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

hm. well! So!

I'm not totally sold on the sudden shift of style here? Considering the "dark things lurking within the candy coating" approach we've been presented with thus far on the inside of the hex and the Iron Giant-esque "Scooby-Doo gang wrests control of the case from the uncaring government agency" story on the outside, this episode may have pulled a little too far outside of its lane for me to stay suspended in disbelief. Hahn (who has been a mostly understated joy until now) got backed into a corner with Agatha's dialogue and ended up sounding like a didactic Pinhead from Hellraiser, leading Wanda from set to set in an attempt to crack her egg. Everything got very serious, very melodramatic, very SURPRISE REVEAL! PLOT TWIST! SUDDEN SHOCKING RELATIONSHIP POINT! END ON THE POPULAR NAME OF THE CHARACTER WHICH HAS NEVER! BEEN! USED! UNTIL NOW!!! Before it began, this was how i thought the whole series was gonna be like and I've been pleased we've mostly found ways around the obvious. Until now. Which suggests the producer are gonna fall back on heavy dark expository when they need to move the rock forward instead of playing by the rules they established and that's a little disappointing.

As far as the level of melodrama in both action and script, I think that's really a question of where you're at as a viewer? I find the "love is never having to say you're sorry" over-intentionally humanizing moments of the MCU more than a little hamhanded and too simplistic, sadistic and freudian (oh, so the reason she's created a simulated sitcom asylum is because her mother and father were killed by a bomb when they were watching Dick Van Dyke, say no more, everything makes sense now) for me to feel genuinely touched... but we're all pretty bruised right now so, if it works for you, who am I to judge? On a separate point - and one that likely deserves an essay if one hasn't already been written - given that Kirby/Lee were doing Douglas Sirk-style hypermelodrama romance comics long before they repurposed much of that angst into the Avengers and X-Men should indicate just how baked-in to the formula this glurge is. People have been bitching about too much of it being in the books for over sixty years, why should now be any different?

The television guy in me is frustrated at the lack of cohesion and whiplash between narratives and tone from episode to episode. Another pass or two on the totality of the script might have integrated everything more seamlessly so that we don't have the bad guy's origin showing up near the end of the "film" or have us forced into spending nearly two (well-crafted but probably not necessary) hours in TV Land without a little more guidance as to the parameters of the larger story arc.

The comic book guy in me doesn't appreciate the apparent turn toward the "mad chaos witch" storyline and Wanda as unwitting hysteric being manipulated by impossibly greater power. Yes, it's a plot that dates back to ancient Grecian drama and yes I am sure they'll put a bow on this before the end to show Wanda controlling her power and reclaiming her sense of self and self-control and STRONG WOMEN so that Twitter doesn't eat them alive... but the fact remains that a LOT of Marvel's modern roster of strong female superhero characters in TV/movies/comics (Black Widow, Gamora, Wasp, Jessica Jones, and now Wanda) come out of "abuse as character development" crucibles. I'm not happy to see that trope re-emerge here.

More geekily, White Vision is my least favorite incarnation of the character and, while I'm sure that the impending Vision v Vision action sequence is going to look very good, it's of extremely little interest to me.

BUT! WandaVision has been surprisingly ambitious in what it has been trying to do and how it presents its story and it remains unpredictable and engaging. The production values are super high and the acting and writing are generally better than they have any real reason to be. It continues to navigate the narrow tightrope of not being too much for the comic nerds and not leaving them out of the conversation. I'm still anxious to see the way they tie this up, but - with plenty more of this on the horizon - I am not exactly gonna be sorry to see it go or clamoring for a return to this style. Nonetheless, WV has been an unexpected improvement over past attempt to introduce this universe to episodic long-form visual media for a modern audience. I genuinely want to see what Marvel Studios does after this, which surprises me.

I've also been amused at people confusing bold and spoiler tags on this thread, so thanks for that.

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I agree with the general complaint re: the development/origin of female characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but leaving out that virtually every hero they’ve introduced has been put through the meat grinder is suspect to me. I think the only one who hasn’t been through some abjectly awful shit as part of their story is Falcon?

Like, the primary way depth is added to all of these characters is by doing evil, shitty to them, whether it’s part of their origin stories or part of how they’re used in the stories. It’s virtually a genre requirement.

I also think that pointing out all of the shit that has happened to this character and exploring her reaction to it is a reasonable hook for a storyline; the show after all is reminding us of what MCU Wanda has gone through already. Honestly, the criticism of Unnecessary Trauma is more apt for how they’re handling Monica, considering that they killed off her mother in order to make her a sympathetic foil for Wanda and the other major character grappling with loss when, in the comics, both of her parents were alive and well throughout most if not all of her Avengers tenure.

oh, so the reason she's created a simulated sitcom asylum is because her mother and father were killed by a bomb when they were watching Dick Van Dyke, say no more, everything makes sense now

I read this more as: watching old sitcoms is how she dealt with trauma from a young age and now as a powered adult she's dealing with trauma by living in an old sitcom.

