All posts by Neutron Lightning

Yes, the Fury we see in the Marvels has to be a post-Secret Invasion Nick Fury.

Although, the last episode of Ms. Marvel jumps forward in time and ends right before The Marvels. So for a watch order, I might recommend sliding Ms. Marvel in between Secret Invasion and The Marvels.

A reply to Spidey2025!!!!

I'll give you Ronan. We'll have to disagree about the main characters.

A reply to LichLovr8000

I've never been crazy about Iron Man 3.

But my real beef is with Doctor Strange 1 - the one no one talks about or remembers. I have so many problems with that movie, how it introduces magic, how it treats the mythology of Doctor Strange and Kamar-Taj, and how it affects the stakes of the rest of the MCU. Very disappointed.

There were also just general creative decisions I didn't like. Wasn't crazy about the music (I wanted something more eastern and spiritual).

Should have been set in Tibet - but if it has to be Nepal, then at least cast a Nepali actress in the role. Tilda Swinton is great as a sorceress (especially a shady one) but she should have been Morgana or something. The entire film is a bizarre hodgepodge of eastern cultures. They're in Nepal but wearing Japanese kimonos. Their leader has her head shaved like a Tibetan monk (but no one else does). Their books are written in Sanskrit but their training yard exercises look like Kung Fu. And beneath all of it is a clashingly European harpsichord score.

I'm not saying you can't have melting pots, but this just felt like an unsatisfying mess.

A reply to Spidey2025!!!!

Neutron Lightning·2/19/2025

@IronWidowMaikuB Which problems from later films are in Guardians of the Galaxy? That film seemed pretty tight to me.

A reply to Poseidonkid13

Well according to this Wiki and the Timeline Book:

-- 2023 --

Avengers: Endgame

Loki 1 (01) Glorious Purpose

Loki 1 (02) The Variant

Loki 1 (03) Lamentis

Loki 1 (04) The Nexus Event

Loki 1 (05) Journey Into Mystery

Loki 1 (06) For All Time. Always.

Loki 2 (01) Ouroboros (I’m only putting Episode 1 here for now because they destroy the initial Multiverse in Loki Season 2 Episode 2)

WandaVision 1 (01) Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience

WandaVision 1 (02) Don’t Touch That Dial

WandaVision 1 (03) Now in Color

WandaVision 1 (04) We Interrupt This Program

WandaVision 1 (05) On a Very Special Episode…

WandaVision 1 (06) All New Halloween Spooktacular

WandaVision 1 (07) Breaking the Fourth Wall

WandaVision 1 (08) Previously On

WandaVision 1 (09) The Series Finale

-- 2024 --

Shang-Chi & The Legend of the Ten Rings

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (01) New World Order

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (02) The Star-Spangled Man

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (03) Power Broker

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (04) The Whole World Watches

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (05) Truth

Spider-Man: Far From Home

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier 1 (06) One World, One People

Eternals

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Hawkeye 1 (01) Never Meet Your Heroes

Hawkeye 1 (02) Hide & Seek

Hawkeye 1 (03) Echoes

Hawkeye 1 (04) Partners, Am I Right?

Hawkeye 1 (05) Ronin

Hawkeye 1 (06) So This Is Christmas?

-- 2025 --

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (01) A Normal Amount of Rage

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (02) Superhuman Law

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (03) The People vs. Emil Blonsky

Moon Knight 1 (01) The Goldfish Problem

Moon Knight 1 (02) Summon the Suit

Moon Knight 1 (03) The Friendly Type

Moon Knight 1 (04) The Tomb

Moon Knight 1 (05) Asylum

Moon Knight 1 (06) Gods & Monsters

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Echo 1 (01) Chafa

Echo 1 (02) Kowak

Echo 1 (03) Tuklo

Echo 1 (04) Taloa

Echo 1 (05) Maya

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (04) Is This Not Real Magic?

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (05) Mean, Green, & Straight Poured into These Jeans

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (06) Just Jen

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (07) The Retreat

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (08) Ribbit & Rip It

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law 1 (09) Whose Show is This?

