The Batman - 2022

[Vahnavoi]

I do kind of wonder at what point the shift happened, and what caused it.

Power seep, power creep happened, along with aforementioned tying Earth to a real world timeline. It's the price the franchise pays for bringing in the crazier comic book nonsense on screen - the comics have struggled with this for decades

If I had to pick one movie to name as turning point, it would be either Guardians of Galaxy or Age of Ultron.

Guardians, because it's a space opera with only a feeble connection to anything earthly. By tying it to the Avengers metaplot, it blows up scope of the setting in many, many ways. Now it's no longer a handful of dudes fighting for their country, or the world, oh no, now it's about the galaxy or the entire universe!

Age of Ultron, because this shift is at the crux of the conflict between Steve and Tony. Steve is saying humans are their own worst enemy, Tony is saying "nah, bro, there are aliens out there, they're coming to get us". And of course, problems caused by mad science are fixed by more mad science, because Tony is right: there totally are aliens out there who are coming to get them.

Civil War tries to actually backpedal this, but it isn't allowed to stick the landing, because come Infinity War, the aliens are here, they're coming to get us. Black Panther is something of an outlier too, its message being very much about earthly matters, and it sticks the landing better than Civil War, but it too is overshadowed by said aliens, who are coming to get them.

[Tyndmyr]

In a way The Multiverse of Madness is painfully honest about this. Mind-slaving a town of normies is fine, they're just around to buy the merch - better go zap something to get back on the lunchbox! But hurt one single Particle Effect Person, and that's over the line. It's this weird neo-Calvinist by way of Ayn Rand metaphysics, and it kinda freaks me out.

Normal ethics rely on at least a certain degree of equality. Yes, the man in a wheelchair is not the equal of the track star in running, but overall, they are all close enough that most people can accept that any reasonable system of ethics ought to treat them equally.

This breaks down in a world where some people can literally break physics, and existential threats are around every corner. Is it better to keep a supervillain around that occasionally kills a regular human if he's willing to fight the aliens when they show up? You start getting some really messy answers from some ethical frameworks for that, and there's little general agreement.

Now, I don't think the MCU is going deep into that analysis, because it's here to have some quips, some CGI fights, and some popcorn munched...but if that world were real, I think we'd start to see some pretty deep changes to the way humans feel about one another.

[Psyren]

Normal ethics rely on at least a certain degree of equality. Yes, the man in a wheelchair is not the equal of the track star in running, but overall, they are all close enough that most people can accept that any reasonable system of ethics ought to treat them equally.

This breaks down in a world where some people can literally break physics, and existential threats are around every corner. Is it better to keep a supervillain around that occasionally kills a regular human if he's willing to fight the aliens when they show up? You start getting some really messy answers from some ethical frameworks for that, and there's little general agreement.

Now, I don't think the MCU is going deep into that analysis, because it's here to have some quips, some CGI fights, and some popcorn munched...but if that world were real, I think we'd start to see some pretty deep changes to the way humans feel about one another.

Why are folks acting like this concept is new or unique to Wanda? Even back in Phase 1, the entire premise of the Hulk is that the guy who rampaged through Virginia might need to be kept around in case aliens show up, which both SHIELD and HYDRA knew would eventually be the case the moment they stumbled across the Cube, decades before the Avengers were even an idea. And they were right!

And the fact remains that if it weren't for Wanda, Thanos would have won a second time. (Hell, he wouldn't have had a chance to, because Ultron would have caused an Extinction Level Event long before that.) Does that give her license to do whatever she wants, obviously not, but it does necessitate she be treated differently. Strange's approach towards her before realizing she was the Big Bad this time around was perfectly reasonable.

[Caledonian]

Guardians, because it's a space opera with only a feeble connection to anything earthly. By tying it to the Avengers metaplot, it blows up scope of the setting in many, many ways. Now it's no longer a handful of dudes fighting for their country, or the world, oh no, now it's about the galaxy or the entire universe!

Age of Ultron, because this shift is at the crux of the conflict between Steve and Tony. Steve is saying humans are their own worst enemy, Tony is saying "nah, bro, there are aliens out there, they're coming to get us". And of course, problems caused by mad science are fixed by more mad science, because Tony is right: there totally are aliens out there who are coming to get them.

But doesn't it go back to The Avengers, or even Captain America? Cap A was about the danger of alien technology falling into the hands of someone even worse than the Nazis, and Avengers was about those aliens coming for a little visit.

