THE MARVELS starring Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonna Parris (2023) 9 9

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 3:51 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I took that photo myself at a convention a few years back. I was struck by how many young girls were there dressed up. I counted about five Jodie Whittaker Doctor Whos as I recall. I think her tenure was terrible myself - bad writing, acting and characterisation - but it's unlikely that they would pick up on that just as we didn't spot terrible writing in the comics of our past. But those girls were inspired enough to dress up and join the party and that's a good thing I think. We're not there yet, but maybe one day we'll achieve that balance and just make great films and shows with everyone, for everyone. 

I actually didn't realize that was you in the photo. Sorry I missed it. Good job!

I guess the last line is what confuses me, when we say "we're not there yet". What would be the metric by which we'd know if we were "there yet"?

Because that's a question that is often asked about MANY things and yet nobody can give a real answer, but without knowing THAT answer we're really just headed down an open ended path whereby anything goes and those pulling the strings can decide when enough is enough. 

[fantastic_four]

On 11/9/2023 at 9:55 AM, paqart said:

When I was a kid "A-List" meant Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, and Spider-Man. That's it. The Avengers was not "A" tier because its group members came from other titles as opposed to being created in their own title. Iron Man (Tales of Suspense), Thor (Journey into Mystery), Ant-Man (Tales to Astonish) were all second tier. The proof was that they either didn't have their own title (Ant-Man) or they didn't have a self-titled #1 issue (Thor), or their #1 came out years after they were introduced somewhere else (Iron Man).

I don't see that popularity the tiers you'd group superheroes into has significantly changed since you were a kid.  Spider-Man and Wolverine have LONG been Marvel's most popular heroes, and that's still true today.  FF was never at the level of popularity that Spidey and Logan are, and neither were the X-Men in any iteration, Hulk, or any Avenger member or the group as a whole.

Maybe if you grouped Cap and Iron Man as a third tier in the 80s and 90s the MCU films boosted them to second tier.  But none of them have come close to touching Spidey or Logan in popularity.

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 7:56 AM, fantastic_four said:

No, you're in the majority of fans and critics, and I also suspect you're in the majority within people who post regularly in this forum.  We just don't feel as compelled to keep hailing the quality of a 2018 film as much as others feel compelled to keep dumping on it.  

There's a separate thread in this forum where people rank the best superhero films, and I still have Captain Marvel somewhere in the second half of the top 30 or so.

Not sure this is an issue of "best" or "worst." For instance, by an objective craftsmanship standard, the first Thor movie may have had the weakest CG of the entire MCU. It had other faults that in my opinion would force it to be ranked lower than Ragnarok. However, I much prefer Thor to Ragnarok. The reason is that I enjoyed the Shakespearean moments with Odin and Thor's genial personality. Captain Marvel was a good film, and I agree, better than it's made out to be by detractors. However, I don't think of it as a more appealing film than its technically weaker siblings in the MCU. 

Overall, the MCU films maintain a very consistent high standard for craft. It is very difficult to credibly criticize any of them for quality flaws. What criticisms I've read are weak tea compared to what can be said of other films. Who remembers the scene in T2, where the T-1000 grabs the bumper of a car as it speeds out of the psychiatric hospital and it looks like a store mannequin wired to the bumper?

The issue with Marvel, as I see it, never has anything to do with quality. The issue is content. Is it appealing or not? Think of it this way: we all have our favorite comic book artists. How many of us are aware of comics drawn by our favorites that we have no interest in? I have quite a few artists that I normally like that fit into that category. My favorite artist is Carl Barks, but I have zero interest in his non-duck comics, like the Porky Pig or Our Gang stories he did. Kirby is my all-time favorite action artist, but I have zero interest in the comics he did for Pacific. I buy his Fourth World comics for the art, but apart from Kamandi, don't read them because the stories aren't interesting to me. I much prefer Kirby's Fantastic Four work, particularly the later issues. This doesn't mean the art in those issues is better, but that the stories are more interesting to me, for whatever reason.

In the MCU, it goes beyond a question of interest however, and crosses over into causing offense. This is more like the way I feel about Harvey Kurtzman, another of my favorite comic book artists. Kurtzman's war stories are very well executed and interesting (to me.) His satire comics, like Mad and Help! or even the material he did for Playboy, are offensive to me. All of them are rude and employ a kind of humor that isn't just "not funny" to me, but offensive. The quality of the art and writing is not meaningfully different between the war and satire comics, but the flavor is significantly different.

