

See? Just like that. Those guys in the car shot those other guys carrying the merchandise and the guys are shown writhing on the ground in pain. Instant Death Bullet averted.

I love the funerary confrontation with Cornell. Cornell suddenly appearing and offering to take care of the casket is the kind of scene that would usually just come off like the villain being a villainous dickbag and impeding on the hero's life to send some kind of message, but with Cornell, there's a sincerity to it. He cared about Pops too, and that's a quality that both strengthens his character and makes this tense meeting between him and Luke more poignant.

I feel like Luke's greatest nemesis right now is the reluctance to act. As an invulnerable man, there's not much that could actually stop him if he decided to take action right now. If Luke decided to walk right into Cornell's club and pop his head off, nobody could keep him from doing exactly that. There is no physical threat to him, at least not at this point in time. He has nothing to fear from Cornell. What he's afraid of is himself.

There's a bit of a Power and Responsibility vibe here, I think.

"Since I can't touch the king, I'm going to take his queen. His knights. His rooks. I'm knocking all of his pieces off the board." I'm not clear on why Luke can't touch the King. See above, re: invulnerable man. Chess Guy pointed out that robbing Cottonmouth is what caused all of this, but he doesn't know Luke's an invulnerable man. Plus, Luke's proposal doesn't actually address the criticism.

"I'm going to take his money." "That's just going to piss him off and make him shoot up the place some more." "You're right. I should piss him off harder while doing absolutely nothing to restrict his capacity for direct retaliation." Brilliance. This "dismantle his organization piece by bloody piece until I finally come face to face with the man himself" idea feels more suited to the Punisher systematically ripping apart a crime syndicate than an invulnerable man's quest for revenge.

"You know where I live. You want to work some things out? We can do it there. You can even bring handcuffs this time." Wow, Luke. Way to use a woman's sexuality as a line of attack against her profession. Man, I like Misty, I like Luke, but this Luke/Misty subplot has needed to die in a fire since it was first conceived in a creepy, quasi-stalkerish fashion and it's just been going further and further downhill from there.

So Luke hits the first stash house. There are three men with guns. Due to the rigors of mook chivalry, nobody fires a single shot. They all just sorta line up around Luke and wait for him to knock them down. This is an odd choice, given that Luke is bulletproof so the show would have nothing to lose from letting them shoot his invulnerable hide a few times in the fight.

So for Luke's second stash house hit, we have more people conspicuously not using their guns despite there being no Doylist reason for them not to and a temporary divergence with a random high girl to comment on how sexy the man she didn't see because she was in a side room staring at a wall was. This montage is kinda dumb.

Mariah's an interesting character. She seems legitimately interested in protecting her community but her hands are still in the same bloody pit as Cornell's. She wants to do better by her community, but I'm also concerned about her rhetoric when she talks about "keeping Harlem black" and "the real invaders". There's an agenda there and, well-meaning though it may be, it also feels dangerous.

"It's gonna work. You gotta make him think that he needs us. Then you give him the illusion of freedom." When he chastized Misty for not listening and she opened with an apology, I thought for sure she was going to be like, "I'm sorry, what were you mansplaining?" Seriously. This is not a super-clever tactic that White Cop just invented. This is, like, basic witness handling. Wanking off about it to Misty just makes this guy look even more like a douche.

"The Selltics? The Selltics." "The Selltics." "The Selltics." IT IS PRONOUNCED KELL-TICS, YOU ASSHOLES. "Celtic" is pronounced "Kell-tic".

"I thought you didn't have a boyfriend because you love the brothers, and not many brothers will get with a girl who carries a gun and can kick their ass." Wow. Mansplaining and whitesplaining. This guy's a delight.

I feel like they're trying really hard to make this guy unlikable so we won't feel bad when he's inevitably murdered. They did the same thing with…I'm going to botch this spelling up…Shameesh? They made him a crazy psycho who eats babies and vomits heroin so that when Cornell beat him to death, it'd be scary, but not too bad 'cause he was an Asshole Victim anyway.

