I'm really looking forward to seeing how they integrate Strange. His comics always had a very different tone from a lot of other Marvel properties, and I wonder if it would be better to keep him in a separate, magic-filled little bubble that exists in the MCU but doesn't interact with the main properties, much like how I suspect they'll treat the Heroes for Hire TV show.
For working magic into the setting, they could do worse than taking notes from Fringe. Ostensibly it's super-science, but it might as well be magic. Agents of SHIELD would probably be the best place to test the waters with that, slowly pushing the tone towards the weirder stuff and seeing how people react.
Also, though I loved the movie, I'm still wondering if any of the stand-alone films are going to explain the lack of the United Avengers. So far we've seen the President of the United States captured by a terrorist (Iron Man 3), a giant alien spaceship crash into Greenwich and start destroying the universe (Thor 2), and now seen Captain America on the run, a gun battle in the streets of Washington, and the helicarrier fight in the sky overhead a couple days later. Each time, there hasn't really been a good explanation for why the rest of the Avengers never got involved, even though either the main character should call them up or they should notice themselves that it's time for some thrilling heroics.
Also, though I loved the movie, I'm still wondering if any of the stand-alone films are going to explain the lack of the United Avengers. So far we've seen the President of the United States captured by a terrorist (Iron Man 3), a giant alien spaceship crash into Greenwich and start destroying the universe (Thor 2), and now seen Captain America on the run, a gun battle in the streets of Washington, and the helicarrier fight in the sky overhead a couple days later. Each time, there hasn't really been a good explanation for why the rest of the Avengers never got involved, even though either the main character should call them up or they should notice themselves that it's time for some thrilling heroics.
Iron Man 3 A) took place over a very short period of time, a few days at most, B) like with TWS it involved a shady conspiracy that isn't fully revealed until the end, C) Tony deliberately didn't contact anyone since he was laying low trying to figure out how to solve the matter (being Tony, he's kind of a dickish loner sometimes, the film is about him not being that anymore), D) for all we know, once the President was rescued SHIELD was brought in, but very soon after Tony and Pepper and Rhodes have the situation well in hand.
Similarly, in Thor 2, A) the big news-generating events on earth happens in a matter of hours, so not necessarily enough time for AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, especially since Thor was in THIS MUST BE SOLVED NOW mode, B) We see Thor's human friends deliberately keeping a wrap on the weird things they're seeing because they don't want SHIELD to swoop in and kick them out of their own research like in New Mexico, and C) we did see SHIELD having to do cleanup after those events on Agents of Shield.
Finally, in The Winter Soldier A) Fury told cap to Trust No One *x files music*, B) Cap really doesn't know who to trust, for real, he doesn't even trust Black Widow, C) we've already seen how he's kind of prickly with Tony, and I'm guessing because Stark Industries built the repulsor tech for all he knew Tony was in on it, D) they spend the majority of the film after discovering the conspiracy on the run, E) they can't even kidnap a scrub like Agent Sitwell without being discovered by The Winter Soldier, so why would they contact the most famous military contractor on earth, F) I'm willing to bet (just based on Agents of Shield) that they don't have a direct line to Asgard so much as Asgardian just kind of show up as needed, and G) even though Thor is on Earth, he's also in London and probably didn't even hear about this matter until it resulted in a ige, SHIELD-destroying battle, and finally F) it takes place over such a short period of time.
Also, though I loved the movie, I'm still wondering if any of the stand-alone films are going to explain the lack of the United Avengers. So far we've seen the President of the United States captured by a terrorist (Iron Man 3), a giant alien spaceship crash into Greenwich and start destroying the universe (Thor 2), and now seen Captain America on the run, a gun battle in the streets of Washington, and the helicarrier fight in the sky overhead a couple days later. Each time, there hasn't really been a good explanation for why the rest of the Avengers never got involved, even though either the main character should call them up or they should notice themselves that it's time for some thrilling heroics.
Iron Man 3 A) took place over a very short period of time, a few days at most, B) like with TWS it involved a shady conspiracy that isn't fully revealed until the end, C) Tony deliberately didn't contact anyone since he was laying low trying to figure out how to solve the matter (being Tony, he's kind of a dickish loner sometimes, the film is about him not being that anymore), D) for all we know, once the President was rescued SHIELD was brought in, but very soon after Tony and Pepper and Rhodes have the situation well in hand.