[Anteros]

The Hulk supposedly never hurt any innocents. Even if we don't buy that, he certainly never hurt anyone intentionally, and he's actively working on becoming less of a threat. Wanda is on a whole other scale of villainy than him.

[Psyren]

The Hulk supposedly never hurt any innocents. Even if we don't buy that, he certainly never hurt anyone intentionally, and he's actively working on becoming less of a threat. Wanda is on a whole other scale of villainy than him.

He's absolutely hurt innocents - both in his own movie and during AoU when he rampaged through Johannesburg. It wasn't Man of Steel levels (and Tony cared way more about limiting the damage than Supes did) but it was still pretty bad.

And while I agree that intent matters, the scale of Hulk's destruction has also eclipsed Wanda's to date. More importantly, the scale of Wanda's heroism (and capacity for heroism) has eclipsed his.

It's not black and white in other words. This is legal and ethical territory we just don't have analogs for in our world, so deciding on a judgement/punishment wouldn't be clear-cut either.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think, based on various shaky recollections, that it's probably somewhere around Civil War, or at least that's when it gets really blatant for me, since the entire plot is basically screw accountability to anybody else, the only things that matter are FRIEND FEELS or PARENT FEELS.

Well, but those things are important. Someone like Baron Zemo needs justice for what happened to his family. Whether his anger was misplaced or not, he lost his family, and that needs to be contended with.

Justice for Cap and for Iron Man are different here as well. Cap, due to bonds of loyalty, friendship, and trust, believes Bucky is innocent, so it would be unjust to treat Bucky as a terrorist for a crime he did not commit. He also places a premium on the intent of the individual. He takes the blame for failing to see Crossbones' explosive, but he was there trying to prevent a biological terrorist attack in the first place. Wanda failed to get the explosive out of the area in time and caused the deaths of nearly everyone at the event in Lagos. But she was trying to save the people in the bazaar and remove the explosive away from anyone at all.

For Iron Man, it would be unjust not to take action after what occurs in Lagos (on the heels of Sokovia and others). The Avengers have a responsibility to curb their power, answer to someone other than themselves, and show everyone that there are consequences to what they do. For Iron Man, of course the good intentions are there for the heroes, but when compared to the devastation their engagements have caused, something must be done to give security to the people. In this case, Wanda's intentions are not enough to prevent her from being placed under house arrest, which is what shatters any hope of a compromise between Tony and Steve.

All of these things are values that we agree with. For me, the main characters represent us. If I lost my family I would want to know that someone is held accountable. If my friend, the victim of torture and brainwash, is accused of a crime and I believe strongly that he didn't commit it, I would hope that I have the fortitude to stand beside him against his accusers. And if I'm part of a group that is trying to do good in the world, at great risk to ourselves, and sometimes that work has significant collateral damage, I would want to make sure there are checks and balances in place and that the people can have faith that the work we are doing is both good and necessary and thoughtful in its approach, because we're the only ones that can stop the bad guys, and the people have to believe in us.

All to say that I feel like the entire movie was about accountability. Zemo holding someone accountable for the death of his family and countless others (Black Panther is here as well since he is seeking justice/revenge for his father's death), Cap holding himself accountable to Bucky and the ideal that he aspires to (Natasha is here as well as she stops Black Panther from interfering at the airport because duty to her fellow is more important), and Tony holding the Avengers accountable to the rest of the world.

I don't know. I didn't like Civil War in theaters. But I have since watched it many times and I think it does a great job of setting up the conflict. I don't think it's "just about the main characters", and I'm not sure what a movie would look like that prioritized the perspectives of background characters honestly.

[Rodin]

snip

Just want to say the above is very well written and good summation of why Civil War is in my personal top 5 MCU movies. They found an argument between the two sides which both fit the characters and was not a clear black/white issue, and they did this so well the fanbase split over which side was right. They had one of the best villains in Zemo with a solid twist to the usual "villain must not get the Macguffin" plot. And then they threw in some of the finest fight sequences the MCU has seen.

I was coincidentally thinking about the airport fight earlier today, because I realized something cool about it. Ant-Man and Spiderman are the "comedic" characters who are there for laughs and quipping. Guess which two heroes get knocked out of the fight at the point where the battle stops being funny and starts being serious?

