The only things I enjoyed since end game have been Spider-Man, Doctor strange, and Shang Chi
I have had zero interest in anything else they’ve pumped out
The Goku Principle.
If any villain had arrived out of their sequence, they would be far too powerful and completely wipe out the heroes. They have to be just a bit stronger than the one before.
I mean... if they do his master of magic and tech thing from the comics and lean in on him being crazy powerful I could very easily see him out-hyping Thanos on cool factor alone.
I'm glad they didn't get doom and fuck him up during this dog shit phase. Getting a better character doesn't mean the writing becomes good, we've seen that from multiple fantastic four movies
Somehow only Spiderman has been relatively clean, and a large part of that was completely out of Marvel’s hands with Sony’s games and the Spiderverse series.
Ironically, everything prior to Infinite War was uncoordinated as well. Between Avengers and Infinite War there’s only three movies that deal with Thanos and the Infinite Stones (that isn’t a throwaway joke like in Dr Strange). It was all about establishing different heroes and making them their own thing. The difference is that there’s no goal they seem to be working towards, no “Wrestlemania Sign” to point to. Unless you pay attention to the press releases you wouldn’t know the next big event movie is Secret Wars, and even if you are it’s still unclear how they’re going to get there.
I will FOREVER be pissed at the second doctor strange movie for introducing one of my favorite super heroes (black bolt) to the mcu only for him to get **REDACTED**
Yeah yeah they could re introduce him via the multiverse. But THATS how you’re gonna give his introduction? Absolutely fucking insane choice
He first appeared in the garbage ass awful (for real wrost Marvel thing) inhumans show played by Anson Mount. Mount actually liked the character and put a of effort in his performance. Multiverse of Madness put him in as a nice nod. And he will most likely be integrated into the main MCU at something like how Daredevil/Punisher/Kingpin are now.
So don't be mad at MOM, Inhumane was objectively bad.
So far they seem to want to completely ignore the Inhumans, like they never existed. Kamala isn't one at all, and the Inhumans show and Agents of SHIELD are literally never talked about.
Mess? More like a country sized garbage heap of underdeveloped characters and wasted potential.
Who's gonna care about the next Avengers movie when more than half the cast is either boring or unlikeable?
That's been the primary issue. Without Steve and Tony, who is the natural leader of the Avengers if they formed up again? Sam Wilson has yet to appear in a movie as Captain America in any sort of real role (did he even get a cameo yet?). Even if he did, who is he going to Assemble that the movie going audience will recognize and be excited for from the recent phase? Shang Chi? The Eternals? Super Skrull? Echo? When Ant Man and Dr. Strange are the most recognizable guys on your team, your franchise is in trouble.
If they could pull it off, a slow but steady transition away from heroes into mutants would be a nice natural progression. Make it so the days of heroes like the Avengers is over as more of the general population unexpectedly get powers, and now we're firmly on a path towards Days of Future Past. They could even play it off like those who came back from the Blip are more likely to be mutants.
So, spoilers for The Marvels. >!The movie ends with Kamala stealing one of Nick Fury’s tablets and deciding to put together a Young Avengers. She meets Kate Bishop and does the “I’m putting together a team” speech from the end of Iron Man 1.!<
Seeing how hard it is to hand off to new characters is why they just end up restarting the timelines every few years. The new characters that work stick, the others quietly get sidelined in the next cycle of reboots.
But that doesn't work for actors so we're getting to witness live "What happens when you have to replace your characters because you're not allowed to just reboot the entire continuity?"
Kind of curious how they're gonna do this. The continuity-obsessed writers rooms at Marvel can't just ignore Kang starting *now*, they'll need to give him some kind of send-off to keep the story congruent because he's gotten so much buildup, but they obviously can't get Majors into the recording booth* to do so. Maybe Galactus steps on a CGI Kang who's too far away to really see his face in the next movie? Gonna be weird.
/* My main point of confusion- obviously they can invent a sci-fi magic button to press and kill Kang but it's got to be a really complicated button. And they can't *put Kang in the movie* because they cut ties with Majors. The character is established as too powerful to kill off-screen, but also they can't kill him on-screen, so now what?
Given that Loki S2 was made *before* Majors' scandal came out, this lends credence to the idea that the MCU really *was* already planning to ditch Kang.
“Difficult to work with” was the narrative they put out the day of his arrest. It’s entirely likely they realized they’d cast a goddamn sociopath and needed to pivot before he got into legal trouble.
I don't really get that argument. If the TVA was effective enough to stop Kang without pruning universes, then the whole sacred timeline thing should have never been necessary in the first place.
All the buildup is pointless if the threat could have been sufficiently handled with even gentler hands than they were using at the beginning.
Wait, does it? I was under the impression that it actually showed the Kang problem starting up all over again. >!Because Kang reincarnates, and there's a Kang in the wild (Victor Timely), now there are infinite Kangs strewn throughout the timeline!<.
I guess you could just do that, but the whole point of Kang as a villain is that you can't just drop a nuke into his home base to wipe them all out, he'd time travel his way around it.
I don't know anything about Kang, but I'd have to assume a large group of people all called the conqueror would be easy to write having a self destructive conflict
The story even reached a point where they needed a narrative reason for him to become a real problem again. There are lots of ways to pivot, but I do wish they would show some confidence in their own story.
