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

Also the minor detail of the post-credit Black Widow scene inevitably paying off

Why did they make two Spider-Man movies in a row titled "No Way Home"?

For the same reason they retroactively changed the name of the Berenstein Bears, presumably.

Why did they make two a dozen Spider-Man movies in a row titled "No Way Home"?

Saw the new spiderman last night. spoilers ahead;
the amount of raw dog fucking is insane. had to have been at least half the movie...

— Tim Heidecker (@timheidecker) December 14, 2021

Called it.

Tim H. had a cameo in the MCU movie we watched over the weekend - Ant-Man and the Wasp (it was... ok, not great)

Tim and Gregg’s respective appearances in the Ant-Mens are part of the plot of the On Cinema universe fyi

Whoa @ new Hawkeye episode! We have D'Onofrio/Kingpin! I'd assumed at this point that the hints of his inclusion were just a big fake-out but I'm glad to be wrong. Guess the rights issues are resolved now. Let the Netflix gates open wide!

Yup it was a good episode and then some. Bring on tomorrow, got tickets for a 3 pm showing…

so good!

Damn good episode!

Having never seen Endgame, I had to pause and search “how did black widow die”, lol

(glad I read that goofy Waid/Samnee BW run, it kinda tied in a little bit at the beginning)

Woah - they actually did go for -that- reveal! I am really excited by that. (And I voiced the thought a couple of weeks back: I'm a proud geek.)

Regarding 'that other female on the rooftops' (will still go for hidden text should this spoil something to anyone): It was really great to see Florence Pugh being as awesome in this episode as she was in the Black Widow movie. However, I do wonder if the last episode will still make clear how comes she's so easily and utterly convinced that Clint was responsible for Natasha's death? She keeps asking Kate why she sticks up for Clint so much when Kate only met him a week ago, but as far as I'm aware Yelena never met him at all. She has the spy resources to know a lot about his history, but should then also know that as Ronin, he went after mobs and criminals; as a SHIELD agent he might have been a 'weapon' who did black ops stuff but does that justify her certainty that he is not a good person & was responsible for what happened to Natasha? Also, how is -anything- known about Natasha's death, even merely the fact that she and Clint went off together and only Clint returned? Nobody else was there! (Well, save for the Red Skull, but looking at what became of that character, I don't see it fitting that he's now busy re-creating Hydra behind the scenes.) So how come Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (and maybe Kingpin?) could claim that Hawkeye was responsible and could so easily convince/hire Yelena?

I wondered some of the same things, but figured I didn’t have all the background.

Also, I’m hardly a Doctor of Blip-ology… but at the end of the intro sequence, shouldn’t there have been a little more shock/surprise on the part of both parties?

I assume she'd already had time to see Endgame.

I think that's the first time we've seen the dissolution/reintegration from the perspective of a Blip-ee? Very cool (+ jarring) stuff.

It was some Twin Peaks shit!

EASILY the best scene in the whole thing. Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield & Tom Hollands on screen chemistry was so much better than I ever expected they need to do another one asap🤣#NoWayHome pic.twitter.com/A7b5HCDYdr

— habibi/haiwan (@timelesshabibi) December 15, 2021

How is this a real movie that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make

the three raimi spider-man films are on peacock rn btw

lol, based on that tweet this does indeed look stupid as hell

if they don't all point at each other at once they really left money on the table

pic.twitter.com/e5RXCOBt5e

— Ignatius Goodle (@Goodle__) December 16, 2021

(tbf, "Into the Spider-Verse" already used that joke)

not live action tho

Just got out, thought it was pretty good, canoes and Easter eggs everywhere. Honestly didn’t expect it to be so heavy at points (within the scope of these universes etc etc).

New "Hawkeye" ep was pretty good, and the perfect platform from which to launch my new Marvel all-in crossover event, "Everyone's a Ninja."

Florence Pugh is so effortlessly funny and charismatic - felt bad for Steinfeld and how easily she was eclipsed in that scene in the apartment.

the post-blip return scene was cool but no one ever talks about the people who blipped out say, at sea or on a plane or in a renovated building. Yikes.

They should all have blipped back naked, that would have been something.

I did think it was funny how Barton, who seems like a guy who hates being dragged off the couch when SportsCenter is on, apparently turns into Batman when he wears a hoodie.

