Cinema Issues: Marvel Doesn’t Seem To Understand The X-Men

We have talked previously about the deviant morality in Hollywood and how a lot of modern screen writers cannot understand right from wrong. Well to this point consider Jean Grey in Brand New Day she is a murderer, she throws a man in front of a taxi, she drives a tank into a building full of people and blows it up amongst other things. However, the writers say she is just acting in rage so it’s fine and that she didn’t kill anyone directly, which is untrue.

Not only does this horribly butcher the character, please look at the comics wherein Jean’s sister is actually kidnapped notice how she handles it there, notice how she doesn’t endanger civilians and throw them in front of cars, it also shows they don’t understand the X-Men.

The idea that something bad has happened to you therefore you can fly into a rage and do whatever you like consequence free, is simply not true it is the philosophy of kids and progressives. Even when you’re upset you have to make moral choices and must hold yourself to that line. When Uncle Ben died did Spider-Man kill the killer, no. Did he go around throwing people in front of taxis for no reason, no. Yet jean did.

This reflects the fact that Hollywood no longer understands the concept of good vs bad, they only understand the concept of getting what they want and lashing out if they don’t get it. That philosophy of Hollywood and the left is why when they are offended they scream death threats at people, Jean Grey herein is a manifestation of that.

In the world of the X-Men the idea is that the world fears and hates them but they do good and risk their lives to save regular humans. If the X-Men are throwing random people in front of taxis then the world will be right to fear them and that fundamentally isn’t the X-Men at all. You could argue she hasn’t met Charles Xavier yet but the film presents her as being an adult she should still have a moral compass and shouldn’t need Charles to teach morality to her.

This all comes on the heels of the X-Men director for the MCU’s attempt at these characters saying that they will showing new stuff never before seen on screen. That is a colossal red flag, yes there are many great X-Men comics that haven’t been adapted however, it is almost certain they don’t mean that, they likely mean they’ll make up new adventures for these characters. With the way in which they introduced Jean Grey being so out of character and just so wrong this fills us with concern.

The butchering of Jean’s character isn’t the worst of it, it is the precedent it sets that is by far the more troubling thing.

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Cinema Issues: Career Suicide The Story Of Yahya Abdul-Mateen ii and Mahershala Ali

Recently Marvel has come under attack from stars of projects that didn’t happen in the case of Ali and from stars of shows that did not get renewed in the case of Abdul-Manteen, the accusation is the same, as the black show or film was not made, or renewed therefore racism. This is the very peak of entitled, you are not owed a project or a second season, the fact that shows like Eyes of Wakanda are made, and that Black Panther and Sam Wilson are central to the Marvel universe show that there is no racism going on.

What is going on is that these stars of colour think they can throw around accusations in order to get what they want, but as the case of Blake Lively will tell you that is a dumb strategy to try. First to Abdul-Manteen’s argument of optics, black shows are not the only ones being cancelled or not renewed for season two, look at Hawkeye, look at the scrapped sequel for the Eternals, but this is an inconvenient fact.

The movie going public are well aware of actors like this trying to claim to be the victim whilst they live in their mansions, and they are starting to get sick of it. The fact is the black audience, in countries that matter to the box office, so the collective west and large Asian markets, is so small that they could boycott the next wave of Marvel projects and it would not effect the bottom line at all, Africa as a market does not matter to the box office at all. All of that is to say, that trying to claim you’re an abused black man because you didn’t get a film or second season is not a winning strategy.

Moreover, look what happened to other ‘stars’ who ran their mouth about Disney/Marvel and had an acrimonious divorce with the studio, Tatiana Maslany’s She Hulk might as well be non-canon with a lot of the events of her show having been ignored. Then there is the case of Oscar Issac who threw away the chance of Moon Knight ever getting a second season after he came after Disney for suspending Jimmy Kimmel. Blade can get a new film post Secret Wars with Snipes, Ali has put himself out of business, and if Disney ever did want to bring back Simon Williams there are plenty of other actors who could take over the part.

