AduroT wrote:
I don’t think killing Kang actually caused the timeline fracture. It wasn’t Kang out there personally culling timelines after all. At that point the TVA was already in chaos and had stopped doing their thing thanks to Mobius and the other agent lady, and that would have allowed the naturally occurring timelines splits to mature.

I agree. There's a weird moment of a profound shift (and thunder) where he tells them that threshold has been crossed, and what he 'knows' is no longer valid. I was honestly expecting Renslayer to burst in at that point, but they just keep talking. Then the confrontation happens, and things ensue.

But in the moment it seemed like things started branching before (there's a window on the energy stream that is theoretically the pruned timeline) all the decisions get made in the room.

Jameela Jamil has confirmed she's playing Titania in the new She Hulk show.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Jameela Jamil has confirmed she's playing Titania in the new She Hulk show.

but she's the wrong kind of tall and shapely or something, lummy this hot is playing havoc with my kneejerk

So I wrapped up Loki. I stayed away from conversations about it, reviews, etc. And I may be drawing dotted lines where none were intended, but I felt like there's a fun, self-deprecating metacommentary going on with it. You have a precious storyline that's defended aggressively by a powerful, conformist, controlling organization that's headed by one regular dude pulling all the strings. Sounds...familiar?

I felt like they were having fun with that -- and with the whole 'you're in for it now' mood after the multiverse was (re)born -- and that's pretty cool.

I've read/seen a few articles that talk about it as a piece of meta fiction so you are not alone. If you are feeling alone you can ask for a hug.

But not from me. I'm not a hugger.

Ask Frazzled he seems like a cuddly, friendly sort.

And they’ve confirmed the Ms Marvel and Hawkeye series will air before the end of the year.

It’s Wednesday morning.

And there is no Loki.

Sans Loki.

Sans Chin.

Sans Arm.

Sans Jelly

Sans…..everything.

What is to become of me?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s Wednesday morning.

And there is no Loki.

Sans Loki.

Sans Chin.

Sans Arm.

Sans Jelly

Sans…..everything.

What is to become of me?

Is there another another season of "Docs ancient comedy references" in the pipeline ?

*looks at feet*

No.

Just over a week until What If? lands.

Got to admit, I’m sceptical on this one. I can be put off animation really easily (just a quirk of mine), depending on the art style and amount of motion put in, particularly when expressive gestures are somewhat stylised.

Also concerned the What Ifs might be a bit hackneyed.

But, we shall see!

I expect like any anthology they’ll be hit and miss. I’m looking forward to some random off the wall shenanigans and wackiness though.

I quite like hit and miss shows (Dr Who springs to mind), as it’s much more satisfying when they “hit”. As great as high production shows are, they spoil you to a certain extent and you forget how good they are.

 AduroT wrote:
I expect like any anthology they’ll be hit and miss. I’m looking forward to some random off the wall shenanigans and wackiness though.

Whilst the Marvel fun police won't let it be as wackadoodle as Brave and Bold I'm hoping the Carter story is Captain Britain rather than just What If we serumed her

'What if... serum?' allows them to get on with whatever story they have in mind for the character.

'What if... Captain Britain for true and real?' begs for a lot of backstory and Merlin (but with a 'y') and creepy mystic nationalistic nonsense about the True Spirit of the British People empowering a Champion.

I'm excited for it, but I tempered my expectations a bit thanks to this article on the Escapist which talked about how insane the original Marvel Zombies comic was and the fact that Disney would never risk damaging the brand with something like it ever again.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/what-if-doesnt-have-the-guts-to-give-us-the-real-marvel-zombies/

I’m the happy owner of what I believe to be every collected volume of Marvel Zombies.

Oh my it suffers diminishing returns!

I wonder if we might see Spiderham in No Way Home….

Voss wrote:
'What if... serum?' allows them to get on with whatever story they have in mind for the character.

'What if... Captain Britain for true and real?' begs for a lot of backstory and Merlin (but with a 'y') and creepy mystic nationalistic nonsense about the True Spirit of the British People empowering a Champion.

I think you could trim it to wizard offers a magic rock or a magic sword (and she does have a sword) to fight HYDRA to stop them gimping up the multiverse with the Space Stone, also what's so wrong with indifference and a love of tea and biscuits (the True Spirit etc)

...do I really need to explain why mystic nationalism making supermen makes for a poor bedfellow with WW2? Or at all?

Voss wrote:
...do I really need to explain why mystic nationalism making supermen makes for a poor bedfellow with WW2? Or at all?

Well, strange women lying in ponds is no basis for a system of government!

Ok. What If? Is good. Like, really good!

I have two nits to pick;

A.) Has Steve ever taken a truck full speed like that and just stopped/flipped it? Strength is one thing, but mass doesn’t work like that. It was the one move that really stepped over the line for me.

2.) Flying on the back of the Hydra Stomper was a little too derivative of Star Girl to me. Certainly cool though, yeah.

In terms of criticism, I found Howard Stark’s voice actor slightly irritating.

I suspect given everything COVID, those lines might’ve been recorded separately, as it didn’t feel like he was responding to Peggy, rather just reading the lines.

I loved Stark myself. I think it was just him constantly being so high energy that gave him such a different tone to everyone else.

Possibly. He definitely sounded like a 40’s film star though.

It’s wasn’t a voice actor, it was literally the same guy that played him in the movie (and the Agent Carter show) - Dominic Copper.

It’s funny cos that’s the one thing that annoyed me about it - they got pretty much all the actors back to play the same characters, but not Chris Evans for Steve Rogers? That really stuck out to me. Weird. Maybe Evans really is done with the character.

But yeah, overall, an amazing first episode. Really enjoyed it. Kinda hope Captain Carter gets a live action version one day. I love Atwell in that role.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In terms of criticism, I found Howard Stark’s voice actor slightly irritating.

I suspect given everything COVID, those lines might’ve been recorded separately, as it didn’t feel like he was responding to Peggy, rather just reading the lines.

That wasn't particularly unusual even before Covid. Some recording studios have the capacity to do a lot of voice actors simultaneously, but scheduling often renders that moot, and different VAs can end up doing cold reads, responses to recordings of other VAs or responding to stand-ins reading the lines.

In some cases, remote recording recently has allowed for a bit more versatility in recording as remote allows for a cleaner source recording from each person, while they can still respond to each other on a Zoom call (or whatever). The critical role folks recently talked about this one of their production previews for their show- they original set up for the entire cast to be in the studio, but ended up doing a lot of recording at home. The energy is different, but it sounded like they got better takes (and a lot more retakes) essentially doing recording sessions in their closets.

Something I was expecting in the episode…

Intro reminded me of the Twilight Zone.

The episode... eh. Largely slogged through the same lack of stakes the first cap movie did. Supers face rolling normals is just inherently uninteresting.

The end was... Meh. If there were major differences in the time line, they need to show it somehow. Its effectively a body swap with the biggest consequence being no Winter Soldier later.

Looking for influences was more interesting than the actual show. Iron Giant was gigantically obvious, as was the blurring of the lines with Wonder Woman (especially in silhouette with the current version with sword and shield).

But it didn't do much for me. Sure, big buff women are sexy, but not when the only way they can be useful is magic science juice. It kinda undermines the story.
Mostly it goes back to question of stakes and consequences. It fundamentally declines to address the 'So what?' question. Does this change anything? Does it matter?

Hopefully future ones will be willing to go off the rails and not just go through the same dance with the same effective outcome.

Nicky J wrote:It’s funny cos that’s the one thing that annoyed me about it - they got pretty much all the actors back to play the same characters, but not Chris Evans for Steve Rogers?

Several of the big names bowed out for their respective episodes (Benedict and Brie, iirc). Whether it was money or time or lack of interest is an open question.

Seems the idea is every season of What If will have a Captain Carter episode.

Hopefully they’ll be narrative continuations of this one.

It would have been neat if the monster from the portal was a Abilisk (the monster from the beginning of GotG Vol 2).

I was kind of hoping for it to be Hive.

The first episode was fine.

I think the key issues with it were:

1. It ripped through The First Avenger's plot with basically no moments to breathe.
2. It didn't really do enough with the concept. If Steve had died in that explosion, then maybe, but all it really gave us was a bodyswap. The story beats stayed the same.

So, to answer Uatu's "What if Agent Carter had stayed in the room during the super soldier experiment?": Not much different to what would have happened if she hadn't. *shrugs*

Next week is the T'Challa = Star Lord episode. I hope it's not just T'Challa plays the role of Star Lord but otherwise GOTG plays out the same as it did in the movie.

These are animated versions of the What If...? comic. It's mostly going to be twists on the others story beats in condensed versions of the movies.

The comics are exactly the same. What If Civil War is 5 short stories in a single slightly bigger than normal issue covering twists on what was multiple trades + tie ins.

It thought it was quite good. Good animation style.

 Lance845 wrote:
These are animated versions of the What If...? comic. It's mostly going to be twists on the others story beats in condensed versions of the movies.

The comics are exactly the same. What If Civil War is 5 short stories in a single slightly bigger than normal issue covering twists on what was multiple trades + tie ins.

I remember very different What If...? comics.
What if Jean Grey didn't die on the moon? What if the terrigen mist actually covered the Earth? Those were massive derails to the storylines with intense consequences.
Some were a little creepy. Jane Foster as Thor, ending up as a goddess married to Odin.
Wolverine killing both Hulk and Magneto.

It gets pretty crazy, but also a vehicle for the 'shock value' of killing off characters with no consequence.

Voss wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
These are animated versions of the What If...? comic. It's mostly going to be twists on the others story beats in condensed versions of the movies.

The comics are exactly the same. What If Civil War is 5 short stories in a single slightly bigger than normal issue covering twists on what was multiple trades + tie ins.

I remember very different What If...? comics.
What if Jean Grey didn't die on the moon? What if the terrigen mist actually covered the Earth? Those were massive derails to the storylines with intense consequences.
Some were a little creepy. Jane Foster as Thor, ending up as a goddess married to Odin.
Wolverine killing both Hulk and Magneto.

It gets pretty crazy, but also a vehicle for the 'shock value' of killing off characters with no consequence.

Well yes, I agree. But the point I a making wasn't the degree of divergence. It was how short the entries were. Even when the consequences were wild they don't get a huge page count.

But then you have to remember how little of marvel is in the MCU so far. It's not like we are going to get What if the Punisher was Venom any time soon. There really are not THAT many characters to play with yet. And in WWII there is basically noone.

Oh, well, yeah. These are going to be ~20-odd minute shows, unless they do multi-part episodes.

But the point is, trying to race through 'condensed versions' of the movies, but with different character swaps, is a terrible choice for this format. This show can (and should) go all in on changes that make big (or interesting) shifts in the setting. Thanos as an Avenger was a big one for the comic, for example. Iron Man burning out his heart battery to build an 'Iron Avengers' team after the other 'founding' Avengers walk away was another.
They don't need to be long, they just need to be broader in scope than 'What if Captain America was a foreigner with an accent and breasts? Amazing!'

