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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

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#110951: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:03:58 PM

Don't even get me started on Civil War 2 and Carol.

Her comparing Magneto, a holocaust survivor, to a Godwins Law internet troll was the height of tastelesness.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
LordVatek Not really a lord of anything Since: Sep, 2014
Not really a lord of anything
#110952: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:21:37 PM

Wait I thought Ulysses wasn't 100% right. Like with that woman who Carol thought had an explosive suitcase.

This song needs more love.
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#110953: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:25:01 PM

[up] He was right in a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy way. That woman was innocent....but after she was brutalized and imprisoned without trial, she became a terrorist hellbent on revenge against her captors.

Which is why the whole thing was so fucked up and Carol in the wrong imO. Create Your Own Villain en masse is basically the result of this Minority Report method.

Edited by Forenperser on Oct 6th 2019 at 10:26:53 AM

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#110954: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:27:25 PM

Carol essentially bullied everyone into causing the predictions to happen.

Notably confronting Bruce with an entire army is what lead to the Hulk rampage only this time it was literally a revenant zombie Hulk rampaging.

And Carol had the gall to come to his funeral.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 6th 2019 at 1:27:41 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#110955: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:38:10 PM

The creepiest thing was probably the formation of these 'Cadets', basically Carols own personal teenage Ghestapo. God, I hated Becky St Jude.

But to get a little more on topic again: I haven't really been reading comics for about 3 years now. I just grew tired of it.

For me, the MCU is pretty much the perfect version of the Marvel universe by now. Mainly because things have actual consequences there. People age, people change, people die. In stark contrast to the stale Status Quo Is God of the comics.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110956: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:46:17 PM

And Carol had the gall to come to his funeral.
To be fair, Carol didn't kill Banner and, in fact, wanted to defuse the situation without any violence. She just...came to the situation with, like, 50 superheroes around her. In any case, the person who actually killed Banner was Hawkeye who had been given a special arrow and told to shoot Banner by...well, Bruce Banner. Banner essentially committed a long-form of suicide.

Which didn't work either because it turns out the Hulk is immortal, but that's a whole other story.

The worst Marvel crossover is probably The Crossing, which...didn't make any sense at all and was filled with the worst of the '90s.

Edited by alliterator on Oct 6th 2019 at 1:47:20 AM

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110957: Oct 6th 2019 at 1:51:24 PM

Fifty superheroes is packing light for a possible Hulk encounter

I commend Carol on her restraint

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110958: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:13:21 PM

As an example of how poorly written CW 2 was, this is the inciting incident that kicks off the story:

Ulysses predicts that Thanos will attack Project Pegasus to steal the Tesseract Cosmic Cube. He shows up exactly when and where he was predicted, and the superheroes are able to dogpile on his face and overpower him. However, during the fighting, Thanos kills Rhodey and injures She-Hulk.

Team Carol, who are the bad guys, say that Thanos could have caused untold damage if left unchecked. They think that Ulysses's future-prediction abilities should be leveraged to prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future.

Team Stark, who are the good guys, say that Rhodey died and that makes Ulysses bad. Ulysses got Rhodey killed so future-prediction is bad and wrong.

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Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#110959: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:20:36 PM

Wow, yeah, that’s some bad writing. What, it would be preferable if they hadn’t stopped Thanos?

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110960: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:22:05 PM

Yes.

Because reasons.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110961: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:22:22 PM

Civil War II is basically just Tony have an extended nervous breakdown. Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote CWII, is much better at writing two characters just talking to each other than a big huge crossover where everybody is supposed to fight everyone else. For example, the Iron Man issue where both Tony and Carol go to an AA meeting and end up having an honest conversation is great. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually do anything to the main story. Neither one of them gives up on their plans and the only reason the conflict ends is because Ulysses is recruited by the goddamn embodiment of the universe to become something different.

Wow, yeah, that’s some bad writing. What, it would be preferable if they hadn’t stopped Thanos?
Nope, it would have been so much worse. They actually show what would have happened if nobody was there to stop Thanos — he creates gloves from the Cosmic Cube and kills a ton of superheroes and is only killed himself by being stabbed by several magical swords at once. This is actually the timeline of the Danielle Cage Captain America and is referred to in that timeline as "Zero Day."

