Can the MCU survive without the original Avengers?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

We will see about Wolverine,

The fact is that Hugh Jackman defined that character for a generation plus, went out on a very high note with Logan, meaning

A) They have to recast and reintroduce a character who has been entirely defined by a single performer (analogous to recasting IM without RDJ).

B) They have to reintroduce the entire concept of mutantkind into the Marvel Universe and you can't do Wolverine without doing that.

These are big deals and they are not going to "throw away the shot" on a Disney Plus series. Some X-Men elements like the setting of Madripoor, dialogue that makes references for the few people in the back, and some Easter Eggs say about Patch and so on, but nothing more than that.

As for Angelina Jolie I kinda gotta throw your argument at ya a bit. There may have been a time in the 90s or 2000s when Angelina was more popular but there's no way she is more famous than Game of Thrones atm.

I thought we are comparing individual actors. Angelina Jolie is a bigger draw than Richard Madden and Kit Harrington put together. Put together Madden and Harrington aren't even a quarter. In fact Jolie is bigger than the entire main cast of GOT.

And again incorrect. Jolie's most recent works include the Maleficent movies which were big hits.

Both Emelia Clarke and Kit Harrington have been unable to find success outside of GoT.

Actually Emilia Clarke has done pretty well herself. Her movies Me Before You and Last Christmas both made more than $100mn worldwide, which is exceptional for romantic comedies. So as a comic performer and lead, Clarke does have star power.

So Clarke is the biggest actor out of the GOT cast at the moment, no one else has had success like hers. Which is cathartic given the terrible note that show ended on.

@Revolutionary Jack

Comparing painting Stark and every industrialist with the same brush devalues the very real and valid criticisms made against such people. Condemning Tony based on any superficial similarities he might have to people like Musk and Gates reads less like an actual criticism of supposed problematic writing and more just having a bone to pick with a certain character.

A while back I mentioned that the difference between The Punisher and Wolverine as characters, the fact that both are violent kill-happy anti-heroes with dark past lies in the perception of reality and suspension of disbelief. In real life, we aren't in danger of an immortal mutant with a healing factor who kills people with metal claws sprouting out of his knuckles. In real life, however we are in danger of people stocking up guns and going out to punish those they dislike out of a self-righteousness and the danger of gun violence. As such The Punisher is a more dangerous character than Wolverine, and no that's not a compliment nor should it be taken as a "who will win" validation.

By the same token, in real life we are in very real danger of giving license to showboating Silicon Valley entrepreneurs whose "genius" we must license by letting them do whatever they want, all the while they salt away enough untaxed cash and inherited wealth that could conceivably end world hunger. The most successful version of Iron Man (RDJ) is a Libertarian propaganda dream so that makes reality too much to ignore in a similar manner to Frank Castle. That doesn't apply to Thor or Captain America. There's no threat in real life from the actual existence of an extinct polytheistic religion or from the incarnation of the ideals of the last good war...but there is a danger from Iron Man as a character because he represents stuff that's become really disagreeable. IF there was a way to divorce Iron Man as a character from those elements, which I think there is, far more than is the case with Frank Castle for instance...if there was a way to do that, then Iron Man can be freed from his problematic aspects.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Okay, let's use a different example, since you seem to have a serious mad on for industrialists.

Also gun-nut vigilantes like the Punisher which people neglect. Frank Castle's appropriation by "Thin Blue Line" police hostile to accountability is an operative and consensual example of a character becoming tainted by real life associations. A reckoning of a similar nature is not far for Tony Stark.

People don't trust the news media anymore, right?

It's not the same thing. The issue with Iron Man is that people trust billionaires in real life too much. People trust billionaires far more than they do news media.

