The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown: The Future of Superhero Movies

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So I'm about halfway through Jessica Jones season 2 and it's become even more of a chore to get through than the first season. It's not as drop-dead stupid (on her part) as season 1 but her supporting cast are all progressively stupider than they ever were before. I seriously don't get it. They avoid making some of the mistakes from the first season and just make new ones. The plot isn't intriguing, the new characters are flat, the payoff they seem to be going for is anything but high stakes, and the one interesting twist they went with is being dealt with very poorly and amateurishly in terms of writing. I just don't get how it can be this hard to make an interesting story revolving around her. First they overdid it, and now they're underdoing it. Just adapt the comics as they were and it'll be a fantastic story, just sub in MCU things for anything that breaks continuity like her having a relationship with Scott Lang.

[mia h]

This sounds really interesting, especially if Batwoman is the one showing up and not Batman. Must be out of town or some other convenient reason, if he doesn't appear at all. (Which I wouldn't think they'd do.) However Batwoman showing up shows promise, she doesn't get enough love.

She's supposed to be in the crossover, so BW gets 4 episodes in one week and then who knows what they do with the character after that. It some ways it's good that they've followed up on the Bruce Wayne name drop from the start of this season.

[wander]

They usually do this to see if there's any want for a series, so if the audience reacts well and ratings are decent enough for the execs with her eps, may get a more Gotham-centric series into the Arrowverse which'll at least follow her.

[Deamonbane]

Doesn't Oliver mention Bruce Wayne at some point? Like actually talk about him?

[Mathim]

Okay, saw Deadpool 2 today.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Liked it a lot. Not as good as the first in quite a number of ways. Better villains, to be sure, but not much else. The childish back-and-forth between Wade and Domino about luck being/not being a superpower went on longer than it had any reason to. But she definitely became the favorite newcomer, even over Cable. I feel like they needed to do more with his backstory and time travel and whatnot (introducing Forge wouldn't have been a bad idea, for someone capable of inventing a technological version of Kitty Pryde's ability to send people, or their consciousness, back in time). But I guess if they did that they couldn't have had Negasonic Teenage Warhead (how the fuck does she know how to repair futuristic time travel technology?!!!!!!) fix the thing in the end so we could get those scenes where Wade fucks with the past in hilarious ways.

Loved seeing Juggernaut done properly. Tearing DP in half was fantastic; baby legs was probably overall the funniest part, although I didn't have time to stop laughing after Bedlam got hit by the bus while parachuting to appreciate every other member of the team being picked off one by one by misfortune during their parachute disasters. But they did a few too many sarcastically anti-racist jokes in the rest of the film. It was nice seeing Colossus' evolution into a dirty-fighting, swearing badass. Can't wait to see what part 3 has in store for their fucked-up family. Hopefully they'll be the ones to traverse the Mojoverse where Shatterstar was from. I get a feeling Wade being on alternate dimension TV will really open up new doors for breaking the fourth wall. And calling Peter 'Sugar Bear', LOL. Glad he took the time to rescue him from the horrible fate he would have undergone getting barfed on by Zeitgeist.

I knew I'd seen that kid before, in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, another of Taika Waititi's (Thor: Ragnarok director) films. I thought he'd lost some weight but I guess not, or he fluctuates like Jonah Hill or something maybe. He was good though, perfect confused kid trying to figure his shit out in a terrible situation. I hope his career continues on its upward trajectory.

[Mathim]

Anybody see this before? Hilarious and awesome. I'm not sure if they were just edited images or if they found opposite-sex doppelgangers in real life to do it but WOW.

https://www.boredpanda.com/marvel-men-actors-women-faceapp-gender/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook

[RosalindRae]

Anybody see this before? Hilarious and awesome. I'm not sure if they were just edited images or if they found opposite-sex doppelgangers in real life to do it but WOW.

https://www.boredpanda.com/marvel-men-actors-women-faceapp-gender/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook

Mind blown.
1) Loki . . . that just need to happen on-screen regardless. Nothing feels more natural . . . as much as anything about Loki feels natural.
2) Gender-swapped Josh Borlin is somehow far more intimidating than male Josh Brolin.
3) How the FUCK did they make me physically attracted to Dave Bautista?

[Mathim]

Mind blown.
1) Loki . . . that just need to happen on-screen regardless. Nothing feels more natural . . . as much as anything about Loki feels natural.
2) Gender-swapped Josh Borlin is somehow far more intimidating than male Josh Brolin.
3) How the FUCK did they make me physically attracted to Dave Bautista?

I think the laziest done ones were Paul Rudd's and Chadwick Boseman's. But some of those were baffling enough that I thought they might have legitimately been real-life doppelgangers. Although Tom Holland's was hard to tell apart since he's still so young.

[wander]

The Hiddleston, Chris Evans and Bautista ladies were by far the top three for me.

Interesting article. Some worked better than others for sure, though a good read nonetheless.

[mia h]

DC do like keeping things in the family, The Death of Superman has John Henry Irons (Steel) voiced by Cress Williams (Black Lightning)

[wander]

I'm fairly psyched more for the Reign of the Supermen film that's gonna follow it.

And here's a partially related video as to why I'm psyched for it.  ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PlwDbSYicM

[mia h]

I'm fairly psyched more for the Reign of the Supermen film that's gonna follow it.

