The Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers, etc.

[swanpride]

I am just waiting for Marvel doing something with the Savage lands. I mean, Superheroes AND Dinosaurs?

[Morrigan2575]

3 hours ago, swanpride said:

I am just waiting for Marvel doing something with the Savage lands. I mean, Superheroes AND Dinosaurs?

I've only ever read The Savage Lands in X-Men comics. Do we know if it was part of the original FOX deal or has Marvel had the rites all this time?

I read a rumor yesterday about Nova popping up in GoTG3. I've been waiting for Nova for awhile now so I hope it's true. However, I would hate for them to drop Warlock from GoTG3 or try and, introduce both in the same movie

[Raja]

3 hours ago, swanpride said:

I am just waiting for Marvel doing something with the Savage lands. I mean, Superheroes AND Dinosaurs?

Would they do that on Earth or reboot it off world since Aquaman beat the MCU to the screen?

[swanpride]

This is just a suspicion of me, but maybe Savage Lands was a Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch case, meaning a property which weren't really X-men but so closely associated to it, that both companies avoided poking in this particular hornets nest of potential rights disputes. The question is mood now, though, hence I am kind of waiting for them eventually picking the concept up.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

This is just a suspicion of me, but maybe Savage Lands was a Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch case, meaning a property which weren't really X-men but so closely associated to it, that both companies avoided poking in this particular hornets nest of potential rights disputes. The question is mood now, though, hence I am kind of waiting for them eventually picking the concept up.

I think that aside from Guardians of the Galaxy they were just going for a relatively real world grounded. An advanced uber tech army shielding the knowledge of Wakanda from the world is one thing.  Finding a secret land with dinosaurs anywhere on a mapped and studied earth is another. I know what about the Defenders?

[Fukui San]

My contention is that since Marvel was able to make a meh at best property such as Ant Man and an oddball and minor (to my knowledge) title Guardians of the Galaxy into actual successful franchises, they're able to theoretically work with most of the Marvel Comics universe successfully. In ten years maybe they'll adapt New Universe titles into movies and they'll make $700 Million per movie. Old school comic book readers will recognize how funny that statement sounds, but would you be surprised if that came to pass?

[swanpride]

Well, they basically pluck the best elements of the franchises in question and mix in some fresh ideas, so yeah, I think they can make everything work. That they are not too married to the comics and not afraid to throw annoying ideas - like the secret identity - over board is their biggest strength. I wonder how long it will take until we have caught up with the timeline though...I mean, currently we are at least four years in the future, if not five.

[Danny Franks]

On 10/18/2019 at 2:38 PM, clack said:

Anyway, it's been a long time since Marvel has created characters as compelling as those created decades ago by Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and Wein. Maybe that's an area upon which Feige can concentrate.

I think you'd need to include Chris Claremont in that list, given the list of characters he created in his time writing X-books - Rogue, Gambit, Kitty Pryde, Psylocke, Emma Frost, Mystique, Cable.

But a lot of modern superhero comic books are about reinventing and reinterpreting existing heroes, rather than inventing new ones. And there are plenty of writers who have done really good jobs of breathing new life into existing characters, and redefining them. Bucky Barnes is a prime example - dead for fifty years, a kid sidekick who belonged firmly in the golden age of comics. Ed Brubaker managed to bring him back and turn him into an incredibly popular character.

But all these writers were able to create popular characters because they were given a relatively free rein, and able to take years crafting their ideas. Claremont wrote X-Men for sixteen years, and also created spin-off titles like The New Mutants, Excalibur and X-Factor. Now, it's far more usual for writers to operate under strict editorial mandates, and to be moved to different books after only a year or two.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Danny Franks

[benteen]

Definitely agree about Claremont.  He might not have created Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc. but he's the guy who made them what they have become (John Byrne certainly deserves credit too).  To me, Storm has never been more compelling than when she was written by Claremont.  He totally GOT the character.  When she became the leader of the X-Men, she was the leader of the X-Men. 