Ms. Marvel 1 (01) Generation Why

Ms. Marvel 1 (02) Crushed

Ms. Marvel 1 (03) Destined

Ms. Marvel 1 (04) Seeing Red

Ms. Marvel 1 (05) Time & Again

Ms. Marvel 1 (06) No Normal

Thor: Love & Thunder

Werewolf by Night

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special

-- 2026 --

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania

Loki 2 (02) Breaking Brad (should be right after Quantumania)

Loki 2 (03) 1893

Loki 2 (04) Heart of the TVA

Loki 2 (05) Science/Fiction

Loki 2 (06) Glorious Purpose

Deadpool & Wolverine (might as well put this after Loki Season 2)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Secret Invasion 1 (01) Resurrection

Secret Invasion 1 (02) Promises

Secret Invasion 1 (03) Betrayed

Secret Invasion 1 (04) Beloved

Secret Invasion 1 (05) Harvest

Secret Invasion 1 (06) Home

The Marvels

Agatha: All Along 1 (01) Seekest Thou the Road

Agatha: All Along 1 (02) Circle Sewn with Fate / Unlock Thy Hidden Gate

Agatha: All Along 1 (03) Through Many Miles / Of Tricks and Trials

Agatha: All Along 1 (04) If I Can’t Reach You / Let My Song Teach You

Agatha: All Along 1 (05) Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power

Agatha: All Along 1 (06) Familiar by Thy Side

Agatha: All Along 1 (07) Death’s Hand in Mine

Agatha: All Along 1 (08) Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End

Agatha: All Along 1 (09) Maiden Mother Crone

-- 2027 --

Captain America: Brave New World

A reply to McCoye123

Neutron Lightning·2/17/2025

Oh snap, I know that guy from Doctor Who! I don't know Ravage but he'd probably be great.

A reply to Nathan10828

Welcome Nathan10828,

“Why are the movies divided into phases?”

The main reason is because each phase culminates with an Avengers movie.

The Avengers movies are kind of like “season finales” for the group of movies that precede them, crossing over all of the characters and tying up story arcs.

“How are they divided?”

“How do they determine them?”

Phase One is Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers. Avengers is a conclusion to the stories in the previous movies.

Phase Two is Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man.

Avengers 2 (Age of Ultron) ties up the storylines from Phase Two.

The reason why Ant-Man is officially classified as the “end” of Phase Two, rather than the beginning of Phase Three, is because of release dates. Ant-Man came out only two months after Age of Ultron, while the next film Captain America: Civil War came out a year later.

I think it has to do with home video sales (because this was back when DVDs were all the rage and streaming services barely had anything on them). From what I’ve heard, it was easier to market and sell Age of Ultron and Ant-Man together because of how close together they released.

Thus, it made more sense to put them in the same phase from a business perspective.

For example, making Ant-Man Phase Two allows them to include it in a “Phase Two Box Set”.

Thus, Ant-Man became a kind of awkward “epilogue” to Phase Two.

Same with Phase Three. Phase Three begins with Civil War. I won’t list all the Phase Three films but Avengers: Endgame is the conclusion of not only Phase Three, but all of the films from the beginning of Phase One. However, Spider-Man: Far From Home released only two months after Endgame, like Ant-Man.

So even though Far From Home, narratively, feels like the start of a new story, Marvel brands it as “Phase Three” so they can release it together with Endgame and the others.

“Do they take inspiration from specific comics for each of these movies?”

Sometimes they do and sometimes not.

I don’t know all of the comic inspirations for each film, but I can tell you that the original suit Tony builds in the cave in Iron Man 1 was directly modeled after Iron Man’s first design from the 1960s.

“Incredible Hulk” was the name of the first Hulk comic run.

In Thor, Jane Foster has an ex-boyfriend named “Donald Blake,” which is a reference to the oldest Thor comics where “Thor” was really just a guy named Donald Blake who weilds ‘the Power of Thor.’

Captain America 1 is likely just a reworking of his WWII origin.

The very first Avengers Comic in 1963 was Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, fighting against Loki, so Avengers (2012) was actually pretty close to the original comic.

In the comics, “Drax the destroyer” was a being created for the sole purpose of destroying Thanos. So that was likely the inspiration for Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, and his vendetta against Ronan and Thanos.

I think Nebula was Thanos’s grand daughter in the comics as well.

I know Ultron was a huge Avengers villain in the comics, and Joss Whedon wanted to use him in Avengers 2.

