I have the troubling suspicion they did this season as a way to make sure people are excited and ready for Anthony as Captain America for CP 4.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Why would that be a problem?
So my "usual suspects line-up" of Power Broker suspects.
The new guys:
- The boring option: It's just the comics Power Broker: evil rich guy. Riveting.
- Arnim Zola: A popular choice. Fits the mad science and surveillance motifs and links to Bucky.
- Baron Von Strucker Redux: Strucker was horribly wasted in AOU. Would not surprise me if they gave him another go (either by bringing him back or introducing another member of the Strucker family to become a more comics-accurate version of Strucker) and Strucker has been shown as essentially ruling Madripoor from the shadows on occasion.
- Madame Hydra: Second verse, same as the first.
- M.O.D.O.K/AIM: Mad science business! But kind of a wild card, particularly given MODOK is getting a unrelated animated show.
- Geneeral Ross: USA doing shady shit through illegal foreign ops is not unheard of. It does raise a few questions and is outside of his usual wheelhouse (Ross is a blunt force instrument whose reaction to anything is throwing a armed forces battalion at it, while Power Broker is pretty subtle in its methodology so far).
- The Secret Empire: Tricky Dick Nixon not included.
From the show:
- Sharon Carter: Convoluted as shit but here it is.
- Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine: Very possible, but a bit underwhelming and very obvious.
Mad idea:
- 'Hate-Monger: Yeah it's just Hitler. He's back.
Funny but not helpful
That all you got?
>Why would that be a problem?
Well beyond the "Black Captain America" thing, I imagine narrative consistency. You can't have Sam saying "Doesn't feel right" at the end of Endgame, and then when he next shows up be comfortable wearing the Captain America clothes.
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
Funny but not helpful
Time bridges all characterization gaps, if you believe hard enough.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe problem with including Tricky Dick is simply that he's too powerful for any Marvel hero to handle.
Showtime, MOTHERFUCKER! - Nunchuk-wielding Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon c. 1973.
Edited by Gaon on Apr 18th 2021 at 9:27:37 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
@The Power Broker being a sequel hook:
It's worth noting that while the Power Broker isn't typically part of all that, Madripoor is fairly significant as an X-Men and Wolverine related location. And seeing as - beyond the possible Hit-Monkey nod (who's more of a once removed thing, since he's a Deadpool bit) - they haven't really brought in any X-Men stuff at all in this series, it's definitely possible we'll revisit the location in a future show or film. In which case they could composite the Power Broker with an X-Men antagonist of some kind.
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Maybe have the Power Broker be the dealer for mutant growth hormone (am I remembering the name right?) since the MCU version of the Owl has already come and gone without being a good fit.
Note that this is pretty much how the comics work too. There are a few long-runners grandfathered in because they were created by Stan Lee and are on issue 500 or some shit, but for the most part, Marvel series tend to run for like 6-24 issues and then the character will relaunch with a new writer, new supporting cast, new set of problems, etc. Which does also happen in the long-runners as well; they just don't always reset the numbering, and when they do, they inevitably wind up going back to it. The age of having one creative team in charge of the same series for several decades ended a long time ago.
Not sure how much I like them enshrining the idea of frequent writer and executive turnover, considering it often didn't do Iron Man and Thor favors. Then again Captain America and friends had the same writers the entire time and, well.
They've generally been solid within their own franchise, but still have also made a lot of baffling decisions to their own characters as well, to the point of sometimes openly clashing with the Russos. And their track record with other franchise characters than their own, has been sometimes very good, but also often downright terrible, which just goes towards proving my first point.
Edited by AlleyOop on Apr 19th 2021 at 5:42:08 AM
Too old for this
I realise that if Sharon is the Power Broker, then the Nagel Zemo killed may have been an impostor planted there by her while the real Nagel was hidden somewhere else. Convoluted as heck (and, yeah, inspired by a similar plot in Agents of Shield), but it would be a nice way to have more super serum later on. Then again, I don't think they intend to have too much of the super serum around, and it would reduce Zemo's impact to this story to zero.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
Something odd I just thought about regarding Sharon.
The Flagsmashers are made up of people who were not Snapped, getting new benefits in wake of the halved population and resentful of losing them. In Endgame, the Avengers’ tally of those lost to the Snap includes Sharon. So why is she seemingly aiding the Flagsmashers’ cause? Is there a benefit for Snapped people in the movement? Is she in it only for the money? Or was she actually not Snapped and just mistaken for lost due to being so deep undercover?
Doctor of Doctorates
I'm thinking Sharon is a double agent. She's someone's mole/insider with links to the Flagsmashers but not actually a true believer herself.
Most likely that someone is the Contessa.
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."