When I read complaints about Captain Marvel and other late MCU movies, they can be interpreted as complaints about the flavor of the films as opposed to their intrinsic technical merit. Here is how I would describe the flavors of the earliest MCU films:

• Iron Man: Pure, unabashed, unapologetic, masculine adventure and righteous heroism
• Thor: Virtue and responsibility, with no apologies for strict interpretations of these standards
• Captain America: Virtuous male as protector of the defenseless, an ideal to be emulated. True of the first two as well.
• Avengers: Sublimation of ego and other competing interests to maximize strength against an enemy that threatens innocents. Corollary: unless individual differences set aside, others suffer.

Those are the type of themes I associate with Phase One, and for the most part, Phase Two and most of Phase Three. As I recall, the last film that was a strong example of these themes was Doctor Strange, and the first to introduce the themes I didn't like was Civil War. Speaking of which, some examples of the new flavors in the transition movies from Phase Three:

• Civil War: Accepting group responsibility for something that isn't your fault shows how virtuous you are (What? Why? Makes no sense to me)
• Captain Marvel: You can't trust anything because you've been brainwashed, but you can trust the people trying to kill you (an interesting idea, but it is a plot, not a theme, thus lightweight compared to earlier films)
• Ragnarok: Mockery of masculine virtue is humorous and appropriate. Here, we get into offensive Mad magazine territory for the first time in the MCU. 
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Men are dumb and helpless without a smart and capable woman to lead them. As a one-off, I liked the movie, but the theme was irritating and shallow. There are weak and stupid men who will demean themselves for the attention of a woman, but not all men are like that, and it seemed inappropriate and magical (as in, an evil spell) for Scott Lang to behave that way.

Late MCU:

• Eternals: Good looking people lit well look good if photographed correctly. That was about al that was going on in this film, which I didn't finish. It was like an extended perfume advertisement, with a few wraiths thrown in to spice it up.
• Love and Thunder: Anyone who believes in God is stupid and harbors malicious delusions of grandeur. Also, men are stupid, careless, and weak compared to women. This movie was offensive from start to finish.
• Black Widow: Non-stop action can distract from the absence of a major theme. The movie didn't offend me but lacked the kind of appeal that originally drew me to the MCU. This could be described as another "women are better than men" movie, but there aren't enough men in lead roles to describe it as a major theme. The men (Black Widow's father and the evil Russian in the sky) are not treated well by the writers, but the focus isn't usually on them, unlike in Ragnarok or Love and Thunder.

After reviewing these now, I see that the characteristics that bother me in late MCU films fit into a couple of discrete groups. They are:

1. The film overtly mocks a demographic I belong to, usually "male" but sometimes extending to "believes in God" or "American."
2. The film lacks a strong theme (Black Panther, Eternals, Quantumania)
3. The film includes short but offensive distracting references that interfere with the narrative (Endgame, Multiverse of Madness, Civil War, Shang-Chi)

The most common complaint I read from other people about these movies has to do with race and gender-swapping. I don't like that either, but consider it a minor complaint to the others listed above. Here are the swapped or pseudo-swapped characters I noticed:

• Nick Fury. Swapped race, Caucasian to black. Effect: Doesn't bother me. I like Jackson in the role, though would have preferred he was a different named character to hold open the possibility of the "real" Nick Fury showing up some day.
• The Ancient One: Swapped race and gender: Effect: Doesn't bother me. The explanation that "The Ancient One" is a title, not a unique designation is adequate. More importantly, Swinton was very interesting as this character. 
• Iron Man/Iron Heart: Apparently this does come from the comics, but comics I've never seen. Initially, this looks born out of the same impetus that gave us Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman in the 1970's, but in Disney's hands, is used to take away from the merits of Tony Stark/Iron Man while building up Pepper Potts/Iron Heart. This is offensive to me because it denies the importance of the man in the suit. It makes the suit into the hero, not the person inside it.
• Hulk/She-Hulk: This comes from the John Byrne run on Sensational She-Hulk. As such, it is canon. If the scenes with Hulk are removed, I liked the series. I did not like how the filmmakers felt they had to make She-Hulk better than Hulk to the point of mockery. Not gracious, cool, or credible.
• Thor/She-Thor: Again, there is precedent for this in the comics. In the film, She-Thor is better than Thor. This seems to be because she is female, and no other reason. Meaning, a twenty-five year old female astrophysicist from the planet Earth is somehow more wise, intelligent, and virtuous than a 5,000 year old man from an advanced civilization. Not credible, particularly when combined with copious mockery.
• Captain America/Captain Amerikette: I enjoy the Peggy Carter character as Peggy Carter. I also like her as Agent Carter. She makes sense in both roles. Making her into a female Captain America comes across as theft, and I resent that. It takes a character I like, Captain America, and removes him from the picture. At that point alone, I no longer have a positive impression of whoever replaces him. When it turns out to be Peggy Carter, although I like her character, I resent her now because she's effectively destroyed another good character, and done so unnecessarily.
• Captain America/Falcon: Swapped race. I like the Falcon as Captain America's partner and as a standalone character. As with Peggy Carter, I don't like to see Captain America supplanted by someone else, even if it's a character I like. Oddly, I would prefer Captain America dies, never to be seen again, than to have other people wear his uniform. It seems sacrilegious.
• Mar-Vell/Mar-vell: Gender swap. To clarify, this is Annette Benning playing Mar-Vell, not Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. This bothered me because, unlike Tilda Swinton's Ancient One, there wasn't a good explanation for this, and Benning's portrayal wasn't so good that she was the obvious choice. In addition, Mar-vell was significantly changed for this film, in ways that didn't make him more interesting either as a her or as a rocket scientist.
• Captain Marvel/Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel): Brie Larson's Captain Marvel is named Carol Danvers. Therefore, I am comfortable stating that this is a case of a name swap, where "Ms. Marvel" becomes "Captain Marvel." This is not a gender-swapped character. The gender swap is with Annette Benning. I agree with others that Larson comes across as smug, arrogant, and has literally no faults to make her credible as a human or even as a Kree. I agree with others that she is the least likable character in the MCU, on the level of Scrappy-Doo, or Oliver from the Brady Bunch.
• EDIT: Valkyrie: race/gender preference swap. The idea of a black Valkyrie doesn't make loads of sense in the context of Norse myths. Nor does a same-sex affinity. However, if this character was somehow appealing, those two issues could have been overcome. By making her a rude alcoholic, she became essentially the opposite of everything I would expect from a Valkyrie. And, since there is no added value to writing/casting the character this way, the race swap and gender affinity swap can be held against the character because they don't enhance it either.
• EDIT: Heimdall: Race swap. Like Nick Fury, I liked this Heimdall. There is nothing about this portrayal that betrays the essential character of Heimdall, and the actor does an excellent job infusing the character with the strength and timelessness expected of him.

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by paqart

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 7:56 AM, fantastic_four said:

No, you're in the majority of fans and critics, and I also suspect you're in the majority within people who post regularly in this forum.  We just don't feel as compelled to keep hailing the quality of a 2018 film as much as others feel compelled to keep dumping on it.  

There's a separate thread in this forum where people rank the best superhero films, and I still have Captain Marvel somewhere in the second half of the top 30 or so.

I think people are just tired of bad movies and pick certain films as the starting point to where Marvel seemed to go down a different road. 

Seminal films have a way of doing that with people. 

On 11/9/2023 at 10:49 AM, kimik said:

FF stopped being an A-List property 40 or so years ago, and the Hulk dropped off before that. Neither one can carry a regular ongoing title, or a movie franchise........

Are you sure that FF wasn't an A lister in 1993? I wasn't reading then (stopped around 1990) but FF was still pretty big then. 

-------------------------------------------

Is everyone aware of the corporate warfare over the FF in the last decade between Marvel and Fox? 

Fox owned the movie rights and Marvel owned the comic book rights, but the movies were fueled by the comics previously, so comics had the power to change the movies.

Marvel, quite literally tanked their own franchise in comics a few years ago, the FF, just to destroy Fox's ability to market the movie franchise. This in turn led Fox to selling the movie rights to Disney. 

They literally shot themselves in the foot to bankrupt Fox.

 

Now that they've flipped the tables, the MOVIES have the power to change THE COMICS. It's the movies that bring in the coin and the comics are now the supporting cast. 

Think about that on a corporate level. It's mind boggling that they can reverse directions of entire industries just by starving out their competition. 