It's a narrative trick I don't like very much, as I feel it cheapens the impact of a character's death. Part of what made Jessica Jones so powerful was how many of Kilgrave's victims were likable people. So far, the only likable person Cornell's side has successfully killed is Pops, and even Cornell was pissed off about that.

But who knows. I could be way off about this entire thing. It's just the vibe I'm getting off him, that he's meant to be just memorable enough that when he dies, we're like, "Aw, man, I know that guy. But he was a douchebag, so eh. F*ck him."

I know I compared Luke's plan to the character earlier, but this scene where Domingo confronts Cornell reminds me so much of the Punisher. Specifically, the 2004 Thomas Jane Punisher. This scene is starkly reminiscent of the confrontation between the Cubans and Travolta's Howard Saint.

In the film, the Saints provided a variety of criminal services including arms trafficking, money laundering, etc. They had a deal with the Cubans early in the film, but the deal went south, setting off the events of the film. In the scene this reminds me of, the Cubans come by the Saints' place of business to demand their money back. They wax poetic to be intimidating before Howard informs them that they aren't getting a refund because "There's no insurance in this business. You know that." Once they leave, Howard has a private moment with his right hand man to discuss the fact that there will probably be hostilities with the Cubans now.

This reminds me of it, but is also different in a lot of ways, both positive and negative. Domingo's not quite as threatening as the Cubans were. Cornell, on the other hand, comes off as much more dangerous than Saint. In the Punisher scene, Saint's practically coming apart at the seams over the damage Castle's doing to his operation. He's in the midst of a villainous breakdown. Cornell, on the other hand, is the picture of confidence and suave. When he says Domingo's declared war, you can tell he's not entirely sure he can handle that, but he's goddamned ready to try.

Why is Luke putting earbuds in if he's about to get in a fight? Not being able to hear is going to be a huge detriment to his ability to—

Oh. Ohhhh. Because an awful lot of guns are about to start going off in his immediate vicinity and those things are very, very loud. Point goes to the show.

Okay, I know the guys running down the hall in hoods are supposed to be thugs wearing hoodies but in the dark and with their huge hoods, they honestly looked like evil cultists. [lol] "Seize the unbeliever! Seize him with your sacred bullets! Wikithulhu commands it!"

I like that Luke grunts and grimaces when he gets shot. Have you ever been shot while wearing a flak vest? That shit still hurts. It's blunt force trauma. Just because it doesn't break the skin doesn't mean it doesn't still transfer force into the meat under it.

This is a really good establishing fight scene. We get to see Luke being invulnerable and showing off just how unstoppable he is, which is great for this point in the show. There's a variety of ways in which his invulnerability can be undermined as the conflict heats up, but before we get to that, it's nice to have a chance to just bask in it.

And bask, this scene does. I love Luke's Horror Slasher walk. No f*cks given. No urgency. He walks like Jason Voorhees; utterly aware of how invulnerable he is, stepping powerfully through the inevitable.

Luke didn't just take the one bag, did he? Surely he set the rest on fire or ripped them open and flung the money off rooftops or something. The point of this was to hit Cornell in his pursestrings. Walking away with a small fraction of Cornell's financial assets isn't much of a blow.

"I'm looking at millions of dollars in contraband." Okay, there we go. He gave it to the Feds. Not sure it works that way without evidence of some sort of crime attached to it, though. We know Cornell's a money launderer but you need more than just bags full of cash to prove that.

"All that gunfire and no bodies." What, really? Nobody got hit by a ricochet bullet? Given the amount of ammunition being spread around, that hardly seems right.

Okay, White Cop is going on a tirade about how the legal system sucks and doesn't put criminals away, and…are we sure this episode isn't supposed to be a Punisher episode? Because this rant really sounds like a "Why I'm cool with Castle murdering people" rant, not a "Why it's neat that Cage punched some dudes and then let us seize their assets for due process" rant.