---
From a series perspective, 'What if... Female Thor? was still vaguely ground-breaking in 1970-whatever (though it ended in a creepy spring-summer romance with Odin). In 2021, the equivalent story is a... yeah? and?
For an intro episode to the series concept, its weirdly out of date and out of touch. And conceived and executed in the most boring way possible.

I imagine as the series goes on they'll get more creative.

I am secretly hoping that the point of all this isn't just to tell stories of alternate versions of the movies, but to end up with a animated movie/show of Exiles.

Ok, Captain Carter was cool as hell, but there have been some complaints that's it's just a hero swap.

However, in this universe, there is:

a) No Winter Soldier

So how many assassinations didn't happen? Is Howard Stark still alive? No Iron Man. Tony won't get captured due to Obidiah's manipulations.

b) Zola and the Tesseract were captured a LOT earlier

So no winter soldiers at all, never mind Bucky. No WWII hydratech. So why would Shield recruit Zola in their operation paperclip? No Hydra 5th column in SHIELD.

c) Carter is out of the picture

Would SHIELD exist? Would Rodgers still set up such an organisation? Something still exists so obviously Howard set it up - will it still be the same without Peggy's influence? Would Steve run it in anything like the same way?

If there's one of these per series, there's a lot to explore there.

Teasingly, seemingly no easy info on the next episode.

Expect spoiler tags tomorrow morning!

I agree with all, that a mere swap is not really a total alternate story; however, if it sets up big ramifications downstream (like pointed out above), then it could be understood.

I also eagerly await all of the episodes and do like the animation style.

 Graphite wrote:
Ok, Captain Carter was cool as hell, but there have been some complaints that's it's just a hero swap.

However, in this universe, there is:

a) No Winter Soldier

So how many assassinations didn't happen? Is Howard Stark still alive? No Iron Man. Tony won't get captured due to Obidiah's manipulations.

b) Zola and the Tesseract were captured a LOT earlier

So no winter soldiers at all, never mind Bucky. No WWII hydratech. So why would Shield recruit Zola in their operation paperclip? No Hydra 5th column in SHIELD.

c) Carter is out of the picture

Would SHIELD exist? Would Rodgers still set up such an organisation? Something still exists so obviously Howard set it up - will it still be the same without Peggy's influence? Would Steve run it in anything like the same way?

EDIT: Granted, as far as a speed run through a plot goes, it's pretty good. Just doesn't feel like it really capitalized on its premise at all. It actually would have been more interesting to assume the events of The First Avenger happened as we knew them, but with Carter, and then skip ahead to after Carter gets revived from the ice. Then we could have seen all the butterfly effects.

If there's one of these per series, there's a lot to explore there.

I think the issue, and this is the criticism I'd level, is that we didn't see any of that. None of the actual butterfly effects of the What If scenario came up in the episode. It was basically just Captain America with someone different. Any one of those things would have been interesting to see. But it's not what we saw.

A.) I believe Captain Carter is supposed to be ongoing, so we’ll see more of her and the ramifications as time goes on.

2.) Starlord was pretty good. I find it weird how strongly he stuck to the accent thru his whole life. I’d have thought he’d grow out of it without exposure to people speaking the same way.

 AduroT wrote:
A.) I believe Captain Carter is supposed to be ongoing, so we’ll see more of her and the ramifications as time goes on.

2.) Starlord was pretty good. I find it weird how strongly he stuck to the accent thru his whole life. I’d have thought he’d grow out of it without exposure to people speaking the same way.

Spoiler:

I love The Collector in this. It’s nice to see him get to show off his strength and power which the movies just didn’t see any of. I was surprised to see the Black Order working for him though. I thought they were rather uniquely devoted to Thanos and I’d have expected them to follow him to the Ravagers if he went there.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, The Black Order were basically all orphans conscripted and raised by Thanos to be his own personal elite unit, they would be pretty loyal to him regardless of what he chose to do, its not like they have ties to anyone else.

Also, kinda confused as to why Yondu wouldn't pick up Quill and drop back T'challa after his men fudged up the abduction. Hell, I expected them both to be on the ship if Yondu wanted to keep T'challa, since if I remember correctly, Yondu has the change of heart only when its half-way through his delivery after acquiring Quill.

I get its a what-if, but I do feel like T'challa has too much of an impact of the Ravagers as a merc/pirate force considering he's just a kid when he joins them. If anything, he would be molded by their influence as outlaws rather than the other way around. Just feels very odd for him to reform the organization to some kind of intergalactic famous equivalent of the Guardians of the Galaxy, considering he doesn't have any superpowers or access to Wakandan technology of his own.

I thoroughly enjoyed that. Bit heartbreaking as it was Chadwick Boseman voicing T’Challa.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shang-Chi has some initial and gushing reactions out.

And it’s just over two weeks until we can judge for ourselves with our eyes and our brains.

 Grimskul wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
A.) I believe Captain Carter is supposed to be ongoing, so we’ll see more of her and the ramifications as time goes on.

2.) Starlord was pretty good. I find it weird how strongly he stuck to the accent thru his whole life. I’d have thought he’d grow out of it without exposure to people speaking the same way.

Spoiler:

I love The Collector in this. It’s nice to see him get to show off his strength and power which the movies just didn’t see any of. I was surprised to see the Black Order working for him though. I thought they were rather uniquely devoted to Thanos and I’d have expected them to follow him to the Ravagers if he went there.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, The Black Order were basically all orphans conscripted and raised by Thanos to be his own personal elite unit, they would be pretty loyal to him regardless of what he chose to do, its not like they have ties to anyone else.

Also, kinda confused as to why Yondu wouldn't pick up Quill and drop back T'challa after his men fudged up the abduction. Hell, I expected them both to be on the ship if Yondu wanted to keep T'challa, since if I remember correctly, Yondu has the change of heart only when its half-way through his delivery after acquiring Quill.

I get its a what-if, but I do feel like T'challa has too much of an impact of the Ravagers as a merc/pirate force considering he's just a kid when he joins them. If anything, he would be molded by their influence as outlaws rather than the other way around. Just feels very odd for him to reform the organization to some kind of intergalactic famous equivalent of the Guardians of the Galaxy, considering he doesn't have any superpowers or access to Wakandan technology of his own.

Its a bit farcical, to be honest. Its.. alright, I suppose? But like that issue, it does expect you to just accept the short non-answers to big questions and enjoy the ride.
The ride is a bit uneven, but at least it goes somewhere.

Enjoyed both so far.

Thanos with the good Hulk joke in episode 2.

Well that was a nice improvement.

I mean, it's a bit much that T'Challa alone was able to:

1. Turn the Ravagers into altruistic good guys.
2. Become such a hero that people know him on sight and will abandon their own allegiances and join with him.
3. Convinced Thanos to abandon his plan and join the Ravagers.

Can he walk on water and heal the sick as well?

In any case, this is what I wanted to see from a What If...? series. Actual deviation from previous plots, not just a near-mirror swap like the last one. I also like the twist with Ego, as that's a fun part of these kinds of stories: It looks so much better overall, but it is actually worse in the end because of unforeseen consequences.

I loved the start-studded cast as well: Korath, Femme Fatale Nebula (She's a blonde! Who knew?), Kraglin, Yondu, Taserface, Thanos, The Collector, T'Chaka (voiced by John Kani from Civil War/BP), Carina (played by the original actress), Howard the Duck (again, same actor), Ebony Maw and Proxima Midnight (again, original actors), even Okoye was there (original actor again). And Kurt Russel back as Ego, with one line!

And of course, our final performance of Chadwick as T'Challa. I think? Is there another What If...? episode with T'Challa in it?

Drax and Corvus were there, but not the original actors for some weird reason.

In any case, this was loads of fun.

There are apparently 4 episodes that Boseman will be in in some capacity. Probably lesser capacities.

While the alternate Starlord universe will not have the same group, I sorely miss Drax and really chuckled at his 'cameo' as the bartender. I want to see more of him, as he is such a comedic character without trying to be.

This one was a whole lot less logical but dramatically more fun and engaging. The last one just felt too safe, but this one really went all out on reimagining so many beloved characters to tell a good, one shot story.

I was surprised the miracle seeds weren’t Groot.

 MDSW wrote:
While the alternate Starlord universe will not have the same group, I sorely miss Drax and really chuckled at his 'cameo' as the bartender. I want to see more of him, as he is such a comedic character without trying to be.

Yeah. Drax is a fantastic comedy character. Incredibly funny, and not falling into the waaaaaaaaaacky crazy comedy sidekick wisecrack dude.

 AduroT wrote:
I was surprised the miracle seeds weren’t Groot.

I'm reasonably certain they're an actual thing in marvel comics. Iirc the post-film GotG cartoon feature them (or something basically just like them) that sprouted vines all over Knowhere in much the same way.
But while this was a Starlord swap, it didn't work to get the gang together. Even Drax was a bit too much of a stretch, to be honest.

Mad Doc wrote:Yeah. Drax is a fantastic comedy character. Incredibly funny, and not falling into the waaaaaaaaaacky crazy comedy sidekick wisecrack dude.

For me with Drax, it depends how well they're sticking to the stoic, overly literal straightman (GotG2 didn't do well with that, and he kinda got swamped out of Endgame).

One of the downsides of this was that everyone was basically crazy comedy sidekick wisecrack dude, or at least taking turns at it. It mostly worked, but they didn't quite thread the needle between 'comedic heist' and 'dark undertone,' and bounced off 'farce' several times along the way, because the various minions kept cracking wise.

Well, that's because this was a Robin Hood story. They reference it several times. Robin Hood and his merry men...

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, that's because this was a Robin Hood story. They reference it several times. Robin Hood and his merry men...

That's a really good mindset to have going in. Everyone's having a great time, don't ask too many questions. Starlord- Ravagers in Tights.

I lost? I'm not supposed to lose! Let me see that script. I lost?

I thought it was very entertaining, andis definitely a standout.

"Captain Genocide"

Honestly,
I do look forward to seeing the rest of the series, as I've enjoyed the first two episodes. The animation is gorgeous.

And of course it was nice seeing Chadwick Boseman (or rather hearing him) play T'challa one more time.

Apologies for drawing everyone back by about 8 years, but my wife and I have been watching agents of shield and just hit the best joke ever in season 2 and just had to share:

“Move it Trainspotting”

“I’m not Scottish!”

Ah, class.

 Flinty wrote:
Apologies for drawing everyone back by about 8 years, but my wife and I have been watching agents of shield and just hit the best joke ever in season 2 and just had to share:

“Move it Trainspotting”

“I’m not Scottish!”

Ah, class.

I liked that series overall, but you’re going to have to give me more context because I don’t remember that at all and it means nothing to me.

