Shang Chi and the Very Long Subtitle About Obscure Marvel Lore

[Ramza00]

/head desk I swear comics are nothing more than General Hospital or Days of Our Lives with energy blasts. Wasnt her brother captain britain? Whats he up to? Temporarily dead? Gender swapped and pregnant with himself from an alternate timeline? Empowered by the mkron crystal to be the next alucard? Depowered by the mystic might of merlin and moved to canada where the lumberjack of light has empowered him as major maple syrup man?

So Betsy is one of the most complicated soap opera characters. This is because She was a favorite of Chris Claremont who created her in the 70s as a non X-Men character for he was writing multiple books at the time, so she was first a Captain Britain character.

Then Betsy Braddock was a character 8 years later in the Alan Davis Captain Britain run in the mid 80s. Then that Captain Britain book was canceled. So Chris Claremont who loves his Danes, “saved” Betsy Braddock by retconning her as a mutant whose mutant powers developed a little past puberty and she became a mutant in A New Mutants Annual and Betsy joined the X-Men main team. Likewise a year and a half later different mutants created a new X-Men team called Excalibur and Captain Britain and Megan two of the main CB characters are 40% of this team. Note the 3 mutants thought the main X-Men team died for they saw the deaths on the television, but they did not know an order goddess resurrected these X-Men for the X-Men sacrificed their souls to save the earth from a Chaos god.

So the main X-Men team including Betsy go to Australia for a year and a half, purposefully being on the downlow in order to fight Mutant enemies. This is known as the outback era. Well eventually the mutant enemies of the moment, the reavers, machine man hybrids (see the Logan movie) were going to trap and kill the X-Men so the X-Men step through a magical gateway of the order Goddess and they were reborn / reincarnated as new people who did not have memories until plot happened.

Well Betsy in her story becomes Asian and it was meant to be a temporary thing but Jim Lee drew good art and thus CC decided to let it last a little bit longer instead of ending it after a few arts.

Then CC got fired / quit in 1991 due to fighting with editorial. Betsy remains Asian and more retcons happened. CC intended this to be a small story but it got complicated. Then CC was rehired by Marvel in 2000 after the 96 and 97 bankruptcy and he wrote some more Betsy stories for it was one of his favorites.

And in 2000 he kills Betsy with the plan of now reverting her. It has been 10 years and it was his intent. Well a new editorial editor (not the same one who fought with Chris 9 years earlier) said no resurrections without communicating this to Claremont before hand so Betsy died for a few years. Then a few years later Betsy is resurrected by her reality warping older brother (not her younger twin, but the insane oldest brother with the powers of god) and she is still Asian for a different X-Men author wrote that story not Chris Claremont.

Then more stuff happened and eventually Betsy is resurrected again with her original body / DNA.

————

Now originally Betsy became Asian due to six arm spiral body shaping her to look Asian for a favor for the assassin group The Hand (famous Daredevil but also other 616 character villains) , but a different author hated this for this was yellow face. Thus Betsy is not shaped to look Asian but instead was Body Swapped with a new character known as Kwannon. Now it is more complicated than this but this is the Don’t Worry About It.

————

So in 2019 with the soft reboot House of X Powers of X there is now a mutant island. Soon after HoXPoX Excalibur 2019 starts. In the first issue Morgan Le Fey captures Brian Braddock aka Captain Britain aka Betsy’s twin and brain washes him as her Captain Avalon, a dark knight. Before the brainwash finishes he gives his magical amulet to his sister and she becomes Captain Britain and gains Shazam like powers on top of her extremely powerful psionic powers.

Them more stuff happens in the 20 issues of Excalibur, but there lies spoilers.

[Tyrant]

Welcome to American Superhero Comics.

For you, this complicated cross between epic fantasy and the cheesiest Televoela you can find is the most mind-breaking event of your life.

For me? This was Wednesday.

Always up for the M. Bison reference. I feel like you could have Apocalypse say that at some point during the X of Swords crossover to one of the newer mutants and it would fit right in.

