I remember when the full plot leaked last summer, even people who believed the Wanda part found it unbelievable that Strange would do so little in his own movie. Because from the plot, it seemed like he really doesn't do much until he possesses his own corpse. Other than that he's mostly reacting to what Wanda does or standing around while the Illuminati talk at him.
But it really turned out to be that way in the movie, and so did other flaws from that plot leak, like that America Chavez is sort of a MacGuffin who doesn't get to show a lot of personality, or that Wong doesn't get to do much.
Of course the people most vocal about the movie are usually disappointed Wanda fans, but this wasn't a great showing for any character.
I mean duh. Neither Wanda nor Strange are real so obviously everything is the writers decision and of course Wanda is more powerful. That's why he went to her in the first place. To get help with protecting America and the entirety of WV is an insane power display that no other character in the MCU has come even close to doing. You are an odd fan to actually downplay the feats of the character you claim to be a fan of lol.
And don't tell me you really bring Batman vs Superman into this discussion. Superman soloed the entire Justice League, fought the Flash going super-speed and when finally Batman showed up he simply got slapped away like a fly. That's all in the Justice League movie. Everything else is PIS which people normally are not a fan of.
In MCU canon the Scarlet Witch has been established as the most powerful and MoM just continued to carry the torch from WV. She has done things in the movie that even a thousands of years old sorcerer like the Ancient One thought was impossible. Namely she escaped from the mirror dimension without a sling ring and she affected the real world while still being physically in the mirror dimension.
"This is me being reasonable"
I don't really care about feats. And many of the moments I like best with Wanda, or any other character, is when they take on someone more powerful than them and win anyway, by using their powers creatively or tricking their opponent.
If Wanda is portrayed as so powerful that no one can even come close to beating her, that makes her harder to use, and it also makes her a boring villain, which she was in this movie. Sort of a Villain Sue.
Wanda should always be portrayed as powerful but not so powerful that she doesn't need to be part of a team. That's pretty easy to do. They can do it for Superman or Thor in a team book, or even Jean when she was Phoenix.
Power levels are arbitrary and they are whatever the plot needs them to be, always. It's better to nerf someone for a good fight than have them so unstoppable that no one can have a good fight against them.
Last edited by gurkle; 05-22-2022 at 11:13 AM.
Well BvS is pretty relevant I think. Wanda did get the Supes treatment of being turned bad because of superpowers but without the story that came with all that originally. And Raimi fans do remind me of Snyder fans.
And feats really ruin characters. When characters get too powerful. Writers stop including them. Because that character can just come in and solve every problem.
Love is for souls, not bodies.
And is Justice League a good story with a Superman so OP that he makes everyone look uselss?
Also sure, I am also one of the odd fan who consider power wanking pointless. And power is only interesting if it's backed up by good lore building and stories. MoM has none of those, and her ability is actually dumbed down from WandaVision, she is powerful sure, but in a boring way, she is literally "walking slasher trope/logic", because her feats boiled down to those. Is Wanda cunning and resourceful? Nope, she just CAN, just like how your average slasher get into a locked house.
Also Ancieng One is like 400 years old. See, world building.
Again, I only take so much with what this Tuber says, but it still was interesting none the less to at least share with you all;
"By Earth and Sky, By Craft and Hex -- By The Past and The Future – I Call HOPE Forth From The DARKNESS! I Speak The Words We Made Into MAGIC! Let THEIR Power Augment Our OWN! To Strike ONE BLOW From Our HEARTS and SOULS – From ALL THAT WE ARE! Let The CALL Go Forth -- AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!" Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff ~~ From Avengers #689!
Come Join and Learn about Wanda Maximoff at: The Scarlet Witch Appreciation Thread 2023!
Having Strange say she is more powerful is a way of pretending to be "feminist" with "girlboss" and "yass queen" crap, which they use to cheaply virtue signal without any real effort, hiding the fact that they are using the baby crazy/woman cannot handle power trope for the 5 billionth time.