Skye shouting at the English merc in the infiltration of the frozen strip. It was such a simple riff on an American not knowing the difference between English and Scottish accents, but it was so delightfully unexpected a reference

There is also a fun M.C. Hammer joke that I still recall from Season 4? I think.

That one I wished they would have referenced back to in a later episode as they easily could have.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Honestly,

Spoiler:

Thanos turning from his plot and joining the Ravagers was the one thing that made me facepalm a little bit. Just too much of a stretch, at least at first. By the end of the episode, I was more okay with it, but my initial reaction was literally me saying "what the feth?!"

Obviously that was not to be taken seriously. I mean, most of the characters are literally just reading off internet nitpicks while winking directly at the audience.

That was pure straight up fun.

I’m wondering how closely the House of Mouse are following the reaction/feedback to What If?

I mean, so far the movies have followed an obviously very successful loose formula. Sure some have taken risks (GOTG being the main one, boy did that pay off!), but the backbone of the formula has remained.

What If? is, and I mean this respectfully, kind of disposable. Like Solo, you don’t need to see any of it to appreciate the main fare. It’ll still find its audience, but it doesn’t have to make the big bucks.

But it’s also a potentially useful test bed for trying new things. It’s relatively cheap to produce too - certainly I’d imagine orders of magnitude cheaper than the movies or series like WandaVision. Yes you still need to pay your talent. But rather than for weeks or months of their time, plus the extra expense of remounting scenes which didn’t quite work is reduced. Lines not quite right? It’s another day or two in the recording booth to spit and polish that which didn’t quite click.

And so they can be braver with it. Simply put, they’ve less to lose, and potentially a lot to gain.

For instance, I’m a big fan of Marvel Zombies, to the point I believe I own a complete set of hardback copies. So I’m psyched to see the related What If?

If that really tickles the pickle of the masses? Who knows what we might see in the future? Same for Captain Carter and whatever else is going to come.

"If you are looking for an image, it was probably deleted."

What was that, Aduro?

Just finished both episodes. Echo the sentiment that almost nothing changed for the Carter episode. What I noticed was just how much the cosmos improved solely by T'Challa's presence. I'm waiting for the deleted scenes episode so we can see how he was the youngest cadet to graduate Starfleet Academy and the future where he winds up married to James T. Kirk.

 AduroT wrote:

Glorious.

Spooder-Man!

at the 2:28 mark of that video is that a "goblin grenade"?

Hmmmmm. Green Goblin and Doc Ock? I really hope they get Tobey Maguire to do his dance moves somehow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
at the 2:28 mark of that video is that a "goblin grenade"?

Yup, I'm pretty sure it is.

Yeah. It's Willie D's pumpkin bombs specifically.

 Grimskul wrote:
Hmmmmm. Green Goblin and Doc Ock? I really hope they get Tobey Maguire to do his dance moves somehow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
at the 2:28 mark of that video is that a "goblin grenade"?

Yup, I'm pretty sure it is.

looking at the video, my guess is that something goes tits up with strange's spell and basicly the multiverse starts being sucked into the MCU verse.

 Grimskul wrote:
Hmmmmm. Green Goblin and Doc Ock? I really hope they get Tobey Maguire to do his dance moves somehow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
at the 2:28 mark of that video is that a "goblin grenade"?

Yup, I'm pretty sure it is.

The yellow lightning is also Electro.

 AduroT wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
Hmmmmm. Green Goblin and Doc Ock? I really hope they get Tobey Maguire to do his dance moves somehow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
at the 2:28 mark of that video is that a "goblin grenade"?

Yup, I'm pretty sure it is.

The yellow lightning is also Electro.

I better get a new version of that wonderful dubstep electro fight.

Wonder why the Sanctum Santorum is all snowy?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder why the Sanctum Santorum is all snowy?

AC on the fritz.

Latest What If? was rather fun.

Also ties Hulk into the timeline.

Have I managed to completely miss The Watcher in the background of the first two episodes or merely forget I saw him? He was very noticeable in this one.

P.S. #SteveSteveSteveIHeartSteve0704

Yeah he shows up mixed into some part of the scenery in each.

Also, this was basically a What If... of a tie in comic they released way back in phase 1 called Furys' Big Week. Thats pretty awesome.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also ties Hulk into the timeline.

What do you mean?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also ties Hulk into the timeline.

What do you mean?

The events of the Incredible Hulk seemingly happened later than we thought, as in after/during Iron Man 2. Given the release slate I’d previously assumed it was contemporaneous with Iron Man 1.

Weird end, felt rather abrupt. Felt like it was building to something then just... skipped to the end.

So two things for this one…

On the second point?

Heavy rain. Clint would likely more accept slippery fingers than, well, y’know.

Overall, What If? is three for three with me. Looking forward to more and more and more.

I want to see that Vision in Ultron armor one in the splash image. Which I think is actually Ultron winning and completing his transfer into the vision body. I.E. there is no Vision? It's just Ultron?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The events of the Incredible Hulk seemingly happened later than we thought, as in after/during Iron Man 2. Given the release slate I’d previously assumed it was contemporaneous with Iron Man 1.

We see footage of a reporter at Culver Unitiversity during Iron Man 2.

The Incredible Hulk has always happened around the same time as Iron Man 2/Thor.

So far, still mostly underwhelmed with the What If scenarios they've put out so far.

Why can't they have covered one of the biggest fan build ups to Infinity War/Endgame that they never addressed?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The events of the Incredible Hulk seemingly happened later than we thought, as in after/during Iron Man 2. Given the release slate I’d previously assumed it was contemporaneous with Iron Man 1.

We see footage of a reporter at Culver Unitiversity during Iron Man 2.

The Incredible Hulk has always happened around the same time as Iron Man 2/Thor.

Fair enough. Entirely missed that.

 Grimskul wrote:
So far, still mostly underwhelmed with the What If scenarios they've put out so far.

Why can't they have covered one of the biggest fan build ups to Infinity War/Endgame that they never addressed?

Spoiler:

OMG - that's hilarious!

Question:

 MDSW wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
So far, still mostly underwhelmed with the What If scenarios they've put out so far.

Why can't they have covered one of the biggest fan build ups to Infinity War/Endgame that they never addressed?

Spoiler:

OMG - that's hilarious!

Question:

Spoiler:

Why was Fury so easily able to beat down Hank Pym? Never seemed anyone else has been, even Widow. Or was that all Loki?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 MDSW wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
So far, still mostly underwhelmed with the What If scenarios they've put out so far.

Why can't they have covered one of the biggest fan build ups to Infinity War/Endgame that they never addressed?

Spoiler:

OMG - that's hilarious!

Question:

Spoiler:

Why was Fury so easily able to beat down Hank Pym? Never seemed anyone else has been, even Widow. Or was that all Loki?

Spoiler:

My guess was all Loki, personally.

Oh, it absolutely was. That was the whole point. Why he monologued him into specifically taking credit for killing Thor, and he straight up blocked a super strength punch and did that fancy flip.

OK, but kind of frustrating where hero powers are conveniently 'buffed' or 'nerfed' depending on the required plotline...

 MDSW wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
So far, still mostly underwhelmed with the What If scenarios they've put out so far.

Why can't they have covered one of the biggest fan build ups to Infinity War/Endgame that they never addressed?

Spoiler:

OMG - that's hilarious!

Question:

Spoiler:

Why was Fury so easily able to beat down Hank Pym? Never seemed anyone else has been, even Widow. Or was that all Loki?

Haha, glad you enjoyed it

But yeah it was definitely and it is kinda wonky with the power levels being all over the place. I know the MCU generally is much lower on the power scale compared to the comics and kind of needs to be, but I feel like this What If more or less just was a way of saying .

 MDSW wrote:
OK, but kind of frustrating where hero powers are conveniently 'buffed' or 'nerfed' depending on the required plotline...

... you don't read comic books do you?

This was fun. Fairly satisfying little murder mystery and it was fun highlighting some iconic scenes from the early days. Probably about on par with Carter for me, though sheer variety of characters had me feeling less repetition than I did with the first one.

BrianDavion wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
OK, but kind of frustrating where hero powers are conveniently 'buffed' or 'nerfed' depending on the required plotline...

... you don't read comic books do you?

Well said!! LOL

…well damn.

Didn’t quite enjoy this weeks What If.

Might need a second watch.

Hm. Yeah. I don’t know that I can say I “enjoyed” it, but I was still entertained by it. I don’t think this particular one is meant to Be enjoyed.

Dark with a capital 'D'.

Man. I was really worried about this show when the first episode was basically "What if these two people swapped places but basically everything played out as it did the first time, just with them swapped!". Thought we were going to get replays of the various MCU films with minor variations that didn't lead to all that much overall difference.

Thankfully, the 2nd and 3rd episodes showed me that I was wrong there, but this 4th one showed that I was really wrong. Holy crap...

Very dark. Don't know that I needed the time-travel self-torture porn, but it was... interesting.

Didn't much care for the 'split'- I think it rather muddled the point the story was trying to make.

Similarly, I loved him sensing the Watcher halfway through, but hated the open conversation at the end. The first was an interesting side-effect of what he was doing, but the latter was just a heavy handed moral anvil being dropped.

The effects were really cool, though. The absorption effects and the protective runes peeling off him were really nice touches of animation.

So... the end.

Possibly?

That's got to be in the running for the darkest thing in the MCU?

I think it also raises two interesting points; 1) the Watcher(s) can be seen / interacted with, which raises some interesting possibilities in phase 4, 2) the initial time travel montage must have been similar to what he went through in Infinity War, which means exploring those 14-million odd possibilities must have been absolute hell...

We see the Watchers being interacted with by Stan Lee in GotG 2


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Was that Shuma Gorath?

 Lance845 wrote:
We see the Watchers being interacted with by Stan Lee in GotG 2


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Was that Shuma Gorath?

Possibly. We’ve seen it in half the episodes of What If so far though, so I’m curious how many more times and how important it may yet be going forward.

Yeah, but Stan Lee was some kind of time / dimension sliding immortal quirk in the MCU, so not exactly a normal character.

There is a rumor from a long time ago (and now possibly backed by some other stuff) that Shuma Gorath is the villain in Dr. Strange 2. And now that it is chasing America Chavez through the multiverse (Her casting I think was confirmed. She is a multiversal character in the comics. Another young avenger/champion.)

Voss wrote:
So... the end.

Spoiler:

Did he effectively become an infinity stone (a frozen singularity of unimaginable power, ie, his universe basically collapsed into that shell around him, plus all the power he absorbed from various beings) that will turn up in another universe?

I thought that would end up being the final twist actually, like we'd zoom out and it would be at the centre of the standard MCU's Eye of Agamotto.

Not to be sadly.