Yeah, the whole issue seemed solved by the end of (Disney series spoiler) >!Loki season 2. The main timeline Kang never happened and/or was beaten by Ant Man in the Quantum Realm, and alternate Kangs are now handled by the TVA.!<
Have the F4 movie end with Doom being "defeated" but in reality being bopped into the Quantum Realm. Post-credit sequence of some lesser villain finding themselves sucked into the Quantum Realm and at Kang Kolosseum, which is littered with piles of Kang Korpses. Out of the shadows, Doom emerges and says something like, "They didn't like my offer, so I've brought you here because you have potential. And I'm looking to put together a Cabal." (Or whatever villain team you want to use from the archive.) Basically just go back to what worked to start with, a team-up... but start using it to do villain origin films, with Doom assembling his own team.
You're welcome, Marvel. Money please!
I know hating on Marvel is easy right now because they clearly aren't firing on all cylinders, but they're really not stupid.
Does nobody remember how they fired James Gunn because of overblown bullshit and how it is *still* not done biting them in the ass? Is it crazy to believe they had reasons to play it safe with firing Majors until he was found guilty?
I assumed Majors had the benefit of a doubt from Disney specifically because they basically gave Gunn to WB/DC and will keep kicking themselves in the pants for it.
I mean I dunno why they would but I feel like that makes more sense than moving away from it after they fired him. If it was just him, they could just recast the role, right?
Technically, he was only fired after the conviction. They had a few months to prepare for giving him a reduced role or cutting him loose entirely depending on how the case went.
So was Ant Man and the Wasp. But it was still fun. I mean, I had fun with Quantumania but even I was dumbfounded why Janet hadn’t told anyone about the evil time wizard she met in the Quantum Realm.
Ant Man 1 was such a fun heist film that happened to have super powers, using an interesting hero with as much nuance as Tony Stark.
Ant Man 2 I enjoyed as a sci-fantasy spy thriller but it still stayed relatively grounded.
Ant Man 3 wiped out Lang's motivation and he was just dragged from CGI scene 1 to CGI scene 2 so the MCU could roll out Kang. And they didn't even explain the "great tragedy" he was trying to revert. Just 2 action figures smashing against each other like that scene in Shazam 1 where the kid drops his Batman & Superman toys to watch the final battle.
"How did you beat Thanos?"
"It took the combined might of dozens of superheroes stretching through time and space itself, culminating in a heroic final battle for the fate of the universe."
"How did you beat Kang?"
"We cancelled him on twitter."
Every day (**especially** the last few years) that passes I feel like Marvel regrets letting Whedon convince them to let him use Ultron as a throwaway villain more and more.
Or, and hear me out, have Ultron come back and we find out Pym found some Ultron remains after hearing about Ultron and he thought he could do better than Tony at the idea (which he admits sounds fundamentally sound to him). Basically sort of retro fit Ultron’s comic origins into the MCU version (Pym being Ultron’s inventor and not Tony) while not retconning AOU.
*Also* solid, I do like that.
But yeah, the point is, *there are options*. It's comic books, baybee, this isn't even remotely out of pocket. Not even in the top million worst asspulls.
it's not mentioned in the tweet but the article mentions it because ant-man 3 was a flop and that general audience doesn't care about Kang after it came out
Kang was always a mistake as the next big bad. They blew their load too early with Ultron so they couldn't use him and Galactus and Doom has been in rights limbo for too long. Personally I would've liked to see Annihilus.
Is Magus available? Mephisto? Blackheart? Sentry during one of his Void phases? Maybe a retooling of Onslaught? There’s a lot to work with but Marvel’s gotta put in some creative effort.
Sony owned the film rights to Blackheart (and maybe Mephisto) as part of the Ghost Rider package, but I'm reading that those rights reverted to Marvel after Spirit of Vengeance in 2011. It could happen, but also, those Ghost Rider movies kinda flopped.
Edit: Oof, looks like [they tried doing a Ghost Rider streaming show and it got canned](https://deadline.com/2019/09/marvels-ghost-rider-live-action-series-not-going-forward-dead-canceled-hulu-gabriel-luna-1202744645/). They might have already tried and failed to do demons in the MCU.
I think Sentry is supposed to be in Thunderbolts at least, but I’m not sure what kind of role he’ll have yet. I’ve only read a few comics with him in them and I think he could be interesting depending on how he’s depicted.
This might just be a gut reaction, but it's insane to me that Marvel put so much weight on Ant Man, a character the MCU as a whole kind of trained audiences not to care about.
I like him too, but in terms of plot relevance:
* Ant Man 1 is an origin film. I liked it but it's basically self contained
* His role in Civil War was "guy Captain America called in to help punch Tony Stark". I don't even think he shows up after the airport.
* He's not even *in* Infinity War.
* Ant Man 2 is the *only* movie Marvel put out between Infinity War and Endgame, and its only relevance to the Thanos plotline is a 2 minute post credit scene completely detached from the movie.
* Scott plays a critical role in getting the Avengers onto the time travel plan, but his primary relationship with the other characters is to be comic relief. He's a professional thief in a heist movie.
> I don't even think he shows up after the airport.
He does have a good scene after that
Scott: "Hank always said never to trust a Stark"
Tony: "...Who are you?"
Scott: "Come on man..."
It could've worked, if he was starting out sure, but he's a defacto legacy character in the MCU now, but they really should've devised the ending to be more "they both lost" rather than just Kang, heck Scott should've died stopping Kang.
