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.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I never said it was?
What film is, however, is a medium that reaches a larger portion of the audience than tv does, and in terms of how Marvel makes its plans, are the projects upon which Marvel Studios has historically placed the most weight in terms of both narrative and marketing/etc prominence.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:10:22 AM
Okay? As I just explained, it's not actually what I meant.
It's kind of self evident that both the industry and general audiences take larger stock in films than they do in television, especially for mediums like superheroes and other pop culture genres. As such, it's not exactly a stretch to go "these characters are appearing in tv shows, and that's not the same ballpark as a character going on to headline in a film" without the extreme assumption that it's a slam on tv as a supposedly inferior art form.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:15:35 AM
Okay? There's lots of popular shows. It's still not a medium that gets as much attention as film.
I mean, we could always jump substudios over to Star Wars and talk about how the Disney largely treats its tv shows as subservient to its film division. Or jump substudios over to Disney Animation and talk about how the company largely treats its tv shows as subservient to its film division. Or jump substudios over to Marvel Animation and talk about how the company has largely treated its tv shows as nothing but advertisement for its film division. Etc.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:20:17 AM
I feel like you're trying to move goalposts here so that your examples are relevant and nobody else's are.
Especially here. "I can cite Loki because it agrees with my point, but you can't talk about any of the Marvel Studios shows because they're too new!" Wuh?
Also keeping in mind that this is in the context of representation in media, and Loki is a show starring a white guy. And that - as a spinoff starring arguably the most popular character in the entire MCU with a long pre-existing history as a protagonist - it's not a show in a vacuum.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:28:43 AM
Where have I said anything like that? I'm saying that the new shows are the only ones that matter to this discussion, since they're clearly being treated differently than the old shows were. And I'm citing Loki because it's HUGELY important to the MCU as a whole.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:30:02 AM
Whatever you say. Quashing my lust for debate for a second, I'm not really sure how "Marvel historically barely allows characters of color to headline in their films, which putting them on tv doesn't help (with clarification about how films are their flagship) as is a generally less exposed medium" morphed into "how dare you claim tv is inferior" in the first place, but it feels on reflection like I'm being had here and I'm not going to argue the latter point - seeing as, again, I didn't actually say so and don't in any way believe so.
Especially when the former conversation has been over for over a page at this point.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:37:41 AM
On an unrelated note, I have been playing the Guardians of the Galaxy game and despite the obvious MCU influence its actually pretty good.
Like the characters themselves are even a good mix of their comic and MCU selves like Drax having his humorous quirks but with a stoic and self-serious nature. Its not like the Avengers game at all.
Though Rocket is pretty much his movie character 1:1, with his character arc in the game being his arc in Guardians 2 near beat for beat.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Characters of minority having prominence in the Disney plus shows would not soften the blow if they continue to be under represented in the films.
Simply because under representation of people in films is a problem, regardless of what is happening on television.
Edited by Whowho on Nov 7th 2021 at 12:32:10 PM
Loki has net-zero narrative importance anyway, so I don't really see how that counteracts the point about the shows having lesser narrative importance.
- If you haven't seen Loki, you don't know that there is now a multiverse.
- But if you haven't seen Loki, then there's no reason to think that there ever wasn't a multiverse.
Loki goes in a loop, solving a problem that the show, itself, invented - and even does so in a way that will never actually influence the main timeline shows. It actively has less narrative importance even than other shows like WandaVision or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which at least move the characters around a little bit. Loki has ultimately no impact on anything other than itself.
If it had never existed, Multiverse of Madness, No Way Home, and What If? would all still exist and go right on doing their multiversal shenanigans anyway. That's what net-zero narrative importance means. It ultimately changed nothing and did not impact even a single MCU character in any substantive way. Its cast and influence on the larger continuity is fully self-contained. It's the epitome of Illusion of Change.
In fact, one might argue that the show's pretense of greater importance is the greatest deception that Loki ever pulled.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 7th 2021 at 6:49:56 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
One of Loki's biggest moments is introducing and subsequently killing He Who Remains, allowing his variants of Kang the Conqueror to show up. One of which is explicitly confirmed to be the Big Bad of the third Ant-Man film. So I'd say the show definitely has or is going to affect future events in the MCU at large.
That. It's the same as the Multiverse: Loki solved a problem that the show itself invented. Because of Loki, Kang can now exist. But without Loki, there's no reason he couldn't.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 7th 2021 at 8:54:24 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Well, Variant Loki has been confirmed to be showing up in Multiverse of Madness in some capacity, so it's possible that the show's plotline will be brought up directly on the film side of things.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonI also saw Eternals. I was...very confused for a good chunk of it, but it was definitely unique and interesting. Really cool stuff.
Edited by MatthewWayne on Nov 7th 2021 at 2:11:09 AM
"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."Oddly enough, the idea that Celestials "hatch" from planets is actually something from the comics. Specifically, this was the case in the Earth-X continuity.
This actually further increases my suspicions that Ego is a Celestial who somehow lost their original body (possibly the Celestial whose head was used to create Knowhere?). Him building a planet around himself might have been based on subconscious memories of his gestation within a planet.
Edited by M84 on Nov 7th 2021 at 10:09:01 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised

And unfortunately, Rhodey and Ironheart’s series aren’t going to be out for a while yet. Marvel only just recently started fitting minority led series into their schedule.
Film isn't inherently superior to tv (if anything, more people are starting to find the latter preferable these days). Yeah, Rhodey and Ironheart's shows have yet to come out but the same can be said of the Black Panther sequel which has shut down shooting due to Wright suffering an injury. Regardless, they are still going to be made.