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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.

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    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

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#81276: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:30:59 PM

Honestly considering all the focus Prof. X & Magneto have gotten to the point of becoming a crutch for the movies like Mystique has become it might be a good idea to heavily restrict them.

Have Magneto only be active in the past but now in the modern day he's either effectively retired or simply taken a non-action role in the Brotherhood.

Unless you do a story-line where he regains his youth.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Eagal Since: Apr, 2012
#81277: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:32:00 PM

wild mass guessThanos breaks time. Strange does his best to repair it and put everything back in its place, but oops, he missed this violent mutant revolutionary from 30 some odd years after WW 2.

edited 27th Feb '18 3:32:07 PM by Eagal

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#81278: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:35:52 PM

I suggested before a way to have Magneto be a Holocaust survivor without being 90 years old. HYDRA has cryofreeze technology, it's how they kept Bucky around for the past several decades.

Maybe some camp officer noticed "Oh, shit, this guy is the master of magnet" and HYDRA, ever looking for supersoldier technology, put him on ice to preserve him until they had the technology to replicate his powers/genes/ect.

edited 27th Feb '18 3:36:12 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#81279: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:47:33 PM

Question: Does he have to be a Holocaust survivor? I mean, it is not like humans just stopped driving away or outright killing other people for stupid reasons. There are a number of "cleansing campaigns" one could pick from. None as terrible as the Holocaust, but I think that a reminder that this sh... is still going on might send a cleared message. His grandfather could be a holocaust survivor instead.

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#81280: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:50:19 PM

Personally I just...don't want Magneto to be a villain again if they do a new X-Men series? I like Magneto more when he's doing more heroic or noble stuff than when he's an out and out villain.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#81281: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:54:06 PM

[up] Personally I would like a break from the X-men. But if they do them, I guess Magneto is kind of needed eventually. But I would prefer him to be more of a background character, at least for a while.

Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#81282: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:54:07 PM

I would also prefer a Magneto who is somewhere on the antihero/antivillain line.

The timeline is an issue, given the merger with Marvel. But Magneto's age is not really an issue; just say that mutants in general age a lot slower than humans. It's another reason humanity would resent them.

Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#81283: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:57:44 PM

You could have Magneto be the victim of some other attempted genocide that's happened since the Holocaust.

Gosh... isn't that a depressing statement.

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#81284: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:00:14 PM

At one point I'd suggested making him a victim of the Bosnian genocide but then you'd have the issue of him being Muslim and, well, there'd be some unfortunate implications in that...

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#81285: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:01:40 PM

Yeahhhhh. Given the rise/return of rabid anti semitism in the USA and Europe, I’d prefer a heroic/antivillain Magneto who confronts bigotry against Jewish people and against mutants.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#81286: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:08:58 PM

I like the idea that slower ageing is a secondary power common to all or most mutants or else a secondary power somehow associated with his magnetism (maybe some technobabble related to iron in human bone). And I think you could introduce an element of Magneto not only having his family killed in the Holocaust but then losing lots of loved ones since then, in addition to witnessing subsequent atrocities. And then have him become an anti-hero/ anti-villain when mutants "go public" and attempts are made at persecuting them.

But yeah, as a Jew and in light of the upswing in anti-semitism, I'm not only a bit uncomfortable with the more villainous takes on Magneto as a Holocaust survivor, but I'm also not really cool with making him something other than Jewish.

Despite the fact that there have been a lot of other attempted and successful genocides since the Holocaust (and before, i.e. the Armenian Genocide), which is something Magneto can/should care about, I dislike the implication that it's perfectly okay to erase Jewish representation, presumably because there's a belief that there's too much representation, even though the opposite is true. I mean there is literally a trope someone created that's all about how any Jewish representation is too much Jewish representation.

Edit- Which is also why I'd like to see Kitty Pryde in the MCU/ Marvel films where her Jewish identity was explicit. Also kind of like to see Songbird played by maybe Alison Brie, which would be particularly appropriate in light of the fact she plays a professional wrestler in a Netflix series (although yeah, that's something that needs to be changed in adaptation).

edited 27th Feb '18 4:13:13 PM by Hodor2

Julep Since: Jul, 2010
#81287: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:15:16 PM

Right now Magneto would feel like Killmonger 2.0, too. Their motivations are quite easy to compare to each other - exaggerated reaction to a social stigma, behaving like your oppressors, starting off as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, etc etc.