[MichaelC]

ALL superheroes are Libertarian propaganda, some are just dressed up more than others. They all take it as a given that the answer to every issue is freedom, freedom, and more freedom, rather than regulation and systemic solutions. And like real-life Libertarianism, they are paradoxically aristocratic, since they assume that handing out limitless freedom will allow a handful of individuals who are just better than everyone else to do what is needed to be done. That's why Captain America, Iron Man, Thor(next in line of an inherited dictatorship), Namor(ruler of an inherited dictatorship) and Black Panther(ruler of an inherited dictatorship) can all be buds most of the time, and why those occasions when Stark gets kicked out of the club is always when he behaves like a liberal instead of a libertarian, and starts siding with systemic governmental solutions. While Namor is sometimes a villain, it is never treated as an innate part of him being a "king", which is just an inherited dictatorship. Captain America usually considers Namor one of his best friends, and never calls him out on being a dictator, only on individual violent actions. It's just one of the ironies of Libertarianism, that it has a social darwinian subtext that leads it to supporting aristocracy so long as those aristocrats are superior.

[batnbreakfast]

Disney does not need to fall back on the Punisher or Wolverine. Leave them in their rated R corner where they make sense. Moon Knight is coming and when you leave out the part where he cuts off faces he's halfway between Captain America and Punisher. Moon Knight is dark enough but not too dark. There are many, many X-Men who are better for CGI slugfests don't stab their opponents or smoke cigars.

[Ascended]

Also gun-nut vigilantes like the Punisher which people neglect. Frank Castle's appropriation by "Thin Blue Line" police hostile to accountability is an operative and consensual example of a character becoming tainted by real life associations. A reckoning of a similar nature is not far for Tony Stark

Eh, this was a thing before season 2 of the Punisher and the show seemed to do fine, far as I know. The Netflix stuff wasn't cancelled due to low ratings but Marvel screwing around with the contracts so they could get the rights back.

That's not to say I don't see a problem with how Frank has been co-opted by law enforcement, only that it doesn't seem (far as I know) to have hurt his viability or sales.

I think you overestimate how much people allow real world considerations to influence their opinion on superheroes. The nation has changed in drastic ways since the early 40's, many times, and superheroes have done just fine and adapted. In fact the only time the genre was in real danger of falling by the wayside was in the hyper conservative 50's so if history is anything to go by, America swinging towards more progressive policies will only be a good thing for comics.

It's not the same thing. The issue with Iron Man is that people trust billionaires in real life too much. People trust billionaires far more than they do news media.

It is the exact same thing, just the severity of the example isn't as stark (no pun intended).

I also think you overestimate how much people trust the rich. But the point remains; all the changes that have happened to the media over the course of eighty years hasn't removed journalism from Clark Kent's role, his job has simply adapted to whatever the modern era is doing.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

ALL superheroes are Libertarian propaganda,

Your attempts to defend Iron Man by whataboutism or claiming every other character have the same issues is a pretty transparent dodge.

[MichaelC]

It's not whataboutism or a dodge, it's an analysis I've had of the genre for roughly 20 years. A dodge would be your ad hominem attack on me.

[Flash Gordon]

Ultimately superhero movies are meant for an audience that lives in the real world and not an audience comprised of fellow fictional characters.


Fact is actual myths from ancient cultures are subject to criticism, analysis and re-evaluation, even in the Ancient Times. So being a "modern day mythology" does not in any way invalidate or free these characters from criticism.

Well said, here.

Superheroes have some extremely problematic issues that should be discussed and analyzed. Narratives are powerful things, and I do think people need to be careful with what they consume.

Luke Cage is the closest thing to a working class hero we got, and that was a Netflix show that was ultimately canceled.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well said, here.

Superheroes have some extremely problematic issues that should be discussed and analyzed. Narratives are powerful things, and I do think people need to be careful with what they consume.

Luke Cage is the closest thing to a working class hero we got, and that was a Netflix show that was ultimately canceled.

I loved the Netflix Daredevil, Cage, and Jones shows a lot. I think the reason I like them is the reason many fans had issues with it, the fact that it didn't cross into the MCU. They could be standalone deep dives into a small group of characters.