[Rater202]

Always up for the M. Bison reference. I feel like you could have Apocalypse say that at some point during the X of Swords crossover to one of the newer mutants and it would fit right in.

I mean, he did something similar in X-Men #4.

Professor X, Magneto, and Apocalypse are Krakoa's representatives to some international conference on the world economy or something. Dinner, then discuss something something.

during dinner conversation, someone points out that nations should never get too cocky because they can fall at any time. Then cites how people don't know the cause of the Bronze Age collapse. (To oversimplify, Western Civilisation basically ceased to exist for a while at the end of the Bronze Age.)

Apocalypse: "I do?"
Guy: "Then what was it?"
Apocalypse: "Me."

He's not bragging, he's not boasting, he's not cracking jokes... He's just making conversation.

Spoiler

Show

And he's wearing a suit! How fricking out of place is that?

[Ramza00]

I mean, he did something similar in X-Men #4.

Professor X, Magneto, and Apocalypse are Krakoa's representatives to some international conference on the world economy or something. Dinner, then discuss something something.

Davos Switzerland, there is a yearly conference called the World Economic Forum where 3000 rich people meet. Economists, politicians, business leaders, non profit non government organizations, etc.

I did the Leonardo DiCaprio meme of me pointing when I read this issue 2020 the week of New Years. This place is real, the thing they are at is real, and I can not say anymore due to cursing and rules on this board about politics.

[Lord Raziere]

Welcome to American Superhero Comics.

For you, this complicated cross between epic fantasy and the cheesiest Televoela you can find is the most mind-breaking event of your life.

For me? This was Wednesday.

Idea for new super series: named "The Survivors" focus on how surviving a superhero world would be a daily endeavor fraught with peril and danger.

but then again, nothing might come of it, given my other super ideas like Superhuman Oversight Committee or SOC Files which would be about an underfunded government investigation division, the people having a theme of powers that lend themselves towards investigation rather than combat and being physically weak overall, trying to troubleshoot various problems with various other superhuman organizations that deal with various super issues. like extraterrestrial alien immigration, superhuman orphans, mad scientists, the mutant community, the supernatural community, a university for psychics, a SHIELD/Avengers copy that it would be able to investigate and a international superhero organization more like the justice league that it wouldn't, things like that, and I've gone nowhere with that idea.

[Ramza00]

Idea for new super series: named "The Survivors" focus on how surviving a superhero world would be a daily endeavor fraught with peril and danger.

I have not read it but Marvels was kind of like this from the mid 90s. A 4 issue miniseries that ...

Set in the 1939 to 1974 time period, the series examines the Marvel Universe, the collective setting of most of Marvel's superhero series, from the perspective of an Everyman character, news photographer Phil Sheldon. The street-level series portrayed ordinary life in a world full of costumed superhumans, with each issue featuring events well known to readers of Marvel comics, as well as a variety of minute details and a retelling of the most famous events in the Marvel universe.

Supposedly it got a lot of awards and accolades.

[Rater202]

I have not read it but Marvels was kind of like this from the mid 90s. A 4 issue miniseries that ...



Supposedly it got a lot of awards and accolades.

Every panel is a full scale painting. It's a wonderful story and it's just fricking beautiful.

Ts' also 100% canon to the main 616 universe.

My favorite bits are the irony: Our PoV character is a journalist who occasionally works with the Bugle. He openly admires Spider-Man for doing what he does despite being vilified... But hates Peter Parker becuase he perceives th young man as exploiting Spider-Man for-profit and being complicit in the Jameson's libel.

That's some lear cut dramatic irony, it's funny becuase we know things that our protagonist doesn't.

Then there's a very poinent scene. Pur PoV character is shown falling in with anti-Mutant mobs. He even throws a rock at Iceman... But he pauses when Iceman is stopped from relating by Cyclops, who says "he isn't worth it."