Similarly, in Thor 2, A) the big news-generating events on earth happens in a matter of hours, so not necessarily enough time for AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, especially since Thor was in THIS MUST BE SOLVED NOW mode, B) We see Thor's human friends deliberately keeping a wrap on the weird things they're seeing because they don't want SHIELD to swoop in and kick them out of their own research like in New Mexico, and C) we did see SHIELD having to do cleanup after those events on Agents of Shield.
Finally, in The Winter Soldier A) Fury told cap to Trust No One *x files music*, B) Cap really doesn't know who to trust, for real, he doesn't even trust Black Widow, C) we've already seen how he's kind of prickly with Tony, and I'm guessing because Stark Industries built the repulsor tech for all he knew Tony was in on it, D) they spend the majority of the film after discovering the conspiracy on the run, E) they can't even kidnap a scrub like Agent Sitwell without being discovered by The Winter Soldier, so why would they contact the most famous military contractor on earth, F) I'm willing to bet (just based on Agents of Shield) that they don't have a direct line to Asgard so much as Asgardian just kind of show up as needed, and G) even though Thor is on Earth, he's also in London and probably didn't even hear about this matter until it resulted in a ige, SHIELD-destroying battle, and finally F) it takes place over such a short period of time.
Those are some good points, but to counter them (because who doesn't love internet arguments): Iron Man: Why wasn't SHIELD immediately mobilized after Tony's house got hit? You'd imagine that having the public face of the Avengers, not to mention the premier weapon designer on the planet, apparently get assassinated would cause a global response; clearly the Mandarin is someone that needs to be dealt with immediately. Pepper would have been taken into protective custody, and I don't know if there is a force on Earth that could have stopped Bruce Banner from getting angry and trying to find and rip apart the Mandarin with his bare Hulked-out hands. Similarly, having the President get kidnapped would seem like a perfect excuse to let Captain America and his team off the leash; people would expect nothing less, and Fury shows in Winter Soldier that he believes that using SHIELD and the Avengers as a public deterrent is the best option. Meanwhile, Hydra should be thinking: What better way of justifying excessive force and governmental oversight then by rescuing the President from terrorists?
Thor: It would definitely have been hard to get the Avengers assembled in time, it's true, but I have to imagine that people at SHIELD were playing phone tag with Asgardians trying to find out what sort of wierdness was going on (IIRC, there were smaller holes in space-time in the weeks leading up to the big event).
Winter Soldier: Why didn't Tony come to see the dying Fury (and offer his hyper-advanced medical tech), or Hawkeye to comfort Black Widow? There seemed to be time before things really kicked off when you imagine that they would have tried to see the main cast. Similarly, I can see Iron Man crashing through the window of the Security Council meeting room after Captain America goes on the run and explaining that, while he might be an insufferable prig, Steve Rogers is not a traitor.
It's kind of like my problem with Mass Effect 2: When the companions aren't accompanying you on a mission, they are just sitting quietly in their rooms waiting to be called, rather than taking action off-screen and making their presence felt, even when they are not the central focus. Compressed time is not an excuse that stands when anyone can get in touch with anyone else around the world easily, and SHIELD relies on being able to assemble the Avengers quickly to respond to urgent situations.
A phone call in the background of SHIELD HQ where someone tells Tony Stark that Alexander Pierce can't talk right now, or a tv in that tiny town Stark ends up in showing some footage of the Avengers trying to stop a rampaging Hulk in Mongolia; just something that makes me believe that they are characters that exist outside of their focused stories.
Midway through we find out that Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) ... is still alive as a digital construct. When his body died in the early 70s, he transferred his consciousness into a computer system housed in a secret HYDRA/SHIELD warehouse. As a living computer program, he has devoted his energies to creating an algorithm that can detect threats before they can occur, which in this case means "anyone who can harm HYDRA"
1. SHIELD was destroyed in a similar fashion in the comics, and it didn't take. Albeit in the comics it was seeded into the universe for a while, and came to a head with "Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD". There are a number of differences, for example they didn't do anything trippy with LMDs (which have yet to be introduced), and of course they had Captain America as the central figure, which makes a degree of sense because the "Ultimates" inspired version of Nick Fury is so much weaker than the version from the comics where he is pretty much the equivalent of Captain America himself.
