TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Go To

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

Hawkeye86 Spirit of Battle from Classified (Searching for Spock) Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Spirit of Battle
#133976: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:08:46 PM

[up] She was Selby, the mid-level dealer they go to when looking for the Power Broker.

You and I remember Budapest very differently
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#133977: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:09:55 PM

The one that got sniped?

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Hawkeye86 Spirit of Battle from Classified (Searching for Spock) Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Spirit of Battle
#133978: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:12:01 PM

Yea.

You and I remember Budapest very differently
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#133979: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:13:38 PM

Oh cool.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#133980: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:16:06 PM

I guess it makes sense that she was the one giving those wold-is-ready-for-gay-superhero comments a couple years ago. Optics and all.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#133981: Sep 20th 2021 at 1:18:42 PM

We are getting Phastos in a couple months.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#133982: Sep 20th 2021 at 5:33:17 PM

Y'know, I wonder if part of the reason the Ten Rings weren't quite comic book accurate in Shang-Chi was because the Eternals kinda fill the role as "ten individually colored things with unique powers" idea, but are actual god-like beings instead of just objects to be harnessed.

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
DoubleOG (Apprentice)
#133983: Sep 20th 2021 at 6:34:18 PM

I highly doubt that. I'm pretty sure they changed it because they were too similar to the Infinity Gauntlet to their liking. Don't know if they confirmed that or not.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#133984: Sep 20th 2021 at 6:52:23 PM

I think it’d be hard to effectively use ten whole ass different powers in one movie

The infinity gauntlet had six whole ass different powers and TWO movies and soul still hasn’t done anything except be part of the complete set

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
GeneralGigan Godzilla from A New Empire Since: Sep, 2020 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Godzilla
#133985: Sep 20th 2021 at 7:01:37 PM

In my opinion, I’m glad that the Ten Rings weren’t another round of Plot Device chasing for 20 movies, that’ll take basically anything the Mandarin has for him and remove it in favor of making him a Ring Dispenser.

SKREEEEEEEONK!
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#133986: Sep 20th 2021 at 7:08:12 PM

I don’t think they ever were plot device like that.

Mandarin’s always them had on hand, it’s not a search and quest type deal.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
chasemaddigan I'm Sad Frogerson. Since: Oct, 2011
I'm Sad Frogerson.
#133987: Sep 20th 2021 at 7:28:02 PM

The closest was probably in the Iron Man cartoon from the '90s, where the Mandarin lost his rings at the beginning of the second season and had to recover them one-by-one.

Although that mostly amounted to an episode being not involving the Mandarin at all, until the final scene suddenlyy cuts away to show him collecting one of his rings.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Sep 20th 2021 at 10:28:39 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#133988: Sep 20th 2021 at 8:31:27 PM

I also agree that comics-accurate Ten Rings would have been impossible for a single two-hour film to properly do justice to. It's just too many superpowers. Once you say, "This bad guy has ten powers," you are obligated to demonstrate and utilize all ten powers over the course of the story.

"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" doesn't have hundreds of different stories spread out over sixty years to let the rings' powers breathe. Finding excuses to fit each individual ring's abilities into the plot would have overtaken the entire film.

Also, it would have been really hard for a character as low-power as Shang-Chi to defeat a comics-accurate Mandarin throwing all ten rings' powers (including shit like reality-warping, disintegration rays, and psychic assaults) at him in an epic final boss fight. Wenwu needed the nerf to make this hero/villain dynamic believable.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 20th 2021 at 8:35:00 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Diana1969 Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#133989: Sep 20th 2021 at 8:53:24 PM

I think it worked out in their favor. The way Shang-Chi depicts the ten rings made for good fight scenes.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#133990: Sep 20th 2021 at 9:06:27 PM

There was a plotline where Mandarin's rings spread themselves among several guys after his death in Giellon's run, but that's the plotline in reverse (as Mandarin had them on-hand, but after he died they got spread out among ten different supervillains).

I do think it wouldn't have been impossible to show Mandarin in a movie series, but it'd have required more coherent world-building than the MCU had for either the IM trilogy or the Thor trilogy. Captain America trilogy and the Avengers franchise are the only ones I think really played out in a relatively airtight way to its completion.

The story of the Mandarin having 10 individual mooks with possessions of the rings wouldn't have been a bad idea, but you'd need to build this from the ground-up in a way the first IM movie really wasn't thought of.