[Anteros]

He's absolutely hurt innocents - both in his own movie and during AoU when he rampaged through Johannesburg. It wasn't Man of Steel levels (and Tony cared way more about limiting the damage than Supes did) but it was still pretty bad.

And while I agree that intent matters, the scale of Hulk's destruction has also eclipsed Wanda's to date. More importantly, the scale of Wanda's heroism (and capacity for heroism) has eclipsed his.

It's not black and white in other words. This is legal and ethical territory we just don't have analogs for in our world, so deciding on a judgement/punishment wouldn't be clear-cut either.

No matter how nonsensical it is, Marvel's official line is that the Hulk doesn't kill people in his rampages.

[BloodSquirrel]

I've been having this feeling about Marvel movies/shows for a while. It's interesting, because if you go back to the very early movies in the MCU, like Iron Man or Captain America, this wasn't really the case – the non-superpowered inhabitants of the world did actually matter and the protagonists had to work with/around them. But over the years of the MCU, there's been this gradual drift away from that and towards this style where all the regular humans in the setting feel more and more ghostly and insubstantial, and the only "real" people are the heroes.

I do kind of wonder at what point the shift happened, and what caused it.

I think it came from three things, all related to the "Shared universe" model:

1) They stared making movies with larger and larger casts of superhumans, which crowded out the non-superhero characters. Avengers didn't have a lot of room for the individual heroes' secondary cast members. Age of Ultron had even less, and by the time we got to Civil War nobody cared about any of them anymore.

2) The shared universe left the individual movies less and less room to play with the setting itself, which tended to mean that they were stuck focusing on their main character and having lots of action sequences. The movies that did introduce their own little isolated bits of the setting didn't take them very seriously, because they didn't matter. That didn't leave a lot of room for "real" people in these movies. A good example was Thor: Ragnarok. Asgard was treated as a throw-away part of the setting, because all anyone really cared about was Thor fighting alongside the Avengers.

3) The whole project wound up being about constantly introducing the next big new thing, rather than taking the setting they had established and developing it in detail. Part of this may have been a need to keep the films accessible, but it meant keeping the overall continuity simple, and it was easier to do that while focusing on the main characters of the setting, and not tying to tell complicated, nuanced stories about the implications of The Snap.

At this point, I have little interest left in the MCU. The last movie I saw was Black Widow, which was awful for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which was that it decided that it decided that it needed an overblown doomsday plot involving a flying sky fortress, when if any MCU movie was crying about to be about something grittier and more down to earth it would have been a Black Widow movie.

The one character I'd like to see more of, if just to get a bit of closure on his arc, is Thor, but I don't have a lot of hope for the upcoming movie, as I'm not a fan of Taika Waititi's style, I'm not a fan of the multiverse stuff that is the major theme of this phase, and I don't think that the people running the MCU are interested at this point in taking the character seriously enough to make a movie that serves as a heartfelt send-off.

[Tyndmyr]

No matter how nonsensical it is, Marvel's official line is that the Hulk doesn't kill people in his rampages.

Old school hulk used to straight up smash folks. Heck, I think he even ate people at one point. That's some serious revisionism for a character that is supposed to personify a raging beast.

[The Glyphstone]

I thought he was only explicitly a cannibal in the Old Man Logan continuity?

[Dr.Samurai]

The one character I'd like to see more of, if just to get a bit of closure on his arc, is Thor, but I don't have a lot of hope for the upcoming movie, as I'm not a fan of Taika Waititi's style, I'm not a fan of the multiverse stuff that is the major theme of this phase, and I don't think that the people running the MCU are interested at this point in taking the character seriously enough to make a movie that serves as a heartfelt send-off.

I mostly agree with this. I like "What We Do In the Shadows". But Thor Ragnarok was way too quippy for me and didn't allow itself any sort of emotional moments without undercutting it with a joke, whether it's the release of Surt, Bruce's sacrifice, or the destruction of Asgard. It was just straight up jokes with super heroes, which was too much for me, though I recognize Ragnarok is the in the top 5 MCU movies for a lot of fans.

[Dragonus45]

So one of the defining traits of Ultimate Hulk was that he was a cannibal, since Banner in the continuity was a vegetarian and Hulk was sort of a deliberate "everything Banner isn't" kind of thing. Also Old Man Logan where he was also just a giant monster. But in like the mainline continuity he hasn't ever eaten anyone, and in general has always avoided killing random bystanders for one reason or another but the magic of comics is that so many writers put their hands on the character there is some point in time where that hasn't been true. Add in all the different personalities and persona's he has had through the years as well and it gets even murkier.

