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Plot twist: Apparently Tatiana Maslany has said she’s not going to be She-Hulk.https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-hulks-tat...
Did not see that coming.
WandaVision debut is officially January 15, 2021.
Mod
Cool. A reason to keep Disney+ once The Mandalorian finishes.
Smart move Disney.
Wow, Disney’s announcements yesterday were epic. Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel, oh my!10 new Marvel TV series plus a whole slew of movies. Even for an MCU superfan like me that’s a lot.
TV series, live action:
WandaVision - Jan 15 2021
Falcon & Winter Soldier - Mar 19 2021 https://youtu.be/jkBfGvb7NzM
Loki - May 2021 https://youtu.be/G4JuopziR3Q
Hawkeye - 2021
Ms. Marvel - 2021 https://youtu.be/TRNI9TtBM5E
Secret Invasion
Ironheart
She-Hulk
Moon Knight
Armor Wars
Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special - Dec 2022 (one-off)
TV series, animated:
What If...? - Summer 2021 https://youtu.be/4iLVoEg9aLk
I Am Groot (short cartoons)
Films:
Black Widow - May 2021
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Jul 2021
The Eternals - Nov 2021
Spider-Man 3 - Dec 2021 or May 2022?
Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness - 2022?
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - Jan 2023
Thor: Love & Thunder - Nov 2023?
Black Panther II
Captain Marvel II
Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania
Fantastic Four
And that's just the MCU stuff... I like the TV emphasis, esp the volume of them. Some of them I will not care about (having read the comic, I'm leaning to not bothering with the Wandavision series). But some I'm absolutely in for and others sound like good stuff to try.
A whole year of no cinematic releases and Marvel gets backed up like a senior care facility that ran out of prune juice. This is the explosive result.
RJ from the LBC wrote: "A whole year of no cinematic releases and Marvel gets backed up like a senior care facility that ran out of prune juice. This is the explosive result."They don’t call him “Old Man Logan” just cos of the gray hair.
Now THIS right here is how you do a dang sizzle reel!Hitting the nostalgia button followed by hyping upcoming stuff like you’re banging a gong.
https://youtu.be/QdpxoFcdORI
And in case you blink and miss the Phase 4 logo at the end, it bears a fantastic resemblance to a certain familiar family crest:
There's an Eternals (Nomadland director) teaser at 2:19 in that video.
Trike wrote: "Now THIS right here is how you do a dang sizzle reel!..."Tried to watch that but got something in my eye during Stan Lee's monologue...
I'm not crying...you're crying!
Ok, so I'm guessing that end joke has a double meaning for either another role that actor played, or inside baseball for Marvel. I guess I'm not familiar enough with either to know. Care to fill me in?
John (Nevets) wrote: "Ok, so I'm guessing that end joke has a double meaning for either another role that actor played, or inside baseball for Marvel. I guess I'm not familiar enough with either to know. Care to fill me..."I have no idea. It’s Richard Madden who says that, but I don’t know if he auditioned for either role. The character he plays, Ikaris, is a Superman-type guy, but I don’t think he’s ever been involved with the Avengers. On the other hand, Sprite (the kid who asked the question) and Sersi (Gemma Chan), *have* both been involved with the Avengers in the comics.
I suspect they just want to make sure audiences know this is related to their biggest hit.
Isnt that Robb Stark? He sorta has a ...history of leading.
That isn't any Eternals that I know. Looks more like the Uncanny X-ternals. Kirby left a masterpiece, would it be so hard to do something like his vision? Or even the adulterated version that came to Thor comics?
I guess you could say he was leading a group that was trying to avenge something as well. I thought it was just me who missed something, but maybe it really is a bit more obscure then that.
Don’t you guys think it was the recreation of Shawarma scene of Avengers?
Upanshu wrote: "Don’t you guys think it was the recreation of Shawarma scene of Avengers?"Could be. Which bolsters the idea of reminding the audience this is all connected.
John (Taloni) wrote: "That isn't any Eternals that I know. Looks more like the Uncanny X-ternals. Kirby left a masterpiece, would it be so hard to do something like his vision? Or even the adulterated version that came ..."Well, this is the Earth-199999 version, not the original, or even the Earth-616 version that ended up in Thor and the Defenders. So there’s bound to be some changes. The history of the Eternals is so ridiculously convoluted at this point that there isn’t even a real canon version of it right now.
In one version the Eternals and Deviants were created by the Celestials to do battle forever. Which is pretty straightforward, and I think that’s what the new series is about.
