#marvel is good for their anti-heros and Spider-Man and that’s it

[peppermintspider]

I’m a DC bitch and I don’t mind admitting that

[age-of-moonknight]

Night Moves. Marvel Superheroes: Official Game Adventure (Vol. 1/1990), pg. 19.

Designer: Anthony Herring; Editor: Karen S. Boomgarden; Illustrator: John Statema

[superman86to99]

Action Comics #702 (August 1994)

Bloodsport (not the black one, the anti-black one) returns, which means this is gonna be another distressingly violent issue, but hey, at least we get to see Superman hit a Nazi! Right off the bat, we start with Bloodsport mowing down a nice black family because he wants to, as he puts it, "Keep Metropolis Clean." After the "Fall of Metropolis" storyline, the place is pretty messy, so I guess what he actually wants to do is Make It Clean Again, but I digress.

Meanwhile, Ron Troupe, who helped get rid of Bloodsport the last time he popped up, is working on an article in Lois Lane's borrowed laptop, which is apparently the only working computer in Metropolis right now. When they hear about Bloodsport shooting people up on a bridge, Lois and Ron rush there and arrive right in time to watch Superman get owned by pink goo. Racist pink goo.

(New writer David Michelinie sure loves covering guys in goo, huh?)

Bloodsport recognizes Ron (so he can tell black people apart), who once again has a chance to shoot him but can't bring himself to do it. Bloodsport is like "thanks, now I'll kill you anyway" and shoots at Ron but ends up killing a police officer instead. She looked Latina, though, so I guess that's still a win for him.

By the time Superman has freed himself from The Nazi Goo™, Bloodsport has left for "the largest African-American neighborhood in Metropolis," and not precisely to experience the rich culture and cuisine. Once Superman gets there, Bloodsport teleports a bunch of automated guns all around him, which don't look terribly intimidating to someone with bulletproof skin... until Bloodsport points them outwards, targeting random people in the neighborhood to keep Supes distracted while he goes off to do more hate crimes. I regret to inform you that this makes this racist asshole smarter than 90% of criminals Superman has fought.

While Superman deals with that, Ron, feeling guilty because that cop lady died due to his inability shoot guns, decides to fight Bloodsport through something he's actually good at: journalism. And also by logging into Lois' notebook without permission, but I'm pretty sure she'd understand (you'd think she would have gotten stronger passwords after Lex Luthor hacked her, though). Ron uses his own reporting and the dirt Lois recently dug up on Luthor to find out that all those guns Bloodsport can teleport on demand are currently being stored at the LexCorp tower. Luckily, it's much easier to sneak in there since half the place got blown to shit.

The next time Bloodsport tries to teleport a gun to his hand, he gets something else: a handful of molten metal, courtesy of Ron. Turns out Ron can't pull a trigger, but he's perfectly capable of pulling the pin on a grenade.

Without his teleporting guns, Bloodsport is just a regular bigot in a silly costume. Superman doesn't even deign himself to punch this worthless scum with his whole hand, since a finger will do.

Later, Clark compliments Ron on his bravery, but Ron says the real hero is everyone who goes through their day not being a racist asshole. Pretty low bar, Ron, but a nice sentiment.

NEXT: Zero Hour! Finally!

Creator-Watch:

As mentioned, this is the first issue written by Roger Stern's replacement, David Michelinie, fresh off his long run in Spider-Man comics where, among other things, he co-created Venom, the character who still keeps him infrequently employed at Marvel. This is a bit more violent and darker than I like my Superman comics to be (not surprising from the guy who introduced Iron Man's alcoholism and killed Aquaman's Aquababy) -- I'm not sure I like Clark smiling at the end when so many people died in the issue, including a little girl. At least he didn't wink this time!

But, other than that, I think this is a solid done-in-one story and I appreciate having Ron actually contribute to the plot in a meaningful way. Michelinie clearly did his homework in regards to the continuity and seems to have a good handle on the characters, particularly Lois and Clark. Their interaction in this issue is kinda hokey, but come on, it's Lois and Clark. They're allowed to be hokey.

However, I do remember having one serious complaint about Michelinie's run the first time I read it: an almost complete lack of Bibbo, which is unforgivable. We'll see how accurate that impression is.

Plotline-Watch:

Bloodsport says he survived the explosion in his last appearance because the circuitry in his weapon teleporter got "jangled" and teleported him away. Wait, so he suffered a teleporter malfunction in a comic and didn't become fused with his guns or something? Missed opportunity, if you ask me. At the very least he could have gained the ability to teleport at will, like a racist Nightcrawler. Maybe he could have inexplicably gained a German accent too.

Jimmy Olsen, who's apparently been looking for Lucy Lane since he ditched her with some wannabe rocker girls during the Massacre storyline (that had to be days ago, right?), finally finds her with those same girls, but it's okay because they're friends now. Lucy tells tells Jimmy that the Riot Grrrls invited her to that charity concert for rebuilding Metropolis we've been hearing about lately, the mere mention of which seems to offend Jimmy. Don Sparrow says: "I want to believe Jimmy’s 'whatchoo talkin' bout Willis' expression is due to his shared (with me) hatred of Jeb Friedman, the concern organizer." That, or he remembered that the concert headliner, his old friend Babe, owes him $5.

I've been reading several DC comics published in August 1994 and this is one of the few that didn't include any teasers for Zero Hour whatsoever (stuff like the future city in Green Lantern #54 or the dinosaurs in the latest issues of Guy Gardner: Warrior). At the time, some might have thought that having a full-on Nazi running around in the present could count as an anachronism but, uh, I think we've established by now that that's sadly not the case...

Plug-Watch:

On the subject of Superman punching Nazis, I fully recommend our old pal Patrick Ryall's "Superman vs. Bigots" column at The Avocado, where he goes over instances of Superman Family characters facing bigots across the ages, from the time Supes arrested Hitler in the '40s to the "Perry White vs. the Ku Klux Klan" issue from this era (which we haven't covered yet, so spoilers). Good stuff!

Now a self-plug: as mentioned in our post for the time-displaced Action #642, I've been putting together a sort of Superman '86 to '99 reading guide at my fav'rit current social media site (sorry, BlueSky), League of Comic Geeks, where I'm writing a short blurb about every issue from this era mentioning what's special, noteworthy, or weird/funny about it. At first I was just copying a paragraph or two from our old posts and throwing in a "read more" link, hoping to drive more readers to the newsletter, but I've started rewriting them to be more like something you'd see in an episode guide or a book about the '86-'99 period... which is an intriguing idea. Anyway, here's that reading guide link again, because this paragraph doesn't have enough clickable words in it already: https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/mrmxy/lists/58097/superman-86-to-99-checklist-wip

Shouts Outs-Watch:

Nazi-punching shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles; we've got some cartoon-related ones lined up) via Patreon or our newsletter's "pay what you want" mode!

To see more of Don's take on this issue, including his thoughts on Jimmy's physique, keep reading!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it keeps the tradition of other Bloodsport covers where Bloodsport is firing a ridiculously high-calibre weapon.  I know the cover text (which generally I dislike) is ironic in this context, but it still bugs me slightly—Bloodsport’s views are so poisonous, even as a villain I hate seeing them represented. But buckle up, because there’s a whoooooole lot of that in this issue.

Lucky for me I’m mostly here to focus on the art, and it’s good throughout, as upsetting and violent as some of the visuals are.  The doomed, completely innocent family who are mowed down by gunfire on page 3 are very well drawn—and coloured—I love rim-lighting, and it’s rarely rendered in orange.

An odd thing happens on page 5, which you sometimes see—artists get so used to drawing everyone with superheroic proportions that even civilians get He-Man action figure physiques—this happens with Jimmy Olsen in that first panel (yes, another Superman song reference on a Jimmy Olsen t-shirt, this time it’s Crash Test Dummies being given a shout-out) looking pretty ‘roided out complete with obliques visible through his shirt.  Not to say that I don’t think Jimmy’s in good shape, but typically he’s a bit more average in build, or so it seems in this suggestive pin-up by Jerry Ordway in 1988…

[Max: You have no idea the amount of research Don did to find that pin-up, which both of us remembered but couldn't place (it turned out to be in the incredible Modern Masters: Jerry Ordway book by TwoMorrows), but it was 100% worth the effort.]

Moving on, the upside down takeoff on page 13 is well done.  Jackson Guice’s Superman always seems to have slightly longer hair than how the other artists draw him, but it’s a consistent thing, so I can’t complain too much.  There’s an unfortunately Michael Jackson-looking Superman grimace on page 18 (shamone), but by the end of the story, Superman’s extremely ticked face is a great panel.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

The Daily Planet offices are, apparently, very near Boring Plaza, named after longtime Superman great, Wayne Boring.

GODWATCH: Dig the beat cop, Marcy, characterizing Superman as an answer to prayer on page 8.  As things go wrong in other places in the book, both Ron Troupe and Superman invoke the almighty in frustration or despair.  Lastly, as Clark and Ron bond in their agreement that racism is gross and wrong, and share an amen.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bloodsport does not support the then-current Democratic President, Bill Clinton. 

Same as the last time this Alexander Trent version of Bloodsport popped up, I find this an extremely troubling issue.  I get that Bloodsport is a villain, and a dastardly one at that. But even so, I hate some of the words and views he’s sharing—words I don’t even want to type to repeat here—appearing in a Superman comic at all.  With characters this heinous, we almost need an editorial box disclaiming Trent’s statements, as they go unchallenged in the narrative as the character monologues to himself.  Similar to the last issue with Bloodsport, there’s an awful lot of carnage and innocent death for a comics code book, and it’s something I think the better Superman stories steer away from.  It’s hard not to be bothered by the juxtaposition of a black family being gunned down discriminately against Lois and Clark comfortably flirting.

Kudos to Ron for figuring out where Bloodsport’s weapons cache was, but, like in the last appearance of this Bloodsport, I can’t help but wonder why Superman doesn’t try to ionize the air around Bloodsport using his heat vision, since it was so effective the first time he faced this kind of teleporter tactic.  A single line of dialogue could have hand-waved it away, but it seems like a missed opportunity. [Max: True. I would have even taken a "Drat, can't do that since I already did it in another issue! Gotta mix it up!"]

Some small irony that it was a clone war that reduced Metropolis to rubble in this issue, in the first issue from new Action Comics writer David Michelinie, who slinked away after kicking off the wildly controversial Clone Saga over in Spider-Man before joining DC Comics.

Any serviceman’s death in the line of duty is a tragedy, but this Carroll O’Connor looking sergeant must have been pretty close to his pension as it was, no? [Max: I think Bloodsport spared him, though... probably because he loves Archie Bunker so much.]

