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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.
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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
#112951: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:14:13 PM

The DCAU was truly something special.
On my list of "greatest cartoons of all time," alongside Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra and Gravity Falls is Justice League Unlimited. Just a great show all around, but perfect for the way it was able to center entire episodes are one or two characters, but also give us long story arcs about the entire League and beyond.

tiamkara Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight from Augusta, GA Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight
#112952: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:18:20 PM

Young Justice is my favorite of the lot.

“If you have a message for the devil give it to me and I’ll take it to him.”
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#112953: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:21:21 PM

Not in the DCAU, but it is a great show.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#112954: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:24:24 PM

I can’t imagine a Captain Britain movie at all

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
tiamkara Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight from Augusta, GA Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight
#112955: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:33:41 PM

Well it’s a DC cartoon show. I dunno what the DCAU is. I’m assuming it’s a bunch of shows connected to the original Justice League and Unlimited. Which does sound pretty cool, I didn’t know it had an extended continuity.

“If you have a message for the devil give it to me and I’ll take it to him.”
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.
#112956: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:35:32 PM

As far as I know, the DCAU consists of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League: Unlimited, Batman: Beyond, and Static Shock, as well as a bunch of animated movies.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#112957: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:39:12 PM

[up] That is indeed what the DCAU is. A set of DC cartoons all set in the same continuity making their own shared television universe akin to the Arrowverse.

Young Justice is actually an isolated cartoon in its own individual continuity.

Also yup you can't beat these OP's.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:39:51 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#112958: Nov 22nd 2019 at 9:48:30 PM

I can’t imagine a Captain Britain movie at all
I can. I would pick Joe Cornish to direct the film, as he's already directed a great alien comedy film (Attack the Block) and fantasy adventure film (The Kid Who Would Be King). Captain Britain would pretty much combine the two, with the story leaning especially on Alan Moore's run, the "Jasper's Warp" saga.

Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#112959: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:29:33 PM

A Captain Britain and the MI-13 would be great. I need to see Dracula literally fire vampires to invade England from the his moon fortress.

Yes, that was an actual thing that happened in the comic.

AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#112960: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:36:54 PM

Well, I just re-watched Age of Ultron. Uh...yeah. That did not hold up very gracefully. Honestly I think this is a good reminder why I like the Guardians more than the Avengers. There's a lot wrong here. The writing is honestly pretty spotty throughout, with the excess of snark and quips getting distracting and even rather annoying. It's a big reason why, even though they actually tried harder with him than other Phase 2 baddies, Ultron just comes off as cringy and irritating rather than menacing and cool. Also, Natasha sucks in this. Like, wow. Some of the worst moments in the franchise come from her, chief of which has to be when she tells Bruce that she got sterilized for the Red Room and she thinks that makes her a monster. Holy shit that did not age well. The action is far from the best these movies have to offer (even the big oner during the climax didn't have that much oomph to it), Vision's creation came a bit too easy for Tony, I just wasn't that invested in anyone's arc, the color grading sucks, Thanos' appearance is groanworthy, Quicksilver's death feels unnecessary, yeah this wasn't great. Also there's a casual rape joke that the other Avengers just let slide.

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#112961: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:45:25 PM

Not even the "Arrowverse". The DCAU was the MCU before the MCU was the MCU, sorta.

What follows is me fanboying for a bit. Skip if you don't want to read it.


In 1994, Marvel debuted a couple different animated tv shows, some lasting longer than others. X-Men and Spider-Man lasted the longest, while Iron Man and the Fantastic Four also had shows. These shows had a couple of episodes here and there tying in with each other, and even with some other heroes and characters, like Morbius, Blade, Galactus, Ghost Rider, Captain America, and others. Hell, they even did Secret Wars. They were housed on the American Saturday morning TV block "Fox Kids".

But they were beaten to the punch on some aspects by a couple years. The DCAU was almost the beginning of the superhero boom, and guided us through even the worst years, starting with Batman the Animated Series in 1992. This was set into motion by the creative team including character and setting designer Bruce Timm, writer Paul Dini, writer/producer Alan Burnett, and voice director Andrea Romano, several of whom also had worked together on other animated shows before and after this.