 Lance845 wrote:
There is a rumor from a long time ago (and now possibly backed by some other stuff) that Shuma Gorath is the villain in Dr. Strange 2. And now that it is chasing America Chavez through the multiverse (Her casting I think was confirmed. She is a multiversal character in the comics. Another young avenger/champion.)

As per her latest self titled series, she’s actually not multiversal in origin. I can’t recall her doing Champions off the top of my head either, but she did do West Coast Avengers which was a fun team. Lately in the comics Shuma has been a key feature of Savage Avengers, and he’s not the bad guy!

Someone with more knowledge of this clarify:

Shuma Gorath and Cthon.

These sound like things that are straight outta Compton Lovecraft.

Can Marvel really use these things in a big movie? I mean, wouldn't using one of these things be akin to a studio making a movie about a guy who transforms into a green-ish monster called "The Halk" and trying to pretend that it's not just Hulk with a slightly different name?

Lovecraft is public domain and the mythos has been a shared contribution.

Copyright on Lovecraft stuff is a tangled thing indeed, and not helped by the goalposts for amount of time copyrights stand being moved a goodly number of times, but if Warcraft can have C'Thun and Yogg-Saron (and the other old gods) I suspect Marvel can do likewise

I believe numerous voice actors said the Dr. Strange episode was by far their favorite, due to the immense emotional connections/conflicts and such. Seeing the full version does slam a pretty dark side that you may not get only reading the script.

I look forward to when The Watcher inevitably stops just watching and intervenes for a yet larger crisis.

I will say, my one big disappointment with the episode was that Dormammu didn't come further into play. When we get the iconic "I've come to bargain" I was really hoping for a devil's deal from that point further.

Part of me also kind of wanted this to be the origin of Dormammu and the Dark Dimension, seeing as they're played by the same actor already.

 LunarSol wrote:
I will say, my one big disappointment with the episode was that Dormammu didn't come further into play. When we get the iconic "I've come to bargain" I was really hoping for a devil's deal from that point further.

That was almost certainly intentional, since that _is_ the plot of Dr. Strange 1. (Just with... Whoever the Villain, and his never-seen wife. He made a deal with big D to end death by merging everyone with the Dark Dimension (or so he seems to believe)).
If they went that route it would've ended up another role swap.

Earlier this week I watched Bound for Greatness, then last night the latest episode of What If?...I think I met my bleakness quota for the month.

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I will say, my one big disappointment with the episode was that Dormammu didn't come further into play. When we get the iconic "I've come to bargain" I was really hoping for a devil's deal from that point further.

That was almost certainly intentional, since that _is_ the plot of Dr. Strange 1. (Just with... Whoever the Villain, and his never-seen wife. He made a deal with big D to end death by merging everyone with the Dark Dimension (or so he seems to believe)).
If they went that route it would've ended up another role swap.

I literally forgot he had a motive.

 LunarSol wrote:
Part of me also kind of wanted this to be the origin of Dormammu and the Dark Dimension, seeing as they're played by the same actor already.

I thought that this story would either be the origin of Dormammu, or the creation of an Infinity Stone.

It was neither, weirdly.

 LunarSol wrote:

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I will say, my one big disappointment with the episode was that Dormammu didn't come further into play. When we get the iconic "I've come to bargain" I was really hoping for a devil's deal from that point further.

That was almost certainly intentional, since that _is_ the plot of Dr. Strange 1. (Just with... Whoever the Villain, and his never-seen wife. He made a deal with big D to end death by merging everyone with the Dark Dimension (or so he seems to believe)).
If they went that route it would've ended up another role swap.

I literally forgot he had a motive.

Yeah... that's not surprising. A lot of the marvel films have a problem with a forgettable (or functionally non-existent) antagonist. Strange is in definite competition as one of the worst.
Step 1- Be enemy
Step 2- ???
Step 3- Profit!

Voss wrote:
Very dark. Don't know that I needed the time-travel self-torture porn, but it was... interesting.

Didn't much care for the 'split'- I think it rather muddled the point the story was trying to make.

Similarly, I loved him sensing the Watcher halfway through, but hated the open conversation at the end. The first was an interesting side-effect of what he was doing, but the latter was just a heavy handed moral anvil being dropped.

The effects were really cool, though. The absorption effects and the protective runes peeling off him were really nice touches of animation.

So... the end.

Spoiler:

Did he effectively become an infinity stone (a frozen singularity of unimaginable power, ie, his universe basically collapsed into that shell around him, plus all the power he absorbed from various beings) that will turn up in another universe?

the heavy handedness I see as more being a reaction to how thick some people are. I mean you still see people absolutely convinced "Thanos had a point and his mass genocide of the universe was a genuine solution!"

I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

 AduroT wrote:
I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

??

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

??

Spoiler:

He doesn't. There won't be a 'greater threat'. That Strange collapsed/destroyed/wiped out his entire universe.

The entire universe except for himself. See here’s the thing with The Watcher/s. Having a character who only watches and never interferes is irrelevant as they have nothing to offer the story. Pretty much every time you see The Watcher, it’s about how he never interferes, except this crisis is so big he has to make an exception. Right now we’re in the character introduction stage. They’re going thru and showing us different characters from different worlds. We get a glimpse of The Watcher being tempted to interfere, musing that he Could warn Strange, he just doesn’t think it’ll make a difference. So after we get to see X number of new characters, well get to see a true Villain rise, one who threatens not just their universe since we’ve seen The Watcher will let a single universe wipe itself out, but a villain who threatens All universes. Then The Watcher will go man, that is like super bad, I can’t just watch All universes get wiped out, but I also can’t directly interfere myself, what if I just find a bunch of cool hero people I’ve been watching and warn them this is coming and get them together to stop it. Queue super season finale epic battle royale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S. It’s probably Mephisto.

Sod it. I’m gonna go see Shang Chi today. In the cinema.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sod it. I’m gonna go see Shang Chi today. In the cinema.

Don’t you Dare put movie spoilers in the tv thread! Comic shop I work at is reserving a theater for the employees to all go next Sunday.

It’s very good. Stay to the very end.

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

??

Spoiler:

He doesn't. There won't be a 'greater threat'. That Strange collapsed/destroyed/wiped out his entire universe.

The entire universe except for himself. See here’s the thing with The Watcher/s. Having a character who only watches and never interferes is irrelevant as they have nothing to offer the story.

Correct. The Watcher is a PoV character/narrative device.

They're explicitly there for
a) Here is an unbiased, dispassionate observer/narrator with no reason to lie to you
and
b) Here is how we know about the parts of the story no one was there for. (because the Watcher watches)

Only watching and not interfering is _exactly_ what the character has to offer. Its a bit of a silly gimmick, but so is your theoretical all-universes-destroying villain. Not least because its been done (repeatedly) and generally isn't a big deal. The heroes generally don't need some moon guy to come tell them about the sledgehammer coming their way.

Oooh. The Zombies one is up this week. Been looking forward to that.

What If? Zombies

Oooooooooooooooh! I really, really enjoyed that one. Especially the last scene.

Though if you didn’t enjoy the comic original, this probably won’t challenge you much.

So we’re up to a Carter Captain, a T’Challa Starlord, an Avengerless Nick Fury, a Morally Ambiguous Doctor Strange, and a Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Spider-Man. Shaping up to be a good, well rounded team for that eventual team up.

No sand eating, eh?

I do wonder why they did not spend a fraction of time to show what happened a bit more in T'Challa's absence in Wakanda - Is the father still the BP? Hasn't someone else taken up the mantle and what direction did he/she lead them?

Well, this episode didn’t exactly have a conclusion…

Perhaps we’ll get more in Season 2?

Zombies!

Comedy!

After last week's... less than light hearted episode, this was a fun change of tone. Revel in the daftness.

 MDSW wrote:
I do wonder why they did not spend a fraction of time to show what happened a bit more in T'Challa's absence in Wakanda - Is the father still the BP? Hasn't someone else taken up the mantle and what direction did he/she lead them?

Father should be dead. This would have been post Civil War when he bit it and T’Challa took over. Maybe some sort of interim rule but they were still searching for him since he went missing in the Avenger’s stand when he was nabbed up.

 AduroT wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
I do wonder why they did not spend a fraction of time to show what happened a bit more in T'Challa's absence in Wakanda - Is the father still the BP? Hasn't someone else taken up the mantle and what direction did he/she lead them?

Father should be dead. This would have been post Civil War when he bit it and T’Challa took over. Maybe some sort of interim rule but they were still searching for him since he went missing in the Avenger’s stand when he was nabbed up.

Because he was taken as a child Wakanda did less diplomatic efforts and the diplomats were not in the building that got Cross Boned. Which Means T'chaka never went to the U.N. and Zemo never bombed him.

 Lance845 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
I do wonder why they did not spend a fraction of time to show what happened a bit more in T'Challa's absence in Wakanda - Is the father still the BP? Hasn't someone else taken up the mantle and what direction did he/she lead them?

Father should be dead. This would have been post Civil War when he bit it and T’Challa took over. Maybe some sort of interim rule but they were still searching for him since he went missing in the Avenger’s stand when he was nabbed up.

Because he was taken as a child Wakanda did less diplomatic efforts and the diplomats were not in the building that got Cross Boned. Which Means T'chaka never went to the U.N. and Zemo never bombed him.

Oh you meant the second one, I was thinking of this week’s.

 Graphite wrote:
Zombies!

Comedy!

After last week's... less than light hearted episode, this was a fun change of tone. Revel in the daftness.

I love how Peter's running around being all "DOES NOBODY WATCH HORROR MOVIES!?"

I also like that he's dismissed initally as a dumb kid and by the end everyone realizes "listen to this guy he knows what he's talking about"

It was fine. No fault of the short itself, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that after reading World War Z I am personally completely sated on the subject of zombies. I'm just kind of.... yup, thems a zombie story.

 LunarSol wrote:
It was fine. No fault of the short itself, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that after reading World War Z I am personally completely sated on the subject of zombies. I'm just kind of.... yup, thems a zombie story.

I like that Marvel has tried to make some of their movies variations on classic tropes, but with super heroes, so while I'm not big on zombie stuff, I kind of liked that they tackled the zombie trope, but with super heroes.

Eh. The problem with zombies is they're so innately bumbling and ineffective (best defense: walk fast and don't be stupid) that zombie movies and games have basically resorted to giving them superpowers anyway (super fast zombies, fire zombies, plague zombies, exploding zombies, etc, etc) in addition to saddling protagonists with a plethora of Idiot Balls to make the movies/games work at all.

So zombies + supers really isn't that interesting at this point. Its just tired, and way past its prime.

I do have to say... Hank Pym has really taken it in the shorts in this series. What else is he gonna be responsible for? Why poor Hank Pym???

Probably for hitting his wife.

Being a butt monkey has also long been part of his character at this point, since long before wife beating stopped being acceptable even for comic book nerds

So why is it Hank Pym's fault?