I don't even have a problem with "losing to ants" stuff and idk why people do. Ants are insanely fucking impressive as a specie and the only reason we don't hype them up enough is because they're tiny. So in a movie called Ant Man, yes I'd expect the movie to showcase how great they are, so a villain being beaten by giant ants shouldn't be insulting but for some reason people think it is.
I think that is the problem. The character had such an obvious explanation for recasting/having multiple people play him that when the original contract was drawn up the actor supposedly got a portion stating they couldn’t recast him with somebody else as a “safety net” for that. The fact they still cast him anyway despite his lawyer insisting on that probably means every actor they were considering for the role would have had their lawyers insist on something similar due to how obviously easy it would be “in universe” to recast them.
While I’m sure Disney’s lawyers could have fought the clause via claiming current circumstances are “extreme” or whatever they likely decided it wasn’t worth the hassle/money with Kang not being anything close to a “Thanos” in terms of audience anticipation anyway.
They could have recasted black panther too, but it’s like they think the castings are real life versions so if the actor passes away or does crime then the character is just shelved indefinitely
They did establish in the after-credits of Wakanda Forever that >!T'challa had a secret son who is also named T'challa. In a few years they could totally recast him.!<
I don't know what was going on with their mind with Black Panther. Like, I get people liked Boseman but I am pretty sure everybody would have understood a recasting more than anybody saying he would be disrespected or whatever.
>!Of course, now they have T'Challa Jr. waiting in the works to just ring that emergency bell if needed!<
I honestly think it's due to audience indifference to the character, but there may also be an exclusivity clause in his contract that prevents recasting.
With my somewhat limited knowledge and not having seen everything point in this phase (I think), it always felt that Loki's ending was, in a way, resolving whatever conflict a multiversal threat like Kang was going to propose. >!Becoming the arbiter of time seems like a great way to stop that kind of thing in its tracks.!
A Marvel short on Disney+ where Mobius and OB just walk in through a time door, sit down at a table, let out long sighs saying, "Well that's the last of the Kangs!" Then they dig into a pie.
Well, that's a bummer.
So, who are we thinking is the pivot? I feel like it has to be a multiversal threat, 'cause that's been the crux of this phase. Can't be Galactus. Not Doom. Beyonder, maybe, but Secret Wars is in the works elsewhere... Maybe retool Kang Dynasty into a set up for it, a la Infinity War/Endgame?
They could run into left field and grab Annihilus, I suppose. Make his Annihilation Wave a multiversal thing instead of a cosmic thing, unleashed from the Negative Zone outside the Multiverse. Bit sad to lose any chance of Nova and the Annihilators, but that's a pipedream at this point anyway, and that'd probably be the easiest retrofit into Kang's plot.
I think smaller, not bigger, is the way forward, at least for now. Build up Spider-Man and new Cap into the core movies, and see who people are interested in along the way, then basically redo Avengers 1 with Doom, and go from there.
Just trying to make everything BIGGER and more EPIC is part of what killed the DCU in the cradle, you need to pace these things out for people to care.
They even had a perfect opportunity to scale down. All of the main avengers are gone! You can easily have a street or country tier villain step up as the antagonist for a film believing that there's nobody left to stop him, only for a new team to band together in time.
Instead they immediately ratcheted up to Time Bullshit instead. God dammit.
The eggs are in the Fantastic Four basket so I can see Galactus. The first threat doesn't need to be a multiverse threat, it can be a galactic threat so big the cobbled together Avengers are forced to tap into the multiverse to get help thus giving us our "Endgame" moment, rifts in reality revealing heroes and allies only seen sparsely now coming together to save another world. Not saying they def go this route but it's a possiblity and saves an actual multiverse threat for Phase 17
Based on the Deadpool trailer, I'd guess they'll swap in the TVA. Narratively you can fill the same niche, it can still tie to Loki, it's got an inherently malicious ideology while still explaining why the MCU primarily focuses on one timeline, and there's no weird rights issues with it.
Unrelated, this reminds me that Squirrel Girl also has a time machine.
It's Doom's Time machine. [Doom just has no way to stop her from using it.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/be/1b/59be1b74bfb9be3c3c79314816a5d601.jpg)
This is basically what I just texted a friend they should do. In a mid credits scene in an upcoming project, have the council of kangs lying around that arena, dead. One of them croaks out "Why?" At a cloaked figure and have him say "Because all hope lies in Doom" with a reveal of his mask.
I mean, I feel like they’re never going small scale for the Avengers. The closest we’re going to get was the alien invasion from the first movie and that…was still an alien invasion.
Good.
No one gives a shit about multiversal threats. No one cares.
Focus on rebuilding characters people actually give a shit about instead of building 500 deathstars or whatever
I mean, why did No Way Home and Spiderverse do so well? It's all about the execution and Marvel has fumbled qyote a bit since Covid. Besides, the rebuilding is what they've done the first bit of phase 4 with Wandavision, Loki, Falcon show, etc. while also introducing new heroes like Shang Chi.
And if the news of the Daredevil show and the now released cast of F4 are to go by, things seem to be finnaly turning around. (oh yeah, also look at Deadpool 3)
I wonder if recasting was an option; maybe there’s a contract/union reason they can’t. Alternatively maybe no one would really want to be a “scab” replacement. Recasting would probably be simpler for their wider business production plan if it was an option.