Old Lunch OTM

Yea that's how I read it too. It's literally what she was doing before her parents were killed.

I read this more as: watching old sitcoms is how she dealt with trauma from a young age and now as a powered adult she's dealing with trauma by living in an old sitcom.

leaving out that virtually every hero they’ve introduced has been put through the meat grinder is suspect to me

the criticism of Unnecessary Trauma is more apt for how they’re handling Monica

It goes without saying that there are also far fewer female characters so how each one is represented becomes that much more important! Marvel has been less horrible about this of late: Carol Danvers and Kamala Khan and Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl are good examples of their evolution. And of course trauma doesn't have to equal abuse: the woman Thor saga that Jason Aaron put together (presumably coming to a multiplex near you soon enough) hinges on Jane Foster dying of cancer. I'm just not excited about a project this big and influential and groundbreaking reverting to the mean.

The whole family used American sitcom families as a model, an aspiration for the life they wanted to build. They directly used the language of American sitcoms as a practical tool of communication, while collectively fantasizing about an ideal future.

xps

otm

i am tempted to grab a random issue of OHotMU and start making a list of origin stories that don't explicitly hinge on trauma (Wundarr the Aquarian came to mind immediately) but i really should be doing something productive...

I am specifically talking about the MCU implementation of these characters.

Iron Man: was blown up by his own company’s weapons and had to invent something to keep shrapnel out of his heart
Captain America: was locked in ice for 70 years, losing all of his friends and the love of his life
Thor: his brother betrayed and tried to kill him
Hulk: became Hulk (yes this is shaky)
Hawkeye: pretty clean origin but then gets put through the wringer in the movies by having Quicksilver die in front of him, then having his whole family blipped out of existence, then having his best friend sacrifice herself for him
Black Widow: sterilized as part of her assassin training
Winter Soldier: physically mutilated, rebuilt by Nazis into a brainwashed super soldier, murders Iron Man’s parents
Black Panther: father murder in front of him
Scarlet Witch: parents killed by Stark tech, brother killed by Ultron, lover killed by Thanos
Vision: relatively clean origin, although he was intended to be the murderous new chassis for Ultron, but then killed by his lover, brought back from the dead, then killed by Ultron
Falcon: secret agent with flying backpack, relatively clean origin
War Machine: clean origin, accidentally paralyzed by Vision during Civil War
Ant Man: incarcerated for Robin Hooding, divorced during incarceration and stripped of parental rights
Spider Man: indirectly got his uncle killed
Star Lord: father murdered his mother
Gamora: father was Thanos
Rocket: tortured into existence in a lab
Groot: clean origin as far as we know
Drax: family murdered by Thanos
Mantis: held hostage by Ego
Dr Strange: lost surgical use of his hands in a car accident
Shuri: clean origin, almost lost her brother and had to flee Wakanda
Okoye: clean origin, chose to serve an unstable usurper, boyfriend tried to kill the rightful king
Captain Marvel: kidnapped and brainwashed into helping oppressors
Pepper Potts: clean origin, tortured several times due to association with Stark
Nebula: father was Thanos

I’m not specifically arguing that all of these scenarios are created equal; I’m arguing that there is more than enough suffering to go around in the MCU and that while I’d argue that Wanda is a strong contender for getting the worst of it, the baggage being brought to the table here is much less MCU-driven and more mapping shitty comics events onto the MCU iterations, which is understandable but possibly also unfair.

I immediately thought of Ironheart as a character driven by her genius rather than trauma to build an armored suit and become a hero and then I remembered the heaps of trauma (dad, stepdad, and best friend all gunned down in drive-by shootings) so...welp

lol, I keep thinking 'happy-go-lucky' is the key here, so...Amadeus Cho? Oh, shit, no, parents killed, whoops.

well i appreciate your diligence to write all that out! i could nitpick some of those - if it follows the comics at all (and given that Yelena Belova is on the way, it likely will) Black Widow's MCU La Femme Nikita Red Room experience offers a lot worse than sterilization, Gamora and Nebula were tortured and forced to kill things by their father as a child - but I think we're a lot closer to agreeing on this than not.

I'll refine my point then to say not that "women in the MCU deal with unfair trauma" but that the TYPE of trauma they experience disproportionately leans into dehumanization and othering and loss of independence and that sort of storytelling has a long history in superhero entertainment as intentionally titillating and misogynist and just being lazy.