One of the big problems with the MCU is that so much is Iron Man and Avengers centered that there's no room for any civilian supporting cast anymore. And without that there's no grounded perspective at all, whereas you got that with Daredevil and Luke Cage.

[Agent Z]

The fact is that Hugh Jackman defined that character for a generation plus, went out on a very high note with Logan, meaning

A) They have to recast and reintroduce a character who has been entirely defined by a single performer (analogous to recasting IM without RDJ).

B) They have to reintroduce the entire concept of mutantkind into the Marvel Universe and you can't do Wolverine without doing that.

These are big deals and they are not going to "throw away the shot" on a Disney Plus series. Some X-Men elements like the setting of Madripoor, dialogue that makes references for the few people in the back, and some Easter Eggs say about Patch and so on, but nothing more than that.



I thought we are comparing individual actors. Angelina Jolie is a bigger draw than Richard Madden and Kit Harrington put together. Put together Madden and Harrington aren't even a quarter. In fact Jolie is bigger than the entire main cast of GOT.

And again incorrect. Jolie's most recent works include the Maleficent movies which were big hits.



Actually Emilia Clarke has done pretty well herself. Her movies Me Before You and Last Christmas both made more than $100mn worldwide, which is exceptional for romantic comedies. So as a comic performer and lead, Clarke does have star power.

So Clarke is the biggest actor out of the GOT cast at the moment, no one else has had success like hers. Which is cathartic given the terrible note that show ended on.



A while back I mentioned that the difference between The Punisher and Wolverine as characters, the fact that both are violent kill-happy anti-heroes with dark past lies in the perception of reality and suspension of disbelief. In real life, we aren't in danger of an immortal mutant with a healing factor who kills people with metal claws sprouting out of his knuckles. In real life, however we are in danger of people stocking up guns and going out to punish those they dislike out of a self-righteousness and the danger of gun violence. As such The Punisher is a more dangerous character than Wolverine, and no that's not a compliment nor should it be taken as a "who will win" validation.

By the same token, in real life we are in very real danger of giving license to showboating Silicon Valley entrepreneurs whose "genius" we must license by letting them do whatever they want, all the while they salt away enough untaxed cash and inherited wealth that could conceivably end world hunger. The most successful version of Iron Man (RDJ) is a Libertarian propaganda dream so that makes reality too much to ignore in a similar manner to Frank Castle. That doesn't apply to Thor or Captain America. There's no threat in real life from the actual existence of an extinct polytheistic religion or from the incarnation of the ideals of the last good war...but there is a danger from Iron Man as a character because he represents stuff that's become really disagreeable. IF there was a way to divorce Iron Man as a character from those elements, which I think there is, far more than is the case with Frank Castle for instance...if there was a way to do that, then Iron Man can be freed from his problematic aspects.

Sorry but this comes across as an arbitrary distinction completely invented to justify liking one character over another. Especially when Wolverine has all manner of troubling aspects (his stories that often feature glorification of violence, fetishizing of non-white cultures and women) that make him much more problematic than the Punisher who is treated as an antihero at best.

https://www.themarysue.com/wolverine-toxic-masculinity/

[BroHomo]

I think it will survive because the MCU is catering to a bigger demographic than the niche and insular comic book readership.

Thank You!
ThiS!!

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Sorry but this comes across as an arbitrary distinction completely invented to justify liking one character over another.

It was a distinction to highlight why some characters who are safely in the realm of fantasy flow better than others where reality impinges too much to make them work as conventional figures of the same genre. Criticizing Iron Man and the Punisher for the political baggage of their story doesn't mean that every other hero in the genre has the same issues and problems.