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

[brotoman-exe]

Some costumes I'd like to see in Marvel Rivals

This isn't covering everyone just a few ideas I'd like to see

Venom: Ultimate

Venom is actually a character that I'm already happy with his base skin, Anti Venom alt color, and Space Knight option. But I think the Ultimate skin would be fun especially if you actually somehow textured it like the Ultimate Spider-Man game.

Storm: Hellfire Gala

Honestly Hellfire Gala seems like an even Rivals could do and just go all out giving everyone some Gala fits but for Storm I'd like it a lot just for that hair alone.

Squirrel Girl: US Avengers

US Avengers that could barely get off its feet before getting forced into event tie in hell then being taken out behind the shed and executed. Which is a shame cause it had fun art and designs, with me finding the Squirrel Girl one pretty cute. Also just like goggles.

Loki: Lady Loki

Think that a lot of people would find it fun to have a character you could gender switch on a whim with the costume system. Plus something unique this game could have.

Captain America: Classic

Honestly there is plenty of characters that would be cool to see with more classic outfits but Cap is one I definitely want to have that. Cause I've never really been big on the more power armor style outfits for cap and would like to have the classic shield as well.

Groot: Tales to Astonish

Speaking of classics this old school monster book throwback be a fun option to have in the game. Though it is legally required that all characters record a voice line saying "I defy you Groot!" That only plays if defeating a player with this skin.

Punisher: Angelic Frank

Both the look and the book it's from are terrible but I'd be impressed by the pure audacity if they did this.

Iron Fist: White and Gold

I'd also be down with this costume in green and yellow but either way I appreciate the more simple look and having an option with the full head cover. Can have it be explicitly Danny for this one or not but could be neat if had unique voice lines.

Black Panther: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Getting cartoon rep is always good, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes has some great designs. Also if they add Wasp as a character the EMH look would be great too. Black Panther having a pretty great one that could have some cool design work done on it. But it needs the cape, I like when he has a cape.

Spider-Man: Unlimited

Last one I thought of right now and second cartoon rep is the Unlimited suit. Cause you got to be honest it was a pretty great alternate design for the wall crawler. Just keep the shadows as part of it cause it looks weird when just red and blue.

[s10127470]

My Wolverine and the X-Men Rewrite (Part 1)

I'm sure many of you are familiar of Wolverine and the X-Men, as it was the last major animated series based on Marvel's merry band of mutants before X-Men '97 came out....

And before Marvel entered their infamous "anti-mutant" phase of the 2010s.

(If you don't count the X-Men Anime, which was a mini-series.)

Premiering back in 2009 on the somehow still-existing Nicktoons Network, the series is about the X-Men disbanding after a mysterious explosion results in the destruction of the Institute and the disappearance of Charles Xavier and Jean Grey.

About a year later, the team ended up reuniting for two major reasons.

The MRD (short for the Mutant Response Division), a government-supported organization created for the detainment and subsequent registration of existing mutants, begin capturing mutants from all over the country. Not only that, but they’ve even taken humans as prisoners as well just for helping mutants.

Charles Xavier, who the team find out is actually alive but in a coma resting on Magneto’s island nation of Genosha. Xavier is able telepathically communicate with the team from, in the words of Squidward….

Essentially, the explosion resulted in Xavier’s psyche being flung 20 years into the future. And Xavier himself won’t be awakened from his coma until those 20 years pass. Meanwhile, in the future, Xavier is awake, but finds himself constantly trying to survive as the future he’s in is absolute shit.

Being a loose adaption of Days of Future Past, the future Xavier’s in is one where the Sentinels have conquered the world after a war that broke out between the Master Mold program and Genosha.

In the end, nobody won.

As in this future, humanity has essentially been wiped out and mutants are on the verge of extinction, being placed in concentration camps.

But there is some hope....

Xavier in the future has formed a new X-Men team as it’s revealed that all of the original team are now dead. This new team consists of the likes of Bishop (who’s was one of the many mutants unfortunate enough to be born into this life instead of being a police officer from the distant future), an older Domino (whose present self is an enemy of the X-Men as she’s a member of the Brotherhood), and Marrow (who isn’t a member of the Morlocks).

Since Xavier is able to communicate with his past X-Men, he wants them to ensure that this future never happens.

So now, the reunited X-Men must face on the MRD, stop whatever plans Magneto has up his sleeves this time, and prevent the dark future from happening.

And all with Wolverine being the leader.

Yep! Wolverine is the leader of the X-Men as of right now as Cyclops is not doing so well….at all.

But in addition to those two, the rest of the X-Men consists of Storm, Beast, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Shadowcat, Angel, Forge, and newcomer Emma Frost.

WAXTM is notable things for two things.

It was also shortest-lived of the shows, only lasting 1 season of 26 episodes, which ran through the year of 2009, from January 23rd to November 29th.

This would be the sort-of beginning of an all-new shared animated universe known as the Yostverse, which consisted of the Hulk vs. Films, Thor: Tales of Asgard, and most notably, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The reason I say sort-of beginning because one of the shows that’s supposedly a part of this universe is The Spectacular Spider-Man, which came out almost a year before this show did. But that’s a discussion in itself.

Ever since its cancellation, WAXTM has gained a following and has become one of the many animated shows that got cancelled too soon and has led thousands of fans clamoring for a revival.

And to this day, people consider the show an underrated gem.

But I'm gonna have to come out and say it.....

Wolverine and the X-Men is not exactly a good show....

It's not bad by any means, but does have a lot of flaws.

And while it did do some things right, it wasn't quite to the extent of X-Men Evolution and especially X-Men: The Animated Series.

So today I want to discuss how I would rewrite the show. Keeping what worked about the show and either strengthen or removing what didn't.

And for this rewrite, be prepared to expect changes in characterizations, looks and even voices!

For the first part of this rewrite, we'll be covering the first three episodes of the show, Hindsight: Parts 1, 2 and 3.

And for this version of the show, all 3 of episodes would premiering on the exact same night: January 23rd, 2009.

Essentially, Wolverine and the X-Men's premiere in this AU would be a full-on TV movie!

This would be similar to what Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends did as when they first premiered, they had the first three episodes packed into a TV movie.

And one last thing, I would like to credit synergysilhouette as my main inspiration for this post, as he also shared his own idea on rewrite Wolverine and the X-Men as well.

So with that being said, let's get this party started!

First thing we need to get out of way that this show would not be called "Wolverine and the X-Men".

As that title is undoubtedly emblematic of the show's greatest flaw: the focus on Wolverine.

It's pretty obvious that the original series was riding on the coattails of the X-Men films, which Wolverine was not only the most popular character of, but the essentially the main character (and the only one that really mattered, much to the detriment of basically everyone else.).

Made more obvious with the fact that it premiered just four months before his long anticipated solo film.

Yeah, we all know how well that turned out....

Apparently, when WAXTM was first conceived, it was initially meant to be solo cartoon for Wolverine.

At least in the eyes of the executives...

But to the directors and producers, this was meant to be another X-Men cartoon.

In the end, the two sides essentially came to a compromise: the show would have the X-Men as its main cast, but Wolverine would be the focal character of the show.

Everyone has already said it before, but it does bare repeating.

The X-Men are suppose to be an ensemble. It shouldn't focus on just one character and essentially make everyone else irrelevant.

For this rewrite, the show's name would be changed to "X-Men Destiny", which I feel like fits perfectly with the premise of the series.

Next we come to the tone and style. This was another area where the influence from the films is quite obvious.

Just like the FOX films, Wolverine and the X-Men is notably more serious and gloomy than most other X-Men media, even the comics at some points.

It's somewhat melodramatic and there's rarely ever a sense of levity or humor to lighten things up

I'm admittedly not a fan of this style. I understand the X-Men are a little more serious when compared to other characters of the Marvel universe, but I don't think they need to be this overly serious.

I feel like the core of the X-Men, in spite of the all bullshit they deal with, they still persevere and keep their heads up no matter what.

So for this version of the show, the tone will be a little more light-hearted.

There will actually be humor present and some characters will be the resident comic reliefs.

But don't worry, the show will still take itself seriously when it needs to.

But another area the show would see change in is the art-style.

For this version of the show, the character designs would be done by ZyalahDoodles.

She’s an artist here on Tumblr who has done some redraws and redesigns for WAXTM.

I really like her style. It strikes that balance between being similar to the original art style while still being somewhat different. And if anything, it’s actually an improvement over the original style, especially when look at characters like Quicksilver. 

Like Jesus Christ, he was hideous in the original!

I know he’s suppose to be Magneto’s son, but you didn’t need to make him look as old as him too! 

Like Zyalah’s Quicksilver can actually get it.

If you want to check out more of her art, here’s the link to her page below.

Next we come to the roster.

Overall, it's largely the same as in the original except we would see the addition of one more character.

And that's none other than the steel-skinned gentle giant himself, Colossus!

Not only because he's one of my favorite X-Men, it's also because he's honestly kind of deserves it.

For those who don't know, despite only appearing in the prologue of the first episode, Colossus was weirdly in a lot of promotional material and merchandising for the show.

Apparently he was suppose to return to the X-Men following the explosion, but the producers decided not to do that and just save him for the planned season 2.

I'm guessing that the promotional material and merchandising started production during the early development of the show and before everything got finalized.

And thus, it's why a lot of this stuff still shows Colossus as a main character.

It's similar to what happened with The Simpsons, as during its early years, a lot of merchandising featured Bart famously wearing a blue shirt instead of his trademark red shirt.

But now that we got our roster out of the way, let's talk about the characters.

Specifically, their voices, appearances and ages.

In terms of voices, just about everyone still have their respective VAs in this version....except for two of the X-Men.

Those two being Iceman and Rogue.

Iceman would be voiced by Jason Marsden, replacing Yuri Lowenthal.

But don't worry, Yuri would be still in this version of the show, but as a different character (who we'll get to shortly).

And Rogue would be voiced by Melissa Disney, replacing Kieren van den Blink.

As for appearances, synergysilhouette brought up how a little wonky the builds of the characters were.

Like some of the males had buff upper bodies but surprisingly thin torsos and legs, and the females were pretty paper thin.

Like, we're talking almost VivziePop thin, specifically in the leg area.

The only part of them that wasn't thin were their chests....

Who designed these girls? Greg Land?

So yeah, in this version of the show would fix some of those designs.

Particularly putting a little more meat on the females.

I guess you could say I made them....

But for the builds of the X-Men.