Because he's Hank Pym and everything is somehow his fault. That's it. That's the character. His more epic moments stand out in memory largely because the character is a walking gag, so when he gets to actually shine people usually remember it.

I mean even in the comics he's responsible for Ultron right? So I'm not surprised he's getting the short end of the stick for these What If's.

Overall, the What If's are okay at best for me...I feel like they might have more focus and better stories in their second season once they've found more narrative footing. Though I did like that they indirectly confirmed that the whole Ant-Man Thanos butt thing is possible lol.

I think most of them are honestly too short to really explore their premises. They have to wrap stuff up in the time of a typical TV slot so they rush through things, skip over things that could have been explored, and don't get to reach their full potential.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think most of them are honestly too short to really explore their premises. They have to wrap stuff up in the time of a typical TV slot so they rush through things, skip over things that could have been explored, and don't get to reach their full potential.

I agree but thats ALSO how the What If comic goes. So for those of us familiar with the book thats kind of a little meta thing that gives me a little bit of enjoyment. If they made a direct show adaptation of the comic this is EXACTLY what it would be. Would the show be better if they made 2 hour long episodes that fully explored things? Maybe? Probably? But what it is is fun little peeks into scenarios. And in that respect I enjoy it for what it is.

 Lance845 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think most of them are honestly too short to really explore their premises. They have to wrap stuff up in the time of a typical TV slot so they rush through things, skip over things that could have been explored, and don't get to reach their full potential.

I agree but thats ALSO how the What If comic goes. So for those of us familiar with the book thats kind of a little meta thing that gives me a little bit of enjoyment. If they made a direct show adaptation of the comic this is EXACTLY what it would be. Would the show be better if they made 2 hour long episodes that fully explored things? Maybe? Probably? But what it is is fun little peeks into scenarios. And in that respect I enjoy it for what it is.

I used to love What If? When I first got into comics in the early 90s, then after I got back into them in the early 2000s I really enjoyed Exiles because it was essentially a serialized version of What If?.

I am kind of hoping that is what we get out of this. Captain Carter. Repentant evil Dr Strange, Star Lord T'Challa, Zombie Survivor Spiderman. All team up exiles style to fight off Shuma Goratha or whatever that tenticle monster is.

Based on the trailers for the series and some of the open credits scenes, my bet on the big bad they team up to fight is

So like.
How many of these are going to be hand pyms fault?
Because i can see that. dude is a feth up

Jeremy Renner is Clint Barton as John McClain in... HAWKEYE:

I thoroughly enjoyed that! But, I am very easy to please...

They have Pizza Dog in the trailer. I saw multiple members of the tracksuit mafia. I am ready for this show.

I’m here for it!

Though is it just my ears, or did Hawkeye sound different in the first bit? Like he was putting on an accent.

Doesn’t really matter, just wondering. Still well up for watching this!

Looks good fun - should be know who the girl is?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Looks good fun - should be know who the girl is?

Kate Bishop, aka "Hawkeye II"

I remember her from Pitch Perfect and Enders game.

She is also the Human character in Bumblebee. The only decent live action Transformers movie.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Looks good fun - should be know who the girl is?

Kate Bishop, aka "Hawkeye II"

Ahh right thanks - I thought he was going to be passing the bow to his daughter.

The real question is: did they write a full Rogers: the Musical for verisimilitude's sake, and can we see the the whole uninterrupted thing as an extra episode?

Or, is Roger the Musical the next thing to be performed on Disney on Ice? Because feth yeah.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Ahh right thanks - I thought he was going to be passing the bow to his daughter.

They kind of teased that, but I suspect ultimately it was easier to just go comic accurate on this one rather than come up with a reason why his daughter's name was Kate Bishop.

What If…

So that was pretty decent. Killmonger got his win.
Seeing the mother as the General of the Dora Milaje was cool. As was the war rhinos
Attacking wakanda seemed, odd to me, they did not now they where a technological powerhouse and all they knew was a wakandan spear was the one that did it.....but how did they know it was wakandan.

Killmonger told Tony, who presumably told Rhodie, who presumably told the military?

I kind of want to go back and rewatch them all again. I suspect The Watcher is becoming more obvious a spectator as time goes on, discounting his actual interaction with Strange. I don’t think I noticed his silhouette in the background until the third episode, and in this last one you could straight up see his facial expressions as he watched what was happening.

 AduroT wrote:
I kind of want to go back and rewatch them all again. I suspect The Watcher is becoming more obvious a spectator as time goes on, discounting his actual interaction with Strange. I don’t think I noticed his silhouette in the background until the third episode, and in this last one you could straight up see his facial expressions as he watched what was happening.

I've noticed that too, definitely seems to be more...defined.

Almost as if he's getting ready to do something more proactive than Watch

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Attacking wakanda seemed, odd to me, they did not now they where a technological powerhouse and all they knew was a wakandan spear was the one that did it.....but how did they know it was wakandan.

Seizing private assets and invading a completely unknown country on the basis that maybe one of them killed a rich guy is either a huge leap of logic or a snarky bit of satire. At the very least it was one of those "What If comics have to breeze by things" moments that definitely felt odd.

Loved canonizing the Vegeta armor as a result of Killmonger's love of anime though.

Well, he isn't JUST some rich guy. He is the primary inventor, manufacturer, and distributor of military hardware for the united states. It would be like having another country assassinate Oppenheimer right after inventing the nuclear bomb. Our country would be like.. "That was our asset."

Didn't they literally recover t'challas body at the scene of Rhodes death? that was probably the real impetus for war. Tony just added fuel to the fire. They were like "the prince of Wakanda attacked one of our secret deals and now Tony Stark is dead. Wakanda is trying to make a power play."

I’m really enjoying this weeks one. It’s silly. Very very silly, it knows it and it doesn’t care!

Though it is strange to see Thor without a beard.

Very fun, yeah. Loki was great. And that ending…

Glad to hear this week is not going to be as depressing as previous weeks.

Zero depression. 100% silly fun times.

Though much as I really enjoyed this episode, it could prove divisive, because it’s so different in tone from the others.

...oooooh, can't wait. But alas, I usually have to wait for the wife to fall asleep to sneak the episodes on, as she will always say, "Why are you watching a cartoon?"


...cuz it's fething great!!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it could prove divisive, because it’s so different in tone from the others.

That's effectively the entire point of the series.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it could prove divisive, because it’s so different in tone from the others.

That's effectively the entire point of the series.

It’s actually overall fairly baseline. 1, 2, 3, and 6 are the ones that deviate. 1 doing the black and white thing, 2 leans a bit chibi, but not excessively so, 3 is maximum Trigger, and 6 I’ll call Astro Boy aesthetic. The rest while they do have different artistic styles from the different studios are more generic/average in overall appearance, including another one by Trigger.

 AduroT wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it could prove divisive, because it’s so different in tone from the others.

That's effectively the entire point of the series.

It’s actually overall fairly baseline. 1, 2, 3, and 6 are the ones that deviate. 1 doing the black and white thing, 2 leans a bit chibi, but not excessively so, 3 is maximum Trigger, and 6 I’ll call Astro Boy aesthetic. The rest while they do have different artistic styles from the different studios are more generic/average in overall appearance, including another one by Trigger.

This is the What If? thread

Eeh, the silly sausage.

Though Visions is impressive, and normally I can’t get on with Anime stylings.

 LunarSol wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it could prove divisive, because it’s so different in tone from the others.

That's effectively the entire point of the series.

It’s actually overall fairly baseline. 1, 2, 3, and 6 are the ones that deviate. 1 doing the black and white thing, 2 leans a bit chibi, but not excessively so, 3 is maximum Trigger, and 6 I’ll call Astro Boy aesthetic. The rest while they do have different artistic styles from the different studios are more generic/average in overall appearance, including another one by Trigger.

This is the What If? thread

Oh, whoops. I was thinking of a comment he had made in the other thread and forgot where I was.

I kinda noticed alot of these are taking place in phase 1 parts of the story.
Made me go back and revisit them

I believe I caught a Eternals reference in there.

There is a shot while one of them is flying through the sky of a woman sitting on her deck with a margarita. I think that is that little house we see in the trailers.

Man, that was just raw, pure fun. I enjoyed this WAY more than I expected.

It was goofier than I'd have liked, but I'm guessing it was set up that way

 AduroT wrote:
Very fun, yeah. Loki was great. And that ending…

Spoiler:

I called it!

Fun episode!

Not strictly MCU, but let's keep things tidy.

Ha!

Never Doubt Me Again!

Well this is rather good, isn’t it!

If he had the time gem before any others, he might have been able to go back an get other gems.

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

Seemed a bit underwhelming with how quickly Thanos got one-shot when he had 5 infinity stones, particularly the reality stone. Also, a bit weird that he was able to get the Power Stone from Xandar and the Space Stone from Asgard without either being destroyed? How does Captain Marvel last that long against Ultron when Thanos didn't?

Don't Infinity Stones only work within their specific universe? I'm not sure if I've gotten mixed up with the comics rules versus that of the MCU.

It depends on what you mean by universe. The infinity stones taken out of the past in endgame are technically now from another universe.

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

Seemed a bit underwhelming with how quickly Thanos got one-shot when he had 5 infinity stones, particularly the reality stone. Also, a bit weird that he was able to get the Power Stone from Xandar and the Space Stone from Asgard without either being destroyed? How does Captain Marvel last that long against Ultron when Thanos didn't?

Don't Infinity Stones only work within their specific universe? I'm not sure if I've gotten mixed up with the comics rules versus that of the MCU.

Thanos went in all arrogant. It normally takes a solid fight to bring him down, he doesn’t normally get attacked by a cosmically powered laser right off the bat, especially a weapon that doesn’t need to be drawn or other such indication he’s about to fire, so he just didn’t have the time to use one of his stones. Marvel goes in ready for a fight right off the bat, is likewise cosmically powered herself, and all she actually did was move him to a location that was in the end more convenient for the destruction he wanted to inflict.

I could see him getting the Space Stone off Asgard without a fight, as iirc Loki would have been in charge there at the time and probably just rolled over at the sight of him. Xander less so perhaps, but also their main forces appear to be Air Force, and they kind of fall apart once it’s boots on the ground. However keep in mind his goal is not general obliteration, but population destruction, so it’s also hard to judge exactly what a planet looks like immediately post Thanosing.

Don’t know about the different universes bit. I think I recall that from a somewhat recent issue of the comics, but the movies could do it different. They’re setting it up such that their different universes are just different timelines of the same universe.

Different universe thing comes from a DC crossover where Darkseid gets hold of the gauntlet but discovers it doesn't work because the stones have to be used in their home universe.

Loki (the show) indicates that Infinity Stones do not work in whatever place the TVA operates from, so I guess wherever the Watcher does his watching isn't in the same place/type of place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Different universe thing comes from a DC crossover where Darkseid gets hold of the gauntlet but discovers it doesn't work because the stones have to be used in their home universe.

