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

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#74376: Sep 8th 2017 at 1:42:23 AM

Given Daredevil's senses are sometimes shown as being too sensitive, to the point where the sense overload can be debilitating, he might want to make his costume block sensory input so that it's not bothering him as much.

Still, though, I preferred his Season 1 Dread Pirate Roberts look, myself.

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.
#74377: Sep 8th 2017 at 1:49:25 AM

I really like Daredevil's actual costume, but it could use a sleeker redesign. Maybe in Season 3.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#74378: Sep 8th 2017 at 5:10:30 AM

I love that "The Revengers," despite sounding stupid, is an actual team from the comics.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#74379: Sep 8th 2017 at 5:28:47 AM

Diamondback's costume does look dumb in live action, but I happen to like that they even tried going with his comics look.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#74380: Sep 8th 2017 at 6:28:17 AM

The mass produced Judas bullets not working right seems to support my think that it was just a way to con some money out of the cops rather than a real attempt to kill Luke.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74381: Sep 8th 2017 at 7:26:28 AM

It might just be a consequence of being cheaply made. That was the point of them, after all. Like I noted in my blurb, a Judas Bullet logically has to be a complex piece of machinery. Shrinking it down makes the parts more brittle, increasing the likelihood that its inner workings will fail when it slams into an object at 1,700 mph.

Meanwhile, trying to squeeze 100 bullets out the material for one means each Judas 2.0 bullet barely has a trace of the Chitauri metal that's so crucial to even making this work in the first place.

edited 8th Sep '17 7:27:06 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#74382: Sep 8th 2017 at 7:42:18 AM

Some rumors about Hawkeye in Avengers 4. It's being claimed that he uses his Ronin identity in the film.

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#74383: Sep 8th 2017 at 7:50:50 AM

[up] Not quite sure about it...but given that Tokyo is apparently a location for the film, this may make some sense.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#74384: Sep 8th 2017 at 10:51:57 AM

Right up until Diamondback showed up in his f*cking Robocop cosplay. I'm sorry, I cannot take that thing seriously. He looks like he's about to start flashing people in Japan.

My brother and I were laughing for a good 2 minutes or so because we couldn't believe how ridiculous it looked. Suffice to say it's one reason among many why it's hard for me to take him seriously.

RAlexa21th Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer from California (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I <3 love!
Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#74386: Sep 8th 2017 at 10:55:15 AM

One of the problems that I have with Diamondback's cartoonish nature is that it makes it rather hard to buy that this guy could have stayed in the shadows for so long and built a massive criminal enterprise with no one noticing.

He's seem too psychotic/unstable for that. Now Cottonmouth, Mariah, heck even Shades, yeah I could buy them doing it. But not him.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#74387: Sep 8th 2017 at 10:58:08 AM

[up] That is the central problem of his character.

He's far to unstable and theatrical for this role of "shadowy mastermind". He flies off the handle at the tiniest of things and is overall rather Ax-Crazy to a point it's hard to guess how he built such a vast criminal empire.

Like, Tobias has gone at length about Fisk, but Fisk is the very picture of self-restraint compared to Diamondback.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#74388: Sep 8th 2017 at 10:58:13 AM

Contary to what some have been saying I also don't think his personal connection to Luke was a bad idea. The whole illegimate child of a black preacher/cain and abel biblical thing going on fits in pretty well with the themes of the show IMO. It's everything else about Diamondback (his overly cartoonish demeanor, the fact that he gets out of situations that he shouldn't, etc) that falls flat for me.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74389: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:05:43 AM

Does he have a vast criminal empire? He's staffed by like three guys and he acquired two of them while in Harlem. When Shades and Cornell were talking about him, he seemed like this great higher-level crimelord under whose purview Cornell operated, but since Diamondback's arrival, all of that build-up went flying out the window.

Since his arrival, he carries himself as a solo operator, just sorta getting by with whatever mooks happen to come to him on-the-spot and making everything up as he goes along. He's more hitman than crime boss. The only thing that really indicates any kind of supply network is that he's in possession of Judas Bullets, and even he seems to be struggling to keep a stock of them.

When Shades was showing them off to Cornell as what Diamondback could do for him, the implication was that Diamondback's the supplier, the man in control, the guy with all the deadly super-bullets that Cornell can go beg for. But then Diamondback shows up and he's got, like, four because it's just as hard for him to get his hands on them as it as for Cornell.

In short, Diamondback's not bad, but he's not what we were promised. We were promised a mob boss. We got an unfunded, understaffed, and wildly erratic wild-card mercenary instead.

As archetypes go, Diamondback is the kind of character who should be working for Cornell, not sending his one and only employee to make threats about how he and his complete lack of resources are totally going to move in on his turf.

edited 8th Sep '17 11:08:57 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#74390: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:15:24 AM

The problem that I have with the "personal connection" thing, aside from it being rushed, underdeveloped, and shoe-horned in to try and give him a "connection" to Luke, is that once again it goes against the themes of the show. It isn't about Luke personally, and not about his past (aside from maybe his relationship with his dead wife). It's about Luke wanting to protect Harlem. And Cottonmouth/Mariah/Shades fit better as villains because they are more tangible threats to Harlem.

