MCU/Superhero Discussion Thread

[Andsed]

I am a bit concerned about how this might be executed. If captain Marvel just comes in and beats Thanos then I feel like that will be very anti climatic to the struggles of all the other heroes so far.

That's kind of what many are worried about. Someone who's been in none of the previous MCU films suddenly swooping in and beating Thanos would honestly suck.

Agreed but I do have some confidence in Marvel so lets see how it turns out.

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

Because Kevin Feige has said she's more powerful than Thanos, so many came to the natural conclusion that she'd be the one to beat him.

I am a bit concerned about how this might be executed. If captain Marvel just comes in and beats Thanos then I feel like that will be very anti climatic to the struggles of all the other heroes so far.

That's not going to happen. Some vague statement about power levels really should not be taken seriously. Really, has the MCU ever struck anyone as the sort of universe that's concerned with maintaining precise and consistent rankings of who can beat who in a fight?

[The Huskar Social Union]

I think Feiges statement was just hype train stuff honestly

[The first Galactic Republic]

I'd bet my life Captain Marvel isn't the one to defeat Thanos. I've honestly no idea how anyone could seriously expect that to happen.

Maybe that opinion will change once I've seen the film, but I doubt it.

Because Kevin Feige has said she's more powerful than Thanos, so many came to the natural conclusion that she'd be the one to beat him.

I’m sure he means gloveless Thanos.

[Bombadil]

The challenge isn't to beat Thanos, the challenge is to turn back events so I assume that's where the plot will be. Thor beat Thanos, just aimed wrong.

Anyway the film was fine, not the best and not the worst.. I guess you have to draw it out a lot given once getting powers she's awesome Powerful.

[Cannot think of a name]

The challenge isn't to beat Thanos, the challenge is to turn back events so I assume that's where the plot will be. Thor beat Thanos, just aimed wrong.

Anyway the film was fine, not the best and not the worst.. I guess you have to draw it out a lot given once getting powers she's awesome Powerful.

This is a point worth noting. About a third of Infinity War was getting Stormbreaker which was specifically a Thanos killing weapon and it actually cut through the Gauntlet to hit Thanos in the chest. So really they don't need Captain Marvel to do that. I suspect it has a lot more to do with where her power comes from in the same way Scarlet Witch mattered in IW.

[Cannot think of a name]

Squirrel Girl?

Now you're getting it.

If someone would just air New Warriors...

[Bombadil]

The challenge isn't to beat Thanos, the challenge is to turn back events so I assume that's where the plot will be. Thor beat Thanos, just aimed wrong.

Anyway the film was fine, not the best and not the worst.. I guess you have to draw it out a lot given once getting powers she's awesome Powerful.

This is a point worth noting. About a third of Infinity War was getting Stormbreaker which was specifically a Thanos killing weapon and it actually cut through the Gauntlet to hit Thanos in the chest. So really they don't need Captain Marvel to do that. I suspect it has a lot more to do with where her power comes from in the same way Scarlet Witch mattered in IW.

Plus she's come back to a bunch of people she doesn't know who have Nick Fury's pager, who's disappeared. She has trust issues anyway so I suspect a good part will be even convincing her to do anything or even believe them and them to learn how powerful she is.

And Captain America is a dick, hardly the person to negotiate anything off the bat.

So probably a fight where she decides to bugger off rather than waste her time and they need to devise a plan to get her onside.

[The first Galactic Republic]

Interesting TLJ reference in Captain Marvel

[Yusseria]

Because Kevin Feige has said she's more powerful than Thanos, so many came to the natural conclusion that she'd be the one to beat him.

I’m sure he means gloveless Thanos.

Eh, even gloveless Thanos was an intimidating opponent.

[The first Galactic Republic]

I’m sure he means gloveless Thanos.

Eh, even gloveless Thanos was an intimidating opponent.

He punches

And... uh...

I can see Carol beating him.

[Yusseria]

Eh, even gloveless Thanos was an intimidating opponent.

He punches

And... uh...

I can see Carol beating him.

Is it just Thanos or is it him and that really big army he has fighting for him?

[Bombadil]

I’m sure he means gloveless Thanos.

Eh, even gloveless Thanos was an intimidating opponent.

Sure but Ironman and buddies beat him until Starprat lost his cool, and Thor beat him but aimed for the wrong part.. he's beatable. The point is there's no point in going off and beating him now. He's done his job. The trick is to reverse that job and then beat him.

I doubt Thanos will really appear much until the end. Ideally Captain America sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos because it'll take that to redeem his general dickheadedness in my view.. not that my view is high on the MCU concerns.

[Tarsonis]

CM’s power comes from one infinity stone. Thanos has all 6. She shouldn’t even be close to as powerful as he is with the gauntlet.

[Pasong Tirad]

Interesting TLJ reference in Captain Marvel

No.

*heavy breathing*

Please.

*rising heart rate*

No, no more.