To be honest it surprises me Joss Whedon is playing coy, especially seeing as he's pretty much the patron god of the nerds. I'd expect him of all people to be pointing this out, and Marvel/Disney to be reprinting at least the old TPB collection so interested people who missed it can see how the original storyline played out.
That said, I personally expect that the end result is them simply going to say that Nick Fury (who had an override tied to his bad eye already) who is a guy with redundant plans for doomsday, hadn't planned well ahead to the destruction of SHIELD even if he hadn't anticipated it happening this way. I'd imagine this will be taken as an excuse for him to rebuild it from the ground up as something a bit closer to the comics, which might be useful in terms of the TV show which people complained wasn't quite wild enough.
I personally haven't seen this as being a big a deal as many others.
2. While SHIELD has referred to Thor as an alien, I've never seen any real indication in the cinematic universe that everything they do is based on technology. Quite the opposite in fact. While it's been made clear that the Asgardians
do use tech, and are far more advanced than Earth (like when Sif was using the holo-computer on The Bus), they also do seem to be using magic much like in the comics. You'll notice that nobody, including Odin, is able to stop Loki from being able to throw illusions and stuff, ditto for Lorelei's mind control powers. While some of their stuff is apparently tech, it's not like they are taking away special lipstick, or a pair of holo-projector gauntlets or whatever. It seems to be difficult for a lot of people to grasp the idea that you can have tech and magic co-existing at the same time, yet I think that's been the case, and Doctor Strange is likely to spell that out a bit more.
I'll also say that anyone who knows about "The Infinity Gauntlet" (which people are already talking about being a likely super event) should be ready for things to go well outside the realm of science fiction. I mean that storyline literally has a guy trying to get into Death's pants, Mephisto (the Devil) trying to deceive him, and a fight not only against super heroes, but against the combined metaphysical forces of reality (Lord Order, Master Chaos, etc...), followed by a one on one due with Eternity who is the manifestation of everything there is. I'd imagine the cinematic universe is prepared to go some really wild places if they are planning on that and having it even hold a candle to the original.
Personally I've been waiting for the one thing that might be even more powerful than the Infinity Gauntlet to show up... The Living Tribunal. It's been a while but I believe it refused to rule against Thanos during the Infinity Gauntlet thing (and the impression I get is that like Roma it has jurisdiction across the multiverse, not just this one paltry reality).
Could be worse, at least it isn't DC where every in-universe story usually needs to come up with some contrivance for why Superman doesn't swoop in and solve the situation in under 5 min.
2. While SHIELD has referred to Thor as an alien, I've never seen any real indication in the cinematic universe that everything they do is based on technology. Quite the opposite in fact. While it's been made clear that the Asgardians
do use tech, and are far more advanced than Earth (like when Sif was using the holo-computer on The Bus), they also do seem to be using magic much like in the comics. You'll notice that nobody, including Odin, is able to stop Loki from being able to throw illusions and stuff, ditto for Lorelei's mind control powers. While some of their stuff is apparently tech, it's not like they are taking away special lipstick, or a pair of holo-projector gauntlets or whatever. It seems to be difficult for a lot of people to grasp the idea that you can have tech and magic co-existing at the same time, yet I think that's been the case, and Doctor Strange is likely to spell that out a bit more.
You have a good point - I simply meant that so far, Thor has been treated like that. He does, I admit, say IIRC that on Asgard science and magic are the same thing, though that is quite ambiguous. I'm willing to bet that things are about to get very weird and very far past just science fiction, and as you suggest, I agree we'll see Asgard's magic being more explicitly beyond science.