Wolverine has a stocky and muscular build.

Cyclops is lean but athletic.

Emma Frost has an hourglass figure with a more top-heavy build.

Storm also has an hourglass figure, with an all-around build.

Beast...basically looks the same as he does in the original show.

So does Nightcrawler, Angel, Colossus, Iceman, Shadowcat and Forge (expect he'll actually have tanned skin)

And Rogue has a similar build to Storm.

Apart from the builds, the X-Men look largely the same as in the original show.

Though Cyclops and Rogue would definitely be getting a serious hairdo.

Since let's be real, their haircuts were pretty awful in the original show, especially Rogue's.

Cyclops' new hair would look just how it does in Zyalah's piece I showed earlier, and Rogue would have much longer hair.

As for heights, the X-Men are pretty accurate to those from the comics.

Yes, and that does include Wolverine.

However, there is one exception to this and that's with Beast.

I've always felt that Beast definitely should be a much taller character than he actually is.

(He's canonically 5'11)

But despite that, in the more recent comics, he's always shown as being bigger than most of the other X-Men.

So here, Beast is like 6'5.

As for their outfits...

Wolverine, Storm, Emma, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Angel, Rogue and Forge would be wearing the exact same outfits they did in the original show.

Beast as well, but he would also be sporting goggles this time.

(He just looks so right with them).

Iceman would wearing a modified version of his outfit from the show.

It would have a light blue and dark blue color scheme, short pant-legs and no shoes.

Shadowcat would be wearing her outfit from the Astonishing X-Men run.

And Cyclops, well....

This what he'll be wearing.

If you collected any Marvel merchandising during the 2000s, you've most definitely seen this look before.

It's kind of like an combination between his 90s outfit and his Astonishing outfit.

And in all honesty, it's really cool looking.

But weirdly enough, he's never wore this any iteration outside of the merchandising.

So I figured.....

Finally, we come to the ages of the X-Men.

I'm reason I'm bringing this up is because of the episode, Breakdown.

In that episode, we take a look into Cyclops' past, and just like in the comics, the X-Men originally started off with the original five.

And we can clearly see that they're teenagers.

But this becomes an issue when take Iceman into account.

In the second episode when Wolverine and Beast come to recruit him, the latter mentions to his parents that Iceman is now 18.

Which would mean that three years have past since the X-Men formed.

And since the estimated age difference between the original five is that Beast is older than Cyclops, Jean and Angel by 2 years and Iceman is younger than them by 2 years, that would mean that Cyclops, Jean Angel are around 19-20 and Beast is around 21-22.

And yeah, there's is no way in hell that's the case.

I could definitely see them being in their 20s, but like mid-to-late 20s.

Definitely not early 20s!

Here, it would be established that the X-Men have been around for about 8 years, including after the explosion.

As for the ages of the team.

We all know Wolverine is old as hell!

Cyclops, Jean and Angel are 24.

Emma is 29.

Storm is 26.

Beast is 27.

Nightcrawler is 22.

Colossus, Rogue and Forge are 20.

And Iceman and Shadowcat are 18.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's go ahead and talk about the episodes themselves!

Hindsight: Part 1

This episode is largely the same, but there would be a few changes.

-All of the X-Men would be present in the prologue. Iceman would training in The Danger Room with Shadowcat, Colossus and Nightcrawler, Forge would be working on a new device while ignoring the cries for help from the four after getting trapped, and Angel would be seen spending them with Storm.

-We would get the establishment of where everyone else is once Wolverine and Beast reunite. Cyclops has living in a rundown apartment by himself, Storm moved back to her village in Kenya, Angel has been working at his father's company, Iceman and Shadowcat moved back in with their parents, Colossus moved back to his family's farm in Russia, and nobody's heard from Nightcrawler or Rogue. As for Beast, he's been hanging at what's left of the mansion with Forge, working together to see what caused the explosion in the first place.

-Speaking of Forge, he would be helping out Wolverine and Beast with their break-in. And also, and more importantly, Forge's characterization is much different. Here, he's basically like Sokka and Velma, being the team's resident tech-genius and total smartass.

-Pyro wouldn't be one of the mutants freed when Wolverine, Beast and Forge free the prisoners. Instead, his place would be taken by Jubilee (voiced by Janice Kawaye). She would end up staying with the X-Men, kick-starting one of the storylines for this series. As for her characterization, it's pretty accurate to how she is in the comics. In terms of overall physical appearance and age: she's about 15, has a slightly petite build, black hair in a bob-cut style, pink lips, brown eyes, stands at 5'1, and wears a modified version of her classic 90s outfit. It's largely the same, except with a navel-bearing shirt, fingerless gloves and sneakers.

Hindsight: Part 2

Once again, largely the same with a few changes.

-The Brotherhood has two new additions from the original version in the form of Pyro and Gambit. Yep! Gambit is a member of Brotherhood in this version of the show, as it would set up his eventual turnover to the X-Men and his romance with Rogue. And in typical Gambit fashion, he'll definitely be laying his Cajun charm on Rogue immediately. As their voices, all of them remain the same except for Quicksilver, Toad and Pyro. Quicksilver would be voiced by Yuri Lowenthal (I told you we would be coming back to him!), Toad would be voiced by Danny Cooksey, and Pyro would be voiced by John Kassir. Also, Toad will be British. Yeah, remember when he used to have a British accent?

-Cyclops' characterization. One of the biggest flaws of the original show was how Cyclops was characterized. In the original, he was an intolerant, depressed grub. I get that he's grieving over the loss of Jean, but man. It's hard for us to feel sorry for the guy when he's constantly being angry and angsty. He may've not been done as dirty when compared to the Fox films, but this version of the character isn't too far behind. But here, Cyclops is will actually remain as the leader of the team, and his big story of the season (apart from the obvious) is him grappling with whether or not he still has what it takes to be leader again. And along with that, he isn't gonna nearly as angry and angsty as he was in the original. However, he will still be grieving and his depression will be shown in a way where we actually sympathize with him. This would be first shown when Wolverine tries to recruit him and after blasting him out of his room. And although he starts off looking down at Wolverine angry at first, but once he leaves, his expression eventually turns into one of regret.

Hindsight: Part 3

Just like with the last two, it's mostly the same with one notable exception.

-When the X-Men meet Emma for the first time, their reactions are a little different. Angel isn't smitten by her at all, as he already has a special somebody (i.e. Storm). But Iceman still is. But he's not the only one. The other would be Shadowcat. Yep! In this show, Shadowcat and Iceman are both, in the words of NSYNC....

Well that's all I have for now.

Let me know what you guys think about this rewrite. And if you could, give me some ideas on how the rest of the series should play out!

But anyway, I'm gonna go play some X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse....

Peace out, yo.

[racefortheironthrone]

This is probably a bad question, but who is Kraven the Hunter, why is he getting a movie, and what did they get wrong about him?

Kraven the Hunter is a Spider-Man villain: his whole schtick is that he is a Russian big game hunter who is so good that he started hunting animals with his bare hands because it was the only way to make it hard enough to be interesting, who decides that the "most dangerous game" is Spider-Man and proceeds to hunt him like an animal, because somehow that's legal in J. Jonah Jameson's New York.

You might notice that, along with hunting and killing animals with his bare hands, Kraven's schtick is wearing their skins from head-to-mid-calf (capris pants and ballet shoes, what can you do?). Doesn't exactly mesh well with soulful emo with daddy issues who doesn't believe in hurting animals. (The daddy issues thing is particularly funny, because Kraven in the comics is relentlessly awful to his many children.)

As for why he's getting a movie, it's the same reason that Morbius got a movie - Sony has the rights to Spider-Man's rogues gallery, but under the deal they worked out with Marvel, they can't do their own Spider-Man solo films at the moment. So instead of having the villains be villains, Sony is turning them into anti-heroes, with decidedly mixed results.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Marvel Team-Up 100 (December 1980)

Chris Claremont/Frank Miller & John Byrne

We've read a fair few issues of the long-running Marvel Team-Up and it's always an interesting time: now, for its 100th issue, we have the treat of it featuring X-Men (or, at least, X-Men-related characters) in both its main story and its back-up, both of which are striking and important stories.

In the first of them, the featured team-up is actually Spider-Man (yay!) and the Fantastic Four (boo!), but the story also introduces the silhouetted figure you can see here, initially seemingly as a villain.

If you're thinking "fuck, these layouts are good," then you're right: it's Frank Fucking Miller! We don't have time for Miller Discourse - I will literally never have time for Miller Discourse - but Miller here was at the beginning of his imperial phase, having just started drawind Daredevil and being on the point of taking over writing on it too, and his distinctively moody take on New York City is on display in this issue. This nightmare Deco tower, at a wildly expressionist angle, is purest Miller.

Anyway, I'm skipping over most of the action here because it's Reed Richards bullshit and I hate it, but I do want to talk about that mysterious new character: it's Karma, and she's got Issues.

A beautiful panel filled with politics: that's good comics, baby. It's important to say that there is also a fair amount of tone-deaf stuff about Asians in this issue - Karma's wider family feature and they're not exactly subtly depicted, especially the villainous members, who include Karma's evil twin brother.

And yet...this is 1980, the Vietnam War is a recent memory in the US, and along comes a complex, traumatized Vietnamese character, who evolves from villain to anti-hero to something like a full-on hero in the space of this single comic when - in a moment that's genuinely shocking, coming as it does in the middle of a fight in which Peter Parker and Ben Grimm seem to be competing to make the most wise-cracks - she kills and psychically absorbs her brother. This, I repeat, is our introduction to this character, her very first issue. Fucking hell.

And that's Karma! The story ends just after this, with her tentatively established as some kind of hero, but the reader is none the wiser about what's coming next for her: which was, as you probably know, an integration into the X-Men world and a gradual emergence as one of the most interesting and popular characters of that world (helped by the fact that she also eventually turns out to be gay, hell yeah). It's a hell of an introduction and a fascinatingly political story about the shadow of American imperialism, and it's then followed by this issue's back-up story, which is also powerfully political.

This is a Claremont/Byrne story, a little chaser after our farewell to him in the main book, and (despite the team behind it...) it's about Blackness. It's The One Where Storm and Black Panther Meet, And Also Apartheid South Africa Tries To Kill Ororo.

It's actually largely told, after the initial sequence, in a flashback to their first meeting, and I have tried and failed to work out how it's supposed to fit in with the backstory also depicted in the 2006 Storm series - I don't think they exactly line up, but the 2006 series does sort of reference and expand on this story, in particular by reusing Andreas 'The Bull' de Ruyter, the enjoyably repulsive Afrikaner villain.

