#of course this makes me think of the response to Logan’s original mutation in Wolverine: The Origin (2001)

[daydreamerdrew]

Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #75

[langernameohnebedeutung]

suzuwarahikaru replied to your post “what happens at 5 am?”

where is the essay, OP!?

@suzuwarahikaru​ Honestly, it’s drivel and I didn’t feel like it particularly went anywhere and it was just me monologuing about one aspect of a bigger question so that’s why I didn’t post it. But ok, just for some context: You probably know how the MCU was often criticised for having “bland one off villains” and that’s true especially in their early films - and that was time when Heath Ledger’s Joker loomed very large and Ian McKellen was famous for his performance of Magneto and the idea for a Magneto solo film had just been scrapped in favour of XM First Class. At that point apparently the MCU guys walked up with the demand that Thor 1 only has to give them 1 thing: A villain as good as Magneto which they could use in Avengers. Now, obviously it had to be Loki, because Loki is Thor’s most famous antagonist and he was the first guy the Avengers ever fought in the comics, and Loki in Thor 1 is satisfyingly complex - but now that Loki’s dead and has a solo show coming out in a while, people dug up that old quote and started arguing about whether Loki actually became a villain “as good as Magneto” - which I honestly wouldn’t care about, except this argument spilled a few  “But Loki is great and Magneto is boring”-posts into the Magneto tag a while ago (which mixes with a lot of: Why did Cherik get a happy end but Stucky didn’t that’s so unfair!!!! posts) and then some comments started lowkey implying that Loki is a character who’s more attractive to sophisticated fans and that Magneto fans are usually men and Loki fans women (with the not so subtle implication being that Magneto fans are comic dude bros who like him for his cool powers and because he’s a Bad Guy(TM) I don’t really care about that, but over the course of this argument someone made a rather interesting post, wondering about what “went wrong” with Loki and while I love Loki as a character and as a villain, it made me ponder what could have been done to make Loki (even) better and to help him stand on his own 2 feet as a character and this was their post:

Now and this was going to be my response: Personally, I don’t think that having spectacular powers or anything make a villain good (they make good visuals though) but whether the hero learns something from fighting them, whether their motivation maybe reflects something that we experience as well and that maybe they unmask something that we usually don’t feel comfortable to address. And Loki has all these qualities.

I’m not going to try to objectively pinpoint where it ‘went wrong’ but it’s actually interesting to look at the XMCU and the MCU and to compare notes. The XMCU is often criticised for being too wordy, too slow-paced and “what’s with the constant time jumps and decade-hopping?” But I think that’s something the Thor franchise could actually have profited from, because…these guys are immortals and it just feels rushed in my opinion to watch their world fall apart in what is for them a matter of a long weekend. 

For example, a bigger distance between the events of Thor 1 and Avengers would have lent more weight to Loki’s disappearance and Thanos torturing and brainwashing him, Thor’s and Jane’s relationship would have been given more time to develop (making their reunion in Thor 2 more meaningful). They could also have given her more time exploring Asgard/battling the Ether. We could have learnt more about the Dark Elves, the Frost Giants, the Nine Realms in general. 

And that’s at least part of the problem, in my opinion: We don’t know enough about Asgard. You can’t just throw in an alien word without world-building and you can’t introduce characters who are millennia old by showing us 6 years of their lives and maybe 1 flashback. There is a reason why a show like Good Omens spent basically an entire episode on Crowley and Aziraphale’s lives through the millennia. Captain America got a film set in the WW2, Wolverine Origins covers over a century of Logan’s story. Magneto isn’t a better (or worse) villain than Loki, because as you said, the writing makes the character and both get pretty good and pretty bad writing at times. But a big difference is: We know a lot more about Magneto than we know about Loki. 

One example of this is personal relationships. Something I never realised before I started typing this is how little space Loki is given to let him form/have/maintain/test/strengthen meaningful relationships. 