If the comparison to Wolverine bothers you so much, let's look at Watchmen instead, at the end of the story, Moore shows Dan Dreiberg and Laurie continue to operate as superheroes because those characters are tied to parts of the genre which Moore sees as charming and purely genre-specific, i.e. Nite Owl's gadgets and gizmos and impractical tech, and as such harmless. Whereas the characters of Rorschach, Ozymandias, The Comedian all of whom are archetypes tied to problematic real-life implications (one being a vigilante objectivist, another a capitalist-superhero with a God complex, the third as an egomaniacal government operative) don't end the story as heroes or plausible alternatives for the genre anymore. Even the greatest deconstruction in superhero comics makes that distinction. Moore's point in Watchmen wasn't that superheroes suck period, just that the genre works only in a very limited and humble mode.

Tony Stark in the comics before RDJ used to be closer to Dan Dreiberg (also an inventor and entrepreneur with gadgets and tech but with a certain amount of personal niceness and vulnerability) at least around the early 80s or so (i am thinking of the character in Jim Shooter's and Michelinie's run). But the movie version is closer to Ozymandias. So if writers retool Tony and bring him nearer to Dreiberg, he can work.

[skyvolt2000]

I think it will survive because the MCU is catering to a bigger demographic than the niche and insular comic book readership.

Say it again for the folks in the back.

I rather cater to a group who has no issue making Antman, Rocket Raccoon, Black Panther and other popular.

Then deal with a group who think only certain folks should have everything and belittle any success outside of comics.

What looks better in a company's portfolio? A variety of successful franchises or ONE?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

They made Guardians a household name so I think they'll be fine with the new faces. Its the legacies I 'm worried about as they were hit and miss in the comics. But who knows? maybe the movies will be their chance to get it right.

[Killerbee911]

If you look at the non crap Sony and Fox dished out. Logan, Days of Future Past, Deadpool and Spiderverse . These movies easily outshined every MCU movie that year and that was because they had more chance to be original, more artistic and put their own takes on a marvel movie instead been confined by the MCU Disney way only, which has shown to be painfully limited and very manufactured. Even Venom was seen as a breath of fresh air and formed a cult following.

Due to monopoly, MCU lost artistic interest a long time ago, the question now is can their box office survive with the constant monopoly approach.

That artistic approach nonsense is just a way for fans to peddle their bad opinions. The second you see someone strain themselves to praise freaking Venom you know their points on artistic merit and quality are BS. Venom was hot mess but it was fun. Literally nobody can take anything seriously someone saying is about MCU while praising Venom exactly the type of movie the MCU makes that is being real.

Also Keeping it real why the f*ck are you looking for high art from comic books movies, Comic books in generally is low brow surface level entertainment. Turning comics in the movies/tv shows provides opportunity to lift often mediocre 2 dimensional content in something more because they are force to put things in a real world and work out flaws with stories who aren't trying to be that deep hiding behind of comic books inherent silliness. I have seen writers put on a master class in plot and dialogue in a story in comics and 50% thread was asking were the action was at and 40% thread was mad that Jean Grey didn't have a great showing.

The point is Comics aren't that deep and hitting on "Thor and Hulk doing something cool" is what people walking into movie to wanting happen. Empyre X-men is literally telling a story of Plants versus Zombies and people are here wondering why aren't getting auteur filming making in MCU. It is cool when they tell of one great comic stories or elevate content to something better but most people are walking into a expecting the silly guys in costumes to do fun stuff. The thing most people are mad about Avengers endgame wasn't that time travel wasn't coherent , It was Hulk didn't get Revenge on Thanos. Captain America saying Avengers Assemble and lifting Thor hammer were bigger moments than almost everything. Comic books are greasy fast food, Movies made from that content is going produce to be greasy fast food not gourmet food.

Comics is capable of giving use stuff like the Killing Joke, Born Again, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, God Love Man Kills, Demon in a Bottle,etc but on whole stories aren't that quality. And looking for the genre that is giving you stuff Empyre and Dark Nights :Metal to give you these serious quality content stretching it. I call out some of comic books great stories in a couple sentences back and I guarantee the words Wolverine vs Hulk will get fans more excited than of those things. MCU is going to be just fine.