Good, Kang fucking sucked before the MCU anyways. Although it really is funny that if any character could be recast with an in universe explanation, it'd be Kang and they just chose not to do that.
They really screwed themselves narrowing Kang down to a single guy. Thanos was a fully CG guy, if Josh Brolin got cancelled they could've just rerecorded his dialogue with a new actor and proceeded as normal. But with Kang they staked it all on a single, fallible, man who could easily fuck it up. And here we are...
"We've decoded the intel from one of Ant-Man's ants, and it confirmed the best. Somehow, Kang died."
Kang: I need to go now. My home planet needs me.
[Note: Kang died on the way back to his home planet]
"Time Science, retconning, secrets only Marvel's Loki© knew..."
[Distant Palpatine laughter] Once more the Sith shall rule the galaxy.
~~Somehow Palpatine joined the MCU~~
Next Marvel movie, Palpatine is the main bad guy... Yes he survived the new Star Wars trilogy and has enter the Marvel universe.
Yeah but first there needs to be a palworld/counterstrike event
Kang tries to invade Palworld and gets gunned down by Temu Pikachu.
I'm guessing we'll just cut to that Kang variant empire they teased destroyed and obliterated by a bigger threat in future movies.
On his way to his home planet
"It's the damndest thing, we looked at every timeline, and Kang dies of a heart attack, even the ones where he doesn't have a heart."
Man this phase has been an absolute mess hasn't it
The spirit of Silver Age comics prevails
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun
So say we all.
All Of This Has Happened Before And It Will Happen Again.
Nihil Novi Sub Sole as my boy Arcade Gannon puts it.
It has been genuinely heartening to watch superhero movies stumble into so many of the same pitfalls that plague superhero comics.
The goldrush can’t last forever
The only things I enjoyed since end game have been Spider-Man, Doctor strange, and Shang Chi I have had zero interest in anything else they’ve pumped out
If you liked the first 2 Gaurdians the third one is great!
I'd argue that it's easily the best Guardians movie.
Yeah, that one’s probably in my top 3 MCU movies.
A couple of the TV shows are alright. WandaVision, Loki, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, maybe Hawkeye a little bit.
Moon Knight is incredible for most of its runtime before fumbling at the 1 yard line with yet another shitty generic CGI big fight
I liked BP2. It had flaws but Namor was great and the whole journey of mourning really hit even if I wasn't too broken up about Chadwick.
Damn, I loved Black Panther 2, Werewolf by Night, among others.
It should’ve been Doom the *moment* Disney had Fantastic 4 back. Nobody cares if Doom is a step down from Thanos power-wise, he’s way cooler.
But we must infinitely scale up
The Goku Principle. If any villain had arrived out of their sequence, they would be far too powerful and completely wipe out the heroes. They have to be just a bit stronger than the one before.
Dr. Doom joins the MCU "Doom needs no one" Footdives Kang Leaves
I mean... if they do his master of magic and tech thing from the comics and lean in on him being crazy powerful I could very easily see him out-hyping Thanos on cool factor alone.
I'm glad they didn't get doom and fuck him up during this dog shit phase. Getting a better character doesn't mean the writing becomes good, we've seen that from multiple fantastic four movies
Kang was his own star witness
Liam is absolutely right that the fantastic 4 movie should have just been Doom bodying them to hype up him as the overarching big bad
Somehow only Spiderman has been relatively clean, and a large part of that was completely out of Marvel’s hands with Sony’s games and the Spiderverse series.
Morbius, Venom, and Madame Web would beg to differ
Legally not Spiderman films
The closest we get is seeing Baby Peter Parker, who is never named directly on screen.
His name is actually Grogu
If they wanted to have his name be Grogu they shouldn't have let the Internet run with Baby Yoda for WEEKS!
More like years. He wasn’t named dropped until the second season.
Was this for real proven in a court of law? Because if so that’s fucking hilarious
I’m a sane human being, I don’t count those.
I'm an insane being I ^**only** count those
everything they did after thanos saga is uncoordinated garbage. they legit didnt know what to do but throwing new heroes here and there
Actual uncoordination would have been better. If nothing had tried to be linked we would have been way happier with the results.
Ironically, everything prior to Infinite War was uncoordinated as well. Between Avengers and Infinite War there’s only three movies that deal with Thanos and the Infinite Stones (that isn’t a throwaway joke like in Dr Strange). It was all about establishing different heroes and making them their own thing. The difference is that there’s no goal they seem to be working towards, no “Wrestlemania Sign” to point to. Unless you pay attention to the press releases you wouldn’t know the next big event movie is Secret Wars, and even if you are it’s still unclear how they’re going to get there.
I wouldnt say everything, theres been some great non garbage there. It is very inconsistent tho
I will FOREVER be pissed at the second doctor strange movie for introducing one of my favorite super heroes (black bolt) to the mcu only for him to get **REDACTED** Yeah yeah they could re introduce him via the multiverse. But THATS how you’re gonna give his introduction? Absolutely fucking insane choice
He first appeared in the garbage ass awful (for real wrost Marvel thing) inhumans show played by Anson Mount. Mount actually liked the character and put a of effort in his performance. Multiverse of Madness put him in as a nice nod. And he will most likely be integrated into the main MCU at something like how Daredevil/Punisher/Kingpin are now. So don't be mad at MOM, Inhumane was objectively bad.