Basically, all his meaningful interactions are inside his family. Magneto (to be clear, I’m bringing up so often bc the MCU apparently insisted on being rude af and asking Kenneth Branagh on drawing inspiration from a character who’s basically the opposite of Loki in every regard) gets a lot more screen time to develop his relationships with other characters, even if it means less CGI action scenes. 

In fact, I’m currently tempted to find out how many 1 on 1 dialogue scenes Loki gets per hour of film vs. how many Magneto gets. Loki enters the picture with a family, ‘friends’, a biological father, servants, an entire kingdom of people who know him, but he barely gets to have any meaningful interactions outside of his family environment. Seeing him interact with a friend or even someone who hates him for reasons unrelated to his relationship with Thor or someone who supports him would in turn show us a lot about how he sees other people, how he sees himself, how he treats them, what he values in a person, what kind of people trusts (if he trusts) – that’s a lot of potential that was left pretty much wasted in my opinion. 

One of the first things Agent of Asgard did was add Verity Willis to its main-cast so have a character for Loki to interact with, to serve as a moral anchor, and to call him out on his bullshit. Having relationships is powerful. In the MCU, Loki’s relationship with his mother is such an important, humanising element to his character. Also a lot of headcanons and metas and thoughts about Loki are inspired by those few scenes where we see him interact with the Warrior’s Three and Sif before Loki finds out about his parentage. 

And even when encounters the Avengers, they meet once, they talk once, then Loki he returns to Asgard and they never meet again, except Bruce - and even then there’s barely any time to talk about what happened in Avengers 1. He doesn’t get to form any meaningful relationships with his adversaries when he talks to them in Av1, these scenes just exist to present the Avengers in a certain light. And in the end it’s canonised that Loki was brainwashed so it’s all pointless anyway. (pls (don’t) make me write an essay on agency and the MCU, because honestly, between Bucky, Gamora, Nebula, Loki and everyone else was brainwashed it’s actually worth a conversation)

Even in Thor 1 Loki never meets Jane or Darcy, one of the main-characters. And we never see a single frost giant after the first film. Erik Solveig is the only Earth character from Thor 1 Loki actually meets and he’s brainwashed for most of that and in Thor 2, they don’t get to meet again. 

Imagine if Loki had had someone he trusted in Thor 1 and told them about finding out he’s a Frost Giant and they reject him and treat him like a monster. This could be three or four scenes that don’t throw off the film but would have been very powerful. Or imagine if Loki keeps his heritage a secret from that friend/trusted person and they find out in Thor 2 and confront him about it. Valkyrie and Loki never talk about him invading her mind or the things he saw. 

We never get to see him alone on Sakaar to deal with what he presumes is the end of his home world and the death of everyone he knows and we never see him interact ‘win the Grandmaster’s trust’. 

We never see him interact with the Hulk before they’re suddenly fighting side by side in Infinity War. We never find out exactly what the Aesir’s sentiments towards him are, what kind of prince he was in the past, how present he is in public, what reputation he has beyond silver-tongue mischief guy and which specific events shaped it.

If the MCU wants a villain “as good as Magneto” (which is already annoying bc they imply that Loki is not as good a villain which is such a subjective measure – Magneto done wrong is a horrible and downright offensive villain and trickster characters done right are amazing for revealing the flaws of a hero.*) then they have to give writers and actors the same means to do that with. The X-Men franchise, for all it flaws, always gave Magneto screen-time (so much that people criticised it). 

There’s a Charles-and-Erik dialogue in pretty much every film, allowing us to follow the state of their eternal argument at every step. We see his friendship with Mystique grow and fall, we see Wolverine call him out on his bullshit, his attempt to make young Hank and Mystique feel better about their visible mutations, we know how he treats his followers, his new recruits, his enemies, his students, his wife and his daughter, (daughters, if we count The Gifted and his legacy), his colleagues, his lovers, his ex-lovers, allies and former allies, politicians, police, prison guards, Nazis, soldiers, insane Egyptian gods – and we get to learn his feelings and thoughts about all of these through personal interactions, decisions and gestures. And in turn we know how they feel about Magneto. What do we know about Loki’s feelings about people outside his family? How does he feel about Fandral? What are his thoughts on the Valkyrior? How did his views on Frost Giants change and when? Did he challenge them at all or did he just become cynical about them? 

