Originally Posted by
Snoop Dogg
The idea behind Stevil is that the traditional Steve Rogers value system and those beliefs don't line up. He is forced to exist, but isn't really supposed to. Every time he does something that can be viewed as good like planning against Skull, it's accompanied by something horrible like trying to assassinate Jack in his bed, shooting Rick, and killing Bucky. By the end of Empire, the mask is off and any notion of sympathy he's had has been eroded. Because that is what those beliefs would do to a person. It's nurture swallowing up the Steve Rogers nature.
The Sons of the Serpent were a specter of violent racism, because the entire scheme is about preying upon vulnerable minorities, making it racist from top to bottom. Just because there was a larger scheme at play doesn't negate what those Serpents were doing and what attitudes they were promoting.
Black Widow was trying to prevent the kids from killing. She recruited them to watch over them because Miles was going to go no matter what and the others were going to join him, so she took them to help her do it herself. He tricked him and locked him in that truck. She gave her life to make sure a child didn't kill.
Sam defeats Stevil with the Ant-Man trick. Sam defeats Hydra. Sam lets Steve fight Stevil on camera to take his face back, because he stops the other heroes from getting involved. And then Steve gives Sam the shield and Sam gets the pose and Sam gets the toy because Sam saved the day 100%.
The Flag Smasher LMD was doing ethically sound things, Rick and the others knew that, the issue was that he was doing it through violence and murder. Which is bad, and what Flag Smasher has always been. A sound anti-nationalist position corrupted by extremism. The reason was to make Sam look like a failure and start the path that led him to giving up the shield. So it's one of the most important issues.
Elisa is very important to the first two acts of Secret Empire and the entire run. She's the mechanism created to make this entire thing happen and is the mastermind behind a lot of it. She stops appearing because she dies, and her death is extremely important because it sends Stevil off the deep end. And to really reach that position of Stevil's modern mother figure, she can't be responsible for the death of his actual mother who he also loves.
Joaquin was not put in the wrong for going after the commentator, Sam just wanted him to prioritize getting his legal status together first. But he knows where Joaquin is coming from. Misty backed Joaquin up. And he and Rage are put in the right compared to the Bombshells, who were only wrong because they tried to prove their point with violence.
Maria's characterization is subjective, so agree to disagree.
The early Rick stuff I actually just don't remember and don't really wanna bury through right now, so I surrender.
New Kraken's identity is a little hanging thread, yeah, but he said he wanted to leave that up in the air. So maybe he'll get back to it?