That's how big money works. It's literally warfare. 

Do you think they worried about the employees working on either the FF franchises at Marvel or those involved with FF at Fox? Nope. They just had their sights on which franchise they wanted and were willing to sacrifice whatever it took to get it. 

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 10:49 AM, kimik said:

FF stopped being an A-List property 40 or so years ago, and the Hulk dropped off before that. Neither one can carry a regular ongoing title, or a movie franchise........

Not talking about now. I'm talking about what the A-list was in the sixties and seventies.

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:23 AM, namisgr said:

Hulk lasted all of 6 issues in his first solo go-round.  In my experience reading superhero books for the first time around 1963 and collecting them regularly starting in '72 is that Thor was considered by most hobbyists to be a top tier Marvel book.  That Marvel started him off by giving him a trial in JIM made no difference to the stature of the character and series, and by issue 97 Marvel's commitment through assigning the art job to Kirby, which he maintained for the next 80+ issues, made the top tier status plain, as did the central role given to him as well as Loki starting in the first ish of Avengers.  On the other hand, Kirby handed the reigns on X-Men over to other artists shortly after its launch, which along with sales figures argues for it being at a tier below JIM/Thor.

Just another old timer's take.

I'm not as old but I can agree with this. 

Thor was Kirby's favorite title to work on and it shone through his work. Thor was definitely an A lister.

X-men are probably the top franchise after Spidey now but they were HORRIBLE in the mid 60's after Kirby left. I only collected the title as a completist but between roughly '65 and until Neal Adams started it was pretty bad. 

If many younger people don't know, Marvel quite literally put Neal Adams on to save the title. From what I understand Adams was so confident he only wanted to be put on failing titles so he could ressurrect them and he did exactly that, everywhere he went. Talk about a man's man. Dude had gonads the size of Kansas.

 

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:23 AM, namisgr said:

Hulk lasted all of 6 issues in his first solo go-round.  In my experience reading superhero books for the first time around 1963 and collecting them regularly starting in '72 is that Thor was considered by most hobbyists to be a top tier Marvel book.  That Marvel started him off by giving him a trial in JIM made no difference to the stature of the character and series, and by issue 97 Marvel's commitment through assigning the art job to Kirby, which he maintained for the next 80+ issues, made the top tier status plain, as did the central role given to him as well as Loki starting in the first ish of Avengers.  On the other hand, Kirby handed the reigns on X-Men over to other artists shortly after its launch, which along with sales figures argues for it being at a tier below JIM/Thor.

Just another old timer's take.

My impression is that Hulk was always top tier despite the short run in his original title, simply because he was the first of the early Kirby/Lee characters to start in his own self-titled book. Spider-Man stood out for a different reason: sales. In addition, SM never became part of a team book, and managed to maintain a high profile all by himself. Thor, I admit, was pushed as top tier by Stan Lee, but I'm not sure he was received that way by readers. If you look at the value of JIM 83, it was similar to (less than?) TOS 39. Maybe I just didn't like the fake olde English and this was my lonely view. X-men, agreed, and they went into reprints after about four years. However, they were still a top title as far as prominence in the Marvel universe.

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:25 AM, fantastic_four said:

I don't see that popularity the tiers you'd group superheroes into has significantly changed since you were a kid.  Spider-Man and Wolverine have LONG been Marvel's most popular heroes, and that's still true today.  FF was never at the level of popularity that Spidey and Logan are, and neither were the X-Men in any iteration, Hulk, or any Avenger member or the group as a whole.

Maybe if you grouped Cap and Iron Man as a third tier in the 80s and 90s the MCU films boosted them to second tier.  But none of them have come close to touching Spidey or Logan in popularity.

Keep in mind that in the time period I'm talking about, there was no Wolverine.

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:25 AM, fantastic_four said:

I don't see that popularity the tiers you'd group superheroes into has significantly changed since you were a kid.  Spider-Man and Wolverine have LONG been Marvel's most popular heroes, and that's still true today.  FF was never at the level of popularity that Spidey and Logan are, and neither were the X-Men in any iteration, Hulk, or any Avenger member or the group as a whole.

Maybe if you grouped Cap and Iron Man as a third tier in the 80s and 90s the MCU films boosted them to second tier.  But none of them have come close to touching Spidey or Logan in popularity.

You're talking about franchise and marketing power in the movie age.