Behaving in the way these two men have, with the level of entitlement and using their race as a card to mean they cannot be fired and that they must be given things is disgusting. The idea of equality is that everyone is treated the same so if Issac and Maslany can get themselves fired and their characters written off so should these two men.

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Cinema Issues: The Death Of Marvel’s Disney + Dreams

News has broken that other than Daredevil Born Again no other series will be returning to Disney +, despite all those fake leaker accounts promising Hawkeye season 2. There’ll be some one offs and mini series, but by and large the focus will shift to animation as it is cheaper and easier to do.

As you can imagine people are upset, why won’t we get another season of Wonder Man despite the fact it flopped. However, this move is great for Marvel, you shouldn’t have to watch a 6 hours series in order to understand a film you want to watch as such stopping it is for the best.

Moreover, a hell of a lot of the things that happened in the Disney + shows either were never referenced again or were just written out, looking at you Hulk’s son and Kingpin losing an eye. The fact is a lot of these series just weren’t good at all, and so it makes sense to cast them off. When they did mix in with the proper MCU films it was generally in so much as providing a supporting character or explaining a motive, they just weren’t needed.

There are also a lot of reasons why Disney and marvel as a brand want to remove themselves from Marvel’s Disney + offerings and a lot of this comes down to politics. Both Tatiana Maslany and Oscar Issac have publicly attacked Disney in the press and online and as such She Hulk and Moon Knight died there and then, She Hulk has been heavily ignored and vast parts of it simply seem to be non-canon now.

In many ways Disney leaving this arena whilst they still have some of their credibility left is a win, let’s hope Wonder Man, Riri Williams, She Hulk and the rest stay buried forever and don’t pop up for a jump scare in the next Avengers film.

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Cinema Issues Spider-Man Brand New Day And Superhero Fatigue

Just like the success of the Odyssey doesn’t prove that woke films are back in vogue, Spider-Man Brand New Day’s success doesn’t change the fact Superheroes are on the way out.

One only needs to look at recent Superhero box office failures such as Captain America Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four or Supergirl or consider the bad viewing numbers of many of the streaming shows.

Folks will always watch Spider-Man he’s a popular character just like folks will watch the Avengers films but just wait for the next B level character and see how few people turn out for it. The fatigue hasn’t gone away it just never applied to the big characters people care about.

Nolan could pull off woke as he’s is Christopher Nolan and sold the experience of seeing his film, another director couldn’t do that, likewise the Marvels 2 wouldn’t be able to be profitable simply because Brand New Day was as no one cares about those characters.

Some say it is bad movie fatigue we say it is bad character fatigue.

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Batman Caped Crusader Season 2 Overview: They Continue To Ruin The Batman Mythos

Why not have the Riddler as just another thug, it destroys his character but why not, why not gender flip more classic Batman villains like The Mad Hatter rather than bringing in actual female villains like Lady Shiva.

They make Harley Quinn a girlboss, she breaks from the Joker far too early and easily and it really damages the overall relationship there in terms of dynamics and how that plays out. As well as this they introduce The Dark Knight Returns Robin rather than you know any of the other more well known ones. Again all of this is a choice.

When you look at something like Invincible and yes it does make changes from the comics but it also replicates things as well pretty 1:1 at times, this just seems like vandalism.

Overall: lots of people already aren’t watching this but you shouldn’t either.

1/5

Pros.

There are a couple of cool fights

Cons.

The gender swaps

The lore ruining moments

The girlbosses

The animation itself

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Spider-Man Brand New Day: Spider-Man Is Depressed

Summary Jean Grey shows up for no reason and decides to act like a villain. Spider-Man pines over his girlfriend.

Let’s get one thing right off the bat as our article from a few days ago said putting Jean Grey into the MCU sans X-Men is dumb as hell. Jean does not behave like herself here, and her backstory around her missing sister etc would have fit very well into a gritty X-Men film but without the light hearted world of a Spider-Man film it really sticks out. If you removed her entirely from the plot and just had it be Spidey working with and then going up against the leader of Damage Control it would have been much better.

