Superheroes!

[EgonSpengler]

re: Captain America. I was really glad that the movies did away with the whole "peak human" nonsense and just went straight super-powered. He must run at 50-60 mph. By comparison, Usain Bolt runs at about 28 mph and short-track speed skaters do about 32 mph. In Civil War, Cap beat Spider-Man by being more clever and/or experienced, but his physical strength has to be within shouting distance of Spidey's, or he couldn't have thrown Peter the way he did. And wasn't there an episode of Agents of SHIELD where someone asked about the tractor on the training field - I think it was Deathlok - and somebody said it was for Captain Rogers? How many lbs/kg is a modern tractor, and how much horsepower do they have? I have no idea, but I think it's a lot.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Yah - in the comics alone, Cap's just too strong/fast/agile/never tires to be 'peak human' non-super.

Great thing, from an easy writing perspective, about Cap, Batman, Spider-Man and most blokes - no matter how covered in teh awesome he is, you can poke a hole in him just fine for story reasons w/o needing any handwave.

But Spidey has super-strength and the speed and agility of a spider, plus webs! I agree though that it's always story-led rather than anything else. I remember one comic where Daredevil manages to knock out an enraged Spider-Man, before stowing him somewhere safe and leaving while musing that he was lucky Spidey was so angry and fighting sloppily, as there's no way he could have beaten him ordinarily. Which was true anyway, but it was interesting how they had Daredevil reflect on that.

It's a rare thing that I can pin down a Spider-Man story like this, but that's the immediate aftermath of Sin-Eater murdering Jean DeWolf. ISTR it following immediately on Spidey nearly beating Sin-Eater to death. I read that issue on the store and recall 30 years later, despite not following Spidey or knowing at the time who anyone else involved was but him and DD. OTMU has Spider-Man able to "lift (press)" 15 tons - Daredevil is "Olympic-level athlete" able to "lift (press)" the standard 500. It was credible; Daredevil having actual hard-core fight training and a good day to compensate for Spidey's inhuman speed while fighting his worst; he never landed a punch until DD left his knocked out in a tree.

I agree that they don't draw enough from his intimate knowledge of vulnerability, comics or movies, although I think that it does show up in Steve Rogers the alter ego. That makes him different from Superman/Clark Kent. Every time I see anything with Superman his entire secret identity bit is the purest nonsense. Not just because the whole "take off my glasses and hide behind this lock of hair" bit is patently absurd, but because anyone encountering Clark would immediately say "there could not possibly be two people on the entire planet with such one dimensional syrup sweet points of view, so this guy HAS to be Superman."

Spider-man would have been outed the first time he rescued Aunt May and took time to try to talk her down. You can fool most of the people all of the time, with luck, but your family knows you too well for a mask and a disguised voice to work. -It's one of the comics things where the only viable handwave is to just not think about it. (Cap's got one of the weaker 'secret' identities there is, anyway, when the current continuity doesn't have him out. Too many people always knew his real name from his origin on - and he's rarely put all that much work into it -being Steve or concealing being Steve, alike- since he thawed out, either.)

 

[Cutlass]

Wow, three really good posts in a row. First off, props @Plotinus for being absolutely correct, it is the character of Superman that is outdated, not the values. As an excuse for mixing that up, Superman was originally written in a simpler time, when fictional characters were their values...like caricatures more than people. Readers of the time had an expectation for outsized heroes and villains in stories that were easily digested as good v evil and good not only always wins, but there's never any real doubt. I think, @EgonSpengler that that is even more responsible for making good Superman stories hard to write for the modern reader/viewer than the admittedly difficult dealing with his overpowering abilities.

@Buster's Uncle I think you are underestimating Captain America in a couple ways. Both underestimations are actually typical of the comics (at least from my time), but seem less applicable to the movie version. First off, while he isn't Superman style indestructible the super soldier serum was no joke. The movie version 'blast through this window and fall from the high rise' scene, among others, illustrates that better than it usually shows up in the comics. Second, he isn't as golden boy as Superman, because before the serum he was a total loser.