He's talking about pre movie age. Pre movie age, FF was defeinitely an A lister for the first 30 or so years and possibly 40. 

The X-men became A listers after Adams and Cockrum / Clairemont / Byrne propelled them to the top in the 70s and 80s. In fact, you could argue that X-men rivalled Spider-man in the 90s. Why else would Marvel put such a push behind the Jim Lee X-men #1 of the 90s?

Have the X-men not been A listers since the 90's?

No 'team' was as popular as Spidey, Wolverine (or Batman) but then no team will EVER be as popular as a single character, but Wolverine was certainly the driving force behind X-men and made them an A lister. Easily. And they seem to have been able to stay there for over 50 years. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 11/9/2023 at 9:37 AM, VintageComics said:

Are you sure that FF wasn't an A lister in 1993? I wasn't reading then (stopped around 1990) but FF was still pretty big then.

I think FF was still pretty popular in the 90s. IIRC Fantastic Four in the 90's was shuffling around the lineup, having the Thing wear that helmet after Wolvie carved his face up, and they had Fantastic Force with alternate timeline Franklin Richards, and some other spinoff titles - along with the tried-and-abandoned movie. Without doing any research, I'd say FF was A-list up until the comic market crashed and jacked everything up, regardless of popularity.

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:42 AM, VintageComics said:

I'm not as old but I can agree with this. 

Thor was Kirby's favorite title to work on and it shone through his work. Thor was definitely an A lister.

X-men are probably the top franchise after Spidey now but they were HORRIBLE in the mid 60's after Kirby left. I only collected the title as a completist but between roughly '65 and until Neal Adams started it was pretty bad. 

If many younger people don't know, Marvel quite literally put Neal Adams on to save the title. From what I understand Adams was so confident he only wanted to be put on failing titles so he could ressurrect them and he did exactly that, everywhere he went. Talk about a man's man. Dude had gonads the size of Kansas.

 

I can see where you're coming from on this, and my attitude to both Thor and X-Men has changed considerably over the years. Today, I collect Journey Into Mystery and the Kirby Thors, but not X-Men at any point in their timeline, apart from keys for resale. However, thanks to Lee's frequent use of cross-over appearances and the constantly in print status of Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins, some of the titles we're talking about had their profile raised. The Hulk, for instance, appearing in Avengers for the first few issues, battling the FF and Spider-Man, etc. He was always a presence from the earliest Marvel comics. Thor, on the other hand, didn't seem to have as much cross-over utility. Maybe it was because Lee didn't feel like he had to advertise Thor by putting him in other comics, but did feel the need to advertise Hulk. Either way, there were multiple methods used to raise the profile of characters and titles.

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:50 AM, Dr. Balls said:

I think FF was still pretty popular in the 90s. IIRC Fantastic Four in the 90's was shuffling around the lineup, having the Thing wear that helmet after Wolvie carved his face up, and they had Fantastic Force with alternate timeline Franklin Richards, and some other spinoff titles - along with the tried-and-abandoned movie. Without doing any research, I'd say FF was A-list up until the comic market crashed and jacked everything up, regardless of popularity.

At the very least, until the end of the Byrne/Ryan/Simonson/Adams runs.

[fantastic_four]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:50 AM, VintageComics said:

You're talking about franchise and marketing power in the movie age.

He's talking about pre movie age. Pre movie age, FF was defeinitely an A lister for the first 30 or so years and possibly 40. 

No, I'm talking about since 1963 for Spidey, and since some year between 1975 and 1980 for Wolverine.  It's easy to see that once Marvel started creating multiple titles for the same character that they did more for Spidey and Wolverine than any other character throughout the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and beyond.  Wolverine didn't start out mega-popular like Spidey did right from the start, but he grew to Spidey status either in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Or maybe Spidey is all alone at the top, Logan is right below, and everyone else is below those two tiers.  Spidey has definitely had FAR more titles than any other Marvel character.  There are times in the 80s and 90s when he had five or more titles per month all to himself--examples include Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Marvel Tales, etc etc.  I don't recall any time when Logan had 5+ titles like Spidey has had at times.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:25 PM, VintageComics said:

I actually didn't realize that was you in the photo. Sorry I missed it. Good job!

It's not me in the photo Roy, I just took it. I dressed up as Catweazle apparently. My normal clothes, but that's what someone congratulated me on coming as.

