MCU thoughts for the day

[tielan]

I still think Asgard is a stand in for the USA and more generally white colonisation. Where do you think all this wealth came from? Maybe some of it was fairly obtained, but most of it was gained by stealing land through genocide.

Captain Marvel's simplest twist to Carol Danvers' origin story is its smartest choice. (Fair warning: it's a Gizmodo article, so don't know how it will turn out for others, but Gizmodo sites tend to hate me...)

Also, reading through a brief history of Agents of SHIELD and it appears that they've gone down a completely different trouser leg of time. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

It makes my head hurt just reading all this.

Comments

[lynnenne]

I still think Asgard is a stand in for the USA and more generally white colonisation.

I agree, and I would have liked to see this explored a little more in Ragnarok, but Plot got in the way.

[kore]

Yeah, the movie wound up rehabbing Odin a lot more than Hela, altho there's been scuttlebutt we might see Hela again in Endgame? I would like that.

[lynnenne]

Really? I would love to see Hela again! Cate Blanchett was just delicious in that role.

[kore]

Well, SUPPOSEDLY, Blanchett and some other Thor actors and a stand-in for Rocket were in this cathedral? in Britain? and also SUPPOSEDLY Thor might go down to Hel to try to recruit her and warriors against Thanos, but it's just a big pile of maybemaybemaybe. (Also I don't really know what might motivate Hela, especially since in the comics Thanos woos her a lot.) I kinda like the idea of him being like Aragorn calling on the dead kings, though.

[lynnenne]

If true, this would be awesome!

[kore]

I KNOW, which is why....it's probably not going to happen. (Imagine Loki and Hel plotting or just having Evil Norse God Movie Nights in a Hel dimension, heh.)

[tielan]

I think even the hat-tilt to it is kind of amusing: because it's not something that the Clueless White Bois would ever get, but those of us who've been in the position of having to knuckle under or get our heads ripped off know...

And I wouldn't put it past Taika Waititi, either.

[lynnenne]

This was actually the topic of a recent discussion post, which you might find interesting: https://mcu-cosmic.dreamwidth.org/11346.html

[tielan]

Ooh, yes, that is an interesting discussion! I keep thinking I should subscribe to mcu_cosmic, but then I remember all that free time I don't have...

[kore]

Yeah, Asgard definitely becomes Empire, altho the whole series started off sorta critiquing US militarism with the first Iron Man? Kinda? but that was dropped pretty fast.

(OMG, I did not realize Carol was playing Street Fighter II. Guess it couldn't've been Space Invaders by then!)

And it’s not in changing up Mar-Vell from a man to a woman that’s the big deal — although that at least removes the idea of Carol inheriting her powers from the man she was a love interest to — but it’s really in making Mar-Vell a scientist rather than a soldier following orders.

In the movie, Mar-Vell is on Earth not on behalf of her own people, but the survivors of the Skrull race; she’s there investigating ways to help them find a new home away from the threat of the Kree themselves. It’s a mission of mercy, a mission to end war rather than perpetuate it.

Carol, acting as Doctor Lawson’s protector when the Kree come calling to stop one of their own, inherits that mission of mercy when Mar-Vell dies. But it’s not the mission that makes her a hero, and in the film, it’s not Mar-Vell who gives Carol her power — it’s a fate she claims herself out of a heroic action, by choosing to shoot Mar-Vell’s engine before Yon-Rogg steals it.

Not really an accident as it originally was with the Psyche Magnetron in the comics (Carol presumably thought she’d die and take Yon-Rogg with her, not get turned into a flying cosmic nuke who occasionally has a fauxhawk), or the awakening of a lineage she never previously knew about, as it is in the current retcon.

It puts Carol as the core focus in her own story—and it’s one that really works thanks to how Captain Marvel re-imagines Mar-Vell and her part in that legacy. That it also gives us the joy of Annette Bening dancing around in a bomber jacket is just an added bonus.

I like that a lot. (Also HELL YEAH to Annette Bening.)


I don't even know WTF is going on with AoS. They started out pretty tightly pegged to the movies, with S1's action being very delayed until Winter Soldier came out, and then there was actually a buried plot point with AoU (both how the Avengers knew where to find the sceptre, and where Fury got the helicarrier from), and then it was all fish oil and virtual realities and bad dystopian futures and I don't know what all. And Surprise!Ghost Rider! Just....shine on with your crazy diamond plots AoS! I suppose.

[tielan]

Bifurcating trousers of Marvel media, swear to God.

[kore]

Well, AoS apparently did not get the shitty timeline with Thanos and the Snapture, I'd say they made off better than the poor MCU heroes. sigh.

[rose_griffes]

I think Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was finally allowed to break away from MCU timeline because all of the interplay of characters and timelines got to be too much of a burden for the writers.

(Also, given that the most recent season and the upcoming season exist as mid-season replacements for other canceled shows, it would be hard to stay dependent on movie event dates.)

Honestly, I would have been okay with AoS breaking away a lot earlier. I still haven't watched the majority of season one; the Hydra reveal worked well, but the episodes before it were just so boring.

[tielan]

Yeah the first half of S1 had weird pacing due to the wait for the HYDRA reveal, but it got better from there. But then I only got halfway through S2 and just...lost interest.

[rose_griffes]

I did the same thing with AoS. Multiple times. I always get back to it eventually; it works better for me as a binge-watch. The only season I watched as it aired was season four--the strongest by far.

[kore]

AoS is SO MUCH BETTER in binge watching, it's not even funny. I don't know why, but sometimes it's like a different show.

(Also all these people whining about "binge watching changes TV for the bad" never saw me in action with my used DVD sets, heh.)

[kore]

There was also that big weird split between TV Marvel and Movies Marvel and Whedon stepped away but Whedon's bro didn't and IDEFK what. Big money company shenanigans are often at the center of creative fuckups, but Marvel kind of reinvents that.