Edited by alliterator on Oct 6th 2019 at 2:27:04 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110962: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:25:49 PM

Neither one of them gives up on their plans and the only reason the conflict ends is because Ulysses is recruited by the goddamn embodiment of the universe to become something different.

And also because Carol kills Tony in a direct shot-for-shot reference to Thanos killing Rhodey.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 6th 2019 at 3:28:02 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110963: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:26:19 PM

[up] She doesn't kill him, she just puts him in a coma.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110964: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:26:46 PM

She only puts him into a permanent coma

That’s very different

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Blueace Surrounded by weirdoes from The End Of the World Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Surrounded by weirdoes
#110965: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:27:32 PM

With the nonsensical, incredibly violent stuff they pull, surprising they don't have the heroes walking up to arrest them instead.

Edited by Blueace on Oct 6th 2019 at 6:27:50 AM

Wake me up at your own risk.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110966: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:29:44 PM

Basically, Carol "wins" Civil War II in the sense that she's the one still standing when the dust settles, but you're still supposed to hate her for being bad and wrong. The comic compares her to both Nazis and Thanos. And much like Tony in CWI, Carol goes on to be shat on by every comic afterwards.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 6th 2019 at 3:32:02 AM

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Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110967: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:29:54 PM

The best thing in Civil War II is that Tony blew up Steve and then went “look what you did!” at Carol

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#110968: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:30:54 PM

Hopefully Ulysses is dead in a ditch somewhere after being abandoned by the Gods.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110969: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:32:43 PM

She only puts him into a permanent coma
Uh, no, it was not a permanent coma. I know this because he came out of it.

Also, it was later revealed that CWII was exacerbated by Hydra Cap, who decided he didn't want Ulysses on the field, so he sent a letter to Banner about some anti-gamma research that ended up...re-gammizing him? Or something? Anyway, Hydra Cap basically screwed everything up by just sending a letter, which caused Hawkeye to kill Banner.

alekos23 Since: Mar, 2013
#110970: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:34:25 PM

Sending a letter is shockingly polite for a superhero comic, that's why it failed. tongue

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110971: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:44:08 PM

Uh, no, it was not a permanent coma. I know this because he came out of it. Also, it was later revealed that CWII was exacerbated by Hydra Cap, who decided he didn't want Ulysses on the field, so he sent a letter to Banner about some anti-gamma research that ended up...re-gammizing him? Or something? Anyway, Hydra Cap basically screwed everything up by just sending a letter, which caused Hawkeye to kill Banner.

I remember that.

Shit like that is what makes it difficult to critique event comics, because other writers are constantly throwing their own Fix Fics into the mix both during and even years after the fact - some of which only serve to actually make problems worse.

This was especially true back in the Quesada days of the original CW, since Quesada's editorial philosophy was that everyone should just write whatever the f*ck they want and not worry about how it connects to the other stuff being written.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 6th 2019 at 3:44:52 AM

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Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#110972: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:45:30 PM

I feel like this is pointing to an underlying problem in superhero comic books. Events where the heroes fight each other are big and exciting, so they get written (Civil War, A v X, Civil War 2). But if the heroes are continually getting in fights with one another, are they really heroic?

The Civil War movie worked for me because 1) the scale was comparatively limited and 2) the movie ended with the leaders of both sides recognizing that they were wrong.

alekos23 Since: Mar, 2013
#110973: Oct 6th 2019 at 2:53:19 PM

Might as well just start doing the anime tournament arc instead, have it be for charity or something. "This time we'll punch each other and not wreck cities for no reason".

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110974: Oct 6th 2019 at 3:01:14 PM

Pretty much the one good thing to come out of Civil War II was that a ton of superheroes decided that they had it with this hero vs hero crap. Laura Kinney (who was the All-New Wolverine at the time) told them to leave her out of it. The Champions formed when Kamala and other younger heroes grew disillusioned about the Avengers.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110975: Oct 6th 2019 at 3:07:20 PM

Technically it was a permanent coma. Tony had to build himself a brand new body

And then had existential angst about whether he was human anymore

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

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