The thing with the film version of Cap is that he isn't really a loser before the serum, so much as just small and weak. He was every bit as idealistic as he was later. He may have lost every fight, but he never ran from a fight. He always stood up for what was right, even when he didn't have the strength to do so. He was a fighter's soul, without a fighter's body.

This is my thinking, too. I used Captain America as an example because he represents the 'old-fashioned' superhero values that are still perfectly valid today, but are challenged by current concerns and events. I thought the confrontation between Superman and General Zod in Man of Steel was compelling - as with Black Panther and Killmonger, Daredevil and The Punisher, you could understand the villain's side of it - but I thought the ending was a copout (also overlong, but that's about the direction and editing, not the character or the writing). As with Superman, Captain America is a paragon of virtue, which is a challenge to write. Marvel surrounded him with characters and situations that challenge his idealism, tease him for it, and occasionally punish him for it. One gets the sense that even Natasha, who's one of Steve's best friends in this century, finds his idealism sort of cute ("Hey fellas, do you know where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a fossil"), and is hiding a side of herself that she knows Steve wouldn't like ("It's hard to trust someone when you don't know who they really are." "Who do you want me to be?"). Of course I know a little more about Black Widow because I've read the comics, but even in the movies I got the sense that Natasha was trying to "go straight" by joining The Avengers, and that there's a little bit of Frank Castle in her ("You're a half-measure. When you put 'em down, they get back up. When I put 'em down, they stay down").

The limitation on thinking of Cap as a paragon of virtue, is that you shouldn't forget that Cap is a killer, Most superheroes they make a point of them not killing, or not killing any more than necessary. Recall the flap in Batman v Superman when Bat deliberately killed a man.

But Cap is a soldier. And soldiers kill. However idealistic cap is, he's a killer. And will kill when it is necessary.

As to Black Widow, I disagree that there is a 'sense' that she is going straight. Watch Avengers again: She says is straight out. "I've got red in my ledger." That wasn't a ploy. Well, it was a ploy. But it was a ploy that worked because it was the simple truth. Hawkeye was sent to kill her because she was the bad guy. He turned her instead. This is why she is loyal to him, and came off mission when he needed her. Later she became loyal to Cap, because Cap represented the path to redemption that she had committed herself to. Like with Falcon, Cap represented the leader that they chose, because they trusted him above all others. But all 3 are soldiers, and all 3 are killers, at need.

re: Captain America. I was really glad that the movies did away with the whole "peak human" nonsense and just went straight super-powered. He must run at 50-60 mph. By comparison, Usain Bolt runs at about 28 mph and short-track speed skaters do about 32 mph. In Civil War, Cap beat Spider-Man by being more clever and/or experienced, but his physical strength has to be within shouting distance of Spidey's, or he couldn't have thrown Peter the way he did. And wasn't there an episode of Agents of SHIELD where someone asked about the tractor on the training field - I think it was Deathlok - and somebody said it was for Captain Rogers? How many lbs/kg is a modern tractor, and how much horsepower do they have? I have no idea, but I think it's a lot.

I really got the impression in Civil War that that the adults realized that Spidey was a kid. And treated him accordingly. Cap, Winter Soldier, and Falcon fought Spidey, and Spidey did exceptionally well to hold his own against them for a time. But I felt that they realized he was a kid, and while they were trying to put him out of the fight, they were really restraining themselves from going full blast and hurting him. Most of the fighting there, most of the participants, understood that it was intramural, and they were not out for the kill. Almost all of them were holding back. And they were holding back against Spidey more than the others.




On another subject, I just noticed on Gotham, Poison Ivy has now been played by 3 different actresses over 5 seasons.

 

[Plotinus]

It's a rare thing that I can pin down a Spider-Man story like this, but that's the immediate aftermath of Sin-Eater murdering Jean DeWolf. ISTR it following immediately on Spidey nearly beating Sin-Eater to death. I read that issue on the store and recall 30 years later, despite not following Spidey or knowing at the time who anyone else involved was but him and DD. OTMU has Spider-Man able to "lift (press)" 15 tons - Daredevil is "Olympic-level athlete" able to "lift (press)" the standard 500. It was credible; Daredevil having actual hard-core fight training and a good day to compensate for Spidey's inhuman speed while fighting his worst; he never landed a punch until DD left his knocked out in a tree.