“Civil War” was a huge storyline in the comics.

The comic began with a destructive incident which led to the government introducing “Registration” for all powered people. Captain America was against it and Iron Man was for it. Iron Man was basically the villain of that comic, and it ended with Captain America surrendering. So the Civil War movie was very close to that.

In the Doctor Strange movie, Strange is allies with another sorcerer named Karl Mordo. But by the end of the movie, they’re enemies.

In the comics, Baron Mordo was Strange’s arch nemesis, so the Doctor Strange movie was trying to give them a complex history so that their confrontation in the second movie would have weight behind it (although plans were later changed).

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 features a god-like being named Ego, who calls himself a Celestial and has built an entire planet.

In the comics, he was known as “Ego the Living Planet” and he was just a giant planet with a face. He was not, however, a Celestial, so that was a change.

Also, Star-Lord’s lineage was different in the comics.

In the comics, his father was a man named J’son of Spartax, ruler of the Spartoi Empire (which is why Peter Quill’s middle name is Jason).

Thor: Ragnarok pulls from three different sources: The Thor comics, actual Norse Mythology, and a comic called Planet Hulk.

In Norse Mythology, Ragnarok was the prophesied destruction of Asgard.

And in both the mythology and the comics, Asgard was supposed to be destroyed by Fire Lord Surter, the lord of Muspelheim, the fire realm.

However, there was also a story about the Hulk being banished from Earth. He ended up on a planet called Sakaar where he became a gladiator and eventually took over the planet. So Thor: Ragnarok is basically just Ragnarok remixed with the Planet Hulk comic.

Also, the “Grandmaster”, in the comics, was the Collector’s brother, and they both had Infinity Stones.

There was a storyline in the comics called The Infinity Gauntlet.

Thanos, in the comics, was in love with a cosmic entity named Mistress Death, but she didn’t love him back. She didn’t even speak to him. She communicated only thorugh her servant. Mistress Death believed there was an imbalance in the universe; not enough people were dying. So Thanos resolved to kill half of all life on Earth to impress her.

In a comic series called “The Thanos Quest,” Thanos tracks down all six Infinity Stones, to rewrite reality itself.

He takes the Soul Stone from someone named the In-Betweener.

He takes the Power Stone from a warrior named the Champion.

He takes the TIme Stone from someone named the Gardener.

He takes the Space Stone from someone named the Runner.

He takes the Reality Stone from The Collector.

And he took the Mind Stone from the Grand Master.

Then, in “The Infinity Gauntlet”, Thanos returns to Mistress Death with all six stones. And she still won’t pay attention to him. He conjures up a huge shrine in her honor in the middle of space and she doesn’t care. So he snaps away half of all life.

And she still doesn’t care.

The Avengers, meanwhile, try to figure out what to do.

A cosmic being named Adam Warlock, who has a history with Thanos and is connected to the Soul Stone, becomes their leader and concocts a plan to defeat Thanos.

Adam sends The Avengers and other heroes to Thanos’s shrine to fight him.

Thanos lets them fight him, to try and impress Mistress Death.

Almost all of them die.

Captain America’s shield is shattered.

Nebula is turned into a barely alive withered husk — but then, Adam tells the Silver Surfer to use his insane speed to try and snatch the Gauntlet off Thanos.

He fails.

Thanos even says “Thanos is inevitable.”

Then all of the Cosmic Entities show up and Thanos defeats them too, including the being Eternity, the embodiment of the universe itself.

Thanos takes Eternity’s place - but he’s not paying attention.

Nebula, in her withered husk form, crawls to Thanos and rips the gauntlet off.

She reverses everything, including the Snap - but she’s a little crazy.

So Adam Warlock goes into the Soul World, then emerges from the Soul Stone, and steals the Gauntlet that way (which he can only do with Nebula).

Adam Warlock ends up with the Gauntlet and says "Let the conflict end."

Avengers: Infinity War is basically the Thanos Quest, just with the stones in different places except the Reality Stone and the Collector.

Mistress Death’s philosophy that “not enough people are dying and there’s an imbalance” was used as Thanos’s motivation in the film.

It should be noted that “Infinity War” is also the name of a comic that came after Infinity Gauntlet, but I don’t think anything from that comic is in the Infinity war movie.