Making it suddenly about Luke's childhood or whatever was just, lame imo.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74391: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:18:37 AM

Should've saved him for the second season. Diamondback is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's misunderstood, really.

There was something on the previous page that I wanted to address, because it's important: the proper term is totally drama queen, regardless of gender.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74392: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:25:47 AM

[up][up] I agree with this.

It's why I keep saying that Diamondback would be a better villain if he kept to what was promised. A bigger, badder crime boss to whom Cornell owed some measure of fealty. The early episodes imply this through the character of Shades, who shows up as an outreach from Diamondback.

That Shades is even here at all freaks Cornell out. It very firmly establishes the hierarchy that Cottonmouth may be a big fish in a little pond, but the bigger pond belongs to Diamondback. Cornell even assumes initially that Shades is here to replace him. It's very strongly indicated that Cornell is both loyal to and fearful of Diamondback.

Diamondback's the Bigger Bad throughout the first half of the series, lurking in the background. It's a great point of intrigue; as Luke's rivalry with Cornell gets more and more personal, he becomes more and more invested in the idea that taking down Cornell specifically will save Harlem, never realizing that even Cornell is just a cog in a larger machine.

This is the Diamondback we should have gotten. I love his personality, personally. I would love to see Diamondback standing on a pulpit, reading Bible verses to a mob of dozens of henchmen, nobody really caring but everyone just sorta following along because nobody interrupts Diamondback when he's sermonizing.

He's got the personality we could reasonably expect for Bigger, Crazier, Deadlier Cottonmouth to be. But he doesn't have the archetype. He doesn't have the resources. He doesn't fulfill the role he was built up to have. And there's that stupid personal connection making it all about Luke instead of Harlem.

That hurts the show. And it hurts the themes, because it means Misty was right all along. Luke Cage is a threat to Harlem. This violence is happening to Harlem just because Luke's in it. These people are dying for a petty squabble between two brothers who couldn't be arsed to take it somewhere else. And that's just awful writing.

Diamondback could be an amazing Kingpin if they'd just bothered to write him as one.

edited 8th Sep '17 11:28:21 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#74393: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:28:44 AM

[up][up][up]] I agree.

What made the Cottonmouth vs Luke rivalry interesting was the battle for Harlem's soul. This is best seen in Pop's funeral, when both Cottonmouth and Luke give heartfelt speeches about what they believe about Harlem, clarifying how they're both essentially dueling for the soul of Harlem.

I've long stood by my statement Diamondback would have been a far more fitting character as The Dragon to Cottonmouth.

edited 8th Sep '17 11:46:54 AM 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
#74394: Sep 8th 2017 at 11:41:27 AM

That was definitely the more interesting conflict for me. And I was instantly invested in Mariah stepping in for Cornell in a way I never was with Diamondback. The battle for Harlem between Luke and Stokes, then Luke and Mariah— but also the battle between Mariah and herself, with Shades giving voice to the ghost of Mama Mabel.

edited 8th Sep '17 12:20:16 PM by Unsung

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#74395: Sep 8th 2017 at 12:17:47 PM

The main problem is that the backstory is terrible set up. They drop the whole "I am your brother" thing like it is supposed to be a bomb shell, but we don't even know who this guy is at this point. We only learn later how Luke knows him and then we spend half an episode to watch Luke figuring out what everyone with two brain cells has realized at this point, that he is Luke's half-brother. The whole thing feels tacked on and largely like filler. Everything fits so well into the themes of the show, only Diamondback seems to be mostly there so that Luke has some sort of powerful guy to punch (and no, I am not looking forward to see him back again with real superpowers).

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#74396: Sep 8th 2017 at 12:53:17 PM

I mean the whole "sins of the father" and "preaching one thing while doing another" hypocrisy idea isn't an inherently bad one. You can make that an interesting conflict. It just didn't fit here, that's not what the season was about until they try to just shove it in there near the end.

You want to do that sort of angle, alright. But save it for later where it fits better.

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#74397: Sep 8th 2017 at 2:55:41 PM

You know, why do supervillains need to have a personal connection to the hero anyway?

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#74398: Sep 8th 2017 at 2:57:01 PM

Drama,

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#74399: Sep 8th 2017 at 2:58:50 PM

They don't, but some people are just more interested when there is one. It doesn't have to family ties or the like either.

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#74400: Sep 8th 2017 at 3:08:18 PM

Yeah it could be as simple as an ideological/philosophical divide. For example, Batman/Joker or Captain America/Red Skull work as archenemies because they're two sides of the same coin, and the polar opposites of each other ideologically.

On the Netflix stuff, Daredevil and Kingpin work because they're far more similar than Matt would like to admit, and there's an interest compare and contrast to be had between them.


Total posts: 186,763
Top