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  1. #31
    Incredible Member OOTCS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    Fellow Natasha fans I have the feeling some of you are jumping through some big logic loopholes to justify her not being an anti-hero when the modern comic version definitely is. It's not an affront to the character. You realize that, right? Like the entire Wolverine family are anti-heroes or in Lauras case at least has been for a very long time.

    She kills people in cold blood and not only in a straight up firefight which would be self-defense but also people who are unaware or people who are no longer a threat to her or anyone else. By pretty much every definition of the law that you can find those instances would be labeled as manslaughter or murder.
    That was not only true in that Soska mini but also under Edmondson, Waid & Samnee and now under Thompson. Even in stuff like Infinity Countdown: Black Widow it's true. Considering the sheer amount of canon material showing it, I find it odd that I even have to write this.

    The MCU version is a different though which is what I was arguing. Obviously as we know the Black Widow movie that we got isn't the one that we should have gotten. But internal politics over at Marvel/Disney prevented anything else. Like I said there are many fans of MCU Black Widow but she never got quite the depth that she should have gotten and that she has in the comics. Even in her own movie the real star was Florence Pugh as Yelena if we are honest. The only thing you pretty much hear about that movie is how great she was. Natasha was just in for the ride. Now don't get me wrong all the praise that Florence Pugh is getting is justified and Im also a fan. I just hope that don't repeat wasting so much potential with her as they did with Natasha. Especially now that we enter a high power phase with the mystical and cosmic side and the multiverse.
    Now again it seems like you're defining anti-hero as "hero who's been through it." Laura Kinney is a hero who was formerly under the control of people who used her to do bad things. Natasha does good things for good reasons; she's just ruthless about it. That's not what an anti-hero is.

  2. #32
    Extraordinary Member Galerion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OOTCS View Post
    Now again it seems like you're defining anti-hero as "hero who's been through it." Laura Kinney is a hero who was formerly under the control of people who used her to do bad things. Natasha does good things for good reasons; she's just ruthless about it. That's not what an anti-hero is.
    If you don't see the morality aspect of killing people then I really don't know what more to say.

  3. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    The MCU version is a different though which is what I was arguing. Obviously as we know the Black Widow movie that we got isn't the one that we should have gotten. But internal politics over at Marvel/Disney prevented anything else. Like I said there are many fans of MCU Black Widow but she never got quite the depth that she should have gotten and that she has in the comics. Even in her own movie the real star was Florence Pugh as Yelena if we are honest. The only thing you pretty much hear about that movie is how great she was. Natasha was just in for the ride. Now don't get me wrong all the praise that Florence Pugh is getting is justified and Im also a fan. I just hope that don't repeat wasting so much potential with her as they did with Natasha. Especially now that we enter a high power phase with the mystical and cosmic side and the multiverse.
    The Black Widow movie that we got is perfectly fine for me and many other fans. The only gripe is that it should have been her third movie but that has nothing to do with what you are arguing here and rather with the sexism on Marvel Studios' part.

    Completely disagree on basically everything you write about the MCU version. Claiming that MCU Natasha lacks depth because she isn't depicted as an anti-hero is a pretty flawed argument as it implies that anti-heroes automatically have more character depth than classic heroes.

    The "real star" of the Black Widow movie wasn't Florence Pugh and Natasha isn't "just in for the ride". The protagonist of the movie is clearly Natasha as the main storyline is her arc of making up for past sins. Most of Yelena's arc is heavily connected to Natasha's and wouldn't even exist without her. Natasha has way more screen time and gets all the big action scenes while Yelena gets almost none. Yelena gets more funny scenes though, which may lead some people to like her more, but there's a thing called comedic sidekick and that term literally exists to descibe a side character. So no, by all objective measures it isn't Florence Pugh's movie.

    Anyway, at the time the solo movie is set it couldn't depict Natasha as a morally grey hero anymore because it would have contradicted her arc starting in The Winter Soldier. At the end of that movie she revealed all SHIELD files to the world even though she knew it would also make her own dark secrets public. So she made a choice that had negative impacts for her personally because it was the right thing to do. After that she was always shown to have an intact moral compass, so wishing for her to be depicted as an anti-hero is basically wishing for character inconsistency.