Midway through we find out that Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) ... is still alive as a digital construct. When his body died in the early 70s, he transferred his consciousness into a computer system housed in a secret HYDRA/SHIELD warehouse. As a living computer program, he has devoted his energies to creating an algorithm that can detect threats before they can occur, which in this case means "anyone who can harm HYDRA"
That is the most obvious and internally consistent thing that could possibly happen. Which is why Agents of SHIELD won't do it. It'll probably turn out to be Agent Hand, who won't even mention Zola and will turn out to be yet another mole within shield operating independently of HYDRA. Gah Agents of SHIELD can be frustratingly dumb sometimes.
Hopefully tonight I'll turn out to have been wrong, and they'll do the smart thing. But I don't think the show would be willing to pay for Toby Jones.
Could be worse, at least it isn't DC where every in-universe story usually needs to come up with some contrivance for why Superman doesn't swoop in and solve the situation in under 5 min.
Winter Soldier: Why didn't Tony come to see the dying Fury (and offer his hyper-advanced medical tech), or Hawkeye to comfort Black Widow? There seemed to be time before things really kicked off when you imagine that they would have tried to see the main cast. Similarly, I can see Iron Man crashing through the window of the Security Council meeting room after Captain America goes on the run and explaining that, while he might be an insufferable prig, Steve Rogers is not a traitor.
Good points, but regarding this specific point, I think the fact that SHIELD/HYDRA was absolutely doing their best to keep this under wraps counts. Remember that they successfully cut off Nick Fury from contacting anyone right after he called Agent Hill - likely she and he had a previously-agreed upon meeting place/contingency plan in place for just such an event. Meanwhile, remember when they had captured Cap and Black Widow, and Rumlow stopped SHIELD/HYDRA agents from summarily executing them because they noticed people watching? I'm guessing the last thing they wanted to do is publicly brand Steve a traitor, considering how the public might react. Most likely the explanation was intended to be some after the fact nonsense about Rogers dying in service to his country, that kind of thing.
They'll probably just limit any actual appearance of him to a few scenes rather than have him show up for anything meaningful. He's already been communicating through other people so there isn't much reason to stop and if he is a computer then they probably don't need an actor or even his voice at all, just have a heavily augmented voice from someone who sounds similar.
Winter Soldier: Why didn't Tony come to see the dying Fury (and offer his hyper-advanced medical tech), or Hawkeye to comfort Black Widow? There seemed to be time before things really kicked off when you imagine that they would have tried to see the main cast. Similarly, I can see Iron Man crashing through the window of the Security Council meeting room after Captain America goes on the run and explaining that, while he might be an insufferable prig, Steve Rogers is not a traitor.
Good points, but regarding this specific point, I think the fact that SHIELD/HYDRA was absolutely doing their best to keep this under wraps counts. Remember that they successfully cut off Nick Fury from contacting anyone right after he called Agent Hill - likely she and he had a previously-agreed upon meeting place/contingency plan in place for just such an event. Meanwhile, remember when they had captured Cap and Black Widow, and Rumlow stopped SHIELD/HYDRA agents from summarily executing them because they noticed people watching? I'm guessing the last thing they wanted to do is publicly brand Steve a traitor, considering how the public might react. Most likely the explanation was intended to be some after the fact nonsense about Rogers dying in service to his country, that kind of thing.
Sure, they were trying to keep it under wraps from the public, but Pierce announced to SHIELD HQ that they were going after Rogers because he was withholding information. At least within the organization, it seems to be fairly wide-spread knowledge (aside from the people in that room, there are those in the lobby who saw him fall out of the elevator, and anyone on a strike team going to capture him needs to know that Captain America and Black Widow are the targets, not allies). Even if they didn't send Stark an e-mail, I would think that odds are 1) a friend he has in SHIELD would mention it to him, as this is a huge deal and it's clear that there were people opposed to hunting Rogers like a criminal, or 2) given his trust issue and... loose grasp on what sort of computers and information he should be accessing, that he has the equivalent of an RSS feed that lets him know when major things are going on inside SHIELD.
I don't doubt they had a plan about hiding the truth of what was going on from the public, I just don't see how they would hide it from Tony Stark, who seems to be working closely with SHIELD since Iron Man 3.
