The Snyder Cut

[Rater202]

Well, that sounds like Jason Aaron. Nifty ideas with no care for continuity, common sense, or potentially execution. I’m happy I skipped that run now.

It gets worse.

See, One of the first thing established is that back in 1,000,000 BC and for a few thousand years after that, Odin had a ... Thing, with Firehair, the "I'm not gonna call her a mutant becuase they weren't supposed to exist yet and she hasn't been explicitly called one but it's what she's being presented as" who hosted The Phoenix Force.

Spoiler

Show

Aaron is trying to claim that the Phoenix Force/Fire Hair is Thor's mom and that Gaea(Jord) being Thor's mom was a lie.

Keep in mind we've seen Odin arranging to have a child with Gaea in her guise of the Giantess Jord and why and that Thor's mother being the Elder Goddess who is an embodiment of the earth and all things that live on it has been a plot point multiple times up to and including the Empyre event where Thor went off on a quest to learn how to channel his mother's powers and then used it to shut down the Caoti's plant control abilities.

Now, we know that Thor had at least one previous incarnation who was a Red Head and died in a previous Ragnarock cycle. Until stated otherwise, I'm going to assume that that Thor is Firehair's son and the current Thor is Gaea's son, but the way it's being presented that's clearly not what Aaron intends... Despite all of the horrible continuity errors such retcon causes.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
There are very few franchises that manage four solid films without one of the above happening. By any reasonable film standard, the MCU's doing quite well.

Agreed, but the question is whether the MCU will keep it up with their swarm of new series on Disney+, which seems to be where the real action is happening.

[Darth Credence]

That does seem likely. But still, we're far past the usual point of rebooting or horribly contrived sequels for most film series.

There are very few franchises that manage four solid films without one of the above happening. By any reasonable film standard, the MCU's doing quite well.

I would argue that they hit the 'horribly contrived sequels' wit the third movie, Iron Man 2. I agree that they are doing quite well compared to most, but there have definitely been stinkers in there.

[Rodin]

I would argue that they hit the 'horribly contrived sequels' wit the third movie, Iron Man 2. I agree that they are doing quite well compared to most, but there have definitely been stinkers in there.

They seem to have learned from this though. Both Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World suffered from excessive focus on the title characters when we know them well and also had "Who?" villains. They felt isolated from the MCU.

Contrast later films. Winter Soldier introduced new heroes and advanced the main storyline. Civil War is practically a full Avengers movie. Thor Ragnarok is equal parts Thor and Hulk.

It's easier to make a compelling sequel if you're pushing the entire setting forward with them.

[Peelee]

They seem to have learned from this though. Both Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World suffered from excessive focus on the title characters when we know them well and also had "Who?" villains. They felt isolated from the MCU.

Contrast later films. Winter Soldier introduced new heroes and advanced the main storyline. Civil War is practically a full Avengers movie. Thor Ragnarok is equal parts Thor and Hulk.

It's easier to make a compelling sequel if you're pushing the entire setting forward with them.

Iron Man 3 was a later film from Iron Man 2.

Also Winter Soldier (one of the few I've seen) suffered from "where the hell is everyone else during this global, world-changing emergency" syndrome and also had "literally the first guy we meet and have known for two days but conveniently is the one person who can use bleeding edge technology to be on par with the others" as the new hero. It was pretty bad.

[Dragonus45]

It gets worse.

See, One of the first thing established is that back in 1,000,000 BC and for a few thousand years after that, Odin had a ... Thing, with Firehair, the "I'm not gonna call her a mutant becuase they weren't supposed to exist yet and she hasn't been explicitly called one but it's what she's being presented as" who hosted The Phoenix Force.

Spoiler

Show

Aaron is trying to claim that the Phoenix Force/Fire Hair is Thor's mom and that Gaea(Jord) being Thor's mom was a lie.

