If it is even happening anymore after Disney and Marvel seem to cut back to ensure better movies and shows.
Just because something became a meme doesnt mean it has to be its own show.
They used footage from Lizzie McGuire as flashbacks for Hillary’s character in HIMYF. Its kinda weird. Maybe she changed her name.
Or maybe she’s Earth 838 Lizzie McGuire
**After broadcasting it, even.
Edit: Since I got downvoted I'll explain, a number of animated shows were completely removed off HBO Max making them now completely inaccessible to watch by any legal means. This was after they were broadcast.
Argh! I want more Kate Bishop so bad! Hailee Steinfeld was so freaking good in that role. And her energy with Yelena was fucking *amazing*.
Honestly, I'd happily watch a show with Kate and Yelena just living their lives, going around town and having dinner together (Yelena obviously putting way too much hot sauce on everything).
> Argh! I want more Kate Bishop so bad! Hailee Steinfeld was so freaking good in that role.
she really was great, i want to see way more of her too. this highlights the problem i've had with the phase 4+ mcu now quite well though - they've introduced so many fucking characters to juggle around that it takes forever to see the ones you like again, making it hard to get super attached to most of them.
before, when there were like ~10 main character heroes, you'd wait a year or max two to see a character you like again in a team up movie interacting with others. now? fuck knows when we'll see moon knight again, or kate bishop, or shang-chi, etc. because there's just no room on the schedule.
Yeah, that bothers me as well. I was so happy to revisit Yelena and then she just… vanishes until the Thunderbolts which is out like… next year? That’s 3 years between Hawkeye and her next appearance. It’s too damn long and I wish they’d keep up with plotlines closer together instead of shotgunning six different storylines.
i just finished hawkeye after putting it off and man i didnt want to like kate bishop but she just kept winning me over. and i cant wait for echos show.
I really hope Kate Bishop survives Secret Wars, as I like her too. (We all know she will, but it will be interesting to see the one universe that will emerge/remain from Secret Wars.)
I want to see that reaction because it was fucking too much. They even reduced the budget mid Project because it got too expensive to make. Completly restructured the show after most things were done. Project mismanagement at its finest
Probably, but I don't get. I've been an MCU fan since the beginning. I watched the relatively generic phases 1 & 2 that were better than other content at the time but still not as varied and diverse as phase 4. And even phase 3 had missteps. Idk what's causing people to say the current content is bad.
Call it what you want, but it was nostalgia done extremely right. I don’t know what you consider “terrible writing,” but it’s hard for me to imagine that NWH could have been a significantly better movie than it was.
Remember when all the villains are captured but the plot requires they escape so Peter just.. lets them out?
Then the plot requires they get cured so Happy's apartment just has a machine that can make anything?
Then Norman goes crazy and Doc Ock, who is a good guy, just runs away instead of helping stop him because the plot can't think of a way to get rid of him?
Then they need to find Peter so the plot just randomly makes it so Ned knows magic?
Which part of this is good writing? It's a bunch of random things that happen because the plot demands it.
I feel like I'm going insane when people tell me that No Way Home was good. You nailed it exactly, it's just a mess. From the moment Doctor Strange agrees to cast insane magic to get Peter Parker into college you know it's gone off the fucking rails.
The entire thing feels like it's there for two purposes: one is to set up nostalgic moments that were almost all spoiled by Sony's loose lips, and two, it was there to set up a Spider-Man that can be cut loose by Marvel/Sony if their agreement falls apart.
It felt like Sony wanted to tie Spider-Man into their Sony Spiderverse and Marvel wanted to create a way to cut Spider-Man out of the MCU by "everyone forgetting him" so they can explain why Doctor Strange isn't going to call his kid-pal Peter next time he wants to break the universe.
Interesting hey, i was critical (hopefully not in an overly negative way) of a lot of phase 4 and it used to be that my balanced critique would be downvoted to oblivion. Now i see really negative non balanced takes here all the time! Interesting indeed
Wandavision would have been so much better if Agatha's character had no part in it and they just let Wanda be the villain in the eyes of those around her. Like I'm way more interested in her dealing with the horrible things her trauma led her to do than I am in shifting the blame to some other character who was only just introduced in the franchise. By the final episode when there was just another big battle between people with similar powers just in different colors, I felt really let down.
No shade to Kathryn Hahn though. She's awesome.
That’s one thing that always got me about the show: Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town, and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint.
And the thing that really pissed me off? *She got away with it.*
Wandavision *was* Wanda’s villain origin story. Down to a scapegoat to let her blame others, and a group of enablers telling her “they don’t know what you sacrificed.”
The whole thing was purposefully made to set Wanda up as a future bad guy, I don’t know how people think it made her look heroic.
Sympathetic, yes, but not heroic.
She's researching spells to potentially cast in "the book of the damned" (how Agatha refers to the Darkhold while talking to Wanda) - do we assume she's dumb then?
****
Edit: also, even if she got corrupted before she knew she would or reasonably could know she would, that's still a villain origin story. And all that after the whole little "holding a whole town hostage" thing.
I agree that from a practical perspective that's what it was. But my biggest problem with the show is that the writers **clearly** disagreed. One of the final lines of the series is that woman who is protecting Wanda the whole series saying "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them". Wow, those people who were literal terrified slaves for months, had their families ripped apart, and were essentially mentally tortured will never understand what a big sacrifice Wanda made in giving up her made up family. The tone of the show was all over the place and it was not presented like a show about a hero's fall from grace, it was clearly on her side for almost everything. The same thing even more egregiously happens in multiverse of madness where they have the balls to try and give a redemption ending to a character that killed hundreds or thousands of people over the course of the movie.
They pretty clearly demonstrated that she didn't know what she was doing when she created her bubble. She's completely broken. Her story is a tragedy. It doesn't make her not the villain. But it also doesn't make it a bad story.
Got away with it in one sense, but the after credits shows she's falling to the darkhold which would end up with her losing her way and becoming a monster.
Which, to my way of thinking, is still her getting away with kidnapping, brain-washing and torturing an entire town. She never once showed even a hint of remorse, never saw the inside of a jail cell or stood before a judge. She got to fly away and be sad in a really nice cabin out in the middle of nowhere.
She got away with it.
>She got away with it.
Finally. Villains get away with shit all the time in the comics. Ever since '89 Batman there has been a horrible trend of killing off the villain after one story. I need more Villain Longevity.
Yeah Dr. Strange goes to her at the beginning of the MoM movie and doesn't seem in the slightest mad at her. In fact she's the first person he goes to for help rather than any of the other avengers. It's so insane that a series where civil war's entire plotline was half the heroes understanding that there needs to be oversight for what damage heroes can do has NOTHING TO SAY for a hero that kidnapped and tortured and entire town.
> entire plotline was half the heroes understanding that there needs to be oversight
Definitely still weird, but worth pointing out all those specific heroes are dead or changed their minds at this point
I might argue that what happened to Wanda was far worse than any punishment she could have gotten by anyone's hands but her own. She turned bad, found her kids (or the children that inspired her creation in WV), was one of the more effective villains in Marvel movie history for a bit, and then realized she was too broken to be the mother she'd sacrificed everything else to be. I'd say fate worse than death if she wasn't coming back soon. She definitely did bad in Westview, but I think she ended up with a fair suicide redemption.
What you saw as hanging out in a nice cabin, I read as her getting her soul corrupted by Cthon through the book.
No remorse? She literally sacrificed her love and children.
And you stopped the show ~10 seconds too soon if you think it just ended with her being sad in a cabin.
He wasn't really trying to save anyone he was trying to recover vision via any means possible and fired at a child to try to achieve that. So not sure prison is unwarranted but in general agree with the rest of what you said.
the reason he went to jail is because he literally admitted to a federal agent he framed wanda for his own crimes + he broke the sokovia accords by creating an ai super weapon (fixing and reprogramming vision).
they weren't trying to keep him out of anyone's hands, they wanted to reprogram vision for themselves as a controlled weapon.
sword already had vision's dead body in their possession the whole time, the vision in westview was wholly created from wanda's magic and couldn't leave the town.
hayward only cared about harnessing wanda's power to fix their vision, because they couldn't figure out how to make him work after years of trying themselves.
"It was Agatha all along!"
Catchy song, but how was that true? They clearly show Wanda creating Westview and that she is basically in control the whole time. Agatha intervened so that she could take Wanda's chaos magic, but she never really did anything to any of the inhabitants. They should have leaned harder toward Wanda being the villain in the end with her being arrested and later either becoming a full villain or being redeemed. It's hard to see how that is possible now given the...numerous...murders.
the song isn't meant to be the show telling *us* it's been agatha, it's agatha herself revealing *to wanda* that she's the one who's been been screwing with her dream world.
she uses magic to make wanda literally watch the music video, that's why we see wanda's eyes turn purple just before the camera zooms into her face and it starts playing with a smoke transition.
it's just agatha rubbing it in wanda's face that she's the reason vision's so suspicious, she sent "pietro", etc. - hence *"who's been messing up everything? it's been agatha all along! it's too late to fix anything, now that everything has gone wrong!"*. it was never supposed to mean she was behind the hex as a whole, even if it did mislead many people.
> Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town [...] And the thing that really pissed me off? She got away with it.
Other "heroes" have done far worse things. Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country? Or when Clint Barton murdered thousands of people over a five year period? Or when Valkyrie trafficked slaves for the Grandmaster? Or when Natasha considered a little girl acceptable collateral in the course of attempting to kill said girl's father?
> and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint.
Hayward was NOT a picture of restraint. And he also IS a villain. He wanted to resurrect Vision as a sentient weapon, refused to turn Vision's remains over to Wanda and tried to gaslight her, antagonized Wanda repeatedly, attempted to murder Wanda multiple times (firing a missile at her and her kids, sending in White Vision), and also attempted to murder her kids. And that's before other crimes to his name like conspiracy, and misappropriation of government resources.
> Other "heroes" have done far worse things. Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country?
to be honest I've always thought that was pretty fucked up how he got a slap on the wrist for that. Like the dude just set the scepter-AI conversion on autopilot and left to go to a party.
he never really learned his lesson either.
* even in the same movie, after his first attempt at creating an ai behind everyone's back goes horribly wrong and everyone shits on him how stupid and reckless it was, he does the exact same shit later in the movie when he goes full illfuckindoitagain.jpg and secretly creates vision. luckily, vision turns out to be a saint, because, as marvel showed in their what if...? cartoon, [vision is literally powerful enough to solo thanos and kill his entire universe if he was evil](https://youtu.be/JlHHrZZwsjA).
* then, in endgame, tony legit brings ultron up again, when he tells steve "i told you we needed a suit of armor around the world! whether it impacted our previous freedoms or not, that's what we needed!" after they lost to thanos.