And of course, they have made over 20 films where male heroes don't heel turn.
That we can just agree to disagree. You may not personally care about feats but tons of people do. The excitement and visual spectacle of it is a pretty big part of the industry. Go and check out the Storm thread on this forum. Feats is most of what they are talking about. Ororo is an Omega level mutant and therefore people want to actually see that in action. Who is the strongest Avenger in the MCU is a question that is all over the internet. The movies even joked about it with the Thor/Hulk rivalry. This is still comic books and not literature. People can enjoy these two things for different reasons.
And the MCU heavily leans into it and WV and MoM have been the logical next steps for Wanda who already soloed Thanos in Endgame.
"This is me being reasonable"
Also because she stops on her own, they can say they avoided the trope of the crazy woman who needs a man to stop her. There are a lot of things they put in to deflect accusations of sexism, like the idea that Strange could have gone evil too (but of course they would never do that to "our" Strange, just alternate versions).
They've gotten some call-outs for sexism but most reviewers can't even take the movie seriously enough to criticize it, since none of it makes sense. At least they're not trying to pretend it's a female-empowerment story, since Wanda and America are both done dirty in different ways, and Rachel McAdams is wasted yet again.
They can have characters pull off impressive power feats and still put them in interesting fights. If Wanda is more powerful than Strange then that just means the creators need to come up with ways for Strange to hold his own despite being outpowered. Even if it's just something like Thanos opening fire to hold off Wanda.
Instead they nerfed Wanda (by not having her use her new powers from WandaVision), and insisted that for some reason her red telekinetic bolts were too much for any character to even try to handle, without really explaining why.
Imagine if they'd actually given her more interesting power feats by having her use the spontaneous-creation powers, and also had Strange figure out ways to keep up with her. The only thing that came close to that was the mirror dimension sequence.
Last edited by gurkle; 05-22-2022 at 11:47 AM.
Tons of people can care about feats. But that's not what I'm looking for. Because whether or not Wanda can beat someone, I'm already pretty secure with the fact that she is powerful, powers wise. But what started to happen with the character the more powerful they made her is she started to get pulled from comics more and more. And less able to be around and have interactions with other characters. Which isolated her and demeaned her at times.
I'm not looking for battle board wins. I'm looking for good stories. It's why I read comics and don't just post on some battle board page.
It's fine if people like to do that stuff but it's not what I want.
Love is for souls, not bodies.
And I can see people just citing the successful box office as an excuse to ignore or deflect any criticism.I'm honestly curious what they're going to do with Carol after setting her up to be so OP that the only reason she didn't just beat Thanos was because of a godlike Power Stone.
That and for Marvel to not really try as hard. Because we had a writer here that didn't really do research. The Shulkie CGI looks bad (which hopefully backlash helps fix). But I just get the feeling that they feel more secure now to not try as hard. Because no matter what. Marvel movies are the thing to go see.
Love is for souls, not bodies.
I never loved the logic that Wanda and Carol were the biggest threats to Thanos, since both of them were empowered by Infinity Stones (pre WandaVision development and probability hex stuff, anyway), and Thanos had *six* of them on his fat fist. He *should* have been able to outclass them with even one of those stones, if not flat-out *de*empower them using the stones that empowered them!
The idea that some person empowered by a rock on your hand, that you've got *six* of, can beat you, just falls flat on it's face for me. If nothing else, he should have been able to use those same stones to empower *himself* six times as powerful as Carol or Wanda!
Agreed. And I'd hope that they can attempt an 'author saving throw' by saying later that at least some of Wanda's power in this movie came from her connection to the Darkhold, and that, post-Darkhold, she's a bit less over-the-top, and that this 'Scarlet Witch' prophecy is put to bed and she's back to being powerful and capable, but no longer 'annihilate Kamar Taj in a fit of rage' powerful.
Last edited by Sutekh; 05-22-2022 at 05:00 PM.