In the present, it turns out, de Ruyter is still trying to kill them, and they get to defeat him all over again, and part ways in a bittersweet, ship-teasy moment (again, no idea how this fits into subsequent canon with them getting married and so forth, but, who cares).

This is a really remarkable issue, all told, and though it's all created by white men, and as ever there are some, shall we say, heavy-handed moments, but its use nevertheless of a Vietnamese heroine, her life ruined by American warfare, and of two Black heroes fighting an explicitly apartheid-supporting villain is pretty striking: on top of which, the art is outstanding. Great stuff! This is also the start of a run of half a dozen guest appearances and the like from this era that we're about to read, so let's hope the rest of them are this interesting.

[heliads]

Tom!peter x make reader with powers of blue marvel, just regular dating headcanon or so with some inclusion of them patrolling together and maybe them just doing sweet things for each other 💖😍

had to google blue marvel bc i don't remember who any characters are ever but bless you for letting me do headcanons

masterlist

Peter Parker has never been more grateful to have a partner for patrols

Being Spider-Man is great, obviously, but having someone else out there to watch his back is really, really nice

Factor in the fact that his partner in anti-crime is you, and, well, Peter doesn’t think life could possibly get any better

You and Peter just click, that’s all

You have the same sense of humor, the same fierce protective spirit about the city, the same curious spark

Any day that Peter gets to spend by your side is a good one in his eyes, and the nights spent watching over the streets don’t feel as hard if he’s got you there too

It makes fighting crime a lot more fun when someone else is there to make the same bad jokes and witty comments that he would

The two of you are well known (by your hero aliases, of course) across the city for your dynamic, with newspapers and magazines swearing by your obvious bond

One of your favorite blog headlines puts it more succinctly: ‘Just Two Guys Being Dudes, But They’re Also Saving Us All?’

That one made you two laugh for days

Peter’s also totally obsessed with your powers, and he’s definitely pretended to complain about how cool they are on multiple occasions

“Super speed is one thing, and super strength, but energy manipulation too? Jeez, Y/N, you have to pick one. It’s making the rest of us look almost normal.”

“You swing from buildings on spiderwebs, Peter, you’ll never look normal.”

That earned you at least fifteen seconds of the silent treatment, but it didn’t last too long– your fights never do

After all, how could you possibly fight with someone who’d save your life over his own, who’d help patch you up after a tough night under the unspoken promise that you’ll do the same for him?

At the end of the day, it’s you and Peter against the world

Nothing could make you happier

requested by @fadedver, i hope you enjoy!

marvel tag list: @namoreno, @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @callsign-scully, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes, @w1shes43, @deafsuperhero, @/fadedver

[elfdragon12]

Think the Megatron thing is like. A weird combo of “if I like/relate to a character they must be a good person” and the tendency in very online groups to hold a lack of consideration for others so long as they get what they want. But then I say this as a cynical-ass person.

That said I should get back to the Marvel comics at some point. Love that they could just have Spider-Man pop in for an issue to save our heroes. May have had the 60’s theme stuck in my head for a whole day after that.

Yes, there is definitely a flavor of that. Villain apologists, they are. I love a good villain. I am quite thirsty for BW Megatron. I have accepted this. I have shed the idea that liking these kinds of characters says anything about me as a person. It's not actually that deep! It's great to have characters you feel close to... But they aren't you. Their choices don't reflect on you.

(Reminder: I'm not against Megatron redemption arc, I'm just against Megatron apologia arcs.)

I won't deny that selfishness does seem to play into some of it. I've noticed in conversations about Cyberverse Grimlock and some online posts about Earthspark Tarantulas where folks who didn't seem to like the characters in the first place are into the new versions. These aren't "fresh new takes" because these versions suddenly appeal to you specifically. Shockwave doesn't really do it for me (I'm just not into the archetype), but I wouldn't call it a "fresh new take" if he were to be written like IDW1 Overlord in the next continuity. Shockwave just isn't for me and that's okay. He's for other people.

Another part of it, in my opinion, is that folks... Kinda miss the rather obvious anti-war messaging in G1 and focus on the... Questionably handled anti-oppression/discrimination themes of newer stories. The Decepticons weren't evil because they were made that way, they were evil because they turn into things like guns, military jets, tape recorders, and cameras. Look at G1 Soundwave and how he lacks speakers. His function is to record. What is he recording? All your conversations. The Autobots are good because they turn into things like trucks, regular cars, and first responder vehicles... And cool dinosaurs. (Though I admit this point gets a little muddled after season 1 with characters like the Constructicons and Warpath.) It's a big part of why stories where the Autobots are actually responsible for oppressing the Decepticons fall flat for me. Like, what do you mean the guy who turns into a snow plow (the vehicle that saves me each winter from getting into deadly car accidents by clearing the road of snow) is the biggest dick in TFA and not the guy who can turn into a tank and a military jet (tools of death and destruction)?? Also, G1 was released in the mid-80s. The Berlin Wall was still up and the Soviet Union was still around (why do people think Ravage had a Russian accent in Beast Wars?). Anti-war messaging was (and still is) extremely relevant.

Not to say that the anti-oppression/discrimination wasn't and isn't relevant, but most continuities don't handle it that well. I think TF One is really the one that handled it the best. Mainly because they went back to G1 symbolism.

The Marvel Transformers has been a fun read! Very of its time though! It's a fun little time capsule.

[readingtoinfinity]

Venom War (as a whole)

God I love Symbiotes. They're one of my favorite species in fiction, not just in Marvel. And Venom War has been a real treat for symbiote-enjoyers like myself. But as with any event, there are peaks, and there are valleys, and I'm going to go over the tie-ins and give you my brief thoughts on each in no particular order.

Venom War: Daredevil

It's fine. There's a continuation of the themes examined in the recent Daredevil run, and the desperation of the main characters against the zombiotes is palpable, but there's not much to write home about.

Venom War: Venomous

A fun little outing for three symbiotes teaming up. It expands and ends the themes Black Widow has been going through from recent Venom runs (tragically, alas) and it sets up the healing that Anti-Venom can do in the main run. I'm also a big fan of Misery so this was a sweet treat for me, a very enjoyable 6/10.

Venom War: Zombiotes

I didn't really care all that much in the end. I would hesitate to call it bad but I would hesitate more to call it good.

Venom War: Fantastic Four

This one's only tangentially-related to the main event, dealing with Doctor Doom and Kang fighting one another across timelines. They are both petty, vindictive and dramatic bitches, and the way they use the Fantastic Four as a pawn (only for the team to turn the tables in time!) was quite fun. Apparently this was supposed to have 3 issues, but I only encountered the one.

Venom War: Spider-Man

An event that started promising and went into the toilet. That's very dramatic of me but I don't like seeing Paul Rabin in any context.

Peter's at a low point in his life right now. Lost his job, girlfriend, apartment, trust, you name it. And him putting on the suit is an act of desperation in the middle of the Venom War, a moment to stop the two sides from playing hot potato and actually talking to one another. You could've done something interesting with the psychology of having that suit on once again.

But no, the plot focuses on some big symbiote baddy or whatever and Jackpot, Mary Jane's superhero alter ego, comes into focus. The themes from Zeb Well's Amazing Spider-Man run continue, and while that run isn't all bad (and I suspect the worst was foisted on Zeb by executives) the themes I hate are the ones present in this book. Make of that what you will.

Venom War: Deadpool

One of my favorites of the series, it brings Deadpool and his dog Princess (WOO-HOO FUCK YEAH IT'S PRINCESS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!) as they work their way through New York and onto stranger places.

It brings back a couple of wild picks for this event and decides to go strange places. It's perfect comic book schlock for this kind of event, and it even has a character arc for Deadpool that's interesting, reminding you he's an anti-hero more than a hero.

Venom War: Wolverine

There's a trick to writing Wolverine that I don't think this book pulls off. The story concerns itself with retributive violence and trying not to appear weak, and manages to create some really fucked-up creature design. It's just the usual Wolverine story, and I don't think I'll remember it.

Venom War: Lethal Protectors

This one has too many characters in it. Mostly focusing on Silver Sable, though other characters take the spotlight occasionally. It's nice to see the other children of Venom brought back but it's a little too much.

Venom War: It's Jeff!

It's cute. Jeff gets a symbiote and up to antics. He also causes a lot of mayhem and somehow Kate Bishop is the one in trouble. Bleh. Whatever. It's alright.

Venom War proper

It's an Al Ewing finale, a culmination of all the setup done in in his Venom run. The story is set in a wrestling ring over one night, which fits the tone perfectly.

I think it's just alright. You have to read the intermediate Venom issues to get an idea of where future!Dylan is getting the gold bullets from, but the ending feels like just a little more setup to the next Venom series than a finale to what's happened here. But the ending directly states the future is unwritten, and where they'll go from here... I don't know. The end happens so fast I kinda want to re-read it to gain all the necessary context, but there's no lasting feeling of triumph or ending like there was with something like Blood War.

I'm disappointed. I'm interested in where the story goes from here but I can't say I enjoyed the event all that much. It's a little too much, in a short time, all over the place.

[bulletblade]

Welcome back to Roster Wednesdays, we are on part 4/12 of our "Marvel Injustice" roster.

Guidelines:

1. There are 24 characters in the base game, 12 Heroes and 12 Villains. This doesn't include clone characters.

2. Cosmic and Multiversal Characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy or Spider-Man 2099 won't be added to keep the game grounded.

3. Anti-Heroes like Deadpool and Punisher also won't be added.

4. However, if some characters fit into the previous category, I'll consider them if they're a big enough deal in terms of history and importance to the storyline.

5. The storyline is based upon Marvel's AXIS Story, so with the exception of two characters, everyone will have a hero and villain persona.

With that out of the way, here is our roster:

Here are our reasons for adding the characters:

Hulk: Hulk is one of those characters you know will be in the roster.

Ghost: Is here alongside Hulk to introduce clone fighters.

Abomination: Is an easy Hulk clone. Hulk will become stronger but slower as the match goes on. Abomination is strength, and slowness, however, is consistent throughout the entire match.

Shadowcat: Is here because she'd make an easy Ghost clone. Her unique mechanic is Lockheed.

Speaking of X-Men, I have two open slots for them. However, they have too many good options for playable characters. So, I narrowed it down to the most notable options, and if you're wondering why Wolverine isn't in the poll, you'll find out in two weeks.

First and Second Place becomes playable.

Third place becomes Story DLC

[rezonan]

Red Hood, other Anti-Heroes/Villians and the issue with killing in comics.

