Marvel Phase 3 movies

[ffutures]

Marvel has announced dates for the next tranche of movies after Avengers 2 (LATER - And Ant Man, which I'd completely forgotten until it was mentioned in comments, which may be a big problem since it looks to be a common reaction). The source is here:

http://io9.com/marvel-debuts-their-new-phase-3-movies-including-capta-1651832265

Captain America 3: Civil War on May 6th, 2016
Doctor Strange on November 4th, 2016
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on May 5th, 2017
Thor 3: Ragnarok on July 28th, 2017
Black Panther on November 3rd, 2017
Captain Marvel on July 6th, 2018
Inhumans on November 2nd, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War Part One in May 2018
Avengers: Infinity War Part Two in May 2019

Really don't see how the Civil War storyline works without mutants etc. (the X-men and Spiderman aren't part of the world for these movies) but they seem to be saying that there will be events in earlier movies that will make governments demand regulation. I presume that this means that Avengers: Age of Ultron will involve a LOT of property damage, and with SHIELD officially out of the picture and Hydra using a lot of power-crazed supers (in Agents of SHIELD etc.) there's a turf war over control.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible to do a story about a demand for government regulation, particularly one based on fear of violence and weapons control, without tying it in to a fantastic analog of racism (or, more recently, of anti-gay bias, though mutants are still being envisioned as a distinct race too). It may make it easier for the writers to portray the demand for regulation as not simply wrong-headed.

[liliaeth]

Exactly, I've always been pro-reg in theory (though not in the way Stark handled it in the comic), because quite honestly, there needs to be some oversight in superheroes.

If you just let a bunch of people go around 'fighting bad guys' without some degree of oversight, you end up with scumbags like George Zimmerman taking advantage of the chance to just murder anyone they even think 'is up to no good'.

I'm hugely in favor of gun control in real life and if superpowers, most of which in the MCU were acquired rather than born with, can be seen as a weapon, then registering them would be helpful to any kind of law enforcement.

The question comes in when they ask people to do more than just register powers, and in how far this registration should go...
And that could be a highly interest conflict when handled by someone with some actual skill in handling the issues at hand.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I agree that this seems desirable - just not convinced it will justify the title "civil war" unless governments and/or the supers get fairly unreasonable about things.

[liliaeth]

I figure that's what Agents of SHIELD is good for. Building out the world enough, that there's actually enough characters in it to make it a civil war, rather than an argument between a small group of people.

Along with the Jessica Jones and Daredevil series' on netflix.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

My sympathies are actually on the other side; I found the comic book series quite a disappointment in Captain America's backing down from the struggle at the end. Personally, I find the idea of a government that controls and regulates everyone with superhuman powers pretty terrifying; it makes me think of Orwell's line about "a boot stamping on a human face, forever."

On one hand, that says to me that there's a real issue here that could be a source of actual internal conflict, in the same way that The Winter Soldier contrasted the "liberty vs. tyranny" framework of its heroes with the "order vs. chaos" model of HYDRA. On the other, it also says that this is going to be a difficult theme to handle and an easy one to get wrong.

[liliaeth]

I think that the big problem in the comics, for me at least, was that both sides ended up looking bad.
Cap ended up looking like a selfish jerk whose people didn't want to be held accountable. And who forewent his strongest superpower, aka his ability to speech. Seriously, what the hell did he ever accomplish by fighting the government and beating the crap out of people? What he should have done was speak in front of the senate, get the press on his hands. That might have made a difference.

Going underground? Didn't help anyone.

Whereas on the other side, Tony instead of being a responsible person who wants some accountability ended up looking like a jackbooted thug, who wanted to take away people's freedom and ignored their rights by locking them up without a trial.

Quite honestly, the idea of Civil War could have worked, but instead Miller ended up making both sides look like strawman, just to show a lot of fight scenes. Which wasn't helped by the fact that most writers of the tie in comics (with a few rare exceptions) were pretty much having fun making Tony look like the bad guy.

The good thing, is that the writers of CA: Civil War are a hell of a lot better than Miller was. And since it's only one movie, the idea won't be spread out too much and they'll have more control on what both sides stand for.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, to me Millar is practically the perfect end state of the Iron Age of comics. He likes to write about violence and he sees superheroes as sources of violence, but he doesn't get that an effectively written superhero needs to embody some moral abstraction in visible form. And Civil War was a comic series that absolutely needed to be about a conflict of moral abstractions.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Apparently the 'Civil War' will be about 'who controls superheroes.' I'm still having trouble fitting the various current MCU Avengers into this scenario, given Tony Stark's attitude to the government controlling his tech and that Steve Rogers has never been adverse to disobeying when he thinks he's right - and the events of 'The Winter Soldier' backing him up. And having them on separate sides wouldn't be the big deal it is in the comic arc.

My own opinion is that several things contributed to the decision to go with a variant (or maybe just a title) of this storyline. 1) The comic event made a hell of a lot of money for Marvel, back in the day. 2) They are very worried that Ant Man which looked a very risky proposition when it was in development hell now looks a sure-fire flop, the first one they have had. 3) CA3 is the first film after Ant-Man and they are therefore packing it with actors and characters most popular with the general public. 4) Tumblr to the contrary, Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier has not been a huge hit with the critics or the general, none comic book reading, public. CA:tWS pushed the character a little more into the background than I had been expecting (actually, dreading, as I have never liked Barnes in any of his incarnations) and the reviews quite often not only didn't seem to notice him, but were even confused as to who the Winter Soldier actually was!

I'm chuffed about Captain Marvel and interested in how they will handle The Inhumans. I've got every appendage crossed for The Black Panther because it would be so, so easy to misstep with Wakandan society if they follow the comics. I will only go to see Dr Strange if he isn't being played by Cumberbatch. Other than that, I'm reasonably happy.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'd completely forgotten about Ant Man (which I suspect may be a fairly common problem). Control does seem a more plausible theme, just not convinced it will sustain a "civil war" theme.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

just not convinced it will sustain a "civil war" theme.

Who is? Perhaps it will not really be a superhero civil war, but a war between Hydra and the remnants of SHIELD, with Cap and Co against both sides?

(Yes, I know, I know...)