Endgame isn’t based on any storylines I know of, aside from Infinity Gauntlet.

Mysterio, in the comics, I think had magical powers that could create illusions.

So in the movie, they just replaced that with holograms.

And Adam Warlock eventually showed up in Guardians 3.

Hopefully this helped.

A reply to SilverQuake616

Oh, in my post, I forgot to mention the term "Celestial Island." I thought it was weird how they called it that when most people on earth don't know that that creature is called a "Celestial".

They try to make it work by having Ross call it a "Celestial mass" but even then, I don't know why Ross would use celestial as an adjective either, given that Tiamut's head came out of the ocean and is made of rock.

You'd think they'd call it a rocky mass. I'd even take "alien mass" . Sub-aquatic mass. Oceanic Mass. Otherworldly Mass.

A reply to M.K.M.007

Lol, only joking 🤣

A reply to Jstewart2007

I'l only include the years that had multiple films:

2008 - Iron Man

2011 - Thor

2013 - Thor: The Dark World (hot take)

2014 - Guardians of the Galaxy

2015 - Ant-Man

2016 - Captain America: Civil War

2017 - Inhumans: The First Cha - no, I'm kidding, it's Thor: Ragnarok

2018 - Avengers: Infinity War

2019 - Avengers: Endgame

2021 - Spider-Man: No Way Home (Shang-Chi being a close second)

2022 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

2023 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

A reply to M.K.M.007

Neutron Lightning·2/15/2025

Sabra: Origins: A Black Widow Story

A reply to Supersonicforces26

There are multiple ways to do it.

Before Eternals came out, I was concerned about the premise of “group of powerful people choose not to get involved in anything over 7,000 years”.

This is what I thought of back then.

It’s more of a re-imagining than a reworking of what we got:

Olympia is real.

It was a planet 7,000 years ago.

But the planet was ravaged by the Deviants a race of intergalactic marauders (not unlike the Chitauri).

The Eternals: Sersi, Ajak, Ikaris, Sprite, Kingo, Thena, Gilgamesh, Druig, Phastos, & Makkari are a selection of random citizens from Olympia.

7,000 years ago, Olympia was decimated by the Deviants,

They killed all of the Olympians.

Only Sersi & Co survived.

Before the Deviant attack, they all had their powers relating to Cosmic Energy.

But the Deviants released a bio-weapon that indefinitely blocked all of the Eternals’ powers (except immortality).

Arishem found them and took pity on them.

He saved them and helped them escape to Earth.

A batch of Deviants followed them there but got trapped in arctic ice.

The Eternals lived among Humans for 7,000 years, just trying to blend in and begin a new life. They didn’t have to “avoid interfering in human history.”

They interfered often — but they had no powers, so they never stood out.

That’s why they never reached out to the Avengers.

They had no powers, there wasn't much they could do, they wanted to live normal lives, and they believed there weren’t any Deviants on Earth.

Then Infinity War happened and all ten Eternals got snapped.

The Deviants in the Ice got snapped too.

When the Avengers brought everyone back, the Eternals returned WITH THEIR OLD POWERS. The Deviants returned outside of the ice, free for the first time in 7,000 years.

So the Eternals movie follows these Deviants trying to prey on the Human Race and call to their empire — and the newly powered Eternals trying to stop them.

This way:

The Eternals can be superheroes now without calling their inaction in history into question.
The Eternals’ lack of involvement in history is because they’re powerless, not because of some arbitrary rule.
The Eternals’ randomness is because they’re a random assortment of refugees from Olympia, rather than a strangely arbitrary selection by Arishem.

However, this story didn’t account for the Celestials and the Emergence, which I didn’t know about at the time.

A reply to SilverQuake616

Part 4

President Red Hulk

Going into this movie, I had concerns about turning the President of the United States into a giant monster whom the hero has to punch to save the day.

I didn’t think it would work.

And…well…it was a mess, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

Now, I don’t know the comics that well.

I’m aware that Ross became Red Hulk in the comics.

But to the best of my knowledge Ross never became President in the comics.

And by extension, he was never President and Red Hulk at the same time.

I believe it was a mistake to make him Red Hulk AND President. Pick one.

Because if he’s both, it sends a weird message.