Edited October 21, 2019 by benteen

[bmoore4026]

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/kevin-feige-ike-perlmutter-marvel-disney-1203377802/

Don't know if this goes here, but it certainly is big news for Marvel.  The fact that Kevin Feige has more or less usurped total power from Ike Perlmutter is something.  I'm wondering what this will mean for the comics.  The characters are really all Marvel needs, but not the comics that are currently being released.  They also have many storylines to work with or make semi-adaptations of.

[AimingforYoko]

4 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/kevin-feige-ike-perlmutter-marvel-disney-1203377802/

Don't know if this goes here, but it certainly is big news for Marvel.  The fact that Kevin Feige has more or less usurped total power from Ike Perlmutter is something.  I'm wondering what this will mean for the comics.  The characters are really all Marvel needs, but not the comics that are currently being released.  They also have many storylines to work with or make semi-adaptations of.

With Jeph Loeb out at Marvel TV, Feige has everything but licensing and merchandising. (I suppose as Disney's largest individual shareholder, they had to throw Perlmutter some bone.) It's obviously too much for one man to oversee day-to-day, so I just hope he picks good managers under him.

[bmoore4026]

7 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

With Jeph Loeb out at Marvel TV, Feige has everything but licensing and merchandising. (I suppose as Disney's largest individual shareholder, they had to throw Perlmutter some bone.) It's obviously too much for one man to oversee day-to-day, so I just hope he picks good managers under him.

No Joe Quesada...or Scott Lobdell

Edited October 23, 2019 by bmoore4026

[swanpride]

Who knows...without Perlmutter both might do better...

[SimoneS]

I was just reading that Variety article. We chatted about Feige's victory over Perlmutter one the previous pages, but I had no idea until reading that article that Perlmutter was such a misogynistic racist ass. 

Edited October 23, 2019 by SimoneS

[swanpride]

Oh, he totally is...he is also a racist (he infamously thought that nobody would notice if they re-casted War Machine) and incredible cheap (hence he wanted to do Civil War without Ironman). I suspect that the Inhumans show was pretty Perlmutter's "thing".

[Danny Franks]

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

Oh, he totally is...he is also a racist (he infamously thought that nobody would notice if they re-casted War Machine) and incredible cheap (hence he wanted to do Civil War without Ironman). I suspect that the Inhumans show was pretty Perlmutter's "thing".

While Perlmutter is shitty, Marvel as a whole were pushing the Inhumans hard for a while. After being barely even an afterthought in the comics for years (the odd Inhuman would be part of another team, here and there, but that was about it for most of the 80s-00s), they suddenly became very prominent, with a lot of fans speculating that Marvel wanted the Inhumans to supplant the X-Men as their premier team, because Marvel didn't have the movie rights for the X-Men.

Inhumans vs. X-Men was a big, sprawling event that was not well received, and the comic book fans just weren't buying them as A-list characters. 

[swanpride]

Yeah, but the background between that was supposedly a spat Perlmutter had with Fox. Back in the day, Fox sued Marvel because they thought that they had not just bought the movie rights, but also the TV show rights for the X-men. Long story short since that was before Marvel had the Disney Lawyers backing them out and still busy struggling out of bankruptcy, the case ended with an agreement, which basically lead to Fox only being able to make TV shows with the permission of Marvel and Marvel only being able to do animated shows...or something like that. The whole matter was really messy and allegedly Perlmutter took it personally. Hence him pushing Inhumans so much.

[Dandesun]

Yeah, as I understand it, Perlmutter didn't want comic stories being written that Fox could just go ahead and make money off of so he really did want the X-Men sidelined. There was Avengers vs X-Men which was a bit of a shit show and then Inhumans vs X-Men which was even more so.

A part of me laughs because even the stories Fox had to work with they managed to screw up. And they also fell into the Wolverine in Everything hole. All that being said, the X-men are not so easily cast aside by comic nerds (speaking as one) and various writers grew up loving them so they want to continue to write them.