And then he's going home one day, and there's a mob on his street. They were chasing a mutant, a horrible mutant with a face like a skull. she escaped into one of the houses on the street tough and they aren't sure which one. Fearing for his family, our protagonist rushes home and find his wife and two kids in the basement... With the mutant.

And the mutant is just a little girl. She's cowering in fear, and even though her face is like a skull, even though her eyes are just black voids, there's a look, an expression, that our hero can't help but recognize.

A look that he last saw in the faces of Holocaust survivors when he was covering the liberation of one of the camps.

And our hero realizes that he has become what he hates most: A bigot.

That, that whole thing is just... so good.

He drives off the mob, and the mutant girl, Maggie, stays with his family for a time but runs away when the Sentinels are unveiled because she was afraid that if the Sentinels found her our protagonist and his family would have been hurt for harboring her.

[Kitten Champion]

Honestly, as far as Rater-explained plotlines of Marvel canon, Betsy Braddock getting her body back or becoming Captain Britain seem fairly straightforward and trivial.

Obviously when they upended the Mutant-related continuity someone - probably many someones - thought this was the golden opportunity to fix one of the most glaring and enduring problematic issues in the Marvel canon by giving Betsy her original body back. Doing it now before the MCU would have to worry about it makes sense in the long-term.

As to making her Captain Britain, they want Mutant-led books to be more visible now that they aren't trying to slowly smother them to death to piss off Fox and the Excalibur offshoot of the X-Books has been a thing since the 80's. Giving the role of Captain Britain to his twin sister who is - reasonably speaking - the more popular Superhero of the two for the most part, is rather unremarkable.

It'd be like Storm replacing T'Challa as Black Panther for a run or two. Ya'know, back when the X-Men were ascendant comic icons and Black Panther was a barely known figure.

[t209]

Idea for new super series: named "The Survivors" focus on how surviving a superhero world would be a daily endeavor fraught with peril and danger.

but then again, nothing might come of it, given my other super ideas like Superhuman Oversight Committee or SOC Files which would be about an underfunded government investigation division, the people having a theme of powers that lend themselves towards investigation rather than combat and being physically weak overall, trying to troubleshoot various problems with various other superhuman organizations that deal with various super issues. like extraterrestrial alien immigration, superhuman orphans, mad scientists, the mutant community, the supernatural community, a university for psychics, a SHIELD/Avengers copy that it would be able to investigate and a international superhero organization more like the justice league that it wouldn't, things like that, and I've gone nowhere with that idea.

Powers by Bendis shared a similiar theme. Or Gotham Central.

[Lord Raziere]

I have not read it but Marvels was kind of like this from the mid 90s. A 4 issue miniseries that ...



Supposedly it got a lot of awards and accolades.

I mean thats great and all, but it sounds too "social issues" for what I have in mind

I'm talking about taking all the potential apocalyptic stuff being taken seriously and having actual consequences. when aliens invade, its not something that is wrapped up in a single story, but results in the city being ruined, various mutants suddenly awaking their powers amid the devastation as society has broken down, remnant aliens trapped on a planet that hates them, and of course a mad scientist thinks he can solve the problem by building a robot army to bring order and civilization back to the streets but it goes horribly wrong and now robots are making things even worse and so on, and there be a bunch of people just trying to survive these various events. it would be more about how fragile modern society would be when dealing with a superhero world and its various disasters, and how people would try to deal with that kind of thing happen to make the best they can out of it.

[Rater202]

Honestly, as far as Rater-explained plotlines of Marvel canon, Betsy Braddock getting her body back or becoming Captain Britain seem fairly straightforward and trivial.

Obviously when they upended the Mutant-related continuity someone - probably many someones - thought this was the golden opportunity to fix one of the most glaring and enduring problematic issues in the Marvel canon by giving Betsy her original body back. Doing it now before the MCU would have to worry about it makes sense in the long-term.