No,. If memory serves Desaad tells him the stones are useless outside of their own universe. Darkseid then calls the gauntlet useless, tosses it to the ground and buggers off.

Well, everything has turned to crud for our watcher...

It's worth remembering that Ultron's literal objective was to stop Thanos before he started. On some level that had to be job #1 of everything he did once he got the pesky humans out of the way.

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

??

Spoiler:

He doesn't. There won't be a 'greater threat'. That Strange collapsed/destroyed/wiped out his entire universe.

The entire universe except for himself. See here’s the thing with The Watcher/s. Having a character who only watches and never interferes is irrelevant as they have nothing to offer the story.

Correct. The Watcher is a PoV character/narrative device.

They're explicitly there for
a) Here is an unbiased, dispassionate observer/narrator with no reason to lie to you
and
b) Here is how we know about the parts of the story no one was there for. (because the Watcher watches)

Only watching and not interfering is _exactly_ what the character has to offer. Its a bit of a silly gimmick, but so is your theoretical all-universes-destroying villain. Not least because its been done (repeatedly) and generally isn't a big deal. The heroes generally don't need some moon guy to come tell them about the sledgehammer coming their way.

Well this aged like old milk in a hot car.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’ll be curious to see how this Strange reacts to The Watcher coming to recruit him for help in the future when the greater threat emerges.

??

Spoiler:

He doesn't. There won't be a 'greater threat'. That Strange collapsed/destroyed/wiped out his entire universe.

The entire universe except for himself. See here’s the thing with The Watcher/s. Having a character who only watches and never interferes is irrelevant as they have nothing to offer the story.

Correct. The Watcher is a PoV character/narrative device.

They're explicitly there for
a) Here is an unbiased, dispassionate observer/narrator with no reason to lie to you
and
b) Here is how we know about the parts of the story no one was there for. (because the Watcher watches)

Only watching and not interfering is _exactly_ what the character has to offer. Its a bit of a silly gimmick, but so is your theoretical all-universes-destroying villain. Not least because its been done (repeatedly) and generally isn't a big deal. The heroes generally don't need some moon guy to come tell them about the sledgehammer coming their way.

Well this aged like old milk in a hot car.

I'm glad you guys like bad writing decisions enough to crow about it weeks later.

Nothing to do with bad writing and everything to do with how painfully, obviously, wrong what you wrote was, and how that it was abundantly clear that wasn't how it was going to go, even at that point.

It's that reason that it stuck in my memory enough to go back and find it.

Yeah, the Watcher Could be used as a mere narrative POV device, but that’s not what they ever do. Not interfering until they think a special exception needs to be made is what they do, like every time I’ve seen a comic with one in it. If the story includes a Watcher, there’s going to be a big threat to time and space. Actually seeing this guy be forced to personally fight was different though, a rare chance to see what they’re actually capable of, as they tend to just do the recruitment thing so they’re not the one technically interfering in their mind in the belief it’s some kind of loophole.

Wrong thread!

 AduroT wrote:
Yeah, the Watcher Could be used as a mere narrative POV device, but that’s not what they ever do. Not interfering until they think a special exception needs to be made is what they do, like every time I’ve seen a comic with one in it. If the story includes a Watcher, there’s going to be a big threat to time and space. Actually seeing this guy be forced to personally fight was different though, a rare chance to see what they’re actually capable of, as they tend to just do the recruitment thing so they’re not the one technically interfering in their mind in the belief it’s some kind of loophole.

That's technically his first appearance right? Galactus is coming and I can no longer sit idly by and watch?

Post credit scene on the What If finale.

That was a pretty bang up finale!

An episode where a Tony Stark got to live! Also that was not who I was expecting to crossover from the Zombie episode. That Gamora was new, wasn’t she? Or am I forgetting her from one?

That’s what I was thinking. Will need to watch them all again.

I want a Carter/Widow show. Right now.

 AduroT wrote:
That Gamora was new, wasn’t she? Or am I forgetting her from one?

Gamora and Super-Duper Space-Armour Tony are from a "Reel Missing" episode it seems. I guess we'll have to wait 'til next season to find out what that's about.

I was actually super confused when I saw the finale was this week specifically because I remembered there was supposed to be a Gamora episode...

I know one of their ads on Facebook leading up to this was check out Gamora in the finale.

Are there post credit scenes on the What If series? I have watched many to the end and there are 5 minutes of end titles to show the credits in every language on the planet (almost), and I have never seen any, like on the marvel features.

There is indeed

Are they on every one? I have watched several to the end and have not seen anything...

Just the finale so far as I’m aware. They do however play before the language credits.

Yeah, for all things D+, once you hit the language credits there isn't anything more.

So this kinda implies story followups huh?

Pretty sure they confirmed a season two.

What if is something they can run forever. So long as they make movies and shows they can write alternate stories to animate.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I want a Carter/Widow show. Right now.

 AduroT wrote:
That Gamora was new, wasn’t she? Or am I forgetting her from one?

Gamora and Super-Duper Space-Armour Tony are from a "Reel Missing" episode it seems. I guess we'll have to wait 'til next season to find out what that's about.

Correct, it was a "What If... Tony didn't make it back through the portal after the battle of New York?" episode. It was cut because of Covid but will be included in season 2.

Well, I miss the Wednesday discussion of "What if"... I guess the Mandalorian (while not MCU, still on Dinsey+)is supposed to pick back up towards the end of this year.

Any other series any of you are eagerly anticipating starting up again??

Not quite, they just started filming.
Book of boba Fett is later this year.

Hawkeye

Yeah, Hawkeye is looking really cool.

I'm still working through What if...? Just got to the zombie episode, which was an absolute blast.

Also currently on season 6 of Agents of Shield, and thinking it's a little sad that Agent Carter got axed while this got 7 seasons... I mean, it's OK, and certainly has its moments, but 4 seasons of different flavors of Grant Ward, and now I Can't Believe It's Not Coulson... And the constant, constant re-use of the 'good character does something evil but Wait! It wasn't really them! Surprise!' thing...

 MDSW wrote:
Well, I miss the Wednesday discussion of "What if"... I guess the Mandalorian (while not MCU, still on Dinsey+)is supposed to pick back up towards the end of this year.

Any other series any of you are eagerly anticipating starting up again??

Not really? I let D+ go, and will probably wait another 6-9+ months before popping back. Maybe even longer, depending on how releases of shows and movies actually happen.
I may well wait until Dr. Strange 2 hits D+, around about June or July next year.
There really needs to be another glut of content (and it needs to be better, especially in the climaxes, or just better in general for things like the Bad Batch) and/or I need to be in the mood for some back catalog stuff (which I watched a lot of during Falcon and Winter Soldier's run, otherwise I would have bailed during that)

I'm currently hyped for Hawkeye and Mandalorian. Also, they just announced like 4 new anime are coming to disney+ so that may be fun.

Gave WandaVision a whirl, drops off at the end a bit with the usual CGI zap fest but Lizzy O is lovely enough to counterbalance that, fingers crossed for more Agatha down the line, maybe another fantastical reality shifting sort can fix her

Apparently Agatha is getting something on D+ down the line. Her own series or some other thing. Details are scarce.

Seems the forthcoming movies have been pushed back a bit.

No official word on why.

Burnt through the What If's today, the opening two are fairly weak, but picks up after that, solid 7/10

 Lance845 wrote:
Apparently Agatha is getting something on D+ down the line. Her own series or some other thing. Details are scarce.

I am a super fan of Kathryn Hahn, so hope this goes well for her.

Just got around to finishing What If, enjoyed the whole thing honestly.

I would be down for a Guardians of the Multiverse show as a spinoff.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Seems the forthcoming movies have been pushed back a bit.

No official word on why.

Its the IATSE strike resolution
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/10/iatse-amptp-strike-averted

Basically, Disney (and most other Hollywood companies) functioned on 'crunch time,' just like the game industry (and truthfully between post-processing, CGI and etc, there's little functional difference between the two beyond the obvious stuff). The new agreement limits 14 hour workdays and forces companies to have a 10 hour turnaround between workdays (ie, you can't finish shooting at midnight and force people to be back in at 6 am) The new limits on workdays and turnaround basically forced Disney to add about 3-4 months to each film in order to accomodate a saner work schedule. (So Strange2 moves from March to May, Thor4 May to July, BP2 July to Nov and Marvel2 Nov to Feb)

Like the game industry, pushing companies away from grinding their workforce into little nubbins is a good thing.

Voss wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Seems the forthcoming movies have been pushed back a bit.

No official word on why.

Its the IATSE strike resolution
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/10/iatse-amptp-strike-averted

Basically, Disney (and most other Hollywood companies) functioned on 'crunch time,' just like the game industry (and truthfully between post-processing, CGI and etc, there's little functional difference between the two beyond the obvious stuff). The new agreement limits 14 hour workdays and forces companies to have a 10 hour turnaround between workdays (ie, you can't finish shooting at midnight and force people to be back in at 6 am) The new limits on workdays and turnaround basically forced Disney to add about 3-4 months to each film in order to accomodate a saner work schedule. (So Strange2 moves from March to May, Thor4 May to July, BP2 July to Nov and Marvel2 Nov to Feb)

Like the game industry, pushing companies away from grinding their workforce into little nubbins is a good thing.

Agreed all around. This is exactly where unions become a good thing.

We got a small presentation from Marvel Studios for Disney+ Day.

Long and short of it:

1. Extended look at Hawkeye, including a cool one-shot car chase sequence. Looks like fine. Kate looks like a riot.

2. Brief glimpse of Moon Knight. Looks trippy, and spooky. Oscar Issac is my man-crush. He looks great.

3. Brief look at She-Hulk (w/special guest star, Hulk!). Looks interesting. Cool logo.

4. Spider-Man cartoon, eh, whatever.

5. Groot animated series. Fine.

6. GotG Holiday Special, whatever.

7. Iron Heart... *sigh*.

8. Ms. Marvel could be interesting.

9. Echo, a spin-off for Hawkeye. We knew that was coming (slick logo though).

10. What If...? Season 2, we knew that was coming. No footage though, which is weird given the Gamora/Stark one was further along than the rest.

11. Agetha: House of Harkness I'm dubious over, but we'll see.

12. Marvel Zombies. Another animated series. I hope it's not just a bigger version of that What If...? episode.

13. Loki Season 2. Long wait for that one no doubt.

14. Secret Invasion cool (bad logo). Blink-and-you'll-miss-him look at a shot of Nick Fury (or Talos as Nick Fury!).

15. And Armour Wars, which is the one I want the most. Or it was. Because the 16th thing is the best reveal ever...

16. X-Men '97! Yes! A continuation of the 90's X-Men series, with the creators and cast coming back. OMG!

That last one?

Someone fetch a broom. I need to retrieve my trousers from the ceiling.

