Ms. Marvel (Disney+)

[Khaldun]

They're kind of right on the edge of being like a bad guy gang in Power Rangers or something, which I think is just fine, actually. It's really important tonally that this show remain largely optimistic, fun, etc.

I appreciate that the show is following the comic in terms of making a place like Karachi be completely unlike the standard way it would appear in most American programming. I was saying during the last episode that if this was a standard thriller or even superhero show set in Karachi, the first thing you'd have seen was some beggars and crowds of people surrounding the protagonists, a sense of chaos and menace everywhere, some generic "middle eastern" merchants straight out of central casting.  (Honestly, kind of like Moon Knight even) It's not that this is some unreal "woke" Karachi--it's a recognizable, grounded portrayal (and they're not shying away from confirming that Kamala's Pakistani family is fairly well-off)--but it just shows what a difference it makes when you shift away from the standard cliches.

[Velorath]

I even appreciate for a pop culture entertainment show like this just how rare it is to get into stuff like the partition. I mean, it's not a deep dive into the history but it's likely the first time a very large portion of the audience has even heard about it.

[schild]

The cultural stuff has thus far been the best part of the show beyond the familial tropes which are as painful here as anywhere else.

[Khaldun]

Dr. Who did one partition-themed episode for British audiences who are kind of familiar with it and you could feel even then how much they felt they had to explain. This is really smooth by comparison, and I really appreciate it. It's just enough information to get it for American viewers without getting into the really messy complications.

[Threash]

They're kind of right on the edge of being like a bad guy gang in Power Rangers or something

We'll have to see next episode if the ones that got stabbed actually died or not, because so far they just guys who are sorta ok at kung fu and can summon fairly useless weapons.

[Velorath]

Ok, not entirely sure the Ms. Marvel reveal makes sense.

[schild]

Ok, not entirely sure the Ms. Marvel reveal makes sense.

oh wow fuckin hated this more than when i guessed it

edit: the stinger was a surprise, I didn't think we'd go from point A to point B but then I remembered Stinger Thing got moved from Point A to Point D

[Velorath]

It just seems overly complicated that in order to move away from making her an Inhuman, they've given her like three other origins instead.

[Khaldun]

It all comes down to what they end up saying about the X-gene or mutation or whatever. If they want to Kree it up, they could go with "the Kree put the X-gene in humanity a long time ago and it's Kree technology that activates it" or some such thing. But the bangle seems to me to be a Nega-Band? That's what Captain Marvel used to wear and if he clanged on them, he'd swap spaces with Rick Jones, with the other person being stuck in the Neutral Zone whenever the switcheroo happened. I can't imagine that they're going to do that on a steady basis with these two characters but it's very likely what kicks The Marvels off as a film.

I liked the series as a whole.

[Surlyboi]

[schild]

sure, why not

[Khaldun]

Kind of feels like the "he's playing that character" is from some of the more unreliable fansites, but who knows, maybe this time they're on to something. If I had to bet, though, I wouldn't be surprised if he's that character in Deadpool 3, considering that the character himself is often pretty fucking campy.

But on the other hand, if you need a scientist who studies mutation as part of the lead in...


The only thing that is kind of bugging me is that the mysterious government cops in this are NOT Damage Control, or they've stolen the name. They feel like something else--maybe connected to the mysterious agency that's putting together the Thunderbolts. Sort of feels like anti-mutant cops/the people who build Sentinels.

[Velorath]

The only thing that is kind of bugging me is that the mysterious government cops in this are NOT Damage Control, or they've stolen the name. They feel like something else--maybe connected to the mysterious agency that's putting together the Thunderbolts. Sort of feels like anti-mutant cops/the people who build Sentinels.

Not sure why they wouldn't be Damage Control. One of them was in No Way Home and identified himself as being from the Department of Damage Control there as well and seemed to be working within the law and all that.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I thought the NWH character seemed more consistent with Damage Control from the comics? These guys seemed to be up to something very different and the boss seemed to want to keep it secret.

[Sky]

Why not both? Clearly the agent in charge was working a personal or outside agency angle, and went off the reservation by the end. That allows a lot of story options to open up, while keeping DC as the existing entity it's been thus far.

I dug the show, it's one of the better Marvel outings lately because they remembered to keep focus on the human elements and the casting was generally decent. The mom should get an award imo, she carried a lot of the show.

Glad we can finally begin getting away from that white elephant of working around That Term™.

[Khaldun]

Kamala's parents are great characters. Really liked them.

[HaemishM]

I thought the whole main cast was pretty strong, especially compared to the one note characters that were the antagonists (the Clan and Damage Control). I still don't necessarily think the mutant thing is full-on "this leads to the X-Men" - at least I hope not.

Though, now that I think about it, in the MCU history, there haven't been that many powered characters, at least not in the years before Avengers. Yet suddenly they've exploded, and then the world has seen Thanos come in and kill half the population. Maybe that's how they've decided to approach the whole "mutants are hated and feared" trope - there's so many powered characters now that the authorities want to control them and normal people are afraid of them, having gone past hero worship.

