Looking Marvel-ous? No, Not Really….
It’s going to get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.
Between Snow Blight and the Seven Digital Discord Disasters and Craptain 4, it has been a bad year for NuDisney. It also does not appear to be getting better any time soon, as seen in the interview with the actor playing Johnny Storm. Some Marvel fans are not surprised by this and cannot muster more than a shrug. Others, however, have some words for the company:
A HULK LEVEL RAGE RANT on the MCU's Destruction of Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four
This is not new. It was, as JesterBell says at the end of the above rant, foretold long ago. Hollywood milks anything that makes money to within an inch of its life. We have seen this before – just as we have seen multi-million and billion dollar franchises driven into the ground by those who hate them but manage to grab the reins and start writing for them regardless. Any survivors of The Last Jedi internet wars here? I thought so.
As I have stated elsewhere, I lost interest in the original Star Wars Expanded Universe with the Yuuzhan Vong arc. That was where I noticed this type of rot first, so Last Jedi couldn’t kill what was already dead to me. For the most part I didn’t get involved in any discussions on The Last Jedi because the franchise had been infected long ago, and the Disney films just finished the job of killing the series for me.
I could say the same about Marvel Comics by this point. Why did I call Captain America: Brave New World “Crap 4” above? Several reasons, as I will illustrate: the film’s story is not only a retread of the much better Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it also shoehorns Sam Wilson into the Hulk’s role.
You can tell this by looking up the bit-character for the film known as Sabra, then by looking up the story where she first appeared, before finally turning to the main villain of the piece. No, not the Red Hulk/Thunderbolt Ross – we will get to him momentarily. The main villain in Crap 4 is The Leader, Samuel Sterns. The Leader is a Hulk villain, NOT a Captain America villain.
They shoehorned Sam Wilson into the role of not just Steve Rogers’ Captain America, they put him in a specifically Hulk storyline. This would be The Incredible Hulk #256, which was published November 18, 1980, with a cover date of February, 1981. Follow the link, read that story description, then compare it to what was in the movie. Aside from the attempted Winter Soldier grift-graft and putting in the Serpent Society, not much is different, is it?
It does not get better when you realize that instead of making Sabra a mutant Israeli heroine, they made her a former Black Widow and bodyguard to Thunderbolt Ross. Not only is this insulting to Sabra fans (and an insult to Israel), it is an insult to Thunderbolt Ross’s fans. The man is a corrupt U.S. Army general – if it is not American, he does not want anything to do with it. He would never, and I do mean never, accept either a former Russian-trained agent OR an Israeli as a bodyguard.
Ross would have found an American hero or “hero,” such as John Walker/US Agent, to be his bodyguard. That would have carried forward the story started in Falcon and the Winter Soldier rather neatly, but then it would also have required Disney’s writers to actually work for a living by caring about the characters. Yeah, not going to happen.
Even in a Hulk-focused movie, to put Sabra in the position of Ross’s bodyguard would have meant that she would bear the brunt of ALL of Ross’s continual contempt, anger, and distrust throughout the film’s run. The only sane way for a writer to attach her to Ross would be to (a) make him something other than the U.S. president and (b) have her be assigned to him as some kind of international liaison against his will. Again, if it is not American, he does not want it. Ross would make that explicitly clear to Sabra the whole time.
Which leads us to the point that Ross, like the Leader, is the Hulk’s enemy. He is NOT a traditional enemy of Captain America. While he works as the overarching villain of Captain America: Civil War that is because it can be seen as him attempting to take control of the Avengers. He would do this plausibly (a) for revenge on Tony Stark (remember this little one-shot here? Yeah, Ross would want revenge for that) and (b) to gain access to Rogers’ and/or Barnes’ super soldier serums, as the whole reason the Hulk exists is because Ross wanted to restart the super soldier program. Take control of the Avengers and/or Barnes, and he gets exactly what he wanted all along.
Finally, Ross works as the lead villain in Civil War because by gaining control of the Avengers he could take control of the Hulk when he returned to the team. The animated series Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (reviewed here) already posited a plausible storyline for this third reason behind Ross’s inclusion in Civil War. It’s not exactly a new concept and it wouldn’t take much to use it to bring him back for a Captain America film. But none of these things are used in Crap 4. At all.