And now we've got the whole Dawn of X resurgence which I'm really enjoying. I certainly like to think that once Disney got control back the Perlmutter edicts fell by the wayside but, honestly, the reaction to A vs X and I vs X were not in support of the As and Is. They were pretty much bullshit. 

Anyway, I wish he were out completely because his having any say over merch remains an issue.

[swanpride]

I also got the impression that Disney quietly fixed some of the underlying problems with Marvel, basically by ensuring that the strongest talents they have are in charge of the creative process while keeping the money cruncher out of the way as much as possible. I mean, it's VERY noticeable in the movies. Ironman 3 was fraught with problems because of Perlmutter's influence and Thor The Dark World was a production mess. But after that there was less and less reported regarding Studio interference (Ultron being the notable exception) and more and more regarding people being able to realize their vision. In the case of Civil war, because Disney interfered and got Perlmutter out of the way so that Civil war could be the movie the Russos had in mind.

[xaxat]

Does anyone know how the hot mess known as the Inhumans got greenlighted?

[Captain Carrot]

33 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Does anyone know how the hot mess known as the Inhumans got greenlighted?

I've always assumed that all bad Marvel decisions are Perlmutter's fault. (The only 'problem' with Perlmutter's loss of influence is that we'll no longer be able to blame him for any stupid or horrible decisions).

In my opinion the specifics for the Inhumans greenlight are: Perlmutter 'knew' this would make Inhumands a thing so he forced it onto TV after Feige decided that it wouldn't make a good movie, Ike and his team were confident that the show would be good since they got the show runner for the (bad) episodes of Dexter, and they were able to make the show on a small budget. (Unfortunately you need to spend money to make characters like the Inhumans work).

[Raja]

1 hour ago, xaxat said:

Does anyone know how the hot mess known as the Inhumans got greenlighted?

There was no deal so no X-Men. The Inhumans offered the same basic story with a slight alien twist so Inhumans were pushed forward in lieu of X-Men in the hope that they would become stars. 

We have had Superman and The Flash work with a TV budget but the popular Inhuman Royals  were just not possible but they pushed ahead anyway. If Inhumans on TV worked perhaps more comics would be sold to make up for the X-Men titles cut so that the books would not advertise for the other company holding the movie, thus big money rights.

[swanpride]

If I get the story right, Perlmutter really wanted to push the Inhumans, Feige really wanted to make Black Panther (and Captain Marvel). So they had an agreement that they would do both. But then Feige was removed by Disney from Perlmutter's control during the whole Civil War fight, giving him full say over the future slate, which lead to Inhumans being quietly dropped from the slate. So Perlmutter went to where he still had power and wanted a TV show. I guess Loeb basically left the project to him instead of fighting over it, since it would explain pretty much every sh.. decision made regarding Inhumans.

[xaxat]

12 hours ago, swanpride said:

If I get the story right, Perlmutter really wanted to push the Inhumans, Feige really wanted to make Black Panther (and Captain Marvel).

Huh. Goes a long way to explaining how Feige won the keys to the kingdom.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 10/22/2019 at 9:01 PM, AimingforYoko said:

With Jeph Loeb out at Marvel TV, Feige has everything but licensing and merchandising.

Speaking of Jeph Loeb it seems kind of crazy that the guy who wrote the story that inspired a lot of The Dark Knight, was in charge of so many crappy tv shows.

[swanpride]

??? Which crappy TV shows are you talking about exactly? Marvel TV has a pretty good track record overall.

[Kel Varnsen]

34 minutes ago, swanpride said:

??? Which crappy TV shows are you talking about exactly? Marvel TV has a pretty good track record overall.

Iron Fist, Inhumans, large chunks of Defenders and parts of Agents of Shield and Luke Cage. I mean I have never seen Cloak and Dagger or Runaways but even so a lot of not great tv. And Batman The Long Halloween was so awesome.