[Dr. Balls]

On 11/9/2023 at 9:54 AM, paqart said:

At the very least, until the end of the Byrne/Ryan/Simonson/Adams runs.

Agreed. I think the 90's books were more about massive, bulging toolbelts, toaster guns and chrome body armor - the stories leading up to the market crash were really unmemorable. I can recall a lot of creative teams leaving in the era of 1991-1993, but their replacements either didn't do much, or had too big of a challenge in taking the reigns. As an X-fan, those titles really suffered. Wasn't a fan at all of Lobdell's direction. Larry Hama on Wolverine was hit and miss. Some stories I liked, and bone claw feral Logan was just ugh.

This conversation makes me want to revisit those eras and see if they really were as bad as I remember.

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:36 AM, paqart said:

Not sure this is an issue of "best" or "worst." For instance, by an objective craftsmanship standard, the first Thor movie may have had the weakest CG of the entire MCU. It had other faults that in my opinion would force it to be ranked lower than Ragnarok. However, I much prefer Thor to Ragnarok. The reason is that I enjoyed the Shakespearean moments with Odin and Thor's genial personality. Captain Marvel was a good film, and I agree, better than it's made out to be by detractors. However, I don't think of it as a more appealing film than its technically weaker siblings in the MCU. 

Overall, the MCU films maintain a very consistent high standard for craft. It is very difficult to credibly criticize any of them for quality flaws. What criticisms I've read are weak tea compared to what can be said of other films. Who remembers the scene in T2, where the T-1000 grabs the bumper of a car as it speeds out of the psychiatric hospital and it looks like a store mannequin wired to the bumper?

The issue with Marvel, as I see it, never has anything to do with quality. The issue is content. Is it appealing or not? Think of it this way: we all have our favorite comic book artists. How many of us are aware of comics drawn by our favorites that we have no interest in? I have quite a few artists that I normally like that fit into that category. My favorite artist is Carl Barks, but I have zero interest in his non-duck comics, like the Porky Pig or Our Gang stories he did. Kirby is my all-time favorite action artist, but I have zero interest in the comics he did for Pacific. I buy his Fourth World comics for the art, but apart from Kamandi, don't read them because the stories aren't interesting to me. I much prefer Kirby's Fantastic Four work, particularly the later issues. This doesn't mean the art in those issues is better, but that the stories are more interesting to me, for whatever reason.

In the MCU, it goes beyond a question of interest however, and crosses over into causing offense. This is more like the way I feel about Harvey Kurtzman, another of my favorite comic book artists. Kurtzman's war stories are very well executed and interesting (to me.) His satire comics, like Mad and Help! or even the material he did for Playboy, are offensive to me. All of them are rude and employ a kind of humor that isn't just "not funny" to me, but offensive. The quality of the art and writing is not meaningfully different between the war and satire comics, but the flavor is significantly different.

When I read complaints about Captain Marvel and other late MCU movies, they can be interpreted as complaints about the flavor of the films as opposed to their intrinsic technical merit. Here is how I would describe the flavors of the earliest MCU films:

• Iron Man: Pure, unabashed, unapologetic, masculine adventure and righteous heroism
• Thor: Virtue and responsibility, with no apologies for strict interpretations of these standards
• Captain America: Virtuous male as protector of the defenseless, an ideal to be emulated. True of the first two as well.
• Avengers: Sublimation of ego and other competing interests to maximize strength against an enemy that threatens innocents. Corollary: unless individual differences set aside, others suffer.

Those are the type of themes I associate with Phase One, and for the most part, Phase Two and most of Phase Three. As I recall, the last film that was a strong example of these themes was Doctor Strange, and the first to introduce the themes I didn't like was Civil War. Speaking of which, some examples of the new flavors in the transition movies from Phase Three:

• Civil War: Accepting group responsibility for something that isn't your fault shows how virtuous you are (What? Why? Makes no sense to me)
• Captain Marvel: You can't trust anything because you've been brainwashed, but you can trust the people trying to kill you (an interesting idea, but it is a plot, not a theme, thus lightweight compared to earlier films)
• Ragnarok: Mockery of masculine virtue is humorous and appropriate. Here, we get into offensive Mad magazine territory for the first time in the MCU. 
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Men are dumb and helpless without a smart and capable woman to lead them. As a one-off, I liked the movie, but the theme was irritating and shallow. There are weak and stupid men who will demean themselves for the attention of a woman, but not all men are like that, and it seemed inappropriate and magical (as in, an evil spell) for Scott Lang to behave that way.

