Why is DC sucking so much?

[Zmeoaice]

As we all know Justice League opened with a disappointing box office, lower than any DCEU movie. This reception is likely because of the reviews, which despite not being released on Rotten Tomatoes until the day before was enough to make an impact as well as fans being disappointed in Batman V Superman which this film directly followed. Warner Bros. is clueless about what to do. They plan on making stand-alone films which I think is the right direction, but the bad taste of the DCEU films will still be connected to them. If they reboot (even using time travel like Star Trek or DOFP) again they'll have to get it perfect otherwise fans won't trust them anymore. They already destroyed Luthor and Joker, their two best villains in one year. Even if you like these versions of the characters, the fact that Warner Bros. decided to controversial change their most iconic villains would inevitably divide the fanbase.

It's not just the films. Their animated movies have been declining in quality every since they decided to make a film series based off the new 52, with characters behaving like complete jerks or morons, yet they still continue to make these films. Their adaptation of the Killing Joke was an insult and bastardized the character of Batgirl. Batman & Harley Quinn was an embarrassment. They made a new Justice League show which follows a 11-minute format, and let's not get started on Teen Titans Go!.

On live action TV, I hear a lot of complaints about the shows getting bogged down by pointless romances and characters acting like complete morons. Flash had a solid first season, but quickly dropped the ball and they decided to retcon everything so it feels like watching it is pointless. Supergirl's second season was a mess and paired her up with some rando with no chemistry with her. And these shows are interconnected so much that not watching the other, all crappy episodes included will make you have difficult understanding the whole thing.

I'm not sure what's wrong with DC and Warner Bros. They seem to lack any confident in their works and feel like they need to shove a dozen or so plots and reboot when fans complain. And after hearing complaints they either double down on it or they do a complete 180 and suck in an opposite direction. I really want to put out quality entertainment again like Justice League Unlimited and Dark Knight Doulogy (yeah... Rises didn't do it for me either). Everything they're putting out now is just passably decent at best and excruciating garbage at worst.

[gooddragon1]

I enjoy their stuff anyways, but I think it's because they're not taking their time to build up the story with their movies. They're just rushing through it.

My sadness with them comes in the loss of the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. That was unfortunate.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Its because DC is trying to do in a few years what took Marvel a helluva long time to do, build a Cinematic Universe that people will go see movies from just because its set in that Cinematic universe.

Why? Cause that probably makes Marvel a ton of money.

So DC is trying to play catch-up without trying to make good movies as a solid foundation. Not that I haven't enjoyed the DC films I have seen, because I have, but they're pretty divisive on with movie-goers at best and that's not the best sign.

[Avilan the Grey]

A few things:

1. DC has suffered from "Batman Disease" ever since th last trilogy. Everything should be Batman. Superman? Makes it dark and Batman. Etc.
2. DC has a huge problem with "Avengers Envy". Despite, unlike Marvel, they had not sold out a number of their properties (Spider Man, X-Men, FF) they never had a plan. When they realized what Marvel was doing they just... Skipped ahead to an ensamble movie without trying to tie together the characters first.
3. It's noticable that the one movie that broke against most of their problem issues (WW) was much more successful than DC thought. Several sources confirms that DC / WB just weren't expecting it to do better than "Meh".

[Mechalich]

I think it's important not to conflate too many things together and create trends where they may or may not exist.

For instance, the DC Universe Animated Movies seem to be doing fine. Yes Killing Joke was, by all accounts, awful, but Justice League Dark and Teen Titans: Judas Contract worked fine, so animated damage at the moment seems to be limited to Batman. The live action series may not be especially high quality, but they keep renewing and in fact making more of them, so they are at least commercial successes. There have obviously been problems with the ensemble films in terms of both critical reception, and now in the case of Justice League commercial success (the early numbers indicate that a good run from here on out will still amount to roughly break even), but Wonder Woman was well-regarded and a smash hit, so it's clearly not impossible to make a good DC movie.

There are several stand-alone films scheduled between now and a hypothetical Justice League part 2, with Aquaman apparently first up late next year and already in post-production. If Aquaman is a good movie and makes a bunch of money, then we can look at a consensus that says: dump Zack Snyder, focus on one character at a time and everyone can calm down. If Aquaman doesn't work, then it's time to panic really bad. If I were in charge of WB's DC studio at the moment, my move would be to push ahead with Wonder Woman 2, The Batman, and Shazam! (the latter two are apparently in pre-production already) and delay Suicide Squad 2 and Justice League 2 and any other team-up movies (Green Lantern Corps, etc.) until you know whether pressing the reboot button is necessary.

Also dump Zack Snyder - you're never going to have a better sacrifice to throw to the raving mobs than this.

[Kitten Champion]

If Aquaman is a good movie and makes a bunch of money, then we can look at a consensus that says: dump Zack Snyder, focus on one character at a time and everyone can calm down.

That would do it for me, as someone who had no interest in DC movies since Man of Steel and how that movie stuck with me in a very toxic sense. Snyder's too much of an all-consuming force, with way too little understanding of these creatures we call humans on display and far too much punching you in the face with his auteur direction that it's frankly obnoxious.

While I honestly wasn't too enamored with Wonder Woman - it had a few stand-out moments but a lot of drag and things I didn't think worked as a whole - I would still love to see more projects like that. Ones that embrace their character and try and make the audience understand why people paid to read their comics for decades. Preferably ones with more diverse direction and aesthetics.

Basically, while Wonder Woman didn't create any interest in the DCEU as a meta-franchise (I felt some its success can be credited to its lack of obstruction) and I don't really feel the pressing need to see it ever again, it did renew my hope that WB/DC can do movies which aren't depressing sloughs that waste hours of my life. More creativity in this space and I could appreciate DC's contributions.

[factotum]

The odd thing about Justice League is, if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is way lower than the audience score--so it seems the few people who actually went to see it enjoyed it far more than the critics did? One wonders if word of mouth will improve its fortunes over time.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, it is not just DC, of course, but all most all of Hollywood.

First off the DC TV shows are perfect for what they are made for: Young 20 something super dramas....with superheros mixed in a bit. There target audience is your typical, mostly female, young person who just loves young drama And the very casual comic reader, mostly male, who read some comics in the past. So the basic idea is a couple can watch it together as the perfect show: ''she'' loves all the young drama and ''he'' loves the superhero tights and action. (Though you can switch around the he and she too). The shows are made for the person who has no idea what a comic is, and the casual reader from long ago.

I never read too much of DC comics, I was more of a Marvel fan. So I have a couple Flash Trade Paperbacks that have Captin' Cold and he is just a guy in a coat with a freeze gun that goes peww peww. So when I watch Flash, with Wentworth Miller one of my favorite actors, I think the Cold character is awesome(and seriously they got Dominic P to be Fire....I watched them break out of prison for YEARS). Of course your typical real die hard fan does not like the ''TV version'' as it does not fit the comic character. And as a Marvel fan I know what they are talking about when they randomly toss some stupid stuff on Agents of SHEILD and I'm all like...um, no.

But the TV shows, and the Movies share the next BIG problem: They MUST be both Politically Correct AND Made for Kidz.

The Politically Correct forces the DC to make everything One Way. They HAVE to do X, in a small (mostly in vane) attempt to keep everyone happy....but mostly the politically active screamers.

The next one is even worse: It must be made for Kidz. This has all ways been a big super hero problem. By default, a huge part of the fan base is Kidz: age 2-18(and them innocent 20 something too). So this puts a HUGE limit on things they can do, stories, plots and everything else. They HAVE to make sure that everything is ''just right'' for the kidz...and their parents.

Though, of course this is a huge mine field...and you can never be too sure what will be ''wrong'' or ''offend''. So there is really only one thing to do: play it safe and make sure nothing ''stands out''. Unfortunately...the ''stands out'' part, is the critical part as that is the stuff that makes movies good and great.

Marvel, you would note, pushes right up at the ''pg-13'' level...so technically you should not let young kidz watch their stuff. DC does not even come close most of the time.

So with Marvel you get Loki, who kills like 100 people right at the start of the Avengers, and then rolls on being evil and then kills Phil Colson...a well enough known and likeable character. This makes all the heroes, plus all the viewers hate Loki even more...and gives them a reason to act...literally, this is the plot of the movie(admittedly with a bit of evil deception by Fury). This makes the big CGI spam battle mean something at the end.

Justice League just has ''um alien demons?" that want to destroy the world? So you get CGI spam...they talk...cgi spam..get together..and CGI spam big battle to finish. No really meat or emotions...just a couple of CGI spams linked together. This is made for kidz: they can watch the movie, put on their super hero costume and 'pew pew' around the house.

And BOTH of the above only get way, way, way, way worse with bad writing and scripts, and action and acting and everything else.

Like for example, whatever genius though that ''hey lets copy Marvels Avengers movie, but with our cool Dc heroes" should get the boot. It is a terrible idea. The Avengers/justice league are all ready way to similar....no need to high light it and point it out. Really, any plot would have been better.

[Cheesegear]

Marvel Phase 1;
(2008) Iron Man
(2008) The Incredible Hulk - yes, it counts.
(2010) Iron Man 2 - includes Black Widow.
(2011) Thor - includes Hawkeye (barely).
(2011) Captain America
(2012) The Avengers

It took five movies (and 4-5 years) to get to The Avengers. The villain for Avengers was set up in Thor, two movies prior. We knew who all the characters were, before The Avengers even had opening credits. All of the movies included Nick Fury as a throughline, promising something big, down the road. Above all, Marvel was planning from the start. Kevin Feige knew what he wanted to do, how to do it, and despite individual Directors complaining about Marvel/Disney execs breathing down their throat (none of which matters to us, the audience who only get to see the final product), fact is, the results of red tape and heavy bureaucracy speaks for itself... Have a clear vision. Stick to the vision. Don't deviate. Even casting Paul Bettany as JARVIS feels like a calculated move from the start.

DC notices that The Avengers knocks it out of the park, and immediately tries to copy. Except you can't copy Marvel, because then you'd be copying Marvel, and people would see right through that. So, while Marvel is fun, DC tries to go dark and gritty. Except that Dark and Gritty only works with Batman, because of Batman's origin. The rest of the JLA don't really have awful backstories. Superman's home planet exploding and his parents sending away their only son, doesn't get found out by Clark, until he's into his 30s, by which point he's been raised in Kansas by a (presumably) Catholic couple. His parents are also very clear that Clark isn't their real son from the start. His parents found him, and they wanted him, and they protected him. Superman's origin sounds dark, but he was a baby when it actually happened, and well into adulthood when he found out. He ain't no Superboy-Prime.

(2013) Man of Steel - Please don't do that again, we don't like that version of Superman. Superman's 'super-power' is having parents who love him and who taught him right from wrong. Wait, did Clark's Dad just tell him not to save people if he didn't want to? WHAT!?
(2016) Suicide Squad - Batman was cool?
(2016) Batman v Superman - Batman was cool. We get it. But we said don't do that with Superman. Are you even listening?
(2017) Wonder Woman - You did it. It wasn't great. But it was well done. Polish this up when it comes to bringing back Superman, and you've nailed it.
(2017) Justice League - Yeah, we get it. You're not interested in listening to us. Do what you want, and we don't care anymore.

The key factor to DC's movies, simply seems to be lack of vision. DC gave us 3 movies within the same 12 months. There's no way that they had enough time to properly plan out scripts and continuity between movies... And then within another 3 months, they put Justice League on the table. Zack Snyder had to drop out for...A pretty real reason. But then just bring in a new director, and do a bunch of reshoots. Don't delay the movie. That's ridiculous. If you delay the movie, it wont be out for Christmas, and we can't have that. Money.

On TV?
...It just seems like the Superhero Genre bubble burst within four years (Marvel's ratings are also dropping, and Inhumans was a disaster). A big part of that, has to do with the fact that DC can't pick a tone. Arrow is the serious one. The Flash is the goofy ridiculous one, and Supergirl is...The one in the middle? Except Flash and Supergirl had higher ratings whilst Arrow's dipped. Must've been because of that 'fun' thing that people keep going on about over at Marvel. So...Make Arrow a bit goofy too. That wont ruin anything at all. Maybe throw in more serious stuff into The Flash, that's what people want. Leave Supergirl alone. We don't know what we're doing. But people like it anyway. So, just hold the wheel.
...Except then you have the big crossover episodes/arcs, where people start noticing the difference between tones, and, more than once I have to second-guess if Stephen Amell is even acting when Ollie says he hates the 'world-crossover' stuff. That's not what made Arrow's first season successful, and is pretty much directly the reason for why it is now failing. But no, keep doing focus episodes on 'Felicity & Friends', and maybe don't even have Oliver Queen altogether? ...Nailing it.

On Netflix, where there's no ads and no corporate kowtowing...Marvel is doing the serious stuff, and basically nailing it. You don't need to be 'family friendly' when there's no ads. *thumbs up*

Gotham is doing alright on real TV. But, I'm pretty sure that's because 'dumb comic stuff' hasn't really been integrated into the show.

I like the animated movies. I mean, Killing Joke sucked. But, everything else has been good? No? :smallconfused:

[Rynjin]

The odd thing about Justice League is, if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is way lower than the audience score--so it seems the few people who actually went to see it enjoyed it far more than the critics did? One wonders if word of mouth will improve its fortunes over time.

I think it's more likely that it's just the only people that are both willing to go see it AND spend their time writing a review about it are hardcore fans that weren't turned off by three terrible movies in a row (four if you count Dark Knight Rises) followed by a passably mediocre one (seriously, Wonder Woman only seems good by comparison to the rest) beforehand.



I like the animated movies. I mean, Killing Joke sucked. But, everything else has been good? No? :smallconfused:

People rag on Killing Joke but I thought it was fine.

It's *shudders* Son of Batman that deserves all the ire people give to that movie. I think the only reason it doesn't is because people blocked it out of their memories or something.

Hands down worst rendition of Deathstroke ever, and that's only one of its major sins.

[GloatingSwine]

The foundations are rotten.

The foundations of the DCEU are in Man of Steel, and Man of Steel is bad at being a movie.

It fails to dramatically present characters, there's a disconnect between what characters say and what they do. Clark says he is conflicted about using his powers to save people based on what Cranky Old Man Kent said, but at no point does he ever not use his powers. He doesn't show the conflict through actions, and that means as far as the film is concerned it isn't real.

Clark doesn't change across the course of the film, because his alleged internal conflict never existed.

Zod is a shouty man who doesn't have apparent motives for what he's doing (and what he's doing is stupid, terraforming earth to be less awesome for Kryptonians) until he drops a clanger of a line about genetic predisposition which is completely unexplored as a motivation and never contrasted with Clark (because his motivations are also unexplored, there's no reason in the film for him to choose to be Superman, and that's because that conflict from before didn't exist).

Then in BvS we're shown a Batman who is, like, at least 75% of the way to Crazy Steve but he starts there and there's nothing in the film which shows dramatically how he got there, who he was before, or shows him learning anything that might change him. (No, a chopped up Robin costume does not count, it's a background detail not a dramatic presentation, for all we know Crazy Steve did that himself)

We're also shown a world which is, despite Superman's best efforts, mostly a sack of **** for all involved. Which means that when JL tries to convince us that the world is going to hell without him we don't care, because it was already a hellhole fit for Crazy Steve.

JL then tries to convince us that they need Superman to come back to lead the team, but at no point does his "leadership" amount to more than "the bigliest puncher".


It's consistent across all the movies, (including Suicide Squad) that the dramatic presentation of characters is at odds with what the characters say. Actions do not line up with words, and the discrepancy is not examined which implies that the movie does not think there is one.

Underlying all the tonal problems, the movies are just not good at being movies. They are badly constructed and engineered movies.

[Cheesegear]

Clark says he is conflicted about using his powers to save people based on what Cranky Old Man Kent said, but at no point does he ever not use his powers. He doesn't show the conflict through actions, and that means as far as the film is concerned it isn't real.

He doesn't use his powers for like, 15 years. The problem is that we don't see that. All of the conflict happened off-screen. By the time he 'comes out of retirement' at the ripe old age of...30...Supes has got his groove back.

[GloatingSwine]

He doesn't use his powers for like, 15 years. The problem is that we don't see that. All of the conflict happened off-screen. By the time he 'comes out of retirement' at the ripe old age of...30...Supes has got his groove back.

Yeah, but without the film showing it and showing some personal effect of that decision to not use his powers on Clark, it didn't happen.

It's almost like "show don't tell" is one of the fundamental rules of dramatic narrative or something.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, but without the film showing it and showing some personal effect of that decision to not use his powers on Clark, it didn't happen.

It's almost like "show don't tell" is one of the fundamental rules of dramatic narrative or something.

That's really not it. There is a montage in Man of Steel that is suggestive of superman exercising considerable restraint and avoiding the spotlight. There's plenty of justification for Clark choosing not to use his powers. The problem is the justification is garbage. Clark's refusal in Man of Steel to act like a hero is based on a ridiculous and largely nonsensical setup presented by Zack Snyder speaking as Pa Kent that makes no sense on the face of it. The idea that a teenage Clark lets his father die to conceal his powers is one of the most absolute BS moments in superhero film-making ever recorded.

If Man of Steel had offered a situation wherein Clark had used his powers and as a consequence Pa Kent had died - for example if he'd done something frivolous Spiderman style or something careless like cause massive collateral damage in a fight in Smallville - then a retreat from the world and concealment of his abilities would have made sense and coming out of hiding to save humanity from Zod would have represented real conflict.

This is the same problem as Zod terraforming Earth at the end of the film: why would you do that man? You and your followers are literal gods so long as you stay on this planet. And if you need a red sun situation to raise babies or something because biology reasons, you can terraform Mars and rule both worlds.


It's consistent across all the movies, (including Suicide Squad) that the dramatic presentation of characters is at odds with what the characters say. Actions do not line up with words, and the discrepancy is not examined which implies that the movie does not think there is one.

The exception, of course is Wonder Woman, in which characters pretty much do exactly what they say they're going to do - on several occasions quite literally. Suicide Squad is such an impossible mess that it doesn't really even have any sort of presentation for half the characters or more - the one character who does have something resembling a coherent motive is Will Smith's Deadshot and that character is more or less consistent throughout the film.

If you remove the 3 Zack Snyder films from the list you're left with Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad. That's one smashing success and one incoherent disaster. Fifty-fifty isn't bad, really. It's not reasonable to expect anyone to emulate Marvel's success. You can absolutely build a successful business franchise off a few good films holding up a bunch of mediocre and crappy ones so long as you have things that go boom - they made a 5th Pirates movie this year, it made 800 billion dollars globally, this is the world now.

There are good things to take from JL: the actors they've cast seem fine. None of the complaints focus on Fisher, Miller, or Momoa. Gal Gadot remains Wonder Woman. Cavill is a bland Superman, but Superman is a bland character. People have mixed feelings about Affleck as Batman but he's on his way out anyway.

My Diagnosis of the film universe: Severe case of Director-Induced Incoherence. Treatment: Purge Zack Snyder and see if conditions improve.

[danzibr]

Well. I saw Justice League yesterday and liked it.

[chainer1216]

Their problem is Edge. Everything needs to be grim and gritty. Fans say Man Of Steel too depressing? DOUBLE DOWN ON THAT ****!

[Anonymouswizard]

On live action TV, I hear a lot of complaints about the shows getting bogged down by pointless romances and characters acting like complete morons. Flash had a solid first season, but quickly dropped the ball and they decided to retcon everything so it feels like watching it is pointless. Supergirl's second season was a mess and paired her up with some rando with no chemistry with her. And these shows are interconnected so much that not watching the other, all crappy episodes included will make you have difficult understanding the whole thing.

The worst thing is that they had an awesome show with my favourite comics character (although they mispronounced his name), and it was the one that ended before it finished it's first series. Sure it toned down the character's jerkishness, but it ends off feeling like he's moving towards the character I know and a lot of the character traits I was afraid they'd remove had been kept or even toned up from some of the original comics. But it also wasn't a superhero teen drama, but more an urban fantasy series with a master petty dabbler of the dark arts as a main character. I hadn't seen an Urban Fantasy series in ages, and it ended up just gone.

[Cheesegear]

Treatment: Purge Zack Snyder and see if conditions improve.

Snyder has removed himself for a very good reason. Joss Whedon had to reshoot parts of the movie - and Henry Cavill refused to shave.

[2D8HP]

"Suck" compared to what?

The Avengers?

Are you kidding?

The Avengers was one of the dullest movies that I've seen this decade (on par with the boredom inducing post Casino Royale Bond movies).

Actually come to think of it X-Men: First Class was the only big budget film that I've seen this decade that seemed to have any spark to it, but The Avengers really was just so mind-numbingly dull it stands apart in an ignoble crew.

The DC films must be truly godawful if they can't be better than the putrid piece of tedium that was The Avengers (at least it had the "puny god" line otherwise I'd put it even below Quantum of Solace .as the biggest waste of cash Hollywood's made this decade).

[Dr.Samurai]

As we all know Justice League opened with a disappointing box office, lower than any DCEU movie. This reception is likely because of the reviews, which despite not being released on Rotten Tomatoes until the day before was enough to make an impact as well as fans being disappointed in Batman V Superman which this film directly followed.
While I don't disagree with you that DC has a problem here and seems clueless on what to do about it, I do disagree that the reason JL is failing is (in large part) because of the reviews. I don't think people were hyped for this movie. I know I wasn't. When we got first looks at it, it didn't look like it was going to be good. My friend (we see all superhero movies together) texted me last weekend and said "should we spend money on JL?" There just wasn't an interest. The setup to this movie was bad, and nothing in the years going into it made you think this was going to be a stark difference to what we've already gotten. Sure, the reviews obviously don't help. But I think even going into this the interest that many would-be viewers had was tepid.

DC notices that The Avengers knocks it out of the park, and immediately tries to copy. Except you can't copy Marvel, because then you'd be copying Marvel, and people would see right through that.
I honestly don't think this would have been a problem. Sure, it would have been a common talking point, but one that would inspire little more than a "yep" response. The solo movies building up to a team movie make narrative sense, and financial sense. You can build up a lot more momentum and interest doing it that way instead of just plopping down a JL movie.

Marvel did it with their secondary characters. DC has the Trinity. People would have gone to see what DC was doing. But the movies have to be good and have to be structured. The Marvel movies all have a common thread through them and are building towards the Avengers. MoS and BvS, on the other hand, simply do not set up the premise in JL (that Superman's death has cast the planet into a state of despair and he needs to return). The movie itself doesn't even adhere to its own premise as Superman's return in the movie doesn't actually seem necessary in the end.

DC's movies have to be consistent and structured and connected. MoS was only retroactively connected to BvS, and BvS shoe-horned in the rest of the League. Then we got... Suicide Squad, for some reason...

They need to figure out what they're doing because this is not entertaining. Like... Superheroes fighting aliens and monsters and villains is entertaining. But not when you're constantly questioning everything about it. Civil War did it well because the heroes were actually arguing and bringing up points and counter-points. I wasn't crazy about Civil War (though repeat viewings are much better) but they presented the idea well. MoS and BvS gives us mopey pained-face Superman and crazy Batman.

[Cespenar]

DC could easily coast on the names of Superman et al. if they had a real director making even mediocre movies.

Zack Snyder is a good visual director. He is not a good director. Those two are different jobs. It's like giving a butcher his own meat restaurant. The jobs might seem linked, but they need different skill sets.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The odd thing about Justice League is, if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is way lower than the audience score--so it seems the few people who actually went to see it enjoyed it far more than the critics did? One wonders if word of mouth will improve its fortunes over time.

Doubtful. As it stands, the "audience" score is a very self-selected group. First, at this point, it's mostly the dedicated fans who liked BvS that went to see JL. Of those, those that loved the movie (or are emotionally invested in its success) bothered to give a score in RT. Yes, reviewers are as a group biased towards what one might call "artsy" and "oscar-baity" films, but that bias is practically nothing compared to the bias of "people who watched the film, and are still engaged enough to give it a score in RT".

This weekend it will be competing with a pixar film (during the American family festivity week, to boot - families that go to the movies are NOT going to go to JL when they can go to a family friendly show). Soon enough, Star Wars is opening. Against such competition, JL is going to fizzle faster, not slower, than you'd expect even if it had been successful.


"Suck" compared to what?

The Avengers?

Are you kidding?

2D8HP, your opinion, valid as it is, clearly does not reflect the opinion of the masses in this topic. You cannot extrapolate your lack of engagement with the Avengers to that of the total population movie-goers. By and large, audiences loved it, and they did not love BvS nor JL.


As to the topic at hand, MovieBob (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9juReoJxI0) has been doing a good job of showcasing that on paper BvS and JL and JL2 (now cancelled) should have worked.

MoS: Superman is a beacon of goodness, but when confronting a person of equal power but no Kansas morals, the world might as well be made of cardboard.

BvS: After the destruction of Metropolis, Batman goes into a tailspin of self-recrimination ("I couldn't save my parents from a thug. Now there is this even worse thug who can destroy the whole world") and his "saving people thing" drives him to trying to control everything and therefore decide that Superman needs to be killed. He eventually succeeds

JL: Oh ****, without Superman, now every evil guy with a reason to invade Earth can now do it. ****. ****, ****, ****. OK, who's left? Lets band together and hold the fort. This ain't working, we need Superman back.

JL2: Now with Superman.

The problem was not with the outline. It was with the execution. They never showed Superman to be a beacon of goodness and Kansas morality. He was dark and gritty and, therefore, not actually Superman. Then BvS was a bloody mess. And now JL has no foundations on which to build - I understand that it is actually pretending the previous two films didn't actually happen as shown, and that in fact the story as outlined is the one they've been selling all along (i.e. that Superman is the one from the comics, instead of the ubermench Ayn Rand/Nietzsche "you don't owe lesser mortals anything" version).

Also, I wonder how much of the problems of BvS can be laid on not wanting to make Batman the bad guy. So much cruft is due to trying to insert Luthor into a story that really didn't need him. Batman was ready to go after Superman before Luthor was involved: they should not have had him at all. Which is weird, because you'd think the whole point of "dark and gritty" would be that Batman could easily fit into the villain mold.

Grey Wolf

[Reddish Mage]

The foundations are rotten.

The foundations of the DCEU are in Man of Steel, and Man of Steel is bad at being a movie.

It fails to dramatically present characters, there's a disconnect between what characters say and what they do. Clark says he is conflicted about using his powers to save people based on what Cranky Old Man Kent said, but at no point does he ever not use his powers. He doesn't show the conflict through actions, and that means as far as the film is concerned it isn't real.

Clark doesn't change across the course of the film, because his alleged internal conflict never existed.

I think you can do an alienated-and-conflicted Superman movie, Tim Burton might have pulled it off. Man of Steel is not that movie.

Superman, in the comics, is good because he’s raised that way. In MoS, he’s simply seems to be inherently some sort of saint. The movie makes him a martyr. Nothing and nobody tells him to start saving people, and doing so isn’t rewarding like in earlier movies. He just carries on and continues to do so.


Then in BvS we're shown a Batman who is, like, at least 75% of the way to Crazy Steve but he starts there and there's nothing in the film which shows dramatically how he got there, who he was before, or shows him learning anything that might change him. (No, a chopped up Robin costume does not count, it's a background detail not a dramatic presentation, for all we know Crazy Steve did that himself)

DC seemed not to trust their project enough to give it multiple movies. In particular, we didn’t get a solo Batman movie that would have established the motivations for this older, uglier, less moral Batman.

Perhaps they also could have done it if we got less Superman and perhaps actually got the scenes of the Joker killing Robin and told the story from Batman’s perspective. Instead, we the movie emphasized what a saint Superman is and how the world (including Batman) can’t seem to appreciate that without worshipping him as the next coming of Hitler.




It's consistent across all the movies, (including Suicide Squad) that the dramatic presentation of characters is at odds with what the characters say. Actions do not line up with words, and the discrepancy is not examined which implies that the movie does not think there is one.

Underlying all the tonal problems, the movies are just not good at being movies. They are badly constructed and engineered movies.

These discrepancies are all there, and I think it’s part because DC was to go all in on the Zack Snyderverse, who doesn’t favor internal coherency, but part because they didn’t believe in that tone enough to give us the space to meet and like the new characters, other than Superman, who we no longer like.

DC struggled with Green Lantern and Superman Returns. Those movies had a more DC tone but were still bad nevertheless.

Perhaps it’s possible DC just doesn’t know how to make really good movies.

[Anonymouswizard]

Civil War did it well because the heroes were actually arguing and bringing up points and counter-points. I wasn't crazy about Civil War (though repeat viewings are much better) but they presented the idea well. MoS and BvS gives us mopey pained-face Superman and crazy Batman.

My problems with Civil War are primarily that it seemed to exist mainly to set up conflict for the next film, and that it was less of a Captain America film and more of an Avengers film. I might have preferred it if Age of Ultron had been a single-hero film (because Ultron was a fun villain who could conceivably return later) and Civil War was the Avengers title. Plus I just couldn't see Captain America's point, even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.

Honestly? I don't really think hero teamups work in movies. If I was doing the Justice League in a cinematic universe I'd make it a setting element, it's the justification for another hero occasionally turning up or how characters get information, but there's no massive team up fight in any of the films.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I just couldn't see Captain America's point,
His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).

I agree with Iron Man more than with Captain America on this - such major moral choices really should be double checked.

(I am purposely leaving aside the actual implementation of the idea in the Sokovia Accords because we really don't know how well it was implemented. We've been down the rabbit hole of "if the Sokovia Accords say X, X would be bad/good/OK". You can make a case any which way)


even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.
I wouldn't say the film implies anything of the sort. Civil Wars don't decide who is right, only who is left. The film quite clearly ends with moral failings across the board, and everyone is worse off than they started with. An excellent end-of-second-act situation, really. Now they have a hole they need to claw their way out of.

GW

[Starbuck_II]

If they are going to do a team up, do Blue and Gold (Booster Gold and Blue Beetle).
It would have the wit and humor we need, while still able to handle grit.

[GloatingSwine]

His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)


Also like six weeks ago for him everyone who might have been involved in that oversight was actually Hydra.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also like six weeks ago for him everyone who might have been involved in that oversight was actually Hydra.

While for Tony, N weeks ago he created a murderous AI. As I said, both of their positions make good sense from their personal perspectives.

GW

[Darth Ultron]

DC notices that The Avengers knocks it out of the park, and immediately tries to copy. Except you can't copy Marvel, because then you'd be copying Marvel, and people would see right through that.

Except DC did copy Marvel. Justice League is a bad copy of the Avengers. Evil army invades world..heroes ban together..make some jokes...and save the day. It even had Cubes of Evil, sigh.



So, while Marvel is fun, DC tries to go dark and gritty. Except that Dark and Gritty only works with Batman, because of Batman's origin. The rest of the JLA don't really have awful backstories.

Batman has never fit in with the Justice League...and it there mostly for DC to make money as ''Batman is in the book/movie''. The rest of the JL is very good and noble and should not be so nitty gritty.

Superman is roughly equal to Captain America in that for both their REAL super power is that they are the goodest of good guys. In The First Avenger about half the movie really, really makes the point that Steve is a super good hero guy..even without super powers. And this is again high lighted in the Avengers and even more so in The Winter Soldier(really Steve's The Price of Freedom speech is a gem).

But at the same time...Captain America is right at the line of PG-13 ''dark'' and ''gritty'', as Cap is a Killer. Throughout the movies he kills lots of people, not with a huge Focus on buckets of blood or anything, but they are there.

And this is the spot where Superman....and a lot of the others in DC should be at.



On Netflix, where there's no ads and no corporate kowtowing...Marvel is doing the serious stuff, and basically nailing it. You don't need to be 'family friendly' when there's no ads. *thumbs up*

Netflix, and the other such services, are a real good thing for entertainment. They can do things on such shows that can never be done on TV, other then Pay Cable.

[Rater202]

His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).

I agree with Iron Man more than with Captain America on this - such major moral choices really should be double checked.

(I am purposely leaving aside the actual implementation of the idea in the Sokovia Accords because we really don't know how well it was implemented. We've been down the rabbit hole of "if the Sokovia Accords say X, X would be bad/good/OK". You can make a case any which way)


I wouldn't say the film implies anything of the sort. Civil Wars don't decide who is right, only who is left. The film quite clearly ends with moral failings across the board, and everyone is worse off than they started with. An excellent end-of-second-act situation, really. Now they have a hole they need to claw their way out of.

GW

You're meant to side with Cap.. but only because the Civil War in the comics had Cap be right quite blatantly(and derailed Tony Stark's character to have him be on the other side.)

If the implementation in the movies was anything like the implementation in the comics, it would basically be forcing all Superhumans to be subservient to the Government, (one character took sadistic glee in trying to force Captain American to agree to hunt down his friends if they refused to register. This conversation happened before the registration act went through,) which considering how the Government had treated Superhumans in the past in the Marvel Universe, wouldn't have been good.

(The only good thing about the Civil War in the comics was Captain America giving the Punisher a well-deserved ass-kicking.)

I haven't seen Ca: CW, so I don't know if the Movie was any better than the comicbook storyline it was adapted from.

[Aotrs Commander]

I haven't seen Ca: CW, so I don't know if the Movie was any better than the comicbook storyline it was adapted from.

It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."

[Rater202]

It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."

Especially in comics books where there are dozens of writers, some of whom might have good ideas, and someone else is just going to bring them back in a few years.