[tomandtish]

No matter how nonsensical it is, Marvel's official line is that the Hulk doesn't kill people in his rampages.

Yeah, they even claim no one died during World War Hulk, which has to be flat-out BS.

[Psyren]

No matter how nonsensical it is, Marvel's official line is that the Hulk doesn't kill people in his rampages.

Nice goalpost shift there; I said "hurt," not "kill." And so did you!

Before MoM, who did Wanda kill?

[Fyraltari]

Nice goalpost shift there; I said "hurt," not "kill." And so did you!

Before MoM, who did Wanda kill?

Vision? For a hot minute.

[tomandtish]

Nice goalpost shift there; I said "hurt," not "kill." And so did you!

Before MoM, who did Wanda kill?

Very technically? The ones who were killed when the bomb went off. Admittedly others would have died if she hadn't, but her actions resulted in the deaths that did occur. (I'm not saying she was wrong).

[Dr.Samurai]

Just want to say the above is very well written and good summation of why Civil War is in my personal top 5 MCU movies. They found an argument between the two sides which both fit the characters and was not a clear black/white issue, and they did this so well the fanbase split over which side was right.

Agreed. And it's because the conflict is two values that we believe in butted up against each other.

I was coincidentally thinking about the airport fight earlier today, because I realized something cool about it. Ant-Man and Spiderman are the "comedic" characters who are there for laughs and quipping. Guess which two heroes get knocked out of the fight at the point where the battle stops being funny and starts being serious?

Interesting observation .

In a way The Multiverse of Madness is painfully honest about this. Mind-slaving a town of normies is fine, they're just around to buy the merch - better go zap something to get back on the lunchbox! But hurt one single Particle Effect Person, and that's over the line.

I don't think that's the message actually.

People with super powers still have human emotions, but their capacity to impact the world when governed by those emotions is far greater. When Rhodey free falls into the ground and is unresponsive, Falcon forgets the conflict immediately and rushes down beside Tony. Tony, in his anger and grief, blasts Falcon point blank with his repulsor.

Wanda has more time to react to losing Vision, but she also has far more power than most other superheroes, let alone normal people. When the events of Wandavision are resolved, she is allowed to regain her senses, grieve her loss, and return to some sense of normality. This is in large part because of what Psyren mentions; she can go toe to toe with very powerful super villains. Couple that with her understandable pain and desire to replace it with her family, and she is given latitude here (especially because no one appears to be permanently hurt).

But, again as Psyren already said, she doesn't get free license to do whatever she wants. Summoning demons to rampage through Manhattan to hunt down a girl and kill her means that Wanda HAS NOT recovered from her traumatic loss. She is not moving on. She is still corrupted by her power and loss and imposing her will on the world in dangerous and lethal ways. Then what is Wanda going to do to the multiverse version whose children she is going to usurp?

The point is less "two deaths vs an entire town of people enslaved" and more "the Wanda we know has been irrevocably changed by her trauma and the influence of the Darkhold, and she will go to any lengths to have what she wants, including killing people and kidnapping their children". After Wandavision, Wanda gives off the literal illusion of reform. But MoM reveals that she hasn't changed and her resolve has actually gotten stronger to hurt people in the pursuit of her goals. That's the difference I think.

For my part, I think what Wanda did in Wandavision is evil, and it's a glimpse of what she will become. As I mentioned in a previous post in that thread, mind controlling people (in the way that Wanda did) and removing their agency is admitting their lives are worthless, and it isn't difficult to see the leap to murdering them from there. But I accept a different treatment for her given the fictional universe and the circumstances surrounding all the events leading up to, during, and after Wandavision. That she isn't given a second chance after MoM is not surprising to me. I think it makes sense.

While I'm at it, I'll repeat that I think she is an excellent villain. Her sacrifice in fulfilling Vision's wish to save the universe was incredible and heroic and tragic. And for the MCU to take that and bring it somewhere that mirrors reality (some people, unfortunately, cannot handle traumatic events in their life and are lost, in a way, to those instances) was great.

I just wish MCU magic was more than orange hard-light. All the sorcerers are basically Green Lanterns...

