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

superheroes' weaknesses are manifestos.

I was just thinking of the number of shows that dangled new characters that may never come into play (not including easter eggs and deep cut in-jokes). The Eternals promised Black Knight and hinted at the perpetually delayed Blade, not to mention the titular characters that no one gave a fuck about. I can't even remember which one had Eros and Pip the Troll, maybe that one. Hercules popped up at the end of Thor 4. Werewolf By Night introduced a bunch of stuff and implied Man-Thing would be important. Miles Morales was teased a couple of times. And of course the oft-promised/threatened Kang himself is up in the air. And they haven't even gotten to Fantastic Four or X-Men. Who knows if they can even keep it together until then.

Well, I did not expect to see that as an episode. The whole "I'm not who you think I am" speech just felt like a massive error of judgement.

OK, we've now seen the first three episodes of Loki 2. It's fine, but I still think they need to nip this shit in the bud ASAP. Even setting aside the problem with Majors (the person), Marvel *just did* this time travel/time line shenanigans stuff. It was literally the climax of its previous cycle. So Marvel, if you're listening, he's what you gotta do:

1) Use the alternate time-line BS as a means to bring in the Fantastic Four
2) Have the Fantastic Four figure out a way to fix the timeline and trap Kang in some sort of Phantom Zone again
3) Introduce Dr. Doom as the Big Bad. Seems simple enough to me. It can be a post-credits sequence (after Kang is conquered/put on mothballs), or maybe in the Agatha show. Menacing drone. Camera creeping through hallways of a castle. Close up of eyes behind a mask. Longer shot of Doom sitting on a throne. Cut to black. Kind of like they did with Thanos, get everyone excited again.

Doom has to save everyone imo

Definitely agree about bringing in Doom to be the Big Bad, I really thought that would be the direction and was kind of surprised they went all in on Kang.

Kang is boring in the comics (except maybe Young Avengers)

I haven't seen Majors in anything outside of Ant-Man and Loki, but IMO he is also boring

Boring is wrong, actually. Just a bit... panto?

He was absolutely fantastic in Lovecraft Country, which is why I was initially excited about his casting (obviously before the troubling news broke).

What it boils down to is: fuck being hard, Doom is complicated.

I'm not a big comics head, does Kang have a motivation?

Gotta admit, that was a great cliffhanger.

agreed!

I don’t mind this season of Loki at all but Loki has been very un-Loki-ish. He just seems so noble and trustworthy, like he’s just all in on saving all the timelines but doesn’t seem so concerned with how he is gaming this for himself. The God of Mischief has not been remotely mischievous this season.

yeah i was wondering why i wasn't really feeling this season even though it hasn't been bad at all, and that's part of it I think. so much of loki's appeal is that tension btw wanting to rule everything and wanting to do the right thing

also this show was better when it focused more on the characters' personal arcs and relationships - loki/morbius, loki/sylvie, morbius/renslayer, b-15 etc. just feels like a standard "we need to stop this bad thing from happening, repeat 10x" MCU plotline now

It feels (even more than before, for obvious reasons) that this show may indeed be aiming for some sort of reset. Fingers crossed! I recall reading that this is the first Marvel show that did not require reshoots, though, and if Marvel was even close to panic mode you'd think the shoot might have had a few of those.

Per Loki, there's always the chance this isn't the real Loki, either. Lotta cards left to play, should they desire.

Is it just me, or is this season literally really dark?

I think the confrontation with Sylvie in the cafeteria shows that Loki wants to rule the timelines and that what he’s getting out of this is being the backstop against HWR/Kang as puppet master of reality.

I stopped watching the shows. I’m not even sure I’ve seen all of the movies. A multi-movie Doctor Doom epic would immediately make me excited about the MCU again. My love of Marvel is a byproduct of Marvel’s ability to weave common speculative settings. Nobody does this better Doctor Doom!

Doom’s rule over Latveria, where he is the absolute monarch, adds a fantasy element to his character. His megalomaniacal belief in his own god-like status and his obsession with acquiring god-like powers taps into Marvel’s mythological themes. He’s a formidable sorcerer, making him a believable antagonist to Doctor Strange. He’s a brilliant scientist rivaling Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man. I could go on and on. He’s the best.

I got VERY hype a few years ago when noises were made about a Noah Hawley Doom movie

Or, more simply, etaeoe OTM

Dr. Doom's at his best when he's doing whatever it takes to achieve a goal, regardless of the fallout. OR DOES HE?