Now, to be fair, the context behind it is something I actually like.

The Leader did that to him to destroy his reputation.

Killing him would make him a martyr.

Indicting or impeaching him might not lead anywhere.

But destroying his legacy? That makes sense as a revenge plan.

Although that’s where an issue comes in. The Red Hulk plan makes more sense as a Plan A than a Plan B.

Forget war with Japan. That’s not helping anyone.

Just turn him into Red Hulk from the beginning and you’re good to go.

So I respect “President Red Hulk” as a means for Leader to get revenge.

However, other than that, I don’t really like it at all.

It’s not that it didn’t look good.

It’s not that the fight wasn’t “fun”.

But I don’t like that Sam had to fight him at all.

I know they wanted to have the “money shot” of Sam fighting Red Hulk. It’s all over the marketing.

I think I would have preferred just a quick rampage followed by him being apprehended.

Having our hero “beat up the President” just doesn’t sit well with me.

Feels like there’s too much negative subtext there.

And it has nothing to do with Trump. I just think Captain America shouldn't be beating up the President of America, whomever he is. It just feels fundamentally wrong.

And again, that’s not even what happened in the comics.

Apparently in the comics, Ross became Red Hulk after the death of his daughter, the assassination of Captain America, and the impending threat of Bruce’s return in World War Hulk.

He had lost everything and the world was in danger (and he was being manipulated by villains).

At the end of the day, I can appreciate it as a revenge thing but having Sam fight him still doesn’t sit will with me.

I think I’d prefer it if Sam showed up too late or something.

Sharon Carter

Falcon ended with an interesting cliffhanger — Sharon Carter, the Power Broker herself, has been pardoned and will now have access of all kinds of secrets.

I remember watching that and thinking “I look forward to following up on that but who knows when they’ll do it.”

Then, they announced Captain America 4, and I guess I just assumed the movie would pick up the cliffhanger.

But then Sharon wasn’t in this movie at all, so that was a little unexpected.

I hope we follow up with her later on, cause she’s still at large.

We’re all still waiting for the payoff where Sam and Bucky find out their friend has been lying to them this whole time.

The Leader’s Final Warning

I’m glad we got at least one end credits scene, but this one felt like a little bit of a clunker.

I’m not against setting up future movies or threats - I like that.

But having the Leader declare that this world “isn’t the only world” because his brain is so big and he’s “seen probabilities” just feels bizarre.

Why would having a big brain mean you know about the Multiverse?

Unless he means “world” as in planet.

But everyone already knows aliens exist.

Maybe he’s referring to the Sorcerers or something.

I don’t know. Just felt weird for “big brain” to be the reason he knows about extra dimensional threats.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

A reply to SilverQuake616

Part 3

The Serum

This movie cannot make up its mind as to whether or not Sam should take the serum.

On the one hand, I understand it’s a powerful message that he can be inspirational without it.

But on the other hand — he almost died like seventeen times. Strength and durability kinda come in handy.

You have Sidewinder taunting Sam that he’s nothing without his gear.

Then you have Sam second guessing his lack of serum-ness to Bucky, who says he doesn’t need it.

Then you have Sam getting his rear end handed to him by President Red Hulk and reaffirming he needs it.

I think the main issue is that Sam is second guessing it.

If Sam had a clear position — he either has the serum or he refuses to take it on principal — then it could work.

Maybe people spend the whole movie telling him “Hey man, maybe you should have taken that serum.”

Sam should be the one saying, “I don’t need it.”

If you make it a fundamental character value, I think it works better.

Instead, we’re just left with this flip-floppity indecisive message.

Celestial Island & Adamantium

It’s become a meme in the MCU that huge events are barely referenced.

The Blip barely had any fallout, Wakandan outreach is never really mentioned, the public hysteria about the Skrulls seen at the end of Secret Invasion is nowhere to be seen (granted that takes place pretty late in the timeline, but still).

So every so often, when an MCU project references one of these things, it feels less like a realistic take on what the consequences would be and more of an obligatory “Look, we had someone mention it. Now shut up and leave us alone.”

The Celestial Tiamut in Eternals was one such event.

