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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

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78051: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:26:07 PM

I'm not going to start assuming the X-Men are going to be brainless entertainment based on nothing, and just in general I'd suggest you not either. I'd also reiterate that the X-Men aren't, currently, cash cows. Individual members, maybe. But the team isn't on the best ground right now.

If you're going to start accusing Marvel at being tone deaf and uninterested when it comes to characters surrounded by social issues, you should at least wait until Black Panther comes out. None of the characters used thus far are intrinsically tied to social issues, but T'Challa certainly is. And so far, his movie doesn't look like brainless entertainment either. It looks safe to an extent, certainly, but it also looks like Marvel is aware of the things they're going to have to tackle to portray him effectively.

Lesser known events that would make SHIELD and the Avengers look like utter tools for ignoring their existence.

Why? We've already had it established multiple times over the series that neither SHIELD nor the Avengers are capable of omniscience, and nearly every threat they've faced has happened either under their nose or simply going on in parts of the world they weren't looking at.

Or Hydra, for that matter, which would probably have tried to use mutants if it had known of their existence.

That, for one, depends on how far back it goes. Besides, you could say the same thing about AIM, which was as far as we know completely unrelated to HYDRA and probably threw a wrench in their plans.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:31:49 PM by KnownUnknown

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#78052: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:32:31 PM

Iron Man wasn't a cash cow when this franchise started either. I believe Marvel's capable of turning the X-Men around, but there are all kinds of reasons I don't really want mutants to just suddenly show up. I don't want them to have been a secret for years. That's a very different setup from being openly despised and hunted.

Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#78053: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:32:31 PM

Ignoring multiple events of people acquiring powers all over the world is very, very far removed from omniscience. You'd expect any intelligence agency in the world to know about that, especially if it starts appearing at random in every country in the world.

Hydra would have successfully managed to infiltrate SHIELD for fifty years while remaining hidden, but would somehow have missed the emergence of empowered people they could super easily use for their own agenda?

And a telepath of Xavier's power would have to have remained idle while a number of world-threatening events occurred, despite all the ways he could have helped/influenced situations. That would make him kind of a jerk of Eric's proportions if he only ever decided to act when mutants were in danger, but preferred to do nothing otherwise.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#78054: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:33:02 PM

Is there any indications that SHIELD or Hydra knew about the Sorcerer Supreme and her organization?

And one thing I'd definitely do with Xavier is tone down his telepathy so it's not such a Story-Breaker Power, which would make not getting involved in various superheroic events understandable. Even within X-Men stories, he's not the type to get directly involved in fighting the villain, preferring to coach and support others who do so.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:35:59 PM by RavenWilder

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78055: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:34:15 PM

NVM

edited 17th Dec '17 5:36:11 PM by KnownUnknown

Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#78056: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:34:17 PM

No, but wasn't something of a "Magic Dimension" introduced for the occasion?

Plus, I shouldn't have to point that out, but magic.

[up] If they call them "Gifted" that's somehow even worse. An organization employing people such as Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons would ignore that there is a genetic disorder causing a large number of "Gifted" people to develop powers?

edited 17th Dec '17 5:35:52 PM by Julep

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#78057: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:34:54 PM

[up][up]No, but like the Inhumans, the mages of the world were trying to hide, with immense resources and the necessary organization to pull that off. [up][nja]

edited 17th Dec '17 5:35:10 PM by Unsung

ManOfSin Since: Mar, 2015
#78058: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:34:59 PM

[up][up]

Well they don’t number in the millions and get their powers randomly.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:35:29 PM by ManOfSin

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78059: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:35:41 PM

[nja]'d page bottomer, so I'll repost:

Ignoring multiple events of people acquiring powers all over the world is very, very far removed from omniscience.

Wait, I thought the thing you we were talking about was the secret experimentation and such. This is something completely different.

Why assume that they would completely ignore the "people are getting superpowers" situation in its entirety? It's not like the characters in the MCU are unaware that "gifted" people exist.

Also:

Hydra would have successfully managed to infiltrate SHIELD for fifty years while remaining hidden, but would somehow have missed the emergence of empowered people they could super easily use for their own agenda?

Why, also, are we assuming that this has been happening for the entire time HYDRA had been secretly controlling SHIELD? Isn't the suggestion that the situation starts developing in the present, or just before the present?

No, but wasn't something of a "Magic Dimension" introduced for the occasion?

The mages were a large organization secretly controlling a huge source of power in the world, and have been for centuries. It's... what... the third or fourth time the MCU has pulled that kind of twist, but it's still noticeable. HYDRA was completely unaware that they existed, despite them having a great deal of power and influence.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:38:55 PM by KnownUnknown

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#78060: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:38:56 PM

Magneto is a character who's going to need to be reimagined eventually. A lot of the weight and intrigue surrounding his character comes from his status as a Holocaust survivor. It creates a measure of perspective surrounding him, lending him a layer of pathos that colors the plight of mutantkind.

But that becomes more and more unworkable with each passing year, because that's how time works. We're already at a point where the character has to be in his eighties or nineties. He's in dire need of a modern reinvention.

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Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#78061: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:40:22 PM

[up][up]But those sources were secret. The whole point of mutants is that they are everywhere, and that most of them live in perfectly normal communities in the midst of normal humans. They have neither the will nor the means to create elaborate subterfuges to camouflage their existence on a global scale. The X-Men exist because of the abuse mutants suffer, to fight for their rights without resorting to the extremes of the Brotherhood.

