Well, that and your explorations into the borderlands between pop culture, conspiracy theory and the paranormal. Also I think part of me hates myself, so even though you routinely reveal the most upsetting possible things about Internet culture, I keep coming back.
Anyway, I think there's a problem with the fundamental strategy of shifting the MCU from the most recognizable Marvel characters to a bunch of niche, mediocre newcomers. If the public is tired of Captain America and Iron Man, it sure the hell won't be getting it up for Doctor Druid and the D-Listers.
Well, if there's one thing I hope I do, it's that I expose and explain the most upsetting things about internet culture, but at least in a way that's both informative and humorous so that you get a laugh out of it and when you encounter it in the wild, you don't go mad like a Lovecraft protagonist gazing upon an unknowable horror :)
That's definitely part of the problem. The characters are going to lose their luster to all but a niche group of fans overtime, that's just the nature of things (i.e. the rise and fall of Westerns). But, when you look at smaller genres like Westerns, or sub-genres of others, like Kaiju films or Animated films or Spy films, even having a small, but dedicated group of core fans can still be profitable, provided that the movies themselves are actually good enough to continue to draw in outsiders and pay the bills. I can't say that the MCU would stave off collapse, even if the movies were good, but the fact that they're bringing in the fourth-string quarterbacks of the Avengers to carry the team is only exacerbating and quickening the bitter end.
It would be hysterically funny if they put out an issue where Kamala goes to Gaza, which I'm sure would go down well with all the Bagels who dominate Marvel and Disney. They certainly didn't expect real life Pakis from Jersey City to support the Palis, throwing every Irving Finklestien in the Five Boroughs into a panic, and I guarantee that shit will spill over into Marvel/Disney as they have got a lot more than the camel's nose inside the delicatessen now. How's Bob Iger and Kevin Feige going to react when their not so discreet orders to lay down some not so subtle propaganda for Bagel Land run up against the determination of the pro-Pali faction they so assiduously promoted when they thought they could be weaponized against traditional Heritage Americans?
From what I've seen, it looks as if Marvel, and Disney as a whole, are split roughly evenly between Care Bears, as I politely call them, and the Urban Milieu, and, much like Joe Biden's administration, which has a similar constitution, I'm sure that they're fracturing along identical lines behind closed doors. The fact that there hasn't been more open conflict between either the Disney board or the Biden cabal is kind of surprising. Given Iger's own heritage, I have a feeling I know what side he comes down on, but so far they've been remarkably quiet on the subject. Most of their employees though are, of course, almost unanimously Pro-Gaza on Twitter, unsurprisingly.
One of the more interesting wrinkles this conflict put in Disney/Marvel's future plans is the fact that an Israeli superhero by the name of Sabra is actually slated to appear in the next Captain America movie I mentioned in the article. As if it wasn't prickly enough that the title was literally going to be "New World Order", which I believe they've changed now, Sabra is also an operative of the IDF in the comics. Given that the movie is supposed to be released in January and February, and the conflict is most likely going to still be ongoing by then... well, I for one am really going to enjoy seeing how that try to thread THAT needle.
Considering that the actors and writers strikes are over, and none of those attention whores can shut the fuck up, there should be some exquisite stupidity inbound. Apparently Bobby and the Care Bears have threatened Elon Musk for Noticing, and Elon basically went Great Cornholio on Bob, and that kind of shit matters.
If it makes you feel any better, she didn't actually have any lines and she just kind of shows up in the background several times, so she doesn't speak in what I could only imagine would be the most overwrought, Bob and Doug McKenzie-esque accent possible.
I feel like she was eating poutine in one of those scenes, though...
Last year I read through every title featuring Spider-Man, from the start. It was very interesting seeing the changing face of comics through the eras, and also reading the letter pages of fandom of the past. We’ve always been a contentious lot.
I gave up in the early 90s before the clone nonsense started in earnest. It’s interesting to try to pin down “when it all went wrong” (as we on the right love to do with history as well). I think it was definitely over by the time of the massive yearly crossovers like Civil War, but it was over for me in the 90s when they just seemed to stop caring about canon or even the illusion of a continuous world. Though some argue that the death was all the way back in ‘68(!) when Marvel went corporate. What had been a revolutionary idea of a shared universe between what had been, to that point, mere pulp stories, was poisoned by “marvel time”: previously one year of real time was one year of story time. After ‘68, Spidey the character became Spidey the IP, and we couldn’t have him actually growing as a person and changing as a character. Thus, he had to stay young and hip and in college for like a decade, Aunt May could never die, and he could never have a happily ever after wherein he had kids and progressed to middle age.
Original Marvel Universe has a great blog where he argues that Marvel 1961-1989 is actually the great American novel, and tried to unify the timeline. He even tries to explain marvel time by the birth of Franklin Richards. Fascinating stuff.
I find it difficult to quantify my feelings on "Marvel Time". It's like I said - there's a degree of "Old thing good, new thing bad" that permeates pop culture and makes it susceptible to be getting stuck in place, retreading old ground, and keeping the characters and stories in stasis where no one can die, no one can age, and nothing interesting can ever happen. But it is also a grand experiment in story-telling, in a kind of perverse way, and I respect anyone with the dedication and passion for something who attempts to try and piece it all together into one coherent narrative, so I'll have to check it out.
"And that’s what you’re really here for. Right?"