"Unless this sidearm I'm wearing somehow turns into a magic hammer, this whole job is irrelevant." You might want to have a word with HR about that. Seriously, f*ck this idiot. "I'm a cop but I hate cops 'cause cops are stupid." Man, how your dumb ass passed the psych eval is beyond me. And, again, nothing in this situation actually justifies this kind of "SKY IS FALLING, SUPERHUMANS WILL END CIVILIZATION" talk.

And now Misty's talking about how "they" don't have the right to mete out justice without training and I don't even know if we're talking about Luke anymore. Is this about the Avengers? Because I wouldn't call a WWII veteran, two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and an experienced warrior god untrained. This conversation took a sharp left turn for the stupid somewhere.

"I think we should thank him." "For doing our job." "Exactly. I don't like paperwork." Which seized contraband are you two smoking? He punched some dudes and then left you to clean up! He is not the Punisher! There is still paperwork! And arrests! And seizures! This f*cking scene is making my brain slowly die inside.

Still better than DareDevil, though.

"I'll get Chico to give up the ghost. We have a rapport." Okay, dude, 'give up the ghost' means to die. You're a f*cking idiot and I'm not going to be sad when you're murdered.

So Chico's talking to White Cop in a dark, secluded place offering to come forward about Cottonmouth and the Death Flags over this scene could not be higher. Frankly, all I'm wondering right now is where the bullets are going to come from.

HOLY SHIT. Okay. I admit, the possibility of Chico doing the killing crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. Because it was ridiculous and would have been a cheap Shock Twist. Douchebag White Cop killing Chico? That was a legitimate shock.

And closing on an RPG. Jesus.

So, this episode was not one of the show's better ones, and that's kinda harsh to say given that I've only seen three so far. Got pretty damn good right at the end, though.

EDIT: Also, retroactive props for that "give up the ghost" line. It wasn't a stupid line. It was foreshadowing disguised as a stupid line.

edited 25th Aug '17 8:23:55 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74013: Aug 25th 2017 at 8:48:04 PM

I mean, you get that Scarfe (Misty's partner) is joking the whole time, right? He's comic relief, and he's playing devil's advocate. He doesn't entirely believe what he's saying, but there's a grain of truth to it. Plus (spoilers) like you said, he's being set up so we don't feel too bad when he dies, though we can still (maybe) understand why Misty cares about him. He was her partner, and he grows on you, after a while.

Most native Bostonians pronounce the team name "Seltics", too, I'm aware the preferred pronunciation is "Keltic", but that doesn't matter as far as the fans are concerned. It's tradition.

To wit: http://www.thecelticwiki.com/page/Celtic+-+Pronunciation

However, the truth, if it is to be had, seemed to be that both pronunciations are ostensibly correct, with Keltic having become the more accepted usage only in the last 30 years. Celtic, having been formed in the last century, naturally retained the Seltic pronunciation. This from the Medieval Scotland website, which a number of readers kindly pointed out:

"The reason the Boston Celtics and Glasgow Celtic and all those other sports teams founded around 1900 (give or take a couple decades) pronounce their names Seltic is not because they were founded by ignorant folk who didn't know any better, but because they spoke English and did know the proper pronunciation of the English word 'Celtic'.

edited 26th Aug '17 6:14:20 AM by Unsung

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74014: Aug 25th 2017 at 8:50:38 PM

I never got the impression from him that he was just talking out of his ass and didn't mean a word he was saying. His rant about how being cops in a post-Incident world is stupid actually makes more sense once it's revealed that he's on the take; he's not just bitching, he's explaining his motive for why he's a crooked cop.

Shit, he even gave Misty a Sarcastic Confession about murdering Chico.

edited 25th Aug '17 8:51:55 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74015: Aug 25th 2017 at 8:55:23 PM

Right, but you can see how he plays that off as if he's joking when he's talking to other cops. He's not, not entirely, but there is a sense in which he takes it all as one sick joke, and thus doesn't really matter.

