Biggest nitpicks with the MCU as an adaptation

[ToTheNines]

Unrelated to any problems with the films themselves, what fundamental elements of the MCU bother you as the "definitive" live action representation of the comics?

Here are some of mine:

- Probably my biggest one is Hank Pym having nothing to do with the creation of Ultron. I remember when the Phase 2 slate was released, it seemed pretty obvious that Age of Ultron was going to dovetail into Ant-Man. Wrong!

- Goes hand in hand with the above, but Hank and Janet not being founding members of the Avengers.

- Much of Tom Holland's Spidey lore having some gaping holes. No Oscorp, no Octavius, no Doctor Connors, apparently uncle Ben doesn't even exist, FAKE Daily Bugle. I could go on. Pretty much all because they're allergic to "retreading" any ground the previous crappy movies covered. Dumb.

- Fantastic Four being such a late addition, but that was a legal thing.

- Lame version of Adam Warlock.

- Brie Larson as Carol and Elizabeth Warren as Mar-Vell. Carol should be about the same age as Tony Stark and have a commanding presence. What do we get? Waify little Brie Larson's scrawny ass. For all of Marvel's cringy virtue signaling, they had to get a young actress instead of appropriately casting a slightly older woman for this role.

[Autbot_Benz]

I have a comic with captain marvel in it and she is so like able compared to resting bitch face Larsons take

Smashing the godbomb storyline and Jane becoming Thor into one movie. It doesn’t work. Marvel really ****ed Thor so badly with his cast and supporting cast.

[IMJ]

- Constant removal of helmets/masks/ etc
- nano-tech cheat for EVERYTHING
- blending/melding of single source-material characters into hybrids or other deviations
- ignoring of source material to satisfy either "China" or "Gen Y Social Nonsense"

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by IMJ

- ignoring of source material to satisfy either "China" or "Gen Y Social Nonsense"

You just reminded me about the whole Ancient One debacle. I’m not even super huge on Doctor Strange, so it’s whatever ultimately. But the China ass kissing is crazy.

[sdp]

It's perfect, Marvel can do no wrong and had never reached a wider audience like it has because it is the best version. The MCU is literally the perfect version of the Marvel Universe.
Disney saved Marvel.

[Autbot_Benz]

Originally Posted by IMJ

- Constant removal of helmets/masks/ etc

Ya this pisses me off too. Dont be surprised if doom does this in doomsday

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

You just reminded me about the whole Ancient One debacle. I’m not even super huge on Doctor Strange, so it’s whatever ultimately. But the China ass kissing is crazy.

Iron Man 3 deviated from the Mandarin completely because of it.
The changed the Ancient One because of it.
There was an entire character practically omitted from Age of Ultron because of it.
Shang Chi was guided by it completely ruining the Mandarin as an iron Man villain.
There was more too, but I can't recall at the moment.....

[neatoman]

Alright, let's begin:

• The Abomination's design sucked in that first movie.
• Tony's alcoholism is treated like a joke in IM2.
• It's kinda weird to see Cap, BW and Hawkeye as founding members of the Avengers.
• IM3 botched the Mandarin so bad they never really fixed it despite the attempts and had a horrible depiction of Extremis.
• GotG making the Nova Corps a bog standard police force was a joke and I'm not too happy about Drax being an alien.
• Age of Ultron should have been more ambiguous about Pietro and Wanda's origin in case... What did eventually happen would... And Ultron's design is awful.
• Ant-Man having having Hank as a superhero decades prior causes a lot of world building issues.
• Civil War simplifies Zemo way too much.
• GotG2 having Ego be Peter's father is an unnecessary deviation from the source material and robs him of a lot of potential.
• Homecoming insisting that Ned and MJ are gonna end up as super scientists instead of civilians... Really?
• Ragnarok got weirdly undermined and the insistence that Odin was somehow trying to hide his violent past is odd.
• Black Panther... Well... I don't like how people seem to think Killmonger is actually sympathetic and/or had a point when really he's just a hypocritical megalomaniac is more of a problem with others' interpretation than the movie itself, but there are other things about that movie which is just absurd and I'll leave it at that for now.
• IW states that Thanos himself has humanitarian goals with his actions, which is ridiculous because they are at best what he thinks will please Mistress Death, the idea that he has any concern for the well being of life is laughable to me.
• Captain Marvel just sucks and the thing that's she's like 30 years older than the actress playing her in the "present day movies" just to make it be set in the 90's seemed like a bad decision.
• Endgame has really odd and ambiguous time travel oddities.
• I do not like that Far from Home seemingly just writes off Sandman and Hydro-Man as Mysterio's illusions for the rest of the series.
• Black Widow makes some odd pseudo-Cold War nonsense happen, even though it does not align with the timeline and the liberties taken with the characters is unwelcome.
• Shang-Chi might have the single worst case of mashing unrelated elements of the comics together in the entire MCU and it's jarring... And the Mandarin still sucks.
• Eternals is a total garbage movie and somehow fucks up even the basic concept of the Eternals, Deviants and Celestials.
• No Way Home implies the Osborns don't exist...
• MoM... Is total character assassination of Wanda.
• Love and Thunder has so much wrong with it, I don't even want to bring any of it up.
• Wakanda Forever makes very unnecessary changes to Namor and the weird conflation of T'Challa and Boseman feels really awkward.
• Quantumania continues of the "proud" tradition many later writers of making MODOK a joke because he's superficially silly looking.
• The Marvels... Well, it straight up made Carol leave Hala ruined for 30 years and thus being directly responsible for the villain trying to save the Kree... What the hell?!
• D&W I'm not sure how to feel about, the Wolverine from Logan obviously had to be a different one from the other movies but treats it as if he is at least one of them.
• Brave New World adapts Red Hulk in quite possibly the worst way possible.
• Thunderbolts don't seem to get the Sentry, it's kind of the point that he's a retcon character but the movie just doesn't deal with that nor should the Void be as easy to defeat with something as cheesy and cliché as the power of love.
• First Steps hinges on Sue being brought into space in late pregnancy... What?
• Brand New Day introduces Jean in a terrible way and I seriously wonder if Hulk was meant to be Lizard.