The arc they give Peter is probably the best of the MCU, he is broken as Peter but on top of the world as Spider-Man he has lost everyone and needs to learn to trust and let people in again. This is a serious and grown up Spider-Man, we wouldn’t be surprised if kids like this one a bit less as it’s far less about dances and curfews and far more about loneliness, sadness and trauma. Seeing Spider-Man at a low ebb is kind of what the character is all about though.

You’d argue that the supporting cast does a lot of the heavy lifting here, John Bernthal is wonderful as the Punisher and you really see how much he cares about Peter. Yelana is funny and steals the scenes she isn’t in. However, the star of the side cast is arguably Zendaya. Now a number of the contributors to this magazine do not have a high opinion of Zendaya however, here she is the emotional core of the film. The fact that she can’t remember anything about Peter and that they don’t get back together in the end is incredibly mature and grown up.

There is a real sense of transition with this film not the least due to the changes happening to Peter with his Spider DNA but because it shifts from being a children’s film to something much more serious and grown up.

3.5/5

Pros.

Peter and MJ

Frank

The action and the go pro scenes

The humour

Cons.

The stuff with Jean Grey

The end credits tease isn’t good

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Cinema Issues: The Jean Grey Issue Spider-Man Brand New Day

At the time of writing we do not know if Jean Grey is in Spider-Man 4 and if it is Sadie Sink’s mysterious role however a lot of online speculation says that’s the case.

If it is then it is a terrible terrible decision for multiple reasons, let’s get into it.

1- It introduces her first as a villain: Jean Grey of the X-Men outside of her Phoenix possessions is a good guy, however, a lot of the rumours linking Grey to this film say that she is the villain pulling the strings behind the scenes. Why would she be doing this? It would be incredibly against the character and make very little sense.

2- It cheapens the idea of introducing the MCU’s own X-Men at a later date: we know the X-Men are coming however, the drips and drabs strategy we have been getting isn’t working. The idea was to have an X-Men film pretty immediately after Secret Wars when the universe will be reset why would it make sense to have just Jean Grey introduced early here rather than alongside her fellow X-Men there, it wouldn’t.

3- Spider-Man is still not able to hold his own film: under the MCU there seems to be an idea that you can’t just have a Spider-Man film, like Sony did for years. You need Iron Man, you need the multiverse, you need an X-Man. Repeatedly it seems like Peter cannot just have his own adventure and this film is already crowded with the likes of the Hulk and the Punisher showing up for some reason, now they have to put Jean Grey in as well, it’s just stupid. People want grounded, focused stories not cameo fests.

We long hoped that she is Firestar a different mutant character but one that would be a much more organic fit for the film, however, it would not explain the seeming mind control elements of the plot.

If it is Jean Grey it is a poorly thought through desperate move.

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Cinema Issues: Trouble In The DCU

So with Supergirl crashing out in almost comical style at the box office, what’s next for DC. In the immediate term what’s next is a Green Lanterns show that is so embarrassed of its source material it won’t even call itself Green Lanterns and Clayface a film no one was asking for. However in terms of what’s next as a broader more heady topic the idea is likely a movie back towards the hardcore fanbase and masculinity. Superman last year had a soft more feminine form of masculinity and Supergirl this year de-centred men as they are toxic okay. Look at how well it worked out for them Superman didn’t reach the heights they wanted it to and Supergirl will cost them money. You can already see this movie towards the hardcore fans, by the fact they have fast tracked the Deathstroke and Bane film.

The fact is as unpopular as it may be Superhero films are aimed for a male audience, the vast bulk of comic readers and people who attend these films are men, as such making Superhero films for women or for softer men when may like more will result in box office failure. James Gunn seems to like championing this kind of soy boy masculinity, look what he did with Peacemaker over time, however, Gunn’s influence is likely shaky, he’s up for a contract renewal in 2027 as co-head of DC and he doesn’t have a lot to recommend him, particularly if Clayface fails.