In another version, the Celestials reproduce by injecting vibranium (sperm analog) into a planet (egg analog). The birth of the new Celestial destroys said planet. The Celestials create Eternals to protect the planet until the embryonic Celestial hatches. On Earth, though, they converted humans but the first pass resulted in the Deviants, so the Eternals were created to battle them.
In another version, Eternals arose on Uranus but had a Civil War, which spilled over to the moon Titan where Thanos was born. The side opposing the Eternals was dubbed the Deviants.
In yet another version, the Celestials came to Earth in successive waves, dubbed the First Host, the Second Host, and the Final Host, and the Eternals, who are unrelated in this version, protect the Earth against the Celestials.
Then there’s Neil Gaiman’s version, the details of which I don’t recall clearly, except that he mashed up some of the above, and the current in-universe 616 version where the body of a dead Celestial in the Arctic serves as the headquarters of the Avengers. (Which, ick.) In these versions Thanos was retconned as a Deviant.
BUT! There are also versions where the Eternals travel through time, and in some versions they either create or interact with Greek and Roman gods, which brings Hercules, Atlantis, and Lemuria into the picture, as well as inspiring Kang the Conqueror. (Although in reality, the writers took Kang’s time travel story and retconned the Eternals into it.)
So the movie can go any number of ways, with all of that to choose from.
However, we know that the Black Knight, played by Kit Harrington, is also in this movie. The Black Knight was originally a bad guy, but his successor joins the group of bad guys in order to destroy them from within. As the Avengers battle the time-traveling Kang, the Black Knight reveals his plan and double crosses the bad guys and helps defeat Kang. He then joins the Defenders as a full-on hero. Eternal Sersi falls in love with the Black Knight, but during a battle he is turned to stone. Dr. Strange figures out a way to restore him, but it turns out his soul was projected back through time to inhabit the body of his ancestor. Valkyrie gives him his magical sword back and he decides to stay in the past.
From there it gets crazy with all sorts of time traveling and universe-hopping. At one point he’s kidnapped by the Grandmaster and forced into Sakaar’s Contest of Champions. Interestingly, one of the giant faces on the Grandmaster’s tower in Thor: Ragnarok has been thought to be a Hulk villain named the Night-Crawler, but it could be the Black Knight. They look very similar in their armor and helmets.
If it were me, I would take a blended, simplified path, where all of the above is the background, except in our solar system the Celestials impregnated the fifth planet, which was destroyed by the hatching, creating the asteroid field. The Eternals came to Earth to protect the next Celestial until its hatching. While here, they interact with humanity, growing to care for them over the millennia. Inspired by the rise of the Avengers, they decide to take a more active role, especially now that Thanos’ fellow Deviants are coming to Earth on a mission of vengeance. They further decide that they can’t allow the Celestial to destroy the Earth, so now the Celestials are coming to fight them, too.
That’s why when we first see Thanos (Avengers 2012) and have our first encounter with him (Guardians of the Galaxy), he’s living in an asteroid field, literally the wreckage of the Deviants’ birthplace. This way we get an explanation of the vibranium in Wakanda and why Thanos chooses to live among asteroids, and also why he thinks first of destruction rather than creation.
I rewatched the trailer to see if there were more Easter eggs but halfway through the second time I was too bored to continue. I’m getting a strong whiff of Inhumans stench from this one. If you’ve lost a hardcore fanboy like me, good luck with the general populace.
Trike wrote: "I rewatched the trailer to see if there were more Easter eggs but halfway through the second time I was too bored to continue. I’m getting a strong whiff of Inhumans stench from this one. If you’ve..."I'm with you there in terms of general indifference, but then again MCU has earned the benefit of the doubt from me.
Any recommendations of favorite runs of the Eternals?
Trike wrote: "In another version, the Celestials reproduce by injecting vibranium (sperm analog) into a planet (egg analog). The birth of the new Celestial destroys said planet. The Celestials create Eternals to protect the planet until the embryonic Celestial hatches. On Earth, though, they converted humans but the first pass resulted in the Deviants, so the Eternals were created to battle them.…
If it were me, I would take a blended, simplified path, where all of the above is the background, except in our solar system the Celestials impregnated the fifth planet, which was destroyed by the hatching, creating the asteroid field. The Eternals came to Earth to protect the next Celestial until its hatching. While here, they interact with humanity, growing to care for them over the millennia. Inspired by the rise of the Avengers, they decide to take a more active role, especially now that Thanos’ fellow Deviants are coming to Earth on a mission of vengeance. They further decide that they can’t allow the Celestial to destroy the Earth, so now the Celestials are coming to fight them, too."