Keep in mind we've seen Odin arranging to have a child with Gaea in her guise of the Giantess Jord and why and that Thor's mother being the Elder Goddess who is an embodiment of the earth and all things that live on it has been a plot point multiple times up to and including the Empyre event where Thor went off on a quest to learn how to channel his mother's powers and then used it to shut down the Caoti's plant control abilities.

Now, we know that Thor had at least one previous incarnation who was a Red Head and died in a previous Ragnarock cycle. Until stated otherwise, I'm going to assume that that Thor is Firehair's son and the current Thor is Gaea's son, but the way it's being presented that's clearly not what Aaron intends... Despite all of the horrible continuity errors such retcon causes.

Spoiler

Show

Yea that sounds like him. Not a bad writer overall, but perhaps he should be just specifically barred from touching anything and everything to do with Thor. I swear it brings out the worst in him as a writer.

They seem to have learned from this though. Both Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World suffered from excessive focus on the title characters when we know them well and also had "Who?" villains. They felt isolated from the MCU.

Contrast later films. Winter Soldier introduced new heroes and advanced the main storyline. Civil War is practically a full Avengers movie. Thor Ragnarok is equal parts Thor and Hulk.

It's easier to make a compelling sequel if you're pushing the entire setting forward with them.

I disagree.

Iron Man 3 worked much better of those two since as the third movie it was a chance to pull in and look much closer at Tony as a person after all this super heroics and post Avengers stuff. The problems it had came a lot more from just having a weak script.

Dark World as well just bad from the roots and I wouldn't blame it on any one part more then the rest.

Civil War walked the finest of lines though with that Avengers thing.

Managing to stick the entire cast of the franchise in there really just for one big fight but making it still feel like they were all so much more present then just Bucky, Cap, and Tony was just the chefs kiss. And the core themes of the movie make it genuinely feel like it was always Cap's show so to speak, outside of Black Panther getting a solid "revenge isn't the way" B plot to just get that origin story plot out of the way gracefully and free up his actual movie to really go places, but frankly you could have paired down Tony to just the cameo initially envisioned and keep it to just Cap and his supporting cast and still made a fairly compelling movie. Moving the "plot" forward was just a bonus to it.

Ragnarok was a unique special piece of media best described as an apology for the Thor series not really feeling like it could earn a big sendoff movie to cap off Thor's arc and the Hulk movies just never taking off at all so ****it lets just throw a big party and blow up Asgard! I am aware there is some genuine commentary and metacommentary there but that was also just set dressing for the need to cover some bases and get Thor the third movie Hemsworth deserved and barely moved the "metaplot" forward in any meaningful way.

[AvatarVecna]

*Thanos snap happens, Reed Richards and Doctor Doom survive, but the rest of the Fantastic Four does not*

Doom: "Excellent! Richards' entire team got snapped and now he must mourn their loss! Once again, DOOM has proven superior by having no friends to mourn in the first place!"

*Reed, being canonically smarter than Tony Stark, figures out how to bring back snapped people, and uses this just to bring back his three teammates*

Doom: "RICHARDS!!!"

[Rater202]

*Thanos snap happens, Reed Richards and Doctor Doom survive, but the rest of the Fantastic Four does not*

Doom: "Excellent! Richards' entire team got snapped and now he must mourn their loss! Once again, DOOM has proven superior by having no friends to mourn in the first place!"

*Reed, being canonically smarter than Tony Stark, figures out how to bring back snapped people, and uses this just to bring back his three teammates*

Doom: "RICHARDS!!!"

...I want to say that's an exaggeration... But Reed once created a mathematical proof of the existence of immortal souls, extrapolated this to prove the existence of the afterlife, and used that to create a portal to Heaven solely because he couldn't accept that his best friend was dead.

Reed Richards has objective proof of the existence of Heaven and has met and had a conversation with Capital G God and did nothing wth it.

[Tvtyrant]

So Reed Richards is basically Cave Johnson from Portal?

[Dire_Flumph]

So Reed Richards is basically Cave Johnson from Portal?

Cave was a money (and ideas) man, there was no indication he was a scientist.

[Rater202]

So Reed Richards is basically Cave Johnson from Portal?