What is very curious is the brand damaged control. After Supergirl flopped, the toxic fans of the film screamed everyone who didn’t like it was a misogynist and attacked them. However Gunn, Alcock and the rest of team DC stayed quiet which is odd for this kind of thing. Normally victim narratives are spun up. There was the fan hit piece in the New York Times screaming about “misogyny” whilst ignoring the misandry of Ms Alcock, which could be seen as doing damage control for the studio. However, even in Peter Safran’s statement wherein he acknowledges that Supergirl is a flop he doesn’t say a word about the fans. It’s very curious.

A lot is now on Clayface if that too flops then you would imagine the incoming Paramount takeover will not look favourably on Gunn’s DCU and may wipe the slate clean.

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Invincible Season 4 Overview: March To War

Summary, it’s finally here the big war for the Galaxy.

Season 3 spent a lot of time teasing this and season 4 was supposed to be where they delivered. Whilst hopes were for perhaps a full season of war action, we got plot lines about Debbie and her boyfriend moving in together, Eve’s abortion and a long subplot about Mark being sad he killed someone. Can you say filler.

The war stuff we got was good though it didn’t go into it as much as we would have liked and it seemed to be over with much too quickly.

The season ends with the promise of more to come with Rex/Rudy returning from the other dimension even more evil than before, however, we are leaving this season with a sigh.

There was a lot of good here but a lot of filler too.

Overall, goodish

3/5

Pros.

The war

Setting up Rex/Rudy

Less relationship drama

Cons.

Filler

The war is disappointing

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Supergirl: Toxic Femininity

Summary: Superman’s cousin puts down the bottle, more like moves with it, and actually does something.

Maybe having your lead saying how men don’t own women’s bodies, when no one said they did, then insulting those offended on the grounds of their gender and religion, then changing the canon of a character to say she’s Bi and then finally saying the films better as it doesn’t centre men, isn’t a great way to market a film, as the terrible preview numbers show.

Kara is deeply unlikeable, she is very much the human embodiment of the damaged tattoo from the forehead of Jared Leto’s Joker. She drinks, she’s sad, she’s unpleasant to those around her, as God forbid she doesn’t take out her mental issues on other people. The message of this film is that that is okay behaviour as you can be good but not nice, which is a self defeating morally bankrupt principle. The film thinks this is showing her as a damaged character, with the journey being to show how she becomes more connected to people. However, the film tries to make her seem cool in her broken state glorifying her entitled and bratty behaviour.

Superman is in this, as more than just a target for dog urine, as Gunn and co really respect the character, herein he plays the concerned mother hen constantly checking in, usually to be met with derision or a well actually from Kara.

Of course the film likens being a bride to slavery, by having the villain literally kidnapping women and turning them not into sex slaves as is the case with most human trafficking, but rather brides. The message here is clear, marriage is bad and a prison for women. It is also entirely unoriginal as Mad Max Fury Road did a similar thing about ten years ago.

Lobo gets less screen time than you imagine and serves really to be red meat to throw to the male fans who Alcock has alienated so completely. He’s maybe on screen for a total of 5 minutes.

The focus on Krypto once again shows the weakness of the Gunn verse as it does not seem to be able to stand without having a cute dog to try and guilt butts into seats. This shows a weakness in storytelling. The actual journey of healing if you want to view it like that shows off the toxicity of Kara’s damaged personality and even when she does something good it quickly becomes self centered once again.

Overall, there is a reason that Clayface is having it’s premium formats reconsidered, this feels like edgy Tumblr fanfic from about 2 decades ago.

0.5/5

Pros.

It’s not a 3 hour slog

Cons.

Kara is unlikable

The journey feels incomplete by the end

You’ve seen it before

Lobo is barely in it

It feels like it’s for edgy girls circa 2009

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