Side note: I was legit surprised to find out that Jean "My Headstone literally says BRB" Grey is only now being brought back to life after being killed off in 04

[Reddish Mage]

My problems with Civil War are primarily that it seemed to exist mainly to set up conflict for the next film, and that it was less of a Captain America film and more of an Avengers film. I might have preferred it if Age of Ultron had been a single-hero film (because Ultron was a fun villain who could conceivably return later) and Civil War was the Avengers title. Plus I just couldn't see Captain America's point, even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.

Honestly? I don't really think hero teamups work in movies. If I was doing the Justice League in a cinematic universe I'd make it a setting element, it's the justification for another hero occasionally turning up or how characters get information, but there's no massive team up fight in any of the films.

Ah come on. Captain America's point was pretty obvious "the safest hands are still our own." The movie also made it clear he was in the right, forget the politics, simply because Tony Stark was being an *******.

Finally, the counter point to superhero team-ups didn't work: Avengers, Avengers II, Captain America: Winter Soldier & Civil War, Spiderman: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnorok. So many incredibly successful films based on team up...indeed, the entire MCU follows a grand plan where every solo movie follows to a team-up.

You may not personally like Superhero cross-overs, the MCU isn't the most successful franchise in movie history, because of cameos, and the team-ups are occurring with more and more frequency as these movies just get more and more successful.


His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).

I agree with Iron Man more than with Captain America on this - such major moral choices really should be double checked.

(I am purposely leaving aside the actual implementation of the idea in the Sokovia Accords because we really don't know how well it was implemented. We've been down the rabbit hole of "if the Sokovia Accords say X, X would be bad/good/OK". You can make a case any which way)

Civil Wars don't decide who is right, only who is left. The film quite clearly ends with moral failings across the board, and everyone is worse off than they started with. An excellent end-of-second-act situation, really. Now they have a hole they need to claw their way out of.

GW

I don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings. This group seemed to me to play without moral failings, while Tony Stark was making plenty of them. These include bringing a teenager for extra muscle, kill the Winter Soldier (for personal reasons) and Captain America too because he got in the way, bring in external force into the internal scwabble, at the end and had a bunch of Avengers arrested for not signing on to his plan.

There is certainly clear sides to this movie, and we know how Sokovia Accords are being implemented according to the movie, at least: The "enhanced" that refuse to sign are imprisoned in small, solitary cells using high tech to suppress their powers.

Also, it doesn't work, Agents of SHIELD has Daisy sign just to continue using her powers in covert missions that, due to the nature of their missions (such as fighting government officials), clearly, no one is signing off on. Meanwhile, the Accords do result in all the Inhumans being registered on a government database that of course immediately ends up the hands of terrorists that wish to commit genocide. None of the Netflix shows even mention the Accords.

I would agree, in concept, that it seems like a good idea to put rules and oversight in place for individual and groups of vigilantes that have been allowed to essentially engage in military, covert ops, and police work that operate with absolute immunity from such things as laws or responsibility for property damage. Its also an idea whose time has never come in the real world because it has never actually been allowed for vigilantes with no relationship to law enforcement or the government to operate in an utterly unrestricted fashion.

However, superheroes and the way they operate is not real world. Nor is the proposals for regulating them sensible. Civil War in the comics was over a Registration Act the sought to catalogue all individuals with "powers" (and its really that vaguely defined) and their secret identities and then induct them into a military-like force.

The Sokovia Accords also sought to induct every "enhanced" individual and subject them to some sort of UN-based world-spanning supervisory committee instead of a military organization, and its clear that individuals need approval before participating in certain operations or using their powers. The committee probably meets once a month and can debate for months before authorizing the use of powers. This does not sound like a practical way to control the use of powers you want available in the case of a sudden crisis.

[Anonymouswizard]

It was. It was VASTLY, VASTLY better.

For a kick off, the conflict was more around Tony and Steve and much more personal and was presented in a MUCH better and more even-handed fashion. (I mean, that's not saying much, but...!)

I went in wth the lowest expectations of any of the Marvel movies because of the source material and I throughly enjoyed it (and probably will more on a second watch).

Because I'm not quietly whittling they were going to pointlessly kill off Rhodey for The Dramas.

As what they did had just as much emotional impact and has a greatly superior pay-off at the end, with that scene between him and Tony. THAT is the gold standard of why killing a character off is a waste, because its a tacit admission of "I can't think of anymore stories to tell with that character."

Eh, while I believe there are legitimate reasons to kill of characters, that was done really well. I was actually worried they were going to do some form of 'the suit saved him from being seriously injured' while watching.


Ah come on. Captain America's point was pretty obvious "the safest hands are still our own." The movie also made it clear he was in the right, forget the politics, simply because Tony Stark was being an *******.

Finally, the counter point to superhero team-ups didn't work: Avengers, Avengers II, Captain America: Winter Soldier & Civil War, Spiderman: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnorok. So many incredibly successful films based on team up...indeed, the entire MCU follows a grand plan where every solo movie follows to a team-up.

You may not personally like Superhero cross-overs, the MCU isn't the most successful franchise in movie history, because of cameos, and the team-ups are occurring with more and more frequency as these movies just get more and more successful.

To answer these points in order:

1) My problem was that Captain FranceAmerica came off as egotistical, although I haven't seen Winter Soldier, while Tony came off as being an **** but actually having logical reasons, and then at the end the film abandons all pretence of Tony being in the right because he was too much of an **** and had an emotional reaction.

2) Out of all of those I haven't seen two of them, one I thought was the weakest of Phase 3 Marvel, two certainly wouldn't have worked as stand alone films, and the last (Ragnorok) is how I think teamups should be done, a couple of characters coming into the movie instead of thirteen that I struggle to remember who's on what team.

3) I like crossovers/teams fine, but I don't think they fit in films. They're fine in series, where the focus can be easily shifted in each new episode.

Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.

[Anteros]

Well, I don't follow sales numbers or anything, but I think DC is doing well in the comics department at least. They seem to be putting out much better products than Marvel.




Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.

Because comics are primarily made for American audiences and take place in America? Even someone like Black Panther who comes from a make-believe country is heavily Americanized in order to appeal to those markets. American audiences just aren't going to go see a movie about Captain Mapleleaf.

[Sapphire Guard]

Overly high expectations and bad luck. Batman and Superman are characters that a lot of people are extremely invested in, so every time a movie gets made featuring one of them, a lot of people are ready to say 'that's not my superman/batman'. And most of them have different conceptions of what 'my' superman or batman is, which makes it a very, very difficult line to walk.

In response to this, Suicide Squad was forced to become a tentpole movie instead of the side story it was intended as, which put it in a lose/lose situation, where softening its hard edges alienated its core audience, but not softening it damaged its broad appeal.

Wonder Woman, freed of these impossible expectations by being not quite so well known, succeeded quite well critically, there were potential pitfalls in various gender issues but it got around them by sidestepping.

Which brings us to Justice League, which had a ridiculously troubled production where the first director had to step aside due to a family tragedy, and the replacement was immediately hit by three separate scandals. Their styles didn't mesh well, and the compromise had trouble pleasing either set of fans.

All that said, it's only out a week, there's still time for it to surprise us.

Aside: One of the reasons I had trouble liking Civil War was how US centric it was, which is normally fine, but the entire point of the movie was about countries asserting their sovereignty, which made it massively jarring when the US Secretary of State orders the German police to 'shoot on sight' a suspect in Romania for a crime committed in Austria. That is not how countries work.

[Kitten Champion]

Even if you've enjoyed their movies, they've got troubled productions on top of troubled productions. I don't know what the root of it is, but there's a clear competency issue within WB regarding their DC films and while art from adversity is a thing it seems more of art as a crap-shoot. They're the Sonic Team of movie making.

They're making three goddamned Joker movies! I don't want one really, and a Joker Origins movie seems antithetical to the basic nature of the character while a Joker + Harley Quinn movie seems like it exists just to tempt fate.

I don't like comparing Marvel and DC because its becomes mired in partisan attitudes not dissimilar from American politics, but Marvel Studios met relatively minor setbacks with phase two and from that Disney decided to silently reform the studio around Kevin Feige who has had a proven track record worth having confidence in with getting movies done and within the expectations of quality. There needs to be a rudder for your enterprise, not merely a heavy wind blowing you forward to meet market expectations.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings.

Assault, theft, obstruction of justice, interfering with police in the lawful execution of their duties, resisting arrest. And that is only in one scene.

There are moral ways to protest the Sokovia Accords, just like there are moral ways to protest some laws (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/07/16/civil-disobedience-in-hazzard-county/). See, for example, Ghandi, Rosa Park and MLK. But Captain America employed none of those. He unilaterally decided he was right and everyone else was wrong, and therefore that he could do whatever he wanted. That whole "The world tells you to move, you tell it you won't" speech? That is terrifying, when you consider who might decide that applies to them (Frank Castle, for example).

If I can be said to "follow" any philosopher, I "follow" Kant: an action is only moral if and only if, should everyone perform that action, it would remain moral. As far as I am concerned, Captain America's choices where across the board immoral for most of the film.

All that said, this is not really the topic at hand. And we already went through this in the actual Civil War thread. By all means answer my points, but after that, lets agree to disagree.

Grey Wolf

[tomandtish]

... Zack Snyder is a good visual director. He is not a good director. Those two are different jobs. It's like giving a butcher his own meat restaurant. The jobs might seem linked, but they need different skill sets.


I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.

There was still too much of that influence left in Wonder Woman, which is why it was a decent film to me, but not a great one.

Honestly, he's like John Woo. If you take out all the slow motion you can cut the film time in half.

[Zmeoaice]

On TV?
...It just seems like the Superhero Genre bubble burst within four years (Marvel's ratings are also dropping, and Inhumans was a disaster).

True, but Marvel's live action movies are going strong, and have even improved somewhat. Inhumans had an incredibly rushed and messy production because they wanted to make it a movie, then a TV show, and they're trying to make the inhumans the MCU X-Men which doesn't work. But it's really an outlier whe looking at Marvel as a whole.


I like the animated movies. I mean, Killing Joke sucked. But, everything else has been good? No? :smallconfused:

Not really, as someone stated Son of Batman was awful providing us with a terrible Deathstroke and impotent Talia Al Ghul (and then they ignore their portrayal to make her more monstrous than the comics version in the sequels). Justice League: War made Superman and Green Lantern into complete docuhes, and Wonder Woman had a mental disability. The Batman: Unlimited is childish fluff. DC has lost it's edge on Animation.

Though to be fair Marvel's animation is lacking as well. Their current Spider-man cartoon is terrible (as was it's predecessor), they canceled Avengers: EMH for a lousy cartoon that was "closer to the movies", and rarely make any D2DVD films. But at least the films and live action shows are something to look forward to.


Well, it is not just DC, of course, but all most all of Hollywood.

First off the DC TV shows are perfect for what they are made for: Young 20 something super dramas....with superheros mixed in a bit. There target audience is your typical, mostly female, young person who just loves young drama And the very casual comic reader, mostly male, who read some comics in the past. So the basic idea is a couple can watch it together as the perfect show: ''she'' loves all the young drama and ''he'' loves the superhero tights and action. (Though you can switch around the he and she too). The shows are made for the person who has no idea what a comic is, and the casual reader from long ago.

There's nothing wrong with Drama. The problem with the CW shows is that it feels so pointless because the characters behave in such unbelievably stupid ways to make mistakes just for conflict. And the love stories aren't well written with characters who have chemistry together. It feels forced and not natural. Superhero shows have done romance well, but none of the CW shows are.

[Rater202]

True, but Marvel's live action movies are going strong, and have even improved somewhat. Inhumans had an incredibly rushed and messy production because they wanted to make it a movie, then a TV show, and they're trying to make the inhumans the MCU X-Men which doesn't work. But it's really an outlier whe looking at Marvel as a whole.

It's more than that: marvel's current CEO is a huge Inhumans fanboy and has been trying to devalue the X-Men IP and replace the X-Men with the Inhumans for a decade and a half(Using "Nuhumans" as a replacement for Mutants in general is more recent.)

And now you know the reason why, in the comics, there have been so many bad X-Men calls and so much obvious Inhuman shilling despite the Inhumans kind of being **** for the last couple of years.

[tomandtish]

There's nothing wrong with Drama. The problem with the CW shows is that it feels so pointless because the characters behave in such unbelievably stupid ways to make mistakes just for conflict. And the love stories aren't well written with characters who have chemistry together. It feels forced and not natural. Superhero shows have done romance well, but none of the CW shows are.

it's not even that they behave in stupid ways for conflict. That can happen. But the same characters will do the same thing over and over again. No one ever learns. It's why I dropped all of them but Legends.

[Rogar Demonblud]

His point was "I'd rather trust in the moral choices of individuals over the policy choices of a bureaucracy" (because in the past, I have been right more often than they have been)

Compare that to Iron Man's "I'd rather that moral choices of individuals get supervised by others" (because I know I cannot be trusted to make the right moral choices 100% of the time).


Also like six weeks ago for him everyone who might have been involved in that oversight was actually Hydra.


While for Tony, N weeks ago he created a murderous AI. As I said, both of their positions make good sense from their personal perspectives.

GW

Also, one of the things you're supposed to remember about Steve is that he's of the WWII generation, so a fairish chunk of his concept of accountability is in opposition to the phrase "I was just following orders".

It's to be noted that Tony's position of 'make peace, try to change things later on the sly' works for engineering problems, but not human relations. He probably realized that by the end of the movie, since he's abandoned his position to adopt Steve's 'act, then ask forgiveness'.

[Dr.Samurai]

My problems with Civil War are primarily that it seemed to exist mainly to set up conflict for the next film, and that it was less of a Captain America film and more of an Avengers film. I might have preferred it if Age of Ultron had been a single-hero film (because Ultron was a fun villain who could conceivably return later) and Civil War was the Avengers title.
Would you mind expanding on this? It's not clear to me why the title is a sticking point. (This is coming from someone that felt disappointed with Civil War.)

Plus I just couldn't see Captain America's point, even though the movie does try to imply he's right at the end.
Interesting. I think the movie did a good job setting up both perspectives. Captain America is the "heart" of the team; he has the strongest moral compass and the drive to act on his convictions. He chafes at the idea of someone else calling the shots on his behalf. Especially considering that his former handler, SHIELD, was revealed to be controlled by Hydra. Captain America accepts that there might be collateral damage from their actions, but he still believes they are the best ones to make the decisions.

Steve Rogers is blue collar, as opposed to Tony Stark's white collar. For Tony, it is easy to think that things need to be codified and managed and bureaucratic. Whereas Cap is the kind of guy that can accept a deal on the strength of someone's word, or handshake.

On Team Cap, it makes no sense for Clint to come out of retirement and risk everything. Except he owes a debt to Quicksilver, so he is there for Wanda. Falcon is there because Steve is his friend and he is going to stand by him. Wanda is there because she is struggling with fear and rejection, and she realizes that she can't help it if people are afraid of her, she can only control her own emotions. Team Cap is driven by character. Steven will take this stand because his friend is in danger and needs him. Remember he only ever considers signing the Accords when Tony makes the case that it is in the best interest of Bucky; sign the Accords and we'll go in and bring Barnes in and get him the help he needs.

Team Iron Man on the other hand is very rational. Rhodes is the first to make the argument, citing the nations that have voted, the organizations involved, the power dynamic between a global accord vs a handful of enhanced individuals. Vision trots out a formulaic prediction, essentially, treating it very objectively. Iron Man is in full damage control, submitting Wanda to house arrest and using Steve's friendship to Barnes to persuade him to sign the Accords and keep the Avengers together.

I'm not meaning to derail the thread with Civil War, but I brought it up to contrast the difference in the way these same scenarios were handled differently by DC and Marvel. In Civil War it made sense (to me). It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man). BvS didn't have any of that. We got "if there is even a 1% chance Batman" and "You can't stay a good guy" Superman slugging it out for whatever reason and then making amends for Marth--- well, you know how it goes lol.


I don't see how Captain America's team ends up with moral failings.
Cap doesn't even read the Accords or what they entail. The movie lets him leave the original meeting because of the death of Peggy. Then Barnes is framed at the signing and Cap goes after him. At that second meeting, where they are brought in, Cap should have tried to barter. Give and take. Tony offers him the safe capture of Barnes and professional help for him. When Cap finds out about Wanda, he allows his convictions to get the better of him and stops the entire process. No more negotiating. Remember, Tony is trying to keep the Avengers together. He is frustrated at the airport scene because he's doing everything he can to make this work and Cap is simply saying "No" without really giving it much thought. He told "the world to move" instead. That's... not great, lol. There were other ways Cap could have handled this. He is in a tough spot, because he knows Barnes has been mind-****ed and he believes Barnes is innocent and he knows there is a global shoot-on-sight command in play. Cap's up against the wall to save his friend, but he didn't allow Tony to help him out of that situation because he didn't want to consider signing for even a moment. That's a moral failing.

The "enhanced" that refuse to sign are imprisoned in small, solitary cells using high tech to suppress their powers.
Rather, if you refuse to sign you have to retire, like Clint. If you break the law, you are imprisoned in small solitary cells, like Clint.

@Sapphire Guard: Nothing against you but, your post irked me lol. Seems to remove any responsibility to make a good movie from the producers, and places that burden on the fans to simply be content with the movies.


Overly high expectations and bad luck. Batman and Superman are characters that a lot of people are extremely invested in, so every time a movie gets made featuring one of them, a lot of people are ready to say 'that's not my superman/batman'. And most of them have different conceptions of what 'my' superman or batman is, which makes it a very, very difficult line to walk.
No, that's not it. I don't mind a movie exploring the consequences of a Superman on Earth, and what it means for nations and for humanity and all that good stuff. It's real, it makes sense. These things would be considered and talked about. Make that movie. But you have to make it good.

In response to this, Suicide Squad was forced to become a tentpole movie instead of the side story it was intended as, which put it in a lose/lose situation, where softening its hard edges alienated its core audience, but not softening it damaged its broad appeal.
Suicide Squad is a horrible mess of a movie and I can't believe you're blaming fans/viewers for it.

Wonder Woman, freed of these impossible expectations by being not quite so well known, succeeded quite well critically, there were potential pitfalls in various gender issues but it got around them by sidestepping.
Wonder Woman was freed from Snyder, which allowed it to breathe, and was buoyed by the socio-political zeitgeist. It's also not a great movie, but it's watchable and not nearly as bad as the rest. Has nothing to do with fan expectations (though I suspect it would be in the opposite direction, in which fans simply *want* it to be amazing). People saw daylight in a DC movie, and characters smiling and making jokes, and the viewers were tricked into thinking they were watching a cinematic masterpiece lol.

Which brings us to Justice League, which had a ridiculously troubled production where the first director had to step aside due to a family tragedy, and the replacement was immediately hit by three separate scandals. Their styles didn't mesh well, and the compromise had trouble pleasing either set of fans.
No, again, it still could have worked. The problem with JL is that it was set up by MoS and BvS. The cinematic universe was already in trouble and JL was always going to be fighting an uphill battle to redeem it.

[Reddish Mage]

Eh, while I believe there are legitimate reasons to kill of characters, that was done really well. I was actually worried they were going to do some form of 'the suit saved him from being seriously injured' while watching.



To answer these points in order:

1) My problem was that Captain FranceAmerica came off as egotistical, although I haven't seen Winter Soldier, while Tony came off as being an **** but actually having logical reasons, and then at the end the film abandons all pretence of Tony being in the right because he was too much of an **** and had an emotional reaction.

2) Out of all of those I haven't seen two of them, one I thought was the weakest of Phase 3 Marvel, two certainly wouldn't have worked as stand alone films, and the last (Ragnorok) is how I think teamups should be done, a couple of characters coming into the movie instead of thirteen that I struggle to remember who's on what team.

3) I like crossovers/teams fine, but I don't think they fit in films. They're fine in series, where the focus can be easily shifted in each new episode.

Also, why are so many superheroes American? It's nice that we're finally getting a film dedicated to a nonAmerican human hero.

1) What's odd is (and its been pointed out ad nasaum). Tony Stark started his superhero career by taking the Afghan war into his own hands and rebuffing the US government because he wanted to fight terrorists on his own terms. Captain America started out working as part of the military, then SHIELD, and even attacked highly placed people in the US gov't for not following the law in ordering extra-judicial killings. The key is to engage the movie on its own terms, Captain America's position was well articulated and ultimately the one that prevails (at least from an audience POV, Sokovia Accords completely get implented)

2) There's never been a teamup of thirteen heroes yet. Although infinity war probably gets to that number. We certainly do have a number of movies that can't work as a solo movie, but that's a point in favor of team-ups. You even admit Thor-Ragnorok is good for having a team-up!

3) I don't see the counter to my point that the movies are fantastically successful and well-loved for their team ups. You are still saying flatly they don't work in movies, without qualification. I personally think Avengers is much better than the last major Arrrowverse Crossover on TV.

Finally you complain there's too many Americans, but of the Avengers: Thor is alien, Scarlet Witch is Eastern European, Vision is an android, Black Widow is Russian. We are left with Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk for the Americans. Considering that Marvel comics tend to be American-centric, half of the Avengers are not American.


Assault, theft, obstruction of justice, interfering with police in the lawful execution of their duties, resisting arrest. And that is only in one scene.

There are moral ways to protest the Sokovia Accords, just like there are moral ways to protest some laws (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/07/16/civil-disobedience-in-hazzard-county/). See, for example, Ghandi, Rosa Park and MLK. But Captain America employed none of those. He unilaterally decided he was right and everyone else was wrong, and therefore that he could do whatever he wanted. That whole "The world tells you to move, you tell it you won't" speech? That is terrifying, when you consider who might decide that applies to them (Frank Castle, for example).

If I can be said to "follow" any philosopher, I "follow" Kant: an action is only moral if and only if, should everyone perform that action, it would remain moral. As far as I am concerned, Captain America's choices where across the board immoral for most of the film.

All that said, this is not really the topic at hand. And we already went through this in the actual Civil War thread. By all means answer my points, but after that, lets agree to disagree.

Grey Wolf

I'd ask for clarification on some of your points but if you don't want to discuss further:

1) All three of your moral examples were breaking the law, so it requires some unpacking to draw the line and say their protests were moral but Captain America's was not a proper reaction.

After all, Cap's stance was that his vigilante hands should not be subject to anyone's authority, followed up by practicing what he was preaching by resisting being forced to submit to actual authority by force, and Captain America did it non-lethally, which for superhero comics violence tends to be excusable as long as its non-lethal.

2) I've been watching Punisher, Frank Castle appears to have a point.

3) Appealing to Kant does not make a strong case. Its a rather elementary point that any alleged universal moral imperative fails without making them absurdly qualified (start with "do not kill" and before long you get "do not kill unless a) b) c) d) e) f) and possibly h) i) and j, and you can probably qualify it). The test for a universal imperative to Kant is that they apply equally to everyone, in all circumstances, so all you need is a single individual in a single morally conflicted situation to make them troublesome. I think you need some other means of defining what's moral.

That said, I agree with you on Captain Americas points don't work for real life morality. However, there is no point in reading real life into the MCU. In real life, Captain America's points might not work or appear extremely, but in real life a small team of superheroes is not among the possible responses to urgent world-spanning threats. MCU and comics is a world of routine supervillain-causes crises, that are regularly (and pretty much exclusively) countered by lone-wolf individuals, or small superhuman teams. Also, the ideas of how to regulate those individuals and teams are absurd, and amounts of stripping individuals of certain human rights just because they are deemed to have "powers" (with a flexible standard that includes Black Widow because, I guess she's just too good at a her job) and moreover, the regulations have been since shown not to work and to play into the hands of supervillains.

[Dragonexx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9juReoJxI0

So here's moviebob's explanation. There's a second part to this as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8BPzCvrxLY

[factotum]

American audiences just aren't going to go see a movie about Captain Mapleleaf.

You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right? :smallwink:

[Rynjin]

You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right? :smallwink:

And Martian Manhunter is from, well, Mars but that doesn't stop either of them from being as American as apple pie.

[Cespenar]

I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.

There was still too much of that influence left in Wonder Woman, which is why it was a decent film to me, but not a great one.

Honestly, he's like John Woo. If you take out all the slow motion you can cut the film time in half.

Deciding to use that style in every movie is still a director's call. He is bad at those. Maybe under a proper director, he could have just done the job of a visual director and be an actual positive effect in movies.

[Anonymouswizard]

Would you mind expanding on this? It's not clear to me why the title is a sticking point. (This is coming from someone that felt disappointed with Civil War.)

Certainly. I'd just finished seeing a teamup movie with many heroes, I was all ready to see the next Marvel movie where they'd focus on Captain BrazilAmerica and a couple of other characters, instead they introduce two new heroes, return old characters when the current Avengers lineup is enough people for a film, and in general seemed to try to fit both a solo movie and a teamup in the same film. It wasn't really focused on the Captain in my opinion, but the Avengers, and so I felt mislead by the title.

I mean, it's not a massive dealbreaker, but I get annoyed by the title because it didn't feel like it deserved the 'solo hero work' title (which, considering it's called Civil War, is idiotic, but they're my feelings).


Interesting. I think the movie did a good job setting up both perspectives. Captain America is the "heart" of the team; he has the strongest moral compass and the drive to act on his convictions. He chafes at the idea of someone else calling the shots on his behalf. Especially considering that his former handler, SHIELD, was revealed to be controlled by Hydra. Captain America accepts that there might be collateral damage from their actions, but he still believes they are the best ones to make the decisions.

Steve Rogers is blue collar, as opposed to Tony Stark's white collar. For Tony, it is easy to think that things need to be codified and managed and bureaucratic. Whereas Cap is the kind of guy that can accept a deal on the strength of someone's word, or handshake.

On Team Cap, it makes no sense for Clint to come out of retirement and risk everything. Except he owes a debt to Quicksilver, so he is there for Wanda. Falcon is there because Steve is his friend and he is going to stand by him. Wanda is there because she is struggling with fear and rejection, and she realizes that she can't help it if people are afraid of her, she can only control her own emotions. Team Cap is driven by character. Steven will take this stand because his friend is in danger and needs him. Remember he only ever considers signing the Accords when Tony makes the case that it is in the best interest of Bucky; sign the Accords and we'll go in and bring Barnes in and get him the help he needs.

Team Iron Man on the other hand is very rational. Rhodes is the first to make the argument, citing the nations that have voted, the organizations involved, the power dynamic between a global accord vs a handful of enhanced individuals. Vision trots out a formulaic prediction, essentially, treating it very objectively. Iron Man is in full damage control, submitting Wanda to house arrest and using Steve's friendship to Barnes to persuade him to sign the Accords and keep the Avengers together.

I'm not meaning to derail the thread with Civil War, but I brought it up to contrast the difference in the way these same scenarios were handled differently by DC and Marvel. In Civil War it made sense (to me). It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man). BvS didn't have any of that. We got "if there is even a 1% chance Batman" and "You can't stay a good guy" Superman slugging it out for whatever reason and then making amends for Marth--- well, you know how it goes lol.

Honestly, it's literally 'there's no rational reason given'. It didn't feel like an argument between sides, it felt like a rational person going a bit too far and someone refusing to talk because he's been told that there might need to be some regulations. Tony does not act nice, and he does things he shouldn't, but at least there's a reason for his viewpoint.


1) What's odd is (and its been pointed out ad nasaum). Tony Stark started his superhero career by taking the Afghan war into his own hands and rebuffing the US government because he wanted to fight terrorists on his own terms. Captain America started out working as part of the military, then SHIELD, and even attacked highly placed people in the US gov't for not following the law in ordering extra-judicial killings. The key is to engage the movie on its own terms, Captain America's position was well articulated and ultimately the one that prevails (at least from an audience POV, Sokovia Accords completely get implented)

2) There's never been a teamup of thirteen heroes yet. Although infinity war probably gets to that number. We certainly do have a number of movies that can't work as a solo movie, but that's a point in favor of team-ups. You even admit Thor-Ragnorok is good for having a team-up!

3) I don't see the counter to my point that the movies are fantastically successful and well-loved for their team ups. You are still saying flatly they don't work in movies, without qualification. I personally think Avengers is much better than the last major Arrrowverse Crossover on TV.

Finally you complain there's too many Americans, but of the Avengers: Thor is alien, Scarlet Witch is Eastern European, Vision is an android, Black Widow is Russian. We are left with Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk for the Americans. Considering that Marvel comics tend to be American-centric, half of the Avengers are not American.

1) Yes, and it works because he was implied to be going overboard. He notably tones it down between 1 and 2 (although even in 2 he still acts like an ****), and generally seems to be undergoing positive character development. Meanwhile Captain America seems to have gone from standing for something greater to... doing what he wants to do. It's an understandable change, but it feels like the wrong direction for a superhero for me.

2) Can't even exaggerate on these forums without someone taking it seriously! But my point was that eventually you get to so many 'main characters' that you can't focus on any, Thor had two plus one new one plus a villain plus possibly Loki (he was a tad out of focus), so 4/5 characters it had to focus on. Civil War had Cap, Stark, Bucky, Black Panther, some of Wanda, a bit of Vision, and so on until our villain almost gets no focus.

3) No, I'm saying I don't think they work in movies, although I was tired and forgot to list my reason (reduction of focus). Note my example for a TV series assumed it was based around the team.

Less complaining, more poking fun. I'd like to see heroes from other countries (how about an Indian superhero?), but I don't really care.

[Dr.Samurai]

Certainly. I'd just finished seeing a teamup movie with many heroes, I was all ready to see the next Marvel movie where they'd focus on Captain BrazilAmerica and a couple of other characters, instead they introduce two new heroes, return old characters when the current Avengers lineup is enough people for a film, and in general seemed to try to fit both a solo movie and a teamup in the same film. It wasn't really focused on the Captain in my opinion, but the Avengers, and so I felt mislead by the title.

I mean, it's not a massive dealbreaker, but I get annoyed by the title because it didn't feel like it deserved the 'solo hero work' title (which, considering it's called Civil War, is idiotic, but they're my feelings).
Thanks, that makes sense if you're not looking for a team-up movie.

Honestly, it's literally 'there's no rational reason given'. It didn't feel like an argument between sides, it felt like a rational person going a bit too far and someone refusing to talk because he's been told that there might need to be some regulations. Tony does not act nice, and he does things he shouldn't, but at least there's a reason for his viewpoint.
I'm actually not even sure what people mean when they say Tony is acting like a jerk. What did he do? I feel like he's acting in charge, but he's sort of in a position to do that. It seemed like Tony was basically saying "We have to do this" and I don't think that was being a jerk. He was (arguably) trying to save Barnes as much as Cap was, just in a different way. I don't think Tony was being an ******* honestly.

But I also don't think that Cap didn't have rational reasons. He doesn't trust the oversight. Those will simply be *other* people making decisions, but still just people. He'd rather be the person making the call, not someone he doesn't know sitting on a governing body somewhere. The conversation gets interrupted by Peggy Carter's death, and then the plot of the movie happens (Bucky is framed, Cap goes after him). That changes the conversation somewhat because now Cap is breaking the law, now there are higher stakes at play, both Cap and Tony are put between a rock and a hard place (Cap between adhering to the law and saving his friend, and Tony between Ross' need to control the situation and the rest of the Avengers).

[Anonymouswizard]

Thanks, that makes sense if you're not looking for a team-up movie.

I'm actually not even sure what people mean when they say Tony is acting like a jerk. What did he do? I feel like he's acting in charge, but he's sort of in a position to do that. It seemed like Tony was basically saying "We have to do this" and I don't think that was being a jerk. He was (arguably) trying to save Barnes as much as Cap was, just in a different way. I don't think Tony was being an ******* honestly.

But I also don't think that Cap didn't have rational reasons. He doesn't trust the oversight. Those will simply be *other* people making decisions, but still just people. He'd rather be the person making the call, not someone he doesn't know sitting on a governing body somewhere. The conversation gets interrupted by Peggy Carter's death, and then the plot of the movie happens (Bucky is framed, Cap goes after him). That changes the conversation somewhat because now Cap is breaking the law, now there are higher stakes at play, both Cap and Tony are put between a rock and a hard place (Cap between adhering to the law and saving his friend, and Tony between Ross' need to control the situation and the rest of the Avengers).

For me it has quite a bit to do with the fact that he seemed to wash his hands of the Avengers at the end of the last film, only to come right back to meddling with them in this one. His actions were understandable and he was probably the best choice to deal with it, but it feels like somebody sticking his nose where he doesn't belong.

He also gets more jerkish as the film goes on, but that's understandable.

The problem with Captain ChinaAmerica's position is that it's fine as long as the person making the call is moral. In a committee it's easier to make sure that any singular element is controlling the decisions.

I mean, if we can assume that Cap's moral code aligns with society then there's no problem with him making his own decisions. But we can't assume that his moral code will always be what's best for society.

But I think I might be annoyed that I was told it was going to be a discussion between two points of view, only to have most of that discussion sidelined for more action scenes. But eh, apparently people liked the film, at least the martial arts in it were decent.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm not blaming anyone for anything. Acknowledging an extremely troubled production does not force anyone to call the result a good film, but it is a contributing factor to the quality of the end result, and so can be a valid answer to the question of why the film didn't work out, which is in line with the thread title.

I don't want to get into a long argument, and I'm not calling the DCEU flawless, but it does seem like many (not all) of the criticisms are a question of preference and expectations 'That's not my superman' 'I don't like the tone' and so forth.