As to making her Captain Britain, they want Mutant-led books to be more visible now that they aren't trying to slowly smother them to death to piss off Fox and the Excalibur offshoot of the X-Books has been a thing since the 80's. Giving the role of Captain Britain to his twin sister who is - reasonably speaking - the more popular Superhero of the two for the most part, is rather unremarkable.

It'd be like Storm replacing T'Challa as Black Panther for a run or two. Ya'know, back when the X-Men were ascendant comic icons and Black Panther was a barely known figure.

It wasn't even an upended continuity thing.

Betsy's soul got eaten by a psychic vampire but she was able to steal enough psychic energy from the remants of previous victims to supercharge herself, escape, and regenerate a new body. It just happened to regenerate her original body.

And then they never explained how Kwannon got back in her original body.

[Tyrant]

And he's wearing a suit! How fricking out of place is that?

Yeah I have that issue. I wondered after reading it, did he have the suit made or did he just shape shift?

Every panel is a full scale painting. It's a wonderful story and it's just fricking beautiful.

Yeah, Alex Ross' work is pretty spectacular.

And then he's going home one day, and there's a mob on his street. They were chasing a mutant, a horrible mutant with a face like a skull. she escaped into one of the houses on the street tough and they aren't sure which one. Fearing for his family, our protagonist rushes home and find his wife and two kids in the basement... With the mutant.

And the mutant is just a little girl. She's cowering in fear, and even though her face is like a skull, even though her eyes are just black voids, there's a look, an expression, that our hero can't help but recognize.

A look that he last saw in the faces of Holocaust survivors when he was covering the liberation of one of the camps.

And our hero realizes that he has become what he hates most: A bigot.

That, that whole thing is just... so good.

He drives off the mob, and the mutant girl, Maggie, stays with his family for a time but runs away when the Sentinels are unveiled because she was afraid that if the Sentinels found her our protagonist and his family would have been hurt for harboring her.

That part hit hard when I read it the first time. First the moment when he realizes no matter what else she might be, she's just a scared little girl and then when she leaves so they don't get hurt. It's fairly rare that comics really get to me but that issue did.

I have one of the collected editions so I read it all at once. So naturally after reading that and already being a little emotional I see the cover of issue 4 with the Green Goblin holding Gwen Stacy and I know already which part of Spider-Man's history I'm about to get to see play out (at the time I had not read the original issues and only knew about the story because it's one of those story that every Marvel reader knows even if they never read it).

[Rater202]

Yeah I have that issue. I wondered after reading it, did he have the suit made or did he just shape shift?

Yeah, Alex Ross' work is pretty spectacular.

Bit of Trivia: Every panel that Namor the Submariner appeared in, he was drawn completly naked but with something in place obscuring the view of his speedo zone just to see if anyone would notice.

And then there's sneaking in this unauthorized cameo

[Ramza00]

Honestly, as far as Rater-explained plotlines of Marvel canon, Betsy Braddock getting her body back or becoming Captain Britain seem fairly straightforward and trivial.

Obviously when they upended the Mutant-related continuity someone - probably many someones - thought this was the golden opportunity to fix one of the most glaring and enduring problematic issues in the Marvel canon by giving Betsy her original body back. Doing it now before the MCU would have to worry about it makes sense in the long-term.

As to making her Captain Britain, they want Mutant-led books to be more visible now that they aren't trying to slowly smother them to death to piss off Fox and the Excalibur offshoot of the X-Books has been a thing since the 80's. Giving the role of Captain Britain to his twin sister who is - reasonably speaking - the more popular Superhero of the two for the most part, is rather unremarkable.

It'd be like Storm replacing T'Challa as Black Panther for a run or two. Ya'know, back when the X-Men were ascendant comic icons and Black Panther was a barely known figure.

Yep, and Brian, the twin brother of Betsy still has super powers just a different moniker of Captain Avalon (once he got better with the brainwashing for that plot over several issues was finally resolved.)