No, becuase Reed's inventions work for their intended purposes.

More seriously that real reason that Reed Richards is Useless is that his inventions are either difficult to replicate or would ruin the economy.

One of the main reasons that Reed has infinite money to throw into his inventions is becuase he got bored and invented a permanent cure for acne, boils, and other pus-filled blemishes that could be manufactured much more cheaply than most such treatments—you pay less than it costs to by over the counter pimple cream, take it once, and not only are your various blemishes gone but you can never get that kind of blemish again.

Various pharmaceutical operations are paying him a portion of their yearly income to prevent him from selling the recipe to any of the others or from marketing to himself becuase it would completely destroy the industry for treatments for such things.

A lot of Reed's inventions are like that. Reed's basically holding the economy hostage without even trying.

If you want to have a Cave Johnson analog... I suggest Norman Osborn, who created a universal cancer cure... for the sole sake of murdering Deadpool with it.

[Tyndmyr]

I would argue that they hit the 'horribly contrived sequels' wit the third movie, Iron Man 2. I agree that they are doing quite well compared to most, but there have definitely been stinkers in there.

I don't mind Iron Man 2, and felt that one was actually pretty decent. Thor 2 and Iron Man 3, now, you might have a point.

But these are all at least still semi-functional films. They're not Donnie Darko 2, the direct to dvd unnecessary sequel, yknow? Or whatever it is that keeps plaguing any adaptation of the Fantastic Four.

Heck, compare the MCU to the DCU. The former has a couple of rough entries, but the latter has perhaps three good movies, one mediocre one, and five bombs. (The Good: WW, Shazam, Aquaman. The Mediocre: Man of Steel)

Of all the various movie franchises out there, I suspect only James Bond *might* have as many fan-beloved films as the MCU.

[Clertar]

The former has a couple of rough entries, but the latter has perhaps three good movies, one mediocre one, and five bombs. (The Good: WW, Shazam, Aquaman. The Mediocre: Man of Steel)

And these three are more or less at mediocre-average MCU standard.

It's fair and square to criticize the MCU for the things that they don't get right (enough), and to expect quality from them. But any other movie franchise would sell their soul to have half the success in achieving what was intended.

[Peelee]

Reed, being canonically smarter than Tony Stark, figures out how to bring back snapped people

Super easy, barely an inconvenience. He just needs to have enough knowledge to know he's in the MCU, where consequences don't really happen.

[Fyraltari]

No, becuase Reed's inventions work for their intended purposes.

More seriously that real reason that Reed Richards is Useless is that his inventions are either difficult to replicate or would ruin the economy.

One of the main reasons that Reed has infinite money to throw into his inventions is becuase he got bored and invented a permanent cure for acne, boils, and other pus-filled blemishes that could be manufactured much more cheaply than most such treatments—you pay less than it costs to by over the counter pimple cream, take it once, and not only are your various blemishes gone but you can never get that kind of blemish again.

Various pharmaceutical operations are paying him a portion of their yearly income to prevent him from selling the recipe to any of the others or from marketing to himself becuase it would completely destroy the industry for treatments for such things.

What. The opportunity to justify his wealth AND lampshade the improbable good looks of all their chatacters (name one superhero character with acne) was staring them right in the face and instead of just saying "Reed Richards made a ton of money by selling a permanent cure for acne" they went with "our superhero character got bribed by big pharma." Why?

[Dienekes]

(name one superhero character with acne)

Superboy... quite infamously.

It almost killed him.

[Rater202]

What. The opportunity to justify his wealth AND lampshade the improbable good looks of all their chatacters (name one superhero character with acne) was staring them right in the face and instead of just saying "Reed Richards made a ton of money by selling a permanent cure for acne" they went with "our superhero character got bribed by big pharma." Why?

Honestly it's just one joke among many—Reed often invents things that should change the world but when he sells or tries to market it he's told it'll destroy the economy and either th person who buys the patents sits on it or he gets paid not to mass produce it.