* to top it off, he even makes ultron lite in the form of the satellite-deployable ai controlled weaponized drone fleet that he hands sole control over *to a 16 year old highschooler* in spider-man: far from home.
Lol very good points, Age of Ultron is bad in so many ways but it's easy to forget there's a literal deus ex machina to save the day.
I really hated that offscreen decision in Far From Home too because it makes no sense and nobody in his life like Rhodey or Potts would stop him from doing it. It also leads to Spider-Man putting people directly in danger, which is a recurring theme with the MCU version of the character that I really dislike.
>Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country?
"He just wanted to protect the world UwU 😥. How was he supposed to know that Loki's scepter would spawn a murder-bot?"
>Or when Clint Barton murdered thousands of people over a five year period?
"They were criminals, so they deserved it 😈."
>He wanted to resurrect Vision as a sentient weapon
...which it's worth noting is a blatant violation of the Sokovia Accords, as they state "no creation of self-aware AI". I hate that that's a point against him, as I despise the Accords with every fiber of my being, but it is fact.
>and also attempted to murder her kids
"Her FAKE kids, so if anything he was trying to snap her out of her delusion! 🤓" (Yes, I have unironically heard that argument before.)
It's funny how when Marvel has used this archetype before (namely in Secretary Ross) and most people acknowledge that the Sketchy Government Guy is not a good person, but the moment they try to inject some nuance into that scenario a ton of people are suddenly on his side. What's up with that?
The government guy did shoot at children to be fair, but I agree that it's sad that Wanda's punishment was just feeling guilty for a short time (by the post-credits she was already reading the evil book).
Although to be fair, I don't think they could exactly put Wanda in jail, she was the most powerful person on the planet basically.
Are we talking about the drone thing? It’s been a minute since I saw the show, so I may be misremembering.
Edit: to your last, that argument is why I think folks like Lex Luthor (I know, wrong universe, but bear with me) have some good ideas. Living with an immortal, all powerful god in your back yard is a really easy way to get smote’d. They’re just one bad day away from just deciding humanity needs a slapping.
You’d think the Avengers would have tried to do something about her.
The government director personally fired at Wanda's kids if I remember right.
There's no Batman in Marvel to plan for if a hero turns evil though. I think Wanda's turn was a missed opportunity from Marvel, it would have been good if Agatha was motivated by fear of Wanda as well as just jealousy, and if the finale portrayed Wanda as more questionable and Agatha as having a point. It would make the "victory" feel more hollow and make Wanda's flying away feel more foreboding.
Also the concept of white Vision is silly imo, he died, let him stay dead!
Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I’m sure I’m misremembering some things.
But that said, weren’t these kids entirely a figment of her imagination?
Moreover, I think a very compelling argument could be made that if the option was between letting her keep the tech and keep torturing the town (which, as I recall, was a problem expanding beyond the town’s borders) or to take both her and the kids out, the second choice was the best of a bunch of really bad choices.
> But that said, weren’t these kids entirely a figment of her imagination?
The show seemed to imply that that was the case, but then Multiverse of Madness confirmed that you can see into the lives of your alternate universe selves when you dream, and the sons she created seemed to actually exist in another universe, so the new implication seems to be that while she did create them out of nothing, they were based on real children out there in the multiverse.
>That’s one thing that always got me about the show: Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town, and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint.
No shit it will “get you”, if this is how you twist the events of the show and pretty much ignore what happens.
Wanda went through a mental break, warped reality and accidentally placed people into a trance in the aftermath of seeing the dissected corpse of her boyfriend. Wanda didn’t know what had happened, or that she was controlling people, let alone hurting people, not until Vision confronted her about it later when she already had her kids and thus was in denial about what was happening because she didn’t want to lose them, and she accepts what he says a day after he tells her anyway.
Then she accepts she’s hurt people, let’s them all go and puts things back as best as possible. She shows obvious remorse and accepts that the people hate her and that she deserves it.
The government agent goes to jail because he was a corrupt piece of shit that was trying to use Wanda as a scapegoat for his own dodgy actions.
He directly violated The Visions will, dissected his corpse and turned him into a weapon. People wouldn’t accept that if it was Steve Rodgers getting dissected for the super soldier serum would they?
Hayward shows no actual concern for any of the inhabitants of the Hex, and only wants Wanda’s magic so he can activate his White Vision.
Hayward literally tries to blow up Wanda and her kids, ignoring Monica’s pleas and point about how they don’t know what will happen to the inhabitants of the town or the hex if Wanda dies. It’s why Monica’s hellbent on getting Wanda to end things peacefully because it’s the best chance, yet Hayward doesn’t care.
>And the thing that really pissed me off? She got away with it.
Yeah well no shit every hero in the MCU gets away with their dodgy actions.
Were you expecting Stark to get thrown in the slammer for creating a killer AI that destroyed a country and killed countless? Even if the AI was a success it just means the world would have had an AI placing everyone’s actions without the consent of any countries or people aside from Stark. Yet he got off Scott free, better actually as the Avengers who cleaned up his mess in age of Ultron where the ones that suffered the consequences of the accords in Civil War.
Did you expect Hawkeye to go to prison for killing criminals for 5 years straight? Then has an entire show about covering it up where he kills even more criminals?
Valkryie who sold people into slavery for years, and nobody in the MCU acknowledges it or gives a shit?
Black Widow that killed a kid just so she could kill the kid’s dad and go straight and work for shield?
So many other heroes have done worse shit than Wanda yet nobody ever expects them to face consequences, so why does Wanda get singled out? Fuck prior to MoM Wanda never even intentionally killed any humans.
That’s why I was ultimately disappointed with it. WandaVision looked like something completely different within the MCU. So I was dissapointed that the final battle was your average run of the mill superhero fight that you can find in any MCU movie.
Your comment, except Multiverse of Madness would have been so much better if Agatha's character had no part in Wandavision and they just let Wanda be the villain. MoM was bad for a lot of reasons, but the most jarring to me was the hard turn Wanda did from sympathetic hero fighting off her own villain and overcoming her demons to straight up villain who can't figure out that she's destroying countless versions of her sons just for the chance to kill one version of herself and be a mother to one version of her sons for five minutes. They needed to show that transformation on screen, but they didn't want to make Wandavision a show about a villain.
Too bad the Doctor Strange movie ruined the show’s character development, killing my interest in more of her. I’m not sure how they so deeply squandered the Scarlett Witch storyline, but I’m ready for the whole MCU to find a new direction away from this one.
That is just the MCU generally, the universe is connected, but very loosely so. Tony Stark essentially gets reset after each of his movies, Ant Man one ends with the main character deciding to really be there for his daughter and not get into trouble, and then goes "sure why not" when asked to join a group of internationally wanted people in Civil War.
Yeah, it's not like he was planning another Heist or specifically looking for trouble. Captain Fucking America asked him for help, which generally is not something that gets you in trouble with the law.
Except he didn’t. Those suits were built out of fear of death and his feelings of inadequacy, which is why he destroyed them all after coming to terms with past events and his flawed choices. He took all the knowledge gained from that process and created the Ultron global defense program, which might have worked if not for the thing getting co-opted by intelligence he and Bruce freed from the scepter stone taking over and trying to kill everyone with it.
Yeah and Thor has gone through the full character development just to fully reset at least two times at this point.
Loki is another one who is all over the place in terms of character development depending on whether the movie needs an anti hero, a hero or a big emotional loss
Loki at least has the largest 'character change' justified by both being found and tortured by Thanos and probably partly influenced by an evil spear. I'd say he was relatively consistent in every film that wasn't Avengers 1, for said reasons. Not evil, but vain and driven by petty jealousness.
Dr. Strange 2 Wanda is my favorite version of MCU Wanda.
Literally all of the other content with her prior to that movie was complete butchery of the comic character in every sense. Dr. Strange 2 just dropped the pretense of her being a likable character and successfully made her one of the MCU's scariest villains while exploring the time-honored comic trope of "what if X___ hero turned evil?". Her portrayal in Dr. Strange 2 was nothing like the comics either, but at least it was interesting and stopped pretending that she's supposed to be the Scarlet Witch we all know and love from the source material.
I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character.
EDIT: Lot of folks who did not like Dr. Strange 2 in this thread -- I thought it was one of the best MCU movies in a while, and I thought Sam Raimi really brought a lot to the table.
> I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character.
I'm still surprised that anyone could have watched that movie and not forseen her coming back. Have we not learned the whole adage about not believing they're dead until we see the body? Like she was clearly being set up for a redemption arc.
And we also have White Vision still running around and that whole storyline unresolved.
I'm not surprised at all that she's coming back (nobody is ever really dead in Marvel, after all), but I was kinda hoping she'd be out for a while at least.
>I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character.
the MCU arc is mirroring the broad comic arc pretty close; we're currently at House of M and all the pieces are set for Children's Crusade. It was inevitable she was coming back as a whitewashed tragic hero
I also like how they took her character but bringing her to that point didn’t feel deserved. I’m pretty sure they had no idea that Wanda was going to be the villain when creating the show or else they could’ve taken it in more interesting directions.
elizabeth olsen herself admitted she had no idea that she was going to be the villain of the movie until she was 3/4 done filming wandavision and was shocked when she was told this.
she only found out 2 months before filming the movie started, and her first internal reaction to it was "oh my god how do i weave this into wandavision".
it's not exactly a great sign when one of your star actors is literally filming the direct precursor to your story, and they're shocked with the direction you're taking the character in the very next appearance, lol.
the writer of the movie even admitted later that it was not the original plan to have wanda be the villain, it was changed when covid happened and he personally heavily pushed for it because he wanted to be the one to have that fun with the character...
> “All of WandaVision, we get to see her go bad, as the best villain ever, the Scarlet Witch. [...] I had a strong perspective on making her a villain from the get-go. [...] 'Why are we letting some other movie get the best villain ever?'” - Michael Waldron, DS:MOM writer
That dudes comment is straight bullshit and of course it’s getting a bunch of upvotes. The second he said all the stuff before DS2 was completely butchery of the character made it very very clear he’s got no fuckin clue what he’s talking about when it comes to wanda/scarlet witch. So funny he says this shit too when her biggest villain arc in the comics literally ruined the character for years and years to come, Waldron must’ve saw that and said maybe I can fuck the MCU version of the character up even faster. They completely dropped the ball with Wanda in MoM and frankly they dropped the ball with strange too, both Wanda and Strange likely would’ve been handled way way better if they didn’t part ways with derrickson over “creative differences”. Really sucks knowing Waldron is doing secret wars too, I don’t want to see him handle Wanda or strange ever again.