I mean thats great and all, but it sounds too "social issues" for what I have in mind

I'm talking about taking all the potential apocalyptic stuff being taken seriously and having actual consequences. when aliens invade, its not something that is wrapped up in a single story, but results in the city being ruined, various mutants suddenly awaking their powers amid the devastation as society has broken down, remnant aliens trapped on a planet that hates them, and of course a mad scientist thinks he can solve the problem by building a robot army to bring order and civilization back to the streets but it goes horribly wrong and now robots are making things even worse and so on, and there be a bunch of people just trying to survive these various events. it would be more about how fragile modern society would be when dealing with a superhero world and its various disasters, and how people would try to deal with that kind of thing happen to make the best they can out of it.

I get this but unfortunately that just will not work in 616, maybe a different Marvel or a DC AU, or in a different property outside the big two.

*shrug* the big two are what they are for better or worse.

[Lord Raziere]

I get this but unfortunately that just will not work in 616, maybe a different Marvel or a DC AU, or in a different property outside the big two.

*shrug* the big two are what they are for better or worse.

Never planned on putting it in them. if I had the time, I'd take all my ideas and transplant them from fan works to original ones.

[Rater202]

If you want convoluted:

The Fantastic Four canonically has about 30 members, give or take, with 2-9 of them being active at any given time.

As for moments in comics that got to me... Doreen's conversation with Galactus in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #50... Not ashamed to say I cried a little.

And then there's Ben Grimm's speech in Empyre #5

Did... didja say... give up...? 'Cause I can't do that. See... There's this pair 'a kids I know. Little... little scrappers. Never known nothin' but war. Can't... Can't seem to get their faces outta my head. It's funny, ain't like I'm short 'a reasons to fight, right? You killed my friend... You wanna kill my family... why am I thinking about two strangers? Only... these two strangers got a chance now. Chance at a home... chance at a better life. And all I gotta do is not give up on 'em. All I gotta do is not die. So I guess I can't die. I'm the Immortal Thing. Put up ya dukes.

This? This... It's not the costume, or the gadgets, or the powers that makes someone a superhero.

Benjamin Grimm, Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew, Momma's Ever-Loving blued-eyed Thing, the Idol of millions, is getting his ass kicked. By someone who is a whole order of magnitude stronger than him.

But he refuses to give up. Becuase he knows that if he wins here. Stops the alien invasion, stops the genocide, if he lives through this, he can make a difference to two kids who really need it.

So... That's it. He just keeps getting up. Keeps fighting. Becuase the alternative is... Dying, and if he dies then he's not gonna be able to be there to make a difference for those two kids.

That's what makes someone a superhero.

And to clarify, Ben not only got through that fight, but he's also since adopted those two children. They are ecstatic to be part of his family.

[Kitten Champion]

It wasn't even an upended continuity thing.

Betsy's soul got eaten by a psychic vampire but she was able to steal enough psychic energy from the remants of previous victims to supercharge herself, escape, and regenerate a new body. It just happened to regenerate her original body.

And then they never explained how Kwannon got back in her original body.

In the immediate specific narrative sense, no, it precedes Hickman's stuff by a bit. In the larger corporate/editorial sense however having Betsy Braddock back in her own biological body is one thing, but then having Kwannon appear in her original body and go on to retain the name "Psylocke", her costume, and general role without assuming the associated racist stigma is... another. That's a move by persons who care about IP management, if nothing else.

Still, the "WTF" reaction that I see Traab exhibiting to me is much more in line with my sentiments that the original body-swapping story from the early 90's both happened and lasted for around 25 years than that Marvel would reverse it in what is relatively simple fashion during an expected renaissance for X-books.

[Tyrant]

And then there's Ben Grimm's speech in Empyre #5


This? This... It's not the costume, or the gadgets, or the powers that makes someone a superhero.

Benjamin Grimm, Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew, Momma's Ever-Loving blued-eyed Thing, the Idol of millions, is getting his ass kicked. By someone who is a whole order of magnitude stronger than him.

But he refuses to give up. Becuase he knows that if he wins here. Stops the alien invasion, stops the genocide, if he lives through this, he can make a difference to two kids who really need it.