Also, though I loved the movie, I'm still wondering if any of the stand-alone films are going to explain the lack of the United Avengers. So far we've seen the President of the United States captured by a terrorist (Iron Man 3), a giant alien spaceship crash into Greenwich and start destroying the universe (Thor 2), and now seen Captain America on the run, a gun battle in the streets of Washington, and the helicarrier fight in the sky overhead a couple days later. Each time, there hasn't really been a good explanation for why the rest of the Avengers never got involved, even though either the main character should call them up or they should notice themselves that it's time for some thrilling heroics.
Iron Man 3 A) took place over a very short period of time, a few days at most, B) like with TWS it involved a shady conspiracy that isn't fully revealed until the end, C) Tony deliberately didn't contact anyone since he was laying low trying to figure out how to solve the matter (being Tony, he's kind of a dickish loner sometimes, the film is about him not being that anymore), D) for all we know, once the President was rescued SHIELD was brought in, but very soon after Tony and Pepper and Rhodes have the situation well in hand.
Similarly, in Thor 2, A) the big news-generating events on earth happens in a matter of hours, so not necessarily enough time for AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, especially since Thor was in THIS MUST BE SOLVED NOW mode, B) We see Thor's human friends deliberately keeping a wrap on the weird things they're seeing because they don't want SHIELD to swoop in and kick them out of their own research like in New Mexico, and C) we did see SHIELD having to do cleanup after those events on Agents of Shield.
Finally, in The Winter Soldier A) Fury told cap to Trust No One *x files music*, B) Cap really doesn't know who to trust, for real, he doesn't even trust Black Widow, C) we've already seen how he's kind of prickly with Tony, and I'm guessing because Stark Industries built the repulsor tech for all he knew Tony was in on it, D) they spend the majority of the film after discovering the conspiracy on the run, E) they can't even kidnap a scrub like Agent Sitwell without being discovered by The Winter Soldier, so why would they contact the most famous military contractor on earth, F) I'm willing to bet (just based on Agents of Shield) that they don't have a direct line to Asgard so much as Asgardian just kind of show up as needed, and G) even though Thor is on Earth, he's also in London and probably didn't even hear about this matter until it resulted in a ige, SHIELD-destroying battle, and finally F) it takes place over such a short period of time.
Those are some good points, but to counter them (because who doesn't love internet arguments): Iron Man: Why wasn't SHIELD immediately mobilized after Tony's house got hit? You'd imagine that having the public face of the Avengers, not to mention the premier weapon designer on the planet, apparently get assassinated would cause a global response; clearly the Mandarin is someone that needs to be dealt with immediately. Pepper would have been taken into protective custody, and I don't know if there is a force on Earth that could have stopped Bruce Banner from getting angry and trying to find and rip apart the Mandarin with his bare Hulked-out hands. Similarly, having the President get kidnapped would seem like a perfect excuse to let Captain America and his team off the leash; people would expect nothing less, and Fury shows in Winter Soldier that he believes that using SHIELD and the Avengers as a public deterrent is the best option. Meanwhile, Hydra should be thinking: What better way of justifying excessive force and governmental oversight then by rescuing the President from terrorists?
Thor: It would definitely have been hard to get the Avengers assembled in time, it's true, but I have to imagine that people at SHIELD were playing phone tag with Asgardians trying to find out what sort of wierdness was going on (IIRC, there were smaller holes in space-time in the weeks leading up to the big event).
Winter Soldier: Why didn't Tony come to see the dying Fury (and offer his hyper-advanced medical tech), or Hawkeye to comfort Black Widow? There seemed to be time before things really kicked off when you imagine that they would have tried to see the main cast. Similarly, I can see Iron Man crashing through the window of the Security Council meeting room after Captain America goes on the run and explaining that, while he might be an insufferable prig, Steve Rogers is not a traitor.
It's kind of like my problem with Mass Effect 2: When the companions aren't accompanying you on a mission, they are just sitting quietly in their rooms waiting to be called, rather than taking action off-screen and making their presence felt, even when they are not the central focus. Compressed time is not an excuse that stands when anyone can get in touch with anyone else around the world easily, and SHIELD relies on being able to assemble the Avengers quickly to respond to urgent situations.
A phone call in the background of SHIELD HQ where someone tells Tony Stark that Alexander Pierce can't talk right now, or a tv in that tiny town Stark ends up in showing some footage of the Avengers trying to stop a rampaging Hulk in Mongolia; just something that makes me believe that they are characters that exist outside of their focused stories.