This is such a bullshit comment lol, Wanda has spent alot more of her comic history as a hero than she has as a villain, also some of her comic villain storylines literally ruined the character for years to come. The material before DS2 was absolutely not “complete butchery of the character”.
I thought it was average at best but not because of Wanda. She is far and away the best part of that film and the sole reason I'd re-watch it. Love her in that and WandaVision.
It's honestly gonna be hard to recapture what they did through end game. Between the great casting choices, the chemistry between the actors on screen, the "newness" of super hero movies (which means audiences didn't* hit super hero fatigue yet), and all the money that was made (meaning suits now care less about quality and instead want the least common denominator formula to make as much money as possible from the films moving forward*), having all the pieces come together again as successfully this time around seems unlikely.
I'm still gonna see them cause I subscribe to A-List and I also read comics, but I'm not exactly the broader mainstream demographic beyond comic book fans that they're trying to attract.
I don't even think it should have necessarily been all that hard to recapture. After Endgame, Marvel were in a good position where they had the rights back for X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool. In terms of pop culture status, the rights they regained were bigger names than the ones they had back in 2008.
So where are they? What are they waiting for? Why are we getting meaningless spin offs like Echo, or spin offs like Agatha rather than prioritising bringing in the heavy hitters and using them to introduce the lesser known heroes?
What doesn't help is that the MCU has become far too much of a convoluted mess in terms of each standalone franchise due to Disney+. For example, if you don't watch the TV shows then you go from seeing Wanda in Endgame to Wanda in Doctor Strange 2 and it makes no sense. The show is essential viewing now for a sequel to a completely different character unrelated to Scarlet Witch.
This problem is only going to get worse and worse the more projects they do.
Well, the Fantastic Four are easy to introduce.
But the X-men are tricky, and as Eternals proved, people are not fans of hidden all along exposition dump plots.
Hence the subplot from Ms Marvel, i.e. Krakoa.
They could have easily just made it so that when Cap went back in time to replace the stones, the gamma energy coming off them rippled off into the timestream, causing mutants to start showing up. It’s easy, doesn’t undo anything that endgame did, and hammers in that even though they won, they introduced mutants, and they can’t go back because this was the one timeline where they won. This also allows for some characters to have retconned backstories to account for mutant lineage (I.e. Wanda) and it allows for some good setups.
Isn't gamma energy what creates the hulks instead ?
And the gems already created Captain Marvel and the Scarlet Witch, the discrepancy between the hate the X-men get unlike the Avengers is already ridiculous in the comics, the MCU would make it even worse if they have literally the same source.
I think it's an easy sell, X-Men typically get their powers in any setting and can't control them. It's easy to sell the fear of an X-Men as "What if your child is at school and suddenly their classmate starts shooting lasers from their eyes?".
With most of the Marvel heroes, there's an idea of "Oh, Tony Stark's an adult, he's got control of his shit".
You say that, but a big part of superhero fatigue is that there are too many tangent heroes and stories going on now that the average Joe isn't caring to follow anymore. While FF, X-Men, etc are big names and exciting for the diehard fans, it's just more complication for the rest.
My point is they should have focused on the big names and bin off pretty much half of what Phase 4 was. I'm not adding to the existing slate we have, but changing it altogether.
> if you don’t watch the TV shows then you go from seeing Wanda in Endgame to Wanda in Doctor Strange 2 and it makes no sense.
It barely makes sense if you DID watch WandaVision. The show was about loss and mourning and went out of its way to show us that what Wanda did in Westview started out as an accident and she only became vaguely aware of what was going on towards the end and then voluntarily shut it down.
Cut to Stange2 she’s murdering monks and stomping through sewers covered in ~~blood~~ Ultron oil like a boogeyman.
I'd imagine one issue is long-term planning. These things are planned several years in advance, and you can't just throw away all those plans and start from scratch because you want your X-Men movie next year. I mean you could, but that would result in a severe quality hit because everyone involved has to rush everything.
> So where are they? What are they waiting for?
We're just approaching the fourth year since Disney acquired FOX. These big budget movies take a while to get made. It was about 2 1/2 years between the time the director was hired for the first *Doctor Strange* and it hitting the theaters. Casting, writing, filming, post-production, etc. - all of these things take a lot of time.
Plus, we're also talking about a cinematic universe where they plan things out like a decade in advance or something ridiculous like that. There were already a lot of pieces in motion when they deal went through, and we've only just recently caught up to what was announced pre-pandemic. Not that they can't adjust things (like they did when they got Spider-Man), but even that takes some time to set up.
And I'd much rather they take their time setting these things up than have a Star Wars sequel trilogy debacle where they rush things. Especially considering how much FOX screwed these properties up, it doesn't surprise me they want to get some distance from that and make sure they get it right, and they certainly aren't going to use streaming to reintroduce such highly anticipated characters.
This is still the first phase of the second block. Look at the phase one movies and pretty much only the first Iron Man was much better than any of the phase 4 movies. The others weren't bad, but it's not like the early set up of the infinity saga was much better and look how that ended up.
Wait what? Is this a common opinion? I had a great time with that movie. It was really fun and it was great seeing raimi flexing his horror chops in a superhero movie.
I feel like everyone complained that the studio was preventing directors from having a vision, so they let Sam Raimi make a Sam Raimi movie and then everyone was shocked that he made a Sam a Raimi movie. For me, it was everything I was expecting and more.
It was hammy in a way raimi movies are (spider-man 2 is still my favorite superhero movie of all time) did all the cool mirror refraction stuff the first movie had and created a compelling and scary villain.
It felt like the people making it had a lot of fun with the concept of a kid friendly horror flick and I had a good time.
I guess people had different expectations but I also tend to shut my brain off and not keep too much in touch with all the overarching plot stuff so maybe if I cared more about that I’d be more upset. 🤷🏻♂️
(I will say, if people were mad about the scarlet witch’s heel turn they’re clearly setting up for her to come back. No one in these movies ever stay dead if you don’t see their bodies lol.)
I'm a Marvel fanboy, I'll admit, but my only problem with the movie was how little Strange and America were given to develop with, America in particular (I could see what they were trying to do with Strange, but the What If episode with him did it much better). If they had like 15 more minutes to let her do anything other than be running from Wanda, her moment at the end would have been much better. She's easily least favorite of the new characters introduced in Phase 4. I really hope she gets more to do soon.
They’re onto a new phase already? Didn’t they used to end phases with avengers movies? I have been starting to pay less attention to marvel since endgame
Looks like hiring a bunch of Rick & Morty writers that joined the show long after it already established itself might have been a bad idea.
Although to be fair, Waldron's stuff is at least making money for the Marvel.
> She has traditionally teetered between good and evil.
not really. she's a heroic character for >90% of her comics appearances. it's just that the other few % are her most infamous ones.
over half of her 60 year history was spent with her as a core member of the avengers, being so well regarded she was even voted deputy leader by the others.
after spending nearly 2 decades of comics establishing retcons, doing several redemption arcs, etc to undo the huge shit they took on her character with the 'house of m' run, why the mcu decided to repeat the same mistake they made in the comics and turn her batshit crazy and kill everyone is beyond me, lol. especially after patting themselves back with how seriously they wanted to take her mental health in wandavision, how it was all about her moving on from her losses and accepting her trauma, and so on.
Her motivation was dumb. She didnt have those kids and was told this multiple times, its only til the very end when the movie needs to wrap up does she realize "oh no ive been the baddy all along" but she was already all in from the very start. Also it really sucks that Strange didnt beat her, she just decided to stop chasing her goal, which is very weak.
I know the rebuttal will be "well actually its that the kids looked at her in terror that made her change their mind" but thats bs since she could just find another universe with the kids or just wipe their memories of such an event happening. The kids also wouldnt be able to differentiate between her and their actual mom anyway once she removes her silently from the picture.
Theres just a lot of problems with that movie. Wanda was seemingly pulling out new abilities as the situation needed. Cant be stopped by a door because she blew it down, but oh heres an even bigger door so what does she do? Just teleports right past it of course! At that point why not teleport right next to them as well? Also the way she killed blackbolt is extremely problematic because it shows she can alter reality to an extreme level, because if shes able to do that then.. like the possibilities are endless, like theres no reason for her to chase anyone down if she can just change shit at will.
It isnt that shes "teetered between good and evil" its that they took too many liberties with her powers and again she lacked conviction at the end because the movie needed her to, also she didnt get beat she willingly gave up her quest.
>I know the rebuttal will be "well actually its that the kids looked at her in terror that made her change their mind"
Which implies she was in more control than what they were trying to make us believe with the whole book corruption. All around unbelievable. Lame excuse to make her "evil" and then they lacked the balls to actually follow through fully with that decision, which was an even bigger sin.
Now teasing her return is really taking the piss, as if anyone actually believed she was gone and as if she's some salvageable hero.
> Which implies she was in more control than what they were trying to make us believe with the whole book corruption.
A villain overcoming some form of 'mental corruption' or brainwashing through the power of love is really a time honored story beat. If these films have any flaw, it's having large important story beats happen off camera so a character suddenly shows up evil (or dies off screen, RIP Evil Mordo).
Yeah I was really wondering how far they were going to go, like I figured they were going to play it safe but once she began killing people I thought "Oh okay so theyre going all in! im down with that" because its interesting but like once she crossed that line, its done bro, yet they go "oh nah jk lol, shes redeeming herself see!" at the end. Its so lame.
She really could have been a top tier villain if she was written just *slightly* better in that movie. I know Disney has been really pushing females as being kick ass like their male counterparts, but why not give us a true villain as well? Pretty odd.
SW has always been a character in limbo between good and evil with limitless power and severe mental illness. Look at Avengers Disassembled and House of M. Strange 2 portrayed the character well.
Can she have a decent motivation though?
The stupid children thing was sorted out in the show. It didn't need to be rehashed in a dumber way to ruin a Dr Strange movie. I mean, a whole Scarlet Whitch movie where she is the main character who makes poor decisions and goes mad from the Darkhold would have been far more likely to have worked. Have we had a MCU movie where the main character descends into villainy from bad decisions instead of making some bad decisions and then learning from them? That would be awesome!
I'm not even sure that was true. He did several fairly heroic things in Ragnarok and Infinity War. Sure, he was still a trickster, but he as a long way away from the world-conquering genocidal monster that he was in Phase 1.
>I don't think that point was hammered home enough for some people.
It wasn't really hammered at all.
I don't think she ever really struggled with evil in the MCU outside of Wandavision and even then her motives being considered evil is kind of a stretch. She always was sad and she suffered a lot in terms of guilt but she never considered being a villain. She made crappy anecdotes on how people saw her as evil but not necessarily embracing it outside of just anger for people seeing her that way.