Re Civil War, while Team Stark does have some points, I think the film itself made an effort to show him as wrong. The Face of the Accords is Ross, who is presented as an unreasonable authority figure. Two of his team defect, and one is a part timer, where Cap's team is mostly on board. Cap's team are correct about Bucky, but Tony has to go against Ross in the climax to prove that the Accords don't work. Team Stark paralyses one of their own team by accident. The captured heroes are mistreated, shocking Tony. Tony puts Ross on hold by movie's end, a tacit acknowledgement that he himself doesn't abide by the rules he represents.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

it does seem like many (not all) of the criticisms are a question of preference and expectations 'That's not my superman' 'I don't like the tone' and so forth.

No, the criticism along those lines is that the films are trying to have it both ways: MoS never presents Superman as "the old superman" but then tries to play it like its a big deal that superman kills his enemy in the last act... even though it is never indicated he has a problem with that. In BvS, Batman is shown branding criminals so they get shanked in prison... but the film tries to make it seem like this is odd for Batman, despite never actually showing his "actual" MO. So the film wants the viewers to draw on the "classic" characters when it comes to telling the story, but then also tries to tell us "no, they aren't those characters". MovieBob (which I linked to earlier and Dragonexx actually posted the Youtube) goes on and on about it, and he is right: either these are new interpretations (but then you don't get to play the card of "oh, they have crossed a line" since they never established that these characters had drawn such a line for themselves) or they are not, in which case the films did a terrible job of putting those characters onto the screen.

Grey Wolf

[Tyndmyr]

The odd thing about Justice League is, if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is way lower than the audience score--so it seems the few people who actually went to see it enjoyed it far more than the critics did? One wonders if word of mouth will improve its fortunes over time.

Justice League is not terrible. It's better than BvS and Suicide Squad. It falls clearly short of WW, though.

I expect it to do alright as a popcorn movie/in foreign audiences. They won't go broke on it.

But it does exhibit some of the flaws of those worse movies. They double down on non-stop awe of Superman as a messianic figure. This is constant, and is never subtle. In an ensamble film, this greatly detracts from the other characters. If supes can literally do everything your entire team can do with one hand tied behind his back, okay...why is this a team-up, and not a superman movie? DC gets so caught up in admiring the iconic nature of it's characters that it forgets to build a decent story and embrace building relationships with other characters. Everything is batman or superman, and they don't know how to actually build anything new.

Do most viewers know the bad of justice league? No, probably not. The foot soldiers are not threatening, and oh look, we have another doomsday engine powered by technobabble, just like in MoS. They need some villain with a plan beyond "change earth into a copy of my world"*. They need actually coherent characters and arcs.

*Strictly speaking, Luthor's motivation isn't that. Maybe. It's wildly unclear what Luthor really is, other than crazy, but the most logical thing is somehow mind controlled by Darkseid, so I guess ultimately working to that end as well.


I'm not even sure I can agree with that. he has one basic visual setup that he does to death over and over again. it worked well in 300, which was so over the top that the style worked there. but he uses it everywhere even when it doesn't work.

He's great at telling a long story in a short space. Consider, the introductory song of Sucker Punch. It's perfect, and gives you all the backstory you need in a very economical space. He does a very similar thing at the beginning of BvS, where he goes over Batman's origin story. Thank god we didn't have to sit through another full length treatment of that. If it's necessary, make it tight. Watchmen also contains a great flashback sequence explaining how superheroism had gotten where it was.

Unfortunately, if you give him a free reign and a lot of space, he tends to make a mess of it.


It looked and sounded like adults having real and meaningful conversations (for a movie) and coming to a major disagreement that made sense for the characters (minus Ant Man)

The Ant-Man movie blames Stark for a looot of problems, and there's no love lost between the Ant-Man folks and Stark. I'll grant that it's the weakest of the lot, since it's not well explained in the actual film, but Ant-Man probably isn't going to be thrilled about a Stark-led accords for obvious reasons, and of course, character wise, he belongs on Caps team.

I do agree, though, that DC isn't hitting anywhere near this level in explaining character motivations. The fact that people can argue over motivations for Civil War, and who was right for many pages on end means that...those explanations are making sense to people, and people care about them. Right, wrong, whatever. Conveying the explanation to the viewer in a way they care about is what matters. I might disagree with Tony's decisions, but I understand his emotions in a way that screaming "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?" isn't...quite the equal of.

[Anteros]

The problem with Captain ChinaAmerica's position is that it's fine as long as the person making the call is moral. In a committee it's easier to make sure that any singular element is controlling the decisions.

I mean, if we can assume that Cap's moral code aligns with society then there's no problem with him making his own decisions. But we can't assume that his moral code will always be what's best for society.


You really can't assume that an oversight committee's moral code will align with society either. Especially in a universe where these things are regularly taken over by actual Nazi super-villains.

I suppose you could make some sort of worldwide election to put someone in charge, but that's not what the Accords call for...and honestly people would just elect Cap anyway.

[HandofShadows]

You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right? :smallwink:

Deadpool is Canadian as well. :smallbiggrin:

[Reddish Mage]

Half the Avengers are not American. Also quite a number of notables in the Justice League. While the material is often placed in America, and based on American-based comic books, the amount of non-American superheroes is actually pretty notable.

[Anteros]

You know Wolverine is canonically Canadian, right? :smallwink:

Technically, but he's typically treated as American by the narrative of the stories, and he almost always stays in America. He's not exactly what you'd think of when you envision your typical Canadian.

[Legato Endless]

I think I'd push back on one lightly implied bias I usually see in these discussions. That a Justice League film as a jumping off point for expansion was somehow conceptually doomed from the start. It wasn't, DC's problems lie more with their bizarre executive mandates, problematic auteur director, and other issues of execution.

As Moviebob himself points out in his skewering of the general DCEU, there's no reason a film couldn't introduce the Justice League in something shorter than two and half hours, and then have everything spiral out from there. You can ably introduce a half dozen or so people and make a good film with the right structure. Seven Samurai does it, it's Western knockoff does it, Fellowship of the Ring does it, along with a number of other extremely well regarded films that delineate their characters.

The problem is you have to abandon your cruft. Don't waste the audience's time. Like, take the Justice League movie. *Minor Spoilers*: Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman could have been far better established if the film wasn't diddling around with obnoxious strangely orange saturated set pieces.

The Amazon sequence is like the rest of the film. It's too long and communicates too little. We don't need 5 minutes spent on an elaborately futile game of keep away from the alien warlord. Portal goes off, Parademons enter. They start getting slaughtered by the Amazons. 5 seconds or less. Steppenwolf comes down, he swings his ax, everyone gets stunned, he leaves with the box. This could all be wrapped in half a minute easily. Similarly we don't need a half hour of minion killing. One week later, the only thing I clearly remember from that mess was when Aquaman surfs through a building on a parademon. Compare with FotR, which only has two major battle sequences, the second of which occurs largely offscreen while Frodo gets solo scenes with three different characters.

Justice League's characters aren't undercooked because there's 6 of them, it's undercooked because its simultaneously a sequel and override of the last film, directed by a man more interested in vaguely allegorical visuals than character building.

[GloatingSwine]

As Moviebob himself points out in his skewering of the general DCEU, there's no reason a film couldn't introduce the Justice League in something shorter than two and half hours, and then have everything spiral out from there. You can ably introduce a half dozen or so people and make a good film with the right structure. Seven Samurai does it, it's Western knockoff does it, Fellowship of the Ring does it, along with a number of other extremely well regarded films that delineate their characters.


If you're making a point about how a movie can introduce an ensemble in a reasonable amount of time, a three and a half hour and then a three hour movie are possibly not your optimal examples :P


That said, sure, Justice League could have introduced all its characters in a proper well structured two hour movie if it hadn't started out as a three hour movie and been cut down for time.

Especially because all it really needed to introduce were Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg (and Cyborg has never really been an individually interesting character in the comics, even in the Teen Titans cartoon he was clearly the one they never had a handle on and episodes that focused on him tended to be the weakest).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That said, sure, Justice League could have introduced all its characters in a proper well structured two hour movie if it hadn't started out as a three hour movie and been cut down for time.

If MovieBob is to be believed, it is actually two films cut down and combined into a single one. Superman would've been dead for the entirety of the first one, and only resurrected in the second, or at the end of the first as the Hope Spot.

GW

[Piedmon_Sama]

And Martian Manhunter is from, well, Mars but that doesn't stop either of them from being as American as apple pie.

What on earth is particularly 'American' about J'onn or Logan? o__O

[Legato Endless]

If you're making a point about how a movie can introduce an ensemble in a reasonable amount of time, a three and a half hour and then a three hour movie are possibly not your optimal examples :P

Heh, fair point. They're the first things that come to my mind, but picking shorter ensemble films would certainly be more illustrative.

[Rater202]

What on earth is particularly 'American' about J'onn or Logan? o__O

In Logan's case, he smokes, drinks, and isn't afraid to kill the bad guys if they need killing.

[2D8HP]

Technically, but he's typically treated as American by the narrative of the stories, and he almost always stays in America. He's not exactly what you'd think of when you envision your typical Canadian..
It appears that you NEED!!! an expert on Canadians.
Despite my STUNNING HUMILITY!!!, I'm FORCED!!! to admit that not only did I spend most of a day in Montreal, I also spent nights in Ottawa (thank you Miss Chartrand) in 1988 and I watched the films Canadian Bacon and Strange Brew (which featured eminent Canadian actor Max von Sydow), thus I AM AN EXPERT!! on Canadians (but still HUMBLE).

I cite dialogue from the 1983 filmThe Wolverine:

Jean Grey: Wake up, wake up, wake up.
[Logan awakes turns and sees Jean Grey in bed next to him.] Where were you?:

Logan: I don't know. Nagasaki.

Jean: That's far back. [starts kissing his shoulder]

Logan: You're here?

Jean: Of course.

Logan: Can you stay?

Jean: You know I can't.

Logan: Oh, Jean. I'm so sorry.

Could only be proven more Canadian if he also said, "je suis vraiment désolé".

-Your welcome.

[Avilan the Grey]

In Logan's case, he smokes, drinks, and isn't afraid to kill the bad guys if they need killing.

So he's Scottish? Finnish? Russian? :smallbiggrin:

[Mikemical]

I enjoy their stuff anyways, but I think it's because they're not taking their time to build up the story with their movies. They're just rushing through it.

Pretty much this. Compared to MCU, which took years of laying down foundations before they went and made The Avengers, the DCU has been several hits and misses one after the other ever since Nolan's Dark Knight films without giving people the chance to get attached to the characters before they scrap them for a new one. So they went and retconned everything with The Man of Steel, then Batman VS Superman, then Suicide Squad, now Justice League. Come next year, we'll probably be seeing advances of something like Injustice only so they try to compete against Infinity War(and fail miserably).

Wonder Woman was amazing though. Literally "how to make a good superhero movie". Shame it's in the same bag of cats as BvS, SS and JL.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'll just say that while Canada generally deserves its reputation as a very law-abiding country, it has a truly ENORMOUS amount of wilderness, and plenty of low-population fringe communities, and more than its share of wild men, biker societies and general roughneck types.

e: something to consider, Canada and the USA share a very similar 'frontier' past and culture with the big difference that in much of Canada the environment itself was far more likely to kill you.

[Rater202]

I'll just say that while Canada generally deserves its reputation as a very law-abiding country, it has a truly ENORMOUS amount of wilderness, and plenty of low-population fringe communities, and more than its share of wild men, biker societies and general roughneck types.

e: something to consider, Canada and the USA share a very similar 'frontier' past and culture with the big difference that in much of Canada the environment itself was far more likely to kill you.

To quote a certain comedian, the reason Canada doesn't have as much gun violence is that "a moose doesn't count as a homicide."

[Kitten Champion]

Whenever Logan is being Logan - as in a place of his own preference doing what he wants - he's somewhere isolated, forested, and what few people he chooses to associate with are the hard working blue collar-types. The northern stretches of Canada thematically fits his characterization and power-set that I would say it's a part of him conceptually.

This is why the Logan from Logan being a limo driver living near the Mexico border was so at odds with who he was as a person and getting away from that both physically and mentally was important to the process of rebuilding himself over the course of the movie, and why his grave ending up where it did felt so suitable for him.

[Sapphire Guard]

Don't quite agree with that Moviebob thesis, but I'll agree to disagree.

Re: The DCEU, the Trinity are famous enough that they don't need as much setup time as the MCU did. The intros were fine until Justice League, where time constraints evidently cut a lot of necessary backstory (which is the execs and/or Whedon's fault, as Snyder was long gone by the time the final cut was decided on.)

Given the mandate to stay under two hours, some of the stuff they kept in were very strange choices.


Batman on rooftop with random thug...what's the point of this? He could just be drawn in by the kidnappings from STAR labs later. He was already assembling a team anyway.

Diana and terrorists- a good scene, but nothing very important happens in it, it's just -'here's Diana being Diana'

Most of Atlantis and Themyscira could go. Do a reshoot of a Parademon attack on Aquaman to get him involved in the invasion.

Graveyard racism jokes- is this really necessary?

Cutaways to Family in not-Chernobyl- most of this could go without being missed.



Use that time to put back in some Cyborg/Flash/Aquaman, and you might make your two hours without losing too much of the introductions.

[Vinyadan]

Logan is Texan. He never leaves home without his weapons.

As an external observer, I'd say that DC is pushing out much material for the sake of the hype, internet meme overdone hype in particular. BvS as a concept was here. Suicide Squad was so much here that it was embarrassing. Beside the cast choice, there was the whole shipping undercurrent. But, if you only care for the hype, you end up in situations where the story can't hold up, because the ingredients for hype raising aren't the same as those for making a good story, or a good film.

[Kitten Champion]

Logan is Texan. He never leaves home without his weapons.

As an external observer, I'd say that DC is pushing out much material for the sake of the hype, internet meme overdone hype in particular. BvS as a concept was here. Suicide Squad was so much here that it was embarrassing. Beside the cast choice, there was the whole shipping undercurrent. But, if you only care for the hype, you end up in situations where the story can't hold up, because the ingredients for hype raising aren't the same as those for making a good story, or a good film.

And you get stuff like like the BvS trailers, which basically remove any and all surprises - like Doomsday and Wonder Woman's reveal - the movie might've had in store for you because WB wanted to change the tide of negative hype surrounding the production caused quite a bit by their own basic incompetence.

I know I was like "and now I've seen this movie, thanks".

[Anonymouswizard]

At this point I'm just not seeing a DC movie until they do a Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn one. Not only is that much better relationship goals than the two clowns, a superhero film revolving around two villains be interesting. I do mean revolving around them, not just having two villains but having them be the bad guys and focusing on them.

It would at least be different.

[Avilan the Grey]

I REALLY want a Harley and Ivy movie. Not only would that bring back the first openly canon gay relationship in comics, it is also a far healthier relationship for Harley, and it is a far more interesting dynamic BECAUSE they are a good influence on eachother. *

Plus, as said above, having a superhero movie with two villains actually FREE, not under a leash and a whip like in Suicide Squad, would be very interesting.


*As iconic as the Joker is, I have never truly found him interesting. He is... TOO crazy, to the point of becoming one-dimensional.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Don't quite agree with that Moviebob thesis, but I'll agree to disagree.

Re: The DCEU, the Trinity are famous enough that they don't need as much setup time as the MCU did.

That only works if you actually use the Trinity from the comics. You cannot do that and then do emo mopey "darker and edgier" Superman.

GW

[Metahuman1]

Assault, theft, obstruction of justice, interfering with police in the lawful execution of their duties, resisting arrest. And that is only in one scene.

There are moral ways to protest the Sokovia Accords, just like there are moral ways to protest some laws (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/07/16/civil-disobedience-in-hazzard-county/). See, for example, Ghandi, Rosa Park and MLK. But Captain America employed none of those. He unilaterally decided he was right and everyone else was wrong, and therefore that he could do whatever he wanted. That whole "The world tells you to move, you tell it you won't" speech? That is terrifying, when you consider who might decide that applies to them (Frank Castle, for example).

*Snip*

Grey Wolf

I feel the need to point out that Agents of Shield showed the Accords being implemented.

We saw supers being registered. Those that refused were being locked up for not registering. Unless, or course, they were willing to work for a shadowy government organization that spent most of it's time existing being a cover and operating arm of Hydra doing black ops.

We also saw that that database apparently took mere weeks to get hacked into by genocidal nuts, and then found out it wasn't even hacked, it was leaked by a government official with a bend toward Identity Racial Politics who evidently RAN on that platform and got elected.

A system like that is something I'd say it's generally fairly moral to take a stand against.


And that's not even getting into the fact that these people put freaking general ROSS in charge!

Or that, shockingly, the good treatment of prisoners Tony talked up didn't happen.

Or that they were perfectly ready and willing to let T'Chala kill under the accords with impunity for whatever personal reason he happened to have. While objecting to Rogers NOT wanting to rack up a body count for no other reason then Ross. Specifically that Ross wanted to prove he was swinging the biggest male anatomy on the planet, cause he has a pathological need to have the biggest male anatomy on the planet, and always has had that need.

Hells at the rate this is going After Infinity War, Asgaurd is going to set up shop on earth, Ross is going to lead humanity into War with Thor and Hulk to get them under his thumb no matter the body count.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly? That's not exactly how the accords were presented in the film. While I'm all against the idea of registering people who are different (with the potential exception of highly dangerous powers*) and agree that it'll create problems even without people going on killing sprees (employers discriminating against those with low level powers for one).

The core idea present in the film, oversight of superhero activities, is a great big can of 'good in theory, depends on who's in charge in practice'. While we can agree that most of the Avengers are moral people that's highly unlikely to be the case for most people who choose to put on a cape (look at how Tony began his caping days). It really depends on how far the oversight extends, and also if it's preemptive or retrospective. I honestl don't remember the film having much discussion of how it would work.


* Which in this case includes powers on the level of a gun for quickly and easily harming another, pre-enchanced Scorch from Agents of Shield would be borderline but I think on the not registered side, and I don't think Captain America would come close. But I'm also a big believer in firearm controls in real life, which influences my view.

[Metahuman1]

The film told you what you needed to know when Ross stepped in and gave the Avengers a Dressing down for not being able to tell him were Thor and Hulk were, in exact coordinateds, right that second, on the grounds that they were nuclear weapons that needed to be kept track of.


And then proceeded to order kill on sight for Winter Solider. Cause, you know, questioning or looking through what are now suppose to be public records on the guy or listening to the guy you got the info out that your boss use to be Hydra and they nearly murdered you a couple of years back is for suckers. Let me repeat that. Even after the movie he was in with Hulk and seeing what his thinking caused, even after seeing what they could do, he thinks Hulk, a guy who can brawl at a level worthy of gods, and Thor, an ACTUAL god, are just Nukes for him to order about and deploy as he sees fit and that's all.

And then was totally ok with Letting Black Panther Murder him with impunity for no other reason than Revenge and Black Panther had some political connections which means the rules don't apply to him.

And with Stark opting that revenge fueled Murder is something he's also allowed to do because the rules don't apply to him either. Never mind letting the guy who's mastermind every death so far on screen this movie freaking get away wtih it and that I'm playing right into his hands, I want what makes me feel good inside and that is literally the only thing in the universe that matters to me damn it!

And Stark opting to just straight up imprison Wanda for the crime of having been a successful Hydra experiment that has powers.





This was never ever going to have a chance of being the version Stark talked up. The Presenting? That was all it ever was. Talk. PR. It wouldn't work in the reality they lived in and could only end one way. Badly. Very, Very, VERY badly.


As I said, we saw what happened after the movie as well. We know those weren't isolated incidents while things were new. This was what that thing Stark was harping at Cap to sign was designed to do from the ground up and all the way to it's very core. These things were not bugs. They were freaking features. Because the people that wrote it weren't actually Stark, and anything they didn't put in up front they left themselves the room and power to change with out Stark's OK after the fact. Hell's they did it when Ross made it clear to Stark HE was calling the shots now near the end of the movie after the airport battle.

We saw more of this on the show. See the bit about An Elected Government Official giving a genocidal racial supremicist Group a list of the names, powers and addresses of all the super humans in the USA and the weapons tech to try a coordinated effort to murder all the one's who'd registered but opted NOT to become Government Black Op's Agents. She ran on a wipe them all out Platform and got elected on it and got away with it. (Sure, Karma and Supervillans later got her but in the eyes of the law, she was never proven to have done a damn thing wrong. Legally, she was still untouchable.)

I got news, she could do it, anyone and everyone in the government can now do it, any time. Or they can go the other way, they can look up the family's of the registered and black mail them with there continued safety and well being. (That latter part? "Oh, ok, I can just call my buddy at the IRS and your dear mother can spend the rest of her life in jail for Tax Evasion if you don't want to play ball for my personal gain." Hells it would be even easier than trying to kill them while remaining the image of being clean.)




This is canonically what Cap was opposing and Stark was pushing.

[Anonymouswizard]

Stuff.

This is canonically what Cap was opposing and Stark was pushing.

Except that's not how it was presented in the film, which was more 'oversight versus freedom' with a dash of 'saving my friend'. All the stuff you mentioned was right, but taking the film on it's own (and if we're discussing the film, not the Accords, that's what we should do) then it does show that there are problems with oversight but doesn't explain why the Accords cause more problems than that.

[Drascin]

Except that's not how it was presented in the film, which was more 'oversight versus freedom' with a dash of 'saving my friend'. All the stuff you mentioned was right, but taking the film on it's own (and if we're discussing the film, not the Accords, that's what we should do) then it does show that there are problems with oversight but doesn't explain why the Accords cause more problems than that.

No, a lot of that is definitely implied in the film.

I don't know Agents of Shield or whatever, but I did watch the movie, and while IRL I'm a fervent proponent of oversight, in the movie the Sokovia Accords smelled clearly of rat.

Like, it instantly made me twitch when Ross threw a huge document on the table and went "you have three days to agree or we remove you", with clearly nobody around the table having the slightest idea of what was going on. A giant UN resolution takes time to make. It has a process. A public process. Where experts are brought in and diplomats decide on things carefully and stuff. And yet none of the Avengers seemed to know anything about it. The world's only superhero team was not even consulted when drafting legislation that would affect superheroes? With no public process? Sprung from nowhere what, a week after a highly visible incident that would help public opinion forget all these facts?

Yeah, that smelled a lot less like "we want oversight" and a lot more like "we want control of this superpowerful weapon for our own interests". Which is, if you remember, Cap's biggest sticking point. He worried that it would make the Avengers more or less a gun to be pointed at things. And seeing how things were developed, who is advocating for it (Thunderbolt Ross is a known psychotic control freak, and any plan he spearheads instantly loses multiple points of credibility), and the fact that Cap just got done removing a literal nazi conspiracy from the seats where this plan would by necessity have come from? His misgivings about the shape of this oversight seemed rather reasonable.

[Keltest]

Except that's not how it was presented in the film, which was more 'oversight versus freedom' with a dash of 'saving my friend'. All the stuff you mentioned was right, but taking the film on it's own (and if we're discussing the film, not the Accords, that's what we should do) then it does show that there are problems with oversight but doesn't explain why the Accords cause more problems than that.

For that matter, a non-trivial argument by some of the pro-accord people was "yeah, its distasteful, but theyre going to do it with or without us, so if we cooperate, we can at least try to keep it as much on our terms as possible." They aren't oblivious to the fact that they aren't going to just be "the avengers, with official badges". But if they have to get dragged kicking and screaming into playing ball, theyre going to have a lot less leverage.

[Metahuman1]

Except that's not how it was presented in the film, which was more 'oversight versus freedom' with a dash of 'saving my friend'. All the stuff you mentioned was right, but taking the film on it's own (and if we're discussing the film, not the Accords, that's what we should do) then it does show that there are problems with oversight but doesn't explain why the Accords cause more problems than that.

i sited several things that throw that claim out the window that were in the movie. Prominently displayed in fact.





Edit: Regarding the "Were going to do it with or with out you." point.


I so dearly want to see them trying to tell Thor, Hulk and Dr. Strange that one. I want to see them manage to create World Breaker Hulk while picking simultaneous fights with The God Of Thunder AND The Sorcerer Supreme.



Really stop and think about exactly how poorly THAT one would go.

And don't even think of telling me Ross wouldn't jump to do it with a giggle and a grin.

[Keltest]

i sited several things that throw that claim out the window that were in the movie. Prominently displayed in fact.





Edit: Regarding the "Were going to do it with or with out you." point.


I so dearly want to see them trying to tell Thor, Hulk and Dr. Strange that one. I want to see them manage to create World Breaker Hulk while picking simultaneous fights with The God Of Thunder AND The Sorcerer Supreme.



Really stop and think about exactly how poorly THAT one would go.

And don't even think of telling me Ross wouldn't jump to do it with a giggle and a grin.

I'm sure that's relevant for Bruce Banner and Steven Strange, but for Clint or Wanda? Or Steve? Even without the Avengers who signed on, that's still not a winning scenario for them.

Also, theres been interested parties after the Hulk ever since he was created. Notably, the world has not yet ended because of it.

[RossN]

I have a lot of sympathy for the recent tragedy Zack Snyder suffered and I greatly respect his stepping away from the films.

That said I think a lot of the ploblems with the DC films can be lain at his door. I once saw Batman vs. Superman described as 'the Superman film Lex Luthor would make'. Synder really, really doesn't get Clark Kent and if you don't understand Clark you don't really understand Superman.

[Dr.Samurai]

The film told you what you needed to know when Ross stepped in and gave the Avengers a Dressing down for not being able to tell him were Thor and Hulk were, in exact coordinateds, right that second, on the grounds that they were nuclear weapons that needed to be kept track of.
He didn't ask for exact coordinates, and it was a rhetorical question because he already knew the answer; no one knows where Thor and Banner are. Cap is saying "we made the world a safer place" and Ross is saying that Cap's "we" includes an uncontrollable Hulk that went ballistic in the previous film and had to be taken down, and a god from another planet (that happened to come to Earth with his brother who invaded with an army of aliens). Ross is asking Captain to qualify the claim that the Earth is safer when these powerful beings are running around and no one knows where they are. He's talking about oversight.

And then proceeded to order kill on sight for Winter Solider.
The Winter Soldier is an already known enemy of the United States, with an almost mythic reputation. He was implicated in Hydra's takeover of SHIELD (and Ross showed the eventual consequences of that in the DC footage) and now he's returned to assassinate the king of Wakanda. The Winter Soldier has evaded capture for decades, almost a century, and is a hyper-lethal vector. A kill on sight order seems pretty reasonable.

Cause, you know, questioning or looking through what are now suppose to be public records on the guy or listening to the guy you got the info out that your boss use to be Hydra and they nearly murdered you a couple of years back is for suckers. Let me repeat that. Even after the movie he was in with Hulk and seeing what his thinking caused, even after seeing what they could do, he thinks Hulk, a guy who can brawl at a level worthy of gods, and Thor, an ACTUAL god, are just Nukes for him to order about and deploy as he sees fit and that's all.
Banner struggles to not hulk-out, and Thor fought against his brother to save Manhattan (or rather, the world lol). So yes, if it is an option to have oversight on these people (read: some control) then of course Ross is going to try that. They are super powerful but display a respectable character.

If Banner hulked out whenever he felt like it and didn't care about harming people, Ross would be trying to destroy him or trying to contain him forcibly (like a collar that depresses their abilities or something). Ross has a job. He isn't in the movie to be a hero.

And then was totally ok with Letting Black Panther Murder him with impunity for no other reason than Revenge and Black Panther had some political connections which means the rules don't apply to him.
Black Panther supported the Accords, so presumably he signed on. Further, Ross doesn't care *why* Black Panther is killing the Winter Soldier, only that the Winter Soldier is killed. If Black Panther is working within the Accords to do it, Ross could care less about his motives.

And with Stark opting that revenge fueled Murder is something he's also allowed to do because the rules don't apply to him either. Never mind letting the guy who's mastermind every death so far on screen this movie freaking get away wtih it and that I'm playing right into his hands, I want what makes me feel good inside and that is literally the only thing in the universe that matters to me damn it!
Stark is reacting emotionally at the end of the movie. He is not thinking about the Accords like... at all. Nothing that has happened in the movie matters to him in that moment, because he just witnessed the brutal murder of his mother and father. What exactly is your complaint here? That Tony is human and was successfully manipulated emotionally?

And Stark opting to just straight up imprison Wanda for the crime of having been a successful Hydra experiment that has powers.
Eh, no. He restricted her movement because she lost control of her powers, accidentally caused the murder of dozens of people (which may affect her control over her powers further due to her emotions), and the Accords were in the works and her presence outside where she might cause a fear reaction would not help them in that regard.

Like, it instantly made me twitch when Ross threw a huge document on the table and went "you have three days to agree or we remove you", with clearly nobody around the table having the slightest idea of what was going on. A giant UN resolution takes time to make. It has a process. A public process. Where experts are brought in and diplomats decide on things carefully and stuff. And yet none of the Avengers seemed to know anything about it. The world's only superhero team was not even consulted when drafting legislation that would affect superheroes? With no public process? Sprung from nowhere what, a week after a highly visible incident that would help public opinion forget all these facts?
It is implied that Tony was aware of it.

It's a movie, so no, they aren't going to take months to hammer out an Accords and revise and resubmit over and over and over again, and negotiate and pull out and then re-support, etc. Presumably, the 100+ nations that signed onto it felt strongly about it and agreed to make the Avengers an asset of the United Nations or they get disbanded. They don't need to consult the handful of private citizens. They are US citizens (mostly) and are at the whims of the laws and policies that their elected and appointed officials craft and agree to.

Yeah, that smelled a lot less like "we want oversight" and a lot more like "we want control of this superpowerful weapon for our own interests".
It can be both. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Accords are purely innocent in intent. But obviously the UN will want to control an American group of super-powered individuals, at the very least to say "no, you can't just cross sovereign borders and attack people and cause all types of damage and mayhem at your own discretion".

Which is, if you remember, Cap's biggest sticking point. He worried that it would make the Avengers more or less a gun to be pointed at things. And seeing how things were developed, who is advocating for it (Thunderbolt Ross is a known psychotic control freak, and any plan he spearheads instantly loses multiple points of credibility), and the fact that Cap just got done removing a literal nazi conspiracy from the seats where this plan would by necessity have come from? His misgivings about the shape of this oversight seemed rather reasonable.
I don't think the movie suggests that Ross was spear-heading the Accords. It's the other governments (like Wakanda) that can't tolerate this group of private American citizens running around wrecking ****. And he says "I think *we* have a solution". It's not Ross. Remember, 117 countries signed onto the Accords. Ross is there because he's the Secretary of State and this is a group headquartered in the United States. I'm sure he's chomping at the bit to have the Avengers under supervision, but they will be controlled by the UN, not him. He may be an intermediary but he will eventually have to answer to the UN as well.

[theNater]

It can be both. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Accords are purely innocent in intent.
I get what you're saying here. No rules are perfect, it's always a question of upsides vs. downsides. The basic intent of the Sokovia Accords will have the upside of keeping supers under control, and the downside that supers may be legally compelled to act in ways they find morally questionable. On it's face, these seem like a reasonable set of rules. But they have a particular problem:


Stark is reacting emotionally at the end of the movie. He is not thinking about the Accords like... at all.
They don't actually keep supers under control. There's no upside. So we're trading in this risk of abuse for no benefit. That's not a reasonable exchange.

[Keltest]

I get what you're saying here. No rules are perfect, it's always a question of upsides vs. downsides. The basic intent of the Sokovia Accords will have the upside of keeping supers under control, and the downside that supers may be legally compelled to act in ways they find morally questionable. On it's face, these seem like a reasonable set of rules. But they have a particular problem:


They don't actually keep supers under control. There's no upside. So we're trading in this risk of abuse for no benefit. That's not a reasonable exchange.

In what way don't they keep supers under control? Steve and the others have to go underground or risk being detained again. They are, functionally, retired, which was one of the whole points.

[Anteros]

In what way don't they keep supers under control? Steve and the others have to go underground or risk being detained again. They are, functionally, retired, which was one of the whole points.

Except the like...14 super powered fights that took place in public since then? With presumably a lot more to come.

[Keltest]

Except the like...14 super powered fights that took place in public since then? With presumably a lot more to come.

You mean the fights that resulted in the renegades being locked up? Or the ones that resulted in them fleeing the country? Because that sounds like theyre doing exactly what they were supposed to do.

The accords aren't meant to stop all superhero activity, just to give them accountability and oversight so you don't have, say, a man in a weaponized prosthetic suit flying into a war zone unannounced and shooting people without permission, and causing injuries and destruction of equipment when he gets mistaken for a hostile.

[Sapphire Guard]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of Accords, but the movie went out of its way to set them up as a strawman, by making them as oppressive and useless as possible (Making Ross the face and giving him the authority to order the German police to arrest a suspect in Romania for a terrorist attack in Vienna, forcing Tony himself to defy them to get things done, and so on.)

Funny thing about all these arguments is, we don't have the text, so their isn't much to base our arguments on.

Civil War paints it as 'sign or retire', with nothing at all about registration, where AoS made registration suddenly a big issue. Meanwhile, the Netflix shows are just ignoring the whole thing. We don't really know what the Accords are.

The Accords are not happy with Black Panther at all, he just has diplomatic immunity so they're powerless to stop him.


Justice League's characters aren't undercooked because there's 6 of them, it's undercooked because its simultaneously a sequel and override of the last film, directed by a man more interested in vaguely allegorical visuals than character building.

The character building was cut by the suits and/or Whedon. Snyder is getting a lot of flack for decisions he had nothing to do with.