That's right! I came at it from the opposite direction, since I read Spider-Man but hadn't heard of Daredevil - it was a nice way to introduce him as it was the first time the characters had met too, so Daredevil had to explain his abilities to Spider-man (and show them off by deducing Spidey's identity). Absolutely amazing story, really affected me at the time. I was struck by how the events made Spidey's mask slip (I mean metaphorically!) - how hard he takes the death of his friend, how he berates himself for making jokes while dodging Sin-Eater's shots that go into the crowd, how he loses it with Daredevil as they argue over whether the legal system works. And Daredevil also loses a mentor, with the narrative taking pains to point out that he probably could have saved him if he hadn't been concerned to protect his secret identity. Sin-Eater also seemed much scarier than most of the supervillians in weird outfits, as he had no powers, just a basic hood and a shotgun, yet he caused such devastation, and he seemed real - Daredevil's comment at one point that his heartbeat sounded like he was on drugs put him straight into a realistic kind of criminal context rather than the sanitised sort of underworld that most villains seemed to operate in. No doubt if I were to read it now it would seem trite and simplistic and the twist ending would be obvious a mile off, but it didn't seem that way at the time. This was Marvel at its best, with heroes who seemed like very real people. And no need for any kryptonite to make it work.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Spidey only takes a punch as well as the story needs - thus, the Kingpin or one of the Enforcers -not a superpower in the lot- should never win against him, but plausibly might get a lucky shot and win anyway.

In panels from the story in question still lodged in my head I see/ it strikes me, BTW, that Spidey's black costume looked great.

-They'd met forever before though, New York flagpole-swingers who fit into each other's worlds well enough, and really ought to know each other a lot better than they do. -But the first time Matt Murdock ran into Peter Parker, DD recognized Spidey's heartbeat... He's know a very long time...

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, and another tack/element for interesting Supey and Cap stories that's not never been done, but not a lot; they're cornballs, if you care to look from that angle, and there's a lot of humor-spicing possibilities that could be very profitably used in stories, provided the writers were careful not to use it up.

-Think Captain Marvel in the bwa-ha-ha Justice League -and CM was as off-model in personality as the rest of the cast in the early run, despite Billy Batson being a little boy and a wholesome one, CM has the Wisdom of Solomon- and plug Superman in his place. Works about the same, Supes being an adult, but a wholesome Kansas farm boy all the way down to his toes and soul - you just have to ignore that the farm boy can hear your heartbeat change when you tell a lie and lives in a very big city and has heard endless lying, for example, which is no worse than they did with CM. -But there could still be something done far less over-the-top in that vein here and there in Supes stories.

A neat throwaway hit-and-run gag in the Grunewald Captain America run that has stuck with me was in a fight with the Serpent Society. Black Mamba, a hot ex-hooker with the power to do a darkforce mind-zap that confronts the victim with their hottest fantasy/most loved one/greatest desire sort of thing, zapped Cap and he saw his most recent ex-girlfriend, Bernadette Rosenthal, saying "Steve! Make nice to me." -Cap had almost certainly been hitting that in her heyday during the Demattis-Zeck run -he's an old-fashioned cornball, not dead- but he plausibly is old-fashioned cornball enough to, in his heart, find the term "make love" vulgar and the joke nailed all that about him very nicely. There's possibilities there, it being easy to imagine something like the time Hawkeye quipped "I tried to touch the staff at the Playboy club once" paying off further later with Cap saying or thinking -again, later, because Cornball Cap didn't get it right away- "Hey! That was dirty!" -I'm pitching that one poorly, but it wouldn't be hard to sell and nail the gag in the right spot as spice in the course of an adventure story.