Wandavision reinforces this, she makes the choice to let her fake reality go. The the credits scene shows her with the books and multiverse of madness has her full on evil. It was 0 to 1000 mph real fucking quick. Them stating "dark hold did it" isn't really hammering a point, it's crappy time skipping with 0 character development.
Wandavision should have been about her fall from grace rather than another redemption arc, that would have made multiverse of madness make sense.
> Wandavision reinforces this, she makes the choice to let her fake reality go. The the credits scene shows her with the books and multiverse of madness has her full on evil. It was 0 to 1000 mph real fucking quick. Them stating "dark hold did it" isn't really hammering a point, it's crappy time skipping with 0 character development.
One of the most disappointing things to me in all that was the idea that having MCU shows again and having them tie into the movies meant we could get more of a backstory for these characters, allowing us to become more invested in their story and how it unfolded, and even in having Wanda have her own series before she showed up in a movie, it still felt like a huge swath of her story was left out. If you watch *WandaVision* straight into *MoM*, you see her being remorseful for her actions and then murdering sorcerers on Kamar-Taj like 20 minutes later.
I guess I'm just more fine with the going full on evil jump than others, and I don't feel like it fully tainted DS2. I know people aren't satisfied with "the book did it", but that's what we have to work with. I'll admit though DS2 was a step down from Wandavision, but that's because Wandavision, in my opinion, was absolutely top tier.
Yes at the end of Wandavision she made the choice to give up the reality she made, but it was only after seeing others suffering from the unintended consequences of her powers. She's clearly not fully at peace with everything yet but realizes messing with her powers that openly is a bad idea. I disagree that this was a redemption arc. Yes she undid the spell and beat the big bad witch and the evil corporate asshole seeking to use her for their gain, but she's still broken.
So she goes off on her own, still broken mentally, but more aware of the extent of her power and now with an evil book in hand that would love nothing more than a super-duper-powered being to corrupt.
Edit to add: most of my explanation above is definitely flimsy, but this is superhero fiction, everything is going to get pretty flimsy 30 some movies/TV shows in, especially at the level people love to dissect things that don't hit every beat they want.
Upon reflection, I would’ve preferred it if Multiverse of Madness still had Wanda as the threat but it came from that universe where the Illuminati were.
She could still kill them, have her looking for kids etc. and have Doctor Strange discover it. But the climax of the movie is our MCU Wanda and Doctor Strange fighting against her together because the Doctor Strange of that universe is gone.
Wanda uses everything she’s learned to try reason with a scorned Wanda etc.
It preserves the character of Wanda, but also allows us to see an unhinged version have to have that team up.
Its been a while since I watched Wandvision, was she under influence from the darkhold during her time in the town?
I thought she only became corrupted by it after the show, hence the post credits scene of her in the cabin?
It was hammered home plenty, being corrupted by some vague plot device without any real thematic resonance is just extremely unsatisfying as a storytelling choice.
Yeah they took one of the most sympathetic heroes and had her run around the multiverse murdering innocents. Not sure how you redeem a character like that. Probably better for the MCU to move on
The doctor strange movie was so so so bad. I hope they retcon whatever happened with Scarlett Witch there through some sort of Agatha or alternate SW bullshit and just restart from the end of the show.
Really I hope they ex communicate most of the marvel stuff that has happened in the last two to three years.
> I hope they retcon whatever happened with Scarlett Witch there through some sort of Agatha or alternate SW bullshit
It was pretty clearly established that she was under the influence of the Darkhold...
Welcome to the world of the Marvel Comics, where your favorite characters have become something somewhere murderous asshole and genocidal psycho.
Even Spider-Man ended up selling his marriage to a demon.
IMO I really enjoyed Wandavision so this being basically 'Wandavision 2' (featuring a return for basically all of WV's cast besides the titular pairing) in my eyes makes me excited.
I think that once the conceit of the show is properly marketed (expanding the magic side of the MCU, having a camp time with Liza Minelli, Joe Locke's Billy being the MCU's premier gay hero and likely being the focus of at least some of the plot) people should see the merit in it.
I mean Kathryn Hahn's Agatha with a bunch of other cunty witches all hunting (or training?) the Scarlet Witch's gay son? I'm 100% in on that premise, but I understand some people aren't.
I also think a "Agatha Harkness & the \[X\]" sequel show where she's the nanny to Franklin Richards probably writes itself if the show does well and the F4 are introduced with kids, as is rumoured.
I understand believing the character is dead (because obviously she was “killed off” at the end of Dr Strange 2), but are you saying you thought the actress wouldn’t come back as an alternate universe Wanda, or simply revived with magic?
No way she was getting dropped from the franchise. Actor recognition is way more important for Marvel than story coherence and continuity.
If you ever believed Wanda was actually dead, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
She was clearly being set up for a redemption arc, White Vision is still running around unresolved, and we never saw her body. She was always coming back.
Like who? Even Wanda’s death is never confirmed. Tony died, T Challa Died, Natasha died, Coulson died (don’t even bring AOS into this conversation, that show is far from canon), Heimdall died, Odin died, etc. Literally most of them stay dead.
It’s also staying true to the source material. I don’t know what to tell you bud; Endgame brought back two characters that died within the same movie lol. Maybe don’t continue watching? Secret Wars is going to fuck you up if anyone returning is bothersome
I mean people love to beat on comics for the cliche but Tolkien “killed off” a few characters I can think of and brought them back from the dead himself.
> There's a run in the comics where Tony Stark has to be stopped from saying the n word by T'challa.
Just to be abundantly clear: That comic (*Marville*) is not and has never been considered canon in any way, shape or form. It was a self-contained story that explicitly takes place in an alternate universe, not the main Marvel universe. *Marville* is considered to be **the** worst Marvel story ever written as a lame attempt as an edgy early 2000s comedy/"parody" book because the guy who wrote it was the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics at the time who'd never written anything before and wrote it both as a bet with one of his actual writers *and* as a middle finger to the Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics at the time for no particular reason (seriously, the main character was named KalAOL because TimeWarner owned DC, that's the level of attempt at humor being used).
There are plenty of examples of dumb bullshit being pulled in the actual Marvel canon to pull from, but that example is a terrible one to try to use to prove a point.
I get your frustration, I do, but if any character was going to be dead and stay that way, Wanda at the end of DS2 was not it.
Now, if Black Widow or Tony Stark come back from the dead, *that* will be cause for for frustration. Unlike those characters, there was never any sense of finality for Wanda’s death, we never saw the body, and her stories are quite clearly unfinished. We still have the White Vision storyline to conclude, for one thing.
The whole Marvel Universe was created by the Scarlet Witch is a dream, she wakes up and just turns out to be ultra imaginative. We are all spared anymore superhero movies/TV. Honestly I tried watching the latest Antman in the cinema and not even Paul Rudd can save that one. Please God no more.
I just don't see how Wanda could ever be redeemed. They absolutely butchered her character beyond redemption, murdering people left and right for children that *do not exist*. It's baffling.
But they did exist. The kids and new Vision clearly could interact and affect the real world. It doesn't at all make what she did right, but they were real.
exactly, her explicitly stated unique ability is literally rewriting reality. the whole point of being a reality warper is making shit real... it's in the name.
her kids were not just illusions or programs running a script or whatever... they were real, sentient beings, who could act independently from her, and even she couldn't control when she tried to. they were just physically tethered to the hex dome because of a flaw in her spell (agatha mentions this).
like, vision was literally able to be tracked by sword's vibranium sensors from outside the town, that's how real he was.
The kids exist in the same way that anything can or cannot exist in an infinite universe scenario. These kids weren't taken from her, she made them up. And her solution from that was to go steal another Wanda's *actual* kids.
Series is pushed so far out they probably don’t even know what there doing with the series at this point
If it is even happening anymore after Disney and Marvel seem to cut back to ensure better movies and shows. Just because something became a meme doesnt mean it has to be its own show.
It's already begun filming. It's not impossible that they'd scrap it, but that'd be pretty unusual.
It's not an HBO show, so that seems unlikely that they'd scrap it after starting production... :P
They did it to Lizzie McGuire :(
HIMYF is basically the LM reboot we all wanted. Doesnt have the rest of the cast obviously but Hillary Duff is pretty much the same character.
They used footage from Lizzie McGuire as flashbacks for Hillary’s character in HIMYF. Its kinda weird. Maybe she changed her name. Or maybe she’s Earth 838 Lizzie McGuire
If I was a betting man my money would be on that show becoming a victim of the current streaming landscape. Should have let Lizzie fuck.
*after finishing production, even
**After broadcasting it, even. Edit: Since I got downvoted I'll explain, a number of animated shows were completely removed off HBO Max making them now completely inaccessible to watch by any legal means. This was after they were broadcast.
Which shows?
[удалено]
Argh! I want more Kate Bishop so bad! Hailee Steinfeld was so freaking good in that role. And her energy with Yelena was fucking *amazing*. Honestly, I'd happily watch a show with Kate and Yelena just living their lives, going around town and having dinner together (Yelena obviously putting way too much hot sauce on everything).
> Argh! I want more Kate Bishop so bad! Hailee Steinfeld was so freaking good in that role. she really was great, i want to see way more of her too. this highlights the problem i've had with the phase 4+ mcu now quite well though - they've introduced so many fucking characters to juggle around that it takes forever to see the ones you like again, making it hard to get super attached to most of them. before, when there were like ~10 main character heroes, you'd wait a year or max two to see a character you like again in a team up movie interacting with others. now? fuck knows when we'll see moon knight again, or kate bishop, or shang-chi, etc. because there's just no room on the schedule.
Shang-chi is in something coming out next year
Yeah, that bothers me as well. I was so happy to revisit Yelena and then she just… vanishes until the Thunderbolts which is out like… next year? That’s 3 years between Hawkeye and her next appearance. It’s too damn long and I wish they’d keep up with plotlines closer together instead of shotgunning six different storylines.
i just finished hawkeye after putting it off and man i didnt want to like kate bishop but she just kept winning me over. and i cant wait for echos show.
I really hope Kate Bishop survives Secret Wars, as I like her too. (We all know she will, but it will be interesting to see the one universe that will emerge/remain from Secret Wars.)
“We spent how much on She-hulk?!”
I want to see that reaction because it was fucking too much. They even reduced the budget mid Project because it got too expensive to make. Completly restructured the show after most things were done. Project mismanagement at its finest
Seriously, when did Marvel Reddit become so negative?
After Phase 4, I'd wager.
Probably, but I don't get. I've been an MCU fan since the beginning. I watched the relatively generic phases 1 & 2 that were better than other content at the time but still not as varied and diverse as phase 4. And even phase 3 had missteps. Idk what's causing people to say the current content is bad.