There's some bits uploaded to the service itself, most interesting are the Obi Wan, Willow and Baymax previews, although the first 2 are very light on footage. (A few brief glimpses in Obi Wan though.)

Outside of the NatGeo trailers ("Chris Hemsworth is Super Buff... and also Nature" & "We Made a Nature Series Based on an ID4 Meme") most things were pretty light on footage.

Scuttlebutt is that Ms. Marvel's power won't be stretchy like Mr. Fantastic but creating purple light constructs sort of like Green Lantern.

Far cheaper and probably less gak-looking on a TV budget.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Far cheaper and probably less gak-looking on a TV budget.

I think live action stretching will always look ropey regardless

Moonknight seems like the pick of the teases

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Far cheaper and probably less gak-looking on a TV budget.

I have no doubt. I don't really like stretchy as a power but I like her character so looking forward to see how this plays out. I saw someone complaining about the costume but I thought it was pretty clear in the teaser that it was a home-made Captain Marvel suit Kamala had made and that later she'll have her own costume. Since Inhumans bombed horribly I wonder how she'll get her powers without a Terrigan Bomb.

Yeah not really sure how they are gunna go about her origin and powers. Though i think its less that stretchy is difficult/hard and more that Fantastic 4 is coming and 2 stretchy characters might be hard to make look different in interesting ways.

I think they should put all their 'stretchy' stuff into making sure that Mr. Fantastic looks amazing. The other 3 FF are pretty easy to do, comparatively speaking. Mr. Fantastic is much harder.

It will likely be a long and expensive process to get that right, something that they wouldn't have time to do with Ms. Marvel.

So WTF are the Ten Rings in the MCU? Celestial tech?

trexmeyer wrote:
So WTF are the Ten Rings in the MCU? Celestial tech?

No idea at this point. That is specifically one of the mysteries laid out at the end of Shang Chi.

Yeah, the lack of foundation for the Kamala and Riri characters’ origins are my only issues with them bringing them in. Going to require near complete rewrites.

trexmeyer wrote:
So WTF are the Ten Rings in the MCU? Celestial tech?

I think that is what they were in the comics. MCU seems to be pointing that way as well. But who knows really.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:
So WTF are the Ten Rings in the MCU? Celestial tech?

I think that is what they were in the comics. MCU seems to be pointing that way as well. But who knows really.

In the comics they are Makulan tech. (Fin Fang Foom is a Makulan and they were found in his ship).

It’s entirely possible the MCU hasn’t quite decided what they are just yet.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that damn dragon

Eternals tech seems to indicate to me that the Ten Rings are Celestial/Eternal in nature.

A few episodes thru Hit Monkey and so far it’s pretty good. Just kind of accept the absurdity at face value and move on. Gotta be able to accept Gallons of blood everywhere, it’s rather cartoonishly graphic, but no nudity so far so it’s totally fine.

Not long now until Hawkeye lands. I’m working from home on Wednesday, so should be tuned in at the point it goes up.

Been otherwise avoiding chatter and spoilers, as I do like going in blind.

Finished Hit Monkey. Pretty fun romp all the way thru, while still hitting some good dramatic tragic moments. Do recommend.

Hit Monkey is on Hulu right?

Yes.

Hawkeye.

Opening scene blew my socks off.

Well. Blew my big monster feet slippers off. Pretty much the same thing.

I’m reminded how much I hate that the Disney+ app puts a ~quarter inch black frame around the picture and refuses to actually use the whole screen.

Huh. On mine its just letterbox, but goes to the sides just fine.

I could've had a whole show about 'little girl who doesn't take anyone's crap' (especially lies-to-children) rather than Rogers: the Musical. That was just cringey and tasteless, even out-of-universe.

Can’t say I’ve noticed a screen size issue on mine?

I found Rogers! amusingly camp. But I can easily see why it’s going to be marmite.

Honestly struggling with the constant tone shifts in these first two episodes of Hawkeye. The camp is too camp and the serious isn't serious enough.

I also can't tell if the 'obvious villain' they're setting is going to be more disappointing if it turns out to be true or false. Though I feel like the runner up will be worse.


The character introduction at the end of episode 2 runs into the MCU problem: I'm supposed to be awed, I guess, but I'm _mostly_ wondering if I'm supposed to know who this is.

You're not. She's a new character.

Anyway, yeah, Hawkeye was... fine, I guess. I don't know what the overall plot is meant to be, and they've already used 1/3rd of the show's runtime. At least one episode will be dedicated to Yelena trying to kill (and eventually becoming friends with) Hawkeye, so that leaves 3 episodes for this show to have a purpose.

I really hope the mother doesn't turn out to be the Big Bad. That would be awful.

Tony Dalton can't not come across as secretly evil.

 AduroT wrote:
I’m reminded how much I hate that the Disney+ app puts a ~quarter inch black frame around the picture and refuses to actually use the whole screen.

Can't be any worse than "Here's our new show with 5 minutes of titles and 5 minutes of credits to pad out the runtime!".

and they've already used 1/3rd of the show's runtime

What's worse is sooo much of that is burned on a Die Hard's 'I'm supposed to be on vacation' schtick.

I get it, its Christmas.

Also the real plot is about... a watch? That the joke villains have? Or did the dog eat it? Those have to pay off at some point, presumably. But that requires the heroes finding out in some way that isn't totally contrived.

Tony Dalton

Gotta admit, when I started ep1, I originally thought the credits said 'Timothy Dalton' and had to roll back to check. Kinda disappointed, if I'm going to be honest.
But I suspect he's just a donkey, and not the Big Bad. They're trying way to hard to set that up, to the point of literally handing Kate clues. If he actually is, its hard to take seriously.
My vote is for Armand VII. He seemed like the real villain behind it all.

I think the watch is a piece of Iron Man tech. It’s the right colors and was recovered from the Avenger’s place.

Could be iron mans watc- turns-into-a-repulser from winter soldier.

The fact that it's being sold could tie into armor wars.

I imagine he doesn't want it going around because anyone who gets it could drum up more trouble.

Voss wrote:
But I suspect he's just a donkey, and not the Big Bad.

Big Bad or no, he's playing Jacques (Jack) Duquesne, aka Swordsman. So he has to be something.

 AduroT wrote:
I think the watch is a piece of Iron Man tech. It’s the right colors and was recovered from the Avenger’s place.

Sure. Its a MacGuffin. The problem is the heroes know nothing about it. Maybe Kate heard a Russian say 'watch.'

Instead, they're chasing the Ronin suit which... whatever. We're 100-odd supers into the MCU. A fire resistant jumpsuit worn by a nameless sword guy that murderized gangs post-blip but pre-return isn't that big a deal. Not even to the scummy millionaires, as they paid 2.4 million for a run-of-the-mill (stolen) triceratops skull, but broke off on the sword before it even hit $500k. Its personal, but not important. And Kate hasn't even bothered to ask her idol why he even cares about it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
But I suspect he's just a donkey, and not the Big Bad.

Big Bad or no, he's playing Jacques (Jack) Duquesne, aka Swordsman. So he has to be something.

Bleh. That sucks a lot of the fun out of it.

The whole point of getting the suit back is so he can play the Ronin and reveal that Kate is NOT the Ronin so she doesn't get killed over it. That's why he intentionally got caught after getting it before Kate ruins the plan trying to help. He doesn't want the suit, he just needs to use it to figure out how big of a target Kate put on her back.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

The character introduction at the end of episode 2 runs into the MCU problem: I'm supposed to be awed, I guess, but I'm _mostly_ wondering if I'm supposed to know who this is.

On the subject of the watch, there's a couple interesting Easter Eggs tied to its lot number. I think its pretty clear by now that Disney isn't nearly as invested in making these things about setting up something bigger as the audience is, but interesting none the less:

 LunarSol wrote:
The whole point of getting the suit back is so he can play the Ronin and reveal that Kate is NOT the Ronin so she doesn't get killed over it. That's why he intentionally got caught after getting it before Kate ruins the plan trying to help. He doesn't want the suit, he just needs to use it to figure out how big of a target Kate put on her back.

Yeah, after he finds out its just some college kid running around setting herself up to get killed. That's fine.
Its the laser-like focus to dump off his kids and abandon everything to find the suit before that - I'm not clear why he cares enough to suddenly dump his kids and set their Christmas holiday on fire.

He doesn't ever play the Ronin, either, or use it in any other way. He stuffs it in a locker and just... hangs out on the street until they randomly pick him up. Which also needs an explanation, same as tracking her down after she leaves Armand's house (she doesn't even seem to know where she's going, how do they?) and tracking down her apartment when they don't know who she is. Omniscient idiot villains doesn't work well.

More interesting, X-Men 268 is a flashback story to the first time chronologically that Natasha met... Wolverine, when the Hand/(we'll say Hydra) tried to kidnap her as a child in Madripoor. I'm normally very dismissive of Mutant stuff, but sooner or later I suppose its got to come up and I won't rule out any "Natasha secret history" stuff in a story about Hawkeye.

Not going to bother to respoil this, because it really doesn't apply to anything MCU. Because it was Wolverine AND Captain America in 1940s Madripoor, with the comics version of Natasha being the lost Romanov granddaughter (by way of the daughter who supposedly vanished in 1918). Given MCU Natasha is ~10 in the 80s (and being bounced between an assignment in Ohio and in and out of the Widow program) and Cap is on ice, the storyline doesn't work.

The MCU never takes things whole cloth. Just broad stroke inspirations. I find it more interesting how many relevant characters are connected in that story than the specific details behind it is all.

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The whole point of getting the suit back is so he can play the Ronin and reveal that Kate is NOT the Ronin so she doesn't get killed over it. That's why he intentionally got caught after getting it before Kate ruins the plan trying to help. He doesn't want the suit, he just needs to use it to figure out how big of a target Kate put on her back.

Yeah, after he finds out its just some college kid running around setting herself up to get killed. That's fine.
Its the laser-like focus to dump off his kids and abandon everything to find the suit before that - I'm not clear why he cares enough to suddenly dump his kids and set their Christmas holiday on fire.

He doesn't ever play the Ronin, either, or use it in any other way. He stuffs it in a locker and just... hangs out on the street until they randomly pick him up. Which also needs an explanation, same as tracking her down after she leaves Armand's house (she doesn't even seem to know where she's going, how do they?) and tracking down her apartment when they don't know who she is. Omniscient idiot villains doesn't work well.

They had a person following her after she left the auction, they said as much. She left the auction, went to Armond’s and her own place (I forget which order) then back out on the street before their big gang caught up with her. Clint finding them right away is more out of left field, but he’s a super spy and his name it on the title so I’ll allow it. Then they find them back at her place because they’ve already seen her place and her name is on the buzzer.

As for the suit, it’s an outfit he wore to murder a whole lot of people. He’s probably emotionally invested in why is someone wearing my murder suit. Then he finds out it’s a “kid” and it’s now a question of how many people mistakenly think you’re the person who murdered a bunch of their criminal fiends? He doesn’t want some kid getting caught with his rap.