That only works if you actually use the Trinity from the comics. You cannot do that and then do emo mopey "darker and edgier" Superman.

Which Trinity from the comics? There are many conflicting versions. Superman and Wonder Woman got their introductory movies, Batman didn't need one, because the audience knew everything relevant already, there was shade thrown just for rehashing the Wayne murders in the precredits. Character building for Cyborg/Aquaman/Flash was shot, Whedon and/or the suits just inexplicably cut it in favour of checking in on random Ukrainian family.

[Dr.Samurai]

They don't actually keep supers under control. There's no upside. So we're trading in this risk of abuse for no benefit. That's not a reasonable exchange.
Well, it's legalese. The Accords isn't meant to physically control anyone. It's meant to lay down a set of rules and protocols that people have to abide by or suffer legal consequences. We see this after the airport battle. Bucky and Cap escape. But Clint, Scott, Sam, et al are under arrest and imprisoned. That is precisely what the Accords are meant to do. Play by these rules or retire or face imprisonment.

This is how all laws work. There is no one actually physically forcing me to drive within the speed limit. I have to choose to. And if I don't and a law enforcer is aware, he will enforce the law.

The upside is that someone is culpable that answers to the people. In the videos that Ross shows, we see the Hulk presumably killing someone with just the rubble falling from his building leaps. We see people presumably drowning when the helicarriers crash into the waters around SHIELD headquarters. Now in Lagos, the Avengers took it upon themselves to go to another country and start a battle in the middle of a crowded bazaar and for that dozens of people were killed.

Presumably (again, I keep using that world lol), you could just treat each Avenger as a private citizen and take them to court that way. I don't know the specifics on that. But I think the Accords is a recognition of the Avengers' potential, and an attempt to say "Look, we know that you're doing good, but you've got to answer to someone. The UN seems like the best answer we have at the moment." Otherwise people are just going to point at Captain America and Scarlett Witch and say "Why do you get to kill my loved one? Who gave you permission to do this? What makes you above all of us?" With the Accords, the UN has to answer those questions and pay restitutions to the people.

[Forum Explorer]

Technically, but he's typically treated as American by the narrative of the stories, and he almost always stays in America. He's not exactly what you'd think of when you envision your typical Canadian.

A hairy man who spends a lot of time out in the woods? Sounds pretty Canadian to me. :smalltongue:


I get what you're saying here. No rules are perfect, it's always a question of upsides vs. downsides. The basic intent of the Sokovia Accords will have the upside of keeping supers under control, and the downside that supers may be legally compelled to act in ways they find morally questionable. On it's face, these seem like a reasonable set of rules. But they have a particular problem:


They don't actually keep supers under control. There's no upside. So we're trading in this risk of abuse for no benefit. That's not a reasonable exchange.

That's ultimately the problem with superheroes in general. Superheroes are great! Right up until they disagree with you. By their nature, it's almost impossible to actually put a meaningful control on them. As soon as they decide they don't want to follow a particular rule, then whatever 'system' to control them goes out the window, and the only people who can meaningfully counter them are more supers. Who have the same problem.

And because the only counter is more superheroes, you can't afford to alienate the ones you've got. So you let them get away with a lot of crap. Like going after the Winter Solider on their own, or recruiting minors to help them fight. Because if you don't have any supers, you lose.

So ultimately, yeah, it doesn't work. It's an illusion that you are trying to convince the heroes to believe in. Because the truth is they can do whatever they want, and you can't really do anything about it.

[theNater]

In what way don't they keep supers under control? Steve and the others have to go underground or risk being detained again. They are, functionally, retired, which was one of the whole points.


Well, it's legalese. The Accords isn't meant to physically control anyone. It's meant to lay down a set of rules and protocols that people have to abide by or suffer legal consequences. We see this after the airport battle. Bucky and Cap escape. But Clint, Scott, Sam, et al are under arrest and imprisoned. That is precisely what the Accords are meant to do. Play by these rules or retire or face imprisonment.
Tony Stark, guys. He signs on, agrees to play by the rules, and is completely ignoring them within days. And suffers no consequences for it. He clearly demonstrates that any oversight provided by the Accords are, as Forum Explorer notes, merely an illusion.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tony Stark, guys. He signs on, agrees to play by the rules, and is completely ignoring them within days. And suffers no consequences for it. He clearly demonstrates that any oversight provided by the Accords are, as Forum Explorer notes, merely an illusion.

Witnesses are kind of useful there... I don't think there are any that actually wanted to see Tony punished for his actions.

[Keltest]

Witnesses are kind of useful there... I don't think there are any that actually wanted to see Tony punished for his actions.

Also, by my recall, he didn't actually break any of the accords except maybe when he attacked Steve. The avengers aren't attack dogs, and just traveling isn't illegal.

[Dr.Samurai]

Tony Stark, guys. He signs on, agrees to play by the rules, and is completely ignoring them within days.
I'm not sure what this is meant to prove. I think we're deviating from the point that I, at least, was making about the Accords. It's law, and it works like other laws. You break it and get caught breaking it, and you suffer legal ramifications.

Tony was playing by the rules up until he realized that Bucky really was framed, and there really were five super deadly super soldiers being released, and now only Cap and Bucky were arriving to fight them alone. He doesn't change his mind on the Accords. He says "Cap is off the reservation" but he needs help.

This is the part where people say the movie sets up Team Cap as in the right, because if Tony has any hope of arriving to Siberia on time to help Cap and Bucky, he can't possibly try to explain the scenario to Ross and get the green light. We see when he arrives to the prison that Ross is already upset with the way the airport battle went down. So Tony decides to go against the Accords. Secretly, though, which is the key.

And suffers no consequences for it.
Because no one knows what he did. I don't remember a part in the movie where it is established that Ross is aware that Tony knew of Cap's whereabouts and that he intervened, but I could be forgetting. Likewise, T'Challa doesn't tell Ross about the fight in Siberia or that he has Bucky in cryo.

He clearly demonstrates that any oversight provided by the Accords are, as Forum Explorer notes, merely an illusion.
Sure, an illusion like any sort of "control" is an illusion. It's just law. It works so long as the people follow it. When they don't follow it (and law enforcers know about it) they have to face the consequences.

It's not perfect, but that's not a reason to not try. Last we saw, Wanda is in a straight-jacket, Clint, Sam, and Scott are imprisoned, and Steve is a fugitive. Natasha is on the run, as Tony told her "They're coming for you." And if they do find out that T'Challa is holding the Winter Soldier, they will have to go to battle with Wakanda to retrieve him. This is how the Accords work. Not by physically stopping an enhanced individual from doing anything, but by incentivizing them to do so in accordance with international laws and protocols.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Registered supers are very much attack dogs. They sit in their kennels until someone like Ross gives them a mission to complete in a specified manner. They do so (or go to prison without trial (apparently) for disobeying orders), at which point they return to their kennels to await the next time they're unleashed.

[Anteros]

You mean the fights that resulted in the renegades being locked up? Or the ones that resulted in them fleeing the country? Because that sounds like theyre doing exactly what they were supposed to do.


Oh yeah, that's definitely going to stick. Definitely not going to have a ton of unsupervised heroes running around by the very next movie. Also, what good does fleeing the country do? It's an international treaty.

[Cikomyr]

But it can work other ways too. Just because its shown to work one way does not mean its the only way it can be applied.

In this case, the entire point of the accord is providing legitimacy, accountability and oversight. Yes, some people may want to see it as treating Supers like attack dogs, but others can also see it merely as a way to formalize what is essentially global scale privately-financed vigilantism.

I can see Tony Stark breaking the chain of command, head into Russia unilateraly because he believes there is a Clear and Present danger. But then, for the love of God, have him present his findings and explain his actions to a committee who can then decide whether or not his actions were justified and warranted disobeying the chain of command.

Captain America want everything to depend on his judgement. That he is the best and final judge of the proper course of action to take, and that compromising that judgement is paramount to betraying his principles.

But Civil War also clearly shown that Captain America's judgement is faillible.

Twice

Once at the beginning, when he lets himself be distracted by the "Bucky" reference, which could have led to his death, the death of his team members and more than 50 innocent peoples.

Another time, at the end, when it is revealed that he hid the circumstances of the Starks' death to Tony. He thought he was doing the right thing. But he wasn't, and it led to absolute disaster, because Cap being honest to Stark from the beginning would have probably not left him open to such a gut punch.

The movie proves that both the Accord side and Cap side were fallible. That both were imperfect ideologies. To think that the movie actually shilled for one position unilaterally is to be blind to the flaws on display of the position you support.

[Metahuman1]

Apparently a lot if you Flee to Wakaneda and Black Panther feels like he owes you one cause he's willing to tell Cap at the end that he all but dares anyone to try and come across his boarder looking for a fight at the end of the movie.

Even though it's being pointed out to him it's against the rules, again, he's pointing out that he is above the rules and they can't enforce them on him, so to him, they don't even begin to matter.





Which is consistent with his portrayal all movie. (As to the earlier scene, yeah, Diplomatic Immunity gives him full rights to do exactly what the Accords were allegedly set up in response to, except add in intending to commit deliberate murder in an augmented prosthetic weapons suit on top of that.


It's almost like not locking him up for that right away reeked of hypocrisy and told you once again that the rules are just there to be used by corrupt persons for there own ends by making supers a weapon for people like that to aim.)


And as for Ross, how many people have died cause Ross deliberately caused Banner to hulk out for no other reason than to prove that Banner is a monster and he needs to be captured and then mass produced by Ross under Ross's Control?

And as for him not being in charge, I'll believe it after the United Nations fires him and makes it explicitly clear to the world at large he has approximately 0 authority over ANY soul with ANY super powers, even if there active duty military or his freaking secretary, anymore.




The movie doesn't set it up. It let's such laws pass, and then shows you exactly what they would wind up looking like. Unless you seriously want to tell me there is no such thing as a bad or corrupt or self serving politician with a bend toward being a control freak in the real world, anywhere, ever?



And no, no Stark didn't do it in anticipation of the Accords. He did it after they were signed. And it was imprisonment. In a bigger cell than most, but imprisonment none the less.

If he'd wanted it to be something else, he could have sat down with Wanda and requested she stay out of the public eye for a few weeks, take a vacation, go skiing in the Swiss Alps or something, he'll pay for it. Get some head space and clear her mind of the whole thing. Hell, even offer to send a counselor up to talk to her regularly for that few weeks.


If he'd done that, the reasonable thing to do, he could tell Ross "She's Isolated and receiving professional mental evaluations, they'll have results for us in a couple of months but until then unless we get another alien invasion in the mean time, she's not a thing to worry about." And tell Steve "I offered, as a privet citizen, to send her and a counselor to go to Switzerland on a 3 week Skii trip to a privet spot I rented in the alps. She agreed voluntarily to do it so she could just clear her head of the whole thing. No punishment, no confinement, she just wanted a break and some space and she's getting it and unless the counselor says something is terribly wrong with her, she'll be back from her vacation in a few weeks, just like everyone else on the plant who takes vacations, and it'll be back to business as usual for her."


Hell, if he'd done that, he would have ruined the bad guys plan right there.

[Darth Ultron]

So ultimately, yeah, it doesn't work. It's an illusion that you are trying to convince the heroes to believe in. Because the truth is they can do whatever they want, and you can't really do anything about it.

The ''Civil War'' is the Comics makes a bit more sense:

All the governments have all ways been uneasy with Superheros. Though it is accepted that they do good, and more so do a job no one else can do, so governments are willing to not look so hard. Many of the public groups of heroes, like the Avengers, do accept some light government oversight...but they also agree to limit their actions to ''special'' things. So if a fifth dimensional alien monster shows up in New York the heroes respond...but literally anything else, they stay home.

Of course, the comics also exist in that ''life is just a dream'' type universe....where, amazingly and impossibly, the heroes by action or inaction don't kill anyone.

[Velaryon]

I'm going to ignore the debate RE: Civil War and return to the original topic of why DC films are performing poorly. I can't say much about Justice League since I haven't seen it yet, but this film was set up to fail by everything that has come before it. I'm also not going to comment on the animated films or TV shows, since I haven't seen too much of them and I don't think their problems are related to those of the movies.

First, let's look at the films individually:

Man of Steel - This movie has a LOT wrong with it, starting with Action Hero Jor-El. It's like someone said "Oh $#!* guys, we actually got Russell Crowe to sign on! Quick, we gotta write in some extra scenes for him to justify the money we're gonna have to pay!" It's a Superman origin film - if the scenes on Krypton last longer than about 2 minutes, you're doing it wrong. "But Velaryon," you might be saying, "Those scenes were as much to set up Zod as the villain as they were to tell Superman's origin!" Doesn't matter, they were overlong and a terrible way to start off the film. Zod was only chosen as the villain because they were trying to capitalize on positive memories of Superman II and make people forget about the underwhelming Superman Returns. He's not an ideal first villain for a rebooted franchise.

But it only gets worse from there. The film's tone is off, because Zack Snyder has only one speed - dark and gritty. It worked for 300 and Watchmen, but it doesn't work here. I'm pretty sure at this point DC was just thinking "Well, Batman worked but Green Lantern and our last attempt at Superman didn't, so I guess people want dark and gritty." So we got a needlessly angsty and supposedly conflicted Superman, and as others have described in this thread, they didn't even do it right.

Suicide Squad has a lot wrong with it as well. For starters, it's no secret that the film was plagued by extensive rewrites and studio interference, and that's almost always a bad sign. It's also pretty clear that they tried to grab that R rating and shoehorn in more humor to emulate the success of Deadpool. Obviously, it didn't work, but that's far from the only problem with this film. They took a big risk with Jared Leto's version of the Joker, and I think it's pretty safe to say that it didn't go over as well as the last time (Ledger's version). Some people liked it, many didn't.

The villains were bland and uninteresting, which is a problem since superhero films are only as good as their villains most of the time. Worst of all though, is that many of the characters were pretty superfluous. Only Diablo and Deadshot were particularly significant to the outcome, and Harley was there as the most recognizable character in order to sell the film. She didn't have much to do though, and the others could have been left out entirely without losing anything important.

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice was a step up from Man of Steel, but still a long way from great. Ben Affleck turned out to be a better Batman than many people expected, but his characterization is still heavily flawed (using guns, killing people, etc.) We definitely did not need another origin story, but a solo film introducing this version of Batman and showing him as the older, angrier, and more grizzled version he appears to be would probably have been a good idea. However, there's more: Superman isn't much improved from what we saw in his previous film either. Jesse Eisenberg was a horrible miscast as Lex Luthor. Wonder Woman was done well, but by the time she showed up, the movie was already pretty bad.

Speaking of which, Wonder Woman is easily the best film DC has put out since The Dark Knight. It isn't perfect, but it sheds the grimdark tone and stays faithful to the character. With Justice League coming out so soon afterward, I can only imagine that they didn't have time to learn the lesson that they needed to: namely that being faithful to the character is the single most important thing you must get right when making a comic book film. Did the film have flaws? Sure, but none of them were terribly important IMO, since the movie was successful and well received.

So the common threads here should be:
1. When making a superhero movie, portraying the character correctly is the most important thing to get right.
2. Grimdark tone and washed out colors works for Batman, but not all the other characters.
3. Zack Snyder needs to stop making superhero films.

However, there's still more to cover when it comes to the problems of the DC cinematic universe.

They're trying to do too much in one film. Marvel spent five whole films setting up The Avengers, introducing Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor all in their own films before bringing them together (even if they rebooted Hulk in the process). Meanwhile, DC failed to do the same. Superman, Wonder Woman, and to a much lesser extent Batman were set up beforehand, leaving Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg all to be introduced during the team-up (since movie Flash is not related to TV series Flash, right?) I think they at least should have done the Aquaman solo film before Justice League, as that would have helped. I also think giving this version of Batman his own film (not an origin story, but something to introduce the older, more grizzled version that Affleck is portraying, in contrast to what we've seen before), preferably set before BvS.

[Dr.Samurai]

Oh yeah, that's definitely going to stick. Definitely not going to have a ton of unsupervised heroes running around by the very next movie.
Yeah but that's being kind of meta, no? I don't think the people behind the Accords have enacted it believing that it won't work. By the end of the movie, we have half of the Avengers locked away and two of them on the run as fugitives.

Rhodes reaffirms his commitment to the Accords despite all that has happened, so you've got one "super" enforcer. Vision, I believe, will also reaffirm his belief that oversight cannot be dismissed. He predicted catastrophe would happen, but even he couldn't predict to what degree (that he could become "distracted" and accidentally misfire). So that's another potential "super" enforcer. While Tony appears to brush Ross off, he still appears to believe the Accords are the right way to go by the end of the movie. He ignores the Accords to save Cap, but I think that's Tony making his own judgment call in that moment, as opposed to abandoning the Accords completely (this would make him a hypocrite, as opposed to someone that has changed his mind on the Accords). He never tells Ross they're through; he puts Ross on hold. I think Tony will try to have it both ways.

So you've got at least a couple of super enforcers (probably more if we include Tony and T'challa even though they're being hypocrites) and the rest either in prison or on the run. Seems like the Accords are working. (But I agree with you that by Infinity War everyone will be running around willy nilly lol. But that's just the MCU. As of the end of the movie, the Accords are not a total loss. They are doing what they set out to do.)

Also, what good does fleeing the country do? It's an international treaty.
They go to countries that allow them to lay low. It puts them on the run. They can't live a "normal" life.

Even though it's being pointed out to him it's against the rules, again, he's pointing out that he is above the rules and they can't enforce them on him, so to him, they don't even begin to matter.

Which is consistent with his portrayal all movie. (As to the earlier scene, yeah, Diplomatic Immunity gives him full rights to do exactly what the Accords were allegedly set up in response to, except add in intending to commit deliberate murder in an augmented prosthetic weapons suit on top of that.

It's almost like not locking him up for that right away reeked of hypocrisy and told you once again that the rules are just there to be used by corrupt persons for there own ends by making supers a weapon for people like that to aim.)
He got a pass because it was revealed that he's the freaking king of a nation. It's absolutely *nothing* for Ross to say "T'challa was working under our supervision in keeping with the Accords", whereas it is an international nightmare and prelude to war if he instead arrests and imprisons the king of Wakanda. That's just politics.

If Black Panther was just some random civilian, you can absolutely bet that it would have been a different story. But he's a king, and his father had just died. There are political and sympathetic reasons to give him a pass. Cap is the heart and soul of the Avengers, so Tony is allowed to take another shot at getting him to sign the Accords. But that's it. In the next battle Black Panther is fighting alongside Tony (within the provisions of the Accords) and Cap is going fugitive.

And as for him not being in charge, I'll believe it after the United Nations fires him and makes it explicitly clear to the world at large he has approximately 0 authority over ANY soul with ANY super powers, even if there active duty military or his freaking secretary, anymore.
The Avengers would answer to the UN. So no, he's not in charge. He may be heavily involved since these are mostly US citizens and the US has no interest in allowing it's private citizens to get embroiled (and by proxy get the US embroiled) in international catastrophes. So I can see why he's front and center, but the Accords is an international agreement enforced by the UN. (Though I admit the movie would have been served by having agents of the UN present.)

If he'd wanted it to be something else, he could have sat down with Wanda and requested she stay out of the public eye for a few weeks, take a vacation, go skiing in the Swiss Alps or something, he'll pay for it. Get some head space and clear her mind of the whole thing. Hell, even offer to send a counselor up to talk to her regularly for that few weeks.
I think you're attributing too much to the fact that Tony is imperfect. For all intents and purposes, he did do this. He probably banked on Wanda not wanting to leave the compound anyways and assumed she'd shutter herself. If she didn't, he asked Vision to try and keep her distracted/occupied. I don't think Tony was far off since Wanda didn't really put up a fight and allowed herself (read: agreed) to be kept home.

Cap was almost about to sign until he heard Wanda was under house arrest. That killed the entire endeavor for him. Think about that. He almost agreed to sign the Accords and safely bring Bucky in and get him help, but once he heard that Tony had arranged for Wanda to stay at the compound, he became unmovable once again. I don't hold it against Tony that he didn't bother to mention to Cap that he had Wanda kept at the compound. Cap seems pretty rigid. Wanda seemed guilty and distraught over what she did. It's a safe bet that she'll probably stay there without Tony making a big fuss about it. Cap is a different story. It's a safe bet not approaching him about it is better than checking in with him first.

Tony's failure is in thinking that he can manage everything and everyone. He's meeting with Ross privately and setting up the meeting about the Accords. He's speaking with Vision privately about keeping Wanda detained. He's decided to detain Wanda without telling anyone else, including her. He knows Bucky needs to be brought in and he thinks he can convince Cap to sign the Accords by helping him find and save Bucky. And he uses this to manage Ross' need for resolution to the whole scenario. This is what Clint says at the end from his cell "Tony knows what's best for everyone, even if you don't know it yourself" (or something to that effect).

So you're right that maybe Tony should have been more open with Cap and the others. But Tony already has everyone figured out. Vision used to be his AI and isn't quite human, of course he'll agree if Tony asks him to keep Wanda in the house. Wanda is emotionally distraught and feels guilty and ashamed that she lost control of her powers and killed people, of course she won't fight too hard about being under house arrest. Cap is himself emotionally distraught and distracted because his friend is in mortal danger, best not to tell him about things he doesn't need to know about. I'm the only one scratching Ross' back right now, so he'll give me some leeway in trying to get Steve to turn around. Etc.

The difference is that I don't think these failings means Tony's intent wasn't good. I don't think he wanted or intended to see his friends and allies in prison, or in a straight jacket, or on the run from the law. I think he genuinely thought the situation would get managed, but it didn't turn out that way.


In this case, the entire point of the accord is providing legitimacy, accountability and oversight. Yes, some people may want to see it as treating Supers like attack dogs, but others can also see it merely as a way to formalize what is essentially global scale privately-financed vigilantism.

I can see Tony Stark breaking the chain of command, head into Russia unilateraly because he believes there is a Clear and Present danger. But then, for the love of God, have him present his findings and explain his actions to a committee who can then decide whether or not his actions were justified and warranted disobeying the chain of command.

Captain America want everything to depend on his judgement. That he is the best and final judge of the proper course of action to take, and that compromising that judgement is paramount to betraying his principles.

But Civil War also clearly shown that Captain America's judgement is faillible.

The movie proves that both the Accord side and Cap side were fallible. That both were imperfect ideologies. To think that the movie actually shilled for one position unilaterally is to be blind to the flaws on display of the position you support.
QFT.

They're trying to do too much in one film. Marvel spent five whole films setting up The Avengers, introducing Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor all in their own films before bringing them together (even if they rebooted Hulk in the process). Meanwhile, DC failed to do the same. Superman, Wonder Woman, and to a much lesser extent Batman were set up beforehand, leaving Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg all to be introduced during the team-up (since movie Flash is not related to TV series Flash, right?) I think they at least should have done the Aquaman solo film before Justice League, as that would have helped. I also think giving this version of Batman his own film (not an origin story, but something to introduce the older, more grizzled version that Affleck is portraying, in contrast to what we've seen before), preferably set before BvS.
I was disappointed when they originally announced that BvS would basically kick off the DCEU and feature an old grizzled darker Batman. I was like... so the DCEU will have an old killer Batman? Why make that choice? Seems odd that the on-screen representation of Batman for your cinematic universe will be the Batman from the Dark Night Returns. Why not give us Batman in his prime?

Then, you're giving us mopey grim frowny Superman? At the time I thought they'd change it up from MoS. But he didn't change at all in BvS, and he's still angry and frowny when he returns in JL. Who are these people you are depicting in the DCEU?

Wonder Woman is good. I was disappointed with Flash in JL partly because his backstory seems interesting. His father framed for the murder of his mother? That's nuts. I don't know the Flash's backstory, so that would have been cool to see in it's own movie. Instead... does he get out of prison at the end of the movie? I don't remember. Anyways, there was more I wanted to add to your post but I'm sleepy...

[Lethologica]

Yeah but that's being kind of meta, no? I don't think the people behind the Accords have enacted it believing that it won't work. By the end of the movie, we have half of the Avengers locked away and two of them on the run as fugitives.
Unless I misunderstood the ending, we have that half of the Avengers broken out of prison by Cap.


I think you're attributing too much to the fact that Tony is imperfect. For all intents and purposes, he did do this. He probably banked on Wanda not wanting to leave the compound anyways and assumed she'd shutter herself. If she didn't, he asked Vision to try and keep her distracted/occupied. I don't think Tony was far off since Wanda didn't really put up a fight and allowed herself (read: agreed) to be kept home.

Cap was almost about to sign until he heard Wanda was under house arrest. That killed the entire endeavor for him. Think about that. He almost agreed to sign the Accords and safely bring Bucky in and get him help, but once he heard that Tony had arranged for Wanda to stay at the compound, he became unmovable once again. I don't hold it against Tony that he didn't bother to mention to Cap that he had Wanda kept at the compound. Cap seems pretty rigid. Wanda seemed guilty and distraught over what she did. It's a safe bet that she'll probably stay there without Tony making a big fuss about it. Cap is a different story. It's a safe bet not approaching him about it is better than checking in with him first.

Tony's failure is in thinking that he can manage everything and everyone. He's meeting with Ross privately and setting up the meeting about the Accords. He's speaking with Vision privately about keeping Wanda detained. He's decided to detain Wanda without telling anyone else, including her. He knows Bucky needs to be brought in and he thinks he can convince Cap to sign the Accords by helping him find and save Bucky. And he uses this to manage Ross' need for resolution to the whole scenario. This is what Clint says at the end from his cell "Tony knows what's best for everyone, even if you don't know it yourself" (or something to that effect).
Fittingly, Tony fails to get consensus on oversight because he wasn't willing to let anyone else oversee his behavior.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm not sure what this is meant to prove. I think we're deviating from the point that I, at least, was making about the Accords. It's law, and it works like other laws. You break it and get caught breaking it, and you suffer legal ramifications.

Tony was playing by the rules up until he realized that Bucky really was framed, and there really were five super deadly super soldiers being released, and now only Cap and Bucky were arriving to fight them alone. He doesn't change his mind on the Accords. He says "Cap is off the reservation" but he needs help.

This is the part where people say the movie sets up Team Cap as in the right, because if Tony has any hope of arriving to Siberia on time to help Cap and Bucky, he can't possibly try to explain the scenario to Ross and get the green light. We see when he arrives to the prison that Ross is already upset with the way the airport battle went down. So Tony decides to go against the Accords. Secretly, though, which is the key.

Because no one knows what he did. I don't remember a part in the movie where it is established that Ross is aware that Tony knew of Cap's whereabouts and that he intervened, but I could be forgetting. Likewise, T'Challa doesn't tell Ross about the fight in Siberia or that he has Bucky in cryo.

Sure, an illusion like any sort of "control" is an illusion. It's just law. It works so long as the people follow it. When they don't follow it (and law enforcers know about it) they have to face the consequences.

It's not perfect, but that's not a reason to not try. Last we saw, Wanda is in a straight-jacket, Clint, Sam, and Scott are imprisoned, and Steve is a fugitive. Natasha is on the run, as Tony told her "They're coming for you." And if they do find out that T'Challa is holding the Winter Soldier, they will have to go to battle with Wakanda to retrieve him. This is how the Accords work. Not by physically stopping an enhanced individual from doing anything, but by incentivizing them to do so in accordance with international laws and protocols.

Steve already broke them out of prison. And Tony put Ross on hold, effectively saying 'I'm not going after them'. And that's what I mean by it's an illusion. It's been made abundantly clear throughout the Marvel EU that the only effective counter to a super is another super. The Accords are just an elaborate trick to try and sell the illusion that the world does have control over the heroes, both to themselves, and to the heroes.

But they don't. Not really. If the Avengers had just laughed at Ross and stayed as a group, what could they have done? Tried to fight them? Much bigger and more advanced armies have tried and failed.

And I think by the end of the movie, Tony has seen through the illusion that he has to listen to normal humans. He goes behind Ross's back by shorting out the security in the prison to talk to the other heroes, he goes solo on the mission to stop the waking of all the extra Winter Soldiers, and he puts Ross on hold when Ross tries to tell him about the breakout.

I'm not saying that oversight is a bad thing or anything like that, but just that it simply doesn't work when there is such a massive gap between ordinary people and capes.

When people realize there isn't any consequence for breaking the law, they'll start ignoring it entirely. And effectively there can't be a consequence for the heroes because they are simply needed too badly to risk alienating them.


The ''Civil War'' is the Comics makes a bit more sense:

All the governments have all ways been uneasy with Superheros. Though it is accepted that they do good, and more so do a job no one else can do, so governments are willing to not look so hard. Many of the public groups of heroes, like the Avengers, do accept some light government oversight...but they also agree to limit their actions to ''special'' things. So if a fifth dimensional alien monster shows up in New York the heroes respond...but literally anything else, they stay home.

Of course, the comics also exist in that ''life is just a dream'' type universe....where, amazingly and impossibly, the heroes by action or inaction don't kill anyone.

...No it didn't.

Not saying what you said is wrong, but the Civil War in the comics was handled extraordinarily poorly.

[Rater202]

Not saying what you said is wrong, but the Civil War in the comics was handled extraordinarily poorly.

Marvel just can't do Hero versus Hero storylines effectively. Characterizations will be bent and exaggerated.

(Inhumans vs X-Men, for example, had Inhumans and Nuhumans who supported altering or destroying the Terrigin Cloud becuase it was killing mutants side with the main Inhumans during the conflict, the new Ms. Marvel participated despite the fact that the Champions, of which she's a founding member, were fouded on the grounds of "we're all sickj of these Hero vs Hero" conflicts, and the Inhumans did a complete 180 on their stance o dealing with the Terrigin Cloud hwen they ound it it was about to go Nuclear becuase "preservinng our culture isn't worth evena single mutant lie" even though dozens o Mutants had already died and Medusa knew about that without doing anything about it and Black Bolt or all intents and purposes murdered Cyclops in cold blood when he tried to alter the other Cloud to make it less harmful without permission and told people that the clouds were dangerous to mutants and humans(which they are, despite Medusa's claim that terrigin isn't, unless the inhuman shilling also includes a retcon.) Somehow, this makes Cyclops the new Hitler.)

To be fair though, I don't think there's such a thing as a good Hero vs Hero storyline unless one o the heroes was written rom the begining to be going of the deep end into villainy.

[Avilan the Grey]

You have to remember that the Civil War comic spawned a real one at Marvel. Almost all writers except the writer of Iron Man saw, and portrayed, Tony as the one being in the wrong. Which made the whole thing weird when in one comic book or two the perspective was the opposite.
Especially since the Iron Man comic was the one supposingly tying the whole thing together

[Cikomyr]

You have to remember that the Civil War comic spawned a real one at Marvel. Almost all writers except the writer of Iron Man saw, and portrayed, Tony as the one being in the wrong. Which made the whole thing weird when in one comic book or two the perspective was the opposite.
Especially since the Iron Man comic was the one supposingly tying the whole thing together

The problem with Civil War was straightforward. The story is supposed to be about two apparently good but opposing points of views. But one of these point of view is a thematic that has been depicted as outright evil by a large segment of Marvelverse. How can anyone defend super registration when mutant registration has been seen as an evil?

Thus you ended up with a one-sided argument with heroes needing to be twisted into villany just to keep up with the story.

[Dr.Samurai]

Unless I misunderstood the ending, we have that half of the Avengers broken out of prison by Cap.


Fittingly, Tony fails to get consensus on oversight because he wasn't willing to let anyone else oversee his behavior.
Agreed and agreed. Maybe I'm unclear on what we're arguing. I originally brought Civil War up to contrast a concept done well with DC's attempt at superhero conflict. My impression has been that people are arguing it wasn't done well because it didn't work... exactly as intended or not everyone signed on or the characters have moral failings, etc. So yes, Cap frees them, but now they are all fugitives. The Accords are still in play. So long as they have someone to enforce them (Rhodes will as soon as he is healed, and my money is on Vision as well).


Steve already broke them out of prison. And Tony put Ross on hold, effectively saying 'I'm not going after them'. And that's what I mean by it's an illusion. It's been made abundantly clear throughout the Marvel EU that the only effective counter to a super is another super. The Accords are just an elaborate trick to try and sell the illusion that the world does have control over the heroes, both to themselves, and to the heroes.
Rhodes is not an illusion. That's the point. It works if they buy into it. That's the trick; to give them a reason to buy into. I understand that if Rhodes turns around and says "You know what, screw the Accords, I'm doing what I want" it will be a difficult problem for the UN. But Rhodes isn't saying that. So for all intents and purposes the illusion is very real and fully weaponized.

But they don't. Not really. If the Avengers had just laughed at Ross and stayed as a group, what could they have done? Tried to fight them? Much bigger and more advanced armies have tried and failed.
Most of the Avengers that participated in Civil War can be killed by a bullet, let alone a drone strike. Rhodes is aware of this reality when he appeals to the team to be serious, that it's a handful of them versus over one hundred *nations*. Part of the reason Cap was charging forward through the movie is because there was a kill-on-sight order on Bucky. And he can be killed, easily, if multiple nations are hunting him down. They are vulnerable. This isn't Thor and Banner we're talking about here.