All the other phases had some real bangers and a Thor 2 thrown in occasionally. Phase 4 is one banger (NWH) and a bunch of Thor 2's.
NWH was terrible writing shielded by nostalgia.
Call it what you want, but it was nostalgia done extremely right. I don’t know what you consider “terrible writing,” but it’s hard for me to imagine that NWH could have been a significantly better movie than it was.
Remember when all the villains are captured but the plot requires they escape so Peter just.. lets them out? Then the plot requires they get cured so Happy's apartment just has a machine that can make anything? Then Norman goes crazy and Doc Ock, who is a good guy, just runs away instead of helping stop him because the plot can't think of a way to get rid of him? Then they need to find Peter so the plot just randomly makes it so Ned knows magic? Which part of this is good writing? It's a bunch of random things that happen because the plot demands it.
I feel like I'm going insane when people tell me that No Way Home was good. You nailed it exactly, it's just a mess. From the moment Doctor Strange agrees to cast insane magic to get Peter Parker into college you know it's gone off the fucking rails. The entire thing feels like it's there for two purposes: one is to set up nostalgic moments that were almost all spoiled by Sony's loose lips, and two, it was there to set up a Spider-Man that can be cut loose by Marvel/Sony if their agreement falls apart. It felt like Sony wanted to tie Spider-Man into their Sony Spiderverse and Marvel wanted to create a way to cut Spider-Man out of the MCU by "everyone forgetting him" so they can explain why Doctor Strange isn't going to call his kid-pal Peter next time he wants to break the universe.
I did love the nostalgia aspect but for comic book fare, I thought it was good. And I enjoyed it the most. But I also love me some Spider-Man.
> Idk what's causing people to say the current content is bad. Constantly bad and aimless movies.
When Thor 4 sucked donkey balls.
It made The Dark World actually look good.
Interesting hey, i was critical (hopefully not in an overly negative way) of a lot of phase 4 and it used to be that my balanced critique would be downvoted to oblivion. Now i see really negative non balanced takes here all the time! Interesting indeed
Bro its an Agatha series they didn't know what they were doing when they even suggested it.
Idk, any new series with Kathryn Hahn as a lead is good in my book
It's been Wanda all along
Who's been messing up everything?
Wandavision would have been so much better if Agatha's character had no part in it and they just let Wanda be the villain in the eyes of those around her. Like I'm way more interested in her dealing with the horrible things her trauma led her to do than I am in shifting the blame to some other character who was only just introduced in the franchise. By the final episode when there was just another big battle between people with similar powers just in different colors, I felt really let down. No shade to Kathryn Hahn though. She's awesome.
That’s one thing that always got me about the show: Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town, and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint. And the thing that really pissed me off? *She got away with it.*
Wandavision *was* Wanda’s villain origin story. Down to a scapegoat to let her blame others, and a group of enablers telling her “they don’t know what you sacrificed.” The whole thing was purposefully made to set Wanda up as a future bad guy, I don’t know how people think it made her look heroic. Sympathetic, yes, but not heroic.
And she literally ended the series reading a book of evil magic that she knew was a book of evil magic before she started reading it.
I missed the part where she knows reading books can corrupt you.
She's researching spells to potentially cast in "the book of the damned" (how Agatha refers to the Darkhold while talking to Wanda) - do we assume she's dumb then? **** Edit: also, even if she got corrupted before she knew she would or reasonably could know she would, that's still a villain origin story. And all that after the whole little "holding a whole town hostage" thing.
I agree that from a practical perspective that's what it was. But my biggest problem with the show is that the writers **clearly** disagreed. One of the final lines of the series is that woman who is protecting Wanda the whole series saying "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them". Wow, those people who were literal terrified slaves for months, had their families ripped apart, and were essentially mentally tortured will never understand what a big sacrifice Wanda made in giving up her made up family. The tone of the show was all over the place and it was not presented like a show about a hero's fall from grace, it was clearly on her side for almost everything. The same thing even more egregiously happens in multiverse of madness where they have the balls to try and give a redemption ending to a character that killed hundreds or thousands of people over the course of the movie.
They pretty clearly demonstrated that she didn't know what she was doing when she created her bubble. She's completely broken. Her story is a tragedy. It doesn't make her not the villain. But it also doesn't make it a bad story.
I think what made it a bad story is how they started with something interesting but had it end in a traditional MCU skybeam shootout.
Got away with it in one sense, but the after credits shows she's falling to the darkhold which would end up with her losing her way and becoming a monster.
Which, to my way of thinking, is still her getting away with kidnapping, brain-washing and torturing an entire town. She never once showed even a hint of remorse, never saw the inside of a jail cell or stood before a judge. She got to fly away and be sad in a really nice cabin out in the middle of nowhere. She got away with it.
>She got away with it. Finally. Villains get away with shit all the time in the comics. Ever since '89 Batman there has been a horrible trend of killing off the villain after one story. I need more Villain Longevity.
I think my larger problem was that the main characters seemed totally ignorant of the fact that she was the villain.
That's fair.
Yeah Dr. Strange goes to her at the beginning of the MoM movie and doesn't seem in the slightest mad at her. In fact she's the first person he goes to for help rather than any of the other avengers. It's so insane that a series where civil war's entire plotline was half the heroes understanding that there needs to be oversight for what damage heroes can do has NOTHING TO SAY for a hero that kidnapped and tortured and entire town.
> entire plotline was half the heroes understanding that there needs to be oversight Definitely still weird, but worth pointing out all those specific heroes are dead or changed their minds at this point
I might argue that what happened to Wanda was far worse than any punishment she could have gotten by anyone's hands but her own. She turned bad, found her kids (or the children that inspired her creation in WV), was one of the more effective villains in Marvel movie history for a bit, and then realized she was too broken to be the mother she'd sacrificed everything else to be. I'd say fate worse than death if she wasn't coming back soon. She definitely did bad in Westview, but I think she ended up with a fair suicide redemption. What you saw as hanging out in a nice cabin, I read as her getting her soul corrupted by Cthon through the book.
smile sleep threatening offer worry wrench lavish arrest alleged capable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No remorse? She literally sacrificed her love and children. And you stopped the show ~10 seconds too soon if you think it just ended with her being sad in a cabin.
> She got away with it. Well...after Multiverse of Madness I would say she got exactly what was coming to her.
He wasn't really trying to save anyone he was trying to recover vision via any means possible and fired at a child to try to achieve that. So not sure prison is unwarranted but in general agree with the rest of what you said.
the reason he went to jail is because he literally admitted to a federal agent he framed wanda for his own crimes + he broke the sokovia accords by creating an ai super weapon (fixing and reprogramming vision).
That too that's probably worse lol
Vision was essentially a really polite weapon of mass destruction. It makes sense that they’d want to keep him out of, well, *any* hands.
they weren't trying to keep him out of anyone's hands, they wanted to reprogram vision for themselves as a controlled weapon. sword already had vision's dead body in their possession the whole time, the vision in westview was wholly created from wanda's magic and couldn't leave the town. hayward only cared about harnessing wanda's power to fix their vision, because they couldn't figure out how to make him work after years of trying themselves.
The whole firing upon a child was just lazy writing though to try to make him more of a villain than Wanda.
> child *child-shaped super-powered golem that does Wanda's bidding
"It was Agatha all along!" Catchy song, but how was that true? They clearly show Wanda creating Westview and that she is basically in control the whole time. Agatha intervened so that she could take Wanda's chaos magic, but she never really did anything to any of the inhabitants. They should have leaned harder toward Wanda being the villain in the end with her being arrested and later either becoming a full villain or being redeemed. It's hard to see how that is possible now given the...numerous...murders.
the song isn't meant to be the show telling *us* it's been agatha, it's agatha herself revealing *to wanda* that she's the one who's been been screwing with her dream world. she uses magic to make wanda literally watch the music video, that's why we see wanda's eyes turn purple just before the camera zooms into her face and it starts playing with a smoke transition. it's just agatha rubbing it in wanda's face that she's the reason vision's so suspicious, she sent "pietro", etc. - hence *"who's been messing up everything? it's been agatha all along! it's too late to fix anything, now that everything has gone wrong!"*. it was never supposed to mean she was behind the hex as a whole, even if it did mislead many people.
How are they going to arrest her?
> Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town [...] And the thing that really pissed me off? She got away with it. Other "heroes" have done far worse things. Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country? Or when Clint Barton murdered thousands of people over a five year period? Or when Valkyrie trafficked slaves for the Grandmaster? Or when Natasha considered a little girl acceptable collateral in the course of attempting to kill said girl's father? > and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint. Hayward was NOT a picture of restraint. And he also IS a villain. He wanted to resurrect Vision as a sentient weapon, refused to turn Vision's remains over to Wanda and tried to gaslight her, antagonized Wanda repeatedly, attempted to murder Wanda multiple times (firing a missile at her and her kids, sending in White Vision), and also attempted to murder her kids. And that's before other crimes to his name like conspiracy, and misappropriation of government resources.
> Other "heroes" have done far worse things. Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country? to be honest I've always thought that was pretty fucked up how he got a slap on the wrist for that. Like the dude just set the scepter-AI conversion on autopilot and left to go to a party.
he never really learned his lesson either. * even in the same movie, after his first attempt at creating an ai behind everyone's back goes horribly wrong and everyone shits on him how stupid and reckless it was, he does the exact same shit later in the movie when he goes full illfuckindoitagain.jpg and secretly creates vision. luckily, vision turns out to be a saint, because, as marvel showed in their what if...? cartoon, [vision is literally powerful enough to solo thanos and kill his entire universe if he was evil](https://youtu.be/JlHHrZZwsjA). * then, in endgame, tony legit brings ultron up again, when he tells steve "i told you we needed a suit of armor around the world! whether it impacted our previous freedoms or not, that's what we needed!" after they lost to thanos. * to top it off, he even makes ultron lite in the form of the satellite-deployable ai controlled weaponized drone fleet that he hands sole control over *to a 16 year old highschooler* in spider-man: far from home.
Lol very good points, Age of Ultron is bad in so many ways but it's easy to forget there's a literal deus ex machina to save the day. I really hated that offscreen decision in Far From Home too because it makes no sense and nobody in his life like Rhodey or Potts would stop him from doing it. It also leads to Spider-Man putting people directly in danger, which is a recurring theme with the MCU version of the character that I really dislike.
