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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

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#104251: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:37:36 PM

I could actually see an Elektra show with the same actress — she was a good actress, just burdened with mediocre material. And her character was never confirmed as deceased, either (and considering Matt survived, it's probable she did, too). Move her to a new location, say Las Vegas, and bam, she's set.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#104252: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:42:59 PM

I loved Elektra in the second season, but Defenders killed most of my interest in her, and Netflixverse in general, for that matter.

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#104253: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:48:56 PM

So I don't really read many comics, but how does the marvel universe reconcile openly celebrating heroes who have supernatural powers with the whole racial tension allegory that goes on in the X-Men.

It's why they always made more sense to me as seperate worlds than part of the same one.

I know the idea could be that that's the point. Racism is arbitrary. But isn't racism normally driven by features you can see? Blacks look different to whites and so on. There's not really much of a visual distinction between a superhero the public loves, and a mutant.

Kaze ni Nare!
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#104254: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:53:54 PM

So I don't really read many comics, but how does the marvel universe reconcile openly celebrating heroes who have supernatural powers with the whole racial tension allegory that goes on in the X-Men.
They general handwave it away as "These heroes got their powers by accident, which is fine, but anyone could be a mutant and we wouldn't know it."

I mean, it's pretty much the same reason why racism happens, even though it's silly and arbitrary. Why hate black people and not Italians?

TargetmasterJoe from Velocitron Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: I like big bots and I can not lie
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#104256: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:55:49 PM

I recall Ultimate Spider-Man played with that once by having Miles Morales’s dad complaining about mutants after seeing the Human Torch fly by, while Miles tries unsuccessfully to point out the Human Torch isn’t a mutant.

Or one could interpret the disparity as similar as similar to racists who’d watch Samuel L. Jackson in anything but still call 911 about black neighbors in the park.

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#104257: Jun 25th 2019 at 12:58:47 PM

Actually, I know this sounds bad, but I honestly never thought the Sentinels HAD to be a bad idea. Like, programming them for genocide is real bad, but having super cops who are capable of countering a mutant's specific powers never sounded that bad to me. Unless there's something else about the sentinels I'm forgetting.

Batman has countermeasures for every super he knows. Nick Fury does too.

Kaze ni Nare!
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#104258: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:04:04 PM

Yeah but they're only targeting mutants which is bad thing because poor defenceless mutants

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#104259: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:05:11 PM

I'm actually wondering how Black Mariah and Kingpin would interplay. Because they both have the same end goal. Controlling New York.

Mariah and Fisk are more or less the same character except one is a white man and the other is a black woman, which is where their thematic allegiances get more interesting. Both have the exact same arc of being split between saving their city (via their philantropist façades) and oppressing it (via their mob ties), and both end up realizing they cannot be saviors and thus must be oppressors. Both also have rather explosive temper problems and both their downfalls into true crime come from one such outburst of anger (Fisk killing Owsley, Mariah killing Cornell).

Their difference, one that could be interesting to explore, is that Fisk wanted to save his city by gentrifying it (i.e kicking all the poor minorities out) which is directly at odds with Mariah's stated goal of "keeping Harlem black" as she puts it in season 2.

I do think they'd make a very interesting duo if they had teamed up. Something like Mariah and Fisk trying to merge their criminal empires (or Hell, maybe a Mob War).

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#104260: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:05:52 PM

[up][up][up] The difference between those is that Batman and Nick Fury use their own (good) judgment on when to counteract mutant powers. Sentinels don't — their entire programming is "kill all mutants." And a robotic police force actually has been explored in comics, very recently, in fact: the Americops. They basically turned "police brutality" up to eleven. In general, making supercops without good judgment or morals is a bad idea.

Yeah but they're only targeting mutants which is bad thing because poor defenceless mutants
Considering sentinels once turned Wolverine into a skeleton, um, yeah, a lot of mutants are defenseless against them.

Edited by alliterator on Jun 25th 2019 at 1:07:36 AM

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#104261: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:08:57 PM

[up] In general I just thought you could use Sentinels like a SWAT force. Don't program them for genocide, and only use them when a situation calls for them, such as when you're 99% sure that the suspect is a mutant. SWAT teams aren't used for everything. tHey're used when needed.

Kaze ni Nare!
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#104262: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:11:25 PM

Personally, if the Sentinels ever show up in the MCU I hope they take cues from the Evolution cartoon and make them actual threats by themselves rather than GiantMooks who can only win through Zerg Rush (which makes no bloody sense).

No need to make them as overpowered as the ones in the Fox Films, but a giant killer robot should always elicit at least a small "oh shit!".

[up]Something so perfectly logical and reasonable has no place in the world of comics.