Well, that and your explorations into the borderlands between pop culture, conspiracy theory and the paranormal. Also I think part of me hates myself, so even though you routinely reveal the most upsetting possible things about Internet culture, I keep coming back.
Anyway, I think there's a problem with the fundamental strategy of shifting the MCU from the most recognizable Marvel characters to a bunch of niche, mediocre newcomers. If the public is tired of Captain America and Iron Man, it sure the hell won't be getting it up for Doctor Druid and the D-Listers.
Well, if there's one thing I hope I do, it's that I expose and explain the most upsetting things about internet culture, but at least in a way that's both informative and humorous so that you get a laugh out of it and when you encounter it in the wild, you don't go mad like a Lovecraft protagonist gazing upon an unknowable horror :)
That's definitely part of the problem. The characters are going to lose their luster to all but a niche group of fans overtime, that's just the nature of things (i.e. the rise and fall of Westerns). But, when you look at smaller genres like Westerns, or sub-genres of others, like Kaiju films or Animated films or Spy films, even having a small, but dedicated group of core fans can still be profitable, provided that the movies themselves are actually good enough to continue to draw in outsiders and pay the bills. I can't say that the MCU would stave off collapse, even if the movies were good, but the fact that they're bringing in the fourth-string quarterbacks of the Avengers to carry the team is only exacerbating and quickening the bitter end.
It would be hysterically funny if they put out an issue where Kamala goes to Gaza, which I'm sure would go down well with all the Bagels who dominate Marvel and Disney. They certainly didn't expect real life Pakis from Jersey City to support the Palis, throwing every Irving Finklestien in the Five Boroughs into a panic, and I guarantee that shit will spill over into Marvel/Disney as they have got a lot more than the camel's nose inside the delicatessen now. How's Bob Iger and Kevin Feige going to react when their not so discreet orders to lay down some not so subtle propaganda for Bagel Land run up against the determination of the pro-Pali faction they so assiduously promoted when they thought they could be weaponized against traditional Heritage Americans?
From what I've seen, it looks as if Marvel, and Disney as a whole, are split roughly evenly between Care Bears, as I politely call them, and the Urban Milieu, and, much like Joe Biden's administration, which has a similar constitution, I'm sure that they're fracturing along identical lines behind closed doors. The fact that there hasn't been more open conflict between either the Disney board or the Biden cabal is kind of surprising. Given Iger's own heritage, I have a feeling I know what side he comes down on, but so far they've been remarkably quiet on the subject. Most of their employees though are, of course, almost unanimously Pro-Gaza on Twitter, unsurprisingly.
One of the more interesting wrinkles this conflict put in Disney/Marvel's future plans is the fact that an Israeli superhero by the name of Sabra is actually slated to appear in the next Captain America movie I mentioned in the article. As if it wasn't prickly enough that the title was literally going to be "New World Order", which I believe they've changed now, Sabra is also an operative of the IDF in the comics. Given that the movie is supposed to be released in January and February, and the conflict is most likely going to still be ongoing by then... well, I for one am really going to enjoy seeing how that try to thread THAT needle.
Considering that the actors and writers strikes are over, and none of those attention whores can shut the fuck up, there should be some exquisite stupidity inbound. Apparently Bobby and the Care Bears have threatened Elon Musk for Noticing, and Elon basically went Great Cornholio on Bob, and that kind of shit matters.
"Spider-Canada"?
As an actual Canadian, color me not impressed. Stop trafficking in the stereotypes, eh?
If it makes you feel any better, she didn't actually have any lines and she just kind of shows up in the background several times, so she doesn't speak in what I could only imagine would be the most overwrought, Bob and Doug McKenzie-esque accent possible.
I feel like she was eating poutine in one of those scenes, though...
Last year I read through every title featuring Spider-Man, from the start. It was very interesting seeing the changing face of comics through the eras, and also reading the letter pages of fandom of the past. We’ve always been a contentious lot.
I gave up in the early 90s before the clone nonsense started in earnest. It’s interesting to try to pin down “when it all went wrong” (as we on the right love to do with history as well). I think it was definitely over by the time of the massive yearly crossovers like Civil War, but it was over for me in the 90s when they just seemed to stop caring about canon or even the illusion of a continuous world. Though some argue that the death was all the way back in ‘68(!) when Marvel went corporate. What had been a revolutionary idea of a shared universe between what had been, to that point, mere pulp stories, was poisoned by “marvel time”: previously one year of real time was one year of story time. After ‘68, Spidey the character became Spidey the IP, and we couldn’t have him actually growing as a person and changing as a character. Thus, he had to stay young and hip and in college for like a decade, Aunt May could never die, and he could never have a happily ever after wherein he had kids and progressed to middle age.
Original Marvel Universe has a great blog where he argues that Marvel 1961-1989 is actually the great American novel, and tried to unify the timeline. He even tries to explain marvel time by the birth of Franklin Richards. Fascinating stuff.
I find it difficult to quantify my feelings on "Marvel Time". It's like I said - there's a degree of "Old thing good, new thing bad" that permeates pop culture and makes it susceptible to be getting stuck in place, retreading old ground, and keeping the characters and stories in stasis where no one can die, no one can age, and nothing interesting can ever happen. But it is also a grand experiment in story-telling, in a kind of perverse way, and I respect anyone with the dedication and passion for something who attempts to try and piece it all together into one coherent narrative, so I'll have to check it out.