arc

This bothered me so much!

So after the Emergence happened, the planet was broken into somehow still livable chunks, the Eternals have left cause their mission is over, and of course the baby Celestial has left too. Makes sense, but I assumed from the title that this was going to be an Eternals-heavy plot. The timing on this alternate timeline is pretty tight though; Vision is around which presumably means Avengers 2 happened. And with Mysterio's control of the Iron Legion, the most likely route to that is if Far From Home happened and Peter gave Beck the EDITH glasses. I wonder why Ying Nan didn't just stay in Ta Lo. Isn't it in an alternate dimension? Would it even have been affected by the Celestial destroying regular Earth? Also, lotta Star Wars vibes in this episode. Mysterio/Quentin Beck looked a bit Palpatine-ish and even used what might as well be Force Lightning. There's a rebel Alliance and they have a plucky run in their flying RV.

About the time the third or fourth rival faction showed up on Jotunheim, I was totally down for this episode. Big stupid fun. I also liked that Frost Giant Loki's plan was to create a resort. I did think that Howard's gambling problem might pop up again at Loki's casino, though.

Honestly, I thought Harbour could have dialed it back several notches. But he was performing to the level of the material, which was really, really broadly written. I liked Bill Foster breaking out the Goliath gear well enough. And I really liked Red Guardian shoehorning his way into the classic Avengers 1 team-up circle shot. (Though Hawkeye doesn't look anything like Jeremy Renner.)

I was gonna say, whatever happened to Authority character The Engineer? But it turns out she is (just barely) in one shot in the trailer: https://www.threads.net/@revistaacine/post/DDxrw1tRkrO

Well yeah, the original comics still exist, esp in a post-scarcity world (well, at least for digital goods). The only point of making Ultimate Universe comics would be to do something new. Also, yes, sorry, Jim Shooter, not Stan Lee.

In 1610 (Ultimate Universe), Hank Pym was clearly abusive, yes. But in 616, he really did hit Janet very hard. That was also definitely abusive. I think Stan Lee said he had suggested something less intense, but the Marvel way at the time was loose plots to the penciller, who was trained to draw maximum action all the time. So it came back more violent than what Stan Lee intended, but that is what got published. (Deadlines were too tight to redraw it.)

Yeah, Gunn said initially he was going to skip the red trunks, but Corenswet convinced him to go with them:

It's already straining my suspension of disbelief just to think 1940s (???) era Hollywood would borrow from Bollywood, but this dance-off between Kingo and Agatha simply could not have happened as presented. Kingo and his dancers are standing exactly where the camera would have to be to capture Agatha and her dancers, and vice-versa. Obviously if you wanted to film this in a movie musical you could, but you'd have to do it in parts and edit it together. I do appreciate the dance choreography though. Sorry for the pedantry. Also, Howard sure is talking a lot during filming. I know directors did that in the silent movie era, but during talkies? Did movie musicals do extensive ADR? I don't actually know movie making history that well. Whew, at least it turned out Howard Stark did know his stars were superhuman. LMAO Arishem got popped in the face! Feels pretty beneath a Celestial to just get clocked. Actually, I'm not really a fan of Celestials talking as if they were normal people. I liked it in that one Thor comic where the Celestials created a clone of Thor to speak to him because the Celestials were on such a higher plane that there's no direct communication possible.

Aw man, that 1980s-looking cartoon has very, VERY Japanese Super Robot designs. Like, Grendizer esp for Thor, but they all look vaguely in that Super Robot style. The comics have also done giant robot stories, not necessarily in What Ifs. But I always have the same problem: why would Thor be piloting the robot themed after Thor? What power is Thor adding to it? Couldn't any non-powered person pilot it? And why would the giant robot's hammer have Mjolnir's power? And given that Thor is as powerful as the story needs him to be -- he's given Celestials pause and even (in a far future story) killed a weakened Galactus. Now of course I can understand why Hawkeye or Iron Man would pilot giant robots to fight kaiju. Photon's mech is straight out of the Zone of the Enders game. Alright, gattai action! This reminds me of one criticism of Pacific Rim: why did humans build robots the same size as the kaiju, and which had more or less even odds to win or lose, instead of a great big super-giant robot that could easily win every fight? Also, and I realize this is also a problem with the anime that inspired this episode, I've never liked that when a super robot combines, that there are four-plus pilots who somehow aren't superfluous to the action now. Hulkzilla!!! OK, overall fun but stupid. Not the best kind of stupid fun, but it was alright. But that said, the show has really not made the best use of their actors, who are mostly the same actors from the live action MCU. Ruffalo has a distinctive voice, but the rest of them barely even sound like themselves, and even the visual likenesses aren't really on point. It also doesn't help that the dialogue is clunky as hell.

Marvel commissioned domino artist Lily Hevesh to do a promo piece:

In the 2006 All-Star Superman comics, which Gunn has said is a key touchstone, Clark is adorably "bumbling" in calculated ways that typically save civilians from flying train junk or even Lex Luthor from lab accidents, all without ever revealing any super powers.

While Doomsday can Hulk jump, I think Supes getting thrown into the ground like that is probably more from a flying enemy. Or maybe a kaiju. But the lack of follow-up, allowing Krypto to drag Superman home, may mean it was more of a one-off event. Maybe he got hit with a nuke?

Maybe it’s for the new characters? Pretty much just Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova and Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox?

Marvel exec Nate Moore leaves to become a full time producer. The story also incidentally confirms that the studio will make Black Panther 3: https://deadline.com/2024/12/marvel-exec-nate-moore-1236208724/