[eldaec]

I honestly don't see the point of that scene unless it is specifically to tease xmen. Espeicially after the Picard cameo in Strange.

They already had a million ways to do 'the man hates street level heroes' they don't need mutant coding for that.

Personally I think they are far better off keeping mutants in a different universe, but I doubt they will.

[schild]

Personally I think they are far better off keeping mutants in a different universe, but I doubt they will.

this is exactly where I landed

mutants fuckin suck and they're all street level thugs compared to most of the marvel universe. It's just nonsense.

We're never gonna get a great Phoenix or Storm. Let's just move on with our lives.

[Khaldun]

I do feel like they're losing the vibe on the MCU as a specific fictional place. That will take a lot of continuing attention.

If you think about it:

MCU Pre-Avengers: There have been 'gods' but mostly in the distant past and not at all remembered by humanity; considered mythical. After "Love and Thunder" they're way less coherent conceptually but let's leave that aside; prior to that and Moon Knight, the clear line was "gods" were super-advanced aliens who have lines of mystical (?) or some other connection to Earth. In the meantime, there turns out to be quite a lot of interaction between dimensions proximate to Earth and its universe and Earth, with some individuals deriving powerful abilities that are either technological (the Ten Rings) or mystical (the Ancient One and their allies) but generally remaining unknown to most people.

MCU -10 to Avengers: One of the 'gods' (specifically, Odin of Asgard) left an Infinity Gem on Earth, whether by accident or on purpose. In the meantime, the Super-Soldier Formula is created by a human scientist, who uses it on two people (the Red Skull and Captain America). The Red Skull finds the Infinity Gem, aka, the Tesseract, and uses it to create a separate division of the Nazi forces that is aiming towards a separate conquest of the Allies. Captain America and his allies foil this plan. The Tesseract is temporarily lost, but so is Captain America, the first superhuman known to the general population of Earth. Captain Marvel becomes Captain Marvel.

MCU -5 to Avengers: SHIELD (secretly containing HYDRA) is operating, and has the Tesseract. The original Ant-Man and Wasp are working as agents for SHIELD. The Black Widows and Red Guardian programs are created. Peter Quill is taken off Earth. (Well, a bit earlier than -5, I guess).

MCU -1 to Avengers: A bad experiment creates the Hulk. Tony Stark creates the first version of the Iron Man armor.  Hawkeye is an active agent for SHIELD and has a bad operation with Black Widow. (Maybe? Matt Murdock loses his eyesight in an accident and learns to adapt.) Thor comes to Earth and learns a lesson about himself, losing his brother in the process.

MCU Avengers

--------

Up to this point, all superpowers are: the result of experiments gone bad, either with Asgardian technology or other 'god' technology or the Infinity Gems, or the result of mystical power, whatever that is. All the 'gone bad' experiments except the Super-Soldier Formula are traceable to aliens in some way.

The first people with "intrinsic powers' except Captain America start to appear after this point. Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver. All of which have something to do with experiments/interventions/mysterious energies.

We still haven't really seen anyone who just wakes up one day and is just superpowered with no explanation besides "there's a gene inside of me": everybody, including Kamala, has had some kind of 'external activation'. I think? Unless I'm forgetting someone. But they are wandering further and further from "if someone has powers, they're an alien or they were caused by an alien". I suppose that could be a reason why people start freaking the fuck out--the people who seem just 'natural' are understood to actually be 'some scary alien plot to change our species'.

[schild]

Eh. Wasn't Comic Scarlet given her powers by some lovecraft bullshit elder god stuff and the MCU variant was high evolutionary experimentation (baby level super soldier bullshit with unknown outcomes) (quicksilver this way in the mcu as well)?

Also, Spider-man's powers are never intrinsic.

there are no mutants in the mcu

[Khaldun]

Well, now. Maybe.

Comic Scarlet was a mutant until Marvel decided they need to fuck Fox up the ass as much as possible by kicking the X-Men into some sort of continuity rathole and un-mutanting any character they might want to use in their newly valuable IP, so at that point suddenly they did the whole "you're not a mutant, Magneto's not your dad, you're some High Evolutionary experiment" thing. I haven't followed the Hickman X-Man stuff into its current storylines, so I don't know if they undid all that and re-mutanted her.

Spider-Man's powers aren't intrinsic in the sense of "he was born this way", but in the MCU at the time of his introduction, they weren't Asgardian tech, they weren't a result of an Infinity Stone, they weren't a Pym particle--they were the only classic "I fell into a vat of radioactive goo" sort of origin that the MCU had up to that point, the classic "some random science thing happened and bam! superpowers inside my body". Still aren't very many of those, whereas the Marvel comics were overflowing with them from the get-go.

[schild]

Yeah, he got bit by a spider. He was already a teen every time.

[Velorath]

I still don't necessarily think the mutant thing is full-on "this leads to the X-Men" - at least I hope not.

