#s: Sentinels of the Multiverse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

donnatroyprincessofthemyscira · 9 months

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ComicList: Marvel Comics New Releases for Wednesday, August 2, 2023, by Charles LePage.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (Cover A Corin Howell), $4.99

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (Cover B Clarice Saowee Menguito), AR

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (Cover C George Perez), AR

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (Cover D George Perez Virgin Variant), AR

Astonishing Iceman #1 (Cover A Jesus Saiz), $3.99

Astonishing Iceman #1 (Cover B Ken Lashley), AR

Astonishing Iceman #1 (Cover C Skottie Young), AR

Astonishing Iceman #1 (Cover D Humberto Ramos Miss Minutes Variant), AR

Astonishing Iceman #1 (Cover E Greg Land), AR

Captain America Sentinel Of Liberty Volume 2 The Invader TP, $19.99

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover A Bjorn Barends), $4.99

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover B Iban Coello Design Variant), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover C Gabriele Dell’Otto Connecting Variant), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover D Lesley Leirix Li), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover E Lesley Leirix Li Virgin Variant), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover F Mark Bagley), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover G Ryan Stegman Venom The Other Variant), AR

Death Of The Venomverse #1 (Of 5)(Cover H Gabriele Dell’Otto Connecting Virgin Variant), AR

Doctor Strange #6 (Cover A Alex Ross), $3.99

Doctor Strange #6 (Cover B George Perez), AR

Doctor Strange #6 (Cover C George Perez Virgin Variant), AR

Doctor Strange #6 (Cover D Nic Klein Stormbreakers Variant), AR

Doctor Strange #6 (Cover E Ema Lupacchino G.O.D.S. Variant), AR

Doctor Strange Fall Sunrise Treasury Edition TP, $29.99

Fantastic Four #10 (Cover A Alex Ross), $3.99

Fantastic Four #10 (Cover B Mahmud Asrar), AR

Fantastic Four #10 (Cover C Taurin Clarke), AR

Fantastic Four #10 (Cover D Giuseppe Camuncoli G.O.D.S. Variant), AR

Incredible Hulk #1 (2nd Printing Cover A Nic Klein), $4.99

Incredible Hulk #1 (2nd Printing Cover B Patrick Gleason), AR

Legion Of X By Si Spurrier Volume. 2 TP, $19.99

Magneto #1 (Cover A Todd Nauck), $4.99

Magneto #1 (Cover B Greg Land), AR

Magneto #1 (Cover C Gustavo Duarte Howard The Duck Variant), AR

Magneto #1 (Cover D Todd Nauck Virgin Variant), AR

Magneto #1 (Cover E Luca Maresca), AR

Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook HC, $59.99

Marvel-Verse Kang TP, $9.99

Miles Morales Spiderman By Cody Ziglar Volume 1 Trial By Spider TP, $17.99

Moon Knight #26 (Cover A Stephen Segovia), $3.99

Moon Knight #26 (Cover B Kim Jacinto), AR

Moon Knight #26 (Cover C Lucio Parrillo), AR

Moon Knight #26 (Cover D Salvador Larroca G.O.D.S. Variant), AR

Scarlet Witch #7 (Cover A Russell Dauterman), $3.99

Scarlet Witch #7 (Cover B Meghan Hetrick), AR

Scarlet Witch #7 (Cover C Pablo Villalobos Homage Variant), AR

Scarlet Witch #7 (Cover D Sara Pichelli Design Variant), AR

Scarlet Witch #7 (Cover E Lucas Werneck G.O.D.S. Variant), AR

Secret Warriors Omnibus HC (Book Market Edition)(New Printing), $125.00

Secret Warriors Omnibus HC (Direct Market Edition)(New Printing), $125.00

Spider-Gwen Ghost-Spider Omnibus HC (Andrew Robinson Direct Market Cover), $100.00

Spider-Gwen Ghost-Spider Omnibus HC (Bengal Book Market Cover), $100.00

Spider-Gwen Ghost-Spider Omnibus HC (InHyuk Lee Direct Market Cover), $100.00

Spider-Man No Way Home The Art Of The Movie HC, $60.00

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover A Leinil Francis Yu), AR

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover B Jim Cheung), AR

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover C John Tyler Christopher Action Figure Variant), AR

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover D Rachael Stott Scourged Variant), AR

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover E Giuseppe Camuncoli Foil Variant), AR