This Batman show set a more cinematic tone for comic book storytelling, using the noir asthetic, updates for classic characters (like making Mr. Freeze a compelling character), retellings of stories, and even created new characters like Harley Quinn. Following that first Batman series, a Superman series started, then another Batman series. the Superman series introduced a lot of the characters outside of Gotham (a Green Lantern, a Flash, Lobo, Darkseid, the Legion of Superheroes) while still being a lighter series in comparison to Batman's grimmer tone, though that series also introduced characters like Etrigan, Deadman, Zatanna, etc. The Superman and Batman shows crossed over a couple of times, and I think had some movie-like double length episodes. When those shows concluded, they went back to Batman, only this time with Batman Beyond.

Around this time, Dwayne McDuffie's Static Shock series also started airing, on the same network and programming block. Several other games, webseries, and short series also arose out of those earlier shows.

Then, the creative team decided to tie it all together, and thus began Justice League, tying in the earlier Batman and Superman shows, and introducing a new Green Lantern (Jon Stewart, arguably the central character of Justice League show's run), a redefined Flash (they eventually decided it was Wally), and adding in Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl (eventually finally giving her a continuity that actually made sense).

Justice League opted for stories of 2 half-hour episodes, in addition to season-wide and series-wide stories told concurrently. This was followed by Justice League unlimited, which went back to single episode stories, but still kept the series-wide and season-wide ones, even having stories told across shows. For example, a scene between Braniac and Luthor would be payed off as part of a story 6 years later in Justice League, written by Dwayne Mc Duffie. Static and Green Lantern had entirely separate trips to the era of Batman Beyond, where they met future versions of Static and Bruce Wayne.

The actual universe completed its run on TV with the end of Justice League Unlimited in 2006, in 2 different ways. The episode "Epilogue" was basically a post-script for the universe's timeline after Batman Beyond, wrapping up some stories from that show (which didn't have a proper finale), and some stories in Justice League, and even referencing the first "movie" in the DCAU. The episode "Destroyer", which provided the name of the trope And the Adventure Continues, ending with sequences of certain Cast Herds from the comics, and finally ending with a fade to black of Batman's chest insignia, giving us Bookends on how it all began.


Some other DC Comics shows and works existed in that time frame, much in the same way as some non-MCU stories existed during the MCU's current run. For an analogy to the MCU....

The MCU has Kevin Feige as its executive producer, with Markus, Mc Feely, and the Russos helping write and direct the overall story.

The DCAU canon has Bruce Timm as its producer and the person who set the visual tone. Several writers and directors also were a part, but the ones most corresponding to Markus and Mc Feely would probably be Burnett and Mc Duffie, who also directed episodes, alongside Andrea Romano doing voice direction for pretty much everything except season 1 of Static Shock.

The DCAU also had some other notable names, like Paul Dini, the original lead writer. I guess you could compare him to Jon Favreau in the MCU. One of the people to do a lot of directing of episodes later in the DCAU was Joaquin Dos Santos, who, like Andrea Romano, would do a lot of the work for the later seasons of Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, so there's even a connection to those other shows that took off as the DCAU ended.

wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#112962: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:49:06 PM

[up][up]Yeah, the "prima nocta" so-called joke? I think it was written to go over most people's heads, and went over mine, until someone explained to me what the issue was. But even without that, I felt the attempts at comedy were to overdone to the detriment of the film. I agree regarding Natasha and Quicksilver, but while I didn't like the film, my main gripe was the bad comedy. Same with Iron Man 3, actually.

chasemaddigan I'm Sad Frogerson. Since: Oct, 2011
I'm Sad Frogerson.
#112963: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:54:26 PM

[up][up][up] Trust me, the bit about Natasha being sterilized was heavily scrutinized when the film first came out. I remember the backlash that exchange between her and Bruce had. If they had just removed that one line or spaced it out a bit better, the implications of that scene wouldn't be as bad. They'd still be bad, but not as bad.

