Marvel News & Notes

Sutton put out a couple of She-Hulk related posts. First he echoes something from YTer Everything Always who claims Titania will be the villain of the show. I don't know of anyone who didn't predict this, but Sutton echoes the sentiment. I don't know if Everything Always is a credible source--I'm unaware of any prior scoops, but I won't dismiss or credit him until I have a reason too. This was followed by another echo of Everything Always, who says that Charlie Cox has already filmed his scenes for the show (he was seen on-set on April 30th). What Sutton adds is that he's heard he won't suit up as Daredevil until it's a larger appearance, so much like with Spider-Man 3 this will just be as Matt Murdock.

One of the weirdest casts we've seen in the MCU is The Eternals and we now know why: it's the brainchild of producer Nate Moore (so the cultural insensitivity towards Gilgamesh is Nate's ignorance, not that he's received the deserved excoriation). Speaking of that film, you may recall that I predicted no one would discuss The Eternals leak (cf), just like no one discussed the issues of Gemma Chan on-set (eg), and this is plain as day as descriptions (eg) from popular YTers about the film ignore it entirely (everything in those limited segments echoed what was in the leak, although we haven't seen enough to say that description is 100% accurate). Marvel continues to sell the show based on its director, incidentally, something I think they are doing because the cast is so underwhelming.

I'm not the only one (eg) who thinks the changing the title of Captain Marvel 2 to The Marvels is in response to the hostility towards Captain Marvel. While no one is going to show up for Monica Rambeau after her limp origin story in WandaVision, there's a small chance Kamala Khan will hit with the intended audience to add some oomph (I'm dubious, but YA-fair isn't aimed at me). I don't know what the plot will be, but since she's surrounded by women of colour, the MCU might finally feel safe in giving Carol Danvers some flaws (let's cross our fingers).

Kevin Feige is a very smart man. For decades he's navigated a world of immensely rich egotists and forged a good reputation both for the products he puts out and how he interacts with the entertainment industry. However, we now have something from him that is the first verbal misstep I can think of. Here is the quote about Doctor Strange in WandaVision (along with a second quote from Elizabeth Olsen that I'll get into later):

“Oh, it would’ve been so cool to see Dr. Strange. But it would have taken away from Wanda, which is what we didn’t want to do. We didn’t want the end of the show to be commoditized to go to the next movie — here’s the white guy, ‘Let me show you how power works.’” That meant the Dr. Strange movie, too, had to be rewritten. In the end, Feige says, Marvel’s process is “a wonderful combination of very dedicated coordination, and chaos. Chaos magic." At one point, back when Dr. Strange was supposed to be part of the story, the in-universe commercials were going to be messages from Strange to Wanda, and there was also talk of having Cumberbatch appear in one of the ads.

Elizabeth Olsen is pushing back on criticism that Wanda got off too easy by flying away without punishment after she forced an entire town of people into her sitcom fantasy world.  “She had to get away before the people who have to hold her accountable got there,” she says. “And where she went is a place that no one could find her. Because she knows that she is going to be held accountable, and I think she has a tremendous amount of guilt.”

First let's address the obvious: no one who covers Marvel (CBR, Murphy, Daniel, Sutton, MCU Exchange, The Direct, The Illuminerdi, etc) will talk about the elephant in the room except (perhaps) to applaud it. As I've always said, the Marvel space has no room for diversity--it's an unquestioning hivemind. With that out of the way, who in their right mind would complain about the Sorcerer Supreme helping someone struggling with magic? A struggle that involved Wanda torturing innocent people because she felt sad. The only issue, apparently, is that Doctor Strange is white, so we have to assume an African-American man, Chinese man, an Indian man, etc would be fine--anything but Tibetan, right Kevin? This is the worst kind of lazy virtue signaling. You have to wonder if Scott Derrickson was jettisoned from Doctor Strange 2 because of this nonsense, as it apparently impacted that film as well. No one would have watched Doctor Strange help Wanda and think it demeans her character--Feige even skipped the much simpler (if still ridiculous) gender angle. Fans would have been happy to see the one hero who could have helped Wanda actually help her. The reason I think we're getting this cockeyed explanation is because even casual fans kept wondering, 'why isn't Doctor Strange coming to help Wanda?' Because there is no good answer to this, Feige seems to have leaned on the kind of response that will prevent the media from asking that question, even though it will have the opposite effect within the fandom. The YTers who make their living engaging in a culture war have been knocking at the door to the much more lucrative Marvel fandom for years, but thus far found no purchase. This is exactly the kind of thing that opens the door to them.

I included the much more benign response from Elizabeth Olsen because this short puff piece in Rolling Stone is a form of damage control. The final episode of WandaVision aired March 5th and apparently two months later the criticism is so overwhelming that there are fears it might impact Doctor Strange 2--Feige presumably arranged for the story to be put out to quell the backlash. Unfortunately for Olsen, her explanation can't retroactively fix the lazy way her story ended (apologizing to Monica Rambeau, who said she'd do the same thing, rather than the people she was selfishly torturing for weeks). Simply saying she feels bad when we don't see it on-screen isn't adequate. When it comes to the torture, Olsen doesn't have the culture war card to play, so she's left with a limp explanation.