[Anteros]

Nice goalpost shift there; I said "hurt," not "kill." And so did you!

Before MoM, who did Wanda kill?

Not shifting goalposts, I simply misspoke. Or at least assumed people would understand my intent.

Old school hulk used to straight up smash folks. Heck, I think he even ate people at one point. That's some serious revisionism for a character that is supposed to personify a raging beast.

I'm not defending it. I think it's stupid too. But I guess having the ability to avoid effecting civilians with collateral damage is supposed to be one of his super powers now.

[Psyren]

Very technically? The ones who were killed when the bomb went off. Admittedly others would have died if she hadn't, but her actions resulted in the deaths that did occur. (I'm not saying she was wrong).

So if the bomb squad tries and fails to defuse a bomb, in your view they're the killers?

I mean, by that standard (topic boomerang!) Batman is quite a killer too.

Not shifting goalposts, I simply misspoke. Or at least assumed people would understand my intent.

So you agree that Hulk hurt people too then?

I'm not defending it. I think it's stupid too. But I guess having the ability to avoid effecting civilians with collateral damage is supposed to be one of his super powers now.

And now you've gone to the even milder "affected" which he has demonstrably done as far back as Phase 1.

[Fyraltari]

I mean, by that standard (topic boomerang!) Batman is quite a killer too.

I mean, regardless of continuity (with an exception for the more comedic takes), late-career Batman ought to have at least a dozen corpses on his hands. If only for henchmen with undiagnosed heart conditions and the like.

[Anteros]

So if the bomb squad tries and fails to defuse a bomb, in your view they're the killers?

I mean, by that standard (topic boomerang!) Batman is quite a killer too.



So you agree that Hulk hurt people too then?



And now you've gone to the even milder "affected" which he has demonstrably done as far back as Phase 1.

Stop it. Just stop. You're accomplishing nothing by cherry picking words out of my statements and trying to twist my intent. I've already explicitly stated that I meant killing. I know you like to argue, but pick something else. I'm not going to keep circling with you while you claim I'm not saying the thing that I explicitly stated.

Yes, Hulk has hurt people unintentionally. Per Marvel, he has not killed innocents. Wanda has not only purposefully tortured innocents for extended periods of time, she is also a murderer. They are not the same.

[Vahnavoi]

So if the bomb squad tries and fails to defuse a bomb, in your view they're the killers?

I mean, by that standard (topic boomerang!) Batman is quite a killer too.

If a bomb squad fails to defuse a bomb in a way that causes it to explode and harm people who otherwise would've been fine, yes they can be held liable for those deaths. And yes, if he was ever put under scrutiny of normal law, Batman too could be held liable for a huge list of negligent manslaughters and, probably, second degree murders - regardless of whether we're talking of the ill-defined comic book version or specific movie versions. Has there been, like, confusion over this?

[Satohika]

Wanda killed innocents?

[Dragonus45]

Wanda killed innocents?

The whole plot of MoM is her trying to track down and murder an innocent girl. Plus her rampage at the Illuminati headquarters, even if you don't consider them specifically to be innocent (I would in this context) you can't tell me she didn't kill at least one innocent bystander there. Plus all the people she killed in Kamar-Taj none of whom remotely deserved it. Yea, she kills innocents. Her show had her controlling and torturing them as well.

[Satohika]

I didn't know she's in Doctor Strange movie.

[Dragonus45]

I didn't know she's in Doctor Strange movie.

Ah yea, that's definitely core to the discussion here.

[Tyndmyr]

I mean, regardless of continuity (with an exception for the more comedic takes), late-career Batman ought to have at least a dozen corpses on his hands. If only for henchmen with undiagnosed heart conditions and the like.

Probably from sheer numbers, yeah. That said, an accidental death for such a reason doesn't cast him as particularly evil or negligent...at least not the same way as shooting vehicles until they explode like the previous Batman, or causing a massive pileup and explosion, like this Batman did.

Yeah, people might be particularly vulnerable to something you didn't know about, but bullets and explosions tend to kill everybody. It's way less accidental.

I'm going to call Hulk a killer regardless of what Marvel says, too.

[Anteros]

I'm going to call Hulk a killer regardless of what Marvel says, too.

Fair enough, but then where do we draw the line? Even the quintessential "boyscout" heroes like Supes or Spidey should have an astronomical body count if we're looking at things through the eyes of realism.