The acne was just the one I could think of off the top of my head.

Though, admittedly, since specifically acne is caused by a bacterial infection and pimples and boils and the like in general are "there's grease or bacteria in your pores"

The fact that pretty much everyone with superpowers has some enhanced ability to heal or a bolstered immune system would explain why they don't have to deal with that. The ones who don't are usually very big on health and fitness. That would explain why they're all good-looking.

(Also, the worst acne outbreaks, the "pizza face" look is usually caused by someone washing their faces to much and scrubbing to hard in the hopes of getting rid of the acne, which ironically just dries out your skin and damages the surface layer making you more prone to skin damage and infections. Cleanliness is important but a lot of people take it to far or do it wrong.)

[Lord Raziere]

What. The opportunity to justify his wealth AND lampshade the improbable good looks of all their chatacters (name one superhero character with acne) was staring them right in the face and instead of just saying "Reed Richards made a ton of money by selling a permanent cure for acne" they went with "our superhero character got bribed by big pharma." Why?

Its a problem in comic books that if you let the inventor superhero actually change the world with their inventions, you quickly end up with something out of a sci-fi novel that doesn't look like the earth we know, and something something unrecognizable to the audience, something something not relatable, blah blah blah people in charge probably overkilled the willingness to NOT the change the world in that instance to prevent the world from becoming unrelatable and having to explain how its different and such.

its ironically why Reed Richards is considered useless in the first place. all his super-science gets confined to super-science problems because for some reason there is no middle ground between "just like our world but with supers here and there" and "the inventor superhero has created a sci-fi utopia". its kinda dumb.

[Psyren]

I'm with you on this. Routine giant resets just feel obnoxious after a bit, and makes all character development feel meaningless.

Comics are odd. I enjoy them sometimes, but it's hard to unironically enjoy much of the content itself. Even the biggest comic fans have to sometimes just shrug and acknowledge that the genre is wildly mixed, and the length of many runs sort of destroys even the broadest levels of consistency.

One hopes that more folks would take a page from the MCU, where there's at least some broad overarching vision regarding how things fit together. Not that the MCU is perfect, mind you, but there's at least an attempt there.

I actualy don't mind giant resets. If a given story didn't work or ruined a character, throw it out by any means necessary. What I mind is this whole mealy-mouthed "yes it actually happened, but in a pocket dimension nobody remembers" milquetoast attempt to please the few who liked it.

Until the MCU continues to the point that it has the same system of patchwork and fixes and resets and alternate worlds as the comics. Don't confuse newer with better.

By the time that happens we might be done with superheroes as a film concept anyway.

They seem to have learned from this though. Both Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World suffered from excessive focus on the title characters when we know them well and also had "Who?" villains. They felt isolated from the MCU.

Contrast later films. Winter Soldier introduced new heroes and advanced the main storyline. Civil War is practically a full Avengers movie. Thor Ragnarok is equal parts Thor and Hulk.

It's easier to make a compelling sequel if you're pushing the entire setting forward with them.

Part of the problem with IM3 and AOU is that they're not in the right order, story-wise. None of Phase 2 is. Nando has a great video on this. This is why we got really weird inconsistencies like Iron Man destroying all his suits in 3, only to inexplicably be in one and building a fleet of them again in AOU, as well as Shield disbanding in Winter Soldier and Nick Fury going into hiding, only to show up and save the day in AOU.

[Kitten Champion]

as well as Shield disbanding in Winter Soldier and Nick Fury going into hiding, only to show up and save the day in AOU.

But the whole point is that Nick Fury's appearance in AoU is a surprise and not a "well of course SHIELD is around, why wouldn't they be?"-kind of thing.

It's also set up in Agents of SHIELD, though it was the last plot point - albeit a relatively minor one - that transcended into the television medium. Well, until WandaVision presumably.

[Tyrant]

Re: Most superheroes are good looking
This was somewhat addressed in Avengers Academy. One of the characters was a young girl and she notices that she no longer needs to wear glasses and is in noticeably better shape. Hank Pym tells her that most powers seem to enhance people to something closer to physical perfection* and they have an easier time of staying in shape.