Now I’ve always maintained that since it was in the Indian Ocean, and since it was a quick occurrence in a world full of other crazy stuff, I could actually get behind the idea that maybe the world was shocked within a few days of it happening — but within a month, everyone had moved on with their lives.

It’s not that weird for people in the Echo show not to be talking about Tiamut constantly.

The Blip and the Skrull thing on the other hand, would have had massive long-lasting fallout — but there’s no need to get into that debate again.

Regardless, this film took it upon itself to puff up its chest and say, “We’re going to address the Celestial. There it is.”

Well good. It’s good that it came up a little bit. But the fact that it’s only this movie feels a little transparent. This is the “Celestial acknowledgement movie.” Now we’ve completed our assignment, leave us alone.

But one angle I hadn’t thought much about was the geopolitical arms race to claim Tiamut as sovereign property.

I love this angle.

Of course, every country would want it for themselves, especially if it has a shiny new element.

Can we talk about Adamantium?

They have now officially added Adamantium to the MCU (so I guess we’re setting up a new Wolverine now?)

Now on the one hand, it’s neat to see another element from the comics come into play.

But taking the comics out of the equation, in the context of the MCU alone, (Deadpool & Wolverine notwithstanding) the sudden introduction of Adamantium feels like the ultimate world building cop-out.

Vibranium was built up as the most powerful metal on Earth, something only Wakandans controlled, and that was the dynamic everyone had to work within.

To suddenly introduce an even bigger better-er, stronger-er, rarer-er element feels like the most convenient thing ever.

I think Ross even says something like, we no longer have to rely on Wakanda or something. How convenient.

It wouldn’t feel like so much of a cop out if we’d had it all along.

It’s as if God threw everyone a bone he conjured out of thin air.

And can we talk about the fact that this only happened because Sersi arbitrarily picked Adamantium as her Tiamut-killing transformation?

Bro, lol, she turned him into Adamantium on a WHIM.

She’s like “What should I turn him into? Adamantium, I guess.” And now the entire world has been flipped upside down.

I wish Sersi could be here to see the war that almost broke out between America and Japan over the element she created.

But I like this.

I love the idea of following the geopolitical consequences of this.

Stuff like this is what makes the MCU cool.

Which brings me to:

The Water Battle

I’m a sucker for sky battles.

I don’t know what it is, I just love ‘em.

I found the battle over the ocean to be very entertaining.

In particular, I loved when it cut back and forth between Sam desperately trying to stop that last pilot and Ross losing his mind on the boat. That was top tier editing right there.

And there’s something fascinating about seeing Sam stand upright in the cockpit and grab the flightstick with a strap or something. It was nuts.

A reply to SilverQuake616

Part 2

The Avengers & The Sokovia Accords

One of the things that has irked me about the Multiverse Saga is how vague the information is about who are the Avengers now? Was the base rebuilt? What’s the status of the Accords? Etc.

Endgame really should have ended by establishing the new team and the new state of affairs but it didn’t.

And no other movie or show has really ever explained what’s going on with superheroes and how they’re organized now.

We get a throwaway line in She-Hulk about how the Sokovia Accords were repealed (which should have been in Endgame)

In Shang-Chi, we saw that Wong, Carol, and Bruce Banner had each other on speed-dial.

It’s unclear if that trio - or rather that quartet - is calling themselves the Avengers or something else.

In the Hawkeye show, people constantly call Hawkeye an Avenger, but he doesn’t really embrace the term.

In Quantumania, Ant-Man directly refers to himself as an Avenger.

I don’t remember of Spider-Man called himself an Avenger in Far From Home or No Way Home, but he’s still around.

In Secret Invasion, Fury makes a joke about how “forming the Avengers” was what he did for a midlife crisis.

But still no word on whether the team exists or what its status is.

The only people actually calling themselves Avengers are people who used to be the underdogs who couldn’t even make it on the team at first.

Scott Lang proudly parades the term Avenger around — because he’s part of the big leagues now.

The irony is, at this point, Scott Lang might actually be the only Avenger. He's the only one who seems to think they exist.

When they said this movie would address the status of the Avengers, I got excited.

I thought “Finally. We’re going to get answers on who the team is and if there’s a new base, etc.”

But instead, they imply that the Avengers don’t exist right now — that they haven’t been around potentially since Endgame.

Uh…WUT?

