Hey all, PCR here.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the MCU. Going all the way back to our Year 1 celebration we’ve talked about it, hypothesized about it, fawned over it and reviewed aspects of it. Today, I’m going to dive a bit deeper into the “why” I enjoy it so much, and some things they do that I’m not fond of.
First, the Infinity Gauntlet comic crossover is, by far, my favorite comic crossover. End of story. Was it perfect? No… most huge comic crossover events tend to start amazingly, then seem to have a hard time finding a way to finish, but it still struck a chord with me and has stuck with me since my comic-collecting days… so when Marvel teased at the end of Avengers that we were getting Thanos, I was in. I felt “there’s no WAY they would do Thanos and NOT do Infinity Gauntlet!” and I was pleased to be correct on that count.
One of the most amazing things in my opinion that the MCU gets right is casting. I have not found one instance of casting.. hero or villain.. that I’ve been against. Now, have I thought some were ‘meh’? Sure, but in those instances it’s more of a “I don’t hate it” and much less of a “They missed the boat..So and so would have been MUCH better!” (looking at Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket here and to a larger extent Anthony Mackie as Falcon). Those examples aside (I’ll get into the Mackie thing later), from hero to villain to supporting role, the casting in MCU movies and shows has been amazingly spot on.
Another thing I absolutely love about the MCU as a whole, is how they set precedent for future endeavors. “Ok, we got you to understand The Convergence and The Nine Realms? Good, here’s The Quantum realm and Dr. Strange” “You good with multiple suits of Iron Man armor flying around on their own? Awesome, here’s Ultron and his army” just to use two examples. It’s brilliant storytelling in my opinion, and makes it easier for those who *aren’t* huge comic fans to digest what they’ve been seeing on the screen.
I’ll call it “loyalty to the source material”. Civil War was a great comic series (not Infinity Gauntlet great, and fell off with a much weaker finish, but still a great concept). The movie we got, while entertaining and giving us some great fan service in scenes, was not the story told in the comics. Now, I get it. It couldn’t be. Civil War comic run was a huge crossover event in and of itself. There’s no way to effectively condense that down into one movie…and I also know the MCU shouldn’t be a slave to the source material in a way that doesn’t allow for moving the MCU plot along. That being said, to me, there’s something about a movie using source material so loosely that it almost retcons and makes the original source material irrelevant. This isn’t just an MCU flaw, this is a movie flaw in general, but it’s one the MCU and Marvel doesn’t do better on. Is there a way for them to? I’m not sure, but it stands out to me nonetheless.
And finally, let’s talk about the Netflix shows.
Overall, I enjoyed them. Daredevil was spot on. Jessica Jones wasn’t my kind of show, but I found value in watching it. Luke Cage season 2 was far better than season 1. Iron Fist …well… was necessary for The Defenders to work (which, to me, it did) and Punisher was amazing.
None of them (to date) have ever been ‘shouted up’ to the greater MCU movieverse, and there’s an easy way they could have been in Infinity War.
The Snap.
When Thanos snaps, there could have been a montage scene (much like they had in the comic) of scenes from around the world of people disappearing. Imagine, Thanos snaps, and we cut to Hell’s Kitchen and see Matt talking to Foggy and Foggy dusts… Jessica and Trish both dust mid conversation…Luke watching people in Harlem suddenly dust away… it could have taken them… 2-3 minutes of movie time to intersperse something like that, and it would have paid the TV shows respect for carrying on the MCU torch in other media.
That’s it for me for now, Hatton’s up next week!
– PCR