To be fair, in Mass Effect 2 it is shown that they are working on the Normandy... Mordin is designing a counter for the collectors technology, Garrus is calibrating and Miranda is pushing papers. Other than Jack and Grunt, there is no one that is likely looking at the floor, wondering angstly why Shepard never picks them for his team.
OT: Those are some good points, but I think many of them could be debunked easily.
Thor would not be involved because capturing Captain America would seem like small potatoes for him, and we have to assume SHIELD is not interested on his involvement (given than they are, in a way, the bad guys) or have no mean to command him once he gets here. Stark would be informed of the existence of the Hellicarriers, but given his involvement we can assume he is in the dark about their true propose, and is unwilling/unprepared to take part by the time all hell breaks loose, since he doesn't even know he is a target (the actual battle is rather short, and its implied that Stark is no longer Iron man by the end of 3, something he will surely remedy by the beginning of Avengers 2). Banner/Hulk is a force of nature and can't be relied to execute a revenge about anyone but his closest friends (or target anyone other than who he has in front of him). Besides, all we know about him is that he is off the radar since Avengers, so he could be in a shanty town in South Africa and only heard about it from glimpses of news, after the events. Something like a shot-out to Black Widow being informed that "Other agents were notified about Fury. Barton says he is coming to see him when he finishes his assignment in [undisclosed]" could have helped, since I think his absence is the most glaring.
In the end, this is a common problem with a universe that wants to pretend all heroes exist and are in contact with each other, but they are still capable of handling situations in their neighborhood on their own, even when they up the stakes in ways that would make other characters more capable (so, a terrorist organization known by Firestorm is threatening to blow up Manhattan? Too bad we don't know someone that can fly and can see through buildings to find the bomb fast enough... Or how about an alien invasion starting up in Gotham? Too bad we don't know a group of super powered creatures that deal with alien threats like most cops deal with vandalism. Some sort of alien police corp). In Marvel this is even worst because 99 % of the heroes have their HQ in the same city most threats start.
Of all the movies, I think the worst is probably Iron man 3 because one would think the president being kidnapped by a terrorist organization would be right on SHIELD's alley. Specially when it took Tony Stark a hood, a battery and some cables to infiltrate their secret base, so its not like Captain America and Black Widow would be unqualified. Also, there are supposed to pass weeks between the events of the movie, so its not like Tony Stark is the only one that could be making plans to deal with the Mandarin.
EDIT: also don't worry, not at all douchey. Fun question, in fact.
The Eric Bana/Ang Lee Hulk from 2003 doesn't count because it was a different studio, as Marvel didn't have the rights all to itself. After the rights reverted fully to Marvel, they produced the 2008 film as a reboot to bring the hulk into the same continuity as Iron Man.
Note that the 2008 film even gives hulk a different origin: In the 2003 film, it was blah blah DNA research blah blah boosted immune systems and strength for soldiers blah blah Bruce had been experimented on as a child. Convoluted nonsense really. In the 2008 film, it's expressly stated that the military was conducting research into the super soldier serum that produced Captain America back in the 40s, but had lied to Bruce Banner about it (telling him that it was research into helping create immunity to gamma radiation poisoning), and thus caused his accident that creates his hulking problem.
Also, Iron Man came out in April, 2008. The Incredible Hulk came out in June, 2008.
Sidenote: I remain convinced that the reason TIH underperformed is that it came out far too soon after Iron Man. Had they waited until Fall, or the following spring, there would have been more time to prime the audience for the idea of shared continuity. And we'd be guaranteed Planet Hulk, which I WANT SO BADLY.
Midway through we find out that Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) ... is still alive as a digital construct. When his body died in the early 70s, he transferred his consciousness into a computer system housed in a secret HYDRA/SHIELD warehouse. As a living computer program, he has devoted his energies to creating an algorithm that can detect threats before they can occur, which in this case means "anyone who can harm HYDRA"
That was pretty much what i thought when he told his story in the movie but like ross said will they do the sensible thing in AoS or do the dumb thing it's 50/50.
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