Wait is Marvel trying to throw a coup · 4:24am Feb 27th, 2018
So like think about it.
Captain America's underlying throughline; The US government is either evil, corrupt or incompetent, and its institutions cannot be trusted
Iron Man: Successful business leaders are way more competent and have your best interest at heart, the government is incompetent
Thor and Black Panther: Benevolent dictatorships are the best form of government devised
Avengers: Fuck the UN too, as a matter of fact.
Dr Strange: God, House was a good TV show. What if House was a wizard. Fuck, that'd be great. Let's do that.
Ant Man: Fuck with someone else's intellectual property and terrible things will happen to you -- Marvel's owned by Disney, after all.
Spider Man: Wealthy unstable technocrats really do have your best interests at heart, you just need to learn to cut through the bureaucracy. Also, a corporation holding an absolute monopoly on technology and the use of force that supercedes the US government is for your safety and entirely in your best interest.
... God, you can tell Marvel's on the Disney lot based out of Southern California, can't you?
Oh!
Also it's my birthday I guess.
Happy B-day!
To be fair to Iron Man, a lot of his antagonists are successful businessmen too.
Come to think of it, Ragnarok kind of casts some doubt on the whole "benevolent" part of the monarchy, for that matter.
It's my best friend's birthday, too! Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Oh and yes Marvel’s stories are... well I think I’ll stick to DC stories kthxbye. At least they acknowledge tha everyone is corrupt as sin and it’s nobodyis perfect. xD
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Iron Man 1's villain: A businessman who keeps working with the government
Iron Man 2's villain: An inept government contractor and a Russian pissed off over patents and shit
Iron Man 3's villain: PTSD and a petty, spiteful indie startup.
I don't even know how many countercountercountercultures deep we are now. I do kind of expect it in general, though; the benevolent dictators and industrialists are all main characters of feelgood action movies.
Also, happy birthday.
I like how you can sing the tags to the tune of happy birthday
Aren't we supposed to get you gifts and shit? Instead, you give us the gift of advanced warning? What Bizarro World are we on?
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The happiest place on multiple earths
Well, happy birthday, sir! I hope it's been a good one for you.
Yeah, I don't think it's likely that Disney will be making movies about the evils of capitalism and multinational corporations anytime soon.
Ah, happy birthday!
Happy birthday. Your gift is the pieces of my mind, which has been blown.
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I'll take well-written fiction over badly-written fiction any day, and twice on Sunday. Regardless of the world presented.
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Guantanamo Bay???
Happy birthday! May your future years bring happier revelations.
Duh, it's the non-benevolent dictatorships that you've gotta watch out for. The hint is in the name ya see.
Happy B'day MrNumbers, you young whippersnapper.
Black Panther, at least, demonstrated pretty well why it's a bad idea to have a technologically advanced country where you can take the throne in an extreme wrestling match. If they had a parliamentary democracy in Wakanda, the plot of that film would've never happened. I think that in the comics they switched to a constitutional monarchy for that very reason.
Oh, and happy birthday!
Doctor Strange: The best healthcare system is seeking enlightenment. Also, negotiations are best done in a time loop.
I get the feeling there are wrinkles to the Disneyocracy we can't anticipate...
Also, happy birthday!
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Ha, good point. Bonus, Stark himself worked for the government, right up until he becomes a hero, actually.
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It's literally his heel-face turn moment
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A slight rewording.
1. A backstabbing, lying, business man planning to sell iron man tech to foreign powers.
2. A lying, cowardly, business rival with no respect for law, who wants iron man tech for more money. The Russian description is accurate.
3. That one is pretty accurate too.
And if you think about it, all the evil perpetrated by the government can now be fobbed off as being the actions of Hydra agents. A certain congressman comes to mind.
Oh, and happy birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Iron Man was never expected to get this big, this time around. He was expected to be a slightly better original Hulk (remember that one? Yeah). Throw RDJ in a suit, tell him to play himself before he got clean, hey presto! The comics were a bit too well-known to ignore, and everyone knew the retooled cartoon version, but do you really want an alcoholic arms-dealer in your franchise?
Of course, RDJ was on top of his game and had the experience really give life to this asshole of a superhero. (His acting in 2 & 3 is amazing. I have PTSD. You can see it build. The breakdown when he loses his coping mechanisms is really well-done. As in, I took meds in the theater.)
Cap is straight from the comics (note: I stopped reading about 5yrs ago, can’t afford to keep up). No, he doesn’t trust the US gov’t anymore, he’s been been betrayed a lot, but he does trust the idea of it. It’s hard to see how Cap would work in the movies without someone like Chris Evans. That amount Boy Scout Glorified must be difficult to do straight-faced.
But on the whole, your point stands. (They’re still more pure fun then most of the DC movies, though. Besides Wonder Woman. Thank the IPU they didn’t fuck that up completely.)
4806220 Black Panther kind of casts doubt on the stability of a monarchy system that is decided by spear-fights as well.
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Well the closest thing you are going to get is Mary Poppins which is even stranger considering that Walt Disney went way out of his way to be able to do that movie and it is oddly not the friendliest movie to the sort of capitalism he espoused. Don't put your money in the bank redistribute it to the hungry birds!
4806714 I don't think it meant to cast doubt on it, though. Nobody in the movie ever questions it, it works for good in the end, and it doesn't change.
Marvel isn't all anti-government. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is about the scrappy government institution that keeps doing things that look really bad, but it's all for really good reasons and the people running it are really good people and everything would be so much better if everyone would just stop insisting that they should be accountable to someone.