[Perfect Xero]

8 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Speaking of Jeph Loeb it seems kind of crazy that the guy who wrote the story that inspired a lot of The Dark Knight, was in charge of so many crappy tv shows.

I read his runs on Superman/Batman, Hulk, and Ultimates, so it's really not that crazy.

[swanpride]

I don't count Inhumans as a Loeb Project, since Perlmutter has its fingerprints all over it. That leaves the Defenders Verse, which suffered in quality later on, but was still extremely successful, with Jessica Jones even winning a Peabody award. Agents of Shield is all kind of awesome und one of the most watched TV shows in the world - also Marvel's longest running TV show by a long shot. Agent Carter was great, especially the first season. And if you haven't watched Cloak and Dagger, you are missing out.

I admit, that Runways wasn't what I expected and I didn't manage to really get into that show, but it seems like the audience likes it well enough.

So overall a pretty good track record, especially in a landscape in which shows barely make it past its first season anymore.

[JessePinkman]

On 10/25/2019 at 7:30 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

Iron Fist, Inhumans, large chunks of Defenders and parts of Agents of Shield and Luke Cage. I mean I have never seen Cloak and Dagger or Runaways but even so a lot of not great tv. And Batman The Long Halloween was so awesome.

Iron Fist and Inhumans are the only two universally reviled series they've made. That's not so bad.

This Fiege/Perlmutter thing further explains Inhumans IMAX release. He wanted to show "I can do movies too!" without actually doing a movie. Can you believe there are people out there who saw this in IMAX?

[calliope1975]

34 minutes ago, JessePinkman said:

Iron Fist and Inhumans are the only two universally reviled series they've made. That's not so bad.

This Fiege/Perlmutter thing further explains Inhumans IMAX release. He wanted to show "I can do movies too!" without actually doing a movie. Can you believe there are people out there who saw this in IMAX?

Ugh. I fancasted Gemma Arterton as Medusa when there was first talk of a movie. Then this...abomination happened. Sigh.

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, JessePinkman said:

Iron Fist and Inhumans are the only two universally reviled series they've made. That's not so bad.

I would say that Luke Cage and Defenders were both more bad than good and Agents of SHIELD was close to that too. All three were far from awesome.

On 10/26/2019 at 3:08 AM, swanpride said:

Agents of Shield is all kind of awesome und one of the most watched TV shows in the world - 

Keep in mind that Baywatch was also the most watched show in the world at one point, so I am not really sure that means anything.

[swanpride]

In my eyes Agents of Shield isn't just the best Marvel show (yes, better than Daredevil), it is one of the best shows I have ever seen. And I am not alone with that opinion. Nobody would have ever said that about Baywatch.

[Jeebus Cripes]

4 minutes ago, swanpride said:

In my eyes Agents of Shield isn't just the best Marvel show (yes, better than Daredevil), it is one of the best shows I have ever seen. And I am not alone with that opinion. Nobody would have ever said that about Baywatch.

Never could warm up to any of the characters. I stopped watching a couple of seasons ago when I realized I just didn't care if any of them lived or died. The show also made me come to despise Coulson, whereas I found him likable in the films. 

Can't really say which show I find to be the best because I have yet to see any of the Netflix stuff. Pretty sure we can all agree that Inhumans is the worst, though. 

[Morrigan2575]

11 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I would say that Luke Cage and Defenders were both more bad than good and Agents of SHIELD was close to that too. All three were far from awesome

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

In my eyes Agents of Shield isn't just the best Marvel show (yes, better than Daredevil), it is one of the best shows I have ever seen. And I am not alone with that opinion. Nobody would have ever said that about Baywatch.

I don't think you can put AoS in the same category as Inhumans (leaving Iron Fist out since i never watched it).  Inhuman was panned by fans and critics and received very low ratings while it ran.  Agents of SHIELD really comes down to opinion (IMO), I thought it was stupid and awful but, there are many people on this forum who praise it.  So i'd say more of a mix bag of a show, some love it, some hate it.  