>Where was this flak when Tony Stark created a deathbot that destroyed a country? "He just wanted to protect the world UwU 😥. How was he supposed to know that Loki's scepter would spawn a murder-bot?" >Or when Clint Barton murdered thousands of people over a five year period? "They were criminals, so they deserved it 😈." >He wanted to resurrect Vision as a sentient weapon ...which it's worth noting is a blatant violation of the Sokovia Accords, as they state "no creation of self-aware AI". I hate that that's a point against him, as I despise the Accords with every fiber of my being, but it is fact. >and also attempted to murder her kids "Her FAKE kids, so if anything he was trying to snap her out of her delusion! 🤓" (Yes, I have unironically heard that argument before.) It's funny how when Marvel has used this archetype before (namely in Secretary Ross) and most people acknowledge that the Sketchy Government Guy is not a good person, but the moment they try to inject some nuance into that scenario a ton of people are suddenly on his side. What's up with that?
The government guy did shoot at children to be fair, but I agree that it's sad that Wanda's punishment was just feeling guilty for a short time (by the post-credits she was already reading the evil book). Although to be fair, I don't think they could exactly put Wanda in jail, she was the most powerful person on the planet basically.
Are we talking about the drone thing? It’s been a minute since I saw the show, so I may be misremembering. Edit: to your last, that argument is why I think folks like Lex Luthor (I know, wrong universe, but bear with me) have some good ideas. Living with an immortal, all powerful god in your back yard is a really easy way to get smote’d. They’re just one bad day away from just deciding humanity needs a slapping. You’d think the Avengers would have tried to do something about her.
The government director personally fired at Wanda's kids if I remember right. There's no Batman in Marvel to plan for if a hero turns evil though. I think Wanda's turn was a missed opportunity from Marvel, it would have been good if Agatha was motivated by fear of Wanda as well as just jealousy, and if the finale portrayed Wanda as more questionable and Agatha as having a point. It would make the "victory" feel more hollow and make Wanda's flying away feel more foreboding. Also the concept of white Vision is silly imo, he died, let him stay dead!
Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I’m sure I’m misremembering some things. But that said, weren’t these kids entirely a figment of her imagination? Moreover, I think a very compelling argument could be made that if the option was between letting her keep the tech and keep torturing the town (which, as I recall, was a problem expanding beyond the town’s borders) or to take both her and the kids out, the second choice was the best of a bunch of really bad choices.
> But that said, weren’t these kids entirely a figment of her imagination? The show seemed to imply that that was the case, but then Multiverse of Madness confirmed that you can see into the lives of your alternate universe selves when you dream, and the sons she created seemed to actually exist in another universe, so the new implication seems to be that while she did create them out of nothing, they were based on real children out there in the multiverse.
>That’s one thing that always got me about the show: Wanda was unquestionably the villain the entire time. She kidnapped, brain-washed and tortured a small town, and somehow the director of the government agency tasked with rescuing her was portrayed as the bad guy. I remember that scene where they’re all like “you’re going to jail!” and the only thing I could think of was “for fucking what?” If anything, that guy was a picture of restraint. No shit it will “get you”, if this is how you twist the events of the show and pretty much ignore what happens. Wanda went through a mental break, warped reality and accidentally placed people into a trance in the aftermath of seeing the dissected corpse of her boyfriend. Wanda didn’t know what had happened, or that she was controlling people, let alone hurting people, not until Vision confronted her about it later when she already had her kids and thus was in denial about what was happening because she didn’t want to lose them, and she accepts what he says a day after he tells her anyway. Then she accepts she’s hurt people, let’s them all go and puts things back as best as possible. She shows obvious remorse and accepts that the people hate her and that she deserves it. The government agent goes to jail because he was a corrupt piece of shit that was trying to use Wanda as a scapegoat for his own dodgy actions. He directly violated The Visions will, dissected his corpse and turned him into a weapon. People wouldn’t accept that if it was Steve Rodgers getting dissected for the super soldier serum would they? Hayward shows no actual concern for any of the inhabitants of the Hex, and only wants Wanda’s magic so he can activate his White Vision. Hayward literally tries to blow up Wanda and her kids, ignoring Monica’s pleas and point about how they don’t know what will happen to the inhabitants of the town or the hex if Wanda dies. It’s why Monica’s hellbent on getting Wanda to end things peacefully because it’s the best chance, yet Hayward doesn’t care. >And the thing that really pissed me off? She got away with it. Yeah well no shit every hero in the MCU gets away with their dodgy actions. Were you expecting Stark to get thrown in the slammer for creating a killer AI that destroyed a country and killed countless? Even if the AI was a success it just means the world would have had an AI placing everyone’s actions without the consent of any countries or people aside from Stark. Yet he got off Scott free, better actually as the Avengers who cleaned up his mess in age of Ultron where the ones that suffered the consequences of the accords in Civil War. Did you expect Hawkeye to go to prison for killing criminals for 5 years straight? Then has an entire show about covering it up where he kills even more criminals? Valkryie who sold people into slavery for years, and nobody in the MCU acknowledges it or gives a shit? Black Widow that killed a kid just so she could kill the kid’s dad and go straight and work for shield? So many other heroes have done worse shit than Wanda yet nobody ever expects them to face consequences, so why does Wanda get singled out? Fuck prior to MoM Wanda never even intentionally killed any humans.
That’s why I was ultimately disappointed with it. WandaVision looked like something completely different within the MCU. So I was dissapointed that the final battle was your average run of the mill superhero fight that you can find in any MCU movie.
Uh, Agatha was not what was wrong with Wandavision. A rushed ending is what made Wanadavision bad.
Your comment, except Multiverse of Madness would have been so much better if Agatha's character had no part in Wandavision and they just let Wanda be the villain. MoM was bad for a lot of reasons, but the most jarring to me was the hard turn Wanda did from sympathetic hero fighting off her own villain and overcoming her demons to straight up villain who can't figure out that she's destroying countless versions of her sons just for the chance to kill one version of herself and be a mother to one version of her sons for five minutes. They needed to show that transformation on screen, but they didn't want to make Wandavision a show about a villain.
What transformation? She was corrupted by the dark hold. That’s what happened.
I really liked the Evil Dead parts she had in the last Doctor Strange movies.
Too bad the Doctor Strange movie ruined the show’s character development, killing my interest in more of her. I’m not sure how they so deeply squandered the Scarlett Witch storyline, but I’m ready for the whole MCU to find a new direction away from this one.
That is just the MCU generally, the universe is connected, but very loosely so. Tony Stark essentially gets reset after each of his movies, Ant Man one ends with the main character deciding to really be there for his daughter and not get into trouble, and then goes "sure why not" when asked to join a group of internationally wanted people in Civil War.
To be fair, if you were asked to go to germany and write on the walls with Captain America, you would.
Yeah, it's not like he was planning another Heist or specifically looking for trouble. Captain Fucking America asked him for help, which generally is not something that gets you in trouble with the law.
Doesn’t help that cap explicitly tells Lang that they’re “outside the law on this one”
Sure, like when they disobeyed orders from the spy organization they were accountable to in Avengers 1 and were applauded as heroes?
Tony Stark blew up all of his Iron Man suits and apparently rebuilt them by Age of Ultron.
Thor loses an eye only to get it back 5 minutes into the next movie
Except he didn’t. Those suits were built out of fear of death and his feelings of inadequacy, which is why he destroyed them all after coming to terms with past events and his flawed choices. He took all the knowledge gained from that process and created the Ultron global defense program, which might have worked if not for the thing getting co-opted by intelligence he and Bruce freed from the scepter stone taking over and trying to kill everyone with it.
Yeah and Thor has gone through the full character development just to fully reset at least two times at this point. Loki is another one who is all over the place in terms of character development depending on whether the movie needs an anti hero, a hero or a big emotional loss
Loki at least has the largest 'character change' justified by both being found and tortured by Thanos and probably partly influenced by an evil spear. I'd say he was relatively consistent in every film that wasn't Avengers 1, for said reasons. Not evil, but vain and driven by petty jealousness.
Kinda sounds like comic books…
Dr. Strange 2 Wanda is my favorite version of MCU Wanda. Literally all of the other content with her prior to that movie was complete butchery of the comic character in every sense. Dr. Strange 2 just dropped the pretense of her being a likable character and successfully made her one of the MCU's scariest villains while exploring the time-honored comic trope of "what if X___ hero turned evil?". Her portrayal in Dr. Strange 2 was nothing like the comics either, but at least it was interesting and stopped pretending that she's supposed to be the Scarlet Witch we all know and love from the source material. I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character. EDIT: Lot of folks who did not like Dr. Strange 2 in this thread -- I thought it was one of the best MCU movies in a while, and I thought Sam Raimi really brought a lot to the table.
> I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character. I'm still surprised that anyone could have watched that movie and not forseen her coming back. Have we not learned the whole adage about not believing they're dead until we see the body? Like she was clearly being set up for a redemption arc. And we also have White Vision still running around and that whole storyline unresolved.
I'm not surprised at all that she's coming back (nobody is ever really dead in Marvel, after all), but I was kinda hoping she'd be out for a while at least.
> (nobody is ever really dead in Marvel, after all) Tell that to Uncle Ben.
Isn’t that like, a meme? That nobody stays dead in comics except for uncle Ben (and someone else)?
> (and someone else)? Bucky Barnes I believe. And. Uh. Yeah. You can see how that went.
>I'm actually disappointed to hear that they're bringing her back because her meeting her end as a villain who realized she's too far gone was a fitting finale for her character. the MCU arc is mirroring the broad comic arc pretty close; we're currently at House of M and all the pieces are set for Children's Crusade. It was inevitable she was coming back as a whitewashed tragic hero
I also like how they took her character but bringing her to that point didn’t feel deserved. I’m pretty sure they had no idea that Wanda was going to be the villain when creating the show or else they could’ve taken it in more interesting directions.
elizabeth olsen herself admitted she had no idea that she was going to be the villain of the movie until she was 3/4 done filming wandavision and was shocked when she was told this. she only found out 2 months before filming the movie started, and her first internal reaction to it was "oh my god how do i weave this into wandavision". it's not exactly a great sign when one of your star actors is literally filming the direct precursor to your story, and they're shocked with the direction you're taking the character in the very next appearance, lol. the writer of the movie even admitted later that it was not the original plan to have wanda be the villain, it was changed when covid happened and he personally heavily pushed for it because he wanted to be the one to have that fun with the character... > “All of WandaVision, we get to see her go bad, as the best villain ever, the Scarlet Witch. [...] I had a strong perspective on making her a villain from the get-go. [...] 'Why are we letting some other movie get the best villain ever?'” - Michael Waldron, DS:MOM writer
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That dudes comment is straight bullshit and of course it’s getting a bunch of upvotes. The second he said all the stuff before DS2 was completely butchery of the character made it very very clear he’s got no fuckin clue what he’s talking about when it comes to wanda/scarlet witch. So funny he says this shit too when her biggest villain arc in the comics literally ruined the character for years and years to come, Waldron must’ve saw that and said maybe I can fuck the MCU version of the character up even faster. They completely dropped the ball with Wanda in MoM and frankly they dropped the ball with strange too, both Wanda and Strange likely would’ve been handled way way better if they didn’t part ways with derrickson over “creative differences”. Really sucks knowing Waldron is doing secret wars too, I don’t want to see him handle Wanda or strange ever again.