Something like Raza in the first with the psionic ring (to control his mooks), Obadiah basing the Iron Monger energy core around the disintegration ring, Ivan Vanko having the fire ring to aid in his forging of his armor, Justin Hammer studying the ring that generates forms of energy to see if he can produce a arc reactor out of it, e.t.c. And every time an antagonist is defeated you see the ring vanish and return to its owner. You'd need to structure the films around the Ten Rings in a way they really aren't (and couldn't, given how much of the first IM movie was free-styled).

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Watchtower Since: Jul, 2010
#133991: Sep 20th 2021 at 9:12:18 PM

The individual powers of the Ten Rings are also honestly just Techno Babble anyway. For the most part their powers are a literal case of Doing In the Wizard, as it doesn't thematically jive having an evil wizard be the main villain of a tech-centric hero like Iron Man. I think the Mandarins storyline in Kieron Gillen's run is the only one that really revolves around the Rings as individual baubles.

The MCU retool really does an incredible job refocusing a kinda unwieldly concept. They're simplified to a weaker but more cohesive power-set, reworking them as arm-rings both distinguishes them from the Infinity Gauntlet while also tying more into legitimate Chinese martial arts, and them being these powerful magic weapons fits the reworked Wenwu and continues to fit when Shang-Chi inherits them.

I've only ever seen Moviebob theorize the Ten Rings as relating to the ten known Eternals and it's always come off as a massive leap. Like Bob rightfully derides a lot of the toxic fanbase for expecting completely new things to just randomly show up to explain things (a la Mephisto) but then goes too far the other way in assuming everything is Connected All Along.

Edited by Watchtower on Sep 20th 2021 at 12:12:51 PM

Diana1969 Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#133993: Sep 20th 2021 at 9:52:32 PM

Admittedly, if they had kept the rings as they were in the comics, one would have to wonder just how they'd even be practical to use in a martial arts fight. There's a reason jewelry isn't used in sparring matches.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#133994: Sep 20th 2021 at 10:56:21 PM

I'm sure we would've gotten a comics accurate version of the rings had the MCU not just done a big story in which a villain has a collection of different kinds of jewelry each of which alters reality in some unique way.

I second the idea that the perfect way to do the ten rings would've been to do a thing where each of Wenwu's liutenants had one, leading up to him having them all at the same time. But that skews way too close to how the Infinity Saga went.

The best we can hope for is that as the MCU continues to explore the ten rings' still not-entirely-explained powerset and origins, we eventually get a reveal that the wielder can alter them while using them to do different kinds of magic in combat - imitating the comics rings' different powers.

As for Wenwu not fighting Tony in the MCU, it's a shame yeah, but ever since the thought came to me that since Wenwu is like a thousand years old they could totally make a prequel and having him return, I've really wanted them to make - like - a 60's or 70's pre-Avengers film in which Wenwu threatens Howard Stark (as well as Hank Pym, and any other superheroes they want to introduce for that time period).

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 20th 2021 at 10:58:13 AM

Shadao Dorzma Forever! Artwork by Kris Dobbins. (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
Dorzma Forever! Artwork by Kris Dobbins.
#133995: Sep 20th 2021 at 11:04:38 PM

[up] Or they can do a What If? scenario where Wenwu decides to hijack AIM and turn their fake Mandarin and Ten Rings scheme into the real Mandarin and Ten Rings scheme for Tony to fight.

Edited by Shadao on Sep 20th 2021 at 11:04:49 AM

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#133996: Sep 20th 2021 at 11:38:42 PM

I fully expect a What If of Tony fighting Wenwu.

And it be an interesting fight since not only was Tony suffering from his PTSD but his armor designs took a hit as the Iron Legion and Mark 42 were incredibly fragile compared to his other armors.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#133997: Sep 20th 2021 at 11:41:50 PM

I don't think they were any more fragile than before (42's glitchiness aside), I think the Extremis soldiers were just a lot more powerful than the previous threats he faced.

Killian chopping through the armor with his bare hands like a hot knife through butter is pretty cool to see.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#133998: Sep 21st 2021 at 12:22:38 AM

Extremis soldiers were weird, threat wise. They could melt through the armor, but could also be taken out almost as easily as normal people.

All the better for the eventual disposable army of mooks.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#133999: Sep 21st 2021 at 12:23:37 AM

Firey glass cannons

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#134000: Sep 21st 2021 at 12:28:25 AM

Considering how much force is in the rings, presumably they can smash through the armors like paper.

Huh did Tony's last armors include Vibranium?

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Total posts: 186,763
Top