    In a perfect world we would have gotten a solo movie between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, showing us the morally grey Natasha you wish for, but after 2014 that ship has sailed.
    Tolstoy will live forever. Some people do. But that's not enough. It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on when our hearts break. Hearts always break and so we bend with our hearts. And we sway. But in the end what matters is that we loved... and lived.

  4. #34
    Extraordinary Member Galerion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chicago_bastard View Post
    The Black Widow movie that we got is perfectly fine for me and many other fans. The only gripe is that it should have been her third movie but that has nothing to do with what you are arguing here and rather with the sexism on Marvel Studios' part.

    Completely disagree on basically everything you write about the MCU version. Claiming that MCU Natasha lacks depth because she isn't depicted as an anti-hero is a pretty flawed argument as it implies that anti-heroes automatically have more character depth than classic heroes.

    The "real star" of the Black Widow movie wasn't Florence Pugh and Natasha isn't "just in for the ride". The protagonist of the movie is clearly Natasha as the main storyline is her arc of making up for past sins. Most of Yelena's arc is heavily connected to Natasha's and wouldn't even exist without her. Natasha has way more screen time and gets all the big action scenes while Yelena gets almost none. Yelena gets more funny scenes though, which may lead some people to like her more, but there's a thing called comedic sidekick and that term literally exists to descibe a side character. So no, by all objective measures it isn't Florence Pugh's movie.

    Anyway, at the time the solo movie is set it couldn't depict Natasha as a morally grey hero anymore because it would have contradicted her arc starting in The Winter Soldier. At the end of that movie she revealed all SHIELD files to the world even though she knew it would also make her own dark secrets public. So she made a choice that had negative impacts for her personally because it was the right thing to do. After that she was always shown to have an intact moral compass, so wishing for her to be depicted as an anti-hero is basically wishing for character inconsistency.

    In a perfect world we would have gotten a solo movie between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, showing us the morally grey Natasha you wish for, but after 2014 that ship has sailed.
    Yes you are right. Natashas ship has sailed as far as the MCU is concerned.

    I will say this though. Yes I prefer a morally gray Natasha and the comics provide that and Im happy for it. That doesn't mean I have a problem with the MCU version just because she isn't. When I say she lacks depth then I mean it just like it is. How many different stages she go through in all her appearances? She already started as the person who wanted to make for her past. That's why she was working for Shield. We never saw anything else. Everything after that was her alluding to her past and helping the other heroes and people she sees as family. There is the romance with Bruce that didn't amount to much and in the end she made the ultimate sacrifice to save everyone. This is a pretty simplistic summary but I think the core part is pretty accurate.

    Does that make it trash? No, of course not but a lot of potential was wasted and there is no changing it now. If someone is a glass half-full person and appreciates it for what it is then Im happy for them. I unfortunately can't see it that way.

  5. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    Yes you are right. Natashas ship has sailed as far as the MCU is concerned.

    I will say this though. Yes I prefer a morally gray Natasha and the comics provide that and Im happy for it. That doesn't mean I have a problem with the MCU version just because she isn't. When I say she lacks depth then I mean it just like it is. How many different stages she go through in all her appearances? She already started as the person who wanted to make for her past. That's why she was working for Shield. We never saw anything else. Everything after that was her alluding to her past and helping the other heroes and people she sees as family. There is the romance with Bruce that didn't amount to much and in the end she made the ultimate sacrifice to save everyone. This is a pretty simplistic summary but I think the core part is pretty accurate.
    If you break it down in such a simplistic way then you could say the same about 616 Natasha. Her motivation is also doing good because of her past, the Edmondson run you just read is exactly that, as it shows her taking on missions to make up for her actions in the past.

    With that approach I could also debunk every MCU character's growth. At first Cap is a man from the past failing to adapt to the new times. In the end he decides to go back to his time because he believes he doesn't fit in the present, meaning he didn't change through all the movies.

    In the first Avengers movie Tony is willing to sacrifice himself to save the world when he catches the nuke and flys it through the wormhole. In Endgame he sacrifices himself to save the world, meaning he didn't change through all the movies.