Somehow, Ross is supposed to be the antagonist of Crap 4, where he wants Sam Wilson – who has no super soldier serum and would therefore be useless in Ross’s mind (as well as taking the brunt of his contempt for not being Rogers) – to restart the Avengers. I am far from amused so far with where Crap 4 went just with these established points. Marvel seriously wants me to buy a Captain America-led film where he is facing the Hulk’s enemies? Sorry-not-sorry, no. Not interested.
It gets much worse when I heard a rumor that turned out to be true: in Crap 4, Bucky Barnes is either running for Congress or is already there.
Go ahead and laugh, please. It’s better than crying, which is what I was tempted to do: the writers for the film stole this from Sam Wilson’s own comic book history. Bucky has never, ever wanted to get anywhere near politics in his comic book stories. The closest he got was when he was Captain America while Steve was dead post-Civil War in the books. Apart from all the problems in Bucky’s own past that would make him unlikely to make it to Congress (though can you imagine how much good TV that would make?), the fact is that the MCU writers stole one of Sam’s major accomplishments in the comics and gave it to another character.
A white character, no less. It’s not even the first time they have done it, as JesterBell’s post here demonstrates. The words of one commenter on her post about that alternate Thor could apply just as well to Crap 4: “It's unintentionally [so] super racist that it's honestly funny.”
In Crap 4, Sam doesn’t run for Congress, like he does in the comics – Bucky does. Crap 4 also directly contrasts Sam’s earlier comic history, where he was temporarily conscripted by government liaison and general pain-in-the-posterior Henry Peter Gyrich to fill an affirmative action quota in the Avengers. The original writers quite literally had the Avengers over a barrel with the government, foreshadowing the Civil War conflict that came later, with Gyrich being in a position to tell the team how many active members they could have. Gyrich insisted at least one of those members had to be black and demanded the Falcon be that person. What is the difference, at this point, between the fictional Gyrich and the people currently running Marvel into the ground?
So far as I can tell, there IS no appreciable difference. Even without seeing Crap 4, I knew that Marvel had completely undone this aspect of Sam’s character by shoehorning him into the Captain America suit, then giving Sam’s original codename to a newly-created Hispanic character. They did this despite having several Hispanic heroes and heroines already.
To name just a few of these Hispanic heroes and heroines, there is Firebird/Bonita Juarez, all three White Tigers, Nova/Sam Alexander, the X-Men’s Sunspot and Magma, Silverclaw, Wind Dancer, and Slingshot. None of these Hispanic characters have had notable placement in prior Marvel movies (at least Slingshot got to appear in Agents of SHIELD), but they would make excellent additions to the roster. Firebird and/or Silverclaw in particular would be good additions to the MCU since both were either Avengers or related to an honorary Avenger somehow. Firebird’s powers might put audiences too much in mind of the X-Men’s Phoenix, but Silverclaw’s shapeshifting abilities would be a visual treat for audiences as well as a tactical advantage for the team in any upcoming films.
Yet both these women were shoved aside for Joaquin Torres, who seems to be a far better character in the films and Disney+ series than in the comics, where he simply exists to take Sam Wilson’s hard-earned codename for himself. As I said here, Anthony Mackie is well aware of the Falcon’s original comic book history. The man wrote to Marvel Studios asking to play Black Panther; the comments he made ahead of Crap 4 were, I believe, meant to upset fans and keep them away from the movie. As Star Wars fans noted after Last Jedi came out, Mark Hamill would never give interviewers a straight answer about “what Luke had learned since Return of the Jedi.”
Likewise, Mackie never lied to fans regarding what Crap 4 was really about. He told them exactly what the studio was doing the only way he could: through comments many would rightly take to mean the film was neither going to be pro-America nor a proper Marvel movie. It was the only way he could fight back and, to be frank, he succeeded admirably in this. For that he has my sincere respect.
This latest news about Johnny Storm is hardly a surprise in light of what Marvel has done to their flagship, first black superhero now, is it? It is hardly a surprise given what they failed to do post-Endgame and even post-Civil War for their characters and the actors who they have frankly abused ever since. The past history of Marvel shows the company wasn’t immune to abusing the characters and the audience even in their heyday, but at least back then it was relatively isolated. Now – along with all the other franchises – they have been completely taken over by those who hate them and the fans, and these same people despise general audiences who might otherwise like the stories and characters as well.
I will say it is very, very good to see the movies and TV series ditch Isaiah Bradley’s mental deterioration in their presentation of him. That and his sterility were really the only parts of his character presentation that I disliked from the comics. I can applaud them with one hand for that. It cannot make up for the rest of the MCU’s transgressions, though, where they shoehorned their first black superhero into not one but two white heroes’ roles for God-knows-what biased diversity reasons.