First here's the thing before you read this, I just wanna say this isn't a post complaining about if killing is good or not, far from it so don't worry.

I also wanna say really like Jason Todd. One of my favorite Robins though I like him more as Red Hood. My only issue with him is that DC is stuck with his direction as a character(Not as much as Tim at least). For a lot of reasons

One of those things is that anti-Heroes don't work in main superhero universes at least in DC, in Marvel killing isn't looked down on much unless you do it like the Punisher(Consistently, no exceptions and extreme)

When I'm talking about Anti-Heroes I mean who don't hesitate to kill, because the definition of Anti-Heroes even include guys like Batman, Spider-Man, Iron man and Daredevil (Classical Anti-Heroes,Disney Anti Hero,) talking about the types like Huntress and Red Hood(Unscrupulous Hero) and Punisher (Nominal Hero).

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/AntiHero if you wanna know what I'm talking about.

An issue they have is that they kill criminals consistently, and those criminals include supervillains but in comic books, villians in comics are kinda a commodity. Villians are what makes the heroes. So DC obviously will never let Jason kill the Joker or Riddler or Poison Ivy or Bane, or let Frank Castle kill Green Goblin or Kingpin. That's getting rid of a commodity that writers need for stories.

It's why I laugh when people say why doesn't Batman kill the Joker or something, they won't let him guys. Joker is too popular to kill same with the rest of his rouges, the writers need the villians to continue writing more stories and if time has taught us anything is that new villians don't even catch on most of the time to replenish the old popular ones.

So Frank and Jason and left to keep offing mooks, looking stupid and incompetent for not taking out the actual threats or just offing D-listers, it then brings up the question of why doesn't JASON kill the Joker since he's always talking about how willing to kill he is. yeah sure they'll write Batman like the biggest dick to fight him not too but there has been times when nothing has been stopping Jason to do it, see what I mean?

There's also another thing that DC and Marvel just won't let chracters less popular than the big no kill rule big heroes be more effective (and this is coming from a guy whofor the most part is anti killing). You really think Marvel is gonna let Red Hood have the moral high ground with Batman or Punisher with Spider-Man or Captain America?

But yeah I don't wanna get into the whole 'should heroes kill debate' here just making a point.

This is why they honestly work in outside comic universes like the games or movies. See the 'Superhero Movie Villains Die' trope

Basically they just don't mesh well with the status quo nature of comics.

So now we have heroes/villians(yes I consider frank a borderline villian) who are known for killing but can't kill anyone significant for multiple reasons, like how Red Hood by the New 52 had like 83 kills but no one in there was anyone actually important.

This is why Punishers best run was in an entire different universe where heroes didn't exist so he could kill Kingpin without issues. With Punisher they can always stick with that or just do what they usually do and make him take out mooks and barely developed rouges. They recently made him the head of the hand and gave him superpowers, it's actually interesting in my opinion.

With Jason it's more complicated. There's two sides, he drops guns and killing and joins up with the bat family as a kind of character development or he unrepentantly leaves the bat family behind and starts killing people and using guns then runs into all the issues I mentioned above. The latter side believes that hum dropping killing and guns removes everything that makes him interesting while the former believes it's good character progression for him to drop it. I think both have good points.

Personally I think they should lean into the supernatural side of him, like go all in and make him the dude in the Batfamily that handles supernatural threats, his the only one in the family that has straight up superpowers (Edit: forgot Duke, forgive me but he got them before him so point stands I guess) with his All blades so take those and have him to team up with Zatanna or Constantine, fighting vampires and zombies. (Happy to see they are doing this with Cass kinda I haven't read Spirit World)

Or they lean into the Task Force Z/Outlaws/DCeased aspect of him leading other Mistfits, Anti-Heroes and Villians into becoming better people like with the thunderbolts from Marvel. Maybe hook him up with some kinda of government connection so people he kills aren't illegal during this redemption quests or something.

Well I've got nothing else to ramble about.

[webshootersandwingdings]

In case you didn't see, there's a rumor going around that a Captain Marvel game may be in early development.

As someone who is into comics and games, I feel particularly attacked by this lol. Carol Danvers is my favorite hero. A Carol game is my ultimate pie in the sky dream.

She has been playable in a number of games on console and mobile, but I unfortunately believe this rumor to be untrue.

Here's why:

I have a lot of thoughts and I like to type, so this will be needlessly wordy. Scroll to the bottom for my TLDR.

First of all, rumors like this spread all the time. People just make stuff up and other accounts will spread it like wildfire. It happens constantly in the world of gaming just as it does in film.

But I don't think Marvel is willing to gamble on Captain Marvel to this degree.

I will preface what I'm about to say with a gentle disclaimer that The Marvels was not a great financial success for many reasons. I personally was disappointed by it, and think it has a lot of issues as a film. And I overall am not a fan of the way Carol has been adapted in the MCU. But casual fans generally enjoyed it. Marvel, however, did very little to actually ensure its success. Not even considering the strikes, they put little effort into marketing, promoting, and merchandising it. They let it release with all its issues. Even if you love it, you can see where it's messy with rewrites and editing.

On the comics sides of things, Marvel again keeps setting Carol up for failure by giving her to writers who either are unfamiliar with her or outright misunderstand and even openly dislike her. They don't even promote her comics. The final issue of Wong's arc just released last week and Marvel social accounts didn't even include it in their "New Comics This Week" posts. In my opinion, that is egregious. It definitely gives fuel to the "They only keep a Captain Marvel title going for copyright reasons" fire. It's not a good look. But it does give the impression that Marvel has little faith in Carol Danvers. Or at least, inconsistent support.

Now, video games are at a point in history where they cost more and take longer than ever before to produce. Development cycles for a AAA big budget game can be 3 to 8 years. The cost to develop, in the tens of millions. Insomniac's Spider-man 2 reportedly cost somewhere around $300 million. Creating a game like that is a huge investment, which in turn means it's a huge risk. Marvel's biggest moneymakers have historically been Spider-man and X-Men, so it's no surprise they would look to those properties when considering video games. With the MCU and the increase in Avengers popularity, you see a focus on Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Panther titles. But Captain Marvel has never been one of these titans of profitability. The first Captain Marvel film was an outlier. But it's clear that whatever reasons people flocked to the theaters to see it then did not stick. It may have made some new Carol fans, but it didn't turn Carol into a pillar of the Marvel Universe. And even though all reasonably minded people know the misogyny rooted reasons for the manufactured hate on her, the fact remains...She is a highly contentious character.

Almost all female led projects seem to become punching bags for the "anti-woke" masses, but Carol was really the trailblazer in a way lol, sadly. In no small part because of the wild misinformation spread about Brie Larson. But dislike for the actress has been transferred to the character, as tends to happen. Again, incorrect and presumptive takes on sales and popularity have made most discourse surrounding Carol Danvers extremely prone to toxicity. There even tends to be issues with fans of other female characters, as if Marvel is only allowed to have so many women-centered projects. The point is, Carol is divisive in a way most male heroes are not.

The unfortunate reality is that there has been a growing movement in the last few years of the same level of toxicity in the gaming arena. Painfully often, you will see clickbait over the shape of female character's chin as a "lack of femininity". Clout chasers and outrage bait accounts are working tirelessly to tear down and decry female creatives, female characters, and women in general who do not fit their ideals. If a woman exists in a way that they don't like, they claim she has been purposely made unattractive to demonize heterosexual men. If a women is competent, she exists purely to emasculate men.

All is "woke" all is "DEI" all is" forced diversity" ....Essentially, buzzwords for "there's a woman in this who isn't sexually satisfying to me" . . . With this being the current state of gaming, how successful do you think a Captain Marvel game would actually be? Realistically? Marvel undoubtedly knows this. I would love a Captain Marvel game. But would the general audience? Would causal gamers?

TL/DR:

Games are very expensive and cost a lot of time and money to produce. That means they have to sell a lot of copies to make any money. Carol is a divisive character that has a lot of baggage attached to her name at this point because of toxic online discourse, and there is a subset of male gamers who are atrocious about women-led games to the point of rivaling even the most toxic mcu 'fans'. It would be a huge gamble for Marvel to invest in. And I don't see them doing it for lack of guaranteed sales. If they did, it would probably be a smaller-budget AA title or the game would be an ensemble deal with Carol as a part of a larger cast.

Speculation:

If this was 10 years ago, the obvious first women of marvel led game basically writes itself. A spy-thriller / shooter starring Black Widow would have been extremely safe, if a little lacking in innovative gameplay. Many games like that already exist, so putting a Marvel Universe coat of paint on the genre would have been too easy. Today, there really is no clear lead for a sure success. Any woman of the X-Men is high in popularity, but I assume most fans would rather have an ensemble game with other mutants rather than a Rogue or Storm solo game. The next most popular female hero is probably Scarlet Witch. But Marvel may be unwilling to have a magic based game so soon after Midnight Suns, and if they did you know they'd probably do Doctor Strange before her, despite the legion of vocal Wanda fans who would be willing to support it.

It sucks because even though it's 2024 it's very clear how male dominated Marvel products still tend to be. I would love a AA She-Hulk game that combined Ace Attorney like court room text based gameplay with side scrolling beat em up action...maybe even some dating sim elements. But after the She-Hulk show on Disney+, is Marvel ever going to invest in such a thing? With so much negativity and fake outrage surrounding almost everything starring a woman, what is Marvel willing to invest in?

In the past, Marvel has tried to prop up Carol as their Wonder Woman. But as I said, support for her has been inconsistent. Maybe it is that they know its a bad look for all their games to be male led and they want a competitor to the upcoming Wonder Woman game... but I feel skeptical.

Highly doubt anyone read all this, but it's nice to get my thoughts out in any case.

If Carol got a game, I would be beside myself with excitement. There'd be no living with me lol

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 071 Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut (ASM 229-232, Ann 16, Savage Land)

MASTERPOST

In this post, villains are gay, heroes are gay, everybody's gay!

PLUS...

Captain Marvel's arrival in Marvel comics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So in ASM 229, Madame Web dreams of her own death and subsequently calls Peter to ask him to save her.

Meanwhile, Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut explain to the reader that they're after her because of her psychic powers, which could very well help them defeat the X-Men.

Oh... Hello, Tom... *blushes*

Ahem. At the Bugle...

I'm always glad to see Gloria Grant!

Robbie tells Peter that Lance Bannon takes all pics assignments! What a meanie.

HAHAHA. Was that a dig? Girl, you really shouldn't say anything.