As I said, Loki is a formidable villain but I think that he suffers from the same problem as many MCU characters: We hardly know them. Think about Natascha whose been part of the franchise since Iron Man 2 but we hardly know anything about her. How much do we know about the family Drax lost? Or about Wanda’s family? About Pepper’s private life? We hardly know anything about them and especially when characters are thousands of years old and we know nothing about their past, it really creates a gaping hole in their biography and that really leads back to my original point: If we could spend more time with them, we would know them better and care more. One of the reason Dark Phoenix is a bit under-whelming is because we know very little about Jean and Scott in this time line. 

There are two DCEU films I actually own and watched more than once: Wonder Woman and Aqua Man. And while I personally didn’t find Aqua Man that good, this film actually tells us a lot about him and despite my lack of knowledge about the DCEU and me being a giant Marvel nerd, I preferred Wonder Woman over Captain Marvel and that is because I felt closer to her character. It really boils down to a “show don’t tell issue” and for me, that would mean: Maybe fewer giant CGI battles. more people living their lives. *(which should also highlight why setting Magneto as a mark for K.B. is so off-mark. Loki is about unmasking hypocrisy, Magneto himself is a hypocrite who regards himself as a hero but often does immoral things and that for example gets unmasked by Wolverine, another social outsider with littl care for social conventions)

[jimmy-o-face]

Cyclops & Phoenix’s Treatment In The X-Men Films (Part 2 of 2)

Click here for Part 1

Death of Scott

Sorry for the long wait. But I needed a break from this stuff. I was burnt out after making three post like these in a short amount of time. But now it's back to business!

Anyway, I actually stand corrected about there being no in-story reason for Jean killing Scott. Recently, I rewatched the scene where Jean kills Xavier and it states that she killed Scott because she couldn’t control her power. So basically it was by accident after she held his beams back.

Now the out-story reason why Scott was killed off is because James Marsden who played the character had signed on with Singer to do Superman Returns. Thus he didn’t have enough time for X3 and Tom Rothman axed the character. Killing off a major figure in X-Men lore only three movies in and off-screen? Seriously? There were other ways to solve this problem. Thankfully he was brought back to life by the events of Days of Future Past and giving more screen time in the next film. 

Now in my previous post I mentioned that the only good thing that came out of The Last Stand was that it makes Jean’s storyline in Apocalypse more compelling. One of those reasons is that when Jean says “I think I’m going to hurt someone” Scott’s death is instantly comes to mind. The Last Stand is being use to make the viewer care about Jean’s struggle with the power she possesses. A great example of turning a negative into a positive, if I do say so myself.

Scott’s Role In The Films

Now in the original trilogy Scott’s characterization amounts to disliking Wolverine for having the hots for his girl and being a cuck. The only time where they deviated from this was when she shows affection to Xavier when he is poisoned in X1.

In Apocalypse there is a much better attempt with Scott’s characterization but its not completely executed well. Here we kind of get an origin for him as we see how he enrolled into the school, his motivation for being a superhero(mentioned in Part 1), and how his relationship with Jean started. Which I already talked about in Part 1.

The one thing they did screw up with Scott is the death of Havok. We don’t see them interact much and as a result we don’t feel much emotional weight to his death. That is due to a scene being of them together being cut for pacing.  

This issue resembles Avengers: Age of Ultron in regards to Quicksilver, in which scenes that make the audience have some attachment to the character were deleted. Just like with Quicksilver Havok’s scenes with Scott got cut. Though, we were already attached to Alex through First Class but still.