(I think it was Gru who wrote the short story somewhere with his Republican Anti-Cap USAgent, on some throwaway mission on an island letting his mind wander while he ran and fought, grinding through nobodies as happens frequently enough, thinking about his dead brother and rock music [I've also seen that particular meta-gag done with Cap himself in a comics remix rewriting a sequence from the beginning of Civil War where Cap has to beat up something like 40 Shield agents while escaping the helicarrier, and it had him thinking about his laundry and his grocery list while he did it, and it was HIlarious] and USAgent free associates to wondering the meaning of some gibberish rock song lyric, concluding it was "probably something dirty". It was more a characterization moment than a joke that time, but amusing and in this wheelhouse.]

I was lukewarm on the bwa-ha-ha Justice League, less because the humor wasn't absolutely slaying me than because it took up too much space when I was really there for adventure stories, and it did a little violence of almost all the personalities involved in service of the mostly so-so humor, but used as spice here and there, a little of that will take you a long way, witness, for example, how good horror movies will sneak in a genuinely-funny gag to distract you right before a big shock horror moment...

 

[Cutlass]

I know over the years Marvel and DC have done a number of crossovers. So the thought occurred to me, Wonder Woman is popular now, and Avengers Infinity War will be in 2 parts, so WW should cross over, get a shield of vibranium from the Wakandans just like Cap's shield, and have a part in the big final battle that must at some point take place.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

There was a missed little moment in the Busiek/Perez JLA/Avengers, when in the merged timeline and in a pastiche to the old annual JLA/JSA get-together/crossovers they were doing it with the Avengers, and WW says something about having known Cap for many years from the meetings and his distinguished career going back to WWII --- and there was no reason, in that timeline, not to have her say they'd known each other since they punched Nazis together in WWII.

Modern Wonder Woman -and a sword is exactly wrong for her to ever be waving- has a notably weak rogues gallery, a situation the TV show underlined by not using any of them but generic Nazis in general the first season, and making up their own even-weaker villains for seasons two and three - and those latter seasons were nigh-infinitely not-as-good. Henry Gibson as Mr. Mariposa, anyone? Comics writers are never going to know what to do with her -a problem many of them have been talking about since I could first read- until they figure out how to make Dr. Psycho work.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why would someone from an island of Amazon warriors NOT be skilled with a sword? The first quarter of the movie, which seemed a fairly faithful follower of the origin story from the comics, had the entire population of the island training with swords pretty much constantly. I thought the sword getting slagged was a pretty nice touch, and would think that since she would want to be more able to blend in she wouldn't want to get a replacement and then have to tote it around all the time, but I didn't have a problem with it.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

It does a basic symbolic violence to her central nature, and my confidence that creator Dr. Moulton would passionately agree approaches 100%. A sword is lingam, the magic lasso looped to tie is yoni, and while you may party on with your own bad self in finding such symbolism bull, it's pretty primal in-your-face obvious/inescapable. Her central premise is girlpower-yay (ignoring all the bondage stuff in there originally because her creator was a freak, but I daresay most everyone is fine with overlooking that part) and the former is a wounding weapon; the latter a tool of restraint and peace, fighter for peace and bringing-Aphrodite's-love-to-Man's-World being right in there inextricably since her beginning. It's gnawing at the roots, man.

Nuthin' wrong with a slashin', butt-kickin' powerful warrior princess, and that IS a very valid sort of girl-power-yay - but you want to create a new character for that -or perhaps put anti-Wondy Artemis in the Justice League or something- not have the Ambassador of Love to Man's World snapping Maxwell Lord's neck and running people through with a symbolic peepee, of all the things in the world. It's like telling stories about being an old-fashioned authoritarian square taken to evil lengths and megaviolence and too-much-killing using Captain America instead of USAgent, who was created for exactly that. Why Mark Waid, of all people, made the mistake of starting the sword crap, I'll never understand.

Gnawing. at. the. roots.

 

[Cutlass]

'Black Panther' Sequel Confirmed by Marvel Studios Head
By Charlie Ridgely - March 9, 2018

It's official! Black Panther is getting a sequel!

Not that this was any surprise, considering the first Black Panther film, which hit theaters almost a month ago, has completely obliterated all expectations. It's currently looking to win the box office for the fourth consecutive week.

