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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
A big problem with the Iron Man films is that they were all released before the point where the MCU wasn't afraid to go full-on comic-book-y. Like, after Guardians and Doctor Strange I don't think people would be that against some of the more out-there stuff from the Iron Man comics being faithfully replicated, like the Mandarin's alien rings or Extremis the way it works in the comics (kind of a fusing together of man and machine that Tony eventually used to upgrade himself and connect him fully to his armor rather than just something that lets you burn stuff).
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonI do like the idea that Vanko "makes God bleed" in the first act and then does fuck-all for the rest of the film. He shatters Tony's hard-crafted image of the Invincible Iron Man, and the rest of the plot is what happens when the sharks come for him. The government, S.H.I.E.L.D., Hammer Industries, and Tony's own insecurities all converge on Tony at once for the feeding frenzy in the second act.
Ironically, this was simultaneously before Marvel had the long-term vision to have Vanko leave the film after that point to pop up again in a future work (Thunderbolts). And yet, despite this, the film was still bogged down with setup for other movies.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 10th 2021 at 11:29:17 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I like Vanko, but something that surprised me was learning that he was the original MCU Draco in Leather Pants. Which admittedly, it really shouldn't come as one considering his actor.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadI mean, isn't that how fashion works?
Why do business professionals wear ties? Because that's what business professionals wear. If they didn't wear ties, no one would take them seriously as business professionals.
I rolled out a pitch for IM 2 eons ago that indeed had Vanko as a Hannibal Lecter-esque guy behind bars (and Justin Hammer as his contact outside of prison) the entire film while several competing factions create armors and cause chaos all over the world and Stark has to stop the leak from his designs resulting in a couple of Flawed Prototype "iron man knockoffs" (Controller, Titanium Man, Melter,). Have the movie focus entirely on Stark's friendship with Rhodey and end with a four-way brawl between Crimson Dynamo (Vanko), Firepower (the US government's new "Iron Man"), Iron Man and War Machine.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Why do business professionals wear ties? Because that's what business professionals wear. If they didn't wear ties, no one would take them seriously as business professionals.
Oh, yes, absolutely. Formalwear follows similar circular logic. The world is full of bizarre cultural constructs like that. You wear a suit to be taken seriously as a business professional because business professionals only take people wearing suits seriously. Thus, the suit has a pragmatic function. It fulfills a purpose: identifying you as a For Reals Serious Business Professional, which is necessary for building your career.
What business professionals do is massively dependent on their image. They must normalize their behavior and conform to bizarre social constructs, or they will fail. The goal and the suit go hand in hand.
Superhero costumes have a similar conformity to social constructs, but without the pragmatic function of engaging with it. Superheroes don't conform to a social standard; they're rogue individuals who go their own way and enact their own brand of justice however they see fit. The costume doesn't help them fight crime better (except in exceptional cases like Iron Man, where it absolutely does). Except they totally do conform to the genre convention of what a superhero is, and they do it on purpose to be more superhero-like.
With superheroes, it's more like everyone in the world just decided one day that vigilante justice is a great idea, but only if the vigilantes dress in colorful spandex.
Like I said, it's a personal beef under the larger category of "Superheroes have an awful lot of norms and expectations for not even being a quantifiable thing." The comics brought the genre conventions in-universe and made them into a culture, and it weirds me out.
That being my perspective, I failed to notice anything wrong with Killian's costuming until it was pointed out.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 10th 2021 at 12:30:19 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I don’t think it’s an inherent problem that Killian doesn’t have a costume - neither does Kingpin, really, and he still does fine - but I do think in his case, it only serves to highlight that he’s not particularly interesting or charismatic. I mean, we’ve already gone into the issues with his motivation, and when it comes to his powerset...I dunno, never seemed very distinct to me. The most I remember is the part where he breathes fire, which is really only memorable because of how out of nowhere it is.
Now I don’t really know what else Guy Pierce has been in, but I do feel confident in saying that when it comes to the MCU, Robert Redford he ain’t.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on May 10th 2021 at 3:36:54 PM
Oh God! Natural light!That was apparently Shane Black's way of telling us that Killian is totes the MCU's real Mandarin because he apparently thinks that the character never evolved from the blatant stereotype he was in the Silver Age.
Not kidding, in interviews he's been bizarrely insistent on that, and even once admitted he was unaware that the Mandarin is Iron Man's arch-nemesis in the comics. The stuff later writers did to update the character beyond the stereotype never gets mentioned, it's all just "he started as nothing more than a Yellow Peril character, which means he's still nothing more than that."
Edited by lbssb on May 10th 2021 at 12:44:35 PM
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonHe went hard on aping the Mandarin, he got to do it with style you know: gratuituous tatoos and all
Prettiest Meta Knight Gijinka, nglseveral
Depends how much the superheroes engage with their public image. You've got plenty who work directly with the government or law enforcement agencies (or, conversely, are hunted by those agencies), appear at charity events, join established superhero teams.
Certainly, it's often helpful if a hero can show up somewhere and people instantly recognize which hero has come to help. Guy in a blue outfit with a big A on his forehead shows up, you know it's Captain America and you can trust him to protect the lives of everyone there. Without the costume, people might think they're dealing with Deadpool, and be considerably less comforted.
Edited by RavenWilder on May 10th 2021 at 12:46:27 PM
Trying to think of what codified the superhero suit as a thing superheroes do in-universe. I guess the earliest would be the Asgardians but most on Earth didn’t get a good look at them. The Wakandans have had the Black Panther tradition for ages but that wasn’t known outside their country. The Eternals were gods on Earth, but the myths don’t really record spandex. And Captain America is The First Avenger, so I guess his outfit would be the codifying example of the superhero suit to most of the public.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 10th 2021 at 1:01:00 AM
Wait, I missed a lot. Are we arguing whether the MCU should have supersuits or not?
... Do we really want to go back to "Leather Quest 2000"?
Just as long as Old Man Steve doesn’t put on an American flag toga
Forever liveblogging the AvengersYou act like he couldn't pull that off.
I'm really only half-joking, he probably could.
Edited by lbssb on May 10th 2021 at 1:45:16 AM
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon"Everybody wears black leather" isn't an alternative to super suits. It's a different kind of super suit.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.On that note, 6 new character posters for Black Widow unveiled.
Taskmaster’s actor is still a total mystery.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I should note that I do like suits like this
◊. You put armor plates on the character and it's like, "Oh, okay. It's so he has something to stop a bullet. It's stylish and personalized, but there's a function there."
It's the suits like this
◊ that leave me shrugging my shoulders and going, "Superhero gotta superhero, I guess."
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 10th 2021 at 3:06:23 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Peter's stupid fast, so he doesn't really need armour plating most of the time.
He's also tank some pretty heavy shots at times too.
So he doesn't really need armour. That's not to say he's never been shot (the old Ultimate Spiderman comic book had one notable moment of it, but that version of Peter was a lot worse at his job).
One Strip! One Strip!Sometimes superheroes getting armored tends to make them look more militarized. Some do need the protection, but it feels odd to see Spider-Man in quasi-military gear when he's fighting lizards and bank robbers. On the whole, superheroes have gotten more militarized in media and IMO it feels uneasy, like a gradual normalization trend. Batman is a detective; he doesn't always have to be a SEAL.

If Vanko just needed to make god bleed he could have just been an opening villain and not seen much afterward
Like Batroc for Winter Soldier
Tony’s enemies smell blood in the water, puns, and start coming after him at the same time as his own personal crisis sends him spiraling
You could have adapted a lot of the armor characters here without needing to make them have to carry a movie
Forever liveblogging the Avengers