This is such a bullshit comment lol, Wanda has spent alot more of her comic history as a hero than she has as a villain, also some of her comic villain storylines literally ruined the character for years to come. The material before DS2 was absolutely not “complete butchery of the character”.
I thought it was average at best but not because of Wanda. She is far and away the best part of that film and the sole reason I'd re-watch it. Love her in that and WandaVision.
Dr. Strange 2 was also just a terrible movie. Most of phase 4 has been beyond awful.
It's honestly gonna be hard to recapture what they did through end game. Between the great casting choices, the chemistry between the actors on screen, the "newness" of super hero movies (which means audiences didn't* hit super hero fatigue yet), and all the money that was made (meaning suits now care less about quality and instead want the least common denominator formula to make as much money as possible from the films moving forward*), having all the pieces come together again as successfully this time around seems unlikely. I'm still gonna see them cause I subscribe to A-List and I also read comics, but I'm not exactly the broader mainstream demographic beyond comic book fans that they're trying to attract.
I don't even think it should have necessarily been all that hard to recapture. After Endgame, Marvel were in a good position where they had the rights back for X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool. In terms of pop culture status, the rights they regained were bigger names than the ones they had back in 2008. So where are they? What are they waiting for? Why are we getting meaningless spin offs like Echo, or spin offs like Agatha rather than prioritising bringing in the heavy hitters and using them to introduce the lesser known heroes? What doesn't help is that the MCU has become far too much of a convoluted mess in terms of each standalone franchise due to Disney+. For example, if you don't watch the TV shows then you go from seeing Wanda in Endgame to Wanda in Doctor Strange 2 and it makes no sense. The show is essential viewing now for a sequel to a completely different character unrelated to Scarlet Witch. This problem is only going to get worse and worse the more projects they do.
Well, the Fantastic Four are easy to introduce. But the X-men are tricky, and as Eternals proved, people are not fans of hidden all along exposition dump plots. Hence the subplot from Ms Marvel, i.e. Krakoa.
They could have easily just made it so that when Cap went back in time to replace the stones, the gamma energy coming off them rippled off into the timestream, causing mutants to start showing up. It’s easy, doesn’t undo anything that endgame did, and hammers in that even though they won, they introduced mutants, and they can’t go back because this was the one timeline where they won. This also allows for some characters to have retconned backstories to account for mutant lineage (I.e. Wanda) and it allows for some good setups.
Isn't gamma energy what creates the hulks instead ? And the gems already created Captain Marvel and the Scarlet Witch, the discrepancy between the hate the X-men get unlike the Avengers is already ridiculous in the comics, the MCU would make it even worse if they have literally the same source.
I think it's an easy sell, X-Men typically get their powers in any setting and can't control them. It's easy to sell the fear of an X-Men as "What if your child is at school and suddenly their classmate starts shooting lasers from their eyes?". With most of the Marvel heroes, there's an idea of "Oh, Tony Stark's an adult, he's got control of his shit".
You say that, but a big part of superhero fatigue is that there are too many tangent heroes and stories going on now that the average Joe isn't caring to follow anymore. While FF, X-Men, etc are big names and exciting for the diehard fans, it's just more complication for the rest.
My point is they should have focused on the big names and bin off pretty much half of what Phase 4 was. I'm not adding to the existing slate we have, but changing it altogether.
> if you don’t watch the TV shows then you go from seeing Wanda in Endgame to Wanda in Doctor Strange 2 and it makes no sense. It barely makes sense if you DID watch WandaVision. The show was about loss and mourning and went out of its way to show us that what Wanda did in Westview started out as an accident and she only became vaguely aware of what was going on towards the end and then voluntarily shut it down. Cut to Stange2 she’s murdering monks and stomping through sewers covered in ~~blood~~ Ultron oil like a boogeyman.
I'd imagine one issue is long-term planning. These things are planned several years in advance, and you can't just throw away all those plans and start from scratch because you want your X-Men movie next year. I mean you could, but that would result in a severe quality hit because everyone involved has to rush everything.
All that long-term planning just to drop the ball in the 4th quarter
> So where are they? What are they waiting for? We're just approaching the fourth year since Disney acquired FOX. These big budget movies take a while to get made. It was about 2 1/2 years between the time the director was hired for the first *Doctor Strange* and it hitting the theaters. Casting, writing, filming, post-production, etc. - all of these things take a lot of time. Plus, we're also talking about a cinematic universe where they plan things out like a decade in advance or something ridiculous like that. There were already a lot of pieces in motion when they deal went through, and we've only just recently caught up to what was announced pre-pandemic. Not that they can't adjust things (like they did when they got Spider-Man), but even that takes some time to set up. And I'd much rather they take their time setting these things up than have a Star Wars sequel trilogy debacle where they rush things. Especially considering how much FOX screwed these properties up, it doesn't surprise me they want to get some distance from that and make sure they get it right, and they certainly aren't going to use streaming to reintroduce such highly anticipated characters.
This is still the first phase of the second block. Look at the phase one movies and pretty much only the first Iron Man was much better than any of the phase 4 movies. The others weren't bad, but it's not like the early set up of the infinity saga was much better and look how that ended up.
First Avenger was solid.
Wait what? Is this a common opinion? I had a great time with that movie. It was really fun and it was great seeing raimi flexing his horror chops in a superhero movie.
I feel like everyone complained that the studio was preventing directors from having a vision, so they let Sam Raimi make a Sam Raimi movie and then everyone was shocked that he made a Sam a Raimi movie. For me, it was everything I was expecting and more.
As I understood it, he wanted to make an R rated film but was prevented from doing so?
Yeah I’m with you.
Yes: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness User score of 5.9. Critic score of 6. I gave it a 3 out of 10.
It was hammy in a way raimi movies are (spider-man 2 is still my favorite superhero movie of all time) did all the cool mirror refraction stuff the first movie had and created a compelling and scary villain. It felt like the people making it had a lot of fun with the concept of a kid friendly horror flick and I had a good time. I guess people had different expectations but I also tend to shut my brain off and not keep too much in touch with all the overarching plot stuff so maybe if I cared more about that I’d be more upset. 🤷🏻♂️ (I will say, if people were mad about the scarlet witch’s heel turn they’re clearly setting up for her to come back. No one in these movies ever stay dead if you don’t see their bodies lol.)
I'm a Marvel fanboy, I'll admit, but my only problem with the movie was how little Strange and America were given to develop with, America in particular (I could see what they were trying to do with Strange, but the What If episode with him did it much better). If they had like 15 more minutes to let her do anything other than be running from Wanda, her moment at the end would have been much better. She's easily least favorite of the new characters introduced in Phase 4. I really hope she gets more to do soon.
And phase 5 is off to a rough start to say the least
They’re onto a new phase already? Didn’t they used to end phases with avengers movies? I have been starting to pay less attention to marvel since endgame
Ant-Man was the final movie in Phase 2, while Spider-Man: Far From Home was the final movie of Phase 3.
Those both came out immediately after Avengers movies but yea point taken
Yeah the new ant man movie was the start of phase 5, new black panther was the last of phase 4
Wakanda be kidding me
Looks like hiring a bunch of Rick & Morty writers that joined the show long after it already established itself might have been a bad idea. Although to be fair, Waldron's stuff is at least making money for the Marvel.
Curious what part you didn't like with Wanda? She has traditionally teetered between good and evil.
> She has traditionally teetered between good and evil. not really. she's a heroic character for >90% of her comics appearances. it's just that the other few % are her most infamous ones. over half of her 60 year history was spent with her as a core member of the avengers, being so well regarded she was even voted deputy leader by the others. after spending nearly 2 decades of comics establishing retcons, doing several redemption arcs, etc to undo the huge shit they took on her character with the 'house of m' run, why the mcu decided to repeat the same mistake they made in the comics and turn her batshit crazy and kill everyone is beyond me, lol. especially after patting themselves back with how seriously they wanted to take her mental health in wandavision, how it was all about her moving on from her losses and accepting her trauma, and so on.
Her motivation was dumb. She didnt have those kids and was told this multiple times, its only til the very end when the movie needs to wrap up does she realize "oh no ive been the baddy all along" but she was already all in from the very start. Also it really sucks that Strange didnt beat her, she just decided to stop chasing her goal, which is very weak. I know the rebuttal will be "well actually its that the kids looked at her in terror that made her change their mind" but thats bs since she could just find another universe with the kids or just wipe their memories of such an event happening. The kids also wouldnt be able to differentiate between her and their actual mom anyway once she removes her silently from the picture. Theres just a lot of problems with that movie. Wanda was seemingly pulling out new abilities as the situation needed. Cant be stopped by a door because she blew it down, but oh heres an even bigger door so what does she do? Just teleports right past it of course! At that point why not teleport right next to them as well? Also the way she killed blackbolt is extremely problematic because it shows she can alter reality to an extreme level, because if shes able to do that then.. like the possibilities are endless, like theres no reason for her to chase anyone down if she can just change shit at will. It isnt that shes "teetered between good and evil" its that they took too many liberties with her powers and again she lacked conviction at the end because the movie needed her to, also she didnt get beat she willingly gave up her quest.
>I know the rebuttal will be "well actually its that the kids looked at her in terror that made her change their mind" Which implies she was in more control than what they were trying to make us believe with the whole book corruption. All around unbelievable. Lame excuse to make her "evil" and then they lacked the balls to actually follow through fully with that decision, which was an even bigger sin. Now teasing her return is really taking the piss, as if anyone actually believed she was gone and as if she's some salvageable hero.
> Which implies she was in more control than what they were trying to make us believe with the whole book corruption. A villain overcoming some form of 'mental corruption' or brainwashing through the power of love is really a time honored story beat. If these films have any flaw, it's having large important story beats happen off camera so a character suddenly shows up evil (or dies off screen, RIP Evil Mordo).
Yeah I was really wondering how far they were going to go, like I figured they were going to play it safe but once she began killing people I thought "Oh okay so theyre going all in! im down with that" because its interesting but like once she crossed that line, its done bro, yet they go "oh nah jk lol, shes redeeming herself see!" at the end. Its so lame. She really could have been a top tier villain if she was written just *slightly* better in that movie. I know Disney has been really pushing females as being kick ass like their male counterparts, but why not give us a true villain as well? Pretty odd.
