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.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I love Iron Man vs. Thanos. It's probably the best fight scene in the whole film, comparable to the final battle in Civil War. The sheer desperation on Tony's part, the Hope Spot of actually wounding Thanos, all combined with the creeping realization that it's a fight Tony can't win and that Thanos wants to win. Up until then it's just been a day at work for him, but with Tony It's Personal.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Doctor Strange vs Thanos is my favorite. It's a rather inventive wizard duel kind of battle, and I've been hungering for those since Doctor Strange showed up (since his movie doesn't feature those).
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I also saw Iron Man vs Thanos.
The amazing part is that as the fight drags on you notice Tony's suit despite healing being visibly worn down to the point when he summons the blade you realize he's only in his bodysuit at that point.
He just keeps on fighting even when all is hopeless and that's what makes Thanos' cradling of him so sweet. He genuinely admires Tony for everything he's done and gently lays him on the ground full of awe & respect for this measly little human who against all odds, made him bleed.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
While I love that fight, it ranks a bit lower than the rest in the movie because it's a Curb-Stomp Battle: there's no question that Tony will lose, while all other fights except the one against the Hulk there's a chance, however slim, that the heroes might win.
![]()
Ah, come on, the Time-Reversing Duel at the end of Doctor Strange is cool, too!
Edited by HailMuffins on Jan 17th 2019 at 9:55:22 AM
Some more Easter eggs for Far From Home.
Wow. Yeah, that seems pretty definitive that they really are the MCU versions of Sandman, Molten Man, and Hydro-Man. Guess they're more "elementals, as in their powers" and not "Elementals, as in the group". A lot of people caught the Hydro-Man Easter Egg, but the fact that there are easter eggs revealing all three of them, especially in what appears to be the same locations they're fought at, makes it really obvious what they mean.
I now really hope the theory that they're real and Mysterio is in cahoots with them to set himself up as a superhero turns out to be true, because I really want to see scenes with them acting like normal people. Hell, Sandman could end up being the suprise emotional core of the film, like he was in Spider-Man 3, except with the rest of the film around him actually being good this time.
See, as if Homecoming having 2-3 supervillains didn't already prove that number of villains isn't important, Far From Home looks like it has 4 supervillains, all of which are most likely part of the same story and will not overcomplicate the plot. Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man 2 (and I say this as someone who actually likes Amazing Spider-Man 2) can suck it.
Like Supergiant could be used as a Secondary Antagonist or basically the Heavy since Thanos will most likely play a passive role for the most of the film.
I really hope Supergiant makes an appearance in the MCU. Currently, I'm guessing she's either a side-villain in Captain Marvel and Carol kills her, or she'll be Thanos's Dragon in Endgame. Or she just doesn't exist, but I want her to.
Just rewatched the final scene of IW of Thanos on his farm.
What really sells the scene is just the emotion on Thanos' face. Brolin, the art team, & the CG team really worked their asses off just getting his face utterly perfect.
You can feel the pain, the emotion in his emotes, those small facial movements, telling you exactly what he is thinking about, creating an odd beautiful sense of satisfaction to it in spite of the fact he's the villain who just wiped half the known universe.
Everything about movie technology has been working for this very moment. This beauteous final seconds of a sad purple/pink man with a nutsack chin looking out into the sunset on an alien world. And they fucking nailed it.
Edited by slimcoder on Jan 17th 2019 at 5:03:49 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."This goes up there in the list of top sentences nobody could have imagined would be said only a few years ago.
Obviously, it's subjective, but this is part of why I love it even more. The hopelessness of the fight adds an indescribable emotional weight to it, especially coupled with the meta-knowledge that a lot of fans anticipated that Tony could have been killed off in Infinity War. I mean, could there be any more heroic of a finale for him?
I've watched several reactions to that scene and people genuinely believed that Thanos was going to kill Tony. Indeed, he would have had Strange not intervened.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 17th 2019 at 8:42:08 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"When I watched Infinity War in theaters, there was a extremely audible collective gasp from the audience as Thanos ran Tony through with a spear. And in the following moments you could also hear the audience muttering things to the effect of "please, no."
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I didn't say the fight was bad, just that it isn't perfect.
For a fight scene to be perfect, for me, it needs to tick three boxes: it needs to be dynamic, it can't just be both fighters just repeating the same motions on the same environment ad nauseum; it needs to have some dramatic stakes behind it; and it needs to have a sense of fairness, that it could go both ways, even though, objectively speaking, it's generally pretty easy for a viewer with a modicum of savvyness to guess most of the time.
Thanos vs Tony doesn't check the third box, which is why I take points from it.
And, again, it doesn't make it a bad fight, just not as great as the final clash in, say, Civil War, The Raid, Sword of The Stranger or Creed.