So... That's it. He just keeps getting up. Keeps fighting. Becuase the alternative is... Dying, and if he dies then he's not gonna be able to be there to make a difference for those two kids.

That's what makes someone a superhero.

And to clarify, Ben not only got through that fight, but he's also since adopted those two children. They are ecstatic to be part of his family.

I haven't read Empyre yet (waiting for the Omnibus due out in a couple months) but I will keep an eye out for that.

For me a more recent example was Madelyne Pryor in Hellions. I know she's a villain but her last words to Havok about just wanting them to treat her like a real person (and then them deciding to very much not do that). It wasn't the clone part, it was how the desperate plea was essentially a plea to say for confirmation that she mattered to somebody. That felt like a real human moment. Then the end of the book managed to legitimately upset me when they decided to not resurrect her. Shadow King, a being with no redeeming qualities? Come on over to Krakoa. Apocalypse, genocidal maniac who has personally screwed with several X-Men's lives and killed god only knows how many over the centuries? Have a seat on the council. Mr. Sinister, not even a real mutant and Xavier and Magneto have been warned about him by Moira? Pull up a chair. The Marauders, ruthless killers who have been cloned over and over again? Sure, you can get resurrected. We might even try to undo some of the things Sinister did to you. A clone of Jean who was arguably her own character at this point? Nope, permadeath for you, thanks for playing. Honey Badger is right to question if they will resurrect her after that precedent.

[Ramza00]

If you want convoluted:

The Fantastic Four canonically has about 30 members, give or take, with 2-9 of them being active at any given time.

As for moments in comics that got to me... Doreen's conversation with Galactus in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #50... Not ashamed to say I cried a little.

And then there's Ben Grimm's speech in Empyre #5


This? This... It's not the costume, or the gadgets, or the powers that makes someone a superhero.

Benjamin Grimm, Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew, Momma's Ever-Loving blued-eyed Thing, the Idol of millions, is getting his ass kicked. By someone who is a whole order of magnitude stronger than him.

But he refuses to give up. Becuase he knows that if he wins here. Stops the alien invasion, stops the genocide, if he lives through this, he can make a difference to two kids who really need it.

So... That's it. He just keeps getting up. Keeps fighting. Becuase the alternative is... Dying, and if he dies then he's not gonna be able to be there to make a difference for those two kids.

That's what makes someone a superhero.

And to clarify, Ben not only got through that fight, but he's also since adopted those two children. They are ecstatic to be part of his family.

I loved EMPYRE but sadly lots of its meat on the bones were messed up with COVID , 40% of the tie in books were canceled. We got a good FF4 and a Good Skrull / Teddy story out of it.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
Still, the "WTF" reaction that I see Traab exhibiting to me is much more in line with my sentiments….

This much I can agree with, but the rest of your sentence is a thorny thicket of syntax too dense for me to understand.

I was already familiar with convoluted superhero soap operas from reading the X-Men, so no surprise there. But no real interest in catching up to the current state of affairs, either.

Bringing it back to the main thread topic, I would like to enjoy this movie, but I'm just not seeing anything in the trailer that makes me want to care about anyone in it. I mean, there are probably one or two nice people on that bus, and we might enjoy hanging out, but the main characters just don't really appeal.

And, knowing from all the comments here just how much comics backstory is apparently folded into this...doesn't make me eager to dive in, just tired at the thought of having so much catch-up to do. It feels like this movie is much more directed at those people who are better versed in all that backstory, or who groove on the idea of intense comics backstory in general.

Which is fine, just...not what appeals to me right now. I'm more interested in seeing what Nick Fury and the Skrulls are up to.

[Rynjin]

I doubt much backstory will be necessary to know...Shang Chi is a great martial artist, the Mandarin is an evil Chinese mad-wizard-scientist-crime-lord who does bad things so Shang Chi needs to stop him. That's about it.