Maybe they didn't find her? If she's hiding out in Madripoor she may not be willing to reach out. They also thought Scott Lang was gone because they couldn't find him.
Too old for this
I really hope Sharon will not be revealed to have become too much of a bad guy. Having her turned into a jerkass doing shady businesses was bad enough for me (in Sam's words: "she's all awful now"). Also, I'm really not sure how good that would reflect on "nobody's left behind"-Steve (who forgot about her as soon as she helped him in Civil War while he took the time to rescue his guys from the Raft) and I'm not too fond of the idea that a woman can turn to villainy after a man forgets about her.
Then again, maybe the MCU considers that they have exhausted "aggravated by Tony" and have now turned to "disillusioned by Steve" as a villain motivation provider.
Edited by C105 on Apr 19th 2021 at 4:04:59 PM
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.I kinda want her to be a legit Flagsmasher so she can reform the organization into a heroic one. I already think the plotline with the Flagsmashers can be dangerously close to a demonization of left-wing revolutionary movements. Having the organization turn fully heroic under Sharon would be a easy way to kind of fix it.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Queen of Good Things, Honest
As a character, Sharon's kinda been done dirty by adaptation. She was mainly here to be a Replacement Goldfish love interest after Peggy.
And that's weird because, in the comics, Sharon is the big number one love of Steve's life. Peggy Carter is barely even a footnote in the pages of Marvel history; she was this one woman that Steve knew this one time back in WWII but isn't really important as a character.
In the MCU, Peggy is such a big deal that she even has her own show that ran for two seasons. She's a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. and her extremely brief relationship with Steve defined his life to the point that he ultimately never got over her, and abandoned the future at the first opportunity so that he could go back and be with her.
Meanwhile, Sharon never really caught on. It always felt like she was just here because superheroes in film gotta assert their heterosexuality somehow. Winter Soldier at least gave her a cool scene of standing up to Hydra, while Civil War gave us the most awkward and forced kiss in superhero film history - a kiss that seemed to exist solely to pre-empt the Stucky shippers in this movie that revolves heavily around Steve's devotion to his pre-war BFF.
Sharon has always been sorely underdeveloped and instead felt like she was here just to be the Replacement Peggy. This lasted until the writers decided they were going to have Steve quit the future and go back to be with the actual Peggy. At which point, Sharon was of no further value to the story and was summarily discarded. Her bitterness and resentment in Madripoor may be seen as a reflection on how she's been treated as a character.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Too old for this
That would actually be pretty cool.
I agree with this analysis, but then I really wonder why they saw fit to bring her back into TF & WS, only to once again confine her to a second role with little impact on the plot (assuming she's not the Power Broker, but a Face–Heel Turn would be an even worse disservice to the character).
Edited by C105 on Apr 19th 2021 at 4:10:26 PM
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
The Ultimates 2nd Annual had a very funny scene where Sam Wilson, SHIELD agent and Ultimate Captain (of the "This A doesn't stand for France") on a road trip. It is painfully awkward and Sam assumes the Captain isn't speaking on it because he's a black man and there's some civil rights protests happening in Washington. Halfway through Captain America admits he is pissed off about it. He really expected things to have improved more while he was on ice.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
A procrastination in of itself
Maybe she has moral objections to 20 million people being dragged from their homes forced into camps after they’ve done nothing wrong?
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
In a political thriller? Nah. She's got some secret scheme or affiliations or something going on.
Speaking of, I wouldn't mind a series that went into some more of those secrets upon secrets Metal Gear-esque action-spy thriller genre stuff. Winter Soldier is a bit like that, and I love to see Marvel do it again.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 19th 2021 at 12:53:13 PM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Hulk returns, with his withered arm replaced with a purple one. He speaks with Thanos’s voice, and says “But I live on, through this arm...”
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Apr 19th 2021 at 1:08:33 AM
x5
As I mentioned earlier, apparently she was working on another show at the time of filming which would made it difficult to give her more screentime. It's a similar situation as Jamie Alexander not being there for Thor Ragnarok because of Blindspot. Definitely not an excuse for her embarrassing underutilization prior to this show, though. And yeah, I did get that her ranty bit in episode 3 came off as a bit of a meta moment.
Edited by AlleyOop on Apr 19th 2021 at 4:07:51 AM
Too old for this
Which makes me wonder why they used her when her actress was not available for a more important role. Is it because of a contractual obligation, or to make up for the character's disappearance from the MCU once she smooched Steve, or because they needed her character specifically for plot related reasons. As it is now, she could easily have been replaced by another character with little impact on the whole story.
Looking at wikipedia, the only Disney+ serieses that are slated for a second season right now are What If, which can easily sustain multiple seasons) and Loki apparently.
Edited by Bocaj on Apr 18th 2021 at 11:54:08 AM
Forever liveblogging the Avengers