Relationship Parallel 

Out of all the deleted scene that one above should have been caught in as it also shows how Scott feels about his new found powers. And it's through this inner turmoil that plants the seeds of his relationship with Jean in the film. Scott destroys his surroundings when he opens his eyes, Jean destroys her surroundings when she closes her eyes as she states. They also changed Scott’s blasts from purely concussive blast to generating heat, so he could be more similar to Jean. And no, it's not that Singer didn’t know about the concussive blast because in the previous trilogy they didn’t generate heat.

There is also an attempt to make a full circle story for Mystique with these characters. She makes a comparison with the older and younger generation. Such as them flying on a plane to battle and Alex being a handful similar to Scott. It made me noticed how Scott and Jean’s relationship is very similar to Hank and Raven’s relationship in First Class. As both pairings developed through sharing a struggle with their mutations. The older relationship was due to sharing abnormal blue appearances, while the younger relationship was due to sharing destructive powers that they couldn’t control. And this parallel is what completes her arc set-up in Days of Future Past and she comes home. She wants to give guidance to kids who were like her.

But Mystique doesn’t overshadow Scott and Jean like many thought she would. The two get roughly the same amount of screentime as her and more heroic moments. They and Nightcrawler are the ones that save Raven, Hank, Moira, and Peter from Weapon X which was staged by Scott. Jean saved Logan from Weapon X. They and Nightcrawler are the ones to save Professor X from getting his body stolen at the last minute. Jean defeated Apocalypse. I actually found it amazing that many people still think they got overshadowed.

Future Films

Now lets get back to the events of X3 and how the films are building off of that. I strongly believe that film will factor in the sequel to X-Men: Apocalypse. Because according to Bryan Singer the plan is to play around with Beast’s time travel theory in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

So here’s the plan. What happens when you use Days of Future Past to erase movies like X1, 2 and 3, yes you can erase those events that occurred, but I also was very adamant about having what we call “The Tivo Scene.” The scene in that room with all the video cameras in Days of Future Past, I call it the Tivo scene. “I developed this piece of technology that records television.” The point is time’s immutability. The idea that time is like a river. You can splash it and mess it up and throw rocks in it and shatter it but it eventually kind of coalesces and this is, again, theories of quantum physics. It’s all based in quantum physics. So what I’m doing with these in-betweenqueels is playing with time’s immutability and the prequel concept, meaning that yes we erased those storylines and anything can happen.

Apocalypse does indeed play with the concept of time being immutable in a few ways, which I will be discussing in another post. But right now I want to talk about the one regarding Jean and her visions of the future, which Charles doesn’t take seriously at first and think they are just a nightmare. That is until of course when he sees Apocalypse who appeared in her dream is real, with his response being “Oh my god”. 

According to Singer prior to the film's release, he says that he wanted to show that Xavier was blindly optimistic and how he changes. 

He chooses to teach and preach and hope that people follow his message: peace and unity. And I’ve gotten to see him as a drug addict and a loser, and in this movie you’re going to get to see him prosperous and almost blindly optimistic, and how he changes.

This is consistent with his characterization in Days of Future Past, where Charles doesn’t believe in Beast’s theory on time being immutable. He believes that he can show people a better path. This is the reason why he doesn’t form the X-Men before the events of Apocalypse, because he believes the world is better and there is no war in the future.

But Beast is hinted at to still believe in the theory, as he says that he has prepared for the worst and the world needs the X-Men. Which Charles agrees with by the end of the movie and forms the team. And it seems to me that the reason why he changes his mind is because he realizes that Jean's "dreams" are not just dreams. And remember, he knows of the events of X3 through looking through Logan’s mind. 

The sequel to Apocalypse will no doubt be a very Jean focused film. This could go in very interesting direction by expanding on Jean’s inner demons. Her learning of the original timeline, Hank’s theory, and her dreams being actual visions of the future would be very fascinating. They’ll likely and hopefully go down that route. Which would bare a strong resemblance to want was done with Jean in All-New X-Men.

Conclusion 

These two have had a bad start. Despite the missteps Apocalypse look it looks like they are stepping in the right direction with these two character.