    This is not my actual opinion about their arcs, it just goes to show you how simplistic it is to look at one certain character trait that remained the same from the beginning to the end. As I did for Cap and Tony in these examples you are dismissing a lot of Nat's character development, like how she evolved from a rather unreliable spy to the the biggest teamplayer and finally even to the leader of the Avengers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    Does that make it trash? No, of course not but a lot of potential was wasted and there is no changing it now. If someone is a glass half-full person and appreciates it for what it is then Im happy for them. I unfortunately can't see it that way.
    I don't think anybody here believes Natasha's MCU arc couldn't have been better, I just don't agree on the reasons. The biggest one being that she only got one solo movie instead of a trilogy and the fact that they decided to give her that solo movie after killing her off. As I said, with a trilogy the first movie could have shown a morally grey Natasha and the other two would have depicted her development to a true hero. So one should complain about Ike Perlmutter and Kevin Feige as they are the ones to blame for waiting so long to give her a movie, not Disney in this case.
    Tolstoy will live forever. Some people do. But that's not enough. It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on when our hearts break. Hearts always break and so we bend with our hearts. And we sway. But in the end what matters is that we loved... and lived.

  6. #36
    Extraordinary Member Galerion's Avatar
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    I already said it was a simplistic summary. Also leader of the Avengers is kinda pushing it. She was part of the the group that saved everyone. Lets put it that way. But was is done is done. We can only see if the Black Widow name will live on with Yelena now.


    Different topic.
    I have now finished reading the Waid & Samnee run again and first I must say how awesome it is that Black Widow seems to be blessed with consistent creator teams. Edmondson/Noto, Waid/Samnee and now Thompson. No really jarring art changes or some kind of events ruining the flow. That should be a lot more common for others too.

    But back to the Waid run. Honestly I neither strongly dislike nor like it. It's kinda in the middle and I would definitely put it under the Edmondson run. This is probably my favorite iteration of her suit. It's sleek and functional. Not the biggest fan of the haircut but its OK. The action sequences are also first class. There is no arguing about it. If you want to make Natasha look like a badass in terms of combat, this is how you do it. It's the things outside of that where they fell of quite a bit. I think Edmondson and now Thompson have done a lot better job of humanizing her. I know it's a design element that not everybody likes but Im really a fan of thought boxes. Being able to see what is going on inside of the heads of characters opens them up so much. Both Edmondson and Thompson choose to use these and they are better off for it.
    But outside of that the story had a few other weak links too. What was the point of the Weeping Lion keeping the little girls looked up? Not to mention the subtle pedophilia vibes coming from it. Yikes.
    And then we come to Recluse. Natasha turning her back on her and just leaving is hugely out of character because surprise. She turns up again, kills one of Natashas old friends, captures another and almost succeeds in wiping out Shield. This just felt like a huge out of character moment that was introduced just so the story could play out as Waid & Samnee wanted it too. It didn't felt organic at all.
    Last edited by Galerion; 01-17-2022 at 04:47 AM.

  7. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    I already said it was a simplistic summary. Also leader of the Avengers is kinda pushing it. She was part of the the group that saved everyone. Lets put it that way. But was is done is done. We can only see if the Black Widow name will live on with Yelena now.
    It's not pushing it at all, that's what the movie is showing us. She was leading the Avengers, plain and simple.
    Tolstoy will live forever. Some people do. But that's not enough. It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on when our hearts break. Hearts always break and so we bend with our hearts. And we sway. But in the end what matters is that we loved... and lived.

  8. #38
    The Professional Marvell2100's Avatar
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  9. #39
    The Professional Marvell2100's Avatar
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    Anyone remember reading the "Nancy Rushman" Story from Marvel Team-Up #82 to #85?

    If you haven't, I highly recommend it.

  10. #40
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marvell2100 View Post
    Can't beat the classics .

    I still feel jipped that she only wore it for the first issue of the relaunch...