*war flashbacks*

No more TLJ, please, God, no more. Make it stop!

[Cannot think of a name]

This is a point worth noting. About a third of Infinity War was getting Stormbreaker which was specifically a Thanos killing weapon and it actually cut through the Gauntlet to hit Thanos in the chest. So really they don't need Captain Marvel to do that. I suspect it has a lot more to do with where her power comes from in the same way Scarlet Witch mattered in IW.

Plus she's come back to a bunch of people she doesn't know who have Nick Fury's pager, who's disappeared. She has trust issues anyway so I suspect a good part will be even convincing her to do anything or even believe them and them to learn how powerful she is.

And Captain America is a dick, hardly the person to negotiate anything off the bat.

So probably a fight where she decides to bugger off rather than waste her time and they need to devise a plan to get her onside.

Oh that's a lock. Heroes fight before they team up. It's an unwritten rule.

[Cannot think of a name]

Interesting TLJ reference in Captain Marvel

Or Pulp Fiction. More direct than 'someone drank something' but rather, someone sipped through a straw at a dramatic moment.

[Cannot think of a name]

Eh, even gloveless Thanos was an intimidating opponent.

Sure but Ironman and buddies beat him until Starprat lost his cool, and Thor beat him but aimed for the wrong part.. he's beatable. The point is there's no point in going off and beating him now. He's done his job. The trick is to reverse that job and then beat him.

I doubt Thanos will really appear much until the end. Ideally Captain America sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos because it'll take that to redeem his general dickheadedness in my view.. not that my view is high on the MCU concerns.

Well, they stalemated him to a point where Spidey and Iron Man could possibly take the glove off. But Mantis had a hard time keeping him sedated and she use to sedate a Celestial. Though that was a willing Celestial.

Stormbreaker in the movies, not just Fiege answering stuff, is billed as a weapon that could take out Thanos and it almost did with a full glove. Thanos is beatable.

CM’s power comes from one infinity stone. Thanos has all 6. She shouldn’t even be close to as powerful as he is with the gauntlet.

The Gauntlet fried. Her ability to vibe with the stone, like Scarlet Witch's ability to vibe with the Mind Stone might make the difference. Also, Scarlet Witch held Thanos off for a bit all on her own while killing her boyfriend. So it's not unheard of.

[Tekania]

I'm sure glad people are boycotting Captain Marvel..... it was near impossible to get a seat this weekend without either having pre-purchased tickets or shown up an hour or more earlier to buy tickets. If there hadn't been a boycott It would have been impossible.

[Tarsonis]

Interesting TLJ reference in Captain Marvel

More like a Ready Player One, you know that’s Tabb he’s drinkng

[The first Galactic Republic]

He punches

And... uh...

I can see Carol beating him.

Is it just Thanos or is it him and that really big army he has fighting for him?

Well the Avengers would probably be fighting together if pitted against his whole army.

For the sake of argument, I would definitely give it to Carol if Thanos was by himself and had no glove.

The opening fight where he worfs Hulk to look immediately threatening to the audience was predictable, troperific, and unnecessary imo. Considering that he spends most of the movie fighting with his glove, having him wail on Hulk was kind of a waste of time and doesn’t really make me believe that even a few of the Avengers couldn’t defeat him if he didn’t have the glove.

The movie’s fights actually make him seem really dependent on the gauntlet. Sure he’s a pragmatic fighter, but establishing that he’s dangerous without it by having him beat Hulk didn’t really work to me. It just makes Hulk seem weaker. If he could beat Abomination, and if Captain America is strong enough to hold back Thanos’ blows for a little while, then Hulk could have won.

[The first Galactic Republic]

Interesting TLJ reference in Captain Marvel

Or Pulp Fiction. More direct than 'someone drank something' but rather, someone sipped through a straw at a dramatic moment.

No I don’t think you understand. Rian Johnson invented drinking scenes.

The famous Pulp Fiction scene is a still from the video game adaptation.

[Forsher]

My main problem is that Disney's making a movie off of one of their more boring characters, which is a really bad way to introduce their first female lead hero and their movie. Marvel has a lot of good and fun female characters, but since most of them are with the X-Men/Fantastic 4 Disney can't actually do anything with them. Dr. Strange also had this problem, because as the first magical character* he's not really that good unless he's interacting with others, specifically his Beard Bro.

*Scarlet was introduced before him

Making this complaint these deep into the MCU seems so empty to me. First of all, the entire MCU is made up of the left overs, the rights that they couldn't give away. We're already two Ant-Man movies in for crying out loud. Who were they going to introduce? Squirrel Girl? She-Hulk? Most of Marvel's female characters are members of teams, not marque characters on their own. Of those, Captain Marvel was far and away the most prominent. It made total sense for her to get a movie at this point in the MCU. There's nothing forced about it, this is where we are in the bucket of MCU characters. C'mon, the next new characters we're getting are the fucking Eternals. And that's after they duffed it with the Inhumans. Remember how there's a whole race of super beings hiding out on Earth after their moon base was destroyed? No? Marvel probably doesn't want you to either.