The Roger Stern/Mike Mignola story with Dr. Doom and Dr. Strange, TRIUMPH AND TORMENT, is completely over the top with Strange wonder whether Doom's screwed up different parts of his own plan, or if he's just messing with everyone in order to achieve his own goals. One of the turning points in making Doom more of a sorcerer while giving him a little more backstory.

Then there’s the whole aspect of “wait, was that Doom? Or a Doombot?”

Oh, yeah. That's one narrative out. The other is that half of the Doom lore stories using a third-party narrator as a framing device so every time you learn more about his childhood, there's a strong chance that half of it was exaggerated nonsense. Can you really trust some random Latverian relaying information about their ruler?

Noah Hawley Doom movie

Hawley apparently even turned in a script, but Marvel passed. Iirc, this was right around when Disney bought Fox, so they probably had all sorts of grand designs before covid and other delays screwed up the sacred Marvel timeline.

That and the other studios tried to make FF work how many times? Kind of crazy. I don't think I've ever seen more than bits and pieces of any of them

That's why I think the key is to make a standalone Doom movie. Set up the character, set up his world, set up his whole deal.

frenemies movie with Dr. Strange

at the end, Doom can turn to the camera and say "and now to get back to my real enemy... Reed Richards!"

Mr. Fantastic’s power is just inherently goofy. Hard to strike the right tone.

I say they just background him and make Sue the main FF character. He can always be off working on something technical, or captured, or missing.

I think the trick with the FF is *not* to give them an origin story or whatever. Just port them over from another timeline or, regardless, quickly establish their deal. Kind of like what they did with the latest Spider-men (animated and Tom Holland). And yeah, Reed, they barely need to give him powers, he's a super-genius, leave him to the lab with Hulk or whomever, working on widgets or figuring out what is going on while the rest get assigned to various adventures.

So yeah, Doom, give *him* an origin story, set up his complexity and ambiguity, and make the *the FF* the post-credits tease.

I've always thought Sue could be the most powerful/dangerous member of the group anyway. Slide a 2-micron force needle into the bad guy, expand it, et voila --

https://d3dkwn7op408kc.cloudfront.net/ckeditor_assets/2022/12/05/copied-from-winston-effect.jpg

skip the origin story and go full interdimensional Council of Reeds who get over their heads and you need Doom to help sort it out

actual comics plotline, there

I always thought stretching would be a cool power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFLlwtqHINs

dud

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/

Then again they could be reading this thread:

At the gathering in Palm Springs, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr. Doom.

*frowns quizzically*

As public criticism mounts, Feige is pulling the plug on scripts and projects that aren’t working. Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. With Mahershala Ali signed on for the eponymous role of a vampire, things looked promising for a 2023 release date. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.

“The Marvel machine was pumping out a lot of content. Did it get to the point where there was just too much, and they were burning people out on superheroes? It’s possible."

lol This quote could have appeared at any time in the last 13 years.

Blade: The View

But the ensuing tsunami of spandex proved to be too much of a good thing, and the demands of churning out so much programming taxed the Marvel apparatus. Moreover, the need to tease out an interwoven storyline over so many disparate shows, movies and platforms created a muddled narrative that baffled viewers.

otm imo, there's only so much time in one's life. my kid was steering the ship on watching Marvel stuff and it's kinda crazy how rapidly he lost interest, he loved Loki S1 and hasn't even mentioned S2. I think he mostly kinda liked the more recent movies and also the shows he'd seen but he just has no interest in attempting to keep up with another new storyline, and after Ant Man 3 he was done.

having interwoven stories that made you had to buy a half dozen titles that you didn't care about in order to understand what was going on in the one comic you enjoyed reading was one of the most widely-derided things they did in that medium! and they decided that was what they needed to replicate in movies and tv

there are multiple reasonably successful movie and tv franchises now that do this without making the intersection points the main plotline of the individual elements

Oooof

A Blade movie that isn’t at all about Blade would be very, very funny

it makes it sound more like what would happen if Blade showed up on Sesame Street chasing the Count and was waylaid into a life lesson by Elmo.

I feel bad for the writers because some clueless producers are just "Can you make this like Blade but woke?!"

ironically Blade as a concept is already woke so idk wtf they were thinking

It is pretty woaw that a She Hulk episode cost more to make than a final season Game of thrones episode

Yeah, my older kids either have aged out or had no interest to begin with, and my 13 year old is extremely Disney skeptical at this point. His position is "It sucks unless you can convince me otherwise."

I still remember how good the first Iron Man and the first Avengers were.

the difference is that you can clearly see what is going on onscreen in any given episode of she-hulk and that shit does not come cheap xp

ironically Blade as a concept is already woke so idk wtf they were thinking