Ross says, “I want you to rebuild the Avengers,” implying there are no Avengers.

And the film ends without any Avengers being formed.

So this movie not only revealed there were no Avengers since Endgame.

But it also revealed there still aren’t any going forward (which I guess explains Valentina’s line in the Thunderbolts trailer).

This is ridiculous.

And just to be clear — it doesn’t have to be the Avengers.

The real problem is the lack of ANY organization among the heroes we have.

We have Wong, Captain Marvel, Bruce Banner, Rhodey, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and Spider-Man (Peter Parker mindwipe notwithstanding), plus potentially Kate Bishop and Kamala Khan, as well as Okoye and Rocket who were on Natasha’s council in Endgame.

And we now have Shang-Chi in the mix (and this film takes place a year after Shang-Chi).

You’re really telling me none of these buffoons formed anything with Sam in all this time? Not even Rhodey?

Also, Sam mentions the Accords as a dig against Ross — but it’s never brought up that they’re repealed (or even if they’re repealed, which we know by now they must be).

If this was April 2025, this could have been the movie that repealed them, as it would take place before Daredevil’s line in She-Hulk about them being repealed.

But that’s another thing — Sam.

He was a fugitive after Civil War (as he pointed out).

Then he turned to dust in Infinity War.

Then, his status in Falcon & Winter Soldier was vague. I guess he and Bucky were pardoned? His fugitive status would have been good to bring up.

Sam’s Suit

I don’t usually comment about outfits and gear, but Sam’s wings absorbing kinetic energy was a really cool addition, and it makes sense since it’s from Wakanda.

Also, quick note about Sam — I liked the opening of this movie.

Sam was being a hero and helping people.

Just nice to see.

Isaiah Bradley & Bucky

So after Isaiah is “activated,” and Sam tries to convince Ross he’s innocent, he never brings up the Winter Soldier.

This felt weird to me.

Sam is trying to explain that Isaiah was mind controlled / brainwashed. Wouldn’t it make sense to use Bucky’s situation as a reference?

Which brings me to Bucky — wouldn’t Bucky be interested in investigating this too?

I’m not asking for every character to be in everything all the time.

But the President being shot at by another brainwashed guy seems like something Bucky would care about.

He’d want to stop other people from going through what he went through.

If nothing else, you’d think Sam (or Ross) would want to speak to Bucky and ask him how mind control works, to figure out how to de-program people.

And if he can’t show up, you’d think they’d have at least mentioned the HYDRA Winter Soldier stuff.

At first I thought “Well, maybe Sebastian Stan isn’t available.”

But then there he was at the end.

And apparently he’s running for Congressman now?? (what a life this guy’s had)

If you have access to Stan, why not bring him in earlier?

I mean moral support for Sam is nice but imagine Bucky testifying on Isaiah’s behalf.

A reply to SilverQuake616

I have awoken from my slumber to rant about the MCU again.

Ok I actually enjoyed this movie more than I was expecting to, particularly in how it leverages previous movies. But there’s a lot to talk about.

Part 1

Harrison Ford as Ross

Doesn’t work.

I love Harrison Ford — but he’s not Ross.

I even like Harrison Ford as the President.

And I like Ford as Betty’s emotional father trying to make amends.

I don’t even hate Harrison Ford as Red Hulk (we’ll get to Red Hulk later).

But he’s nothing like William Hurt. At all.

I would have loved Ford playing a different character in the MCU. It’s honestly jarring to try to remind myself he’s supposed to be Ross.

They removed his mustache so Sam could do that fourth wall joke “I’m getting used to the new look” - but that only makes it worse. The mustache was the one thing that could have helped. (although the one scene where they did show the mustache honestly looked goofy af)

At first, I thought they should have cast Bill Pullman. Just slap a mustache on him and he could be Hurt’s brother. But then an even more obvious actor occurred to me — SAM ELLIOT. Sam Elliot already played Ross in the 2003 Hulk movie. He doesn’t just look like Hurt - he has Hurt’s vibe (which is no doubt why they were both cast for the same role).

And don’t even try to tell me Elliot’s “too old”. Harrison Ford is OLDER than Sam Elliot. Elliot is 80 and Ford is 82, so don’t give me that crap.

Maybe they did reach out to Elliot and he declined.