Late MCU:

• Eternals: Good looking people lit well look good if photographed correctly. That was about al that was going on in this film, which I didn't finish. It was like an extended perfume advertisement, with a few wraiths thrown in to spice it up.
• Love and Thunder: Anyone who believes in God is stupid and harbors malicious delusions of grandeur. Also, men are stupid, careless, and weak compared to women. This movie was offensive from start to finish.
• Black Widow: Non-stop action can distract from the absence of a major theme. The movie didn't offend me but lacked the kind of appeal that originally drew me to the MCU. This could be described as another "women are better than men" movie, but there aren't enough men in lead roles to describe it as a major theme. The men (Black Widow's father and the evil Russian in the sky) are not treated well by the writers, but the focus isn't usually on them, unlike in Ragnarok or Love and Thunder.

After reviewing these now, I see that the characteristics that bother me in late MCU films fit into a couple of discrete groups. They are:

1. The film overtly mocks a demographic I belong to, usually "male" but sometimes extending to "believes in God" or "American."
2. The film lacks a strong theme (Black Panther, Eternals, Quantumania)
3. The film includes short but offensive distracting references that interfere with the narrative (Endgame, Multiverse of Madness, Civil War, Shang-Chi)

The most common complaint I read from other people about these movies has to do with race and gender-swapping. I don't like that either, but consider it a minor complaint to the others listed above. Here are the swapped or pseudo-swapped characters I noticed:

• Nick Fury. Swapped race, Caucasian to black. Effect: Doesn't bother me. I like Jackson in the role, though would have preferred he was a different named character to hold open the possibility of the "real" Nick Fury showing up some day.
• The Ancient One: Swapped race and gender: Effect: Doesn't bother me. The explanation that "The Ancient One" is a title, not a unique designation is adequate. More importantly, Swinton was very interesting as this character. 
• Iron Man/Iron Heart: Apparently this does come from the comics, but comics I've never seen. Initially, this looks born out of the same impetus that gave us Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman in the 1970's, but in Disney's hands, is used to take away from the merits of Tony Stark/Iron Man while building up Pepper Potts/Iron Heart. This is offensive to me because it denies the importance of the man in the suit. It makes the suit into the hero, not the person inside it.
• Hulk/She-Hulk: This comes from the John Byrne run on Sensational She-Hulk. As such, it is canon. If the scenes with Hulk are removed, I liked the series. I did not like how the filmmakers felt they had to make She-Hulk better than Hulk to the point of mockery. Not gracious, cool, or credible.
• Thor/She-Thor: Again, there is precedent for this in the comics. In the film, She-Thor is better than Thor. This seems to be because she is female, and no other reason. Meaning, a twenty-five year old female astrophysicist from the planet Earth is somehow more wise, intelligent, and virtuous than a 5,000 year old man from an advanced civilization. Not credible, particularly when combined with copious mockery.
• Captain America/Captain Amerikette: I enjoy the Peggy Carter character as Peggy Carter. I also like her as Agent Carter. She makes sense in both roles. Making her into a female Captain America comes across as theft, and I resent that. It takes a character I like, Captain America, and removes him from the picture. At that point alone, I no longer have a positive impression of whoever replaces him. When it turns out to be Peggy Carter, although I like her character, I resent her now because she's effectively destroyed another good character, and done so unnecessarily.
• Captain America/Falcon: Swapped race. I like the Falcon as Captain America's partner and as a standalone character. As with Peggy Carter, I don't like to see Captain America supplanted by someone else, even if it's a character I like. Oddly, I would prefer Captain America dies, never to be seen again, than to have other people wear his uniform. It seems sacrilegious.
• Mar-Vell/Mar-vell: Gender swap. To clarify, this is Annette Benning playing Mar-Vell, not Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. This bothered me because, unlike Tilda Swinton's Ancient One, there wasn't a good explanation for this, and Benning's portrayal wasn't so good that she was the obvious choice. In addition, Mar-vell was significantly changed for this film, in ways that didn't make him more interesting either as a her or as a rocket scientist.
• Captain Marvel/Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel): Brie Larson's Captain Marvel is named Carol Danvers. Therefore, I am comfortable stating that this is a case of a name swap, where "Ms. Marvel" becomes "Captain Marvel." This is not a gender-swapped character. The gender swap is with Annette Benning. I agree with others that Larson comes across as smug, arrogant, and has literally no faults to make her credible as a human or even as a Kree. I agree with others that she is the least likable character in the MCU, on the level of Scrappy-Doo, or Oliver from the Brady Bunch.