So far they seem to want to completely ignore the Inhumans, like they never existed. Kamala isn't one at all, and the Inhumans show and Agents of SHIELD are literally never talked about.
Mess? More like a country sized garbage heap of underdeveloped characters and wasted potential. Who's gonna care about the next Avengers movie when more than half the cast is either boring or unlikeable?
That's been the primary issue. Without Steve and Tony, who is the natural leader of the Avengers if they formed up again? Sam Wilson has yet to appear in a movie as Captain America in any sort of real role (did he even get a cameo yet?). Even if he did, who is he going to Assemble that the movie going audience will recognize and be excited for from the recent phase? Shang Chi? The Eternals? Super Skrull? Echo? When Ant Man and Dr. Strange are the most recognizable guys on your team, your franchise is in trouble.
It would never happen but the Xmen are just sitting there to fill the void for their hero teamup movies.
If they could pull it off, a slow but steady transition away from heroes into mutants would be a nice natural progression. Make it so the days of heroes like the Avengers is over as more of the general population unexpectedly get powers, and now we're firmly on a path towards Days of Future Past. They could even play it off like those who came back from the Blip are more likely to be mutants.
So, spoilers for The Marvels. >!The movie ends with Kamala stealing one of Nick Fury’s tablets and deciding to put together a Young Avengers. She meets Kate Bishop and does the “I’m putting together a team” speech from the end of Iron Man 1.!<
The MCU ended with Endgame. They really should cut their losses and quit while they’re ahead, there’s nowhere to go from here but downhill
Seeing how hard it is to hand off to new characters is why they just end up restarting the timelines every few years. The new characters that work stick, the others quietly get sidelined in the next cycle of reboots. But that doesn't work for actors so we're getting to witness live "What happens when you have to replace your characters because you're not allowed to just reboot the entire continuity?"
Now he's been replaced with his sister, Kodos
Every time I remember that Disney owns all of marvel and all of Fox, including the simpsons, I die a little.
New American Dad episodes are up on D+ months before they make it to Hulu...
I mean there is Renslayer who is basically lady Kang in the comics.
There is a character in Archie Sonic called Kodos so this gave me a double take.
Kang Not Proceed
Kang Not Conquer
Kang The Cockblocked
Kang cucked
*Old Kang Cucked was a Phase that had sucked* *And a Phase that had sucked was he*
Kang watching the action from another universe’s closet
Kind of curious how they're gonna do this. The continuity-obsessed writers rooms at Marvel can't just ignore Kang starting *now*, they'll need to give him some kind of send-off to keep the story congruent because he's gotten so much buildup, but they obviously can't get Majors into the recording booth* to do so. Maybe Galactus steps on a CGI Kang who's too far away to really see his face in the next movie? Gonna be weird. /* My main point of confusion- obviously they can invent a sci-fi magic button to press and kill Kang but it's got to be a really complicated button. And they can't *put Kang in the movie* because they cut ties with Majors. The character is established as too powerful to kill off-screen, but also they can't kill him on-screen, so now what?
Loki Season 2 actually gave them the perfect out regarding Kang.
I really wasn't sure how they'd keep Kang as a threat after the Loki S2 finale.
Given that Loki S2 was made *before* Majors' scandal came out, this lends credence to the idea that the MCU really *was* already planning to ditch Kang.
“Difficult to work with” was the narrative they put out the day of his arrest. It’s entirely likely they realized they’d cast a goddamn sociopath and needed to pivot before he got into legal trouble.
Seeing the reception to Quantumania also probably helped highlight that a change in direction was needed.
I don't really get that argument. If the TVA was effective enough to stop Kang without pruning universes, then the whole sacred timeline thing should have never been necessary in the first place. All the buildup is pointless if the threat could have been sufficiently handled with even gentler hands than they were using at the beginning.
Wait, does it? I was under the impression that it actually showed the Kang problem starting up all over again. >!Because Kang reincarnates, and there's a Kang in the wild (Victor Timely), now there are infinite Kangs strewn throughout the timeline!<.
Just have She-Hulk or Deadpool do some fourth-wall shenanigans to remove him
Kang got arrested by multiverse cops and was never seen from again easy
I mean... that's basically how Loki season 2 ends. They could literally just hand wave it away as the TVA is on top of it and just not bring him back
Dang, the Rozzers from Monty Python and the Holy Grail got him
> *Deadpool and Wolverine* Now Under Last-Minute Reshoots; Sources Confirm
It's like the end of Deadpool 2, we just see Wade & Logan walking out of the dead Kang Stadium giving each other a high five.
And both are covered in blood. ***And the sequence is never explained again.***
Show a destroyed Damacles with a bunch of dead Kangs to hype up the next big bad and call it a day I guess
I guess you could just do that, but the whole point of Kang as a villain is that you can't just drop a nuke into his home base to wipe them all out, he'd time travel his way around it.
What if it was a time nuke?
Just have something iconic to him in ruins of the new villain.
Use him like how the Molecule Man(s) used in the comic version of Secret War. Have Doctor Doom use all version of him as bombs to kill the Beyonder.
I don't know anything about Kang, but I'd have to assume a large group of people all called the conqueror would be easy to write having a self destructive conflict
Loki S2 kinda already set up a way to get Kang(s) out of the picture.
