[Movies] MCU: Phase 5 - To Kang or Not to Kang

So, wait, we're not getting a big team-up Avengers movie at all for Phase 4? I'm...kinda disappointed by that.

I liked how the tent pole Avengers movies were kind of the season finale to each Phase (even if they weren't always the last one in that phase). Not having one at all feels wrong to me.

Also, maybe it's just me but it's all starting to feel a bit much. I realized awhile ago that there's now a constant stream of MCU content with little down time. Before, it was 2-3 movies a year. Now, as soon as a Disney+ show wraps, a new movie comes out (Ms Marvel finished right when Love & Thunder came out, foe example). Or a theatrical release hits Disney+.

Surprisingly, there's almost no overlap, which is some impeccable scheduling so far. But I have to wonder how long they can maintain audience interest. I'm already starting to feel burnt out, like keeping up feels more like an obligation than excitement. Which is partly why I stopped trying to keep up with the comics.
From my purview, Marvel is using phase 4 to effectively close the door on and/or recontextualize our old Avengers (Sam-Cap, Peter Parker, Hawkeye, Thor) and introduce a new set of superheroes for the Multiverse saga (Yelena, Shang-Chi, Eternals, America Chavez, Kate Bishop, Moon Knight, Kamala Khan, She-Hulk, Riri Williams). Phase 5 will deal with the introduction and development with Kang, and phase 6 will tie it all together.
 
High Evolutionary is 100% my jam.

But he's as X-Men a villain as they come, get your own villains Guardians.

Eh, I guess he's mostly a Fantastic Four villain and general evil doer, I probably just read more X-Men comics as a kid. His whole theme of genetic manipulation fits with them perfectly.

Also, I feel like at this point befriending James Gunn is like the best way to keep busy as a working actor.
 
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High Evolutionary is 100% my jam.

But he's as X-Men a villain as they come, get your own villains Guardians.

Eh, I guess he's mostly a Fantastic Four villain and general evil doer, I probably just read more X-Men comics as a kid. His whole theme of genetic manipulation fits with them perfectly.

Also, I feel like at this point befriending James Gunn is like the best way to keep busy as a working actor.
From what I hear, they wanted to change Adam Warlock’s origin slightly. He’s supposed to be designed as “the perfect man” (I think that was from the comics, right?) so they’re swapping in High Evolutionary. It fits with the idea of Adam Warlock being created.
 
High Evolutionary is 100% my jam.
But he's as X-Men a villain as they come,
He is also canonically responsible for the creation of the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman, and in today’s social climate I think I would look forward to a franchise based around a strong female character who finds out the people around her have been lying to her about her origin all her life (They tell her she was born a spider, but in reality she has actually been a woman her entire life), leaves them, and whose greatest desire after that is to learn who she really is and to just be accepted by society as a “regular” woman (who yes also sometimes happens to put on colorful outfits and fight crime or some junk).

I mean, her rogues’ gallery (in the original run, at least) is basically made up of people who just want to be accepted for who & what they are, with a few others thrown in to keep it sufficiently in that 70’s surreality. The whole SW/JD continuity would make a very timely allegory, even if it were reduced to ”just” a TV series. Assuming the team involved didn’t pervert the material too much, that is (Looking at YOU, Bendis!).

—Patrick
 
CGi is never finished in trailers, and Marvel especially has a history of not even using the same shots/scenes in the final product.

The VFX will be more than fine in the actual show.... the story is what indeed worries me.

I haven't really loved an MCU script since Endgame (and that because of how impressive it was in making such a hodge-podge, scattered, character-filled story work as an entertaining 3 hour movie)
 
I'm hopeful? They say it's going to be more of a comedy, and with She-Hulk breaking the 4th wall, they seem to be going to a Byrne-inspired feel, which was a pretty good run of comics. Plus, Tatiana Maslany is an insanely good actress, so while it's not going to be Endgame*, I'm looking forward to it.


(*But what is??)
 
(*But what is??)
There were a good 3 weeks or so where I would've argued No Way Home was Endgame-levels. I came out of that theater with a similar feeling of I can't believe I got to see that in a movie screen.

But after a rewatch, it... it's not that good. Once you remove the Garfield/Tobey "surprise" as a factor, the script is all over the place and just not satisfying, as much as I love Holland's Spidey.
 
There were a good 3 weeks or so where I would've argued No Way Home was Endgame-levels. I came out of that theater with a similar feeling of I can't believe I got to see that in a movie screen.

But after a rewatch, it... it's not that good. Once you remove the Garfield/Tobey "surprise" as a factor, the script is all over the place and just not satisfying, as much as I love Holland's Spidey.