The watch may end up being nothing to do with the story and never seen again. The colors and lot label make it obvious Iron Man tech, which makes it a sensible enough target to steal. In the process we happen across that guy we personally hate for murdering a whole bunch of our people a while back and our focus switches to him.

 AduroT wrote:

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The whole point of getting the suit back is so he can play the Ronin and reveal that Kate is NOT the Ronin so she doesn't get killed over it. That's why he intentionally got caught after getting it before Kate ruins the plan trying to help. He doesn't want the suit, he just needs to use it to figure out how big of a target Kate put on her back.

Yeah, after he finds out its just some college kid running around setting herself up to get killed. That's fine.
Its the laser-like focus to dump off his kids and abandon everything to find the suit before that - I'm not clear why he cares enough to suddenly dump his kids and set their Christmas holiday on fire.

He doesn't ever play the Ronin, either, or use it in any other way. He stuffs it in a locker and just... hangs out on the street until they randomly pick him up. Which also needs an explanation, same as tracking her down after she leaves Armand's house (she doesn't even seem to know where she's going, how do they?) and tracking down her apartment when they don't know who she is. Omniscient idiot villains doesn't work well.

They had a person following her after she left the auction, they said as much.

No, they said they had 'eyes everywhere,' which... I guess? The show spends too much time showing them off as stupid and incompetent for that to go over convincingly.
But in the moment, they all went back to the van and bugged out (after the one guy decided to show his face to everyone in the area)- they specifically _didn't_ follow her. At least not on screen.

I guess part of my problem is really that we have 2 more episodes on top of several movies with Hawkeye and no more insight into his personality, character or backstory. He's still just angry spy-dad, but now with a hearing aid, and sadness for not winning the suicide competition with Natasha. Meanwhile, Kate is getting less interesting as she goes along. Great as a kid, great in a tux, and then suddenly paranoid and insecure about everything.

They haven’t really been anymore incompetent and stupid than any other goons thru out the MCU. We’ve barely even seen them other than the one interrogation scene.

It seems really mediocre. The most notable thing to me was Hailee Steinfeld walking next to Jeremy Renner. I had no idea she was that tall. Turns out she's 5'8" and he's 5'9". Small detail that makes her throwing on the Ronin costume actually work. Her acting doesn't really impress me at all. She's no Zendaya.

I find it interesting that people dont seem to understand why the Ronin suit is important.
Because it was a suit used by Clint to kill people, alot of bad people, who remember that he used it.
So he needs to get it out of sight, prevent people from wearing it so they dont think they are ronin, and now find out how many people think Kate is Ronin.
Now one theme im noticing is Clints dislike how hero worship. I guess it can be likened to veteran worship, but with nothing substantial actual done, but getting it wrong. it plays well with KAte who is a hero worshiper trying to be a hero.

I think the point with the Ronin suit is either the new wearer is trying to emulate Ronin and kill a lot of people, which Clint isn't going to be happy about, or it's some random idiot who has no idea what they're letting themselves in for (which turns out to be the case). The deeper question is probably why doesn't Clint destroy it?

Overall I'm enjoying Hawkeye more than I thought I would. The lighter tone is fine with me and it's good to spend more time with one of the lesser Avengers. I also think Jeremy Renner is a generally underrated actor so more screen time for him is good. My only reservation is how they're going to resolve everything in the limited time they've given themselves.

Slipspace wrote:
The deeper question is probably why doesn't Clint destroy it?

I would say the original reason he didn't simply destroy the suit was as a memento of past error or simply because he never got around to do it because he was busy with something else. It's not like the thing was in a dangerous spot either. It was inside the Avenger's compound when it was stolen and sold in an illegal auction. Now, of course, all his former enemies are running after the suit wearer and he needs to take care of it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I find it interesting that people dont seem to understand why the Ronin suit is important.
Because it was a suit used by Clint to kill people, alot of bad people, who remember that he used it.

Someone used it- I'm not sure its clear to anyone outside a very small circle (of which Natasha is dead and Warmachine may only be 99% suspicious but not 'know.') I don't know that anyone else even has an inkling that Clint was Ronin.

Now one theme im noticing is Clints dislike how hero worship. I guess it can be likened to veteran worship, but with nothing substantial actual done, but getting it wrong. it plays well with KAte who is a hero worshiper trying to be a hero.

It goes a bit further than that. Clint is in full on depression, with active flashback episodes (as we saw during the musical), and maybe-not-quite-but probably-suicidal. The 'just-for-laughs' cringe fest at the LARP climaxed at a not-actually-funny 'please kill me.' And his approach to solving the problem doesn't strike a lot of confidence. The whole Ronin schtick originally was a basically an attempt at suicide by bad guy when his family vanished.

The only thing keeping him afloat at this point is his family. Who knows how many real ties he had with people at SHIELD (and how many of those turned out to be Hydra?), and the Avengers as he knew them are basically all gone. Banner is around and advising (as we know from the Shang Chi mid-credits), Thor went to space to get his own head straight, Wanda has her own nightmare fuel, Sam and Bucky are off being partners, Fury is doing... whatever. That's basically it.

Slipspace wrote:Overall I'm enjoying Hawkeye more than I thought I would. The lighter tone is fine with me and it's good to spend more time with one of the lesser Avengers.

Maybe if it had a lighter tone, I'd agree with you. But its actually really depressing so far. The main characters need serious mental health checks and family therapy, and the light stuff is... accidental tower destruction and a dog getting kicked by idiots? Dunno about all that.

My only reservation is how they're going to resolve everything in the limited time they've given themselves.

There isn't actually much of a plot to resolve. They'll beat up track suit guys, get led back to sword guy (where they'll pick up the 'retractable Ronin sword') after a sprawling fight scene, ruin the engagement, and... um... have Christmas and a training montage together, I guess. Oh, and the Bartons adopt the dog, because obviously they've got the 2.5 kids and the house, so they need a pup to round off a happy Xmas.

They may or may not pick up the watch-they-don't-know-about along the way, or the 'real villain' will stroll away with it during the end credits. Honestly its empty enough that there may be enough spare time for a fight with the real villain after they acquire the watch and put together a mini-arc-reactor suit or weapon, or whatever.

Haven't watched it (no Disney Plus), but my understanding is that this is very much a MCU take on the Matt Fraction and David Aja run for Hawkeye.

If you haven't read it, you're missing out.

Voss wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I find it interesting that people dont seem to understand why the Ronin suit is important.
Because it was a suit used by Clint to kill people, alot of bad people, who remember that he used it.

Someone used it- I'm not sure its clear to anyone outside a very small circle (of which Natasha is dead and Warmachine may only be 99% suspicious but not 'know.') I don't know that anyone else even has an inkling that Clint was Ronin.

Now one theme im noticing is Clints dislike how hero worship. I guess it can be likened to veteran worship, but with nothing substantial actual done, but getting it wrong. it plays well with KAte who is a hero worshiper trying to be a hero.

It goes a bit further than that. Clint is in full on depression, with active flashback episodes (as we saw during the musical), and maybe-not-quite-but probably-suicidal. The 'just-for-laughs' cringe fest at the LARP climaxed at a not-actually-funny 'please kill me.' And his approach to solving the problem doesn't strike a lot of confidence. The whole Ronin schtick originally was a basically an attempt at suicide by bad guy when his family vanished.

The only thing keeping him afloat at this point is his family. Who knows how many real ties he had with people at SHIELD (and how many of those turned out to be Hydra?), and the Avengers as he knew them are basically all gone. Banner is around and advising (as we know from the Shang Chi mid-credits), Thor went to space to get his own head straight, Wanda has her own nightmare fuel, Sam and Bucky are off being partners, Fury is doing... whatever. That's basically it.

You are right, i meant it that client felt responsible for the Ronin suit and the problems its now causing.
I also didnt really catch the depression angle but i see it now.
I just kept thinking about the Rogers musical and him getting free food. How people, including kate, see him as a Hero and nothing more, and dont even bother to know him at all or even get it right(Ant man wasnt even there lol)
ID, it may be just me, but this just seems like a commentary on how Comic fans see comic heros.

I think you can safely remove the word "comic" from that sentence and still be valid.

I also don't think the idea that Clint is suffering from significant survivors guilt should be discounted, firstly as a result of the snap then subsequently because of Tony and even more so Natasha.

Living with the memory of his best friend sacrificing herself and dying in front of him would be bad enough, but knowing if he'd done things slightly differently he could have saved her would really double down on that.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I find it interesting that people dont seem to understand why the Ronin suit is important.
Because it was a suit used by Clint to kill people, alot of bad people, who remember that he used it.

Someone used it- I'm not sure its clear to anyone outside a very small circle (of which Natasha is dead and Warmachine may only be 99% suspicious but not 'know.') I don't know that anyone else even has an inkling that Clint was Ronin.

Now one theme im noticing is Clints dislike how hero worship. I guess it can be likened to veteran worship, but with nothing substantial actual done, but getting it wrong. it plays well with KAte who is a hero worshiper trying to be a hero.

It goes a bit further than that. Clint is in full on depression, with active flashback episodes (as we saw during the musical), and maybe-not-quite-but probably-suicidal. The 'just-for-laughs' cringe fest at the LARP climaxed at a not-actually-funny 'please kill me.' And his approach to solving the problem doesn't strike a lot of confidence. The whole Ronin schtick originally was a basically an attempt at suicide by bad guy when his family vanished.

The only thing keeping him afloat at this point is his family. Who knows how many real ties he had with people at SHIELD (and how many of those turned out to be Hydra?), and the Avengers as he knew them are basically all gone. Banner is around and advising (as we know from the Shang Chi mid-credits), Thor went to space to get his own head straight, Wanda has her own nightmare fuel, Sam and Bucky are off being partners, Fury is doing... whatever. That's basically it.

You are right, i meant it that client felt responsible for the Ronin suit and the problems its now causing.
I also didnt really catch the depression angle but i see it now.
I just kept thinking about the Rogers musical and him getting free food. How people, including kate, see him as a Hero and nothing more, and dont even bother to know him at all or even get it right(Ant man wasnt even there lol)
ID, it may be just me, but this just seems like a commentary on how Comic fans see comic heros.

I'd argue it's a commentary on how we see heros and events period

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
(Ant man wasnt even there lol)

Sure he was...

Episodes 1 and 2 were fine. Nothing great, but aside from some really head scratching logic, nothing terrible.

Enjoying this way more than Falcon and Winter Soldier at this point.

Episode 3 down, perfectly enjoyable. Builds things up quite nicely.

However I must deduct points for using that Christmas music which is always used for chase scenes. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s trope and it’s always irked me on an irrational level.

I got a kick out of the Imagine Dragons reference given they seem to be weirdly the main point of contention I’ve seen people have with the Arcane series.