It's really odd to me that they didn't include any scenes of Clint being impressed by Kate at all. He sees that she has trophies, ok, but then she goes beyond that and does superhero-hawkeye level archery and Clint seems unfazed by this. They even set it up nicely in the car chase by the circumstances forcing Clint to drive. He says something about her driving so he can hawkeye all the bad guys, but there is no time and it's up to Kate. Beautiful, cue her hitting impossible shots that are far beyond what anyone can expect even from a champion with a bunch of competition trophies, show Clint glancing over in disbelief because he's never seen anyone else anywhere close to his superhuman archery skill. Hmm... hey... uh, hey guys, it looks like that important scene that I just described that validates Kate's ability to the audience is missing?

The obvious pushback to this comment is they show how good she is to the audience obviously, but still without Clint shown explicitly being even a little impressed (he really does seem to not care at any point from what I saw), as a viewer I'm still unsure whether we're meant to assume other elite archers could also do what she has done so far, or is she the best of the best (actual superhero ability) like him? He isn't just well trained, he has superhuman perfect aim.

I can't remember, doesn't he concede that she is indeed really, really good? The vibe I get is that he is impressed but keeping his feelings in check because first and foremost he wants her to be safe. He doesn't want to encourage her even though he recognizes her talents because he knows the price she'll likely pay (which he did explain to her). Has this show depicted anyone actually killed yet? Will this particular show *let* her be a killer?

Yeah, Ronin offed Echo's dad, for one.

That's Ronin in a flashback, though, before Hawkeye reformed. And of course Widow's sister has killed a million people, too. But will they let her kill here, going forward? Will Hawkeye? Will Kate? Will Kingpin? Certainly won't have a death count like the Daredevil show.

(Also, fwiw, they didn't show Echo's dad getting killed, they showed him dying. Not saying he wasn't killed by Ronin, just wondering what Disney's standards of violence might be, or what they're going to let the good guys get away with.)

To answer the first question, I honestly don't remember Clint having a scene of acknowledgement, so as a viewer I'm left wondering if she is good or superhero good. Clint stamp of approval is the only way we would know. Did I forget about the sort of scene I'm describing? It's possible I missed it.

Good question about whether they'll let Kate kill. The tracksuit mafia are lovable comic relief dopes so they're a little off the table. The ones Clint shot at the warehouse were sort of ambiguously injured (except for that one that got shot in the hand). If she ends up killing someone it will probably be a heavy scene and would represent a point of no return.

Sorry I was sort of both talking about deaths in this show in general and the prospect of Kate killing in the same breath, hopefully not too confusing.

Pretty sure in episode 4 Clint acknowledged that Kate really was one of the best archers in the world (can’t remember the exact wording)

That's what I thought.

Well that's good! I guess all I remember is him brooding the whole time so it must not have stood out for me.

I think he was brooding because he knew she was really good but saw where that was going and didn't want her to get hurt. But iirc there's a trick shot during the car chase the other ep where he shoots an arrow at her descending arrow to direct it or something, and I think that was meant to convey (through the act, through her reaction) that he's still a lot better than she is. She did pick up on the coin trick pretty fast, though!

I just double checked the episode.
When they're on the subway train after the car chase he says "You're not wrong to call yourself one of the world's greatest archers" while she's talking about walking the dog.
Also he shoots her arrow to hit it with a Pym particle arrow and massively increase its size to take out a tracksuit mafia truck speeding up to crash into them.

Hah, yeah, that's right. Still, I'd count hitting another arrow in mid-flight as proof that you're probably the best.

It's jarring every time I'm reminded that Clint has a wife & kids; they're trying their best to square that with his "sullen loner" vibe, but maybe not entirely successfully.

I thought it was funny that his wife didn't at all suspect him of, you know, being unfaithful – even just for dramatic enhancement – when they talk on the phone and he's all - "Yeeeeah, Honey... I dunno, things are really bad here, I think it's gonna be another couple of days. Boy, it's just a mess, the 'big man' may be involved. I'm working closely with this girl who grew up obsessed with me, it's all good, will keep you posted!"

Does she exist in the comics? Because in the show she seems very much a partner in every sense. She knows other languages (German?) to speak to him so her kids won't understand, she knows her husband was a murderer-for-hire, she researched stuff for him and so on. She clearly seems to be used to hiding out and moving around and otherwise being in danger.

I don't think so. He was married to Mockingbird at one point.

She might still turn out to be Mockingbird. She’s obviously got a past that hasn’t been revealed yet

Well Bobbi Morse exists in the MCU, right? (played by Adrianne Palicki)

Not sure that’s canon anymore, but there’s still a possibility she could be another version of Mockingbird

Hawkeye had a family in The Ultimates. They got slaughtered iirc. Fucken Millar.

...at least THAT'S non-canon.