The fact remains however that Marvel Studios, aka Woke Disney, has completely dishonored their fanbase. This was clear from Endgame forward, and not just in shows like WandaVision, which translated the worst Scarlet Witch storyline to the screen. The Hawkeye TV series had him fighting Daredevil’s enemy, the Kingpin, just because in the comics Clint Barton dated Marvel darling Echo (Maya Lopez, another Hispanic heroine). Rather than have Clint face down his personal enemies, like the Swordsman, one of the two Trick Shots, or even Crossfire, they had him facing down a villain who wasn’t his just because his one-time comic book girlfriend had a beef with the Kingpin.
Yes, they really did that. No, I have not watched the series. The show may have its redeeming qualities but the fact is that they disrespected their flagship archer, his successor, and their entire storyline just to boost Hawkeye’s one-time comic girlfriend’s TV series. It is absolutely criminal behavior on the studio’s part and it does not deserve a reward.
Don’t even get me started on the Thunderbolts film, which is based on the more recent Russian Redemption Squad version instead of the original one. You could have had Bucky headlining the movie in Hawkeye’s place and no one would mind if you had the original Thunderbolts backing him up, or at least some characters who were actual criminals trying to make amends, like Ghost. She and John Walker actually fit the storyline of the original Thunderbolts and they would work for a movie based on it where Bucky was, say, hunting Baron Zemo and ended up working with a bunch of former (or not) criminals to bring him in.
Setting Bucky up to lead a bunch of former Russian operatives (or Russian “owned” operatives, since Bucky was never NOT an American) makes no sense in either the comics or the movies, but...well, Marvel has not exactly been a pillar of sanity since at least the 2010s. Other fans, including me, would argue the sanity was lost earlier in other parts of the comic book franchise. Avengers #200 certainly argues there were parts of the company that were loony to begin with, but even with that, they were not running the asylum.
Now they are, and they are not going to stop any time soon. None of Marvel’s upcoming films – not Thunderbolts, not Fantastic Four, not even Avengers: Doomsday – are going to see the franchise change in any healthy way. Doomsday is being hyped as the savior of the MCU. It’s not.
There is no saving the MCU. It ended with Endgame. Hollywood and Disney are going to flog it to death and claim “superhero fatigue” when it is in fact BS fatigue. They are feeding us bovine residue and calling it food. It isn’t.
So what are we supposed to do? Well, for a start, let’s not buy any tickets to any of the new movies. Let’s not pick on the actors under contract for these films, either – what do you expect them to do? They can’t break these contracts without losing future jobs, as Disney still has enough power to destroy them. Disney and the current Marvel heads are the ones who need to be stopped, not the actors.
Leave them alone. Err on the side that they’re taking the brunt of this crap from Hollywood and Disney/Marvel, so they have enough problems. They don’t need fans or average people dumping on them for something the franchise owners have done.
Next, if you’re the praying kind, pray. Pray for the actors, pray for the fans, pray for the people ruining this and other franchises. They need it. A lot. How would you like to go up and – due to your contract – have to promote something you know is a piece of crap but which you cannot call crap to the camera’s face? Yeah, I didn’t think you would like it. They don’t, either. But it’s a job, and they want to keep acting, so pray for them. They’re not in the best place right now.
Finally, if you love Marvel or Star Wars or any other desecrated franchise, do NOT stop loving it. Like JesterBell, I love Marvel, and I’m not going to stop. I can hate NuMarvel and still love what the company produced before. I can and will always love the characters. I will always respect the actors who brought these characters to life and showed the fans nothing but love for their years of support. As I learned many years ago, while the new owners of the franchise can skinsuit it and mock the characters….
They cannot tear those characters out of my heart. Because my heart is mine. If you love it, it can never be taken from you, because they can never reach in there and take it away. Not unless you allow them to.
Do not give them that satisfaction. Keep what you love close and they will never be able to take it away from you. I will need to live through many more years before I see Marvel as something worth my time or money ever again in print or film.
But they have not shaken my hold on the characters or the universe yet. And they won’t, because I won’t let them. Will you?
Disney had a goose laying golden eggs. And just like the fabled one, they killed it.
So what actually are the problems with the FF movie? I read down to the bottom and I still don't think I know.