I think this is less an objection that Carol's not important because she clearly is (even ignoring that they've really made her central in the last few years... look at her history with Rogue: that was important enough to appear in the 90s X-Men cartoon). I also don't think it's about the popularity of the character per se. I remember from when I read these posts this morning talking about who Marvel's known entities are and the reality is that Marvel's already made movies about them or sold them. Rather, I think the objection is very specifically that Carol Danvers is a boring character in the comics.

Let me put it this way... I tend to read X-Men imprints (+ Runaways) and if the library hasn't got any when I go I'll expand out... but if I do have some choice I'll gravitate towards the weirder and more out there things. Also stuff with multiverses and most of the event stuff. So my point is that I literally picked up Higher, Further, Faster and then put it back on the shelf doesn't necessarily mean anything. But I did do that. And I did that because Carol Danvers is not a particularly interesting character and when she appears with other characters she's mocked for her desire to be the most popular hero. I read that as the writers saying, "This character is boring" as much as it's actually also an interesting ambition in a superhero.

Now, the thing with the MCU is that they're not bound by the comics. Everyone knows there's a lot of stuff from the Ultimate Universe in the MCU (possibly by convergent evolution) and I think even the casuals know by now that Age of Ultron is not at all like the comics version. And in that context, having a boring character who was pretty much loathed after Civil War II be the headline of a movie is not an "interesting challenge" but instead a clear opportunity to reinvent the character. Of course, lots of people have been calling Carol

boring and/or bland

after seeing the movie and while I'm not sure if I disagree with that, I definitely don't think it's a fair point

(and certainly not a just criticism). Basically, they gave Carol a very Wolverine style origins story. That is, the whole thing's a mystery and we get to figure it out with her. That's not the kind of concrete and clear characterisation people have come to expect from the MCU but it is something I really like... I am an unapologetic follower of Wolverine.

Also, this post has some mad disrespect for Jessica Drew. But she might be in a rights dispute. Likewise She-Hulk who you did mention.

Would Jessica Drew really change any of this stuff? I mean, she gets rid of the "too powerful" critique of Carol and she's got a longer history of comics centrality (at least, with Secret Invasion... so we could still do Skrulls... and HYDRA connections) and recently she's been running around with Porcupine which is just hilarious as a concept. But just because I find her more interesting than Carol Danvers doesn't mean everyone does.

tl;dr -- I think it's fair to point out that there are less boring characters than Carol Danvers but I also think CTOAN is right in the sense that how a character is in the comics doesn't mean anything for the MCU.

[Forsher]

This begs the question, who are the marque characters of Marvel? I mean, apparently even Iron Man was a B-lister before the MCU

I think it depends on what you mean by B-lister. If you mean by popularity I think you're correct that Iron Man was further down the hierarchy than the characters CTOAN mentioned (although Hulk is missing from that list) but in terms of comics relevance, Iron Man was definitely way up the top before the MCU.

I'd bet my life Captain Marvel isn't the one to defeat Thanos. I've honestly no idea how anyone could seriously expect that to happen.

Maybe that opinion will change once I've seen the film, but I doubt it.

n.b. the spoiler box is probably a spoiler for CM but I think the post makes sense without reading what's in it

I don't actually think Endgame will be a beat Thanos up plot movie to start with. Honestly, based on his depiction in IW there's no movie there. Thor is clearly more than powerful enough to take Thanos on as long as he has some support. They know how to stop the Gauntlet from being used and they know ambushes are possible. There's no need for Carol to give them a power boost. More importantly, after IW, I think it's pretty clear they want Thanos to have a story and if it's a "hunt Thanos down" revenge flick or even a chase film, Thanos just doesn't have a story.

My speculation... which seems

all the more likely after the reveals

in CM... is that Thanos will try and destroy the Stones to stop the Snap's being reversed. Or, he'll do so in response to some kind of greater threat (Annihilus made sense in this context but it'll probably be more subtle than this). Regardless, I think Carol's abilities will be necessary to hold the Stones together and thereby accomplish the Avengers' plan. This would also have the side effect of sidelining her so you avoid the Justice League problem... obviously Thanos will try to get to Carol to stop her keeping the Stones together so therefore she needs to be guarded while the plan is completed. We can also kill Cap off this way if the Soul Stone will break apart without a sacrifice.

(I'm not sure this makes all that much sense based on the trailers for Endgame but they're pretty opaque. I do think it makes sense in the context of IW.)

[Pasong Tirad]

I'm sure glad people are boycotting Captain Marvel..... it was near impossible to get a seat this weekend without either having pre-purchased tickets or shown up an hour or more earlier to buy tickets. If there hadn't been a boycott It would have been impossible.

Gotta say, it was very fulfilling to see Captain Marvel get such a huge opening weekend despite YouTube "film critics" prophesying Marvel's doom.