Amph Avengers: Doomsday (and Secret Wars)

My wife and I finally saw it yesterday after somehow remaining mostly spoiler free, which wasn't easy as almost every site I frequented had stuff talking about the movie every day it seemed.

I have seen all the marvel movies except for Captain Marvel and Spiderman Homecoming I think, and I'm glad I did with all the references to previous films that Endgame made.

Overall I liked the film a lot and felt it was a good ending to many characters. The long runtime was a bit more noticeable this time than Infinity War since there wasn't as much action in Endgame, and it was mostly all at the end of the movie.

I'm generally not a big fan of time travel in movies/tv shows as I feel like it raises more questions than answers usually, but I tried not to dwell on it too much and just enjoy the ride.

Also as bad as it must have been for the world to deal with half the population being gone for 5 long years, I think having everyone come back would almost make things worse. Think of all the houses and buildings that were left to rot that no one will be able to use now. Not to mention that the food supply has been working for 5 years with less people around, now suddenly you have to feed twice as many again.

 

Its true theirs always been variety of tone in the MCU but I think you could argue theres been a bit of a baseline within that variety over time.

I think you could argue the first Ironman's success and the first Hulk's relative lack of success ment that the former provided that tone for the following Marvel films, generally quite serious takes on the source material without getting "grimdark" and with some in character jokes. Then Whedon's success with the first Avengers IMHO generally pushed towards more in the way of larger than life comedy/drama, obviously quite a lot of varity after that including the Russo's attempts top ground the franchise more and undermine basic heroic stories but a lot of what followed was broadly similar.

You could argue I spose the Russo's own Avengers films did include more in the way of comedy but I think they also retained their more down to earth realistic dramatic style as well and have taken over as Marvel's greatest success so I wonder whether they might have an influence going forward.

As far as the gender makeup of a team goes I still think pushing an "all female" team would be a bit of a gimmick relative to just pushing female characters more strongly. I actually wonder whether the next "team" film could be more of a cosmic one with Thor and Captain Marvel teaming with the Guardians and in that situation you obviously have three female characters. I'd say Gamora and Nebula are now the most dramatically interesting of that group as well and Carol open to introducing some dramatic motivation. Having a mixed team in which the female characters are central dramatically would be less gimmicky and arguably more impactful.

 

Ed Brubaker wrote Sam, Natasha, Sharon, and Bucky as Steve Rogers’ support cast so Sam and Natasha probably did interact to an extent (Sharon was the more frequent player in his run, as Natasha was paired with Bucky romantically and historically). I don’t remember about Sam and Nat though. And that’s just Brubaker’s run. I stopped reading once the comic hit $3.99 so they could have teamed up in other stories since then.

Hopefully someone can clarify.

 

Again though I do think you can point to certain very successful films for Marvel as signposts to what the "baseline" would be in the years afterwards, the first Ironman and the first Avengers most obviously for me. The Russo's were arguably the odd ones out in terms of tone with their cap films but now IW/EG have been so successful I could see that setting a new baseline in which we see drama handled in a more down to earth fashion.

I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel look to play on the aftermath of those films for the next 2-3 years and again I think playing the drama a bit straighter is probably well suited to that.

 

So, would it be fair to say that Wanda (Scarlet Witch) is probably the most powerful of the MCU Avengers?

She was able to hold off an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Thanos while destroying the Mind Stone at the same time. If not for Thanos having the Time Stone...

Then she was kicking his behind before he ordered his ship to open fire.

 

Among those considered members of the team going into Infinity War that ended up surviving, probably.

But at the end of the day how powerful a character is in any particular situation is dictated by the needs of the story, within a measure of reason.

 

Bruce/Hulk gets greeted by the Quinjet as "strongest avenger" in Thor: Ragnarok, so ...

 

Well when he commandeered the jet there were only six Avengers.

 

and yet no one else has ever been greeted by anyone or anything - neither man nor machine nor rabbit - as "Strongest Avenger"

 

I think we'll come to a universal agreement of who's the best Jedi before we all agree who's the strongest Avenger.

 

I think Hulk is obviously the strongest Avenger but that doesn't mean he's the most powerful. There are things to consider other than just brute strength. Captain Marvel is probably the all around most powerful.

 

i think Stan Lee said Thor was stronger than Hulk but it depended who was writing. That's true as a lot of the outcomes of matchups we see in comics or movies don't make sense from one time to the next.

 

Superman is stronger than both of them

 

depending on the rewrite of his powers and origin they do every 5 years

 

Baby arms!

 

I don't know what you mean. Superman hasn't had any comics since 2010

 

How come they're not all eating Shawarma burgers?

 

Because Shwarma ties to Avengers, but Cheeseburgers ties directly to Endgame, so it makes much more sense to have it be about something from this movie and not a movie that was 16 moves ago?

 

Haven't read most of the comics, but didn't we just see Thor knock out Hulk in the gladiator ring back in Thor: Ragnarok?

 

I have thought a lot about this also. The utter chaos on so many levels would actually spell doom for the world. Family structures, government structures (imagine a world leader who got snapped and now comes back to not being the leader anymore), food and just about anything that humans provide for each other now have to be duplicated. You can make a movie just out of this, and it would be in the horror genre IMHO.

 

To be fair, it's entirely possible that Spider-Man: Far From Home is just a treatise on the existential dread of being snapped out of existence and then being snapped back 5 years later. I mean, it probably isn't but I would expect a least some references to it. Although it'll be handled the way comics generally handle the city-wide and global destruction: off screen and maybe with passing mention. I mean, it took until Spider-Man: Homecoming for someone to actually bring up Damage Control who are the guys who clean up everything all the time.

It is the right moral choice to bring everyone back, though. Thanos murdered untold numbers across the galaxy. Also in an interview Kevin Fiege said that since it was Smart Hulk he made sure people came back in safe place and not, like, falling out of the sky or something. I hope that means Galaga Guy undusted right in front of a Galaga Machine. Tony says that they have to get back what they lost and keep what they found which is a good way to sum it up but I think Rocket's speech to Thor really nails the why (also Bradley Cooper's vocal performance as Rocket is probably one of my favourite things Cooper has ever done):

"Come here. Right here. You think you're the only one who lost people? What do you think we're doing here? I lost the only family I ever had. Quill, Groot, Drax, the chick with the antenna, all gone. Now, I get you miss your Mom. But she's gone. Really gone. And there are plenty of people who are only kinda gone. But you can help them. So is it too much to ask that you brush the crumbs outta your beard, make schmoopy talk to Pretty Pants, and when she's not looking, suck out the Infinity Stone and help me get my family back?"