The moment Bruno mentions mutation, we get an audio cue of the X-men animated theme similar to what happens in Multiverse of Madness when Xavier shows up.

[Samwise]

I kind of hope they're doing that just to fuck with everyone.   

[schild]

That feels like the mo for all of phase 4 atm so sure.

[Khaldun]

Kind of, yeah. "Maybe something REALLY IMPORTANT happens in this movie? In this series? Like, that's going to pay off later? That you really need to see now? mayyyybe? come on nerds, you want to see it and talk about it and think it's THAT THING or OH MY GOD THAT STORY IS COMING NEXT, oh wow it's MEPHISTO or MASTER PANDAMONIUM or THE NEXUS OF ALL REALITIES. Or HERE COMES KANG, he's the new BIG BAD. haha just fucking with you, not really."

[Typhon]

I feel like Avengers: Civil War (? i think? + another, later show, I think WandaVision?) makes it clear that Scarlet Witch had some special mojo prior to being experimented on by Hydra (which brought the power out).  Seemed like the mind stone kicked her destined-to-be witchcraft into a higher gear... which doesn't explain Quicksliver at all.  Why would the Mindstone give someone super speed?  Latent mutant gene?  (aside on MCU infinity stones - at least the mind stone seemed to have a consciousness, and actively tried to fuck stuff up.  I'm unclear on whether this is something unique to the MCU or are all the Infinity Stones malicious?)

Simplest explanation if they want to add mutants into the MCU would be; the "unsnap" has altered some of those that were snapped and now mutants are starting to be expressed.  Although I agree that it would be much smarter would be to have mutants exist only in different alternate realities - after this phase (maybe not next) they could simply do a total mutant reboot in that alternate earth (with mutants).  I think Feige's long term plan is the same as the comics; with the multiverse we can tell whatever stories we want.  

I also think that plan is maybe not great, I think the bigger audience is going to be asking, "if it's not happening in the MCU, why would I care".  Viewership numbers/reception for the "What if" and Dr Strange MoM should be telling them whether audiences are onboard for that.  I know I'm not super thrilled.  I was wondering for awhile whether the Scarlet Witch we were watching in DS:MoM "our" Scarlet Witch, or another universe's (evil) Scarlet Witch.

[Khaldun]

The other possibility is that they're heading for the Hickman version of Secret Wars. They did introduce the idea of incursions in MoM, after all, and that's where that goes eventually. Which would potentially mean that Phase 5 is a reboot with mutants added from the beginning and a recasting of various characters. I don't think that is where they're going, though.

[MahrinSkel]

(aside on MCU infinity stones - at least the mind stone seemed to have a consciousness, and actively tried to fuck stuff up.  I'm unclear on whether this is something unique to the MCU or are all the Infinity Stones malicious?)

I mean, the Tesseract shredded Red Skull and sent him to be the gatekeeper for the Soul Stone, the Soul Stone demands the sacrifice of someone you love, the Mind Stone mind rapes anyone it touches by default, the Power Stone literally blows up you and the chunk of planet you're standing on if you touch it, the Reality Stone just slowly poisons you. The only one without obvious malevolent effects is the Time Stone, and it probably wouldn't even be safe for wizards without the Eye of Agamoto containing it.

The Stones are infinite power, each in their own way. Never going to be safe to be around one of the reactors that drive the universe.

--Dave

[Velorath]

The other possibility is that they're heading for the Hickman version of Secret Wars. They did introduce the idea of incursions in MoM, after all, and that's where that goes eventually. Which would potentially mean that Phase 5 is a reboot with mutants added from the beginning and a recasting of various characters. I don't think that is where they're going, though.

If they were going to go that route they wouldn't be bringing up mutation here in Ms. Marvel.

Seems like there could be any number of factors that are causing the X-gene to start occurring or activating now. Most likely the Snap, which then generated enough energy to start the birthing of the Celestial in the Earth, and then said Celestial being made inert partway through the birthing followed by a visit from good ol' uncle Arishem, plus some dimensional breaches and timeline fuckery.

The only problem with establishing Mutants as a new thing is that unless they try to say there were already a handful of mutants out there already like Xavier and Magneto,  you have to somewhat drastically alter the X-men although that could ultimately be ok.

[HaemishM]

Based on how everyone that touches the X-Men movie properties eventually takes a decent movie and turns it into shit sequels, something new would probably be the best way to go.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I think it's time to do something new.

You could always have Xavier and Magneto out there already engaged in a completely secret war with each other--go with the "X" theme here of secrecy, mystery, etc.--and maybe they have some mutant allies already who dress in regular clothes and never ever show their powers in public, ever. It took centuries for Wakanda to go public, after all. Maybe you keep them secret, as secret as possible, and they get glimpsed around the edges by other metahumans and the public and everybody's afraid of them for that reason. Maybe they get blamed for the Celestial sticking his head up in the middle of the ocean and there's a rumor that they were working for Thanos, etc. I dunno, some modest remixing of how they mesh with the rest of a superhero universe that keeps them apart.