And here's a partially related video as to why I'm psyched for it.  ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PlwDbSYicM

I think the guy is off on a few points, firstly no mention on Mongul. Secondly DC were doing the "same" story with both Superman & Batman at the time, deconstructing both into their most well known nicknames; The World's Greatest Detective (Bruce Wayne) & The Dark Knight (Azrael); The Metropolis Marvel Kid (Conner Kent) & The Man of Steel (John Henry Irons) & The Last Son of Krypton (The Eradicator) & The Man of Tomorrow (Hank Henshaw)

[wander]

It's just a bit of fun though, clearly Landis was having fun with his friends making it.  :-)

[mia h]

Looks like Titans is getting a spin off show before the first episode has aired. Doom Patrol has done a casting call so looks like it's got the green light already.

[wander]

I'm kinda worried from what I've seen of the Titans show. Doom Patrol if done right could be an amazing series though.

[Mathim]

Just about done with Luke Cage season 2 and overall I'd say it's hard to determine whether it's better or not than the first season. It's still really great, got some serious dark action going on and the characters really evolve, like you wouldn't believe. But they did make it clear a little too early on just what the 'bad guy' was after, so in that sense things were a tad linear as far as that went, but there was just SO much else going on around it, it felt like that mitigated the lackluster of that.

So, now for specifics:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Misty's arm, while generic-looking (one can tell pretty easily it's just a glove with stuff glued to it), is cool and makes her stronger than it should since it's not even connected to her trunk like Bucky's is. Just wish it had some special features like growing claws or spikes or something, but nothing too special like that.

Bushmaster's power coming from 'nightshade', whatever they're supposed to mean by that, doesn't quite make sense. It's not Heart-Shaped Herb and there's very little mysticism involved so if they went a little heavier (or a lot) into voodoo or other lore, that would have at least been a little less demanding on suspension of disbelief.

That said, I loved the Bushmaster character. He's charismatic, a good actor, fantastic tragic backstory, he ain't half bad in a fight, he's got style, probably one of the more interesting villains in the TV stuff. I dig the Jamaican accents a lot of new characters are sporting, I hear it so seldom that it's refreshingly pleasing to the ear.

Really on the fence about the fate of Mariah Dillard. She got put in the pen while awaiting trial but honestly I'm leaning more toward I wish Luke had just watched her get killed by any of the many things that would have done the job without him having to get it done himself. Fortunately she died by a very appropriate pair of hands, right at the end, only now it seems like her seed of evil is indeed genetic and will continue, and probably turn out worse.

[CuriousEyes]

Might have missed it - has anyone been watching Cloak & Dagger?

[mia h]

It supposed to be getting decent ratings. I watched the first episode and it didn't hold my interest.

[CaptainNexus616]

Word is Marvel's Silk is in early development for a possible movie adaptation.

As someone who read her comic series, this would make me very happy to see but confused how it would work.

In the comics she got bit by the same spider that turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man, but was locked up in a bunker by herself for roughly ten years while Spider-Man was out being a hero. When she emerged her family was missing and set out to find them with the aid of her powers. All the while trying to reintegrate herself into society.

So I'm curious to see how this will be tackled if it will be connected to a Post Infinity War MCU. They may just shorten the time span of her isolation if anything.

[Mathim]

Might have missed it - has anyone been watching Cloak & Dagger?

That's finally out? Took freakin' long enough. I almost thought it was going the way of Marvel's Most Wanted with the amount of time between its announcement and release.

Word is Marvel's Silk is in early development for a possible movie adaptation.

As someone who read her comic series, this would make me very happy to see but confused how it would work.

In the comics she got bit by the same spider that turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man, but was locked up in a bunker by herself for roughly ten years while Spider-Man was out being a hero. When she emerged her family was missing and set out to find them with the aid of her powers. All the while trying to reintegrate herself into society.

So I'm curious to see how this will be tackled if it will be connected to a Post Infinity War MCU. They may just shorten the time span of her isolation if anything.

With all the heroes who haven't had an adaptation or haven't had a GOOD adaptation yet, I'm not sure if that character would be a good one to go with even if Spider-Man and all its tangentially linked characters are the most profitable merchandising franchise. Me, I'd go with Squirrel Girl getting a solo movie first. Anna Kendrick for Squirrel Girl!

[wander]

Squirrel Girl is due to appear in the New Warriors series.

[Life in Color]

Might have missed it - has anyone been watching Cloak & Dagger?

Omfg.

It is so good. Even with the changes here and there. Sogood.

I need them to be done with the Season so I can get the soundtrack. *makes grabby hands*

[Mathim]

Squirrel Girl is due to appear in the New Warriors series.

Well, while I am in favor of anything that will get Keith David involved with the MCU, I fear that like the Inhumans, this being a mere television project will not do them justice, especially SG.

[mia h]

Finally got round to watching Luke Cage season 2. Something I noticed in the last episode; when Luke meets the Italian crime boss, I swear that's the same apartment they used in season 2 of Mr Robot as the FSociety hide out.

[Mathim]

I wish my work schedule hadn't changed, now I have to wait til the end of this week to see Ant-Man and the Wasp. Getting pretty good critic scores, too.