* I don't have the book in front of me but I don't think these are the exact words he uses but it is the general idea.

[Psyren]

Re: Most superheroes are good looking
This was somewhat addressed in Avengers Academy. One of the characters was a young girl and she notices that she no longer needs to wear glasses and is in noticeably better shape. Hank Pym tells her that most powers seem to enhance people to something closer to physical perfection* and they have an easier time of staying in shape.

* I don't have the book in front of me but I don't think these are the exact words he uses but it is the general idea.

I always thought this was a natural consequence of most superhero teams being paid to work out, do Danger Room exercises etc. Talk about an unnecessary handwave...

[Rater202]

Mutants aren't wrong when they claim to be the "next step" in human evolution. Though honestly, that term applies to superhumans in general.

Having superpowers in and of itself make you more fit...

Though it's only certain powers/power origins that actually makes you "perfect."

And yes, I know that doesn't make sense but the very existence of the High Evolutionary should tell you that normal evolution isn't a thing in comic books.

[Peelee]

Mutants aren't wrong when they claim to be the "next step" in human evolution. Though honestly, that term applies to superhumans in general.

Having superpowers in and of itself make you more fit...

For for what?

[Rynjin]

For for what?

For superheroics, duh.

[Rater202]

For for what?

In general. Stronger, healthier, and so on. Better able to survive in a natural environment.

It doesn't really amount to much on a day to day basis since most superhumans live in modern western civilization, and unless "superhuman attributes" or "superhuman immunity" are your powers it's only particularly noticeable if you're actively comparing a superhuman to a normal human of the same body type, environment, and lifestyle, but it's there and it's the reason why Superhumans tend to be better looking and healthier than baseline humans on average.

[Peelee]

In general. Stronger, healthier, and so on. Better able to survive in a natural environment.

That's not what "fittest" means though, nor is it necessarily better able to survive in a natural environment (which as you pointed out later in your reply, is irrelevant anyway).

No mutants are no less fit than mutants from an evolutionary point of view.

[Dienekes]

That's not what "fittest" means though, nor is it necessarily better able to survive in a natural environment (which as you pointed out later in your reply, is irrelevant anyway).

No mutants are no less fit than mutants from an evolutionary point of view.

All evolutionarily fit means, is more likely to survive long enough to reproduce. This by extension usually means being more capable of surviving in general or gathering resources in the environment they’re in.

And I kind of think mutants fit that description. Since many of them do have traits that would normally increase survivability, especially living in Marvel Manhattan where it is utter chaos and normal people die by the truckload.

This is somewhat counteracted by the cultural developments that seem to push mutants into more extremely dangerous scenarios either through being a super hero or villain. But I don’t think evolution really accounts for that.

[Rater202]

[QUOTE=Peelee;24957257]That's not what "fittest" means though, nor is it necessarily better able to survive in a natural environment (which as you pointed out later in your reply, is irrelevant anyway).

I did not say "fittest," I said "more fit." Someone who is predisposed to be healthier and stronger/faster/tougher physically is more likely to live long enough to have children, all other things equal, and is thus more fit in terms of pure Darwinian evolution.

No mutants are no less fit than mutants from an evolutionary point of view.

Since we are now talking specifically about mutants:

The average mutant is, before accounting for powers and physiological changes, just slightly stronger, harder to injure, faster, and harder to tire out than a human of similar build, environment, or health habits. They also have a noticeably higher resistance to drugs and toxins—Boom Boom, a notorious party-girl, on one occasion celebrates the fact that, as a mutant, it takes a couple of extra beers before she starts to get drunk.

Mutants are immune to some, not all, but some bacterial and viral infections. A plot point is that under normal circumstances they can't e infected by Sublime, but it's explicitly mentioned that mutants can't get HIV. This is in addition to having a slightly stronger immune system, on average.