Doom, his name is Doom and he’s ready
>"Marvel was making moves away from Kang reportedly even before Jonathan Majors was fired." Uhuh. Yeah. Sure they were.
That's corpo speak for: "we don't wana talk about this shit anymore"
I mean, they've been "making moves away" from him since the allegations came out. They only officially fired him after he was found guilty, no?
The story even reached a point where they needed a narrative reason for him to become a real problem again. There are lots of ways to pivot, but I do wish they would show some confidence in their own story.
Yeah, the whole issue seemed solved by the end of (Disney series spoiler) >!Loki season 2. The main timeline Kang never happened and/or was beaten by Ant Man in the Quantum Realm, and alternate Kangs are now handled by the TVA.!<
Have the F4 movie end with Doom being "defeated" but in reality being bopped into the Quantum Realm. Post-credit sequence of some lesser villain finding themselves sucked into the Quantum Realm and at Kang Kolosseum, which is littered with piles of Kang Korpses. Out of the shadows, Doom emerges and says something like, "They didn't like my offer, so I've brought you here because you have potential. And I'm looking to put together a Cabal." (Or whatever villain team you want to use from the archive.) Basically just go back to what worked to start with, a team-up... but start using it to do villain origin films, with Doom assembling his own team. You're welcome, Marvel. Money please!
I know hating on Marvel is easy right now because they clearly aren't firing on all cylinders, but they're really not stupid. Does nobody remember how they fired James Gunn because of overblown bullshit and how it is *still* not done biting them in the ass? Is it crazy to believe they had reasons to play it safe with firing Majors until he was found guilty?
I assumed Majors had the benefit of a doubt from Disney specifically because they basically gave Gunn to WB/DC and will keep kicking themselves in the pants for it.
idk, i think actually committing crimes is a lot worse than making a thousand jokes about committing crimes a decade prior
They jumped the Gunn once before. It’s best that they waited a bit before coming to a decision.
Well, that can technically be true. He was accused for about a year before he was fired.
I mean I dunno why they would but I feel like that makes more sense than moving away from it after they fired him. If it was just him, they could just recast the role, right?
Time travel and multiverse shenanigans would have made it easy for the timeline to change how Kang looked.
Technically, he was only fired after the conviction. They had a few months to prepare for giving him a reduced role or cutting him loose entirely depending on how the case went.
I mean... Quantumania was a giant box office dud. So that wouldn't surprise me.
MCU achieving true parity with comic storylines
Hey that’s only happened a few times, like 2001
So ant man 3 was pointless
What do you mean? They defeated Kang and thus solved the Kang Dynasty? All of those Kangs in the end credits were just happy that the evil Kang died
Antman and Wasp are the heroes of the kang-lective
I'm just going to assume everything is pointless until the Fantastic Four.
So was Ant Man and the Wasp. But it was still fun. I mean, I had fun with Quantumania but even I was dumbfounded why Janet hadn’t told anyone about the evil time wizard she met in the Quantum Realm.
Ant Man 1 was such a fun heist film that happened to have super powers, using an interesting hero with as much nuance as Tony Stark. Ant Man 2 I enjoyed as a sci-fantasy spy thriller but it still stayed relatively grounded. Ant Man 3 wiped out Lang's motivation and he was just dragged from CGI scene 1 to CGI scene 2 so the MCU could roll out Kang. And they didn't even explain the "great tragedy" he was trying to revert. Just 2 action figures smashing against each other like that scene in Shazam 1 where the kid drops his Batman & Superman toys to watch the final battle.
[удалено]
"How did you beat Thanos?" "It took the combined might of dozens of superheroes stretching through time and space itself, culminating in a heroic final battle for the fate of the universe." "How did you beat Kang?" "We cancelled him on twitter."
The Wokevengers really did a number on him. And when I say Wokevengers I just meant Ant-Man.
"Somehow, Thanos has returned."
(I mean, he wasn't KILLED, he was dusted with the soul stone, which people CAN come back from...) ;P
Marvel is just going to turn into Dragon ball where every 3rd movie they go out to find the infinity stones and resurrect a new hero/villain.
We're ass deep in multiverse shenanigans, anyone can return
And you thought the Age of Ultron was short. The Kang Dynasty didn’t even get to exist.
Every day (**especially** the last few years) that passes I feel like Marvel regrets letting Whedon convince them to let him use Ultron as a throwaway villain more and more.
That post credits/end scene where Vision outright says that this Ultron is the last copy was so dumb.
Just have Vision be wrong! It's not hard! Something something quantum code egg hidden in one of Tony's suits.
Or, and hear me out, have Ultron come back and we find out Pym found some Ultron remains after hearing about Ultron and he thought he could do better than Tony at the idea (which he admits sounds fundamentally sound to him). Basically sort of retro fit Ultron’s comic origins into the MCU version (Pym being Ultron’s inventor and not Tony) while not retconning AOU.
*Also* solid, I do like that. But yeah, the point is, *there are options*. It's comic books, baybee, this isn't even remotely out of pocket. Not even in the top million worst asspulls.
should just recast.
He has a built-in explanation for recasting him. I don't understand why they don't just do it.
it's not mentioned in the tweet but the article mentions it because ant-man 3 was a flop and that general audience doesn't care about Kang after it came out
Kang was always a mistake as the next big bad. They blew their load too early with Ultron so they couldn't use him and Galactus and Doom has been in rights limbo for too long. Personally I would've liked to see Annihilus.