As for the rest of Marvel TV, I personally loved Daredevil and The Punisher, I thought Jessica Jones was a crap show with an unlikable lead (but, people here claim it's the best of the bunch) and, found Luke Cage a little boring.  I didn't watch Iron Fist and, only made it to episode 2 of The Defenders.  I loved Agent Carter but, thought AoS was stupid and, I've sampled it on a few occasions because my mother loves it and, people here kept saying oh it's so great, it got so much better than S1 you have to give it another try...

Edited October 29, 2019 by Morrigan2575

[swanpride]

Fun fact: Agents of Shield is overall actually better reviewed than Daredevil. Not that RT TV shows scores mean much, but past the first season, AoS has constantly scored in the high 90%.

In any case, the one true failure which came out of Marvel Live Action TV under Loeb was Inhumans, and I think we can blame THAT one firmly on Perlmutter. Even Iron Fist has its fans and there is a general agreement that the second season was a huge improvement. I'm honest, the thing I currently want the most as follow-up from the Defenders Verse is the story of Danny and Ward travelling through Asia (yeah, I know, will most likely never happen). I think the one thing one can really blame on Loeb was how botched Defenders ended up being. But that is an essay in itself….

[benteen]

Daredevil was the best show that Marvel ever produced.  Jessica Jones had a strong first season but fizzled after that.  Luke Cage was alright (never watched Season 2) and Iron Fist was an abomination.  I really enjoyed the interaction between the main characters in Defenders but the enemy was weak, the main guest star was wasted, the plot wasn't good and despite having only 8 episodes, it still felt like two episodes too long.  The Punisher had a great first season but made a big mistake by trying to continue storylines from that season in the second year.

I watched the pilot to Runaways and didn't even finish it.  A legitimate disappointment as I always thought it would have made a great TV series.  But I found it to be terrible in the example of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

[Enigma X]

What a great example of different tastes. I think The Punisher and Inhumans were outright awful but felt all the other Marvel shows were ok to good (not great).

[Raja]

I think that movies, binge watching miniseries and weekly network series are all different formats so never expected Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to look like The Avengers anymore than Battlestar Galatica looked like Star Wars back in the day.  That said their are many 2 or 3 hour blocks of that show that I would prefer over the lower half of my movie list. Meanwhile on the Netflix shows I wonder why they have a b plot except to set up their Defenders story which just didn't fit the entire street level ethos of the main series.

[Danny Franks]

6 hours ago, Jeebus Cripes said:

Never could warm up to any of the characters. I stopped watching a couple of seasons ago when I realized I just didn't care if any of them lived or died. The show also made me come to despise Coulson, whereas I found him likable in the films. 

Can't really say which show I find to be the best because I have yet to see any of the Netflix stuff. Pretty sure we can all agree that Inhumans is the worst, though. 

Yeah, it was not a very good show. It had some potential when it began, but everything just seemed so... small time and piddly. It felt like a TV show - something you'd watch on SyFy or the WB, circa 2002 - not like a part of a major cinematic universe.

And I completely agree about Coulson. I've long held the view that Coulson only worked in the movies because he was a grey, boring, dry bureaucrat who cut such a sharp contrast to the larger-than-life superheroes. They made him the centrepiece of a TV show, just to draw in those overly involved MCU fans who were up in arms about the boring, grey bureaucrat being killed off, and I thought it was a complete failure. Clark Gregg simply doesn't have the charisma or gravitas to headline a TV show.

After half a season of the show, I only liked two or three characters, and even when I checked back in later, they'd simply added more unlikeable, bland people.

Taken collectively, Marvel's television output is very middling. Some great stuff, some garbage stuff, and a lot that is just okay. They tried to do some innovative things at times, but they were let down a lot by sub-par writing and bad casting. The Netflix shows suffered from real pacing issues, and would represent both the best and worst of Marvel's television universe.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Danny Franks

[Bruinsfan]

I didn't even like Coulson in The Avengers, though I thought he was fine in the Iron Man movies and Thor. The cultish fanbase that sprang up around him following the former completely mystified me.