Still, despite the massive success, Marvel Studios had yet to announce that a sequel was on the way. Many believed that Kevin Feige and the company were just playing their cards as close to their chest as possible, trying to keep the post-Avengers 4 world a secret.

Secrets or no secrets, we all knew that a Black Panther sequel was coming sooner or later, and Feige finally made things official.

While speaking with EW, the Marvel Studios head was asked about the prospect of more Black Panther, and he was quick to say there was more in store for the now-beloved world of Wakanda.

"Nothing specific to reveal, other than to say we absolutely will do that," Feige said of the Black Panther sequel. "One of the favorite pastimes at Marvel Studios is sitting around on a Part One and talking and dreaming about what we would do in a Part Two. There have been plenty of those conversations as we were putting together the first Black Panther. We have ideas and a pretty solid direction on where we want to head with the second one."

Black Panther 2 is officially coming to life. Now, only two major questions remain.

First, there's the mystery surrounding a potential release date. When could a Black Panther sequel hit theaters? Marvel currently has a horde of films scheduled through 2022, and the sequel will undoubtedly take one of those spots. Best-case scenario, Black Panther 2 arrives in the first quarter of 2020.

The second, and potentially more important, question is whether director Ryan Coogler would return. Coogler didn't go back to the Rocky franchise for Creed 2 after the first film found great success, but much of that was due to his schedule with Black Panther. The director and Marvel clearly have a great relationship, and the actors love working for him. It'll be a total surprise if Coogler isn't back in the director's chair when the second Black Panther movie rolls around.

Are you excited for a Black Panther sequel? How soon do you think we will see it on the big screen? Let us know in the comments below!

http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/03/09/black-panther-sequel-confirmed-marvel-kevin-feige/

Other than the fact that the Magical Marvel Science outdid itself on how Magical the Science was, I liked the movie.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe just keeps getting bigger. A couple years ago it was 18 planned feature films, now it's at least 24. And who knows what they'll add? Their core actors will probably age out of the parts before they are done.

 

[Plotinus]

Then they can just reboot everything and start again!

 

[Cutlass]

I'm sure they will. But they'll need to work their way into it. They need a couple of the single hero movies to actually work for a foundation.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I wanted to mention, following on the post about mixing humor in as spice and characterization, two extant Superman moments, one extra on-topic for this thread focusing more on screen depictions. In -I think it was the second issue of- the 80s Man of Steel reboot mini, Supey accosts a sketchy-looking dude on the street in Metropolis about some thing minor, leaves, then comes back and asks him to please show others consideration and turn down his boombox. Even more on the nose, the quick drive-by moment in Superman: the Motion Picture when he literally recues a little girl's kitten from a tree.

Both moments are enormously cornball and amusing, and both, quick bits in stories about teh Strongest Man in the World saving lots and lots of people and having adventures, say a lot about who Supey is. The later was a flat-out gag, and much funnier, the former still smile-inducing and -this is key- what first told me for sure it was still Superman not a retcon impostor distorted too much.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Gnawing. at. the. roots.

Well, given that at her roots we find Steve Trevor, superheroic spy guy with girl sidekick, followed by joining the JSA as their secretary I think taking a big chomp or two out of them was pretty much a necessity.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Naw - you deliberately distort Steve's role -as the love interest, he's pretty foundational, but he's Louis Lane falling out windows for her to rescue- and character premise not responsible for misuse in a team book, even the revered JSA. -You know your stuff to bring that up, though.

Now, a better counter would be to point out the sheer incredible volume, in her original Moulton-Peter run, of how much she was tied up and helpless. Not exactly gurl-powah-yay, especially having her bracelets being bound by a man canceling her powers being explicitly built-in. -But I already mentioned a pretty universal consensus to ignore the bondage stuff to death, as indeed, everyone has done for far over a generation since the creators moved on.

She simply has no business killing any more than Superman and Batman, though coming at it from a different angle from them. I surmise that the sword business in Kingdom Come, that afaik started that, was intended to show that she, like Supey and the other 'old-school' heroes, hadn't gone as wrong as the killer 'heroes' they fought, but they had gone wrong - rather explicitly the point of the ending...