Changing his origins would just feel super perilous. He is a truly emblematic character, and it's not like Jewish heroes are overwhelmingly common at the moment, so while it might introduce some diversity, it would happen by removing one of the few examples of someone that actually qualifies as bringing diversity (especially if you go with the half-romani origin). And if you make him Rwandan, or Bosnian, or Copt Christian...then in all likelihood, he would be the sole representation of those ethnicities, and he would be a villain, which might not be so awesome either. At least, if he is Jewish, you have Kitty Pryde as an easy way to balance things out if you have Erik doing some heinous things.

In any event, didn't Hydra find some youth elixir in the MCU already? Magneto stealing it would be absolutely in character considering it's Hydra we are talking about. Then you could go with his regular origin, and just have him be older than he looks - he could have met hypothetical Xavier later on, as Xav's origin is not tied to historical events as much as Magneto's.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#81288: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:16:24 PM

[up][up] Eh, the suggestion was that his Grandfather is a Holocaust survivor, not to erase his Jewish heritage.

Ie lets assume he somehow ended up in the Balkans after the war, because after barely surviving the camp he fell victim to the Polish pogrom. And yet he manages to rebuilt his live, has a family and then the Kosovo war happens and between all the different people driven from their homes and put into camps was also his son/daughter, Magneto's parents.

edited 27th Feb '18 4:16:42 PM by Swanpride

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.
#81289: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:40:02 PM

Isn't comics Magneto kept young by some kind of youth serum? Just do that. Simple.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#81290: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:42:00 PM

Since the super soldier serum is basically out, unless SHIELD/someone took a sample of Steve's blood at some point for nefarious purposes (which they probably totally did), I think that going forward, the heart-shaped herb from Wakanda can be used to explain nearly everything.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#81291: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:51:22 PM

I second no villainous Magneto. Not because I dislike him being a villain, but because I got sick of seeing the X-Men films resort to using him as their Big Bad.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#81292: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:52:33 PM

The only plot device like that that's already introduced is the Super Soldier Serum, which would be an interesting spin on Magneto: as a survivor who tried to literally fight against genocide in his youth, but was given a failed experiment that drove him underground.

It'd be a weird thing to balance, admittedly. If he's a mutant and a supersoldier, only the former is really important to the rest of the X-Men, but the latter still kind of demands its own continuation.

edited 27th Feb '18 4:54:19 PM by KnownUnknown

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#81293: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:02:08 PM

Given that we already have Cap and Bucky, I feel like it might start to feel samey to introduce Magneto as another WWII-era character who happens to pop up in the modern day due to applied super-science.

I like the idea of updating his origin to a more recent genocide.

edited 27th Feb '18 5:02:38 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#81294: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:03:31 PM

Zola testing his attempt at recreating the serum on Jewish prisoners would be a little repetitive, but 100% credible/logical.

Most/all others died, but Magneto’s mutant genes helped him survive?

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#81295: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:04:49 PM

Magneto without the WWII origin just feels, wrong, to me.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#81296: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:07:19 PM

@Wisewillow- Yeah. That seems quite (sadly) believable. I also remembered a suggestion I made in a previous discussion that as a World War II soldier, Wolverine gave a blood transfusion to Erik as a child, with the result that he gained some of the healing factor abilities.

But probably easiest to have slowed ageing a secondary mutant power, because I don't know if the emotional pathos makes up for a character being "broken" by getting empowered in two completely different ways.

@Tobias- I can kind of understand that, but I really don't like the erasure of his or any character's Judaism. Also, I'd distinguish between Cap and Bucky as empowered people from World War II who are alive today because of being human popsicles and someone who is alive because of delayed ageing.

edited 27th Feb '18 5:13:00 PM by Hodor2

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#81297: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:14:17 PM

I think I prefer delayed ageing as a secondary power, since it reduces coincidence pile-up, and it’s more self-contained.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#81298: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:16:44 PM

I'm not sure how much it matters, given that Magneto erases his own Judaism. One of the most problematic aspects of the character is that he doesn't identify as Jewish. He sees himself as strictly a mutant, foregoing any label that might connect him to human culture. Which is a super-problematic element of the character and the reason why some don't like him being a Holocaust survivor in the first place.

Magneto's like, "I've seen how terrible humanity is because of the Holocaust, but also f*ck the Jews because they're humans too." He's pretty terrible representation.

edited 27th Feb '18 5:17:25 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#81299: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:21:34 PM

I mean, in the past, hasn’t he almost exclusively been written by non-Jewish writers? And look at what the MCU did with M’Baku.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#81300: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:22:46 PM

They could easily write him as being more respectful of his human heritage.

Not a hard thing to fix.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

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