There are corrupt cops out there. They do get past the psych eval. Even some of the ones who are honest are still assholes. It's an imperfect world.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74016: Aug 25th 2017 at 8:58:56 PM

Well, yeah. My psych eval crack wasn't about him being crooked, but about him being so anti-cop. A lot of people manage to become cops who shouldn't be one, but I'd like to think that anyone who's like, "Pfft, man, being cops is so stupid. This job is pointless. What kind of an idiot would be a cop?" isn't going to make it past HR.

Generally speaking, most jobs prefer not to have employees who openly shit-talk their company and position while on the clock.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74017: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:13:00 PM

If he had just signed up at the academy, sure. He's been on the force for decades, though, to look at him. Most older cops talk a little shit about the job. They feel like they've earned it, and they're kinda right.

About having earned it, that is. Not about cops not needing to exist, and I don't think Scarfe actually means that, but I can see how he'd think with actual superheroes around,an already thankless job just got even more thankless. You're doing everything you can to hold back the tide, then along comes Iron Man and makes it look effortless. Of course Iron Man can't be everywhere at once, but Scarfe's just airing grievances as much as anything. And then of course it turns out that he's doing a lot more than that, but still. Hell, even Lenny Briscoe talked some shit about being a cop, right? Crime is neverending. It can be hard to see what kind of difference you're making on the ground.

edited 26th Aug '17 6:21:59 AM by Unsung

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74018: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:20:19 PM

None of the actual superheroes in question actually fight crime though, so the idea that Iron Man in any way infringes on policework is still pretty ridiculous. The alien invasion in question isn't Scarfe's job in the first place. Aliens fall squarely in the realm of an external threat to American sovereignty. In the event of a foreign power moving soldiers in to occupy a major American city, the duty would fall on military to repel them, not police.

The United States is very clear about the segregation of military and police responsibilities. By fighting the Chitauri, the Avengers weren't taking jobs from cops; they were acting as the advance force of a military response.

He could be whining about DareDevil, I guess, but that's really just ordinary vigilantism. Nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing worth ranting about how cops have lost all purpose.

He specifically calls out Thor. THOR. Somehow an alien demigod who occasionally visits Earth is devaluing police officers?

His rant is dumb. I mean, it explains his motivation perfectly, but it's still dumb. Nothing the Avengers deal with is within his pay grade anyway. Like I said, this conversation would make sense if he was trying to claim that the Punisher was "Like, getting results, man!" In this context? He's just an idiot.

edited 25th Aug '17 9:22:22 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74019: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:23:34 PM

Sure, sure. He's there to be wrong so that Misty can be right, but I think the way he's wrong has a certain truth to it. He's not just a crooked cop because he's an asshole. He's an asshole and a crooked cop, but you can sort of see where it all started to go wrong for him.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#74020: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:28:05 PM

[up][up] Doesn't that depend on how long Spider-Man's been active in the MCU? I don't think we've actually gotten a hard number on that.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74021: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:29:59 PM

Not long enough to have much of a reputation. Quote from Homecoming: "You're the spider guy from You Tube!"

A handful of You Tube videos is the extent of Spider-Man's publicity right now.

edited 25th Aug '17 9:30:14 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#74022: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:30:22 PM

[up][up][up]Well, you don't really see where it went all wrong for him until a later episode...

edited 25th Aug '17 9:30:31 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74023: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:32:39 PM

Right, but I'm just saying that we see enough of the character that him murdering Chico does feel jarring. He's a flawed person, but still more of a human being than just Crooked Cop 2 from the casting call.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74024: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:35:32 PM

I'll agree with that. I thought for sure they were setting him up to be an Asshole Victim.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
ComicFan Since: Sep, 2016
#74025: Aug 25th 2017 at 9:58:06 PM

A funko toy reveals a spoiler regarding The Grandmaster[1]


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