And I think by the end of the movie, Tony has seen through the illusion that he has to listen to normal humans. He goes behind Ross's back by shorting out the security in the prison to talk to the other heroes, he goes solo on the mission to stop the waking of all the extra Winter Soldiers, and he puts Ross on hold when Ross tries to tell him about the breakout.
I'm not convinced Tony has given up completely on the Accords. Out of everyone on the team, he has the most to lose. Tony has... ridiculous assets. For him, becoming a fugitive is probably not an option. I'm assuming these things can be taken away from him legally. The others are soldiers and already lay low. Tony is a billionaire playboy. He can still work within the Accords to handle problems they point him at, but he might just be "busy" every time it's a matter of tracking down the former Avengers and bringing them in.

I'm not saying that oversight is a bad thing or anything like that, but just that it simply doesn't work when there is such a massive gap between ordinary people and capes.
It does if they want it to. The Accords have Rhodes. He is a match for Tony, and realistically a match for any of the other "soldiers" (Black Widow, Clint, Cap, Bucky).

When people realize there isn't any consequence for breaking the law, they'll start ignoring it entirely. And effectively there can't be a consequence for the heroes because they are simply needed too badly to risk alienating them.
When *some* people realize, they'll start ignoring the law entirely. Not all. That is what created the conflict in the first place.

Some people do things because they believe it to be the right thing to do, not simply because they would be punished otherwise.

[Cikomyr]

In a way, the Accords are a lot like Pratchett's Things That Dont Exist Except When We Believe in Them.

Like Justice. Mercy. Duty. The Accords are meant as a way for superheroes to stop being fully unnaccountablr individuals, and it is meant to appeal to the better nature of the heroes.

[Anonymouswizard]

On the Accords, I honestly don't think they affect Thor in any meaningful way (at least at the moment). He's a citizen of a nation with no ties to the UN, who effectively just comes here to hang out with his friends. Sure, his superheroing will be cut into, but he honestly doesn't seem to do a lot of it on Earth, being focused on the other Asgardian realms.

And after Ragnarok he is the leader of a nation with no ties to Earth, at the moment he's unlikely to be in a position where the Accords can affect him at all. Assuming they're still around after Infinity War it's really going to depend on where New Asgard is built and whether Thor feels the need to deal with the UN about them.


Back to DC, a weird thing I've just realised. While I don't like some of Marvel's films, I've still seen most of them, but I've seen none of DC's ones since the Dark Knight trilogy ended. Their adverts seem to suck as well, they can't actually get me interested in the films the same way the adverts for Thor: Ragnarok or Doctor Strange did, or even like the latest Star Wars advert manages ('I know this might be terrible, but if it's not good it looks like the enjoyable kind of terrible').

[lord_khaine]

I'm not convinced Tony has given up completely on the Accords. Out of everyone on the team, he has the most to lose. Tony has... ridiculous assets. For him, becoming a fugitive is probably not an option. I'm assuming these things can be taken away from him legally. The others are soldiers and already lay low. Tony is a billionaire playboy. He can still work within the Accords to handle problems they point him at, but he might just be "busy" every time it's a matter of tracking down the former Avengers and bringing them in.

I am generally in favor of some sort of oversigt, but kinda confused about comments like this, or the ones calling those who sign attack dogs.
As far as i can see there are nothing that turns members of the accord into any sort of soldier. They say what the Avengers cant do, and where they should ask for permission before entering another soverign state.
But i cant see anything that prevents Tony from giving Ross a 3 meter tall holographic finger if he tells Tony to do something he is morally against.

At the very worst Ross can keep Tony from doing hero work, but then risk being forced to come back crawling the next time there is an alien invasion.

[Cikomyr]

I am generally in favor of some sort of oversigt, but kinda confused about comments like this, or the ones calling those who sign attack dogs.
As far as i can see there are nothing that turns members of the accord into any sort of soldier. They say what the Avengers cant do, and where they should ask for permission before entering another soverign state.
But i cant see anything that prevents Tony from giving Ross a 3 meter tall holographic finger if he tells Tony to do something he is morally against.

At the very worst Ross can keep Tony from doing hero work, but then risk being forced to come back crawling the next time there is an alien invasion.

But Ross may or may not be the overwhelming tyrant of the Accords. He maybe was the man in charge of the specific crisis of Civil War, but that does not mean he is the ultimate Judge, Jury and Prosecutor of the Accords. There may be a panel in place meant to review transgressions and/or adjust policies.

Just because an exdcutive chain of command is in place hardly means there is nothing else. Why would the UN completely surrender their authority to the US Secretary of [Something]?

[Dr.Samurai]

On the Accords, I honestly don't think they affect Thor in any meaningful way (at least at the moment). He's a citizen of a nation with no ties to the UN, who effectively just comes here to hang out with his friends. Sure, his superheroing will be cut into, but he honestly doesn't seem to do a lot of it on Earth, being focused on the other Asgardian realms.

And after Ragnarok he is the leader of a nation with no ties to Earth, at the moment he's unlikely to be in a position where the Accords can affect him at all. Assuming they're still around after Infinity War it's really going to depend on where New Asgard is built and whether Thor feels the need to deal with the UN about them.
It's implied at the end of Ragnarok that they will set up New Asgard in Norway, but yeah you're right, there are legal implications. Thor was never made into a superhero with an alter ego masquerading as an Earthling. That said, the Accords may have provisions for individuals like Thor and Vision that are not traditional citizens of any nation.

Back to DC, a weird thing I've just realised. While I don't like some of Marvel's films, I've still seen most of them, but I've seen none of DC's ones since the Dark Knight trilogy ended. Their adverts seem to suck as well, they can't actually get me interested in the films the same way the adverts for Thor: Ragnarok or Doctor Strange did, or even like the latest Star Wars advert manages ('I know this might be terrible, but if it's not good it looks like the enjoyable kind of terrible').
Very true. And interest has just declined with each movie. Each DC movie does worst than the last, including their Avengers-analog, Justice League (the worst performer at the box office so far). Forty percent of BvS movie goers didn't return to see JL. Worldwide that number is 30-50% as well. The only trailer that got me excited was Man of Steel. After I watched Man of Steel, I posted online "Give credit where credit is due; Snyder can make one hell of a trailer...". But after that I agree with you, none of the other movies had trailers that made me interested in the movie or that made me think the movie would be good.

There's also a problem, I think, with all of the marketing for your Justice League movie missing Superman, the heart and soul of the team. These are just weird decisions to make (along with your DCEU Batman being a gun-toting burnt out compromise). It takes interest for granted I think.

[Starbuck_II]

On the Accords, I honestly don't think they affect Thor in any meaningful way (at least at the moment). He's a citizen of a nation with no ties to the UN, who effectively just comes here to hang out with his friends. Sure, his superheroing will be cut into, but he honestly doesn't seem to do a lot of it on Earth, being focused on the other Asgardian realms.
.

Wait, wasn't Thor a prince, thus diplomatic immunity was well?

[Cikomyr]

Wait, wasn't Thor a prince, thus diplomatic immunity was well?

You need signed treaties for diplomatic immunities. Even if its the basis of the diplomatic negotiation you will hold.

[Keltest]

You need signed treaties for diplomatic immunities. Even if its the basis of the diplomatic negotiation you will hold.

Also, I'd wager that a vast majority of the UN believe Thor to be just another hero with a gimmick rather than the literal entity that had been worshipped as a god by earlier mankind.

[Giggling Ghast]

I think it’s kind of funny that a thread about DC movies basically evolved (devolved?) into a debate about the Sokovia Accords.

[Cikomyr]

I think it’s kind of funny that a thread about DC movies basically evolved (devolved?) into a debate about the Sokovia Accords.

Because compare the underlying conflicts of Civil War vs. BvS

Tell me which one is more interesting to argue. Tell me which one is stupid.

[Rater202]

Tell me which one is stupid.

Both.

Hero vs Hero conflicts are usually stupid.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think it’s kind of funny that a thread about DC movies basically evolved (devolved?) into a debate about the Sokovia Accords.

Yeah, I'll admit it's partially my fault, sorry.


Both.

Hero vs Hero conflicts are usually stupid.

I'd disagree with you in any other genre. But I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise when it comes to superheroes.

[theNater]

It works so long as the people follow it.
That's exactly my point: the vast majority of the Avengers are not following the law. And no, being punished for not following it is not the same as following it. Oversight is reasonable idea, but at the end of the day, these Accords don't provide that.

The UN could have put together some version of the Accords that might work. We can absolutely talk about that, if anybody wants, but this version dies when the rubber hits the road.


In a way, the Accords are a lot like Pratchett's Things That Dont Exist Except When We Believe in Them.
Ready to have your mind blown? All laws are like that.


I am generally in favor of some sort of oversigt, but kinda confused about comments like this, or the ones calling those who sign attack dogs.
As far as i can see there are nothing that turns members of the accord into any sort of soldier. They say what the Avengers cant do, and where they should ask for permission before entering another soverign state.
When discussing the Accords, Cap says "What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go?" It's pretty strongly implied that the Accords require the Avengers to obey orders from the UN panel.

[Cikomyr]

Ready to have your mind blown? All laws are like that.

All societal constructs when it comes down to it.

Which was Pratchett's point, methink. The difference between a mere rising ape and Humans are the capacity to lie to ourselves, and imbue that lie with Truth so our better nature comes out.

[Dr.Samurai]

That's exactly my point: the vast majority of the Avengers are not following the law.
I'm not arguing against that point. I've made that point myself now numerous times delineating where each person is by the end of the movie. But I guess I'm not sure what point you're making. By imprisoning the majority of Avengers that aren't following it, the Accords are working to keep private citizens from rampaging across the world and leaving death and destruction in their wake.

And no, being punished for not following it is not the same as following it. Oversight is reasonable idea, but at the end of the day, these Accords don't provide that.
They do provide that. They provide oversight to Rhodes and Vision and probably Tony to some degree. They don't provide oversight to the others because the others are now in prison or fugitives.

Ready to have your mind blown? All laws are like that.
Right. So I'm not sure what the point is in emphasizing that it's an illusion. Yes, it requires people to cooperate. That's no different than anything else.

The UN could have put together some version of the Accords that might work. We can absolutely talk about that, if anybody wants, but this version dies when the rubber hits the road.
I'm not sure why you say that. It has changed the game. It now exists. Anything going forward has to contend with the Accords. Cap has released everyone from prison, but now they are fugitives. The next movie will have to address this. Either the Accords will be modified and they'll come to an agreement, or the threat will be so imminent that the UN will not even try to tie their hands. Whatever it is, the Accords are anything but dead. The heroes weren't released at the end of the movie. They escaped.

When discussing the Accords, Cap says "What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go?" It's pretty strongly implied that the Accords require the Avengers to obey orders from the UN panel.
Agreed. I got the impression that they would follow the UN's orders.

[Forum Explorer]

Marvel just can't do Hero versus Hero storylines effectively. Characterizations will be bent and exaggerated.



To be fair though, I don't think there's such a thing as a good Hero vs Hero storyline unless one o the heroes was written rom the begining to be going of the deep end into villainy.

Marvel's inability to do so doesn't mean there aren't good Hero vs Hero storylines out there.

but it is harder. And it's not as 'clean', since no matter what, a good guy is going to lose.



Agreed and agreed. Maybe I'm unclear on what we're arguing. I originally brought Civil War up to contrast a concept done well with DC's attempt at superhero conflict. My impression has been that people are arguing it wasn't done well because it didn't work... exactly as intended or not everyone signed on or the characters have moral failings, etc. So yes, Cap frees them, but now they are all fugitives. The Accords are still in play. So long as they have someone to enforce them (Rhodes will as soon as he is healed, and my money is on Vision as well).


Rhodes is not an illusion. That's the point. It works if they buy into it. That's the trick; to give them a reason to buy into. I understand that if Rhodes turns around and says "You know what, screw the Accords, I'm doing what I want" it will be a difficult problem for the UN. But Rhodes isn't saying that. So for all intents and purposes the illusion is very real and fully weaponized.

Most of the Avengers that participated in Civil War can be killed by a bullet, let alone a drone strike. Rhodes is aware of this reality when he appeals to the team to be serious, that it's a handful of them versus over one hundred *nations*. Part of the reason Cap was charging forward through the movie is because there was a kill-on-sight order on Bucky. And he can be killed, easily, if multiple nations are hunting him down. They are vulnerable. This isn't Thor and Banner we're talking about here.

I'm not convinced Tony has given up completely on the Accords. Out of everyone on the team, he has the most to lose. Tony has... ridiculous assets. For him, becoming a fugitive is probably not an option. I'm assuming these things can be taken away from him legally. The others are soldiers and already lay low. Tony is a billionaire playboy. He can still work within the Accords to handle problems they point him at, but he might just be "busy" every time it's a matter of tracking down the former Avengers and bringing them in.

It does if they want it to. The Accords have Rhodes. He is a match for Tony, and realistically a match for any of the other "soldiers" (Black Widow, Clint, Cap, Bucky).

When *some* people realize, they'll start ignoring the law entirely. Not all. That is what created the conflict in the first place.

Some people do things because they believe it to be the right thing to do, not simply because they would be punished otherwise.

Rhodes will be out of commission for a while, maybe forever. That depends how realistic they want to go with the whole rehabilitation thing. Vision I'm 50-50 on. I could see him deciding against the Accords just as easily as him continuing to support them.

That doesn't change the illusionary nature of the Accords, by which I mean, that they only have power if they are believed in. Right now, yeah, they have power. Less then they did at the start of Civil War, but some.

Sure, one vs the world might go poorly for the one. But working as a team, well like I've said, they've beaten armies before. They could tear through whatever the US sends to try and confiscate Tony's stuff. If the US would even dare to try, if the Avengers just refused to sign and continued on work as always.

Or if they refused to sign, and then 'retired'. Kinda like a strike, let the world see the devastation that would occur if the Avengers weren't protecting people. Of course, either action is very cold and cruel. It's likely not in their natures to elevate themselves so far above normal people, as true as that may be.

I think Tony has realized just how valuable he is. What are they going to do? Fire him? Rhodes is out of commission, and Vision is having doubts. Doubts that Tony could likely use to get Vision to follow him. Spider-Man effectively followed him into battle not the Accords. Who does that leave? So Tony can pretty much make whatever demands he wants, or at least, refuse to work when he doesn't like what they are asking.

If they all realize, then it's the same thing. The world needs heroes, but heroes don't need the world, not nearly as much of it anyways.

True. And when the right thing requires them to break a law with no consequences, they'll do so immediately. Take Black Panther protecting the Winter Soldier. Or Tony breaking the rules to talk to Team Cap.

[Legato Endless]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of Accords, but the movie went out of its way to set them up as a strawman, by making them as oppressive and useless as possible.

This is the general problem. Oversight is better than no oversight for a wealth of reasons, not the least of which is in the real world, absolutely everyone who does anything vaguely similar to what Superheroes do is subject to it. Because the alternative is silly. To counteract this, oversight has to be cartoonish and Tony hypocritical otherwise Cap has absolutely no point. Unless you support the idea of a Wild West ideal of every man accountable unto himself 'civilization'. That and ironically Cap comes across vaguely fascist in this regard, because that's what the ideal of a man unaccountable to any state or institution driven by his inherent moral superiority is.


That's ultimately the problem with superheroes in general. Superheroes are great! Right up until they disagree with you. By their nature, it's almost impossible to actually put a meaningful control on them. As soon as they decide they don't want to follow a particular rule, then whatever 'system' to control them goes out the window, and the only people who can meaningfully counter them are more supers. Who have the same problem.

It's notable that the real world already has something which fits all of Forum Explorer's criteria minus the fictional exaggeration of scale. The real issue isn't power, it's that the MCU is pretty nihilistic in it's assessment that basically no group can be trusted long term with anything. Because eventually they'll be infiltrated by Nazis, have their latest experiment go rogue or get torn apart through the manipulations of a Bond villain with a grudge.

[lord_khaine]

When discussing the Accords, Cap says "What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go?" It's pretty strongly implied that the Accords require the Avengers to obey orders from the UN panel.

I have about as much trust in Cap's ability to read though the fine print of an FN deal as i have in his ability to chew though his own shield. Patience and analytical thinking has newer been his strong side.
And the answer that should have been given there were "we take the day off/report sick/resign" Unfortunately Cap was not clear enough in his head to do any sort of negotiation.

[Lethologica]

Agreed and agreed. Maybe I'm unclear on what we're arguing. I originally brought Civil War up to contrast a concept done well with DC's attempt at superhero conflict. My impression has been that people are arguing it wasn't done well because it didn't work... exactly as intended or not everyone signed on or the characters have moral failings, etc. So yes, Cap frees them, but now they are all fugitives. The Accords are still in play. So long as they have someone to enforce them (Rhodes will as soon as he is healed, and my money is on Vision as well).
First, I think most of the people arguing about the Accords are past the point of arguing about whether the Accords were a good narrative tool and are deep into arguing about whether the Accords were (a) moral or (b) effective. To some extent, this already demonstrates that the Accords were a good narrative tool.

To the extent that your comments relate to the effectiveness of the Accords, I don't wholly disagree, but...Cap freeing the prisoners demonstrates the weakness of the imprisonment mechanism, Wakanda's disregard for whatever extradition clause the Accords presumably has renders the fugitive status designation rather toothless, and the resulting dependence on supers to enforce the Accords calls into question how different it is from supers self-policing in practice.


I have about as much trust in Cap's ability to read though the fine print of an FN deal as i have in his ability to chew though his own shield. Patience and analytical thinking has newer been his strong side.
And the answer that should have been given there were "we take the day off/report sick/resign" Unfortunately Cap was not clear enough in his head to do any sort of negotiation.
Tony has his opportunity to object to that characterization and doesn't. (Then again, given he basically says he doesn't care what enforcement mechanism is in place as long as there is one, I don't necessarily trust that he read the Accords either.)

[Keltest]

I have about as much trust in Cap's ability to read though the fine print of an FN deal as i have in his ability to chew though his own shield. Patience and analytical thinking has newer been his strong side.
And the answer that should have been given there were "we take the day off/report sick/resign" Unfortunately Cap was not clear enough in his head to do any sort of negotiation.

For that matter, that would be a very good question to ask, say, the people who wrote the accords, instead of Tony, who has access to the same information Steve does.

[Sapphire Guard]

When discussing the Accords, Cap says "What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go?" It's pretty strongly implied that the Accords require the Avengers to obey orders from the UN panel.

Well, Stark appears to get away with putting his orders on hold at the movie's end and/or wriggling out of them.


Because compare the underlying conflicts of Civil War vs. BvS

Tell me which one is more interesting to argue. Tell me which one is stupid.

Neither of them are true underlying conflicts that were handled evenly. Both narratives very clearly pick a side of the debate, (they made General Ross the face of the Accords most likely to remove their legitimacy. And BVS doesn't expect its audience to support the idea that killing Superman is desirable.

The Accords were not done well if you mean being at all plausible as something that countries would agree to or believe would work (the US controlling and organising the police response of European countries to terrorist attacks on their own territory? Not a chance)

One of my major sticking points with Civil War is how the film that's premise is built on the principle of non US nations asserting their sovereignty is shown to have Americans organising everything, including the police responses of other countries!


Re the DCEU, The thing about 'Darker' Batman was that he had been driven to his lowest point by what happened in Metropolis. He's not meant to be right, and giving him a solo movie undermines that arc and wastes time when your audience already knows Batman. Why spend a movie establishing what everyone knows already?

Wonder Woman was extremely effectively sold to the audience by her extended cameo in BVS, which contributed significantly to the subsequent success of her solo movie. Civil War did the same with Spiderman and probably BP. It's not that there's something fundamentally wrong with the approach, it's just that JL was cut so badly for time that the characters' full introductions were cut out. All three of our new characters had large sections of their stories cut in the final product, thanks to an executive mandate to limit the huge team up film's runtime to two hours.

[VelociRapture12]

I've always thought they are trying to hard to catch up with Marvel making their stories feel rushed and incoherent.

[Tyndmyr]

If you're making a point about how a movie can introduce an ensemble in a reasonable amount of time, a three and a half hour and then a three hour movie are possibly not your optimal examples :P


That said, sure, Justice League could have introduced all its characters in a proper well structured two hour movie if it hadn't started out as a three hour movie and been cut down for time.

Especially because all it really needed to introduce were Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg (and Cyborg has never really been an individually interesting character in the comics, even in the Teen Titans cartoon he was clearly the one they never had a handle on and episodes that focused on him tended to be the weakest).

GotG introduces quite a number in a reasonable amount of time. Technically, it introduces seven members of the team, even if one of them isn't well fleshed out yet. Even without her, we're even up with Justice League.

I dare say that Justice League had it even easier, given the widespread knowledge/previous movies three of it's characters featured heavily in.


Oh yeah, that's definitely going to stick. Definitely not going to have a ton of unsupervised heroes running around by the very next movie. Also, what good does fleeing the country do? It's an international treaty.

As mentioned before, this doesn't work very well for Thor, Hulk, or Strange. Of course, none of them were in this movie for that exact reason, =) Or, as mentioned, Black Panther. Or anyone with skills at being undercover. So, maybe half of the superheroes depicted. Hell, if Vision decides not to follow the Accords, who will stop him?

Doesn't seem like locking up a bunch of superheroes would set them up well for the next alien invasion, either. Seriously, even viewing asguardians as threats(which is fair), you've got them AND the Chitarui as credible threats which ought to concern anyone with even slight knowledge of...the news. I mean, it's in character for governments to wrest control over supers, particularly in the Marvel world, but we pretty consistently see that this ends up being a bad thing.

I agree that Cap gets shown as fallible, and he acknowledges that, but his side ends up being right despite human flaws.


Because compare the underlying conflicts of Civil War vs. BvS

Tell me which one is more interesting to argue. Tell me which one is stupid.

Well, this is pretty open and shut. Most folks only agree with one side of Civil War, but the conflict is inherently interesting, and people feel strongly about both sides. The conflict feels as if it has weight.

On the other hand, Justice League 2'll probably be resolved by revealing that Hippolyta is greek for Martha.

[Lleban]

On the other hand, Justice League 2'll probably be resolved by revealing that Hippolyta is greek for Martha.

Given the first films box office bomb, I doubt we'll ever get a justice league sequel. Good riddance all things considered.

[Dr.Samurai]

Marvel's inability to do so doesn't mean there aren't good Hero vs Hero storylines out there.

but it is harder. And it's not as 'clean', since no matter what, a good guy is going to lose.
I'm typically not a fan of these premises because they usually seem pretty contrived.

Rhodes will be out of commission for a while, maybe forever. That depends how realistic they want to go with the whole rehabilitation thing. Vision I'm 50-50 on. I could see him deciding against the Accords just as easily as him continuing to support them.
But Rhodes' injuries are not relevant in determining whether the Accords can work. He believes in the Accords. If he was fully able-bodied then that's one superhero ready to do the will of the UN. If Vision takes the events at the airfield as confirmation of his predictions, that's another superhero ready to do the bidding of the Accords. You just need people that agree with or believe in the Accords for it to work.

My argument is hypothetical, obviously, since as of now there is no one definitely for sure enforcing the Accords. But the end result is not an argument that it would have never worked or should not have been tried.

That doesn't change the illusionary nature of the Accords, by which I mean, that they only have power if they are believed in.
But what is the point of this remark? Are you saying it should not have been attempted because of this? Or it would never have worked? I don't think anyone believes the Accords actually grant physical power. So what is the point of harping on it's "illusionary" power?

Sure, one vs the world might go poorly for the one. But working as a team, well like I've said, they've beaten armies before. They could tear through whatever the US sends to try and confiscate Tony's stuff. If the US would even dare to try, if the Avengers just refused to sign and continued on work as always.
Let's say Sam, Bucky, Natasha, and Steve are together ready to take down an entire army. There is nothing they can do against a drone strike. Or carpet bombs. Or a MOAB. No one can help Sam in the sky fighting off more drones than he even knew existed. He's on his own up there. Cap's shield won't save him from multiple missile strikes.

Tony might try to help them but he'd have to contend with Rhodes. It's not just confiscating Tony's stuff either. It's freezing his assets.

Or if they refused to sign, and then 'retired'. Kinda like a strike, let the world see the devastation that would occur if the Avengers weren't protecting people. Of course, either action is very cold and cruel. It's likely not in their natures to elevate themselves so far above normal people, as true as that may be.
But I made this point earlier with Banner and Ross. These are the people we're dealing with. If they were cold and cruel they probably would have been attacked by now. But since they're not, it's reasonable to expect the world to try and establish some form of control over them.

I think Tony has realized just how valuable he is. What are they going to do? Fire him? Rhodes is out of commission, and Vision is having doubts. Doubts that Tony could likely use to get Vision to follow him. Spider-Man effectively followed him into battle not the Accords. Who does that leave? So Tony can pretty much make whatever demands he wants, or at least, refuse to work when he doesn't like what they are asking.
This may very well be the resolution that we see in the next movie. But I don't think Tony has changed his mind on oversight. Even if he doesn't like seeing Wanda in a straight-jacket.

If they all realize, then it's the same thing. The world needs heroes, but heroes don't need the world, not nearly as much of it anyways.
I just don't see how this is true. What infrastructure will they be using to learn of threats and save the world if they are fugitives on the run from half the nations in the world?

I get the fact that this is a movie and they will likely write some way out of this. But realistically, I don't think it's reasonable that the Avengers would simply shrug and say "come at me bro" to the entire world and not be worried about consequences.

True. And when the right thing requires them to break a law with no consequences, they'll do so immediately. Take Black Panther protecting the Winter Soldier. Or Tony breaking the rules to talk to Team Cap.
But notice they are doing these things in secret. As opposed to recognizing their god-like power and showing off how easily they ignore the Accords when it suits them.

Let me pose this question: Suppose Tony goes to speak to Sam, and gets the coordinates. And when Ross asks him if he got any info, Stark says "Yeah, I did. But I'm done with the Accords. The Avengers will handle this in house and afterwards you and I will talk about "ratifying" these Accords."

What do you think the consequences would have been? Would Ross have simply said "Oh, ok. Nothing I can do to stop you." or do you think he would have, at the very least, warned Stark about the line he was crossing? What if Tony hacked the containment system and released everyone and said "Sorry, but the world needs the Avengers to act right now. I can't let the Accord get in the way of that." Would Ross have simply shrugged his shoulders?

[Giggling Ghast]

because compare the underlying conflicts of civil war vs. Bvs

WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME :smallfurious:

[Tyndmyr]

Given the first films box office bomb, I doubt we'll ever get a justice league sequel. Good riddance all things considered.

With a production budget of $300m, and a box office of 481m worldwide, it's already hit payback. It's new enough to keep getting some additional ticket sales, and then there's DVD sales and such. It'll end up being decently profitable, if not amazing.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see DC make another Justice League. A larger and larger percentage of action movie ticket sales is no longer from the picky US market, but can get by on spectacle in the Chinese market(and, to a lesser extent, South America).

[Kitten Champion]

With a production budget of $300m, and a box office of 481m worldwide, it's already hit payback. It's new enough to keep getting some additional ticket sales, and then there's DVD sales and such. It'll end up being decently profitable, if not amazing.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see DC make another Justice League. A larger and larger percentage of action movie ticket sales is no longer from the picky US market, but can get by on spectacle in the Chinese market(and, to a lesser extent, South America).

That's ignoring the marketing costs that are considerable here, the extra costs not in the initial estimate that most certainly exists here with the widely reported re-shoots and editing, the fact that they don't make the same percentage of profits from China that they do from the domestic box offices, and most of all studio expectations.

It's not a Fan4stic bomb or anything, but if you had the tent-pole of tent-poles for WB with their existing IPs, it would be the Justice League and just doing enough to make your money back is not what tent-poles exists for.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm typically not a fan of these premises because they usually seem pretty contrived.





But Rhodes' injuries are not relevant in determining whether the Accords can work. He believes in the Accords. If he was fully able-bodied then that's one superhero ready to do the will of the UN. If Vision takes the events at the airfield as confirmation of his predictions, that's another superhero ready to do the bidding of the Accords. You just need people that agree with or believe in the Accords for it to work.

My argument is hypothetical, obviously, since as of now there is no one definitely for sure enforcing the Accords. But the end result is not an argument that it would have never worked or should not have been tried.

But what is the point of this remark? Are you saying it should not have been attempted because of this? Or it would never have worked? I don't think anyone believes the Accords actually grant physical power. So what is the point of harping on it's "illusionary" power?

Let's say Sam, Bucky, Natasha, and Steve are together ready to take down an entire army. There is nothing they can do against a drone strike. Or carpet bombs. Or a MOAB. No one can help Sam in the sky fighting off more drones than he even knew existed. He's on his own up there. Cap's shield won't save him from multiple missile strikes.

Tony might try to help them but he'd have to contend with Rhodes. It's not just confiscating Tony's stuff either. It's freezing his assets.

But I made this point earlier with Banner and Ross. These are the people we're dealing with. If they were cold and cruel they probably would have been attacked by now. But since they're not, it's reasonable to expect the world to try and establish some form of control over them.

This may very well be the resolution that we see in the next movie. But I don't think Tony has changed his mind on oversight. Even if he doesn't like seeing Wanda in a straight-jacket.

I just don't see how this is true. What infrastructure will they be using to learn of threats and save the world if they are fugitives on the run from half the nations in the world?

I get the fact that this is a movie and they will likely write some way out of this. But realistically, I don't think it's reasonable that the Avengers would simply shrug and say "come at me bro" to the entire world and not be worried about consequences.

But notice they are doing these things in secret. As opposed to recognizing their god-like power and showing off how easily they ignore the Accords when it suits them.

Let me pose this question: Suppose Tony goes to speak to Sam, and gets the coordinates. And when Ross asks him if he got any info, Stark says "Yeah, I did. But I'm done with the Accords. The Avengers will handle this in house and afterwards you and I will talk about "ratifying" these Accords."

What do you think the consequences would have been? Would Ross have simply said "Oh, ok. Nothing I can do to stop you." or do you think he would have, at the very least, warned Stark about the line he was crossing? What if Tony hacked the containment system and released everyone and said "Sorry, but the world needs the Avengers to act right now. I can't let the Accord get in the way of that." Would Ross have simply shrugged his shoulders?

Usually because it's taking established heroes and having them fight each other. The best way to do a 'good guy vs good guy' story is to establish the conflict at the beginning and that both sides have their heroes. It's not something that's done well in superhero works because usually the heroes are established. So you know, basically Marvel and DC (plus some other things).


Well to sum up my point, the Marvel universe is deluding itself if it thinks that ordinary people and capes are essentially equal.

The heroes could turn around and conquer the world. And there really isn't a lot the normal people could do to stop them. Effectively they are a superpower (and I mean politically) in their own right. Well, so long as they are more or less united anyways. That was the whole point of what's his faces plan. Breaking up the Avengers and effectively breaking a lot of their power.

Basically the Accords don't address the fundamental problem of superheroes. They aren't human. Not really. Trying to hold them to human standards is only going to last as long as the heroes want it to. It was a good try, and certainly it would be great if there was oversight on them, but if their only form of control on heroes is other heroes, then whoever has heroes wins.

And an illusion only works if someone believes it.

Didn't Captain America and Falcon take down pretty much all of Shield (corrupted by Hydra) by themselves? It's been a while, but that was the plot of the second Captain America movie right? Yeah, they had help, but not of that many people. And they still won. And the Winter Solider was against them in that movie.

I mean for example, those 4 you mentioned are fighting against an army. They are dodging and buying time in a city, until Natasha finishes infiltrating the building where the drones are being controlled from. She kills the operator and hijacks control. Then Falcon starts smashing windows of jetplanes and pulling the pilots out. Hawkeye snipes people targeting Captain America who just pummels his way through the normal soldiers fighting them. I'm pretty sure I've seen something much like that before. Or something like that.

Yeah they'll freeze his assets. Which will work right until he frees them back up or tells Jarvis to. He can't do that? Like hell he can't. He casually hacks right through the US military's security to access their spy satellites. He does this during a meeting. He could reveal all of the states dirty little secrets, or just flat out take back what's his. We've already seen them try and fail to stop him.

Sure it's reasonable for the world to try. It's even moral for them to try. The problem is they can't.

The point is they don't need to save the world. They can just let it burn while looking out for their own interests. They could side with the villains if they wanted to. And the world would be ******. Because the only thing the worlds got going for them is the heroes.

Because they are heroes. They don't want to bully and threaten the world into doing their bidding. But it's a crucial difference between need, want, can't, have to, and want to.

Two things would've happened. Either Ross would've backed down, maybe blustering a bit, but ultimately letting Tony do what he wants. Or he would've tried to stop him, gotten his men (and maybe himself) injured, possibly killed, and Tony frees them anyways.

What would result from that? Lots of things. But the Avengers could easily reveal all the corrupt politics in the current government (for example Ross's whole career), and simply run to be elected themselves. Do you think they'd lose such an election?

[Tyndmyr]

That's ignoring the marketing costs that are considerable here, the extra costs not in the initial estimate that most certainly exists here with the widely reported re-shoots and editing, the fact that they don't make the same percentage of profits from China that they do from the domestic box offices, and most of all studio expectations.

It's not a Fan4stic bomb or anything, but if you had the tent-pole of tent-poles for WB with their existing IPs, it would be the Justice League and just doing enough to make your money back is not what tent-poles exists for.

Sure, but it won't burn them enough to keep from taking another stab at the big time.

I mean, it should certainly be a warning that they are off somewhere, but hey, if Suicide Squad didn't do that for them, I dunno what will. I'm not confident that DC really understands what they're doing wrong, or will take logical steps to fix it.