Edited by HailMuffins on Jun 25th 2019 at 5:12:44 AM

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#104263: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:14:05 PM

Considering Sentinels tendency to just enslave all of humanity, it's a really bad idea. period.

It's not just about the poor mutants: we've had people from the future come back and say stop making fucking Sentinels and they still keep doing it.

Maybe if they weren't mutants, people would listen more...or just shoot the mutie lover.

...probably that second one actually.

One Strip! One Strip!
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#104264: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:16:21 PM

The Marvel universe usually has some sort of "anti-mutant contingency" but that tends to be the stomping grounds of SHIELD. Sentinels are, as G Ninja put it, "super-cops". With all the trigger-happy tendency to shoot minorities that term implies.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#104265: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:16:32 PM

There’s a phenomenon known as “turn-key tyranny”, which I think was pretty well demonstrated in The Winter Soldier. Like Sentinels, Nick Fury intends to use Project Insight only for legitimate threats. But even if he has the best of intentions, very little stands in the way of him getting ejected from leadership and someone else more ruthless taking Insight’s reins. And that means a lot of power capable of being misused.

It’s the same with the Sentinels. While the metaphor is muddied by the comics inflating the X-men’s powers to unreasonable levels, the general gist is that a mild Sentinel force has too much capacity to be misused. Fair today may not mean much when they have the ability for genocide tomorrow.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jun 25th 2019 at 1:17:04 AM

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#104268: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:19:10 PM

So I don't really read many comics, but how does the marvel universe reconcile openly celebrating heroes who have supernatural powers with the whole racial tension allegory that goes on in the X-Men.

1) Bigotry isn't logical

2) Even the Marvel Comic citizenry can turn on the non-mutant heroes in a drop of a hat and side with Norman Osborne. They're that fucking petty.

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#104269: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:21:29 PM

I do think it gets a bit muddled when you see just how powerful mutants can be.

Like that one Ultimate X Men issue about the kid who's power causes his entire town to burst into flames without him even noticing. If any human could just arbitrarily have that kind of power, then SOMETHING needs to be in place. It's not the same as your garden variety racism. No black person has the power to destroy a town overnight throught he sheer power of their blackness.

Kaze ni Nare!
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#104270: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:22:07 PM

To be fair, it took Civil War to do that.

Cause The New Warriors fucked up badly on that front.

One Strip! One Strip!
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#104271: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:24:15 PM

Like that one Ultimate X Men issue about the kid who's power causes his entire town to burst into flames without him even noticing.
It was "turn to dust" (he destroyed organic matter) and it was pretty damn tragic. Like, he killed his parents without even realizing it. But it wasn't Sentinels or supercops who took him out — it was Wolverine. Because even the X-Men know when someone is too powerful or can't control their power.

Boy: So, like... (sniffles)... like one chromosome or whatever to the left, and I would'a maybe been one of the X-Men.
Logan: Maybe.
(silence)
Logan: Finish your beer.
Boy: Just do it.
(the final shot of the book is Logan leaving the cave; the expression on his face says it all)

Edited by alliterator on Jun 25th 2019 at 1:24:56 AM

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#104272: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:31:04 PM

[up] But that's the thing. I can understand why the government wouldn't want to leave everything to an independent party like Xavier and his followers. Hell, it was a coverup in that issue. Wolverine was sent to kill him and make sure NO ONE knew a mutant had been involved. Because it would harm relations too much. That just seems shady and reliant on blind trust that the X-men will ALWAYS be made up of good people.

Kaze ni Nare!
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#104273: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:31:18 PM

The only problem I have with the anti-Sentinel position is that the same could be said of any form of power, including the Mutants themselves. Just as the individual operating these hypothetical peacekeeping Sentinels could die and be replaced with a genocidal tyrant who uses them for evil, Professor X could be ousted and replaced with full-mutant-supremacy-mode Magneto or some similar analogue.

Power can always be misused, but the problem is the only thing that keeps it in check is other power, so you're pretty much screwed no matter which side you take.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jun 25th 2019 at 4:33:03 AM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#104274: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:31:34 PM

Big overwhelming powers are more exciting for a story about fighting Apocalypse or the Shi'ar, but small mundane powers work better for stories examining bigotry. It’s an awkward fit to flip from “this Phoenix Force could destroy the planet” in the same story with “this office workplace isn’t accessible to centauroid people”.

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#104275: Jun 25th 2019 at 1:33:59 PM

The other thing is that most mutants have small powers. It's just that X-Men stories tend to focus on, well, the ones who don't.

It's a slippery slope from "Mutants who can blow up mountains need to be contained" to "Mutants with three faces have to be killed."


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