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    Different topic.
    I have now finished reading the Waid & Samnee run again and first I must say how awesome it is that Black Widow seems to be blessed with consistent creator teams. Edmondson/Noto, Waid/Samnee and now Thompson. No really jarring art changes or some kind of events ruining the flow. That should be a lot more common for others too.
    The next couple of minis will probably disappoint you then. LOL

  12. #42
    Extraordinary Member Galerion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ed2962 View Post
    The next couple of minis will probably disappoint you then. LOL
    Can you clarify what you mean? Im not up to date when it comes to what's going on in the overall Marvel universe. Is there some big event coming?



    A different topic but on Youtube I have noticed something that happens often of videos featuring MCU Black Widow. Under pretty much every video that shows her doing something extraordinary or surviving something that would probably kill, knockout or maim any normal person you will find a comment that will mention that she has a version of the super-soldier serum. Pretty much always someone else comes in and clarifies that while that is true in the comics it isn't in the MCU.

    Does anyone else feel that that is actually a missed opportunity? In the Black Widow movie they had the perfect opportunity with Red Guardian confirming that the Russians have their own version of the serum. The Red Room version isn't as potent as the one that Captain America has so it wouldn't have changed the character that much. It would just have helped with suspension of disbelief and would have opened up a few more narrative possibilities. Establishing why the Widows are so good and dangerous at what they do.

  13. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marvell2100 View Post
    Anyone remember reading the "Nancy Rushman" Story from Marvel Team-Up #82 to #85?

    If you haven't, I highly recommend it.
    Yeah that's a good one. Claremont is easily my favorite Natasha writer of that era.

    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    A different topic but on Youtube I have noticed something that happens often of videos featuring MCU Black Widow. Under pretty much every video that shows her doing something extraordinary or surviving something that would probably kill, knockout or maim any normal person you will find a comment that will mention that she has a version of the super-soldier serum. Pretty much always someone else comes in and clarifies that while that is true in the comics it isn't in the MCU.

    Does anyone else feel that that is actually a missed opportunity? In the Black Widow movie they had the perfect opportunity with Red Guardian confirming that the Russians have their own version of the serum. The Red Room version isn't as potent as the one that Captain America has so it wouldn't have changed the character that much. It would just have helped with suspension of disbelief and would have opened up a few more narrative possibilities. Establishing why the Widows are so good and dangerous at what they do.
    In my opinion it makes it even more impressive when she's that good without a serum. Furthermore it would diminish her skill if they revealed she had the serum and was still no match for Bucky or Crossbones.

    And in a universe where a normal human can shoot fast moving targets with his bow and arrow with a success rate of 100% when not even looking in that direction Natasha surviving a fall from a rooftop is one of my smaller issues regarding suspension of disbelief
    Tolstoy will live forever. Some people do. But that's not enough. It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on when our hearts break. Hearts always break and so we bend with our hearts. And we sway. But in the end what matters is that we loved... and lived.

  14. #44
    Extraordinary Member Galerion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chicago_bastard View Post
    Yeah that's a good one. Claremont is easily my favorite Natasha writer of that era.



    In my opinion it makes it even more impressive when she's that good without a serum. Furthermore it would diminish her skill if they revealed she had the serum and was still no match for Bucky or Crossbones.

    And in a universe where a normal human can shoot fast moving targets with his bow and arrow with a success rate of 100% when not even looking in that direction Natasha surviving a fall from a rooftop is one of my smaller issues regarding suspension of disbelief
    True. I haven't thought about that in retrospect it would make a few fights look silly. But to be fair everyone has a bad day here or there
    And yeah Hawkeyes feats are actually insane. Which makes it funny that some people just call him a dude with a bow.

  15. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Galerion View Post
    Can you clarify what you mean? Im not up to date when it comes to what's going on in the overall Marvel universe. Is there some big event coming?
    I meant the next minis after Waid/Samee run...I was referring to the phrase "jarring art changes". There's the BW mini from 2019 by Soska Sisters with art by Flaviano. I really liked the story and while I the art wasn't bad per se, I thought that it wasn't a great fit for the character or the story. Then there was Web of Black Widow from 2019. The art by Stephen Mooney was good in the first issue but from three on, it really looked rushed. I'm convinced the editors made him hurry up and get it done so they'd have a trade ready by the time of the original release date of the movie.

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