Amph Marvel's Falcon & Winter Soldier [Disney+]

Yes yes, it's all fake and pretend. I get that. But I mean as MCU stuff gets closer to "real life" or tries to tell a "real life" type of story (e.g. Civil War, or this very show), from the perspective of anyone living in that world, the idea of a superhero should be completely intolerable.

Obviously from outside of the story, a genre-savvy viewer knows the real story -- Steve was good, Sam is good, Sam is gonna be the next Steve. Karli and John Walker are the foils against which Sam is positioned, he's gonna be the golden mean between two extremes, blah blah. Obviously.

I know all that. I'm saying that from the perspective of anyone in the MCU, people with superhuman powers are a terrible thing.

 

I don't think it was that great a comment -- Sam's saying, what, he's acting like a god for having an opinion? That's his comeback? It didn't even make sense.

Zemo's a murderer. That doesn't mean he's wrong about superheroes, though. He's a living example of "the worst person you know just made a good point" meme.

Superheroes are good as long as they're the "right people," right? But who decides whether they're right people? In universe, it's the superheroes themselves.

That's exactly John Walker's mentality. What is the difference between Steve Rogers and John Walker exactly? Both of them decide what they want to do and whether they're right. I guess the world should just count itself lucky that Rogers wasn't a crazy monster.

Yeah, I know that's what they're going to do. Like I said, they're going to end with something comfortable like Sam being the new Cap and the trite message that it's the character of the hero that counts or whatever, because this isn't that deep

In-universe, if you lived in the MCU, you should have no reason to be happy that god-like beings with untrammeled power exist that have the ability to decide life, death, collateral damage with no appeal or recourse, just on the whims of their own personal morality.

That is NOT the story that Marvel is telling, I agree. The ideas are in there but Marvel won't engage with them. It's a pity. As for whether that's what DC is trying to do, I wouldn't know, I found DC content exceedingly boring. I feel like you can address the flaws of hero worship without being ponderous or heavy-handed. The show is close to getting there, it just always walks it back to "as long as it's the right guy!1"

 

Relevant SHIELD quote to the discussion:

Mike: “You said if we worked hard, if we did right, we'd have a place. You said it was enough to be a man but there's better then man! There's gods... and the rest of us? What are we? They're giants... we're what they step on.”

 

Yep. Which was why I was fervently not on "Team Cap" or whatnot (Iron Man had his own baggage).

 

Spoiler

I haven’t liked Walker since his introduction and could not stand him by 15 minutes into this episode so his getting caught on several cell phone videos bludgeoning a guy to death with Steve Rogers’ shield was cathartic.

You’re going down, pal. You are a self-centered ass who thinks you are more important than you actually are, you interfered with Sam trying to reach Karli and ruined that mission, and you thought you would tell the Dora Millaje what to do.

I felt bad for Hoskins though.

Karli is a mixed bag. Not OK at all that she threatened Sarah, and her means of “revolution” just sowing mass chaos is dumb and counterproductive not to mention immoral, but there could be redemption for her and hopefully her story can be used to discuss the effects of US imperialism.

This.

Spoiler

That’s why it’s going to be interesting to see what happens when the videos go viral.

And this.

Spoiler

I laughed out loud when they told Walker that the Dora Millaje have jurisdiction wherever the hell they want it.

 

Just to add to this discussion here, in part because of some of the themes of some Marvel comics especially...

One of the philosophical arguments embraced by Marvel (and especially by the X-Men comics) is a kind of “Authority vs Justice” argument. Marvel, both in comics and on screen, frequently runs more towards an anti-authority streak that, at the “best” of times, runs parallel to the inadequacies, abuses, and prejudices that authorizes in the real world have.

Marvel heroes, even more than DC heroes, are liable to be used as stand-ins for socially revolutionary defiances of authority that in some way echo the real world: Luke Cage being a black man in a bulletproof hoody protecting a neighborhood the city has neglected, Cap uncovering the draconian police state SHIELD is being used to create by Hydra, the X-Men having to use violence to defend themselves and civilians from both human mobs and mutant terrorists. Heck, the near ubiquity of blatantly corrupt cops and officials in superpower properties is the personification of the “sometimes, the authorities are the problem and you must pursue vigilante justice” ideas that superpowers run on.

I mean, in general, violence isn’t actually a good thing, even if it’s justified... but violence is one of the core appeal of an action or adventure story. So, superhero stories rush to try and embrace the instances where vigilante justice is justified whenever they have a hero who isn’t affiliated with government power.

...Which causes the issue, because real world vigilante “justice” is often very much regressive and repressive, hailing from the sanctimonious rather than the revolutionary, and generally injust as a matter of course.

BUT!... arguably, the weird thing about Cap is that a long time ago, comic writer decided to embrace the idea of him representing an ideal “above” what the actual status quo of government authority is... which means that Captain America, a character who seems like he should represent a just use of violence sanctioned by authority, often ends up being used as a defender against authority’s overreach.

Cap is a character who seems conceptually like he should be a 100% Lawful Good character, but is often written as so strongly True Good, that in a Universe that often festoons itself with Lawful Evil characters, he ends up as Chaotic Good by default.

...And the problem is that in the real world, “Lawful Good” is at least somewhat closer to reality in a functioning society, and Chaotic Good often... isn’t.

 

@godisawesome great analysis, especially bringing in the idea of superheroes as revolutionary stand-ins vs authority. I think you’re right on all points, especially as vigilante justice would be entirely unacceptable in the real world so the closer those lines get the more troubling it is. We see John Walker as the avatar of the arbitrary power of authority — but Steve could just as easily be an anti-authority libertarian resisting ideas for the public good bc he personally thinks he knows better. Anti-vaxxers, anyone?

The idea of revolutionary/transgressive characters being mainstream idols via corporate brands is also something that waters down the message — although I do think they’re at least positioning Sam to have a lot more awareness of social issues given his own life experience.

don’t get me wrong I still dislike superheroes but at least Sam’s middle ground IS a middle ground and not just status quo. At least—I hope that’s where it will end.

@blackmyron There’s always the gods. I always used to joke that in the Civil War era I was neither Team Cap nor Team Iron Man, but rather Team Thor. There are already actual godlike beings to preserve balance, we don’t need hubristic mortals.

Athena and Hercules are marvel characters too, I have full faith in the Olympians (well, maybe not Zeus or Ares ).

 

I did not know that! They made that dork seem a lot more dangerous than he was in real life!

 

They should have never experimented on that poor man in the first place.

 

I think that might be up to her- or Zemo. Disbanding/rejecting the Flagsmashers and accepting imprisonment for her crimes (perhaps in exchange for something that might actually help her goal/cause in a non-violent way) is entirely possible (Marvel has been getting better since Civil War about not offing every villain just because- and they definitely have more confidence/stability in their long-term storytelling possibilities now [compared to Phases 1-2], so they may want to keep her around in some form just in case). Getting her to stand down to that point is the trick- but I think Sam is up to the challenge. Of course, if Zemo gets to her first, she's done.

 

Spoiler

Well, we know Karli's threat was empty and just a move to lure Sam in honestly, so I think they'll be alright. The boat is in more jeopardy than Sarah and her boys.

 

Spoiler

Given that all the serums seem to be based on Erskine’s formula, I’d say yes. Blonsky was up in a few days after having every bone in his body shattered by the Hulk. Cap got shot several times in “Winter Soldier” and was largely okay by the end of the fight. And Morgenthau seemed alright as well.