Star Wars Dark Droids #1 (Cover F Rachael Stott Scourged Virgin Variant), AR

Star Wars Doctor Aphra Volume 6 Ascendant TP, $17.99

Star Wars Thrawn TP (New Printing), $17.99

Star Wars Yoda #10 (Cover A Phil Noto), $4.99

Star Wars Yoda #10 (Cover B Chris Sprouse Return Of The Jedi 40th Anniversary Variant), AR

Star Wars Yoda #10 (Cover C Giuseppe Camuncoli), AR

Strange Academy Miles Morales #1 (Cover A Nick Bradshaw), $4.99

Strange Academy Miles Morales #1 (Cover B Lee Garbett), AR

Strange Academy Miles Morales #1 (Cover C Humberto Ramos Connecting Variant), AR

Warlock Rebirth #5 (Of 5)(Cover A Ron Lim), $3.99

What If Dark Venom #1 (Cover A Philip Tan), $4.99

What If Dark Venom #1 (Cover B Nick Bradshaw), AR

What If Dark Venom #1 (Cover C Skan), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover A Joshua Cassara), $5.99

X-Men #25 (Cover B Alex Ross Connecting X-Men Variant Part B), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover C Alex Ross Connecting X-Men Virgin Sketch Variant Part B), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover D C.F. Villa Stormbreakers Variant), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover E Mark Brooks Corner Box Variant), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover F Peach Momoko Design Variant), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover G Sergio Davila Kingpin Variant), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover H Russell Dauterman Trading Card Variant), AR

X-Men #25 (Cover I Bryan Hitch Wraparound Promo Variant), AR

X-Men Hellfire Gala 2023 #1 (Cover L Valerio Schiti G.O.D.S. Variant), AR

#Moon Knight #The Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Spider Man #Venom #Ice Man #Captain America #Dr Strange #Fantastic Four #Iron Man #G.O.D.S.#Magneto #Warlock #Star Wars #X-Men

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magicalgirlartist · 1 year

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[ID: 2 page comic featuring Setback and Expatriette from Sentinels of the multiverse in a dark-ish warehouse with metal walls and floor. Both pages have 6 panels. 1: Expat holds her hands out in front of herself towards Setback placatingly, looking upset. Setback leans away from her, shouting, fists raised. E: "Setback, listen-" S: "No! Back off, Fleshchild!" 2: Expat's right hand reaching forward, seen from the wrist up and in profile, shaking slightly. E: "Pete, wait! Please, I-" 3: Expat from the front, knees up, burying her face in her hands. The background is messy black marker scribbles with white around her, and her word balloon is wobbly with much smaller text. E: " I'm sorry." 4: Expat from the waist up, covering half her face with one hand and gesturing away from herself with the other, looking away with a pained expression. E: "I thought that you "toughening up" and being darker and broodier would make me happy. But it doesn't. It can't." 5: Setback from the hips up, facing mostly forward and turning slightly away from the viewer, one fist still raised but looking more wary than angry. E: "I like how you were - optimistic and silly and kind and - lovable." 6: Expat's left hand reaching around Setback's right hand. E: "It was selfish of me to try and make you change who you are. I'm sorry." 7: Expat and Setback from the waist up. Expat is leaning towards Setback, holding his raised hand, smiling awkwardly and holding her other hand to her chest. Setback is leaning slightly away from her, but looking her in the eyes with his mouth slightly open. E: "I love the original Pete best." 8: Setback from the chest up, facing left, looking at his and Expat's hands. 9: Closeup of Expat's hand holding Setback's, drawn from an angle indicating it's from Setback's POV. 10: Setback from the chest up, facing left, looking down and away with a frown. 11: Setback from the chest up, yanking his hand away from Expat and leaving her hand empty, looking away with a frown. S: "The real Amanda would never say that." 12: Expatriette facing forward from the chest up, still reaching out slightly, with her one eye open wide and an extremely hurt expression. The background is black with white cracks forming from behind her. End ID.]

I wanted to redraw this thing that I drew back in 2019 and make it a full, actual comic this time for practise on a bunch of stuff (shading, comic layout and pacing, etc). It's based on a scene from the Lego Movie 2, of all things. I love Lucky Shots so much you guys. Blorbo from my lore-rich card games.

#sentinels of the multiverse #sentinel comics #setback #expatriette #lucky shots #art #fanart #digital art #comic

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automatom25 · 1 year

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Concept for an upgraded armor design for my Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG character: The Space Cowboy- Billy "The Squid." The intention of the concept was to "upgrade" the suit's aesthetics and make it look more "super heroic." I think I managed that pretty well. Early on in the design/sketching process I was inspired to give it a "Retrofuturist" look. Heavily influenced by classic 1950's Sci-fi, as well as some design influences from things like Megaman, and Power Rangers/ Super-Sentai. And to top off this crazy turducken of an idea I added the color scheme of a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. So much to unpack, all in good fun. I hope you enjoy.