I'd say AOU was probably the point when people really started to notice the flaws in Whedon's writing style. His reputation for writing strong female characters seemed to take a dive after people saw the creative choices he made with Natasha in that film.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Nov 22nd 2019 at 1:54:48 PM

AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#112964: Nov 22nd 2019 at 10:56:13 PM

Guess I could've worded it like "it was pretty skeevy then and it feels like it's gotten even worse over time".

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#112965: Nov 22nd 2019 at 11:55:59 PM

While I agree that Nat's role in AOU is shit, I will point out that her line about being a monster is in reference to her occupation, not her infertility.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Nov 23rd 2019 at 3:06:14 PM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
tiamkara Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight from Augusta, GA Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Let’s Have the Dark Courage to Sin Tonight
#112966: Nov 23rd 2019 at 12:04:57 AM

Being a little harsh here.

“If you have a message for the devil give it to me and I’ll take it to him.”
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.
#112967: Nov 23rd 2019 at 1:31:29 AM

Wait a minute, even if Black Widow was referring to her sterility with the "monster" line. Isn't the point that she's WRONG about that? I never took the line and thought "Oh, the film is saying she's right." You're meant to hear it and go "Hey, that's bullshit."

It's the same if they're talking about her occupation. She thinks it makes her a monster, and she's incorrect. There's no avenue where the movie is calling Widow a monster.

Or is the problem that the character of Black Widow would think something like that at all?

Edited by GNinja on Nov 23rd 2019 at 9:37:55 AM

Kaze ni Nare!
AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#112968: Nov 23rd 2019 at 1:34:21 AM

Whatever the intent, it kind of stumbled into sounding like that, and coupled with the scenes with Clint's family I couldn't help but get those dodgy vibes.

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
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.
#112969: Nov 23rd 2019 at 1:43:14 AM

I say I really like Age of Ultron, but I think that's because I can't think of many MCU films that I like more than it. There are those that are probably better films, but they're not as personally enjoyable. A lot of the super beloved Marvel movies I find pretty overrated (Guardians 1, Ragnarok and Black Panther come to mind), and those that are left I think are mostly just ok.

Edited by GNinja on Nov 23rd 2019 at 9:46:20 AM

Kaze ni Nare!
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#112970: Nov 23rd 2019 at 2:15:19 AM

Isn't the point that she's WRONG about that? I never took the line and thought "Oh, the film is saying she's right." You're meant to hear it and go "Hey, that's bullshit."

The movie leaves the question open. It has a habit of raising heavy questions of the characters and then never addressing them after that. Given one of Nat’s last scenes in AOU is her lamentingly watching Clint’s family, it’s still a question in her mind.

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.
#112971: Nov 23rd 2019 at 5:25:01 AM

[up] She brings it up while comparing herself to the Hulk, right?

So I thought the implication was that if she was wrong about the Hulk being a monster, then that could also mean she's wrong about herself. IT felt like the beginnings of something that maybe future movies could roll with, but they decided to drop it. Which means the aborted start of an arc is just left sitting there. Any questions it raises are abandoned without an answer.

I certainly don't think it's a terrible IDEA for an arc. It would contrast well with Clint.

Edited by GNinja on Nov 23rd 2019 at 1:28:11 PM

Kaze ni Nare!
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#112972: Nov 23rd 2019 at 5:32:40 AM

It doesn’t pair well with what the different writers decided for Endgame

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#112973: Nov 23rd 2019 at 9:12:27 AM

Well, I just re-watched Age of Ultron. Uh...yeah. That did not hold up very gracefully.

Didn't age well when it was released either. *rimshot*

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#112974: Nov 23rd 2019 at 9:34:42 AM

For those who don't want to click it, it's a song that goes "I don't care, I love it." Just so you know my thoughts on the matter.

Edited by alliterator on Nov 23rd 2019 at 9:37:13 AM

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#112975: Nov 23rd 2019 at 10:00:24 AM

Just found this theory about when the Talos/Nick Fury switch took place:

That certainly would be one of the best times to do it I admit. Though I don't think Tahiti was still a thing at this point. In AOS, that facility would have been destroyed already, and whatever we all think about how it ties into the movies, I'd say the first season at least is connected to the films relatively well.

One Strip! One Strip!

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