 

This is probably the greatest post in the history of MCU discussions anywhere on the internet, anywhere. 

You quite literally nailed it and were able to articulate things to me things I didn't even know why I felt about the movies, but as I was reading through your post I just kept feeling bells go off with each sentence. 

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Having someone articulate something in such a detailed manner (and even though the post is long, it's actually quite concise).

Effing brilliant. I give this prof an A+. 

[kimik]

On 11/9/2023 at 9:50 AM, Dr. Balls said:

On 11/9/2023 at 9:37 AM, VintageComics said:

Are you sure that FF wasn't an A lister in 1993? I wasn't reading then (stopped around 1990) but FF was still pretty big then.

I think FF was still pretty popular in the 90s. IIRC Fantastic Four in the 90's was shuffling around the lineup, having the Thing wear that helmet after Wolvie carved his face up, and they had Fantastic Force with alternate timeline Franklin Richards, and some other spinoff titles - along with the tried-and-abandoned movie. Without doing any research, I'd say FF was A-list up until the comic market crashed and jacked everything up, regardless of popularity.

It was a B title in the 80s. The 80s was ASM, X-Titles (X-Men/Wolverine/New Mutants/X-Factor), and Punisher for Marvel (by the late 80s Marvel appeared to a have a policy where the Punisher had to be in every second book each week....). The FF was a second or third tier title for those of us that did not grow up with them in the 60s. The big two for each of Marvel and DC are the same now as they were in the 80s.

[PopKulture]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:06 AM, VintageComics said:

This is probably the greatest post in the history of MCU discussions anywhere on the internet, anywhere. 

You quite literally nailed it and were able to articulate things to me things I didn't even know why I felt about the movies, but as I was reading through your post I just kept feeling bells go off with each sentence. 

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Having someone articulate something in such a detailed manner (and even though the post is long, it's actually quite concise).

Effing brilliant. I give this prof an A+. 

It is a pretty epic post. It’s thoughtful and covers a lot of ground. I’m sure there are people who disagree with various points, but its tone and candor invite no vitriol in kind.  

[Dr. Balls]

On 11/9/2023 at 10:00 AM, fantastic_four said:

Wolverine didn't start out mega-popular like Spidey did right from the start, but he grew to Spidey status either in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

I was 9 when Wolvie's series came out, and by the time it hit my radar at 10 years old, the value of issue #1 had hit $5, which I spent half my allowance on buying it, and that was 1983 - which is a really neat memory. I can still remember the shop, the comic on the wall and being super excited when the guy sold it to me.

I'd say Wolverine was gaining big-time popularity by then. I can't exactly remember, but I don't think Wolverine had crossover appearances before his Limited Series, and I think the first one after his limited was a Daredevil issue. So, I'd say by 1981 people were abuzz wanting Wolverine to be seen more - and Marvel slowly fed into that.

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:53 AM, paqart said:

Thor, on the other hand, didn't seem to have as much cross-over utility.

That's actually a great observation.  Why didn't I think of that? 

On 11/9/2023 at 11:53 AM, paqart said:

Maybe it was because Lee didn't feel like he had to advertise Thor by putting him in other comics, but did feel the need to advertise Hulk.

From a story writing perspective, and in line with Stan's target audience which were teenagers at the time, it would have been much harder to push a highbrow Thor at the audience than a lowbrow Hulk smashing things. 

That's why he was everywhere. He was the perfect foil. 

Thor is like Superman. It's tough to make him relatable and fun, unlike the Hulk, the bickering of the FF and the bullying and teenage troubles Parker had to endure. 

I DO think that one of Stan Lee's most ingenious skills was being able to throw a net to catch a wide audience, and Thor was likely meant to capture not only the highbrow audience but ALSO to remain as a character that the lowbrow teenagers would eventually grow in appeal as the original audience matured. 

It's a brilliant marketing strategy. Thor quite literally was waiting for the target audience to grow out of the silly comics and into more mature, adult ones.