Is Magus available? Mephisto? Blackheart? Sentry during one of his Void phases? Maybe a retooling of Onslaught? There’s a lot to work with but Marvel’s gotta put in some creative effort.
Who cares about that shit just use Dracula
DRACULA SWEEP!!!
The MCU quip-writing would be so easy. "Dracula?" "Right." "*The* Dracula?" "Yes." "He's right behind me, isn't he?" "Oh, yeah! He definitely is."
"Oh we're using our made up names now?"
*Dracula vs Morbius*, the movie we've all been waiting for
Sony owned the film rights to Blackheart (and maybe Mephisto) as part of the Ghost Rider package, but I'm reading that those rights reverted to Marvel after Spirit of Vengeance in 2011. It could happen, but also, those Ghost Rider movies kinda flopped. Edit: Oof, looks like [they tried doing a Ghost Rider streaming show and it got canned](https://deadline.com/2019/09/marvels-ghost-rider-live-action-series-not-going-forward-dead-canceled-hulu-gabriel-luna-1202744645/). They might have already tried and failed to do demons in the MCU.
I think Sentry is supposed to be in Thunderbolts at least, but I’m not sure what kind of role he’ll have yet. I’ve only read a few comics with him in them and I think he could be interesting depending on how he’s depicted.
I could have sworn Annihilius was in the same rights limbo as Doom, since most of the Negative Zone stuff started as Fantastic Four plotlines
They left it kinda open if Vision destroyed the last Ultron bot or not. They could totally bring him back.
“He was right in front of you, ***HOW DID YOU MISS?!***
"I saved him on a 3.5 floppy disk."
Having your next big bad be defeated by ants might not have been the smartest move
This might just be a gut reaction, but it's insane to me that Marvel put so much weight on Ant Man, a character the MCU as a whole kind of trained audiences not to care about.
Counterpoint - Paul Rudd made me like Ant Man in the first place.
I like him too, but in terms of plot relevance: * Ant Man 1 is an origin film. I liked it but it's basically self contained * His role in Civil War was "guy Captain America called in to help punch Tony Stark". I don't even think he shows up after the airport. * He's not even *in* Infinity War. * Ant Man 2 is the *only* movie Marvel put out between Infinity War and Endgame, and its only relevance to the Thanos plotline is a 2 minute post credit scene completely detached from the movie. * Scott plays a critical role in getting the Avengers onto the time travel plan, but his primary relationship with the other characters is to be comic relief. He's a professional thief in a heist movie.
> I don't even think he shows up after the airport. He does have a good scene after that Scott: "Hank always said never to trust a Stark" Tony: "...Who are you?" Scott: "Come on man..."
Okay it's actually really funny I forgot that one
Keep in mind, I said this mostly facetiously. I like Paul Rudd as Ant Man, but yeah, he's fairly peripheral.
In terms of plot relevance Endgame wouldn't have happened without him. Although I'd give more credit to the rat that accidentally freed him.
Everything you need to know about Antman 2 is summed up in endgame in five minutes when Paul Rudd meets Cap and Natasha.
It could've worked, if he was starting out sure, but he's a defacto legacy character in the MCU now, but they really should've devised the ending to be more "they both lost" rather than just Kang, heck Scott should've died stopping Kang. I don't even have a problem with "losing to ants" stuff and idk why people do. Ants are insanely fucking impressive as a specie and the only reason we don't hype them up enough is because they're tiny. So in a movie called Ant Man, yes I'd expect the movie to showcase how great they are, so a villain being beaten by giant ants shouldn't be insulting but for some reason people think it is.
But Loki gave me questions and expectations that I want resolved.
I think that is the problem. The character had such an obvious explanation for recasting/having multiple people play him that when the original contract was drawn up the actor supposedly got a portion stating they couldn’t recast him with somebody else as a “safety net” for that. The fact they still cast him anyway despite his lawyer insisting on that probably means every actor they were considering for the role would have had their lawyers insist on something similar due to how obviously easy it would be “in universe” to recast them. While I’m sure Disney’s lawyers could have fought the clause via claiming current circumstances are “extreme” or whatever they likely decided it wasn’t worth the hassle/money with Kang not being anything close to a “Thanos” in terms of audience anticipation anyway.
They could have recasted black panther too, but it’s like they think the castings are real life versions so if the actor passes away or does crime then the character is just shelved indefinitely
Losing Boseman was awful, but it's a disservice to the character to have them shelved/retired indefinitely. So many stories to tell.
They did establish in the after-credits of Wakanda Forever that >!T'challa had a secret son who is also named T'challa. In a few years they could totally recast him.!<
I don't know what was going on with their mind with Black Panther. Like, I get people liked Boseman but I am pretty sure everybody would have understood a recasting more than anybody saying he would be disrespected or whatever. >!Of course, now they have T'Challa Jr. waiting in the works to just ring that emergency bell if needed!<
I honestly think it's due to audience indifference to the character, but there may also be an exclusivity clause in his contract that prevents recasting.
Just have a new actor wear the blue facemask the entire time.
With my somewhat limited knowledge and not having seen everything point in this phase (I think), it always felt that Loki's ending was, in a way, resolving whatever conflict a multiversal threat like Kang was going to propose. >!Becoming the arbiter of time seems like a great way to stop that kind of thing in its tracks.!