She's been seeing a marriage counselor with Ned, but she's also looking for work and Robbie's more than eager to welcome her as his secretary. Betty takes the time to thank Peter for bringing some sense into her the last time they saw each other, then Madame Web calls Peter to give him information about his target.

I love that panel.

Spidey's attempt to stop the Juggernaut is a complete failure. Admitting his defeat, he tells Madame Web (who calls him once more) to call the Avengers or the Fantastic Four for help, but they're unavailable. In Dr. Strange's office, next to Wong, Spidey learns the X-Men aren't available either.

Even Keating's police forces can't harm the Juggernaut. He eventually reaches Madame Web's room and takes her out of her life support chair. She immediately collapses, and the Juggernaut surmises that in that state, she's of no use to him. He leaves, and Spidey does CPR on Madame Web while waiting for help.

The issue ends with Peter wanting revenge...

Iconic issue for reasons that are easy to see. It's a good one, for sure!

In #230, Spidey's pursuit of the Juggernaut continues.

Meanwhile, Betty and Gloria get along really well, then...

Oooh!

Anyway:

Oh.

Love the first panel and also, wow. Alright, sir.

Things get kinky.

Spidey successfully leads the Juggernaut into cement, and the villain falls down, swearing he'll get his revenge. This... is a bit dark, innit?

Peter gives his photo to the Bugle and runs to see Madame Web.

Oh. Uh, I'm not fond of that development. I hope her amnesia is temporary...

At the pier, Black Tom observes...

That's a nice ending. Interesting set of issues.

In #231, the Cobra steals stuff and Peter gives us an elaborate explanation for the lack of web under his arms (and their return this very issue!).

Sure.

At the Pier, the Juggernaut breaks free. As for the Bugle, Ned Leeds is back too! Jameson called him to investigate the Brand corporation (which was linked to the Killer Shrike in SSM).

Betty's worried about Ned's appointment in the underworld, though, so she calls Peter through Debra Whitman. The issue takes this opportunity to remind the reader that she suspects Peter of being Spidey! I'd forgotten about that myself, to be honest.

Peter kind of has a fuckboy vibe in the left panel...

The Peter-Hochberg experiment is successful, and Peter immediately goes out as Spidey.

In a seedy bar, Marla and Ned find Nose, a anti-smoking walking advertisement, and the Cobra panics because he thinks Nose will sell him out. "Talking to reporters about us?" asks the Cobra. Not very straight of him. Spidey arrives, there's a fight, the Cobra tries to shoot Nose but Ned jumps in front of him to protect him.

This is really gay. I ship it, but then again, I've been shipping Peter and Ned since I was a child and read the years 1973-1975.

Whaaat is this foreplay between Spidey and Ned this issue? Am I the only one seeing it?

Anyway, suddenly a house almost kills Peter.

Jesus Christ.

It's not the Juggernaut, but Mr Hyde (whose appearance was foreshadowed in a previous issue)! He's quite ugly.

ASM 232: Mr. Hyde wants to get his old partner, the Cobra, back, and Ned, Marla and Lance get tangled up in that somehow.

I like Lance, for what's worth.

Spidey doesn't have as much patience as me, obviously.

In the end, Hyde gets away with the Cobra and Peter comes back to ESU.

Will we stop seeing them? I don't think I'm ready for that. It's sad...

It's interesting that after Stern takes over, Peter stops being a TA.

GORGEOUS RIGHT PANEL WHAT THE FUCK.

Marcy really wants to talk to Peter for a sec, but he's busy as usual and disappears. This is why you can't have friends, Peter!

I'm gonna cry, but admittedly that might be because I'm drunk reviewing this issue, like, a full month after the rest of this post. I missed these guys. "Good luck, Peter"...

Hyde is an interesting villain. Both halves need each other, but the terrible part hates its less terrible half.

Anyway, Spidey fights our antagonist.

Nice panel on the right. Hyde is stopped, and...

...Is this the first time we see blood in these comics? It feels strange, out of place. What the heck.

The next issue features the Tarantula (yay!!) but we're not going to see that right now.

Let's check out ASM Annual 16. Waiting for the bus to join Harry and Liz, Peter has a funny feeling about a gorgeous Black lady... who soon appears to be one Captain Marvel.

Flashback time! A friend of Monica Rambeau's grandfather went to the trouble of finding her. He planned to harness energy from other dimensions, but a dictator wants to use his knowledge for his own designs.

The place so happens to belong to Roxxon, which is a name that appeared quite a lot of time recently!

Monica's backstory is nice, but we soon get back to the present, where Spidey has to beg a child (whose parents think Spidey is "a hoax of eastern establishment") to give him a penny to... Whatever.

Captain Marvel's at the Baxter Building and meets The Thing, then she goes to the Avengers manor. A few jokes are made about how she's not related to the previous Captain Marvel, and Iron Man, the Wasp and Spidey successfully help her not erase New York from Earth with the interdimensional energy she absorbed in her flashback.

This is really cute. And then...

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

It feels so nice to see them again, and to see handsome Pete again (he's such a snack), and to see all of them happy! I just had to put the full page here 🥰

After that, there's a whole Savage Lands saga. I skimmed through it. Let's just... forget about it hahaha

(well, the men in skimpy clothes were a nice feature I'll say)

[dalekofchaos]

Stark Supremacy vs The Resistance or Avengers:Dissembled

Tony Stark’s suit of armor around the world phase goes into complete and full effect. Get the right event to trigger it and I think Tony could be sent into Superman mode where he establishes a regime for the world’s protection. Tony takes full control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the world by force. Captain America would rise up and lead a band full of heroes who are willing to do what’s right and stop Tony Stark and the regime.

Final boss fight. We choose between either Cap or Iron Man. If we choose Cap, then we fight Superior Iron Man, if we choose Iron Man, then Cap.

Avengeance:Fall Of Midgard. A villain like Norman Osborn or Red Skull sneaking into Asgard with Loki’s help to kill Odin and Lady Sif. Events would manipulate the death of Jane Foster. Blaming Asgard and Midgard for not dealing with Loki and his associates for their many schemes, Thor decides to make changes. Thor is broken and the once Mighty son of Odin, turns back to his old ways and becomes a despotic king of Asgard. Thor wages war on Midgard. Years later Thor has taken over the entire world as well as Asgard, and rules it with an iron fist. Villains that don’t agree with him or opposes him are seen as threats are sent to the negative zone. All mutants are forced to register to work for the regime or be depowered permanently and imprisoned.

Final boss fight is Odinforce Thor.

The Illuminati decides they must take power in order to save the world and metahumans/mutants from themselves. Those who bow down are saved, the villains will be put under mind control or sent to the negative zone and those who oppose them lead a Resistance.

T'Challa is assassinated by S.H.I.E.L.D. and attacks Wakanda and Wakanda demands justice. Shuri is consumed by grief and vengeance and it doesn't help that Killmonger and M'Baku are there whispering in her ears demanding Wakanda invade and take over. It's the might of Wakanda vs the world.

Dark Reign trilogy concept from this reddit post

AVX:Half the X-Men are sent away on a mission and when they are away, a SHIELD led by vile Anti-Mutant leaders bombs the X-Mansion, killing a lot of X-Men and innocent mutant children and then the bombing of Genosha Charles Xavier begins to realize Magneto was right this entire time, Mutants must rise up and take over. The Avengers must stop them, but with many members going rogue to try and stop this war.

Marvel Zombies, what more can you say?

Just the thought of Blade turning the world into his Vampire kingdom and doing Marvel Zombies, but Vampires has all sorts of fun!

Something happens to cause Peter to remember. Lets say Paul(ugh) turns out to be a son of Mephisto there to keep Peter and MJ apart. He remembers what he did and he will go to any and all lengths to undo the stupid fucking deal. It's all out war on Mephisto, his realm, any and all demon or would be hero who dares to stand in his way.

Hail HYDRA. Basically, It's Marvel's version of The Savage Time. HYDRA builds a time machine and Red Skull goes back in time and has American Nazis kidnap Steve Rogers and has Steve indoctrinated by Nazis, he infiltrates the super soldier program, becomes Captain America and then kills everyone involved. Captain America becomes Captain Hydra. Then our heroes see the effects of this new horrifying world. Hydra rules the world. Red Skull is the infinite Fuherer and Captain Hydra is his right hand. Eventually they are almost caught, but the resistance leaders Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson come to their rescue. Our goal is to go back in time and stop this nightmare from becoming a reality.

[s10127470]

The MCU Synergy Problem

It’s been a month since X-Men ‘97 came out, and just about everyone’s has already pointed what makes it so good.

-Staying true to the spirit of the original while still striving for its own identity

-Staying true to the characterization and depiction of the characters, and in some cases, improving on their characterization such as in the case of Jean Grey and especially Morph.

-Introducing new concepts, elements and characters that haven’t been explored in other adaptations yet.

-Having so many callbacks to the original while not coming off as nostalgia pandering.

-The animation and action! MY GOD! The animation and action!

Really, the only problem people have with this show is the weird love triangle between Rogue, Gambit and Magneto.

We already had to deal with the infamous love triangle Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine in the original, we did not need this.

Not only is this just unnecessary, it’s also just weird since in the original, it was never even implied that Rogue or Magneto had any sort of history between each other at all.

But here, they met during Rogue’s days with the Brotherhood. And I think when they met, Rogue was still a teenager.

During that time, the two grew an attraction towards each other and although it’s not explicitly stated, it is implied that they did….ya know…

Man….

Although I do enjoy Magneto, unlike a lot of other people, I can acknowledge that he’s kind of an awful person.

He’s a supremacist, a terrorist, a mass murderer, a violent, abusive psychopath, and a deadbeat father (well, when he used to be a father but we’ll get to that soon).

But never though that “groomer” would be an addition to that list as well.

All I can say is that….if this show took place in the modern day, Magneto ain’t beating any allegations.

But besides all that, another major positive people have with this show is just how….comic booky it feels, which is something that’s been lacking with a lot of Marvel content for the better of a decade now.

But before we get into that, let’s take a little history lesson.

Marvel was founded all the way back in 1939 by Martin Goodman….but it wasn’t called Marvel at first, it was actually called Timely Comics. But by 1951, the name of the brand was changed to Atlas Comics. 

During this era, the comics saw the introduction of several characters include The Human Torch (the android), The Whizzer, Miss America, The Destroyer, the original Vision and The Angel. 

But the two most notable characters introduced during this time were none other than the patriotic fighter of justice Captain America and the anti-heroic aquatic incel Namor the Sub-Mariner.