I think Ford and Elliot were both involved in those 1893/Yellowstone shows, right? Maybe Elliot connected Feige to Ford or something. I don’t know.

The Music

There were a handful of tracks in this movie that jumped out at me.

The opening music was really punchy and cool.

And when Ross was on the phone with Betty in the Oval Office, there was some really nice piano music.

But most intriguing of all, the composer of this movie was a woman. You don’t see many female composers, so that was cool.

Elections & The Timeline

I know the Timeline Discussion Page is where you’re supposed to talk about the Timeline (they’re going to have a field day with this) — but I want to quickly go over how the timeline affects the story of the film and how it could have been changed.

Let’s run through the MCU Presidents, shall we?

According to the Wiki:

Everyone before Obama was the same as history, Bush, Clinton, etc.

2009 - 2013 = Barack Obama (one term only)

2013 - 2017 = Matthew Ellis (the President from Iron Man 3 and Agents of SHIELD)

2017 - 2021? = Donald Trump (The wiki states that if Helstrom is canon, then it implies Trump was around in 2020, meaning he survived the Snap and likely served is full term)

2021? - 2025? = Unknown; Joe Biden?

2025? - 2029? = Until now, we believed it was James Ritson.

However, Brave New World reveals that 2026 is an Election Year (the party invitation says April 16 2027 and it’s “five months” after the election); The Leader also says Incredible Hulk was “16 years” ago (and it takes place in 2010).

It’s been speculated before that the Blip and the resulting chaos may have changed traditions and institutions.

It would appear either the entire four year cycle has shifted to 2026, 2030, etc, or elections are only every two years.

I don’t like this.

This feels like the writers just giving up and not trying to make 2025 or 2029 work.

They could have set the movie in April 2025 and made Ritson Ross’s Vice President.

This still allows them to do the “100 days” thing while being after Tiamut (which was Fall 2024), and Tiamut is more fresh in memory if it was only a few months ago.

April 2025 was during She-Hulk episodes 2 and 3. Bruce Banner was offworld on Sakaar, explaining his absence. And Jennifer was dealing with Blonsky and his sentence potentially ending. You could have a line from the Leader saying something like “It’s almost poetic, isn’t it Mr. President? You put me in this hole for creating Blonsky. Now, Blonsky is about to go free and I’m still buried. Would you care to explain how that fits into truth, justice, and the American way?”

Just change “sixteen years” to “fourteen years”. Still impactful and heartbreaking.
When Ross turns into Red Hulk and has to step down from office, his vice president RITSON becomes president. In other words, this movie could have taken place BEFORE Secret Invasion. That would have made way more sense.

And of course, it’s a perfectly reasonable time after The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, which was set in Spring 2024.

And finally, putting the election in 2026 creates problems for Secret Invasion as well — because SI took place DURING November 2026, right when Brave New World implied the election was.

In their efforts to change election years to “fix the timeline,” they only broke it further.

But I digress…

Ross’s Legacy & Redemption

I don’t know what I expected from Ross’s character in this movie — I guess I just expected him to be an obstacle.

But I really like how the movie makes it clear that Ross has a checkered reputation.

He was doing shady experiments in Incredible Hulk, he has a rough temperament, and now the entire world apparently is apprehensive of him as president.

But I like that at the end of the day, they show his regret and desire to make things right with Betty.

I really like that the Leader is the villain (not just of the film but behind Isaiah as well; it gives us a reason to hate him while understanding him and I wish we’d gotten a scene between Leader and Isaiah).

Paying off the Leader is very satisfying (and I loved that they used “Mr. Blue” as the hypnosis song; Lol, they couldn’t use the Mr. Blue song from Guardians 2).

The only real disappointment here is the absence of Bruce (again, setting the movie in April 2025 would explain that absence).

It doesn’t have to be a Hulk movie for Bruce to be there.

Bruce has history with Ross, Betty, Leader, and Blonsky and it feels like a waste not to have him there.

Sam talks about how there’s all this “history” between him and Ross.

And it just feels awkward cause they only shared like two or three movies and I don’t think we ever even saw them directly speak to each other once.

Granted, Bruce and Ross only shared one movie, lol, but there’s still more history between them.

A reply to TheHalfbloodSwifty54737