 

[EgonSpengler]

'Black Panther' Sequel Confirmed by Marvel Studios Head
By Charlie Ridgely - March 9, 2018




http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/03/09/black-panther-sequel-confirmed-marvel-kevin-feige/

Other than the fact that the Magical Marvel Science outdid itself on how Magical the Science was, I liked the movie.

I read somewhere that Ryan Coogler wanted to include Kraven the Hunter in the first movie, but couldn't fit him in. I always think of Kraven tussling with Spider-Man, but it's not hard to envision him coming into conflict with T'Challa, particularly if Black Panther is going to be looking to address some contemporary African issues. I could see Kraven involved in 'blood' diamonds, or weapons trafficking, or piracy, or whatever, even if it's just a brief moment, like Captain America fighting Batroc in The Winter Soldier. The scene in the Korean casino and subsequent car chase was a deliberate nod to 007. I can imagine one of those pre-credits, "end of the previous mission" scenes that always start off Bond movies, with Black Panther fighting Kraven on the backs of a speeding caravan of trucks filled with illegal weapons headed for the group that Nakia was trying to infiltrate at the beginning of this movie (I can't remember if they named that group, but it was clearly supposed to be Boko Haram).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe just keeps getting bigger. A couple years ago it was 18 planned feature films, now it's at least 24. And who knows what they'll add? Their core actors will probably age out of the parts before they are done.

Then they can just reboot everything and start again!

I don't think anyone has confirmed anything, probably muzzled with NDAs on the next film, but speculation is rampant that one or more Avengers could die in Infinity War or the sequel. The expectation is that Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth are done, but the next wave of MCU Avengers is already on deck: Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, The Wasp, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, and the Vision, and the nerds are already getting excited about T'Challa's sister Shuri taking the role of Iron Heart (in the comics, Iron Heart's name is Riri and Shuri becomes a Black Panther, but people are already saying "Shuriri").

There's still talk about a Black Widow solo film. It feels years overdue to me, but I don't know if I'd say "too late." I mean, who am I kidding, if a Johansson Black Widow came out in 2021, I'd certainly watch it. I don't know if Red Sparrow makes Black Widow more or less likely. And I think Jeremy Renner has said he would do more Hawkeye. How about a Netflix series based on Matt Fraction and Dave Aja's Hawkeye comics run? Renner has done television before, and sounds persuadable.

And that's all before the Fox deal goes through and the rights to all of the Fantastic Four characters return to Disney. I really want to see what Kevin Feige & Co would do with a certain gauntleted dictator from Latveria. (The Fox deal would presumably also include the rights to the X-Men characters, but I haven't decided if I would want Disney to cram all of those characters into the existing MCU. I'm enjoying The Gifted, Legion, and Deadpool, and I wouldn't mind if they all stayed in their separate corners.)

So, yeah, the MCU could lose Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America and not slow down at all.

 

[Cutlass]

Way I hear it, they have said that they are limiting info releases about future movies because they don't want to spoil who might die in the existing movies. I don't go too deep into the gossip. I didn't read the comics as deep as some of you guys. But I know that the roles of some heroes don't require the same person filling them. Anyone could fill the Ironman suit. But Hulk and Thor are pretty much Hulk and Thor.

Black Widow and Hawkeye have the problem that they have no superpower, so the actors playing those roles are kind of aging out of them. Prequels or reboots of those characters are possible, but different actors.

Be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Iron Man has to spend story time out of the armor, so who absolutely matters - Mr. Downey jr was doing a witty Stark that is simply not quite the same guy as the comics, but a good fit for if Stan had invented Stark that way, it would have worked the same only funnier. The Hulk changes, and most of them have secret identities, so to the extent that comes up in the movies -or Hawkeye and Widow wear no masks- it sorta does matter...

 

[EgonSpengler]

I read another tidbit about Titans, that Jason Todd will be making an appearance. That suggests to me that Dick Grayson will be the adult Nightwing, quickly, if not right from the very beginning.