Marvel Live Action

[LumRanmaYasha]

I was a little iffy on what they were going for with The One Who Remains, and also thought Majors was portraying him too over the top at first. But the more I watched the performance the more I understood that this version of Kang was just an utterly broken man whose isolation, overwhelming knowledge of the timelines, and burden of guilt he bore has just made him a wreck, which manifests in his jittery and schizophrenic mannerisms and outbursts, and the more I ended up really appreciating it and excited for his more serious portrayal(s) of the character in the future.

I liked Loki overall. I was surprised it was not more of a time-travel adventure show a la Legends of Tomorrow and Loki's redemption arc happens pretty quickly, but I didn't mind it and thought the escalating twists and turns all the way up to the big reveal of Kang were a lot of fun. You can definitely tell the Rick & Morty influence from the showrunner's history with the show, especially in the final two episodes with all the interactions between the different Lokis and Kang describing the multiversal cooperation and conflict of his variant selves. I think the season ends in an interesting place and I hope that season 2 does have more of Mobius since he was my favorite character in the show.

For me, I find WandaVision's early episodes are the most interesting stylistically and would be more interesting to rewatch, but I think I like Loki the most overall out of the MCU Disney+ shows so far since I enjoyed it consistently beginning to end whereas WandaVision peaked at "Agatha All Along" and disappointed me in how it wrapped up.

The selfcest romance between Loki and Sylvie was baffling and felt like it came out of nowhere in the final episode though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Admittedly, my perceptions of what I expect from a Loki story were informed heavily by Kieron Gillen's run on Journey into Mystery (one of my favorite Marvel comics), which was in many ways witty and humorous but also strikingly somber and tragic at key moments. Taking the show on it's own terms it did what it set out to do rather well, though I do still stand by my opinion of Loki's development feeling kind of rushed and that the show could have done with a bit less moments of set-up for future movies/shows.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Interesting, I'll have to check that run out. But yeah, I agree and share a lot of your critiques. It's been said plenty before, but the MCU's insistence on using movies/shows just to set up other movies/shows can be frustrating and annoying when you just want to watch a story that's satisfying just on its own.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I hated when Age of Ultron took a break just to show trailers for other movies. Especially when the Ragnarok they teased was nothing like the movie we got, so sometimes these aren't even accurate preludes.

Honestly, I didn't care that much for the first two episodes, and preferred when they went straight into the TVA's secrets. Really wished the fifth episode was its own arc to dig deeper into the other Lokis. We should've gotten more Richard E Grant. My problem with this and FAWTS is the opposite of the Netflix shows, that they don't have enough room to tell their season arcs. Loki was just going from place to place when it was almost a pity they didn't focus and puts it attention to where they were standing before running off to the next part of the plot. Like the scene where as soon as Mayor Loki shows up, he's immediately disposed of.

Which, like I said, almost makes me miss the way the Netflix shows were paced. And how they were too distant from the movies to need to do scenes that were just poorly-disguised trailers for them (they were poorly disguised trailers for each other though, one of the reasons Daredevil's second season and Iron Fist's first were so maligned was because they were extended prologues to Defenders). Granted, it didn't always work, and those flaws among others are why Loeb is out of the TV production side, but I do miss that branch of the franchise. If more for the potential than the final product in some cases.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Okay, now I know why Jonathan Major's performance felt familiar. A version of Kang/Immortus acted exactly like he did in the old X-Men cartoon.

[talonmalon333]

I liked all three shows (Falcon and the Winter Soldier a bit less so) but Loki was my favorite of them. Thoroughly enjoyed the character dynamics and off the wall storytelling.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Really digging the Hawkeye trailer. Several scenes from the trailer are straight out of Fraction's run, and it also feels a bit like Iron Man 3 in tone which I appreciate more in hindsight as a Shane Black movie more than a Marvel one.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Hey, Lalo.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Funny that after Feige caved in and went "Of course Charlie Cox is back. We know you guys never shut up about Daredevil", D'Onofrio went ahead and said Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page is also coming back for something.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Spoiler

So I'm guessing that the MCU version of Wilson Fisk and Daredevil will be alternate versions of the characters from the Netflix shows, despite being portrayed by the same actors, seeing as how Fisk went back to prison at the end of Daredevil Season 3, whereas he seems to be currently active as The Kingpin in Hawkeye.

[close]

[Dr. Insomniac]

Spoiler

I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Spoiler

I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?

[close]

Spoiler

That's actually part of the reason that I think this might be a separate Universe version of Kingpin. It's heavily implied that Hawkeye and other key characters have strong ties to him in one way or another in their past in a way that wouldn't make sense to never have been brought up in the show if they were in the same continuity. It's still possible, of course, but having it be the same Universe also means carrying the baggage of the other shows, and I don't think that Kevin Feige wants Netflix's Iron Fist to be canonical to the MCU.

[close]

[Dr. Insomniac]

Spoiler

I don't know. At least 5 or 6 years passed in-universe between both shows. More than enough time for a crime boss. Fisk likely took advantage of the suddenly halved prison security during the Snap. That said, it brings to question when he mentored Echo. Was he just calling her in-between S1 of Daredevil, asking Wesley to check up on her and the Track Suits?

[close]

Spoiler

That's actually part of the reason that I think this might be a separate Universe version of Kingpin. It's heavily implied that Hawkeye and other key characters have strong ties to him in one way or another in their past in a way that wouldn't make sense to never have been brought up in the show if they were in the same continuity. It's still possible, of course, but having it be the same Universe also means carrying the baggage of the other shows, and I don't think that Kevin Feige wants Netflix's Iron Fist to be canonical to the MCU.

[close]

Spoiler

Maybe, but I don't think they'd go to all the trouble of bringing back Cox and D'Onofrio, recently announcing they brought back Foggy and Karen's actors for a thing, possibly bringing back Ritter as Jessica Jones in She-Hulk if the rumors are true, and then say they're all playing alternate versions of themselves with no connection to the Netflix shows. I think it's more of a soft reboot thing where they're still the same characters but they won't explicitly address past events so viewers who haven't seen a dozen seasons of Marvel Netflix aren't confused.

That said, Fisk does seem different here if he's a big enough threat that Clint's scared. If he was exactly the way he was in Daredevil, I doubt Clint would have any problems killing him.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Spoiler

That's a fair enough point, though it's funny to think of a situation of, say, Luke Cage running into Blade and noting how he looks oddly familiar to someone else that he knew.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja is my second favorite Marvel Comics run of all time, and I have to say that after stewing on it for a bit after the finale, the show was a bit of a letdown for me, overall. To be fair it can't really be like the comic since comic book Clint is very different from MCU Clint, both in terms of history and overall personality. That said, the show heavily marketed itself as being influenced by that run, but ended up feeling like a very surface-level attempt to emulate it's charm without the nuance or heart that made it so memorable. On it's own it's an alright show with a few genuinely stand-out scenes, but it does feel dragged down by the usual issues that come with trying to conform to a larger franchise rather than to being it's own thing.

On another note, I actually fucking hated what they did with Kingpin in this show, even if it's a different version of the character from the Netflix show.