[Cikomyr]

Didn't Captain America and Falcon take down pretty much all of Shield (corrupted by Hydra) by themselves? It's been a while, but that was the plot of the second Captain America movie right? Yeah, they had help, but not of that many people. And they still won. And the Winter Solider was against them in that movie.


What?!

Did you fall asleep when they showed Hydra agents being investigated and arrested by the FBI, the CIA, and many intel agencies?

Cap and Co stopped Hydra's immediate plot. But "taking down Hydra" was a massive endeavour that literally took dozens of people.

[Keltest]

Usually because it's taking established heroes and having them fight each other. The best way to do a 'good guy vs good guy' story is to establish the conflict at the beginning and that both sides have their heroes. It's not something that's done well in superhero works because usually the heroes are established. So you know, basically Marvel and DC (plus some other things).


Well to sum up my point, the Marvel universe is deluding itself if it thinks that ordinary people and capes are essentially equal.

The heroes could turn around and conquer the world. And there really isn't a lot the normal people could do to stop them. Effectively they are a superpower (and I mean politically) in their own right. Well, so long as they are more or less united anyways. That was the whole point of what's his faces plan. Breaking up the Avengers and effectively breaking a lot of their power.

Basically the Accords don't address the fundamental problem of superheroes. They aren't human. Not really. Trying to hold them to human standards is only going to last as long as the heroes want it to. It was a good try, and certainly it would be great if there was oversight on them, but if their only form of control on heroes is other heroes, then whoever has heroes wins.

And an illusion only works if someone believes it.

Didn't Captain America and Falcon take down pretty much all of Shield (corrupted by Hydra) by themselves? It's been a while, but that was the plot of the second Captain America movie right? Yeah, they had help, but not of that many people. And they still won. And the Winter Solider was against them in that movie.

I mean for example, those 4 you mentioned are fighting against an army. They are dodging and buying time in a city, until Natasha finishes infiltrating the building where the drones are being controlled from. She kills the operator and hijacks control. Then Falcon starts smashing windows of jetplanes and pulling the pilots out. Hawkeye snipes people targeting Captain America who just pummels his way through the normal soldiers fighting them. I'm pretty sure I've seen something much like that before. Or something like that.

Yeah they'll freeze his assets. Which will work right until he frees them back up or tells Jarvis to. He can't do that? Like hell he can't. He casually hacks right through the US military's security to access their spy satellites. He does this during a meeting. He could reveal all of the states dirty little secrets, or just flat out take back what's his. We've already seen them try and fail to stop him.

Sure it's reasonable for the world to try. It's even moral for them to try. The problem is they can't.

The point is they don't need to save the world. They can just let it burn while looking out for their own interests. They could side with the villains if they wanted to. And the world would be ******. Because the only thing the worlds got going for them is the heroes.

Because they are heroes. They don't want to bully and threaten the world into doing their bidding. But it's a crucial difference between need, want, can't, have to, and want to.

Two things would've happened. Either Ross would've backed down, maybe blustering a bit, but ultimately letting Tony do what he wants. Or he would've tried to stop him, gotten his men (and maybe himself) injured, possibly killed, and Tony frees them anyways.

What would result from that? Lots of things. But the Avengers could easily reveal all the corrupt politics in the current government (for example Ross's whole career), and simply run to be elected themselves. Do you think they'd lose such an election?

I think youre missing the point of the Accords. It isn't meant to give the UN a super powered attack dog, it is meant to give individual nations the right to say "no, we don't want Iron Man shooting missiles in the middle of an urban area" even if there are terrorists with Stark guns involved. We see it in Ultron that there are large numbers of people who don't like that the avengers start fights in their homes.

[Lethologica]

a massive endeavour that literally took dozens of people
Not the order of magnitude I was expecting tbh

[Forum Explorer]

What?!

Did you fall asleep when they showed Hydra agents being investigated and arrested by the FBI, the CIA, and many intel agencies?

Cap and Co stopped Hydra's immediate plot. But "taking down Hydra" was a massive endeavour that literally took dozens of people.

I'm more thinking of the actual fight scenes for said immediate plot. Hydra brought a lot of force to bear against Cap, and it still wasn't enough.


I think youre missing the point of the Accords. It isn't meant to give the UN a super powered attack dog, it is meant to give individual nations the right to say "no, we don't want Iron Man shooting missiles in the middle of an urban area" even if there are terrorists with Stark guns involved. We see it in Ultron that there are large numbers of people who don't like that the avengers start fights in their homes.

I thought it was more setting a system in place to control the Avengers activities. Not so much making them an attack dog, but to provide oversight and control over their actions. So the Avengers would have to justify their actions after the fact, could be punished if they acted incorrectly, could be requested to help with certain problems, and yes, to tell them to NOT interfere with some things.

[Rogar Demonblud]

With a production budget of $300m, and a box office of 481m worldwide, it's already hit payback.

No, it hasn't. Studios only get half (actually, about 48.5%) of the box office. Marketing and advertising is also a thing that isn't included in the production budget; how much it is varies with each film, but given WB's push on Justice League industry pundits are assuming it's a hefty 60% increase.

So the movie cost ballpark $480 million, which means they need the box office take to get north of $960 million before it turns a profit. Current projections are that it likely won't get much past $700 before Last Jedi shows up and eats its lunch.

edit:
I thought it was more setting a system in place to control the Avengers activities. Not so much making them an attack dog, but to provide oversight and control over their actions. So the Avengers would have to justify their actions after the fact, could be punished if they acted incorrectly, could be requested to help with certain problems, and yes, to tell them to NOT interfere with some things.

"Oversight" apparently doesn't exist, because it's just control. Ross stated outright that the Avengers and/or any other registered people will only deploy when higher authority gives them permission to. Oversight and accountability would follow more like what Cap did in his first movie, where he took off to raid the factory and free the prisoners, returns to camp and walks right up to his superior and says "I'd like to surrender myself for disciplinary action."

[Kitten Champion]

Sure, but it won't burn them enough to keep from taking another stab at the big time.

I mean, it should certainly be a warning that they are off somewhere, but hey, if Suicide Squad didn't do that for them, I dunno what will. I'm not confident that DC really understands what they're doing wrong, or will take logical steps to fix it.

I don't think they're going to just give up and sell flowers by the road-side, and who knows what things will look like in a few years. I do seriously question whether their ambitious - to put it mildly - production schedule will look anything like it does now after the studio does a post mortem on this. Which, well, most of the money has been made that will be made at this point and the hype machine has already moved on to Star Wars.

I can't see how this met their expectations, it didn't meet my expectations and I'm mostly full of cynical detachment.

I said this in one of my prior posts, but Age of Ultron disappointed Disney (or so it's said) and it made well over a billion dollars with a smaller estimated budget than Justice League. It (supposedly) led to some executive shakeup in Marvel Studios with more power given to Feige.

[Cikomyr]

Not the order of magnitude I was expecting tbh

Yhea. Its just that i got thinking... Maybe 24-36 people strong task force from the FBI, similar from the CIA.. thats dozens, and it still a lot.

Maybe similar numbers in other nations. Then we get to a few hundreds.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Age of Ultron disappointed Disney (or so it's said)

That might explain why they're being such massive ****s about the profit sharing conditions (https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-lays-down-the-law-for-theaters-on-star-wars-the-last-jedi-1509528603) for tLJ.

I mean, it's also because they can, but the numbers internally might not look as rosy as they seem from the outside.

GW

[Kitten Champion]

That might explain why they're being such massive ****s about the profit sharing conditions (https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-lays-down-the-law-for-theaters-on-star-wars-the-last-jedi-1509528603) for tLJ.

I mean, it's also because they can, but the numbers internally might not look as rosy as they seem from the outside.

GW

I am curious to see what they'll do if tLJ under-performs compared to TFA, which I don't think is too likely all things considered... but it's a possibility.

Though, with both Marvel or Star Wars they've got additional merchandising up the wazoo to support 'em. Something these DC movies don't really engender, which has been a curious aspect of WB/DC's direction since the Dark Knight movies and stamping "THIS IS SERIOUS ADULT STUFF" on everything.

[Metahuman1]

No, it hasn't. Studios only get half (actually, about 48.5%) of the box office. Marketing and advertising is also a thing that isn't included in the production budget; how much it is varies with each film, but given WB's push on Justice League industry pundits are assuming it's a hefty 60% increase.

So the movie cost ballpark $480 million, which means they need the box office take to get north of $960 million before it turns a profit. Current projections are that it likely won't get much past $700 before Last Jedi shows up and eats its lunch.

edit:

"Oversight" apparently doesn't exist, because it's just control. Ross stated outright that the Avengers and/or any other registered people will only deploy when higher authority gives them permission to. Oversight and accountability would follow more like what Cap did in his first movie, where he took off to raid the factory and free the prisoners, returns to camp and walks right up to his superior and says "I'd like to surrender myself for disciplinary action."

Precisely.

And further, ROSS IS ONE OF THOSE AUTHORITY FIGURES! AND HE HAS A LONG HISTORY OF DOING WHATEVER HE WANTS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT!!!!!! Geez he straight up created The Abomination! WE KNOW for a FACT he CAN'T be trusted to so much as be a messenger and he has authority to straight up tell the Avengers were and when they can or will deploy.

And you can tell me about his UN oversight the moment you can point to screen time of Ross saying do A, the UN reps saying do B, and everyone Doing B because the UN outranks Ross. It's not a valid defense before that happens.



As for being able to take them cause Thor and Hulk aren't there, yeah, Ross straight up said that there Nuclear weapons to be kept track of. I promise you he's gonna try to do it if the Accords are still in effect when New Asguard sets up on earth. He's going to try and tell both of them to register and submit to his authority. He's wanted Authority on Hulk for years and the UN just GAVE IT TO HIM ON A SILVER PLATTER!!!!!!!!

The only good thing that might happen is we might get World War Hulk out of the deal. Or that scene from shortly after Civil War when Thor comes back to earth, hears about Starks BS, gives him a dressing down and ends it on a note of "Your a man, who wears a metal suit, that runs on electricity. I. Am. The. God. Of. Thunder. Do you think this was wise?" And proceeds to slag Starks armor and make it clear to him the only reason Stark was surviving this was because this was his warning to back off if he valued his life.


The only way they are gonna avoid this is if they scrap the accords before he get's his chance, or he does, it happens, the UN takes one look at this and decides it chooses not getting vaporized form orbit, and resends the Accords.



Because we know, flat out, the only thing they've got that has a fighting chance against Hulk is Starks Hulk Buster, and it had to outright get lucky against Hulk the first time. And that was JUST Hulk. If he's gotta deal with Thor as well, yeah, this goes badly for Stark VERY fast.

[Keltest]

Precisely.

And further, ROSS IS ONE OF THOSE AUTHORITY FIGURES! AND HE HAS A LONG HISTORY OF DOING WHATEVER HE WANTS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT!!!!!! Geez he straight up created The Abomination! WE KNOW for a FACT he CAN'T be trusted to so much as be a messenger and he has authority to straight up tell the Avengers were and when they can or will deploy.

And you can tell me about his UN oversight the moment you can point to screen time of Ross saying do A, the UN reps saying do B, and everyone Doing B because the UN outranks Ross. It's not a valid defense before that happens.



As for being able to take them cause Thor and Hulk aren't there, yeah, Ross straight up said that there Nuclear weapons to be kept track of. I promise you he's gonna try to do it if the Accords are still in effect when New Asguard sets up on earth. He's going to try and tell both of them to register and submit to his authority. He's wanted Authority on Hulk for years and the UN just GAVE IT TO HIM ON A SILVER PLATTER!!!!!!!!

The only good thing that might happen is we might get World War Hulk out of the deal. Or that scene from shortly after Civil War when Thor comes back to earth, hears about Starks BS, gives him a dressing down and ends it on a note of "Your a man, who wears a metal suit, that runs on electricity. I. Am. The. God. Of. Thunder. Do you think this was wise?" And proceeds to slag Starks armor and make it clear to him the only reason Stark was surviving this was because this was his warning to back off if he valued his life.


The only way they are gonna avoid this is if they scrap the accords before he get's his chance, or he does, it happens, the UN takes one look at this and decides it chooses not getting vaporized form orbit, and resends the Accords.



Because we know, flat out, the only thing they've got that has a fighting chance against Hulk is Starks Hulk Buster, and it had to outright get lucky against Hulk the first time. And that was JUST Hulk. If he's gotta deal with Thor as well, yeah, this goes badly for Stark VERY fast.

I think youre greatly flanderizing Ross here. He isn't a moron, he isn't going to just pick a fight with Thor and Hulk and cause destruction on an untold scale because that is exactly what the accords are meant to prevent. He would get fired faster than you can say "It seemed like a good idea at the time". Furthermore, Thor is the leader of a sovereign nation. The UN has absolutely no authority over him, so Ross wouldn't even be allowed to look in his direction in the first place.

[Rater202]

I think youre greatly flanderizing Ross here. He isn't a moron, he isn't going to just pick a fight with Thor and Hulk and cause destruction on an untold scale because that is exactly what the accords are meant to prevent. He would get fired faster than you can say "It seemed like a good idea at the time". Furthermore, Thor is the leader of a sovereign nation. The UN has absolutely no authority over him, so Ross wouldn't even be allowed to look in his direction in the first place.

MCU Ross must be radically differant from the main comic Ross then.

Since Comic Ross is the guy who on dozens of occasions came up with plans to capture the Hulk that boiled down to "intentionally piss off the Hulk."

[Keltest]

MCU Ross must be radically differant from the main comic Ross then.

Since Comic Ross is the guy who on dozens of occasions came up with plans to capture the Hulk that boiled down to "intentionally piss off the Hulk."

MCU ross hasn't been in the spotlight too much, and the main movie that he was in is only pseudocanon, but he does seem to have a more level head than comics ross, not that that's a particularly high bar.

[Kitten Champion]

The thing about Ross is that it doesn't matter if you dislike him, question his competence, or interpret his presence as overtly politically motivated, he's the Secretary of State for the United States and apparently given direct authority in this situation -- I don't know how that would work in reality but that's irrelevant as it's certainly how he's positioned in the film.

Saying "I will follow the law only if I personally approve of those enacting or enforcing it" doesn't work in a liberal democratic society, particularly for those in positions of great personal power.

[Mechalich]

The thing about Ross is that it doesn't matter if you dislike him, question his competence, or interpret his presence as overtly politically motivated, he's the Secretary of State for the United States and apparently given direct authority in this situation -- I don't know how that would work in reality but that's irrelevant as it's certainly how he's positioned in the film.

Saying "I will follow the law only if I personally approve of those enacting or enforcing it" doesn't work in a liberal democratic society, particularly for those in positions of great personal power.

This is, in some ways, a central problem of superheroes. Liberal democratic society depends on base assumptions of equality between persons to function, but superheroes are explicitly not-equal by definition, and insofar as their powers are inherent to their personal capacity (which doesn't apply to tech-based characters, the legal principles applied Iron Man or Ant Man are very different from those dealing with Thor or the Hulk even though the movies aren't really in a position to interrogate that) the legal framework of modern liberal democracy brakes down when trying to contain them.

Comic-book universes generally try and hand wave these issues and pretend that the existence of beings who can do things like smash tanks with their bare hands doesn't require any reconsideration of exiting norms in the same way that they pretend that the technologies invented by Tony Stark or Reed Richards have no functional impact on society at large (or when they do take things a bit more seriously, like any time Superman attempts to rule some alternate Earth they just ratchet up the grimdark so they don't have to consider anything complicated). This is a piece of willing suspension of disbelief that they demand, which is why discussion of the minutia of the Accords is largely pointless - the universe can't support the discussion.

Note that universes that have tried to wrestle with the implications of superpowered people versus democratic law tend to fail massively - the Star Wars EU spent thirty years running in circles around the problem of what duties, rights, and privileges should be accorded the Jedi without reaching any appropriate answers. The various attempts by the Heroes TV show to deal with the consequences of supers in a more realistic way collapsed inwards in a huge hurry. Watchman - a rather on point parallel for this discussion - provides the answer that god in the form of Dr. Manhattan has to leave the world behind in order to save it, but that's not a viable option for mid-level supers.

The proper moral and functional system of governance in a world where gods actually do walk amongst us is a truly difficult problem. Marvel, smartly, has largely avoided trying to offer a real answer and has instead utilized moral satisfying hand-waves. DC made the mistake of taking it just seriously enough - by having Superman kill Zod in Man of Steel and having Batman seriously consider whether the only viable option was to try and kill god - to have everything crumble.

[Metahuman1]

MCU ross hasn't been in the spotlight too much, and the main movie that he was in is only pseudocanon, but he does seem to have a more level head than comics ross, not that that's a particularly high bar.

His plan the first time in that movie, that is most assuredly Canon, was send in vanilla commando guys and Tell them nothing about there target other than "He's a dangerous fighter.". To people who LIVE to draw out fights against dangerous fighters to see how well they can hold up. This was a disaster.


His second plan was to deliberately piss off the Hulk in a populated civilian area so he could throw weapons at it to show his daughter she was wrong to have feelings for him. Cause proving to your daughter that father knows best is what matters damn it!



His third plan compounded with the damage from his second plan and managed to create and unleash on Harlem, New York City, The Abomination. And then he had to let Hulk Loose and throw more weapons at it to fight it. Ergo Banners line in Avengers 1. "Last time I was in New York I sort of Broke, Harlem.". Incidentally, Shield had to cover this one up for him cause he couldn't even do THAT part right he'd buggered the whole affair up so badly.


Next time we see him he's Secretary of State, Working for the UN as one of there big decision makers and policy makers for how to control, register, deploy and regulate people with super powers, given authority over all super powered beings categorically including Vision, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Thor, informing the Avengers he will be deciding when and if they deploy and were and how, and that Thor and Hulk are Nuclear weapons to be kept track of.




More level headed nothing. You have to dismiss more of his screen time then you keep included to reach that conclusion. It's not Flanderization if it's both consistent with his original and entirely consistent characterization form moment one on screen onwards.


It would be perfectly in character for him to send a massive force + Whatever Avengers he's got and straight up ORDER Thor and all the other Asguardians to Register, under his authority and the logic that Asguardians are here and appear to have what humans consider super powers (Superhuman strength, durability, so on.), and Order Hulk to De Hulk, turn himself in, Register, and comply with whatever further Orders Ross personally has for him. And the UN have given him this backing now so legally he can do it with the weight of the UN behind him. And when he had less then 100% of JUST the US government, US military, and US intelligence behind him, he did the above, so yes, this would be so fitting, it would be brazenly out of character for him NOT to do it. Hell, it would be brazenly out of character for him not to do it even if the UN are on the Radio SCREAMING ORDERS NOT TO DO IT AT HIM AT THE TIME OVER A DAMN LOUD SPEAKER!!!!!!!!!

[Kitten Champion]

{Snip}

I agree, I have an issue with these recurring debates because they seem to want it both ways - as in they want to apply "realistic" standards but use the unrealistic standards of comic depictions which work on drama and fictional hand-waves - whereas a universe where superpowers exists would be a fundamental paradigm shift from our present civilization into a markedly different world as the base assumptions of humanity would be folly there. There would be - at minimum in the Marvel Universe - several generations of legal precedent to look at and countless laws passed on this subject of Superheroes, the lawmakers would not suddenly wake up one day after decades to decide to do something because a specific incident made headlines.

That's irrelevant as far as the comics and especially the movie goes though - all of it. They need a conflict, they need a conflict that comes to fighting because fighting is the core of the genre, and they want something where both sides can have a point without falling on the Good/Evil scale and Lawful/Chaotic works well conceptually. Add in some topical stuff just for good measure.

... but as Moviebob pointed out in his review, Civil War isn't about the Accords - that argument falls by the wayside as the characters progress through the narrative - the point is to raise the emotional stakes until they supersede the rationale behind the conflict in the first place, because these things have inertia and people don't function on cold Reason all the time. In a style not dissimilar to the often self-absorbed deities in various mythological pantheons who act purely out of passion to large dramatic effect. It became about the characters more than the plot, and that's where Marvel movies shine.

[Tyndmyr]

MCU Ross must be radically differant from the main comic Ross then.

Since Comic Ross is the guy who on dozens of occasions came up with plans to capture the Hulk that boiled down to "intentionally piss off the Hulk."

MCU Ross is much like comic Ross, yes.

Let's review the hulk movie, shall we? Banner's living a non-harmful life in the middle of nowhere. Ross finds him, and sends a spec ops team to take him in/down. He hulks out, wrecks everything. This was horribly predictable, and was kind of a dumb move on Ross's part.

When this fails, he creates the Abomination to fight the Hulk. This happens in two stages, and it's pretty obvious that with the power comes uncontrollable rage/madness. Going ahead the SECOND time was pretty GD dumb. Ross never really took responsibility for his creation, and had to be convinced to let the hulk take him down, despite the Abomination obviously being worse in every way.

Oh, and he tries the first plan again, in a populated area, because...I have no idea. It was pretty obviously stupid.

He's only in Hulk before Civil War, but he's obviously an antagonist, and isn't particularly clever as one. There is literally nothing about his portrayal that indicates he would be a good person to head up a touchy diplomatic accord.


I don't think they're going to just give up and sell flowers by the road-side, and who knows what things will look like in a few years. I do seriously question whether their ambitious - to put it mildly - production schedule will look anything like it does now after the studio does a post mortem on this. Which, well, most of the money has been made that will be made at this point and the hype machine has already moved on to Star Wars.

I can't see how this met their expectations, it didn't meet my expectations and I'm mostly full of cynical detachment.

I said this in one of my prior posts, but Age of Ultron disappointed Disney (or so it's said) and it made well over a billion dollars with a smaller estimated budget than Justice League. It (supposedly) led to some executive shakeup in Marvel Studios with more power given to Feige.


I do think that once Star Wars comes out, Justice League is essentially dead. It'll have been out for a bit by then, and Star Wars has huge name power.

And it's fair to think that their production schedule will have to change. They're assuming a MCU-like success, without...actually building it. This provides a great parallel for why their on-screen characters are failing. They expect them to just work, without doing the effort to build characterization on screen.


I think youre missing the point of the Accords. It isn't meant to give the UN a super powered attack dog, it is meant to give individual nations the right to say "no, we don't want Iron Man shooting missiles in the middle of an urban area" even if there are terrorists with Stark guns involved. We see it in Ultron that there are large numbers of people who don't like that the avengers start fights in their homes.

Gonna say that the biggest issue of firing a missile in an urban area was a shield missile that Iron Man stopped. Oversight has not, in the MCU, worked nearly as well as the heroes have.

Hell, watch Spiderman. It's pretty obvious in there that the oversight groups are not doing terribly well in securing safety.

[lord_khaine]

Oh, and he tries the first plan again, in a populated area, because...I have no idea. It was pretty obviously stupid.

He's only in Hulk before Civil War, but he's obviously an antagonist, and isn't particularly clever as one. There is literally nothing about his portrayal that indicates he would be a good person to head up a touchy diplomatic accord.

The fault for a large part lies with the Avengers though. Had they managed to present a united front and said something on the line of "we will sign the accords.. if you change a few bits here and there.. as well as bring in a replacement for Ross that we can work with.

If not we are all going to retire. Have fun handling Hydra on your own.

[Keltest]

The fault for a large part lies with the Avengers though. Had they managed to present a united front and said something on the line of "we will sign the accords.. if you change a few bits here and there.. as well as bring in a replacement for Ross that we can work with.

If not we are all going to retire. Have fun handling Hydra on your own.

Exactly. They had enormous bargaining power by virtue of their voluntary cooperation being the only way the accords could take off. Had cap bothered to ask his "what if we don't like our orders" question to someone in a position to actually respond, he probably would have found it far more palatable.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Exactly. They had enormous bargaining power by virtue of their voluntary cooperation being the only way the accords could take off. Had cap bothered to ask his "what if we don't like our orders" question to someone in a position to actually respond, he probably would have found it far more palatable.

Indeed. Or even pushing back for more autonomy. "We'll sign, but we get seats and votes in whatever meetings that happen both before and after we are asked to deploy." After that its all political negotiation of how many... but as long as Steve ends with a seat, they'd have remained in control.

GW

[Rogar Demonblud]

He's only in Hulk before Civil War, but he's obviously an antagonist, and isn't particularly clever as one. There is literally nothing about his portrayal that indicates he would be a good person to head up a touchy diplomatic accord.

Not true, he was in one of the One Shots, where he was such a raging jerk that Tony bought his favorite bar just to level it. And when is Tony ever malicious in his pettiness?

[Dr.Samurai]

His plan the first time in that movie, that is most assuredly Canon, was send in vanilla commando guys and Tell them nothing about there target other than "He's a dangerous fighter.". To people who LIVE to draw out fights against dangerous fighters to see how well they can hold up. This was a disaster.
How should Ross bring the Hulk in? Either the soldiers kill Banner, or Banner surrenders. Or the Hulk escapes. Those are the three things that will happen. What is Ross supposed to do?


His second plan was to deliberately piss off the Hulk in a populated civilian area so he could throw weapons at it to show his daughter she was wrong to have feelings for him. Cause proving to your daughter that father knows best is what matters damn it!
Uh no. They tried to take the Hulk down with gas. Unfortunately, Betty started screaming, which stressed Banner out and caused him to transform.

His third plan compounded with the damage from his second plan and managed to create and unleash on Harlem, New York City, The Abomination. And then he had to let Hulk Loose and throw more weapons at it to fight it. Ergo Banners line in Avengers 1. "Last time I was in New York I sort of Broke, Harlem.". Incidentally, Shield had to cover this one up for him cause he couldn't even do THAT part right he'd buggered the whole affair up so badly.
Yeah, he took a chance on the soldier because he literally has *no way* of defeating the Hulk. He created the Abomination, a total disaster which thankfully the Hulk was able to... beat in a fist fight and then just leave there lying on a rooftop lol.

Ross made a mistake. Kind of like Tony did when he created Ultron. Oops. So now is Tony automatically wrong all the time as well?


Next time we see him he's Secretary of State, Working for the UN as one of there big decision makers and policy makers for how to control, register, deploy and regulate people with super powers, given authority over all super powered beings categorically including Vision, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Thor, informing the Avengers he will be deciding when and if they deploy and were and how, and that Thor and Hulk are Nuclear weapons to be kept track of.

Right. For all you know, the nations thought about strong-arming the Avengers somehow, or being more forceful, and Ross is the one that said "Trust me, we can't beat them. The only thing I've seen that works is to have one of them fighting on your own side. So this is what I suggest..." and we got a plan where the Avengers work for the good guys. This would be inline with his experiences from the Hulk movie, and it would gel with his characterization in Civil War.

It would be perfectly in character for him to send a massive force + Whatever Avengers he's got and straight up ORDER Thor and all the other Asguardians to Register, under his authority and the logic that Asguardians are here and appear to have what humans consider super powers (Superhuman strength, durability, so on.), and Order Hulk to De Hulk, turn himself in, Register, and comply with whatever further Orders Ross personally has for him. And the UN have given him this backing now so legally he can do it with the weight of the UN behind him. And when he had less then 100% of JUST the US government, US military, and US intelligence behind him, he did the above, so yes, this would be so fitting, it would be brazenly out of character for him NOT to do it. Hell, it would be brazenly out of character for him not to do it even if the UN are on the Radio SCREAMING ORDERS NOT TO DO IT AT HIM AT THE TIME OVER A DAMN LOUD SPEAKER!!!!!!!!!
What?

Since the Hulk movie... what has Ross learned? Well, he saw his daughter almost get killed but the Hulk saved her life. He made a huge mistake in unleashing the Abomination on the world and, once again, Banner saved the day. After that, Tony approaches him about the Avengers initiative, so Ross has known about the formation of the team and the intent behind it since before the team existed. And what have they done? They saved the world, twice. But in doing so, they killed people and left a lot of destruction in their wake. The nations of the world don't want this team running around unchecked. Now Ross is secretary of state, and he's been a part of this Accords.

It could be that this is all a secret Ross conspiracy to finally gain control of the Avengers. But I don't think that is what the movie was going for. Ross wasn't a villain in Civil War and I don't think he was meant to be seen that way.

The fault for a large part lies with the Avengers though. Had they managed to present a united front and said something on the line of "we will sign the accords.. if you change a few bits here and there.. as well as bring in a replacement for Ross that we can work with.

If not we are all going to retire. Have fun handling Hydra on your own.
Agreed about the bargaining. Part of the reason they didn't is because Cap didn't give it a chance to begin with. But it was also sprung on everyone. Had Tony given the team a head's up about the intent behind the meeting with Ross, they could have come to some agreement before the meeting.

I'm not sure about the bit about Ross. Without Banner there, I don't know what relationship the others have with Ross that would justify asking for a replacement, with the exception of Tony, who seems to be working with Ross.

[theNater]

By imprisoning the majority of Avengers that aren't following it, the Accords are working to keep private citizens from rampaging across the world and leaving death and destruction in their wake.
At the end of Civil War, which private citizens are being kept from rampaging across the world? Captain America still can. Iron Man still can. Scarlet Witch still can. Black Widow still can. Hawkeye still can. Falcon still can. And on the other hand, you've got War Machine and maybe Vision? That's a very low success rate.

[Dr.Samurai]

At the end of Civil War, which private citizens are being kept from rampaging across the world? Captain America still can. Iron Man still can. Scarlet Witch still can. Black Widow still can. Hawkeye still can. Falcon still can. And on the other hand, you've got War Machine and maybe Vision? That's a very low success rate.
I don't know why people are inferring that Tony has changed his mind completely on the Accords. He is back at the compound at the end of the movie. He wouldn't be there if he was a fugitive. Which he would be if he was rampaging around the world. The compound would be either taken over or destroyed. Ross wouldn't be calling Tony expecting him to help out if Tony was a fugitive.

I don't know how much time has gone by for Rhodes to get an exoskeleton and be fit enough to start walking, and for Cap to plan and execute a break out of the highest level security prison on the planet. But some time has gone by and Ross still thinks Tony is on his team.

Tony, in my estimate, is going to try and play both sides.

The Accords are an attempt to prevent the Avengers from doing whatever they want. That Cap does whatever he wants and breaks out the rest doesn't really seem like a good argument against the Accords. More like a confirmation that something has to be done.

[Lethologica]

The Accords are an attempt to prevent the Avengers from doing whatever they want. That Cap does whatever he wants and breaks out the rest doesn't really seem like a good argument against the Accords. More like a confirmation that something has to be done.
If, as you say, the Accords are an attempt to prevent supers from doing whatever they want, then the degree to which supers have actually been kept from doing whatever they want has to be the measure by which the success of the Accords is judged. In order to argue that the Accords should be judged by some other measure, you have to argue that they have another purpose besides that one.

Cap and others defying the Accords is a problem created by the Accords--saying that's confirmation the Accords are needed is a backwards argument. If one already agrees the Accords are needed, then defiance of the Accords confirms the need for better enforcement mechanisms, but defiance of the Accords cannot be part of the Accords' raison d'etre.

[Sapphire Guard]

A lot of this argument is based on unknowns, that will probably be cleared up in IW, or at least swept under the rug.

Ross is not quite presented as a villain in CW, but he is also presented as having all the authority,
being counterproductive to stopping the villain plot, and the Face of the Accords. I don't think any of those things are coincidental, he's set up as a strawman that even Tony has to circumvent/ignore to get anything done.

Abomination went rogue, he was not authorised to do most of the stuff he ended up doing.

[Keltest]

If, as you say, the Accords are an attempt to prevent supers from doing whatever they want, then the degree to which supers have actually been kept from doing whatever they want has to be the measure by which the success of the Accords is judged. In order to argue that the Accords should be judged by some other measure, you have to argue that they have another purpose besides that one.

Cap and others defying the Accords is a problem created by the Accords--saying that's confirmation the Accords are needed is a backwards argument. If one already agrees the Accords are needed, then defiance of the Accords confirms the need for better enforcement mechanisms, but defiance of the Accords cannot be part of the Accords' raison d'etre.

I think youre misreading that. The problem is cap deciding that his friends, who committed legitimate crimes against a legitimate authority, don't belong in jail, and uses his abilities to enforce his will above the legitimate law. Yes, the accords accelerated that into direct confrontation sooner than it might have otherwise occurred, but its still a problem that would have come up eventually anyway.

[Velaryon]

I was disappointed when they originally announced that BvS would basically kick off the DCEU and feature an old grizzled darker Batman. I was like... so the DCEU will have an old killer Batman? Why make that choice? Seems odd that the on-screen representation of Batman for your cinematic universe will be the Batman from the Dark Night Returns. Why not give us Batman in his prime?

Then, you're giving us mopey grim frowny Superman? At the time I thought they'd change it up from MoS. But he didn't change at all in BvS, and he's still angry and frowny when he returns in JL. Who are these people you are depicting in the DCEU?

Wonder Woman is good. I was disappointed with Flash in JL partly because his backstory seems interesting. His father framed for the murder of his mother? That's nuts. I don't know the Flash's backstory, so that would have been cool to see in it's own movie. Instead... does he get out of prison at the end of the movie? I don't remember. Anyways, there was more I wanted to add to your post but I'm sleepy...

Grizzled, darker Batman is a version that we haven't seen before on film, which is reason enough to consider using that one. My problem is that I think we need to see why this version of Batman became the way he did, instead of just starting there. Moviegoing audiences are familiar with the character of Batman already, but not this version. Batfleck is a new take on the character, and different enough from previous versions (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, and the best-known animated versions) that it's very jarring to see him acting what looks to be out-of-character by using guns and doing things that definitely break the "don't kill people" rule that is known to be one of Batman's core defining traits.

