Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

have been reading mentions of Falcon and the Winter Soldier on the internet in the last week and thinking to myself "why are people talking about "the falcon and the snowman"?

I've watched (and still watch, and love) a buttload of '80s action movies. Marvel heroes aren't supposed to be Reagan-era sociopaths, tho.

Sam Wilson should not be Marion Cobretti with wings, is what I'm saying here.

Yeah, I was being flip. More of a response to some of the Twitter reactions I've seen from younger people whose heads would likely explode if they encountered the body counts in those flicks.

And not just wrt to this show. Obviously it speaks to the level of desensitization to people my age, being inundated by the body counts of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Rambo flicks, but it feels weird to see people react so strongly to the relatively tame body counts of modern action movies.

I remember way back when the first Iron Man movie came out, a friend with a (then) young kid asked me how violent it was, and I told him, well, you don't see much blood, but I've gotta assume a lot of people are dying. That's what I thought in the first few minutes of Falcon and Winter Melon, even before the Bucky nightmare. Though of course nothing here is remotely as grisly as Daredevil or Punisher on Netflix was.

There was some truly gnarly shit in the Netflix series. Like horror movie-level gnarly.

Yeah and it was ladled into every episode like the Walking Dead as if their audience was expecting a certain amount of gore/episode. I hope if they reboot the Netflix Marvel series they lose that piece of it.

Did I use series the right way there? I meant it to be plural but it's hard to tell that in context.

I guess if I used "them" instead of "it" it might have added the correct context.

'Series' works in both the plural and the singular but can be confusing. If only 'serieses' didn't sound so Gollum-esque.

In any case, I would love a Daredevil TV reboot or a movie. It's gotta be gritty, but they don't need to make it so gory.

Kingpin slamming that guy's head repeatedly in the car door was maybe as bad as it got.

Punisher getting a power drill through his boot was pretty gross. And kinda hilarious that like 1 day later he's running around again.

cool to see disney explicitly acknowledge that good morning america is indeed part of the propaganda wing of the military-industrial complex in this new episode

was that the actual host of good morning america playing the host of good morning america?

Haven’t seen it yet - do they acknowledge Marvel’s complicity in the MIC?

New one is pretty good, too. I like the way both of the MCU shows so far have been used to subtly fill in the gaps of what life was like with half the world gone, and also after they all came back at once.

Clearing something up, Sam is just a regular person with a flying wing suit, right? And nu-Cap ... is just a regular human, too, right? Neither seem like they would last long against people with super-human strength. I did like the truck fight in this, though.

Oh, and the buddy cop relationship between Bucky and Sam ... did they have much interaction at all in the movies? They're depicted as long time friends or rivals or frenemies.

Liked both the episodes, am just letting it ride a bit rather than getting too deep into wondering what’s up. Did like seeing that actress from the Solo film appear here, a striking presence.

Has the discourse decided yet whether this show is really gay or really homophobic?

I did see some clickbait thing about Bucky being bi, don't know what that was about.

Not a lot of wondering what's up just yet, imo. I'm not sure there's anything to do but tag along for the ride right now. But my not terribly ambitious prediction is that nu-Cap dies during this and Sam finally ends up Cap

Cool to see Isaiah Bradley show up, and hopefully they'll go deeper into his backstory. And the appearance of Elijah Bradley further cements the likelihood of a Young Avengers project in the future (after Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, the only other OG member left to make an MCU appearance* is Hulkling, and Secret Invasion might take care of that one).

(*And Kang is slated to appear in the next Ant-Man, in case you're inclined to split hairs about the OG membership.)

But my not terribly ambitious prediction is that nu-Cap dies during this and Sam finally ends up Cap

the curse of Lodge 49 strikes again

I don't know much about the comics, is Young Avengers just what it sounds like, more or less the Avengers, with the same powers and abilities, but ... teenagers? But not teenaged versions of the Avengers, right?

Oh, and the buddy cop relationship between Bucky and Sam ... did they have much interaction at all in the movies? They're depicted as long time friends or rivals or frenemies.

xp Correct, they’re a team of different heroes, who originally came together as teenagers.

my prediction is that sam, having uncovered the us government’s abuse of the super-soldier serum and turned against the department of defense, will reclaim the shield and become nomad at the end of the show

Clearing something up, Sam is just a regular person with a flying wing suit, right? And nu-Cap ... is just a regular human, too, right?

Huh, don't know anything about Power Broker or the nu-Cap character (John Walker?).

i enjoyed this ep & i like the interactions between sam & bucky

also it is kinda blowing my mind that nu-Cap is the Lodge 49 dude

His first speech felt like a lite version of his heartbreaking scene from the end of Lodge.

otm

yeah, Sam and Bucky chemistry can easily carry this series. but the action is good and the world building, post-Blip setup is pretty well done so far

though i did have to laugh Bucky's "He's means being... HYDRA." when the other touches on race issues were fairly keen

I only just found out that Lodge 49 dude is Kurt and Goldie's kid!!!!

Ha, that explains the jawline.

Meantime, another typically thoughtful Charles Pulliam-Moore piece

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-s-commentary-on-race-1846566829

everyone go watch lodge 49

I don't even mean that in a "don't watch this drivel watch this ART instead" I just mean....it's great, almost everyone who gives it a try ends up loving it

I just finished season 1 and it is wondrous

Yeah, I just watched Lodge 49 recently and it's astonishing that such a good show came and went without my ever having even heard the title. Maybe Russell getting cast in MCU will help drive viewers back to it.

I'm kind of afraid to watch season 2 lest it be a letdown from season 1, near-perfect TV

season 2 is better!

omg

Each time that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier stops to ask whether you see what it’s trying to do, it becomes harder to think of the show as doing much more than paying lip-service to a very surface-level understanding of how racism is bad. Racism is bad, and we shouldn’t gloss over opportunities to remind people of that fact, but The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is in a choice position to truly add something meaningful and more dynamic to the conversation. So far, it seems wholly uninterested in living up to its potential.

I don't actually think MCU does have the potential to do this kind of work. This is not a knock on MCU -- it is a great example of the kind of thing that it is, which is a thing that bangs major-key chords really hard, not a thing that embraces complexity.

A response would be the great line from episode 8 of Wandavision, but iirc that left you cold?

xp agreed, eephus. the fact that they're even going as far as they've gone is still a surprise. also, there's still four more episodes so let's see if they can do better. I liked the police arresting Bucky scene btw

The writer maybe should've waited to see whether we get the full Isaiah Bradley backstory before submitting that article.

I only just found out that Lodge 49 dude is Kurt and Goldie's kid!!!!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 28 March 2021 18:37 (four hours ago) link

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTT

Season 2 of L49 is impossible to find in the UK, even to bootleg

xpost Hah, yeah, I knew him mostly from that better than it should have been nazi zombie movie. A bigger superhero scion reveal to me was learning that the lead from The Boys is the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, which, if you look at him, totally.

once you realize he's kurt russell's kid you can't unsee it