[Andrew NDB]

I seem to remember something early on, either in Homecoming or Civil War, where Uncle Ben was lightly referenced. Like it was implied in some dialogue he was gone and missed. But then No Way Home comes out and it's like he never existed so they graft his story onto Aunt May... weird. Unneeded.

And obviously they need to let go of the characters aging with the actors and start recasting (which I think is finally going to happen with Secret Wars?). Everyone of the Avengers are going to be in their 80s by the time the X-Men are fully up and running and then who will care about a crossover then? And other things. Like now we can't even get a Daredevil-Black Widow story because they decided to kill her off at the same time as they were barely introducing Daredevil?

I was also really looking forward to finally getting a proper Galactus but the whole thing was kind of nothing.

[CyberCubed]

I don't think they ever said Uncle Ben didn't exist? I vaguely recall him being referenced in the first movie but its been awhile seen I rewatched it so I could be wrong.

[Xav]

Yeah he does exist Peter's briefcase has the letters BFP on it.

[Coola Yagami]

The biggest missed opportunity was when they had both Toby and Andrew mention Uncle Ben and his famous saying, there was no reaction from Tom, or at least nothing that would imply he has an Uncle Ben too.

Like I know they wanted to fast-track Spider-Man since we already saw two versions of the origin/backstory, but we can assume Tom in Civil War was a post Uncle Ben Spider-Man. That one scene with Toby and Andrew just cemented the fact he either never knew an Uncle Ben or he decided to do good as Spider-Man just because.

Like classic Spider-Man wanted to make some money with his powers and only became a superhero after the Uncle Ben incident. Maybe since Tom's world already has Avengers and such in it (he must have been watching TV or something during The Battle of New York), him gaining powers made him think he should be like them and be a hero too. Who knows?

I mostly say this because without Uncle Ben, there has to be some reason Tom was already saving people. In the original comics, his particular story didn't really imply other heroes were running around. I believe back then the early comics that would explain the origins of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, etc are self-contained and never take into account that there are already 20 other superheroes already out there.

[Andrew NDB]

Yeah, that moment with the other two Spider-Men should have been the place for Tom Holland's Spider-Man to finally tell his own Uncle Ben story... not to tell us that he doesn't have one. Because that's stupid. It'd be like a Batman without a Thomas and Martha Wayne story.

[Coola Yagami]

I guess cause they just killed Aunt May they didn't want to get repetitive, but I mean that would have been perfect. Tom could have said he lost his uncle and now aunt May too and then we can see Toby and Andrew can emote because neither can imagine losing their own aunt May. Character scene all around.

There was also a missed opportunity with Toby and Andrew reacting so seeing such a younger looking aunt May.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Yeah, that moment with the other two Spider-Men should have been the place for Tom Holland's Spider-Man to finally tell his own Uncle Ben story... not to tell us that he doesn't have one. Because that's stupid. It'd be like a Batman without a Thomas and Martha Wayne story.

Jesus, that’s quite a perspective. Imagine the second act of third movie in a Batman trilogy with no real sign of the Waynes… and Joe Chill kills Alfred in Crime Alley and Bruce declares war on the criminals of Gotham

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

I guess cause they just killed Aunt May they didn't want to get repetitive, but I mean that would have been perfect. Tom could have said he lost his uncle and now aunt May too and then we can see Toby and Andrew can emote because neither can imagine losing their own aunt May. Character scene all around.

Maybe you're forgetting -- the death of Aunt May happened IN the movie where the Tom Holland Spider-Man said he doesn't have a sad Uncle Ben story. It wasn't like they'd already killed her in a previous movie and now Uncle Ben would be redundant. And I'm sure some kind of general "Three Spider-Men, did they ALL have the same Uncle Ben story? BORING!" was in play but again, stupid. Who cares if multiversal other Spider-Man have basically the same Uncle Ben story? Tom Holland's Spider-Man is supposed to be the definitive one within the realm of the MCU and he doesn't get the basic-most Spider-Man origin?

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Jesus, that’s quite a perspective. Imagine the second act of third movie in a Batman trilogy with no real sign of the Waynes… and Joe Chill kills Alfred in Crime Alley and Bruce declares war on the criminals of Gotham

They can change little things in different iterations like it's not Joe Chill, it's the Joker, or it's just some nameless thug (which was the post-Crisis Batman thing, "It could be ANYONE" that killed Batman's parents, fueling his never-ending vigilantiism because any random perp he brings down might be their killer).... but the basics have to be there, for sure.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Maybe you're forgetting -- the death of Aunt May happened IN the movie where the Tom Holland Spider-Man said he doesn't have a sad Uncle Ben story. It wasn't like they'd already killed her in a previous movie and now Uncle Ben would be redundant.

Yeah i know. I just mean the powers that be wanted to try something different so it wouldn't be Uncle Ben again, which is dumb. It would be like Bruce's grandparents getting murdered instead cause 'we saw Bruce's folks die countless times in cinema by now'. But that's the MCU...