If you'd like to extend the idea that loss of control and independence is dehumanization, the other character that gets this the worst is Rocket, suggesting a fairly uneasy analogue the more you think about it.

"Who will we treat with more human dignity in our storytelling origins: the greatest spy in history or the raccoon?"

for reasonably happy-go-lucky non-traumatized marvel heroes, i would point you to my early post with Kamala Khan and Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl... all of whom are recently reiterated characters written and/or drawn and/or reimagined by women, so that may tell you something too.

Secret War really took a big dump on Kamala Khan’s momentum. Thought the first dozen issues of that series were great before they started shoehorning her into crossovers and teams.

Some other examples of prominent female characters whose origin isn’t defined by trauma – but whom have appeared only marginally, or not yet appeared, in the MCU – include Bobbi Morse, Jennifer Walters, and Kate Bishop*.

(*in my understanding, she was revealed to be an assault survivor sometime after her introduction, but that fact doesn’t play a large role in her character later.)

btw in case you thought that brutalization of women as lazy plot device was solely a marvel thing, may i introduce the non-Eltingville Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Role Playing Club members of our audience to the idea of the "Woman in the Refrigerator":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators

https://www.lby3.com/wir/women.html

Bobbi Morse is in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and IIRC they are in pre-production on a She-Hulk series

that’s why I said “marginally or not yet”

I really liked this episode. Scarlet Witch was always a big favorite of mine as a kid, so I liked the dive into her backstory. I thought it was an unexpectedly touching portrayal of grief, at least from the MCU.

But, come on, "that line" was neither the greatest example of screenwriting in modern history, nor was it an example of how "terrible" the writing is "always" in the MCU. Can we maybe have a piece of pop culture that is not immediately shoved to the most ridiculous ends of hyperbole? Both positions, which were all over Twitter this weekend, are embarrassing.

agreed. it was a nice line but unfortunately completely contradicts the comforting thing that Vision says immediately prior, something like 'it can't ALL be sadness.' well, if grief is love persevering, and it can't all be sadness, i guess love doesn't really last! SORT IT OUT, VISION

I mean... it doesn't work that way, at least not in my experience

The underlying point and what resonated so hard with people is that grief is a painful manifestation of love, and it's helpful to get through that pain to remember that it is a manifestation of love. The fact that that pain fades doesn't directly mean that the love does; it means that over time, the love become less immediately painful. The two statements are absolutely in support of each other, not in contradiction.

ty for expressing that DJP. i was trying to figure out a good way to say it, but you nailed it

haha DJP no i agree, i was just being needlessly argumentative by taking a cartoonishly literal interpretation of this show's dialogue, per tradition

lol well-played

What is ILX if not literalness persevering?

pic.twitter.com/IbzjnqKrsH

— Gabe Delahaye (@gabedelahaye) February 28, 2021

Okay lmao

i've seen a million of those and that's the only good one, well done

I saw that one, but idgi, guessing because I'm not familiar with the Vanessa Bayer source material.

Jon, it’s this skit from Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xS9Y_mjTjc

Thanks! Haha, should have assumed it came from that show, seems to be the breeding ground for 85% of memes on twitter right now. I haven't watched it yet, one of those shows where I feel like I missed the moment and it can never possibly live up to the hype.

I would ignore the hype tbh, it’s just funny

Also with a lot of good visual candy, as evidenced by its reuse in memes

On a separate point - and one that likely deserves an essay if one hasn't already been written - given that Kirby/Lee were doing Douglas Sirk-style hypermelodrama romance comics long before they repurposed much of that angst into the Avengers and X-Men should indicate just how baked-in to the formula this glurge is. People have been bitching about too much of it being in the books for over sixty years, why should now be any different?

I can't even tell where the quote is from

the second result was this edifying article, though

that quote is from my lengthy and de-spoilered post upthread.

the hiding tags work! I wonder if they googleproof

You don’t have time to watch one damn show on Disney plus and suddenly you have no idea what anyone is ever arguing about on Twitter anymore.

— Dewayne Perkins (@DewaynePerkins) February 28, 2021

that vanessa beyer skit on that show was easily the funniest thing on the show and also one of the funniest things I've seen in the past 25 years

it's my favorite part of the show and also a pavlovian trigger for me to post the aunty donna ellen sketch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5FGOaz__W0

that vanessa beyer skit on that show was easily the funniest thing on the show and also one of the funniest things I've seen in the past 25 years

I sincerely feel the book LEAN IN should be about Vanessa Bayer's performance in that sketch and not some Facebook shit

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/kathryn-hahn-steals-the-show-again

ok that finale left me an emotional mess and that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that about an MCU thing after 22 movies and several series

Wanda!!