So, it took me three tries, but I finally made it through The Eternals. My god that’s a boring movie. At a reported budget of $275 million, its take of $402 million means it just barely broke even, maybe. Compared to Shang-Chi’s $125-150/$433, turning that one into a money-maker.
My speculation above is pretty accurate, but they did the worst version of that story. (Although I did like that a kid calls Ikaris “Superman”.) There was one unique wrinkle I don’t recall from the comics, the fact that (view spoiler) So that was kinda cool, but it’s buried inside the most pedestrian 1950s-style infodump I’ve seen in a long time. Definitely the worst of any Marvel movie. And they kept doing them!
Pretty much every MCU movie has at least one infodump, but they’re all enormously entertaining. These were just stultifying. The Eternals are pretty boring, but they even managed to make the Celestials dull, too. Crazy.
On the other hand, Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Hawkeye TV series are distilled awesome.There’s a reason why Spider-Man has joined the top 10 all-time box office champs list, at #4 domestic and #6 global, and that reason is because it’s great. All the expected goodness was there, plus that gut-punch of an ending, and little moments of awesome like the fact (view spoiler). A quick scene, but so cool.
Similarly, Hawkeye is the first MCU series that doesn’t feel messed-around with partway through filming. Falcon and Winter Soldier was rebooted halfway through because the original storyline was about a weaponized virus being released worldwide, WandaVision underwent surgery to change the ending, and Loki had some lesser reshuffling. But because Hawkeye is its own thing off in the corner of the Marvel universe, they simply let it be a self-contained story. Unlike the other three, while it does tie into previous films (primarily Black Widow), it doesn’t affect bigger things in upcoming movies.
Hawkeye also has the best car chase I’ve seen in many years. It’s funny, fun, and incredibly creative. Which goes for the rest of the show, too. I also love this version of Clint, world-weary and suffering the physical effects of superheroing, such as being hard of hearing now.
We also get introduced to new characters like Kate Bishop, and Hailie Steinfeld is never less than excellent. Plus we got to meet the deaf bad girl Echo, who is the first Native American character in the MCU. Her origin in the Daredevil comics means we’ll probably see her doing some cool anti-hero street-level stuff in her own series, but maybe she’ll also show up in Moon Knight, which is coming up at the end of March.
At first I thought Echo was just being airlifted in to Hawkeye from the Daredevil world, keeping her criminal father background but not much else. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that wasn’t the case, that she wasn’t simply ported over as a one-and-done. (view spoiler)
I want to do some wild-ass speculation about the Echo TV series: I think Maya is going to flee NYC for Puerto Rico, where she will meet, fight, and eventually team up with the White Tiger. Specifically the Ava Ayala version: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White... The original, Hector Ayala, is the White Tiger I grew up with, as he debuted in Amazing Spider-Man, but I think Ava is a cooler version and the MCU still needs more women. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Yelena take over the official Avengers Black Widow role and show up. A superpowered Charlie’s Angels, if you will.
Heck, throw in Brother Voodoo while we’re at it. Why not?
Trike wrote: "On the other hand, Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Hawkeye TV series are distilled awesome...."I saw the second Spider-Man movie and laughed my head off. It was hilarious! I didn't really like the first one with Tom Holland but I did enjoy the second one. Chalk one up for Trike there, he was right on.
Not so much on Hawkeye, I don't think. The series I watched was seriously bipolar, couldn't decide if it was serious or goofball, and didn't really stand up to examination (although I guess that could be said about most of the funny-book TV shows and films, when it comes right down to it). To each their own, but I'll stick with Loki as the best of the Marvel Disney+ shows for now.
So here’s an interesting take on Doctor Strange 2, and it’s even more involved than my usual takes in this thread.(But please let the dinosaur bit mean that the Savage Land is going to be referenced.)
https://youtu.be/PtkJ18Q3DTw
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Agents of Atlas (other topics)Young Avengers, Vol. 1: Sidekicks (other topics)
Young Avengers, Vol. 2: Family Matters (other topics)
Eternals (other topics)
That’s why I like the MCU: it remixes existing elements into something new yet familiar. All the best What If...? stories in Marvel and Elseworlds books in DC do the same thing, and I’ve always been a fan of those. In this case the relationships are new and giant teenagers punching dinosaurs is something I’ve never seen before.
Invoking a multiverse lets us have our cake and eat it too.