I love Ming-Na Wen, but ultimately her character wasn't being featured enough to keep me interested in the show.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Bruinsfan

[benteen]

Ming-Na's Agent May would have been a GREAT addition to the Marvel movies.  That I agree with.

[Starfish35]

I watched AoS for three seasons, but when Bobbi and Lance left, I thought it was a good exit point.  I liked most of the other characters, but didn’t love them, and Daisy was becoming intolerable.  And I never really warmed up to Coulson as the lead - he was just so bland.  He worked fine in the movies, I thought, as a side character, but I never thought he worked all that well as a lead.  And that’s not even getting into the whole Grant Ward thing - ugh.  😬

The only Marvel tv show I loved has been Agent Carter.  I tried a couple of episodes of Daredevil and an episode and a half of Jessica Jones, and decided Marvel Netflix just wasn’t my thing.  

3 minutes ago, benteen said:

Ming-Na's Agent May would have been a GREAT addition to the Marvel movies.  That I agree with.

I agree as well.  May was great.

[SimoneS]

I loved Agent Carter also. 

[stealinghome]

Agent Carter had a rough-but-promising first season but fell apart in its second season, which basically doubled down on everything that didn't work in the first season while dropping everything that did. It was really disappointing. Hayley Atwell has enough charisma to power a small star and Dominic Cooper, James D'Arcy, Bridget Regan, and Lyndsy Fonseca were great in their roles and all had great chemistry with Atwell; that show should have been so much better than it was.

Generally speaking I think the Marvel TV shows have struggled to find strong writers, or at least writers who are on par with the actors, who are generally impeccably cast even if not necessarily the strongest technical actor.

[swanpride]

There were two issues with Agent Carter season 2: For one, they spend more time setting up some future plot (which we never got) instead of telling one self-contained story. And two, while the first season was all about Peggy dealing with her grief over Steve and finding her place in the world, including learning to trust her own abilities while also learning to accept help of others, the second season was basically about which gut she should kiss. It was and incredible reductive take on her.

Also, one shouldn't judge Agents of shield based on the first half of season 1. That's like judging Daredevil based on the second half of season 2 only. It is easily the worst part of the whole show (not bad though if you don't go into it with unrealistic expectations, it's mostly just the typical world building jitters a lot of shows have in the beginning).

Also, the show is made for one specific audience, for people who enjoy the work of writers who don't forgot what they did in the past and who trust the audience that it will remember, too, and who enjoy watching something which required to pay close attention to the plot whole also ending up constantly surprised because the show is utterly unpredictable.

[Kel Varnsen]

10 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Yeah, it was not a very good show. It had some potential when it began, but everything just seemed so... small time and piddly. It felt like a TV show - something you'd watch on SyFy or the WB, circa 2002 - not like a part of a major cinematic universe

I think the big problem with Agents of SHIELD is they tried way too hard to fit into a movie universe that the writers knew did not give a shit about them instead of working with that fact and owning it. So instead of getting smaller level stories about agents we had stories about an engineer as smart as Tony Stark, a woman who can fight as good as Cap, a guy who is a better leader than Fury and a powered person with Avengers level powers and they all fight world ending problems. And it just made it hard for me to care. Especially since on top of that, with all the budget cuts it all looked so low rent.

4 hours ago, stealinghome said:

Generally speaking I think the Marvel TV shows have struggled to find strong writers,

Agreed which sort of goes back to my original point how it is crazy that the guy running the division wrote the story that a big chunk of The Dark Knight is based on.