Edited by HailMuffins on Jan 17th 2019 at 11:35:12 AM
![]()
I'm not saying your opinion is invalid, just that I look at it from a different angle. Fair fights are great and make for some excellent dramatic tension when you aren't sure who is going to win. Hopeless fights, on the other hand, have their own kind of dramatic tension. Nobody seriously believed that Iron Man could beat Thanos, but there was always the chance that he could pull off some sort of miracle.
When it becomes increasingly clear that he is really going to lose, the tension shifts to, "Will he survive, and how?" Remember that the film has been teasing all along that Anyone Can Die, and Strange said explicitly that he'd sacrifice both Tony and Peter to keep the Time Stone from Thanos. So the peak of dramatic tension isn't the fight itself, but that moment right before Strange intervenes to save Tony's life, when the audience is thinking, "Oh, my god, is he really going to do it? No!!!"
It's the culmination of ten years of us coming to know Iron Man, to love him or hate him, but regardless to view him as the emotional centerpiece of the Avengers. It works because we care about these characters and their stories. It's a masterfully executed scene.
No offense, but there is rarely any serious dramatic tension in shonen manga.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 17th 2019 at 9:55:37 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"A little late, but I actually did mean Titan.
Also, I'll add my two cents: Stark vs Thanos is great for the reasons stated.
I think Thanos could (as disgusting as Tony would find it) see himself in Stark; fighting so hard, so desperately for something he believed in. But in this case, he's losing. To Thanos, Stark is probably his past self when he tried so hard to save Titan.
He's still an awful person; make no mistake.
One Strip! One Strip!Thinking about it, all three Infinity War Big Bads are Not So Different from Tony Stark.
Loki's similar enough that Tony was able to figure out where he'd enact his evil plan (at Stark Tower).
Ultron more or less is Tony sans the humanity.
Thanos is, well,
.
Which is exactly why I don't think "Endgame" is going to kill Tony off. It's not his archetype.
Captain America is the selfless, noble icon. The Christ-like figure. His most iconic moments are instances of personal sacrifice, because he is the paragon of moral virtue. He's the guy who gives his life nobly and proudly to conclude a story, and the audience is satisfied for it because it feels like the appropriate conclusion to a life lived for others.
Iron Man is the rock star. He's Awesome McCoolGuy. You don't cheer for him to fall, you cheer for him to rise. His most iconic moments are instances where he's kicking ass and taking names, because that's what fans want from him: wild and crazy spectacle. Audiences want to see him come out the other side of a conflict in an explosion of triumph shaped like a penis.
Captain America's movies end with him getting beaten to shit and never giving up, because he believes in something greater than himself. Iron Man's movies end in him whipping out cool new toys to shoot explosions into people's faces. There's a reason for that; Tony isn't the Heroic Sacrifice character, and he shouldn't be. It's not his appeal.
Cap dies heroically. Iron Man dies tragically. And Endgame needs to end in a triumph, not another heart-breaking tragedy.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 17th 2019 at 8:10:23 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Heh. I want him to triumph in the end, but I also want his sins to come back to him and force him to develop as a character. We've been getting that, slowly but surely. The reason I don't want him to be killed off is because we'd lose the opportunity for him to finally become whole, emotionally. His arc isn't finished.
The moment when he does become whole is when he no longer needs to be an active part of the MCU and can let someone else take point. So I think (hope) that Endgame will provide a satisfying resolution to Tony Stark as a character, whether or not he's still alive at the end of it.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 17th 2019 at 10:11:17 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Tony's had survivor's guilt, alcoholism, PTSD, physical trauma, daddy issues, and quite a few other problems in his life. He's a mess, and it's amazing that he's come out of it all even slightly functional.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I honestly think they're both going out in a blaze of glory. I often sense that while Cap is indeed the Messiah-like figure of Heroic Sacrifice for whom a sacrifice would be more fitting, Tony's sacrifice works precisely because as a character his "charismatic rockstar" persona has always been used as a façade for his more tragic traits, both in the films internal narratives and in the audience perceptions. To have Tony dying (presumably heroically) would strike the audience more deeply exactly due the contrast.
You'll observe there's a similar reasoning in Peter dying. He's a fun, charismatic young lad whose main audience reaction is to make them laugh and give warm fuzzy feelings but underneath he's always had (obviously) a more tragic side as a young man trying to survive in a cruel world. So, naturally, the Russos gave him a horrifying death that struck the audiences like a hammer, going straight past the funny façade and hitting straight onto the drama.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I recently re-watched Thanos vs Hulk.
It was a pretty dope fight. I think he power-bombed Hulk.
I've been trying to rewatch Iron Man, Dr. Strange, & Spider-Man vs Ebony Maw & Cull Obsidian but I can't find a good video of it.
Edited by slimcoder on Jan 17th 2019 at 4:36:35 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."