The larger concern is one I brought up in my Falcon and the Winter Soldier review--you can argue that the standards for the MCU have been slipping over the last four years. The upcoming material has warning signs all over it and we're in the midst of a push to try to allay understandable concerns over The Eternals given the puff pieces about the director (Chloe Zhao could win twenty Oscars and that would convince exactly zero casual audiences members to show-up)--in a way Marvel has no choice, since the cast excites absolutely nobody.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but we've now had back-to-back MCU shows that include horrible implications:

• 1) It's okay to torture people if you feel sad (WandaVision)
• 2) It's okay to murder people if they disagree with you politically (Falcon and the Winter Soldier)

Neither Malcolm Spellman nor Jac Schaeffer intended these implications, but their slipshod writing is so bad that it's the logical consequence of their portrayals of both Wanda and Falcon. Does anyone care? I'd like to think so, but we shall see.

Sutton Q&A:

• While Norman Osborn is coming, he won't be a primary antagonist in the MCU (rather it will be characters like Doctor Doom and Galactus) [This matches previous things he's said]
• Sony would like the MCU to do Agent Venom [The implication seems to be that this would be inside the MCU, but if so it's hard to see how this benefits the Sony iteration of Marvel, so doesn't make sense to me as-is--granting that Sutton envisions more interplay between the two]
• The Amazon Silk won't be the MCU iteration [If there is one; Mikey doesn't follow the logic here, but if this is true it does imply that Sony's own material will also continue to be separate; we have to remember that Mikey has been leaning into Sony's material being within the context of the MCU, so this Amazon news was a potential blow to that idea]
• Claims Feige never changes his plans [What I think he means is he doesn't make reactionary changes ala WB or Sony etc--however, we know from comments made by Taika Waititi that Marvel tweaks the hell out of their films based on testing and that this also impacts plans for characters (Sharon Carter's planned romance with Steve Rogers being cut, for example), so Sutton is right to an extent, but his specific point about The Eternals (implying some sort of long term plan) doesn't address the supposed issues related to Gemma Chan--so if there are sequels--and Ant-Man got sequels--with what focus?]
• Repeated that Agents of Shield actors will be in Secret Invasion [Something possible due to the multiverse, but Sutton still believes the show will be canon]
• Repeated that Black Knight films will spin off The Eternals while appearing in an Excalibur show [I agree with the idea that he'll spin off, but it's surprising Marvel would give him a show and films]
• Repeated that Dracula will appear in Blade and that they wanted Wesley Snipes to play him [This is an old LotLB (TBK) scoop from July, 2019, that we've heard conflicting things about--Snipes, at least according to rumour, isn't the easiest person to work with]
• The Inhuman royal family is being saved for the Fantastic Four
• Repeated that 'everyone but Finn Jones is back' from Netflix [I don't buy it, but time will tell]

He also included an R&D list (most of which is repetition):

Captain Britain (for Phase Four, possibly introduced in Shang-Chi franchise) [A Shang-Chi sequel can't be in Phase Four, although that doesn't inherently debunk this]

The Fixer

Omega Red (planned as being a prime villain for the X-Men)

Jigsaw (for a Bernthal-lead Punisher series)

Shanna the She-Devil (for an X-Men film when they go to the Savage Land) [This idea has very old roots, as the premise was one of the original LotLB (TBK)'s original scoops from May, 2019, that Sutton has subsequently repeated]

Zarathos (for Ghost Rider) [cf from an old Hulu list from Sutton]

Crimson Dynamo [This echoes a recent 4chan post]

Repeated his Agents of Atlas scoop

Agent Venom [See above]

Ares [This echoes the recent story from Alex de los Llanos]

No Henry Cavill as Hercules [This is in response to something from Daniel's rumour file]

MCU looking at the X-Men from Claremont/Byrne and the Jim Lee era in the 90s (along with the animated series) [This echoes Sutton's prior comments]

Silver Surfer appearing in the Fantastic Four sequel

It's worth recalling that most of Sutton's Marvel scoops are also what Sutton would like to see in the MCU, so that does cause some concern (we see something very different in his DC material). Maybe he's very fortunate that he and Feige are on the same wavelength, but I believe there's an element of wish fulfillment from him (confirmation bias, as I've repeatedly gone over before).

We can't leave without some Daniel rumours (ignoring his incessant Ryan Reynolds rumours):

• Marvel wants Tobey and Andrew's versions of Spider-Man to stick around for awhile [That would be a Sony decision presumably, and how would it benefit them?]
• Chris Evans and Florence Pugh cameos were cut from Falcon
• Feige wants Tony Stark to meet Mister Fantastic [There have been plenty of rumours that would make this happen in Secret Wars; given RDJ's career outside of Marvel it's certainly doable]
• Feige wants to bring back Ultron for Wanda to fight [How redundant]
• Infinity Stones will return
• A second season of Falcon hasn't been ruled out [What?]
• Captain America 4 and The Marvels are meant to be mini-Avengers films
• Captain America 4 will have multiple Captain America's
• Henry Cavill in talks for either Captain Britain or Hercules [See above]
• Marvel wants Sam Wilson to be as important as Steve Rogers [Off to a poor start unfortunately]
• Sam and Rhodey will be the new Cap and Iron Man of the MCU
• Captain America 4 will feature characters from Phase One

This is the bog-standard Daniel, a mix of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, stating the obvious, and a little virtue signaling--nothing that's particularly interesting.

I don't talk DC all that often--other than Teen Titans, Batman, and Detective Comics in the 80s, I never read much DC--but I did want to make a point about the Snyder Cut that I don't think gets discussed enough by its fans. If Snyder Cut fans are signed up for HBO Max and they aren't going to leave the platform if there's no more Snyder, what leverage do they have? I would think the only option for the movement is to depart en masse if they don't get what they want, but I haven't heard that's occurring. To me that's the only way to motivate WB or AT&T to give them more of what they want.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)