But Marvel would become the comic book powerhouse we know them as today starting in April of 1961, when Altas Comics was changed to be part of the newly-named Marvel Comics brand, helmed by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

And over the course of the 1960s, Marvel would not only quickly become the biggest name in the comic industry (only being rivaled by who else, but DC), but also introduce many of their most recognizable stars.

This would include the likes of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Iron Man, The X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, The Inhumans, Black Panther, The Silver Surfer, Black Widow and Hawkeye, and of course, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

And in addition to tons of, in the words of Yogurt…..

Marvel would also see plenty of entries into the wider world of television. 

From the anthology series Marvel Super Heroes, to the acclaimed five-season run of The Incredible Hulk starring the legendary bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, to the absolute meme-fest that was the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon.

But Marvel really found their footing amongst the public consensus in the 1990s, largely thanks to their animated shows.

We had X-Men ‘92, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Fantastic Four ‘94, and The Incredible Hulk ‘96. 

What made these shows stand out from their predecessors was that they strived to actually be adaptations of their respective comics.

Yeah, prior to these shows, all of the cartoons were largely villain-of-the-week shows with little to no continuity and apart from the characters, didn’t really take a whole lot from their source material.

But these shows actually went out of their way to actually adapt storylines from the comics, had ongoing plots, and much stronger characterization than before.

And even besides that, and of course, merchandising, Marvel was making quite the name for itself in the world of video games. Most notably the ones that were made by Capcom, which included the likes of The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, and most famously of all, Marvel vs. Capcom.

Their status among the public consensus became even stronger when the 21st century rolled around.

This was largely thanks to the multiple films based on Marvel Comics properties that came out during the 2000s.

This included the likes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk film, Tim Story’s Fantastic Four duology, Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, and (Sirs whose names will not be mentioned here at all)’s X-Men series.

And apart from the merchandising (which was stronger than ever before thanks to the movies), the 2000s would also see some of the best video games based off the Marvel Comics and its IPs.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: A New Age of Heroes, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Legends and its sequel Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Spidey himself had a multiple of great games from this era.

From ones based off his cinematic outings, to ones based off his alternate universe escapades (Ultimate Spider-Man), to ones that featured the characters’ worst voice actor to date and was responsible giving us that famous depressed Spidey walking meme (Web of Shadows).

But everything would change for Marvel in 2008 with the release of….

This film would not only serve as the invincible armored Avenger’s first outing on the big screen, but would also be the start of one of the most well-known and influential pieces of media in Marvel’s entire history…..

The Marvel….Cinematic….Universe….

Just about everyone knows about the MCU.

It only not made the characters of Marvel even bigger than before (along with introducing some of the more lesser-known characters to the general public), but also helped popularized the concept of the shared cinematic universe in general.

The franchise has gone on to become one of, if not, the biggest and most successful film franchise in history and has left a major impact on the world of cinema and even Marvel themselves.

And unfortunately, not really for the better…..

Everyone has already pointed how much of a negative influence the MCU has had on the media we consume.

From the multiple failed attempts from studios who desperately wanted to trend chase by making their own cinematic universe, only for these attempts to end up being massive failures, to a lot of writing in many films post-Avengers having this quippy and observational sort-of-write that while beloved at first, has gone on to become seen as annoying and tiresome…..

But I really want to focus on the effect it’s had on Marvel as a whole.

To start this off, let’s look the place where this MCU effect has been the biggest problem…..and it’s ironically enough, the comics.

Ever since MCU began, Marvel has been adapting elements from the MCU into the comics, which became especially more apparent after the first Avengers film.

And while Marvel is no stranger to adapting elements from Marvel media outside the comics, it’s never been to this extent.

This synergy has seen major changes in the appearances and characterization in many of its characters, including…..

-Iron Man being portrayed as far more snarky and quippy than he previously was. At first, people were on board with this change, not only because people liked Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal, but also because during the mid-2000s, Iron Man was not a popular character. Not in the frankly overused and tired “nobody knew who Iron Man was prior to the release of the first film” way. But more in the sense that everyone hated him during that time. This was largely thanks to the absolute clusterfuck known as Civil War, which turned Iron Man into a full-on villain. Plus he was indirectly responsible for One More Day, aka the worst Spider-Man story ever written.

-Loki became far more heroic and started looking and acting more like his MCU counterpart. Hell, the Loki we know today isn’t the same one introduced back in the 1960s. That Loki died all the way back in 2010, and the one we know today is essentially his reincarnation. And this reincarnation was not only introduced in the exact same year that the first Thor movie released, but in the exact same month as well!

-Thor started acting far more goofy and air-headed like his MCU counterpart following Thor: Raganrok.

-Hawkeye started giving off what could be best described as “uwu small bean tired dad” in the Matt Fraction run, which started just 4 months after the first Avengers film.

-Agatha Harkness having her appearance changed into that of a much younger woman following Wandavision.

-Introducing the Ten Rings following Shang-Chi, and having the titular hero being the user of them instead of just being Bruce Lee like he had been for last 50 years.

-Literally everything involving the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Its also led to tons of the characters getting somewhat phased out like….

-Iron Fist, due to the poor reception of his MCU show and complaints towards him being a “white savior”.

-Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, aka the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, who were also two of the five founding members of the Avengers. But despite that, neither of them appeared in the first Avengers film. And although it was a loose adaptation of The Ultimates, Hank and Janet were still present in that story as founding members of the titular team. Hell, Hank definitely has this the worst as he was killed off back in 2015, and was only recently brought back from the dead…..and he’s an old man now. I wonder why?

-Valkyrie, who was not only killed off permanently after Thor Ragnarök, but replaced with not one, but two characters very similar to the Valkyrie that appears in Ragnarök.

-The Inhumans, who had a major push in relevancy in order to promote their upcoming movie and TV show. But after the former got cancelled and the latter ended up being a massive flop, they ended up being banished to the shadow realm and barely acknowledged anymore. Also, the reason for their push plays into a later point.

-Quicksilver, which also plays into that later point I just mentioned.

-Black Panther, who Marvel seems to be somewhat edging out in the comics literally because of Chadwick Boseman’s passing.

And worse of all, retcons……such as…..

-Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being revealed to have never been Magneto’s children nor mutants at all….shortly after the release of Age of Ultron.

-Shang Chi’s biracial heritage being rewritten to have him being fully Asian shortly after his film.

-Nebula, in addition to being made to look and act more like the movie version, also was revealed to be Thanos’ adopted daughter and Gamora’s sister….just like in the movies. 

-Ms. Marvel being revealed to have been mutant all along instead of an Inhuman…..just months before the release of The Marvels.

-Thor and the other Asgardians are not mythical beings, but actually aliens who were mistaken for gods by humanity….who just so happen to use magic (yeah this is a weird one because it constantly keeps flip-flopping between one or the other).

-Nick Fury being revealed to have had an illegitimate son who looks exactly like the MCU Nick Fury, who himself was based on the Ultimate Universe version of Nick Fury, who was African-American and modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. This is really weird because if they wanted a Samuel L. Jackson inspired Nick Fury, they could’ve easily just waited for the 2015 Secret Wars event and just had the Ultimate Nick Fury be one of the surviving inhabitants of the Ultimate Universe to be brought over to the 616 Universe along with Miles Morales, The Maker, and that son of Wolverine everyone forgot the existence of (even Marvel themselves!).

So yeah, as you can see, this is quite a problem.

Marvel has essentially been trying to make the comics resemble the movies rather than the other way around.

Which has not only gotten annoying and tiresome, but it’s also pretty disingenuous.

I mean, you’re pulling from a source material that has literal decades of content and lore to use, and now you’re actively trying change and contradict that lore just because of a series of movies adapting said source material?

This is obviously because they’re trying to appeal to new Marvel readers who came right from the movies.

But for some reason, Marvel seems to believe that general audiences have never heard the word “adaptation” before.

But this isn’t just an issue for the comics, it’s also an issue for…..pretty much every medium Marvel can be represented in.

For over a decade, Marvel has been essentially trying to push the MCU as the default everything.

Anything Marvel related: it all has to be similar to the MCU and barely anything else. And if it can, just utilize any of the comics written post 2010.

It’s pretty much the same problem that a lot of recent Spider-Man media suffers from.

When they’re adapting stuff, it’s almost always from the cartoons, Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man.

And this has often come to the detriment of many of the non-MCU projects released during the 2010s.

Three of the best examples of this I could think of were Avengers Assemble, Square Enix’s Avengers, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. 

Avengers Assemble is famous for being the Marvel cartoon that was only created just to ride on the success of the first Avengers film.

But in spite of this, it was apparent during the first two season that this show was striving to have its own identity. Specifically utilizing some of the lesser-known faces of Marvel.

But as the series went on, the MCU got bigger and bigger. And as a result, the show started to get bogged down by MCU synergy.

From having storylines that were obviously done to tie into whatever movie came out not that long ago, to even changing characters appearances in order to better reflect their MCU counterparts.

The best example of the latter was with Falcon, who was a member of the main cast.

During the first three seasons, he actually stood out from the rest of the team visually as his outfit wasn’t trying to emulate the MCU.

It wasn’t emulating the comics either because I think that outfit of his was wholly original to this show.

But during season 4, Falcon ends up going through a time warp. And when he comes out, he’s been aged up from a young college-aged man to a grown man around the Avengers’ ambiguous age range and is wearing an outfit similar to his MCU counterpart.

Now we come to Square Enix’s Avengers.

My God…..was there anything this game did remotely right?

Or at least competently?

And one of the many flaws of this game was its roster.

And this actually plays into another major point on how stifling MCU synergy is.

Ever since the first Avengers movie, whenever the titular Avengers appear in just about anything, they’re almost always shown having the same roster.

That being Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Sometimes there will be other members like Falcon, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Vision and Captain Marvel, but that’s because those guys are also major names in the MCU as well.

Like for God’s sake, switch it up a bit! 

For the next major thing the Avengers appear in, how about we have a roster based on like…..

The Heroes Return roster, or the Hickman roster, or the Englehart roster, or the New Avengers roster, or the Stern roster, or the West Coast roster, or even the Classic roster!

But back to the Avengers game, they didn’t even commit to that never-changing roster I just mentioned!

When the game released, the Avengers video game had Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Black Widow as the main Avengers roster until Ms. Marvel joined up.

Yeah, Hawkeye didn’t appear as a part of the roster until his own DLC with Kate Bishop!

As for the other additions to the roster, we had Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier and the Jane Foster Thor.

Yeah, when looking at this game as an adaptation of the comics (which it barely was), the roster is absolutely pathetic when you look at the INSANE amount of members the Avengers have had over the decades.

And when looking at this game as an adaptation of the MCU, it didn’t even commit to that!