If you remove that, they aren't mutants. They are like SW & Quicksilver in the current MCU, just "Gifted" people with powers.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:41:31 PM by Julep

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#78062: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:41:26 PM

[up][up]

Make him a survivor of the Bosnian genocide perhaps? Though that'd cause some unfortunate implications.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78063: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:41:59 PM

Modern history is, sadly, still full of genocides that Magneto could have grown up in.

Another sad thing is that people would probably riot if they race lifted him, and completely fail to see the irony.

[up][up] Why would they remove it? The suggestion is that they develop that situation gradually and build it up before doing the X-Men as a full ensemble after that development (much like how the handled the Avengers themselves), not that they not do it at all.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:45:14 PM by KnownUnknown

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#78064: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:43:32 PM

While the MCU timeline has been a little wonky since Spider-Man: Homecoming came out, Hydra and SHIELD were more-or-less destroyed/disbanded in what? 2014?

2020 is the absolute earliest Marvel could release an X-Men movie; that's six years after the fall of SHIELD/Hydra. If you go with the premise that mutants have only recently begun to appear in large numbers, those organizations might never have had a chance to learn very much about mutants before their collapse.

Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#78065: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:46:03 PM

If it has been going on for decades, then it doesn't work, because it means it has been totally ignored by the MCU so far. To have "Weapon X" programs to exist without any prominent intelligence service knowing about it would be ridiculous - they'd have to casually abduct civilians even on U.S. or Canadian soil without anyone giving a crap about it to function, which is already pretty hard to swallow.

If it starts right now, then we won't see X-Men before, what, ten years, until the situation has deteriorated enough that their presence is justified? I like many X-Men characters, but I don't think they work on their own, at least for most of them. And even if there is indeed a chronological issue with Magneto, losing his rivalry with Xavier would 100% be detrimental - and it's hard to justify a six year old rivalry between people who would be in their twenties (and if Magneto is older than that, he would have been heard about earlier).

On a meta scale, the way the Movies!MCU would suddenly care about social issues would sound about as artificial as the sudden apparition of mutants in its midst.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:52:21 PM by Julep

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#78066: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:49:36 PM

I dunno, if you hear about people being kidnapped by a shadowy organization, who's honestly going to expect Canada is behind it all?

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#78067: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:50:55 PM

Rwanda, Bosnia, Guatemala, Cambodia... An updated Magneto could even still be German depending on how you want to play it, the Berlin Wall only fell 28 years ago. And plenty of western countries have shit human rights records even if they fell short of genocide.

I'd much rather they introduce the multiverse and do their own Crisis On Infinite Earths by way of Secret Wars to tie the series together than try and pretend like mutants have always been around and we just, y'know, didn't notice before.

[up]It's a big, cold, mostly empty country, easy to disappear in. Canada doesn't have to be the puppetmaster to be involved, and we've done our share of shitty things (mostly to First Nations people), like it or not.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:56:36 PM by Unsung

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.
#78068: Dec 17th 2017 at 5:54:35 PM

I think the best way to introduce the X-Men into the current MCU is to have a interdimensional crossover event between the Avengers and the X-Men from separate universes.

I am all for a hard reboot way down the line, like in 2050, where the whole MCU is rebooted and the X-Men are an established part of the lore right off the bat.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#78069: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:01:43 PM

[up][up] That's kind of my point: in America, at least, Canada is associated with being incredibly friendly and polite and not at all threatening unless there's a hockey match going on. So it might be a good gag if some characters missed Canada's supervillainous black ops project because they just didn't expect that sort of thing from Canadians.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78070: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:01:55 PM

I like many X-Men characters, but I don't think they work on their own, at least for most of them.

So don't do them on their own. Work them into other stories - Rogue and Mystique, for example, would work in Captain Marvel's series. Or Storm being in Black Panther (ugh). Make smaller scale but not individual movies to develop them: Wolverine and a Weapon X movie, if they can avoid the Origins comparisons. Keep making that Gambit movie, adding a few characters who work well with him at the same time. Etc.

Another idea I hadn't thought of: Avengers Initiative or even Academy, with characters who are both mutants and not, a series which is itself already dedicated to exploring the universe from new perspectives.

edited 17th Dec '17 6:03:45 PM by KnownUnknown

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#78071: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:04:20 PM

In X-Men: Evolution, Magneto was revealed to have been using some genetic engineering to main his body. They could go down that route to explain him still being alive.

Xavier is a little harder though.

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Mizerous Pet Owner from Hell Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: Brewing the love potion
Pet Owner
#78072: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:11:08 PM

I'm sorry, but Marvel is not patient enough to wait till 2050 to put mutants in the MCU.

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Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#78073: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:12:19 PM

Doesn't seem like you read the rest of that post.

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.
#78074: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:14:42 PM

I didn't say that. I said that they should do crossovers between the MCU and the X-Men universe for now because completely redoing the X-Men to sloppily retcon them into the MCU would be a bad move.

Mizerous Pet Owner from Hell Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: Brewing the love potion
Pet Owner
#78075: Dec 17th 2017 at 6:14:43 PM

I did, but this deal was made at a high price. If Disney were patient they could have waited another ten years for this deal, but they didn't. [up] Like the current mutants being thrown in wouldn't be a bad move?

edited 17th Dec '17 6:17:31 PM by Mizerous

Just Makima.

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