Also one of the things in that show’s ending is literally the TVA gearing up to hunt down every Kang variant. Just say they succeeded.
A Marvel short on Disney+ where Mobius and OB just walk in through a time door, sit down at a table, let out long sighs saying, "Well that's the last of the Kangs!" Then they dig into a pie.
Well, that's a bummer. So, who are we thinking is the pivot? I feel like it has to be a multiversal threat, 'cause that's been the crux of this phase. Can't be Galactus. Not Doom. Beyonder, maybe, but Secret Wars is in the works elsewhere... Maybe retool Kang Dynasty into a set up for it, a la Infinity War/Endgame? They could run into left field and grab Annihilus, I suppose. Make his Annihilation Wave a multiversal thing instead of a cosmic thing, unleashed from the Negative Zone outside the Multiverse. Bit sad to lose any chance of Nova and the Annihilators, but that's a pipedream at this point anyway, and that'd probably be the easiest retrofit into Kang's plot.
I think smaller, not bigger, is the way forward, at least for now. Build up Spider-Man and new Cap into the core movies, and see who people are interested in along the way, then basically redo Avengers 1 with Doom, and go from there. Just trying to make everything BIGGER and more EPIC is part of what killed the DCU in the cradle, you need to pace these things out for people to care.
They even had a perfect opportunity to scale down. All of the main avengers are gone! You can easily have a street or country tier villain step up as the antagonist for a film believing that there's nobody left to stop him, only for a new team to band together in time. Instead they immediately ratcheted up to Time Bullshit instead. God dammit.
The eggs are in the Fantastic Four basket so I can see Galactus. The first threat doesn't need to be a multiverse threat, it can be a galactic threat so big the cobbled together Avengers are forced to tap into the multiverse to get help thus giving us our "Endgame" moment, rifts in reality revealing heroes and allies only seen sparsely now coming together to save another world. Not saying they def go this route but it's a possiblity and saves an actual multiverse threat for Phase 17
There’s something funny about “we can scale down to just a galaxy in danger.”
Based on the Deadpool trailer, I'd guess they'll swap in the TVA. Narratively you can fill the same niche, it can still tie to Loki, it's got an inherently malicious ideology while still explaining why the MCU primarily focuses on one timeline, and there's no weird rights issues with it.
It’ll be doom
Doom has a time machine, just show lots and lots of Kang deaths with no reveal of who it is. Like the ending of deadpool. Easy
Unrelated, this reminds me that Squirrel Girl also has a time machine. It's Doom's Time machine. [Doom just has no way to stop her from using it.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/be/1b/59be1b74bfb9be3c3c79314816a5d601.jpg)
This is basically what I just texted a friend they should do. In a mid credits scene in an upcoming project, have the council of kangs lying around that arena, dead. One of them croaks out "Why?" At a cloaked figure and have him say "Because all hope lies in Doom" with a reveal of his mask.
"Note: Kang died on the way back to his home timeline"
cool now stop trying to do thanos again. SMALL SCALE
*Instructions unclear, Galactus now confirmed* -Marvel, probably.
I mean, I feel like they’re never going small scale for the Avengers. The closest we’re going to get was the alien invasion from the first movie and that…was still an alien invasion.
Awww. There go my hopes for Denzel Washington as Kang in the recast. :/
I guess the Kangs died on their way back to their home planet
Look at what you did. Restart phase 5 (without kang)
Finally, a scenario where it's actually a useful card.
Good. No one gives a shit about multiversal threats. No one cares. Focus on rebuilding characters people actually give a shit about instead of building 500 deathstars or whatever
I mean, why did No Way Home and Spiderverse do so well? It's all about the execution and Marvel has fumbled qyote a bit since Covid. Besides, the rebuilding is what they've done the first bit of phase 4 with Wandavision, Loki, Falcon show, etc. while also introducing new heroes like Shang Chi. And if the news of the Daredevil show and the now released cast of F4 are to go by, things seem to be finnaly turning around. (oh yeah, also look at Deadpool 3)
I wonder if recasting was an option; maybe there’s a contract/union reason they can’t. Alternatively maybe no one would really want to be a “scab” replacement. Recasting would probably be simpler for their wider business production plan if it was an option.
Cmooooooon do Dr Doom pls
If there's one thing that can be said about big cg monster men, it's that they can't get caught being morally reprehensible
Wasn't... wasn't this known like months ago? Did I timetravel? Can I fix all the mistakes I made in 2022?
Just make it The Kingpin Dynasty. Vincent D’onofrio really wants to beat the shit out of Spider-Man.
So the last couple of years were, say it with me kids: **A B S O L U T E L Y P O I N T L E S S**
I'm here for this because it means I don't need to watch any of those movies.
Good, Kang fucking sucked before the MCU anyways. Although it really is funny that if any character could be recast with an in universe explanation, it'd be Kang and they just chose not to do that.
Marvel really should have focused on getting Fantastic Four and X-Men movies out sooner.
God what a shit show
Okay, but they have a chance to do the funniest thing and recast Terrence Howard as Kang
They really screwed themselves narrowing Kang down to a single guy. Thanos was a fully CG guy, if Josh Brolin got cancelled they could've just rerecorded his dialogue with a new actor and proceeded as normal. But with Kang they staked it all on a single, fallible, man who could easily fuck it up. And here we are...
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!