This is even more of the case when you look at the list of characters they initially had planned, but they obviously had to drastically cut all that for the sake of time constraints.

Hell, if you want to see something really sad, just look at the villain roster.

Over the 3 years this game was around, it only gave us 4 (yes 4) villains.

M.O.D.O.K., Taskmaster, The Abomination and Klaw….

Yep! Just these four schmucks!

No Red Skull, no Mandarin, no Baron Zemo, no Leader, no Ultron, no Kang the Conqueror, no Absorbing Man, no Wrecking Crew, no Enchantress, no Whirlwind, no Crimson Dynamo, no Circus of Crime….

Hell, they don’t even have Loki, the most popular and well-known Avengers villain!

It’s even more sadder when you consider the DLCs, i.e Spider-Man, who despite having undoubtedly the most well-known rogues gallery in all of Marvel, not one of them appear at all in his DLC!

In the wise words of a young redheaded YouTuber who likes to talk about Spidey….

“How easily you got showed up by Fortnite!”

If you want more detail on the history of this game and what went wrong, I suggest watching Matt McMuscles’ What Happened video on the game, but basically the reason that the game was the way that it was due to the laziness and apathy of Square Enix, the inexperience and slight incompetence of Crystal Dynamics, having WAY too many cooks in the kitchen (i.e., they worked with five studios, all of which were located in different parts of the world), and most of all, the utter greed of Marvel.

And funnily enough, this game ties into my next talking point…

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite! The fourth and possibly final game in the series….and is regarded by just about everyone to be the weakest game as well.

Just like Avengers, one of (if not) the biggest criticisms of this game was the roster.

Infinite had a roster of about 36 characters, having the second smallest roster in the series’ history, only surpassing Clash of Heroes’ 15.

This was quite the surprise when compared to the previous game, 3’s 48 characters and especially 2: A New Age’s 56.

As for the roster itself, it was made up of both veteran characters and new characters.

Returning from the previous game, we had Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Ghost Rider, Nova and Rocket Raccoon.

Also returning were two faces that hadn’t been seen since 2: Venom and Thanos.

As for the new characters, we had Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Gamora and Ultron.

Yeah not exactly the most interesting roster.

And I’m sure many of you noticed by now, there’s something notable characters missing from the roster.

Namely the X-Men, their villains and Doctor Doom, all of whom have been staples of the franchise since the beginning.

And there’s a reason for that….

A very, scummy reason….

I already mentioned this in my X-Men: The Next Mutation post, but it does bare repeating her.

As the MCU became more popular, Marvel became focusing on pushing the Avengers as their premiere superhero team, with the Fantastic Four and X-Men essentially being dethroned.

Along with that, their relevance in the comics notably began to degraded, and barely began making appearances in media outside the comics.

The reason for this, apart from Marvel focusing on cashing in on the Avengers, was because despite still owning the overall rights for the FF and X-Men (which, why wouldn’t they?), their film rights were still owned by 20th Century Fox.

Since Fox was pretty much a rival company to Marvel until Disney bought them out, Marvel basically saw any form of FF and X-Men representation as free-marketing for Fox.

So they decided to essentially not to allow any FF or X-Men related characters to appear in any media outside the comics and even reduced their overall presence as well.

Which is why Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the other non X-Men mutants were retconned into not being mutants, why Quicksilver himself has been sort of been an afterthought in recent years, why the Inhumans were pushed so hard, and why the FF and X-Men characters weren’t in this game.

Plus the justifications and excuses for this from the developers are absolutely hilarious, because you can just tell that they’re lying through their teeth while being held up at gunpoint by a bunch of Marvel executives.

Oh yeah, let’s bring up the other biggest elephant in the room and want led to Square Enix developing Avengers.

After Infinite came out and got quickly abandoned by the player-base, many people at Capcom have come out to reveal just how awful it was working with Marvel and Disney.

They weren’t just pushy with who and who couldn’t be in the roster. 

They were also pushy about how the characters that would be in the roster would be portrayed (specifically wanting them to heavily resemble their MCU iterations) and even changing their themes to be exactly like the MCU ones. 

Hell, this pushiness was so bad that for the trailers, they did not want the Marvel characters to be depicted as losing!

This was also an issue back during 3 as well, but it was essentially amplified during this game.

This really shows just how petty Marvel really is….

They’re willing to ignore and downplay the existence of two major players of their brand that people have loved for decades and were created by the two men them helped make the company they are today.

They’re unwilling to compromise and it has to be their way or the highway.

And this pettiness eventually came to bite them in the ass as Capcom’s statements about working with them eventually reached many of the other big video game developers.

And soon enough, when Marvel was trying to find someone to develop Avengers, none of the big game developers wanted anything to do with it!

Eventually, they did find a developer with Square Enix, who already had experience working with Disney via Kingdom Hearts.

It’s actually ironically hilarious that the heads at Marvel believed all three of these projects would actually be successful because of the MCU synergy, but they all ended up being flops because of said MCU synergy!

But this desire for MCU synergy has not only negatively affected non-MCU project of this time, but even ones that either came out before this desire or….never came out at all.

I’m sure many of you remember The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

This show was essentially a love letter to the Silver Age comics of Marvel  and strived to be an near-faithful adaptation of many classic and even recent Avengers storylines, while also having its own unique spin on it.

Hell, in some cases, the EMH versions of these storylines are actually better than the originals, especially in the case of Secret Invasion. 

Sadly, the show got cancelled in 2012 after 2 seasons and 52 episodes…and to this day, EMH probably has one of the dumbest and scummiest reasons for cancellation in television animation history.

The reason this show was cancelled because Marvel wanted to replace with it a show that was more in-line with the MCU, aka Avengers Assemble.

Yep! Not low ratings. Not bad critical reception. Not budgetary reasons. Hell, not even bad toy sales, which was a major reason for a lot of action cartoons around this time getting the axe!

And it doesn’t get much better from here.

During the 2010s, there were a lot of promising Marvel projects that never saw the light of the day, with two of the most notable being the animated Deadpool series and Marvel Era.

Following the success of 2016 film, FX and Marvel Television decided to collaborate to created an animated series based on the merc with the mouth, with Donald Glover (yes, that Donald Glover) being one of the main showrunners, alongside his brother Stephen.

However, the series was cancelled almost a year within its development, with the main reason being that Marvel wasn't particularly big on the vision that the Glovers had for this series.

And apart Donald speculating racism on Marvel’s part (which given that Jeph Loeb was meant to be an executive producer on this series, that possibly could be the case), another possible factor for the show’s cancellation was because of Deadpool’s connection with the X-Men, and during this show’s production, Marvel was still in their “the X-Men don’t matter anymore” phase.

And it really sucks because the pitch animation for this was really good and made this seem like it was going to be a very fun show.

New we come to Marvel Era.

Out of all the cancelled projects, this was perhaps the most interesting.

Marking a first for their animated shows, this would’ve been an anthology series released in 2014 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Marvel Comics.

It was going to be produced by Powerhouse Animation (best known for Netflix’s Castlevania series) and it was gonna have 7 stories, with each one being themed around a different decade and focusing on a different character.

There would’ve been a 40s story focusing on Captain America, a 50s story focusing on either Wolverine or Namor the Sub-Mariner, a 60s story focusing on the X-Men, a 70s story focusing on The Heroes for Hire, a 80s story focusing on The Punisher, a 90s story focusing on the aforementioned Deadpool, and a 2000s story focusing on Captain Marvel.

This honestly seemed like it was going to be a really great show, which was enhanced by the absolutely gorgeous animation of the pitch trailer.

Unfortunately, Powerhouse announced that the project was cancelled because it wasn’t what Marvel Television were focusing on.

Which is code for: Marvel didn’t want it because it wasn’t MCU adjacent….

To wrap this up, I just wanted to bring up the reason I made this in the first place.

Over the last few weeks, there was a leak for a upcoming episode of X-Men ‘97, which showed a shot of Captain America’s shield.

And this led many people to somewhat groan, believing that this was yet another case of MCU synergy. 

And although this was proven to be false, it really does speak volume with how much influence the MCU has had.

Although it has brought lot of Marvel’s star characters into the mainstream, the MCU has shaped and changed them so much, that it seems like they can no longer exist as characters who have existed for literal DECADES.

They always have to be associated with a film franchise that has existed for about 1/6 of their existence in fiction.

But I think the biggest takeaway to all this is that this constant MCU synergy kinda shows a lack of reverence for Marvel’s legacy.

Look at this merchandising from the 2010s and 2020s....

In most of this merchandise, the character roster featured is almost always the same.

The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Web Warriors, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Inhumans were also apart of this roster until, as I mentioned earlier, got banished to the Shadow Realm....

Occasionally you'll get some of the other cosmic characters like Nova, She-Hulk and some of the street-level heroes like Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and The Heroes for Hire.

But those are few and far between.

But other than that, it's largely the four I mentioned earlier.

Because they're the main faces of the MCU, and as we all know, everything has to be related to the MCU in some way....

But now let's compare that to some Marvel merchandising from the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s....

Upon seeing this, you can tell that there’s a far greater sense of appreciation for Marvel.

This merchandising pulls from nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe you can think off and features characters from the heavy hitters, to the borderline obscure.

Plus it still heavily features the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters, who, may I remind you, spent a good chunk of the 2010s having their presence greatly reduced and their existence constantly threatened or denied because of movie rights!

All in all, Marvel really needs to stop the MCU synergy.

In spite of what they think, it’s clearly done nothing but harm and stifle many potentially good (even great) projects.

Not only that, but it’s also gonna start harming the Marvel brand itself with how homogenized they’ve made everything and the rapidly increasing lack of interest in the MCU.

Plus its also brought out the worst in Marvel.

From cancelling projects for stupid reasons, to showing a lack of respect for the legacy they’ve build, to literally being difficult to work with because of how they want everything to be their way.

But things do seem to be looking up a bit….

There’s been the multiple of Spider-Man media of the last few years , which has been one of the few Marvel projects that aren’t bogged down by MCU synergy.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur also ended being shockingly really good, and although it does have some MCU synergy, it’s pretty minor.

And now we have X-Men ‘97.

It does appear that there’s some kind of movement in Marvel to actually start making projects again that aren’t being made to be a glorified MCU circle-jerks.

And hopefully, this could led to some really unique and interesting projects, specifically for this year.

Since remember, this year marks the 85th anniversary of Marvel Comics, so that’s pretty big!

But then again, their corporate overlord had an utter embarrassment of a year for their centennial….

And Marvel themselves also contributed to that as well….