[Jeebus Cripes]

10 hours ago, Starfish35 said:

I watched AoS for three seasons, but when Bobbi and Lance left, I thought it was a good exit point.  I liked most of the other characters, but didn’t love them, and Daisy was becoming intolerable.  And I never really warmed up to Coulson as the lead - he was just so bland.  He worked fine in the movies, I thought, as a side character, but I never thought he worked all that well as a lead.  And that’s not even getting into the whole Grant Ward thing - ugh.  😬

The only Marvel tv show I loved has been Agent Carter.  I tried a couple of episodes of Daredevil and an episode and a half of Jessica Jones, and decided Marvel Netflix just wasn’t my thing.  

I agree as well.  May was great.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I thought Evil!Grant was the only interesting character they had. He had charisma, at the very least, which a lot of the cast lacks. 

I agree with the posts upthread about Agent Carter having a weak second season. I very much enjoyed the first one, though. One day I'll get around to some of those Netflix shows now that I actually have an account. 

[Danny Franks]

9 hours ago, stealinghome said:

Agent Carter had a rough-but-promising first season but fell apart in its second season, which basically doubled down on everything that didn't work in the first season while dropping everything that did. It was really disappointing. Hayley Atwell has enough charisma to power a small star and Dominic Cooper, James D'Arcy, Bridget Regan, and Lyndsy Fonseca were great in their roles and all had great chemistry with Atwell; that show should have been so much better than it was.

Generally speaking I think the Marvel TV shows have struggled to find strong writers, or at least writers who are on par with the actors, who are generally impeccably cast even if not necessarily the strongest technical actor.

I didn't even watch all of the second season, because the creative choices they made for it were so disappointing - Switching the setting to L.A, dropping Lyndsey Fonseca's character, focusing on a love triangle between Peggy, the drippy Sousa and some random woman I didn't care about.

It highlighted a problem that even the good Marvel TV shows have had - sustaining good writing. As you say, they've struggled to find strong writers, but even when they have the quality drop off as shows progressed was stark.

Daredevil got worse each season, Jessica Jones had an amazing first season then the second was awful, Luke Cage had half a good season and Iron Fist not even that. 

7 hours ago, swanpride said:

Also, one shouldn't judge Agents of shield based on the first half of season 1. That's like judging Daredevil based on the second half of season 2 only. It is easily the worst part of the whole show (not bad though if you don't go into it with unrealistic expectations, it's mostly just the typical world building jitters a lot of shows have in the beginning).

I already stated that I watched some episodes later - a few with Adrianne Palicki and that Lance guy in the cast. It was no better. And by that time, I had no expectations for it. I'd put it on a par with the CW's DC shows.

4 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I think the big problem with Agents of SHIELD is they tried way too hard to fit into a movie universe that the writers knew did not give a shit about them instead of working with that fact and owning it. So instead of getting smaller level stories about agents we had stories about an engineer as smart as Tony Stark, a woman who can fight as good as Cap, a guy who is a better leader than Fury and a powered person with Avengers level powers and they all fight world ending problems. And it just made it hard for me to care. Especially since on top of that, with all the budget cuts it all looked so low rent.

That's exactly what I hoped the show would be - a somewhat-tongue-in-cheek look at the lowly SHIELD agents who have to clear up after superheroes. Not a supposedly elite team with their own special plane, flying about and doing actual hero stuff, but without the budget to make it look good.

Marvel have made some really fun comics based on the people at the fringes of the superhero world, and that's what I wanted Agents of SHIELD to be. But it seems there was a distinct lack of imagination in the development of the idea, and they just made it TV Avengers.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Danny Franks

[Starfish35]

I think I’m in the minority in that I really could not have cared less about Lyndsey Fonseca’s character.  I did not miss Angie for one moment.  I agree, however, that the love triangles were tiresome, and the most uninteresting part of season two, and I never was able to fully get on board with Peggy/Sousa. 

But I enjoyed the rest of it.  I admit it wasn’t as strong as the first season, but it was still very enjoyable.  I wish they could have gotten that season three....I would have very much liked to see where they were going with some of the threads they were setting up.