I as well am extremely disappointed that Man of Steel's version of Superman is the one they went with for the DC cinematic universe. I never saw Superman Returns, but I really can't imagine he could be much less likeable in that film.



Re the DCEU, The thing about 'Darker' Batman was that he had been driven to his lowest point by what happened in Metropolis. He's not meant to be right, and giving him a solo movie undermines that arc and wastes time when your audience already knows Batman. Why spend a movie establishing what everyone knows already?

So Bruce Wayne turns on the evening news, sees Superman and Zod smashing up Metropolis during their fight, and says to himself "screw it, might as well start using guns and stop worrying about whether I kill people now?" I admittedly only watched the movie once, and wasn't even remotely invested in it, but that's not what I got from it at all. What I got was "Batman sees Superman's apparent disregard for collateral damage in fighting another alien, decides that he's too risky to remain alive on Earth, and decides to take him out."

Batman being driven to kill Superman we don't need explained, any more than was already done. Batman killing so many other people that someone made a supercut video of all the deaths on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkQS7q6sT0) most certainly does need more setup than that.



Wonder Woman was extremely effectively sold to the audience by her extended cameo in BVS, which contributed significantly to the subsequent success of her solo movie. Civil War did the same with Spiderman and probably BP. It's not that there's something fundamentally wrong with the approach, it's just that JL was cut so badly for time that the characters' full introductions were cut out. All three of our new characters had large sections of their stories cut in the final product, thanks to an executive mandate to limit the huge team up film's runtime to two hours.

Agreed, Wonder Woman's introduction remains one of the few things DC has done right in their movies so far. But that's just one character, and she still got a solo movie before Justice League.

Contrast that to the first Avengers film. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk had already had solo films (even if Hulk was largely rewritten between the Ed Norton and Mark Ruffalo versions), leaving just Black Widow and Hawkeye as mostly new characters (Hawkeye has an uncredited cameo in the first Thor film, and Black Widow had a supporting role in Iron Man 2). That's still a bit more than the brief glimpses of Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash we're given in pre-JL films. As a result, they have three characters that need to be established in this film.

Executive meddling is certainly a thing, but "audiences don't like movies that are too long" is not something they completely made up. They aren't necessarily wrong to want to keep the film to a runtime around 2 hours. if there were that many character-establishing scenes that got left on the cutting room floor, that seems to support my argument that at least one more character should have gotten a solo film before the big team-up.

[Dr.Samurai]

Grizzled, darker Batman is a version that we haven't seen before on film, which is reason enough to consider using that one.
I don't mind a different take. When I saw Flashpoint I thought it was cool to see Thomas Wayne running around dual-wielding pistols. But that Batman is cool for a one-shot story, or in an alternative story like the Dark Knight Returns. But for your DCEU, that we're going to be watching for years, I don't know, I don't want that Batman to be the machine gun toting "if there's just a 1% chance, kill them" Batman. I want to see Batman.

My problem is that I think we need to see why this version of Batman became the way he did, instead of just starting there. Moviegoing audiences are familiar with the character of Batman already, but not this version. Batfleck is a new take on the character, and different enough from previous versions (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, and the best-known animated versions) that it's very jarring to see him acting what looks to be out-of-character by using guns and doing things that definitely break the "don't kill people" rule that is known to be one of Batman's core defining traits.
I think you're probably right. If we had a Batman movie depicting how and why he went down that path, I think it would have been better. But instead we're just introduced to killer Batman.

I think I've mentioned this before in other threads about this, but the scene in Batman Begins where he refuses to execute that man is awesome. It's heroic and principled and you're seeing that despite his pain and guilt and desire to do something, he has a line that he won't cross.

Nothing in BvS comes off as heroic until Doomsday shows up. My favorite part was seeing Diana cancel her plans because something completely unrelated to her showed up and she felt the need to go deal with it. Superman and Batman just don't come off as heroic really. Even when he sacrifices himself, it seems like the resolution to his conflict; I'm so torn on being a hero to the whole world, but I'll save Lois. It's like... thank goodness you're in love because otherwise we'd be ****ed...

I as well am extremely disappointed that Man of Steel's version of Superman is the one they went with for the DC cinematic universe. I never saw Superman Returns, but I really can't imagine he could be much less likeable in that film.
I didn't mind Superman Returns as much as other people, but I can see the complaints that it was a snooze-fest. But that Superman at least liked helping people and smiled. He was dealing with the loss of Lois and seeing her have a family, but he wasn't a miserable grim guy. He managed to, you know, deal with ****.

So Bruce Wayne turns on the evening news, sees Superman and Zod smashing up Metropolis during their fight, and says to himself "screw it, might as well start using guns and stop worrying about whether I kill people now?" I admittedly only watched the movie once, and wasn't even remotely invested in it, but that's not what I got from it at all. What I got was "Batman sees Superman's apparent disregard for collateral damage in fighting another alien, decides that he's too risky to remain alive on Earth, and decides to take him out."

Batman being driven to kill Superman we don't need explained, any more than was already done. Batman killing so many other people that someone made a supercut video of all the deaths on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkQS7q6sT0) most certainly does need more setup than that.
Agreed. Batman is worried that if Superman decides to go ape-**** no one will be able to stop him, so to avoid that potentiality, he determines he has to kill him. Also, a newspaper clipping with some red letters on it.

EDIT: Missed this earlier...

If, as you say, the Accords are an attempt to prevent supers from doing whatever they want, then the degree to which supers have actually been kept from doing whatever they want has to be the measure by which the success of the Accords is judged. In order to argue that the Accords should be judged by some other measure, you have to argue that they have another purpose besides that one.

Cap and others defying the Accords is a problem created by the Accords--saying that's confirmation the Accords are needed is a backwards argument. If one already agrees the Accords are needed, then defiance of the Accords confirms the need for better enforcement mechanisms, but defiance of the Accords cannot be part of the Accords' raison d'etre.
I don't agree. We already have laws in place to prevent people from doing what the Avengers do. The problem is the Avengers were an initiative by a government agency and have saved the world. This has given them credibility. But after SHIELD gets compromised, well, now they're doing their own thing.

The Avengers created the original problem, which is ignoring state sovereignty and enacting missions without anyone's consent/permission/knowledge.

Cap breaking everyone out of prison is not revealing a problem with the intent of the Accords. It's showcasing it for everyone to see. They see themselves above the law and do not respect any authority but their own. The Accords suffer from an enforcement problem, but Cap has demonstrated exactly why they are needed. Things will escalate, but that's understandable.

[Lethologica]

I think youre misreading that. The problem is cap deciding that his friends, who committed legitimate crimes against a legitimate authority, don't belong in jail, and uses his abilities to enforce his will above the legitimate law. Yes, the accords accelerated that into direct confrontation sooner than it might have otherwise occurred, but its still a problem that would have come up eventually anyway.
Yes, the problem is exactly the same as it was before the Accords, which demonstrates that the Accords are ineffective right now since in Dr.Samurai's own words they were an attempt to fix the problem. Instead, all the Accords have done is created a new set of statutes for the supers to disregard. This is evidence that the Accords are not what's needed to fix the problem--unless the problem is something other than what Dr.Samurai said it was.


Grizzled, darker Batman is a version that we haven't seen before on film, which is reason enough to consider using that one. My problem is that I think we need to see why this version of Batman became the way he did, instead of just starting there. Moviegoing audiences are familiar with the character of Batman already, but not this version. Batfleck is a new take on the character, and different enough from previous versions (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, and the best-known animated versions) that it's very jarring to see him acting what looks to be out-of-character by using guns and doing things that definitely break the "don't kill people" rule that is known to be one of Batman's core defining traits.

I as well am extremely disappointed that Man of Steel's version of Superman is the one they went with for the DC cinematic universe. I never saw Superman Returns, but I really can't imagine he could be much less likeable in that film.
Snyder seems to want both Batman and Superman to have a multi-movie arc of struggling to overcome a grim subversion of themselves and become heroic (again, in Batman's case). It's not a terrible idea in itself, but it's a terrible way to introduce the DCEU because it means the characters are not themselves until long after many people have thrown up their hands at the subversion and lost interest.


So Bruce Wayne turns on the evening news, sees Superman and Zod smashing up Metropolis during their fight, and says to himself "screw it, might as well start using guns and stop worrying about whether I kill people now?" I admittedly only watched the movie once, and wasn't even remotely invested in it, but that's not what I got from it at all. What I got was "Batman sees Superman's apparent disregard for collateral damage in fighting another alien, decides that he's too risky to remain alive on Earth, and decides to take him out."

Batman being driven to kill Superman we don't need explained, any more than was already done. Batman killing so many other people that someone made a supercut video of all the deaths on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkQS7q6sT0) most certainly does need more setup than that.
The moment that broke Batman was almost certainly the implied death of Robin at the hands of the Joker.

[Sapphire Guard]

Grizzled, darker Batman is a version that we haven't seen before on film, which is reason enough to consider using that one. My problem is that I think we need to see why this version of Batman became the way he did, instead of just starting there. Moviegoing audiences are familiar with the character of Batman already, but not this version. Batfleck is a new take on the character, and different enough from previous versions (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, and the best-known animated versions) that it's very jarring to see him acting what looks to be out-of-character by using guns and doing things that definitely break the "don't kill people" rule that is known to be one of Batman's core defining traits.

I as well am extremely disappointed that Man of Steel's version of Superman is the one they went with for the DC cinematic universe. I never saw Superman Returns, but I really can't imagine he could be much less likeable in that film.

.

Yeah...about those previous Batmen, from the same channel...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVIG7YvdjM

Every screen Batman has killed except Clooney (and Michael Keaton's positively took joy in it).

I do not like it. But's it's unfair to count one and not the others. In Batman begins he drives over occupied cop cars and gets away with 'It's a miracle no one was killed.'

The BVS Supercut, btw, includes the dream sequence and overestimates a bit (it's two henchman per car, not four, as far as I can tell)


So Bruce Wayne turns on the evening news, sees Superman and Zod smashing up Metropolis during their fight, and says to himself "screw it, might as well start using guns and stop worrying about whether I kill people now?" I admittedly only watched the movie once, and wasn't even remotely invested in it, but that's not what I got from it at all. What I got was "Batman sees Superman's apparent disregard for collateral damage in fighting another alien, decides that he's too risky to remain alive on Earth, and decides to take him out."

Aside from that he was actually in Metropolis at the time, it's all over the film that this drove him to his new harshness.

"Nothing's changed."

"Oh no, sir. Everything's changed."

"The feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel."

"New rules?"

"There's a new kind of mean in him."

Cop and Papers being surprised at the branding. And so on.


Contrast that to the first Avengers film. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk had already had solo films (even if Hulk was largely rewritten between the Ed Norton and Mark Ruffalo versions), leaving just Black Widow and Hawkeye as mostly new characters (Hawkeye has an uncredited cameo in the first Thor film, and Black Widow had a supporting role in Iron Man 2). That's still a bit more than the brief glimpses of Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash we're given in pre-JL films. As a result, they have three characters that need to be established in this film.

Three introduced, three to be introduced v four introduced, two to be introduced. Not so very different.


Executive meddling is certainly a thing, but "audiences don't like movies that are too long" is not something they completely made up. They aren't necessarily wrong to want to keep the film to a runtime around 2 hours. if there were that many character-establishing scenes that got left on the cutting room floor, that seems to support my argument that at least one more character should have gotten a solo film before the big team-up.

Depends how late that runtime was fixed. That story broke in early November, so it might well have been imposed very late in development after all the work was done. And given the super troubled production that was JL, I'd be more inclined to blame that than a fundamental flaw in the model.


Snyder seems to want both Batman and Superman to have a multi-movie arc of struggling to overcome a grim subversion of themselves and become heroic (again, in Batman's case). It's not a terrible idea in itself, but it's a terrible way to introduce the DCEU because it means the characters are not themselves until long after many people have thrown up their hands at the subversion and lost interest.

MoS was essentially 'Superman Begins'. Audiences are more cynical now, they're less inclined to believe in the 'Big Blue Boy Scout'-see Superman Returns. Audiences are often inclined to mock optimism, 'that's not how the world works'. So to make them believe in your hero, you have to show how he arrives at his worldview in the real world. So we have to show that yes, Superman can and does understand the consequences of his actions because of how past experiences shaped him. He's doing his best, but not infallible, aend can't do cheap copouts like 'reverse time' every time something bad happens. Superman lives in the real world,. where his actions have real consequences, and yet still tries his best (and his best is saving everyone he possibly can and being optimistic about humanity even if they don't like him, even if everything he does gets twisted to agendas, and so on. So when he proves his sincerity in saving the world by dying in its defence, that finally wins over the world. So when he comes back, the respect given to him feels earned.

Rand al'Thor in Wheel of Time has a somewhat similar journey

His transformation near the end into a messiah figure only works because we saw everything he had to go through to get there.



Batman's arc is in one movie, and its as far over the edge as he goes, so he can be pulled back from the brink by the end. I don't like the killing, but I'm not sure they could sell Batman as wanting to kill Superman if he can't even bring himself to kill (sometimes) henchmen. How could they sell a Batman v Superman film convincingly with the traditional characterisations?

He could've just wiped out everyone in the warehouse with the Batwing if he wanted, but he fought them hand to hand instead, and as a result most survived.

It just seems like these films are being judged often on different metrics than the ones they're being compared to.

[lord_khaine]

Nothing in BvS comes off as heroic until Doomsday shows up. My favorite part was seeing Diana cancel her plans because something completely unrelated to her showed up and she felt the need to go deal with it. Superman and Batman just don't come off as heroic really. Even when he sacrifices himself, it seems like the resolution to his conflict; I'm so torn on being a hero to the whole world, but I'll save Lois. It's like... thank goodness you're in love because otherwise we'd be ****ed...

I dont have to much to comment on the other stuff. But we did have Superman litterally risking his own life and safety to stop Luthor from getting smashed by his own abomination. Its about the entire core of Superman caught in that single scene.


I don't mind a different take. When I saw Flashpoint I thought it was cool to see Thomas Wayne running around dual-wielding pistols. But that Batman is cool for a one-shot story, or in an alternative story like the Dark Knight Returns. But for your DCEU, that we're going to be watching for years, I don't know, I don't want that Batman to be the machine gun toting "if there's just a 1% chance, kill them" Batman. I want to see Batman.

And the first iconic movie batman we had did mount 2 machine guns on his car.

[Dr.Samurai]

I dont have to much to comment on the other stuff. But we did have Superman litterally risking his own life and safety to stop Luthor from getting smashed by his own abomination. Its about the entire core of Superman caught in that single scene.
I did say "until Doomsday" so...

As for it being the entire core of Superman... I don't know. He looks pained the entire movie helping innocent people. He's floating over traumatized flood victims lording his power over them as they reach up to him begging for help. He was probably trying to decide if he should save them or not. "Do I owe the people of Earth anything? Martha said no. But dad said I might be a messiah. Decisions, decisions..."

Did he save Luthor from certain death because it's the core of who he is? I have no idea.

And the first iconic movie batman we had did mount 2 machine guns on his car.
Yep, and he stuffed a bomb down a guys pants and knocked him over a ledge. You don't see me championing the Burton Batman as the Batman I want to see in the DCEU in this new era of superhero films.

If you're doing the DCEU, don't give us an old defeated murderous Batman. Don't give us mopey grim Superman. I don't know, I'm just a comic book superhero fan and a movie-goer. But it seems like common sense not to try and shake things up when you're attempting to establish your own cinematic universe.

[Anteros]

Every screen Batman has killed except Clooney (and Michael Keaton's positively took joy in it).

I do not like it. But's it's unfair to count one and not the others. In Batman begins he drives over occupied cop cars and gets away with 'It's a miracle no one was killed.'



It's a bit different in movies that clearly aren't meant to be taken seriously. You assume the henchman with the bomb in his pants survives because the entire movie is basically a cartoon with cartoon laws and physics. It's played as a joke. Snyder would have shown the same scene except with the henchman exploding into a pile of gore. You can't really compare the two.

Likewise, in Batman Begins we're meant to assume that he's just that good that he can intentionally do things like hit a car without killing anyone. Sure, that's not realistic, but nothing Batman does is meant to be realistic. Contrast to BvS where he's clearly and intentionally murdering people. It's a completely different tone. One that honestly has no place in a Batman movie.

[Metahuman1]

How should Ross bring the Hulk in? Either the soldiers kill Banner, or Banner surrenders. Or the Hulk escapes. Those are the three things that will happen. What is Ross supposed to do?

Something closer to what he tried to do with the 1 survivor AFTER this had become the blown operation is was physically impossible for it to avoid becoming because it was so mind-numbingly stupidly planned.

Step 1: Warn them what there up against and that fighting is NOT AN OPTION! That any attempt to fight needs to have the fight physically, in real time and the real world, 100% over, with Banner incapacitated and out like a freaking light, before he even knows there's a person on the same block as Banner to fight with.

Step 2: Don't send dudes with guns. Send an observation team to watch him form FAR, FAR away and not engage under ANY circumstances. Maybe pose as that Mr. Blue guy and send him something. Tell him he thinks it will help and to try it, but it will make him sleep so try it when he's going to bed anyway. Make it a drug that will keep him out for hours.

Or arrange an operative that can blend in to the area to slip him something in the evening to make him go out in a similar fashion. Or pump an odorless gas into the apartment freaking quietly in the middle of the night when no one's up anyway and Banners been sleeping for a couple of hours, to make sure he'll stay good and dead to the world till you get him were you freaking want him.

If Ross was in any way, shape or form smart enough to be qualified for any of the job's he's held or to do what you credit him with, he'd have done ANY of these things instead of what he canonically DID do. If, however, he isn't, and he's exactly as I've made him out to be, then he'd send men with guns and no real prior warning. Guess what he did Canonically?






Uh no. They tried to take the Hulk down with gas. Unfortunately, Betty started screaming, which stressed Banner out and caused him to transform.

Yeah, he took a chance on the soldier because he literally has *no way* of defeating the Hulk. He created the Abomination, a total disaster which thankfully the Hulk was able to... beat in a fist fight and then just leave there lying on a rooftop lol.

Ross made a mistake. Kind of like Tony did when he created Ultron. Oops. So now is Tony automatically wrong all the time as well?

Which is why Banner was running for an extended period from men with guns, with potential to Hulk out at any point during that chase and in fact nearly doing so for most of it. Instead of just sealing the whole building and gassing the whole building before Banner knew they were there, and why all the big vehicles and weapons were left behind because of the importance of stealth.

Oh. Wait. That's not even close to what happened on screen. It's the opposite in fact. Gas was a freaking after thought.

Every single time Banner Hulks out it's Rosse's Mistake. He could have had her secured by five or six men twice her size with Hand to Hand grappling training. Hell he could have pulled a string to make sure she wouldn't be anywhere near the campus that day for some reason. Shield was working with him at the time, pick a reason they could make it happen to keep her far away from the whole thing and safe. He did NOTHING of the sort and in fact explicitly on screen ordered his personnel to LET HER SEE THIS! He straight up said "Now she'll see." with every implication that what she'd SEE was that HE WAS RIGHT AND SHE WAS WRONG ABOUT BANNER AND THE MONSTER HE WAS NOW, AND THAT HIS WAY OF DEALING WITH THAT MONSTER WAS THE ONE AND ONLY RIGHT WAY!!!!!!!"

And then he came within seconds of murdering her by accident in the process AND barely covered the whole thing up, after being the direct cause of the 2nd Hulking Out in a densely populated area for that movie, AND created the Abomination and failed to recognize it as anything other then a first pass that needed further work, at worst.

And then, of course, he blows it letting abomination into the field again that soon when he clearly wants in as a matter of a personal grudge. If Ross was competent that alone would have disqualified Blansky or however you spell his name from being anywhere near that strike. (Were, BTW, he got banner with a Sniper Attack from miles away, quietly, before Banner even knew there was a threat. Which he could have had done either of the first two times but didn't because he's an idiot with a desperate need to prove he has a bigger male anatomy, as I stated before.).

This cause the breaking of Harlem and nearly got Ross Killed. And if he'd learned a DAMN thing about it he'd have just shut up and listened to freaking IRON MAN of all people. And his favorite Bar would NOT have been demolished. Spoiler, he didn't and it was so he know he didn't learn a single freaking thing. Again, Canon supports my version of events, but not yours. [/QUOTE]




Right. For all you know, the nations thought about strong-arming the Avengers somehow, or being more forceful, and Ross is the one that said "Trust me, we can't beat them. The only thing I've seen that works is to have one of them fighting on your own side. So this is what I suggest..." and we got a plan where the Avengers work for the good guys. This would be inline with his experiences from the Hulk movie, and it would gel with his characterization in Civil War.

What?

Since the Hulk movie... what has Ross learned? Well, he saw his daughter almost get killed but the Hulk saved her life. He made a huge mistake in unleashing the Abomination on the world and, once again, Banner saved the day. After that, Tony approaches him about the Avengers initiative, so Ross has known about the formation of the team and the intent behind it since before the team existed. And what have they done? They saved the world, twice. But in doing so, they killed people and left a lot of destruction in their wake. The nations of the world don't want this team running around unchecked. Now Ross is secretary of state, and he's been a part of this Accords.

It could be that this is all a secret Ross conspiracy to finally gain control of the Avengers. But I don't think that is what the movie was going for. Ross wasn't a villain in Civil War and I don't think he was meant to be seen that way.

Agreed about the bargaining. Part of the reason they didn't is because Cap didn't give it a chance to begin with. But it was also sprung on everyone. Had Tony given the team a head's up about the intent behind the meeting with Ross, they could have come to some agreement before the meeting.

I'm not sure about the bit about Ross. Without Banner there, I don't know what relationship the others have with Ross that would justify asking for a replacement, with the exception of Tony, who seems to be working with Ross.

Both of these two follow the same pattern so I'm lumping them together.

That pattern, specifically, is now your doing 2 things.


1: Ignoring past characterization an writing a version that would blatantly favor the side of "There is nothing wrong with registration." in it's place.

2: Your writing pure speculation not of things that are going to happen in future movies, but of things that happened off screen during movies that have already taken place, and your filling it with this version that oh so conveniently fits perfectly into the mold of "Ross is the ideal person to be running this and thus there is no grounds to disagree with him or the Accords as a whole.".

In short, your moving the goal posts to try and repaint everything in your favor. To claim anything else requires that again, as I keep pointing out, we ignore EVERYTHING about the man in The Incredible Hulk and more then 50% of what we saw of him in Civil War. That only works if were being informed by his comic counterparts history. Which looses you the argument instantly and out of hand if we are.

[Clertar]

Here's a video with an interesting idea: DC heroes are good, but they're hardly ever represented well outside of comics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraUjsClgDM

[Dr.Samurai]

It's a bit different in movies that clearly aren't meant to be taken seriously. You assume the henchman with the bomb in his pants survives because the entire movie is basically a cartoon with cartoon laws and physics. It's played as a joke. Snyder would have shown the same scene except with the henchman exploding into a pile of gore. You can't really compare the two.

Likewise, in Batman Begins we're meant to assume that he's just that good that he can intentionally do things like hit a car without killing anyone. Sure, that's not realistic, but nothing Batman does is meant to be realistic. Contrast to BvS where he's clearly and intentionally murdering people. It's a completely different tone. One that honestly has no place in a Batman movie.
Totally agreed.


Guess what he did Canonically?

Again, Canon supports my version of events, but not yours.
I know what he did in the movie. I'm not disputing the events. The conclusions that you're drawing from them though, I don't agree with. I'm giving Ross some slack because it's a Hulk and literally no one that we've seen so far (with the exception of the new Thor) can defeat him. Ross doesn't have a Marvel Superheroes database that tells him all of the Hulk's stats. He just knows that Banner turns into an unstoppable force of nature. I don't quite remember that movie, but a military man trying to take down a monster with weaponry seems about right to me. A father trying to get his daughter to understand that she's in love with an out of control monster that can't be killed and that destroys everything in its wake seems about right to me.

The point is, you are characterizing him as almost completely inhuman, as some type of evil villain machine that simply makes bad choices and wants to do evil things. I don't agree with that characterization. Nothing, absolutely *nothing* in Civil War suggests that Ross is a bad guy. In fact, he shows restraint. He tells Tony he should have him locked up after the incident at the airfield, but he doesn't do that, because Tony was operating under his "oversight" and probably because he still needs him. But if he was the diabolical mad man control freak that you're making him out to be, that probably would have gone differently. If he was the guy you're making him out to be, he wouldn't have allowed Hulk to fight Abomination. He'd just keep shooting, and foaming at the mouth apparently, until Abomination murdered him.

Ross is up against creatures that cannot be stopped conventionally, and only barely by guys with Tony Stark tech levels. Your hindsight-based implication that he should have handled the Hulk perfectly is simply wrong.

1: Ignoring past characterization an writing a version that would blatantly favor the side of "There is nothing wrong with registration." in it's place.
I'm not ignoring the Hulk movie. I'm just not making Ross one-dimensional.

2: Your writing pure speculation not of things that are going to happen in future movies, but of things that happened off screen during movies that have already taken place, and your filling it with this version that oh so conveniently fits perfectly into the mold of "Ross is the ideal person to be running this and thus there is no grounds to disagree with him or the Accords as a whole.".
I've never claimed that Ross is the ideal person for the Accords. And I've never made that argument that there is no grounds to disagree with him or the Accords. In fact, I'm the one that initially brought up Civil War as an example of how to do conflict well. Nice try though.

I'm speculating about Ross because you're speculating about Ross. We don't know what type of control, if any, he would have over the Avengers. They would answer to the UN. Maybe Ross is simply involved to convince them to sign, since they are American (mostly), and then after that he's simply the Secretary of State and has nothing to do with the Avengers. I don't know. The movie doesn't tell us, so you pretending that he's a conspiring power-hungry mad man in the movie is speculation. And I answered it in kind.

In short, your moving the goal posts to try and repaint everything in your favor.
My favor? Here's my point. Ross isn't the one-dimensional villain you're making him out to be. I don't need to repaint anything. He's a human with a job to do; bring down the Hulk. He's a father with a job to do; protect his daughter from the Hulk. If you had his resources you would fail at this job a million times over, but by all means sit back and judge away lol.

He's not a saint. I'm not portraying him as one of the good guys. But you're going to need more to paint the Accords as some sinister chess move to put the Avengers under the thumb of a psychopath. The Hulk movie doesn't really cut it (at least from what I can remember, it's been a long time) and neither does Civil War.

[Jan Mattys]

To be honest, I'd die to have a scene in Infinity War where Thanos pops up over the White House, and Cap turns to Tony and says "Sokovia your way out of THIS".

^_^

[Reddish Mage]

But if he was the diabolical mad man control freak that you're making him out to be, that probably would have gone differently. If he was the guy you're making him out to be, he wouldn't have allowed Hulk to fight Abomination. He'd just keep shooting, and foaming at the mouth apparently, until Abomination murdered him.

My favor? Here's my point. Ross isn't the one-dimensional villain you're making him out to be. I don't need to repaint anything. He's a human with a job to do; bring down the Hulk. He's a father with a job to do; protect his daughter from the Hulk.

Ross doesn’t have to be literally foaming at the mouth to be a one-dimensional character. He’s a stock bull-headed reactionary general. He thought he was protecting his daughter as a monster because he willfully refused to see Banner or Hulk in human terms.

[Dr.Samurai]

Ross doesn’t have to be literally foaming at the mouth to be a one-dimensional character. He’s a stock bull-headed reactionary general. He thought he was protecting his daughter as a monster because he willfully refused to see Banner or Hulk in human terms.
In canon, Banner has tried to kill himself to avoid being the Hulk, because he can't control it. At the end of the Hulk movie when he's telling Ross to let him fight Abomination, it's mentioned that he can't control the Hulk and Banner says "No, but maybe I can direct it at the Abomination" and Ross says "But what if you can't?"

That's the entire point of the Hulk. Banner doesn't avoid transforming because it's an interesting character quirk. He avoids transforming because he can't control the Hulk and the Hulk is an unstoppable avatar of destruction.

Choosing to overlook Banner's humanity (which Banner himself does when he attempts suicide) does not make Ross a villain. It makes him a guy with an impossible job.

It's like you expect Ross to hold a press conference and say "Yes, it's true that the Hulk destroyed thirty square miles of New York City today. I know some of you think we didn't try our absolute darndest to prevent this awful catastrophe from happening, but I think you're forgetting to think about the Hulk in human terms. There is a person there, underneath the rampaging murdering monstrosity. We can't forget about Banner."

You can say Ross acted as he did because he's a one-dimensional villain. But I think he did what he did for the same reasons Banner tried to kill himself, for the same reasons Tony built a Hulk-buster suit, for the same reasons Loki is terrified to be in the same arena as Hulk, etc.

[Glorthindel]

If, as you say, the Accords are an attempt to prevent supers from doing whatever they want, then the degree to which supers have actually been kept from doing whatever they want has to be the measure by which the success of the Accords is judged. In order to argue that the Accords should be judged by some other measure, you have to argue that they have another purpose besides that one.

To be fair, that isn't the only thing the Accords are meant to do. Like any legal document drafted anywhere, by anyone, a good chunk of it is designed to cover asses.

Under the former situation, you had heavily-armed citizens of one country (and in some cases former members of that countries armed forces) storming in to other countries and getting their civilians killed. Under any normal circumstance, that would very swiftly result in an unpleasant visit from a diplomat discussing the subjects of compensation and declarations of war.

By signing and inacting the law, whether the people it is targetting pay any attension to it what so ever, the countries that these beings were citizens of are in the clear for anything they do. If the Accords aren't there and Captain America enters say, Russia, China or North Korea, and people die, and some journalist gets a nice picture of a superhuman wearing the stars and stripes with a nice dismembered local in the frame, then that is a diplomatic ****-storm of epic proportions. However, with the Accords, the US can point to them and say that Cap is a wanted fugitive and they can wash their hands of his actions. Regardless of how much any of the heroes accept the Accords, there is a real benefit for everyone else for having them.

[Tyndmyr]

Not true, he was in one of the One Shots, where he was such a raging jerk that Tony bought his favorite bar just to level it. And when is Tony ever malicious in his pettiness?

True, true. Granted, one shots probably aren't as well known as the films are, but it certainly does nothing to redeem Ross.



Ross made a mistake. Kind of like Tony did when he created Ultron. Oops. So now is Tony automatically wrong all the time as well?

Tony is actually wrong about creating Ultron. He didn't create Ultron, he DISCOVERED Ultron. But yes, Tony is frequently wrong. His judgement is definitely flawed, and needs questioning.

The fact that he's the one backing the Accords....

Tony's mistake in this film is mostly, like always, arrogance. He's confident that he can play everything to his advantage, and everything'll work out alright. He's *pretty* good at this, but he still routinely overestimates it, and it shows up in basically every film he's in.


I think youre misreading that. The problem is cap deciding that his friends, who committed legitimate crimes against a legitimate authority, don't belong in jail, and uses his abilities to enforce his will above the legitimate law. Yes, the accords accelerated that into direct confrontation sooner than it might have otherwise occurred, but its still a problem that would have come up eventually anyway.


No. Cap decides that murdering him is wrong. He's been routinely willing to try to take Bucky captive.



MoS was essentially 'Superman Begins'. Audiences are more cynical now, they're less inclined to believe in the 'Big Blue Boy Scout'-see Superman Returns.

I would question that a film portraying Supes as abandoning his child did a good job of showing him at his best.

[Keltest]

No. Cap decides that murdering him is wrong. He's been routinely willing to try to take Bucky captive.

I'm not talking about just Bucky, although that also does support the idea that Cap believes his judgment to be superior to the government's. No, I mean Falcon, Ant Man, Hawkeye and the others who got arrested during the airport battle. What they were doing was illegal, and they went in knowing that. Cap broke into the facility where they were being held prisoner for legitimate and acknowledged crimes and released them.

[Avilan the Grey]

In canon, Banner has tried to kill himself to avoid being the Hulk, because he can't control it. At the end of the Hulk movie when he's telling Ross to let him fight Abomination, it's mentioned that he can't control the Hulk and Banner says "No, but maybe I can direct it at the Abomination" and Ross says "But what if you can't?"

Which is what he says in Avengers. He shot himself in the mouth, "And the other one spit out the bullet".

[Lethologica]

To be fair, that isn't the only thing the Accords are meant to do. Like any legal document drafted anywhere, by anyone, a good chunk of it is designed to cover asses.
This is a rationale I can agree with.

[Anteros]

I'm not talking about just Bucky, although that also does support the idea that Cap believes his judgment to be superior to the government's. No, I mean Falcon, Ant Man, Hawkeye and the others who got arrested during the airport battle. What they were doing was illegal, and they went in knowing that. Cap broke into the facility where they were being held prisoner for legitimate and acknowledged crimes and released them.

HIS JUDGEMENT IS SUPERIOR TO THE GOVENMENT'S. IT'S NOT EVEN DEBATABLE, WE'VE HAD 3 MOVIES SHOWING IT TO BE OBJECTIVELY TRUE.

Asking someone to join a government sponsored strike team with morally and legally dubious grounding is about as likely to work on Cap as it is to work on Magneto. For the exact same reason. They've both seen what happens when soldiers just mindlessly follow unethical orders, and they both know it's not an excuse.