Honestly, post-Endgame, I'm just burned out.

Also, regarding She-Hulk. Look, I like Professor Hulk. I wish they showed the transition from Ragnarok Hulk to Professor Hulk, but overall, we needed Prof. Hulk. I just hope She-Hulk sees Hulk regress from the peak of "enlightened" down to foaming rage monster aka Worldbreaker or Titan Hulk or the perverted evil version of Prof Hulk: The Maestro.
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
Honestly, post-Endgame, I'm just burned out.
I got as far as No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness (and Wandavision, What If, and Falcon & WS).... but I think I've run dry too. I could not be bothered with Eternals, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight.... or most of what's upcoming. I will probably still check out GOG3 and Thor 4, and maaaaybe She-Hulk.... but just about everything else is probably just gonna languish.

Still got em on my Plex tho cause other people I share with are still on board.
 
I got as far as No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness (and Wandavision, What If, and Falcon & WS).... but I think I've run dry too. I could not be bothered with Eternals, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight.... or most of what's upcoming. I will probably still check out GOG3 and Thor 4, and maaaaybe She-Hulk.... but just about everything else is probably just gonna languish.

Still got em on my Plex tho cause other people I share with are still on board.
Well sorry :-P I can't help my wife's only geeky pleasures are the new SW, ST and MCU series :confused: I've tried somemore classic SF from DVDs but so far no luck. The alternatirve is watching Scorpion together, which is her series of choice at the moment and...well, I'll take anything the MCU is throwing at us over Scorpion :p
 
I got as far as No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness (and Wandavision, What If, and Falcon & WS).... but I think I've run dry too. I could not be bothered with Eternals, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight.... or most of what's upcoming. I will probably still check out GOG3 and Thor 4, and maaaaybe She-Hulk.... but just about everything else is probably just gonna languish.

Still got em on my Plex tho cause other people I share with are still on board.

Thor 4 was like Thor 3 on steroids which is why I liked it, but I'm in the same boat as you. The Phase 4 TV stuff the early 4 (Wanda, Falcon/Cap, Loki, and Hawkeye), I really enjoyed, but mainly because they added to the Far from Home Epilogue to Endgame. Eternals, Ms. Marvel, Moonknight - pass. I fell asleep watching Widow but No Way Home was alright (due to Doc Occ Toby and A.G. showing up).

I did see MoM and found it boring as hell. It looked like it was paced for a Disney + series run.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I liked MoM for all the Raimi crap that went on in it.

But all the stuff coming up looks like Kang the Conqueror arc stuff, and I was always lukewarm about Kang.

I'm still salty that they nerfed Ultron down to a one and done villain.
 
Yeah, I've been feeling the burnout since Endgame, too. I'm still watching it, but as I've said before, I feel like I'm watching more out of obligation than being actually excited for half of this stuff. For example, I enjoyed Moon Knight well enough, but it didn't leave me feeling like "Fuck yes! More please!" It was...fine. And I find I'm saying that more with each new thing. "It's...fine." I think it's also a fear of missing out, that I need to see it before everyone starts spoiling it for me on social media.

Thing is, though, Marvel/Disney's release schedule is deceptively easy to fall into keeping up. So far, they haven't released anything at the same time. A Disney+ show wraps and there's maybe a week or two lull, and then there's a movie. And since they release it in a weekly model, it's easy to catch up for someone like me who doesn't have anything better to do. If I happen to get up early before work that day, I can think "Yeah, I have time to watch the latest episode of Whatchamacallit." Making them weekly releases rather than dropping it all at once like Netfilx was one of the smartest choices Disney made.

But I have to wonder how much longer that feeling of obligation can hold. I've said this before, but it's a similar feeling I had before I stopped trying to follow DC and Marvel comics.
 
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I liked MoM for all the Raimi crap that went on in it.

But all the stuff coming up looks like Kang the Conqueror arc stuff, and I was always lukewarm about Kang.

I'm still salty that they nerfed Ultron down to a one and done villain.
That's the biggest problem with age of Ultron. Ultron is such an interesting villain he should have gotten a whole arc rather than monster of the week
 

Dave

Staff member
I was talking with someone about Ms. Marvel and I said I wasn't interested because I just couldn't relate. Their response was typical of the "oh you can't relate with an immigrant hero yet you did a Asgardian god or a supersoldier from WWII?" But it wasn't that at all. It's the high school age crap. I'm sorry I can't relate to a teenage girl. It's largely the same problem I had with parts of Cobra Kai. I zipped right through (or ignored) the high school drama crap. To me the most interesting dynamic was always Johnny and Daniel.
 