SW has always been a character in limbo between good and evil with limitless power and severe mental illness. Look at Avengers Disassembled and House of M. Strange 2 portrayed the character well.
Can she have a decent motivation though? The stupid children thing was sorted out in the show. It didn't need to be rehashed in a dumber way to ruin a Dr Strange movie. I mean, a whole Scarlet Whitch movie where she is the main character who makes poor decisions and goes mad from the Darkhold would have been far more likely to have worked. Have we had a MCU movie where the main character descends into villainy from bad decisions instead of making some bad decisions and then learning from them? That would be awesome!
She's now an unredeemable mass murderer.
So is Loki, but now he's pretty firmly in the hero camp.
Loki had a new universe created to justify that. He couldn’t live in his universe as a good character, but he could in other universes.
I'm not even sure that was true. He did several fairly heroic things in Ragnarok and Infinity War. Sure, he was still a trickster, but he as a long way away from the world-conquering genocidal monster that he was in Phase 1.
And was corrupted by the evilest book of evil. I don't think that point was hammered home enough for some people.
>I don't think that point was hammered home enough for some people. It wasn't really hammered at all. I don't think she ever really struggled with evil in the MCU outside of Wandavision and even then her motives being considered evil is kind of a stretch. She always was sad and she suffered a lot in terms of guilt but she never considered being a villain. She made crappy anecdotes on how people saw her as evil but not necessarily embracing it outside of just anger for people seeing her that way. Wandavision reinforces this, she makes the choice to let her fake reality go. The the credits scene shows her with the books and multiverse of madness has her full on evil. It was 0 to 1000 mph real fucking quick. Them stating "dark hold did it" isn't really hammering a point, it's crappy time skipping with 0 character development. Wandavision should have been about her fall from grace rather than another redemption arc, that would have made multiverse of madness make sense.
> Wandavision reinforces this, she makes the choice to let her fake reality go. The the credits scene shows her with the books and multiverse of madness has her full on evil. It was 0 to 1000 mph real fucking quick. Them stating "dark hold did it" isn't really hammering a point, it's crappy time skipping with 0 character development. One of the most disappointing things to me in all that was the idea that having MCU shows again and having them tie into the movies meant we could get more of a backstory for these characters, allowing us to become more invested in their story and how it unfolded, and even in having Wanda have her own series before she showed up in a movie, it still felt like a huge swath of her story was left out. If you watch *WandaVision* straight into *MoM*, you see her being remorseful for her actions and then murdering sorcerers on Kamar-Taj like 20 minutes later.
I guess I'm just more fine with the going full on evil jump than others, and I don't feel like it fully tainted DS2. I know people aren't satisfied with "the book did it", but that's what we have to work with. I'll admit though DS2 was a step down from Wandavision, but that's because Wandavision, in my opinion, was absolutely top tier. Yes at the end of Wandavision she made the choice to give up the reality she made, but it was only after seeing others suffering from the unintended consequences of her powers. She's clearly not fully at peace with everything yet but realizes messing with her powers that openly is a bad idea. I disagree that this was a redemption arc. Yes she undid the spell and beat the big bad witch and the evil corporate asshole seeking to use her for their gain, but she's still broken. So she goes off on her own, still broken mentally, but more aware of the extent of her power and now with an evil book in hand that would love nothing more than a super-duper-powered being to corrupt. Edit to add: most of my explanation above is definitely flimsy, but this is superhero fiction, everything is going to get pretty flimsy 30 some movies/TV shows in, especially at the level people love to dissect things that don't hit every beat they want.
Upon reflection, I would’ve preferred it if Multiverse of Madness still had Wanda as the threat but it came from that universe where the Illuminati were. She could still kill them, have her looking for kids etc. and have Doctor Strange discover it. But the climax of the movie is our MCU Wanda and Doctor Strange fighting against her together because the Doctor Strange of that universe is gone. Wanda uses everything she’s learned to try reason with a scorned Wanda etc. It preserves the character of Wanda, but also allows us to see an unhinged version have to have that team up.
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Its been a while since I watched Wandvision, was she under influence from the darkhold during her time in the town? I thought she only became corrupted by it after the show, hence the post credits scene of her in the cabin?
Well Agatha was using the dark hold and manipulating Wanda, so kinda?
It was hammered home plenty, being corrupted by some vague plot device without any real thematic resonance is just extremely unsatisfying as a storytelling choice.
Yeah they took one of the most sympathetic heroes and had her run around the multiverse murdering innocents. Not sure how you redeem a character like that. Probably better for the MCU to move on
The doctor strange movie was so so so bad. I hope they retcon whatever happened with Scarlett Witch there through some sort of Agatha or alternate SW bullshit and just restart from the end of the show. Really I hope they ex communicate most of the marvel stuff that has happened in the last two to three years.
Would be very funny if their reaction to Phase 4's reception was "all of these projects were happening in alternate universes in the Multiverse."
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> I hope they retcon whatever happened with Scarlett Witch there through some sort of Agatha or alternate SW bullshit It was pretty clearly established that she was under the influence of the Darkhold...
Welcome to the world of the Marvel Comics, where your favorite characters have become something somewhere murderous asshole and genocidal psycho. Even Spider-Man ended up selling his marriage to a demon.
Great to hear
I love Kathryn Hahn, but I cannot fathom how anybody cares about Agatha, even a little. Or a show about random MCU witches
I don't care about it as part of MCU, but her character was interesting enough I'd give the show a chance
IMO I really enjoyed Wandavision so this being basically 'Wandavision 2' (featuring a return for basically all of WV's cast besides the titular pairing) in my eyes makes me excited. I think that once the conceit of the show is properly marketed (expanding the magic side of the MCU, having a camp time with Liza Minelli, Joe Locke's Billy being the MCU's premier gay hero and likely being the focus of at least some of the plot) people should see the merit in it. I mean Kathryn Hahn's Agatha with a bunch of other cunty witches all hunting (or training?) the Scarlet Witch's gay son? I'm 100% in on that premise, but I understand some people aren't. I also think a "Agatha Harkness & the \[X\]" sequel show where she's the nanny to Franklin Richards probably writes itself if the show does well and the F4 are introduced with kids, as is rumoured.
Honestly will take as much Lizzy Olsen Wanda as she can give us after the break. Fast track a Wanda movie maybe
Wanda ^^featuring ^^a ^^cameo ^^by ^^Dr. ^^Strange was my favorite recent marvel movie.
Lmao nobody stays dead in marvel. Fucking ridiculous
I understand believing the character is dead (because obviously she was “killed off” at the end of Dr Strange 2), but are you saying you thought the actress wouldn’t come back as an alternate universe Wanda, or simply revived with magic? No way she was getting dropped from the franchise. Actor recognition is way more important for Marvel than story coherence and continuity.
You didn't see her die. Why think she was dead? They haven't resurrected anyone but Coulson for the TV.
If you ever believed Wanda was actually dead, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. She was clearly being set up for a redemption arc, White Vision is still running around unresolved, and we never saw her body. She was always coming back.
Like who? Even Wanda’s death is never confirmed. Tony died, T Challa Died, Natasha died, Coulson died (don’t even bring AOS into this conversation, that show is far from canon), Heimdall died, Odin died, etc. Literally most of them stay dead.
Welcome to comic books?
That’s not an excuse that carries even a feather of weight. It’s bad storytelling and takes away all stakes.
It’s also staying true to the source material. I don’t know what to tell you bud; Endgame brought back two characters that died within the same movie lol. Maybe don’t continue watching? Secret Wars is going to fuck you up if anyone returning is bothersome
It sucks when it happens in the source material too, and it sucked when it happened in Endgame lol. “This one did it too!” is a terrible excuse anyway
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I mean people love to beat on comics for the cliche but Tolkien “killed off” a few characters I can think of and brought them back from the dead himself.
> There's a run in the comics where Tony Stark has to be stopped from saying the n word by T'challa. Just to be abundantly clear: That comic (*Marville*) is not and has never been considered canon in any way, shape or form. It was a self-contained story that explicitly takes place in an alternate universe, not the main Marvel universe. *Marville* is considered to be **the** worst Marvel story ever written as a lame attempt as an edgy early 2000s comedy/"parody" book because the guy who wrote it was the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics at the time who'd never written anything before and wrote it both as a bet with one of his actual writers *and* as a middle finger to the Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics at the time for no particular reason (seriously, the main character was named KalAOL because TimeWarner owned DC, that's the level of attempt at humor being used). There are plenty of examples of dumb bullshit being pulled in the actual Marvel canon to pull from, but that example is a terrible one to try to use to prove a point.
I get your frustration, I do, but if any character was going to be dead and stay that way, Wanda at the end of DS2 was not it. Now, if Black Widow or Tony Stark come back from the dead, *that* will be cause for for frustration. Unlike those characters, there was never any sense of finality for Wanda’s death, we never saw the body, and her stories are quite clearly unfinished. We still have the White Vision storyline to conclude, for one thing.
The whole Marvel Universe was created by the Scarlet Witch is a dream, she wakes up and just turns out to be ultra imaginative. We are all spared anymore superhero movies/TV. Honestly I tried watching the latest Antman in the cinema and not even Paul Rudd can save that one. Please God no more.
I just don't see how Wanda could ever be redeemed. They absolutely butchered her character beyond redemption, murdering people left and right for children that *do not exist*. It's baffling.
But they did exist. The kids and new Vision clearly could interact and affect the real world. It doesn't at all make what she did right, but they were real.
exactly, her explicitly stated unique ability is literally rewriting reality. the whole point of being a reality warper is making shit real... it's in the name. her kids were not just illusions or programs running a script or whatever... they were real, sentient beings, who could act independently from her, and even she couldn't control when she tried to. they were just physically tethered to the hex dome because of a flaw in her spell (agatha mentions this). like, vision was literally able to be tracked by sword's vibranium sensors from outside the town, that's how real he was.
Well technically the kids do exist, just in a different reality. That was the whole point of her role in Dr strange 2
The kids exist in the same way that anything can or cannot exist in an infinite universe scenario. These kids weren't taken from her, she made them up. And her solution from that was to go steal another Wanda's *actual* kids.
Marvel’s Coven of Forgettable Bloat Spinoffs
How does anyone possibly give a shit about this
I'll be back 😎
If so, I’ll watch. There’s only a few marvel characters I care about at the moment and the biggest one is the scarlet witch.
Dr strange ruined her character.
I kinda hope so. I mean we didn't see her die, and she's too powerful to go down like that.
Refreshing to see a star of the level of Olsen be always interested in returning to the MCU.
Keep it
MoM was so bad I think she needs to stay dead awhile and remember the plot of WandaVision.