Does the U.N. even have the power to force random people to fight for them? I'm pretty sure they don't. At the most member countries can say that they don't want the Avengers operating in their borders. The Accords aren't even legal in any sense outside of "we're the government and we're more powerful than you, so do what we say." Unfortunately, they're not actually more powerful than the Avengers, so they don't even have that going for them.

We're talking about a world where the governments are run by literal Nazi shadow organizations. These are the people who (within the last year or two) tried to nuke New York and then built giant death machines to pre-emptively murder millions of people who might speak out against their totalitarian rule. Signing on to work for them is not only unethical, it's completely moronic, and suicidally insane.

Maybe the Accords would have some place in a different universe where the overseeing bodies aren't completely corrupt, incompetent idiots who would have the entire world destroyed within 6 months. Maybe retiring instead of signing would be an option in a universe where Thanos and his Chitauri armies aren't going to murder everyone on Earth if someone doesn't regularly stop them. Neither of those are true for the MCU.

When the options are between "break the law" or "work for the evil shadow organization" or "let everyone on Earth die" it's pretty clear cut which one is right.

[Sapphire Guard]

It's a bit different in movies that clearly aren't meant to be taken seriously. You assume the henchman with the bomb in his pants survives because the entire movie is basically a cartoon with cartoon laws and physics. It's played as a joke. Snyder would have shown the same scene except with the henchman exploding into a pile of gore. You can't really compare the two.

Likewise, in Batman Begins we're meant to assume that he's just that good that he can intentionally do things like hit a car without killing anyone. Sure, that's not realistic, but nothing Batman does is meant to be realistic. Contrast to BvS where he's clearly and intentionally murdering people. It's a completely different tone. One that honestly has no place in a Batman movie.

So... a double standard, then?


He looks pained the entire movie helping innocent people. He's floating over traumatized flood victims lording his power over them as they reach up to him begging for help. He was probably trying to decide if he should save them or not. "Do I owe the people of Earth anything? Martha said no. But dad said I might be a messiah. Decisions, decisions..."

Of course he looks upset watching innocent people in peril. Why shouldn't he? A smile is a highly inappropriate reaction to desperate people on the brink of drowning. Why would he be happy about their plight? The smiles come later, when everyone is safe.

As for the pause, how about 'who do I save first?'


We're talking about a world where the governments are run by literal Nazi shadow organizations. These are the people who (within the last year or two) tried to nuke New York and then built giant death machines to pre-emptively murder millions of people who might speak out against their totalitarian rule. Signing on to work for them is not only unethical, it's completely moronic, and suicidally insane.


That was SHIELD, which is now gone, and the World Security Council, who are all dead except British lady. That has nothing to do with the people behind the Accords.

[Anteros]

So... a double standard, then?



Yes, a double standard. Since we're not mindless robots or naive children and we can look past scary buzz-words at the context of the situation and realize it's the only reasonable choice that doesn't end up with the planet destroyed. People who have the power to protect the planet, and a history of doing so, should get more lee-way than people who don't. That seems pretty simple.


That was SHIELD, which is now gone, and the World Security Council, who are all dead except British lady. That has nothing to do with the people behind the Accords.

Oh you're right. This organization would never be susceptible to evil or incompetence. I guess it's time to arrest the people who have saved the planet 3 times and put the guy who created the Abomination and set it loose in a city in charge! Very compelling.

[Tyndmyr]

That was SHIELD, which is now gone, and the World Security Council, who are all dead except British lady. That has nothing to do with the people behind the Accords.

Who, exactly, are these good and noble people behind the accords?

Because we have the veep of the US organizing murders, the king of Wakanda trying to murder folks, all the governmental folks that Hydra infiltrated(including US gov folks) trying to, again, murder people....

Who are the policymakers portrayed in the MCU who *aren't* evil?

[Dr.Samurai]

Tony's mistake in this film is mostly, like always, arrogance. He's confident that he can play everything to his advantage, and everything'll work out alright. He's *pretty* good at this, but he still routinely overestimates it, and it shows up in basically every film he's in.
Correct. My impression is that Metahuman1 is not allowing Ross any character flaws or mistakes. The villain in various Marvel movies are directly the product of Tony's mistakes.

Cap believes the best way to save Bucky's soul is to not fight back in Winter Soldier. So even though they defeat the helicarriers, Cap allows Bucky to "kill" him. The end result would be the world loses Captain America, a superhero, and still has the Winter Soldier, a perfect puppet super soldier for HYDRA. That's Cap's judgment.

No one in these films is perfect. And I know Ross is the antagonist of the Hulk movie, but that doesn't make him a villain, and Civil War does not set him up that way.

I'm not talking about just Bucky, although that also does support the idea that Cap believes his judgment to be superior to the government's. No, I mean Falcon, Ant Man, Hawkeye and the others who got arrested during the airport battle. What they were doing was illegal, and they went in knowing that. Cap broke into the facility where they were being held prisoner for legitimate and acknowledged crimes and released them.
Exactly. This creates a problem for everyone. As Tony says to Hawkeye "you have a family, why didn't you think of them before you did this?" and it's the truth. So... is Clint just going to be a fugitive now? Will the government set up a perimeter around his house and hold his family hostage? If so, will the Avengers storm the place to rescue them? Then what? Where do they live? On the compound? What about Scott Lang? The whole point of his solo movie is to prove himself worthy of being in his daughter's life. So... now he's just going to break the law, get imprisoned, and then escape into a life of being an international fugitive? This is Cap's judgment. We can't even negotiate. The choice is simple; buck all legal authorities and who cares what happens next.

Of course he looks upset watching innocent people in peril. Why shouldn't he? A smile is a highly inappropriate reaction to desperate people on the brink of drowning. Why would he be happy about their plight? The smiles come later, when everyone is safe.
There were no smiles. They only come, barely, when Lois is around. He doesn't look sad for people, he looks bothered. If there was concern, and he was flurrying around trying to help, ok. But that is not what the film is portraying. The film is portraying a Superman that is conflicted about being a hero to the point that you wonder why he is actually doing it.

As for the pause, how about 'who do I save first?'
How about he is a god and they are reaching up to the heavens for salvation, and he has to make a choice to give it to them or not.

That's the whole point of DCEU Superman, and that's why that scene is shot like that and not with Superman, you know, actually saving anyone.

[Cikomyr]

HIS JUDGEMENT IS SUPERIOR TO THE GOVENMENT'S. IT'S NOT EVEN DEBATABLE, WE'VE HAD 3 MOVIES SHOWING IT TO BE OBJECTIVELY TRUE.

Lets just pick Steve Rogers as Earth Dictator for Life then. He is so much better.

Also, nobody is forcing to fight for them. The Accords offer 3 options:

- Abide
- Go to prison
- Retire

Its not just "do what we want or you go to prison". The entire reason why these Accords are acceptable to me is that they provide guidelines to vigilantes. But you can just stop being a Vigilante.

[Anteros]

Lets just pick Steve Rogers as Earth Dictator for Life then. He is so much better.

Also, nobody is forcing to fight for them. The Accords offer 3 options:

- Abide
- Go to prison
- Retire

Its not just "do what we want or you go to prison". The entire reason why these Accords are acceptable to me is that they provide guidelines to vigilantes. But you can just stop being a Vigilante.

Except retiring in this universe literally means the doing nothing while the world ends in 6 months when the next big purple guy shows up. Or Hydra creates another helicarrier of doom. Or the government tries to respond to an invading army by nuking its own cities. Or Ross makes another Abomination. Or. Or. Or. Or. The list goes on and on. Retiring is literally not an option unless you just want to accept death.

You're trying to apply real life rules and logic, but you can't. This isn't our world. This is a world that's on the brink of death at all times, and the only thing holding it back is vigilantes. Vigilantes who cannot operate with a corrupt government turning them into their personal strike squad.

[Cikomyr]

Except retiring in this universe literally means the doing nothing while the world ends in 6 months when the next big purple guy shows up. Or Hydra creates another helicarrier of doom. Or the government tries to respond to an invading army by nuking its own cities. Or Ross makes another Abomination. Or. Or. Or. Or. The list goes on and on. Retiring is literally not an option unless you just want to accept death.

You're trying to apply real life rules and logic, but you can't. This isn't our world. This is a world that's on the brink of death at all times, and the only thing holding it back is vigilantes. Vigilantes who cannot operate with a corrupt government turning them into their personal strike squad.

I only live in the real world, so i can only genuinely deal with real life moralities. I am not going to develop a set of moral guidelines based on every bull**** worlds a writer can invent.

[Forum Explorer]

Except retiring in this universe literally means the doing nothing while the world ends in 6 months when the next big purple guy shows up. Or Hydra creates another helicarrier of doom. Or the government tries to respond to an invading army by nuking its own cities. Or Ross makes another Abomination. Or. Or. Or. Or. The list goes on and on. Retiring is literally not an option unless you just want to accept death.

You're trying to apply real life rules and logic, but you can't. This isn't our world. This is a world that's on the brink of death at all times, and the only thing holding it back is vigilantes. Vigilantes who cannot operate with a corrupt government turning them into their personal strike squad.

That's kinda the problem isn't it?

The Accords is a real world solution. If superheroes existed in our world, something like the Accords would make perfect sense because reasonable people in government exist, and people like Ross would likely get fired the first time he made an Abomination. Actually, wasn't he responsible for the Hulk as well? I'm getting off track.

Point is the Marvel Universe Civil War movie, showed us that it doesn't make sense to follow the Accords because you simply can't trust any big organizations.

[GloatingSwine]

That's kinda the problem isn't it?

The Accords is a real world solution. If superheroes existed in our world, something like the Accords would make perfect sense because reasonable people in government exist, and people like Ross would likely get fired the first time he made an Abomination. Actually, wasn't he responsible for the Hulk as well? I'm getting off track.

Point is the Marvel Universe Civil War movie, showed us that it doesn't make sense to follow the Accords because you simply can't trust any big organizations.

No, the accords aren't a real world solution because the real world actually has solutions to the problem they intend to solve. They're called local laws.

You can't actually just go and be a vigilante in other countries and assume that no laws apply to you, the laws of those countries still apply to things you do there.

Now, you might say that these are superpowers and local law enforcement wouldn't have any way to stand up to them, but remember that Crossbones existed. The "real world" solution would be proliferation of the sort of technology he was using, or that the next Justin Hammer, the Tinker, or Ulysses Klaw could supply, so that nations could put forth an armed response capable of stopping most Avengers from committing vigilante crimes in their territory. (The Hulk is basically weather, if you wait long enough he goes away).

Now that would be a reason for the Sokovia Accords, not "make some laws that apply to Avengers", but "officially put the Avengers in a box so that every nation on earth doesn't arm its police and military with massive firepower to arrest them and make the world much more dangerous for everyone involved".

[Tyndmyr]

Correct. My impression is that Metahuman1 is not allowing Ross any character flaws or mistakes. The villain in various Marvel movies are directly the product of Tony's mistakes.

Cap believes the best way to save Bucky's soul is to not fight back in Winter Soldier. So even though they defeat the helicarriers, Cap allows Bucky to "kill" him. The end result would be the world loses Captain America, a superhero, and still has the Winter Soldier, a perfect puppet super soldier for HYDRA. That's Cap's judgment.

No one in these films is perfect. And I know Ross is the antagonist of the Hulk movie, but that doesn't make him a villain, and Civil War does not set him up that way.

He isn't the villain of Civil War, no. Zemo is the obvious primary villain. Crossbones as secondary. But he *is* an antagonist. Not as the primary adversary, but he does represent an obstacle to heroism.

Cap isn't dead, so...his judgement in Winter soldier isn't that bad. He apparently is redeeming Bucky, too. Cap is very good at fighting Hydra, the fact that he is capable of knowing when not to fight is a point in his favor.

Do agree entirely Re:Superman, so no need to elaborate further on that.


Lets just pick Steve Rogers as Earth Dictator for Life then. He is so much better.

Also, nobody is forcing to fight for them. The Accords offer 3 options:

- Abide
- Go to prison
- Retire

Its not just "do what we want or you go to prison". The entire reason why these Accords are acceptable to me is that they provide guidelines to vigilantes. But you can just stop being a Vigilante.

I doubt Cap would want to be Dictator. Kind of part and parcel of who he is. The inspirational leader, not the sort to force people into lockstep.

The fact that you can retire is good, I think, but the whole "good people do nothing, so evil wins" remains a problem. Particularly when the folks behind the Accords decide to shoot Bucky on sight. The world of the MCU needs superheroes. Quite frequently. If they all opted to retire, what happens the next time something goes horribly awry?

[Aotrs Commander]

The fact that you can retire is good, I think, but the whole "good people do nothing, so evil wins" remains a problem. Particularly when the folks behind the Accords decide to shoot Bucky on sight. The world of the MCU needs superheroes. Quite frequently. If they all opted to retire, what happens the next time something goes horribly awry?

I mean, let's face it, the MCU can't even manage to have their explicitly-designed-to-combat-this-stuff-organisation last more than five minutes at any given time without something disconknockerating it, even with actual competant people in charge, let alone buffoons like Ross or Talbot...

[Anteros]

No, the accords aren't a real world solution because the real world actually has solutions to the problem they intend to solve. They're called local laws.

You can't actually just go and be a vigilante in other countries and assume that no laws apply to you, the laws of those countries still apply to things you do there.

Now, you might say that these are superpowers and local law enforcement wouldn't have any way to stand up to them, but remember that Crossbones existed. The "real world" solution would be proliferation of the sort of technology he was using, or that the next Justin Hammer, the Tinker, or Ulysses Klaw could supply, so that nations could put forth an armed response capable of stopping most Avengers from committing vigilante crimes in their territory. (The Hulk is basically weather, if you wait long enough he goes away).

Now that would be a reason for the Sokovia Accords, not "make some laws that apply to Avengers", but "officially put the Avengers in a box so that every nation on earth doesn't arm its police and military with massive firepower to arrest them and make the world much more dangerous for everyone involved".

You say that like they haven't explicitly been shown trying and failing that very thing in basically every movie. Or as if militaries aren't going to try anyway, even if every single Avenger retired immediately.

[Starbuck_II]

I doubt Cap would want to be Dictator. Kind of part and parcel of who he is. The inspirational leader, not the sort to force people into lockstep.

Well, in the comics, someone cloned Cap and turned that Clone hydra. And since they looked the same, he was given full power over USA.
It was pretty decent comic. He was still rather Inspirational.

[Mechalich]

Now, you might say that these are superpowers and local law enforcement wouldn't have any way to stand up to them, but remember that Crossbones existed. The "real world" solution would be proliferation of the sort of technology he was using, or that the next Justin Hammer, the Tinker, or Ulysses Klaw could supply, so that nations could put forth an armed response capable of stopping most Avengers from committing vigilante crimes in their territory. (The Hulk is basically weather, if you wait long enough he goes away).

The problem here is that is you have technology based superheroes or just superheroes with superhuman intelligence who can produce extremely rapid technological advances, then the technological takeoff destroys your setting.

Take just Stark's Iron Man suit technology. That suit - just the simple one he built in the first movie - gives you the power of a couple of helicopters in a human sized package with a nearly infinite range and incredible flexibility. What if Stark had given it away? It's obviously possible to build large numbers of these units. The US government could have fabricated hundreds of them at least, probably thousands. Once you do that, they world changes, and it changes dramatically. Wars are fought in a completely different way, the map gets redrawn, and of course probably we get some nukes fired off at some point. That means you stop having a set of superhero stories, and you have a military science fiction thriller about the development of powered armor.

And that's one invention. The MCU has tossed out a number of super technologies. Massive amounts of handwaving are necessary to justify continued stasis. This is actually one area where DC, and also FOX with the X-men, are better positioned because they don't have explicitly tech-based heroes (Cyborg's tech is alien in origin and therefore has at least some excuse as to be beyond any sort of reverse engineering). Unfortunately, those heroes not powered by technology in various universes tend to beyond the ability of institutions to contain (especially without some kind of supertech like the cell they put Loki in on the Helicarrier in Avengers I). Superman is the most obvious, but various members of the X-men - remember that time Professor X almost killed the entire human species in X2, or all the millions of people Magneto killed in Apocalypse - have been there, and the Marvel Universe is throwing around infinity stones and Celestials now. Dr. Strange could unmake the Earth with the eye of Agamoto if he really wanted too. Vision could absolutely have completed Ultron's attempted genocide the old-fashioned nuclear way rather than bothering with artificial meteors.

Past a certain point on the power scale the authorities can't contest the supers, and it's really hard to keep your supers below that point. The temptation to go big is just too strong. Once you've gone past that point it's not about actual restraint, it's about the plausibility of your handwaves.

[Dr.Samurai]

He isn't the villain of Civil War, no. Zemo is the obvious primary villain. Crossbones as secondary. But he *is* an antagonist. Not as the primary adversary, but he does represent an obstacle to heroism.
Sure. But he is being presented as a reason the Accords should auto-fail, or a reason to think it would be totally unreasonable for the heroes to sign on, or that he's hungry for power and control over the Avengers. I don't think the movie portrays that at all. His first line in the entire movie is about how he has gained perspective after a heart attack, and the second line is admitting that the world owes the Avengers an incredible debt. So I think it's reasonable to give him a shot, and as the movie progresses I really don't see him betraying that notion. In fact, the idea that he is in control of the Avengers is strange because after the Romania incident he is on the phone asking Tony if the Romania mission was Accords sanctioned. If Ross is the tyrant of the Accords, why is he asking Tony if the mission was sanctioned? Shouldn't he know already? Shouldn't he be the one making those calls?

This isn't a hill I feel like dying on, but I would consider the heroes first before pointing the finger at Ross for why the Accords created a conflict the way it did.

Cap isn't dead, so...his judgement in Winter soldier isn't that bad. He apparently is redeeming Bucky, too.
I don't mean his judgment about Bucky. I mean his judgment with regards to priority. He doesn't have to kill Bucky. He can bring him in. But instead he risks his own life. Seems he was right that Bucky can be redeemed, but that matters to Cap alone. Anyone else's priority would be to neutralize Barnes and bring him in.

Consider that if Cap brought Barnes in at the end of Winter Soldier, Zemo would have to break him out in the first place in order to frame him in Civil War.

Cap is very good at fighting Hydra, the fact that he is capable of knowing when not to fight is a point in his favor.
Tell that to the people Bucky killed in Germany, or their friends and family. Or the people in charge of safe-guarding those people. Again, Cap's judgement on this is totally personal and totally selfish. He wants to save his friend. Anyone can sympathize with that. It doesn't make it the right decision in every context, or a decision that everyone would agree with. Ross says it himself; they should have killed Bucky. Because they didn't, he escaped in Germany and killed dozens of people. If you look at it from the perspective of someone that isn't Bucky's friend, Cap is making the wrong choice.

Let's say Cap had given the Accords a shot when Tony brought him the pens. Then Cap would have captured Bucky after the escape, like in the movie, but instead of going into hiding, he would have brought him in. Bucky would reveal the information about the super soldier base in Siberia, and the Avengers would have taken off to stop Zemo.

Instead, Cap and Sam are on their own, so they enlist Clint, Scott, and Wanda to help them, making all of them fugitives. And since he keeps obstructing the authorities (Captain AMERICA is fighting German special forces to keep Bucky alive) Ross has to consider killing him because he is allowing Bucky to evade authorities and Bucky is killing people.

People have to own the choices they make.

[Sinewmire]

Let's say Cap had given the Accords a shot when Tony brought him the pens. Then Cap would have captured Bucky after the escape, like in the movie, but instead of going into hiding, he would have brought him in. Bucky would reveal the information about the super soldier base in Siberia, and the Avengers would have taken off to stop Zemo.

Instead, Cap and Sam are on their own, so they enlist Clint, Scott, and Wanda to help them, making all of them fugitives. And since he keeps obstructing the authorities (Captain AMERICA is fighting German special forces to keep Bucky alive) Ross has to consider killing him because he is allowing Bucky to evade authorities and Bucky is killing people.

People have to own the choices they make.

Sure, on the other hand, 6 months later Thanos or whatever appears in the Ukraine, or North Korea, Russia/China and their allies in the UN refuse to let the Avengers deal with it and millions die whilst the world's heroes are legally required to watch, helplessly.

[Frozen_Feet]

*Blink*

Why is a thread about why DCU sucks, filled to brim with discussion of the MCU?

Oh, well. Maybe that's an indirect answer to the question posed by the thread title.

Anyways, about MCU...

The idea that "Avengers would've been right to flip off the Accords because ALIENS FROM SPACE" doesn't work in the slightest. It completely ignores Cap's motivation and characterization across several movies. It completely ignores Tony's characterization as well. Let's paraphrase:


Cap: why do we have reverse-engineered HYDRA weapons in the cargo hold?

Nick Fury: ALIENS FROM SPACE, DUDE.

Cap: Uh huh.


Nick Fury: ... and that's why our state-of-art airships can win the war before it begins.

Cap: I don't think winning wars before they begin is what good guys do...


Cap: you tinkered with the alien AI and let it make an army of killer robots? Without asking us? DUDE, WTF?

Tony: ALIENS FROM SPACE, DUDE. WE NEED TO PREPARE.

Cap: Humanity's worst enemy are other humans.

Cap didn't oppose the Accords because he thinks Avengers need to be free to act towards some hypothetical alien threat in six months. On the contrary, he opposed it because he thinks people who think a hypothetical alien threat justifies anything and everything are wrong.

Meanwhile, Tony, the guy who in Age of Ultron totally was on ball with worrying about ALIENS FROM SPACE, is wracked with guilt because his last attempt to prepare for that directly caused the things he's being called to task for now.

Here's what would've happened if they'd tried to sell the hypothetical alien threat to makers of the accords:


Tony: You can't micromanage us! ALIENS FROM SPACE, DUDE!

Ross: Uh huh. And what happened last time you tried to prepare for these "aliens from space"? Shall we watch some footage?

*Ross plays footage of Sokovia again*

*Cap gives Tony a "I told you so" look*

*Tony grimaces and shuffles around awkwardly*

*Ross looks at Cap*

Ross: And what about you, Rogers? Would you totally be fine with giving free license to some technocrat, to do whatever he wants in preparation of some hypothetical threat?

Cap: . . .

One of the things that makes Civil War so good, is because there's a lot of irony to it. Cap and Tony basically flip their roles around, as to who is taking ill-advised action based on a hypothetical threat. That's why Tony's so pissed at Cap. Because Tony's trying hard to learn from the mistake he did in the last movie, the mistake Cap called him out on, and now Cap is doing the same mistake himself.

Sure, aliens from space are totally coming, but you can't justify anyone's actions by that. It's a meta argument that none of the characters have good reasons to buy. It's also doomed if they do, doomed if they don't, because I can totally see part of the reason for the Accords being that the countries in UN want some control over the Avengers, because the want Avengers on stand by for the next alien invasion, instead of chasing minor criminals in Africa.

[Cikomyr]

Sure, on the other hand, 6 months later Thanos or whatever appears in the Ukraine, or North Korea, Russia/China and their allies in the UN refuse to let the Avengers deal with it and millions die whilst the world's heroes are legally required to watch, helplessly.

Thats a strawman

[lt_murgen]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/316/770/d35.jpg

[Avilan the Grey]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/316/770/d35.jpg

And ironically this also answers the OP question... :smallbiggrin:

[Anteros]

Thats a strawman

It's really not. That's the world these characters live in. Everyone but you understands that.

You already admitted that you aren't willing to take the context of the world they live in into consideration, and are only willing to consider real world situations, so I honestly don't even know what you're doing in this debate. No one else is talking about the same thing you are.

You're right in the sense that the Accords would be necessary in the real world. No one disagrees with that. That's not the world we're talking about though.


Snip

It's a fair point to an extent. The difference is that Cap isn't arguing for the Avengers being a proactive strike force. He wants the freedom to react to current threats. That's always been his position. The fact that aliens from space exist is entirely irrelevant to his position.

Also we're arguing about Marvel over DC because there are already 2 other threads talking about DC movies. The Justice League one and the Thor one. Frankly, we've beaten the topic to death recently, and no one can be civil about it so I think we're all tired of talking about it.

[Giggling Ghast]

Thats a strawman

That's not what that word actually means

[Cikomyr]

That's not what that word actually means

Yes. It does.

Claiming as a hypothetical that during Doomsday Armaggedon scenario, Ukraine/Russia/China would insist on refusing Avenger help because they.. dont want to, and thus let themselves dies?

Thats stupid and strawmanish.

[lord_khaine]

Yes. It does.

Claiming as a hypothetical that during Doomsday Armaggedon scenario, Ukraine/Russia/China would insist on refusing Avenger help because they.. dont want to, and thus let themselves dies?

Thats stupid and strawmanish.

Hm.. yeah, i do agree with that, i do also think its a bad argument for letting the Avengers cross borders as they please with no oversight.

Actually. It does not even make sense.
With Accords. USA or some simular militaristic state can refuse help and let millions die to fx hulk rampaging.
Without Accords. USA can still deny entry for a heroic team of Chinise super heroes, because they are a soverign state thats legally allowed to defend their borders as they please.

[Cikomyr]

Hm.. yeah, i do agree with that, i do also think its a bad argument for letting the Avengers cross borders as they please with no oversight.

I agree with you there.

The inciting incident for the Civil War movie was an Avenger op in Nigeria, done without informing the local government, without their cooperation and fully endangering the local population.

Just because I want these kind of events to be more tighlty monitored doesnt mean i think "sky portal opening with an invading army" would need paper pushers triplicate authorization either.

[Dr.Samurai]

Sure, on the other hand, 6 months later Thanos or whatever appears in the Ukraine, or North Korea, Russia/China and their allies in the UN refuse to let the Avengers deal with it and millions die whilst the world's heroes are legally required to watch, helplessly.
You are describing a possible scenario. You aren't describing a reason to ignore the Accords or consider them dead on arrival. The Avengers would save the world in that scenario and the UN would say that they were authorized. It would be a fight or a scandal or something, but they woudl try and make it work. Similar to how Tony tells Steve "we can still say that everything that happened was Accords sanctioned if you just sign".

No one is a saint in these scenarios, things don't work perfectly, but the Accords provide *something* to go by. As opposed to throwing their hands in the air and not doing anything at all.

I don't think they'd hesitate to dispatch the Avengers in the case of an alien invasion.

All that said, I think it'd be cool to look into the politics of how nations that are on cool or tense terms with the US might try to declaw a team of superpowered US citizens.

[lord_khaine]

All that said, I think it'd be cool to look into the politics of how nations that are on cool or tense terms with the US might try to declaw a team of superpowered US citizens.

I do think its a massive part of the problem. Namelig that about.. 90% or so of the Heroes are either US citizens, or act so much like it might as well be the case.
We got Black Panther and Thor. Thats about it i think?

[Dr.Samurai]

Wanda is also called out as not a US citizen when he and Tony argue about her being detained to the compound.

[Sapphire Guard]

Yes, a double standard. Since we're not mindless robots or naive children and we can look past scary buzz-words at the context of the situation and realize it's the only reasonable choice that doesn't end up with the planet destroyed. People who have the power to protect the planet, and a history of doing so, should get more lee-way than people who don't. That seems pretty simple.


I think we have a wire crossed here, because I'm talking about the double standard of being okay with Batman vindictively killing people in one film but not okay with it in another one.


Oh you're right. This organization would never be susceptible to evil or incompetence. I guess it's time to arrest the people who have saved the planet 3 times and put the guy who created the Abomination and set it loose in a city in charge! Very compelling.




Presumably the President and the King of Wakanda that was just killed in the bombing, but my point was just that the organisation that nuked new York and built the helicarriers is not the one that is behind the Accords, so they can't be held accountable for something they had nothing at all to do with.


There were no smiles. They only come, barely, when Lois is around. He doesn't look sad for people, he looks bothered. If there was concern, and he was flurrying around trying to help, ok. But that is not what the film is portraying. The film is portraying a Superman that is conflicted about being a hero to the point that you wonder why he is actually doing it.
As for the pause, how about 'who do I save first?'
How about he is a god and they are reaching up to the heavens for salvation, and he has to make a choice to give it to them or not.

That's the whole point of DCEU Superman, and that's why that scene is shot like that and not with Superman, you know, actually saving anyone.

That's an actual montage of him saving people.

What I got from BVS was almost the exact opposite, in that Superman is just trying to save people but is being unwillingly deified by those he rescues, which he is uncomfortable with. He's 'just a guy trying to do the right thing.'

Smiling during an active threat is highly inappropriate. Those flooding victims, even escaping with their lives, have lost their homes and livelihood, that's not something to be happy about.

Re the Accords, it is kind of notable that so far the best Weapon the villains have against the Avengers is the Avengers. Pretty much all of them build their plans around turning the Avengers against each other for high casualties and/or property damage.

[lord_khaine]

Wanda is also called out as not a US citizen when he and Tony argue about her being detained to the compound.

Yes i know, but i still think she fits under the heading of "might as well be".
She certainly moved into the country, and seemed like she applied for a visa or whatever the term is.

[Lethologica]

Without commentary, I would like to point out that BvS does show Superman smiling while performing a rescue:
https://i.imgur.com/nNWvgTt.png

[Frozen_Feet]

Re the Accords, it is kind of notable that so far the best Weapon the villains have against the Avengers is the Avengers. Pretty much all of them build their plans around turning the Avengers against each other for high casualties and/or property damage.

Well yeah.

That's why most arguments based on how mundane governments are corruptible or totally HYDRA fall flat. Yeah, the Avengers have reasons to be skeptic of mundane authorities. The mundane authorities have as many reasons to be skeptic of the Avengers, and many of them are exactly the same reasons! Because the Avengers themselves are not beyond being corrupted, bewitched or manipulated. Ultimately, Civil War is all about how even the most morally grounded Avenger can be made to act criminally by some dude from Sokovia.

Because of this, whether the Accords worked or even could work is secondary. We could agree that any possible implementation would be victim of "But who watches the watchmen?" problem, but neither the Avengers nor the mundane authorities can stop trying, because the issue is too big to ignore.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yes. It does.

Claiming as a hypothetical that during Doomsday Armaggedon scenario, Ukraine/Russia/China would insist on refusing Avenger help because they.. dont want to, and thus let themselves dies?

Thats stupid and strawmanish.

On the other hand... Postulate that the Avengers all turn out to have appeared in China or Russia or something. Someone invades New York, as in the first movie. The Foreign Avengers want to come help, but General Ross insists that, no, his forces can handle it, he's not letting some foreign freaks muscle in on his turf, because he is an overconfident, arrogant buffoon; he predictably fails and dies, the bad guys finish their World Ruling Mcguffin and win.

(Or vise-versa with regular Avengers Moskow/Beijing invader with Russian/Chinese General Ross.)

If Foreign Avengers come to save the day, instead, General Ross has them arrested if he possibly can and tries to have political power brought on the Foreign Country (because dammit, saving the day was his job) - regardless of whether any accords exist or not.

(I mean, this, like, actually happened in Agents of SHIELD, where they went in to save a Russian general and who then did his damnest to get some of his rescuers executed because it suited his political purposes.)

Marvel universes are full of enough political and military frackwits of sufficient magnitude that I think that would be an actual possibility. They really ARE that freaking dumb, some of them.

[Rater202]

On the other hand... Postulate that the Avengers all turn out to have appeared in China or Russia or something. Someone invades New York, as in the first movie. The Foreign Avengers want to come help, but General Ross insists that, no, his forces can handle it, he's not letting some foreign freaks muscle in on his turf, because he is an overconfident, arrogant buffoon; he predictably fails and dies, the bad guys finish their World Ruling Mcguffin and win.

(Or vise-versa with regular Avengers Moskow/Beijing invader with Russian/Chinese General Ross.)

If Foreign Avengers come to save the day, instead, General Ross has them arrested if he possibly can and tries to have political power brought on the Foreign Country (because dammit, saving the day was his job) - regardless of whether any accords exist or not.

(I mean, this, like, actually happened in Agents of SHIELD, where they went in to save a Russian general and who then did his damnest to get some of his rescuers executed because it suited his political purposes.)

Marvel universes are full of enough political and military frackwits of sufficient magnitude that I think that would be an actual possibility. They really ARE that freaking dumb, some of them.

Marvel is the universe where the only people who noticed that Dock Ock stole Spider-Man's body were Peter Parker's ex-girlfriend and his arch nemesis.

Everyone in the Marvel Universe is stupid, not just government officials or millitary leaders.

There are like fifty brains for seven billion people and everybody in the world is taking turns with one of them.

[Sapphire Guard]

On the other hand... Postulate that the Avengers all turn out to have appeared in China or Russia or something. Someone invades New York, as in the first movie. The Foreign Avengers want to come help, but General Ross insists that, no, his forces can handle it, he's not letting some foreign freaks muscle in on his turf, because he is an overconfident, arrogant buffoon; he predictably fails and dies, the bad guys finish their World Ruling Mcguffin and win.

(Or vise-versa with regular Avengers Moskow/Beijing invader with Russian/Chinese General Ross.)

If Foreign Avengers come to save the day, instead, General Ross has them arrested if he possibly can and tries to have political power brought on the Foreign Country (because dammit, saving the day was his job) - regardless of whether any accords exist or not.

(I mean, this, like, actually happened in Agents of SHIELD, where they went in to save a Russian general and who then did his damnest to get some of his rescuers executed because it suited his political purposes.)

Marvel universes are full of enough political and military frackwits of sufficient magnitude that I think that would be an actual possibility. They really ARE that freaking dumb, some of them.

Regardless of whether Accords exist or not, that's going to happen anyway.