I was talking with someone about Ms. Marvel and I said I wasn't interested because I just couldn't relate. Their response was typical of the "oh you can't relate with an immigrant hero yet you did a Asgardian god or a supersoldier from WWII?" But it wasn't that at all. It's the high school age crap. I'm sorry I can't relate to a teenage girl. It's largely the same problem I had with parts of Cobra Kai. I zipped right through (or ignored) the high school drama crap. To me the most interesting dynamic was always Johnny and Daniel.
I liked Ms Marvel because I like highschool stories, but it's also perfectly ok not to. The guy you talked to doesn't seem to understand that not everything has to appeal to everyone. You're not the audience for that show and that's fine
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I was talking with someone about Ms. Marvel and I said I wasn't interested because I just couldn't relate. Their response was typical of the "oh you can't relate with an immigrant hero yet you did a Asgardian god or a supersoldier from WWII?" But it wasn't that at all. It's the high school age crap. I'm sorry I can't relate to a teenage girl. It's largely the same problem I had with parts of Cobra Kai. I zipped right through (or ignored) the high school drama crap. To me the most interesting dynamic was always Johnny and Daniel.
 
Eternals - Should have been a mini-series, with an episode focusing on each Eternal. What we got was both too long for a movie but too brief to even remotely touch the story they wanted to tell. Action was boring. Not sure how they integrate stuff brought up in this movie (The Black Knight and his sword) into future materials

Ms Marvel - I dug the hell out of this, but the last episode is definitely what turned this into something good. Probably works for me because I can still vividly remember what it was like to be an anxiety ridden 15-year old (which is probably why Turning Red worked for me too).

Moon Knight - By far my favorite thing to come out of the MCU in years. Most mature work they've put out in awhile. Probably helps that as a someone with mental health problems, I can relate to Steven and Marc.

Still going to most Marvel releases.
 
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I personally feel like I'm less interested in keeping up with the MCU because I don't see the destination for Phase 4. Or, rather, the destination I see isn't interesting me.

The first three phases had a clear endgame in view: the Infinity Stones and fighting Thanos. For Phase 4, we've got plot threads all over the place. There's the multiversal stuff, the Eternals stuff, the Nick Fury in space stuff, the various stuff from the various series... I don't see how they can unite all these threads into one cohesive narrative without it being a gigantic mess.
 
The first three phases had a clear endgame in view: the Infinity Stones and fighting Thanos.
To be fair that didn't really come in till the end of phase one when Avengers happened. However you are not necessarily wrong because the entire goal of phase one was assembling the avengers in the first place, so it still had a cohesive end game in view.

It definitely does feel like there isn't a set goal and they are really just filling space in the post end game world.
 
Pitch for "What If....?"

AU where Peter Quill was never kidnapped, and instead works security for Samsung. "The Guardian of the Galaxies"
My son has been really into Jurassic-stuff lately. We just had this conversation less than an hour ago:

Li'l Z: "Who would win, Indominus Rex and the Raptor 'Squad vs. The Guardians of the Galaxy?"
Me: "Depends. Is Owen Grady there, too?"
Li'l Z: "He...uhhh...oh...ummmmmm...."
 
I personally feel like I'm less interested in keeping up with the MCU because I don't see the destination for Phase 4. Or, rather, the destination I see isn't interesting me.

The first three phases had a clear endgame in view: the Infinity Stones and fighting Thanos. For Phase 4, we've got plot threads all over the place. There's the multiversal stuff, the Eternals stuff, the Nick Fury in space stuff, the various stuff from the various series... I don't see how they can unite all these threads into one cohesive narrative without it being a gigantic mess.
It's chaos. It's supposed to be chaos. No cohesion, the universe and multiverse are all blending together. They heroes (Dr Strange, Wanda) are to blame. Who can save the universe from this insanity if the heroes cause more chaos than they prevent. Some one needs to right the ship and set the multiverse aright. The Beyonder? No. Kang? No he's a second movie villain. Only one can tame the madness.

Doom.jpg
 
Really enjoyed the first episode of She-Hulk and the lead is really strong. It's definitely tonally inside the MCU but almost melancholy at times, possessing a bit of sadness. Definitely held my attention more than Moon Knight and Hawkeye did from the outset. And if She-Hulk shows up in the movies, that's a net positive.
 
She-Hulk may be my favorite first episode of all the Disney+ Marvel shows thus far. A good combination of humor and Marvel-ness. I laughed so hard. I didn't doubt the casting of Tatiana after all those seasons of Orphan Black. And for anyone wondering, while not perfect, the CGI has improved dramatically since the first trailer.

Oh man, that end-credit scene... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
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