[Starbuck_II]

I doubt much backstory will be necessary to know...Shang Chi is a great martial artist, the Mandarin is an evil Chinese mad-wizard-scientist-crime-lord who does bad things so Shang Chi needs to stop him. That's about it.

Well, they will need to explain how he is so great a martial artist or what pushes him to have trained so much.
Show not tell, determines everything.
A normal trained guy with a gun doesn't need much backstory (Deadpool before he changes to Deadpool).
But a guy mastered multiple martial arts? Big tell needed.

[Keltest]

Well, they will need to explain how he is so great a martial artist or what pushes him to have trained so much.
Show not tell, determines everything.
A normal trained guy with a gun doesn't need much backstory (Deadpool before he changes to Deadpool).
But a guy mastered multiple martial arts? Big tell needed.

Does it though? Iron Man didnt feel the need to show how Tony learned all his improbable engineering, robotics, physics, chemistry, etc... skills.

[comicshorse]

Well, they will need to explain how he is so great a martial artist or what pushes him to have trained so much.
Show not tell, determines everything.
A normal trained guy with a gun doesn't need much backstory (Deadpool before he changes to Deadpool).
But a guy mastered multiple martial arts? Big tell needed.

I mean they seem to do that in the trailer. He's trained by masters all through his childhood.

[Traab]

I mean, its honestly not that bad, I most was exaggerating for teh lulz. But it is funny how reading through the events month after month makes it all so much more palatable than just posting a wall of text recap of the absurdity that takes place in comics. As for great speeches, marvel is actually surprisingly good at them. Even DC gets their fair share. You almost feel like the writer came up with this awesome idea for a manly speech of badassery heroics then had to write an entire arc just to give him the chance to use it. As for apocalypse in a suit. Meh, I grew up with grey hulk as Mr Fixit. Im used to oversized goons in monkey suits that are just strange to look at.

[Starbuck_II]

Does it though? Iron Man didnt feel the need to show how Tony learned all his improbable engineering, robotics, physics, chemistry, etc... skills.

Well, he built a computer AI to help with that back at his home.
Back at the cave?
Yeah, that one was pretty improbable, but he had help from that mad genius guy (Yinsen). It established Stark went to lectures on integrated circuits where they initially met.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Keltest
Iron Man didnt feel the need to show how Tony learned all his improbable engineering, robotics, physics, chemistry, etc... skills.

In fact they did, by giving us a summary of his career since early childhood in the awards ceremony at the beginning. Beautifully clever way to provide a capsule summary of the character’s background and his personality, as well as foreshadowing the conflict between him and Stane.

[Psyren]

Well, they will need to explain how he is so great a martial artist or what pushes him to have trained so much.
Show not tell, determines everything.
A normal trained guy with a gun doesn't need much backstory (Deadpool before he changes to Deadpool).
But a guy mastered multiple martial arts? Big tell needed.

Uh, he's literally the son of the MCU version of Ra's al-Ghul. This is hardly the heavy lift you believe it to be.

I...actually didn't know they'd made a second season. Haven't had an incentive to open up the Freeform app in a while.

It's not as good as S1 but I enjoyed it. It helps that right around then, Loa as a concept were pretty in vogue in my friends circle and the media we were keeping up with - C&D, American Horror Story, World of Warcraft, American Gods and others were all exploring that mythos at the time.

Yeah I have that issue. I wondered after reading it, did he have the suit made or did he just shape shift?

I mean, if I were Apocalypse, making myself a perfect-fitting three-piece Tom Ford out of my own atoms is just the kind of petty I'd aspire to.

[Ramza00]

Uh, he's literally the son of the MCU version of Ra's al-Ghul. This is hardly the heavy lift you believe it to be.

Yeah I am excited to see a Batman movie that is like Batman Begins but also unlike every Batman since 2005. I also am excited to see a new character without the mythos of the movie theater / opera, and the pearl necklace, and so on.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Ramza00
Yeah I am excited to see a Batman movie that is like Batman Begins but also unlike every Batman since 2005.

When you put it like that, I can see the appeal.