Take a physically fit and healthy human and a mutant with the same general health and body time, level of activity, and so on, both with equal knowledge of survival, and drop each of them naked and without supplies on two separate but functionally identical desert islands and come back in a year. The mutant is more likely to still be alive.

This is, of course, assuming that the mutant doesn't have a superpower that gives them an unfair advantage and that neither the mutant nor the human has some physical or mental disability that puts them at an unfair disadvantage.

Now, there are cases of mutants having powers that are harmful, like Rogue or Cyclops or Wither, dangerous powers they can't turn off, but those are almost universally the result of brain damage, psychological trauma, or both. The ones that aren't are usually caused by stressors causing the powers to manifest sooner than they should have, which sometimes makes things break.

This is of course, excluding outliers--If we're comparing how well humans vs mutants can hold their liquor, it's not gonna be Ozzy Osbourne drinking for team human.

(Osbourne is a real-life mutant, BTW. About ten years ago his genome was sequenced and he has several unique genetic mutations that allow him to better process drugs and alcohol and also makes him age slightly slower than normal. It ain't X-Men level crap but his unique genes have been the subject of study.)

If we include outliers, then there is a subcategory of Mutants called Externals. Externals just... It's like Highlander. The only way they can die is to be killed by another External, which results in the slain External's life-energy being distributed among the other Externals. Otherwise, they stop aging when their powers manifest and will revive from any means of killing them, assuming they can be killed in the first place.

(Externals is also a group of 5-6 long-lived mutants who do conspiracy stuff, but not every member of the Group Externals is an External in the biological sense, and not every External is a member of the group.)

Since some members of the mutant population literally can't die, and fitness in an evolutionary sense is defined as "live long enough to pass on your genes," that pretty much cinches it.

As does the fact that humans sometimes give birth to human populations: Under the current canon, at the rate that humans are giving birth to mutant offspring, mutants will be 51% of the native earthling population within 20 in-universe years.

This prompts the formation of ORCHIS, a group of racist bastards who used to work for SHIELD, SWORD, HAMMER, AIM, HYDRA and other such organizations that have stolen resources from the same in order to wipe out mutants now so they won't be the majority in the future. They're currently holed up in a space station orbiting the sun and came within inches of accidentally causing a human extinction via robot uprising. Thought making a self-aware Master Mold that makes other Master Molds and is capable of making robots more advanced than itself was a good idea.

For context, even Weapon Plus hates ORCHIS. The head of Weapon II went out of his way to destroy an ORCHIS operation

[Peelee]

All evolutionarily fit means, is more likely to survive long enough to reproduce. This by extension usually means being more capable of surviving in general or gathering resources in the environment they’re in.

And I kind of think mutants fit that description. Since many of them do have traits that would normally increase survivability, especially living in Marvel Manhattan where it is utter chaos and normal people die by the truckload.

Not a lot of the mutants that I am aware of have reproduced, so I have reason to doubt your assertion.

I did not say "fittest," I said "more fit." Someone who is predisposed to be healthier and stronger/faster/tougher physically is more likely to live long enough to have children, all other things equal, and is thus more fit in terms of pure Darwinian evolution.

None of those make mutants more fit in terms of pure Darwinian evolution. They are the exactly same amount of fit. Darwinian evolution deems fitness in response to the environment. For example, the peppered moth underwent massively fast evolution during the industrial revolution, because white peppered moths were hard to see when landed. As a result, black peppered moths were eaten more often, as they were easier to see. Once the industrial revolution hit and the soot darkened the landscape, the white peppered moth suddenly stood out far more and the rare black peppered moth was more hidden, leading to a shift in peppered moths being predominantly black with the white variety now being rare.

The white and black peppered moths were the same level off strength/fastness/toughness. None of that mattered. All that mattered was which was was able to survive and reproduce more in its environment, and when that environment suddenly changed, the variant that happened to fit that change was the one that survived, and was thus the more fit one.

Nonmutants are no less fit than mutants to survive and reproduce. Mutants are not more fit. QED.