#character art #character design #digital art #rpg character #digital painting #ttrpg character #original character #concept art #digital illustration #sentinels of the multiverse #mech suit #space cowboy #superhero #cowboy

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periodiccompletionist · 5 months

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just want you to know i'm actually getting into sentinels of the multiverse after you made a card for charlie. haven't bought it quite yet but i'm invested. 23/26 -🔤

31/118

H He Li _ B C N O F Ne _ _ Al _ _ S _ Ar K Ca _ _ Ti V _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ge _ Se _ _ _ _ Y _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ In _ _ Te I _ _ _ _ _ _ W _ Os _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ac _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Tb _ _ Er _ _ _ Th _ U _ _ _ _ _ _ Es _ _ No _

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

#arsenic potassium sulfur #missing single letter #ok but in all seriousness: that makes me really happy to hear wtf???? im so glad youre getting into it #i really hope you end up enjoying it; ive been obsessed with it for. about a decade now??? jesus christ #one day im going to go through with making my own custom heroes for it. unfortunately havent had the time or resources up until now #but ive got the ideas! lord knows ive got the ideas. so many. ough #charlie in particular is so fun to come up with concepts for. their gimmick is just the perfect starting point for a really fun sotm hero #...dammit now i wanna work on that more. its past midnight rn though i need to go the fuck to sleep #gnight ac youre so fuckin awesome

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kooldewd123 · 5 months

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Making a new pinned post because I didn't like my old one.

Hi, I'm Kool! I've been an on-and-off Tumblr user for the better part of the past decade. I reblog meme and fandom stuff, and you can find my own personal thoughts under the #koolmathgames.com tag. My ask box is always open if you wanna send me a message!

Favorite fandoms: Pokemon, Xenoblade, general Nintendo, general animation, Animorphs, Sentinels of the Multiverse

Currently Watching: M*A*S*H

Currently Playing: Minecraft

I'm in the process of rereading Animorphs this year! Check out my idiot teenagers with a death wish tag if you wanna follow along with my thoughts.

#koolmathgames.com #i'll add more to this if i think of anything else i want to say

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countyourcasualty · 1 year

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Officially back on my Cherik bullshit.

There is a lot more information in the various links so I'll just keep this short & & sweet . You are preferably 24-25+ , with few triggers , enjoys a solid mix of smut and plot && good with one-liners or multi-paragraph depending on dialogue/action flow . I can play either ERIK (I have the most experience with Erik , and many different versions ) or CHARLES ( I have a couple of versions, my Charles is always disabled , my Charles is more canon - centric than my Erik /s ) . Discord is Weemie#2844 , feel free to reach out .

AUs are my shit . If you play Erik please pick a Jewish face - claim . Under no circumstances will I ever accept any of X - Men Apocalypse as canon . Destroying Auschwitz was a chillul hashem and Erik would NEVER .

Word bank ; diplomacy / foreign language , CIA , military , college , teacher / student , teacher / parent , parenting , soldier / civilian , clinician / patient , TiMER , sentinel / guide , ds!verse , abo!verse , time travel , multiverse traversal , mind control , poetry , narrative fuckery , experimental , telepathy , soulmates , bonds , true love , trauma , recovery , abuse , WWII , modern historical , war , cultural discrepancy , fish out of water , sci - fi , star trek redux , blah la la la ! If you have an idea you want to do , feel free to approach me . Please PICK THE PLOT / AU you would like to do beforehand ( there are several ideas spread out over the links & & around my Erik blog as well . )

#1x1 rp #1 x 1 rp #1x1 discord rp #one on one roleplay #one on one rp #discord rp #1x1 discord #one on one discord #x-men rp #xmen rp #1x1 x-men rp #x-men roleplay #xmen roleplay #cherik rp #cherik #erik/charles #professor x/magneto #au rp #discord roleplay

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marvellousimagines · 2 years

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Fandoms and Masterlist

HERE is a masterlist with links to all of the imagines on the blog.

The current list of fandoms I can write for: (updated Oct 18, 2023 - added a video game.)

Marvel:

MCU films/Disney+ shows

Agents of SHIELD

Agent Carter

Netflix's Defenders series

The Runaways

Amazing Spider-Man (must specify Andrew Garfield's Peter, otherwise I'll default to Tom Holland)

X-Men/Deadpool films

2005's Fantastic Four

The Gifted

I am also a fan of the comics themselves, so feel free to ask about others, even if they aren’t in the movies or shows~

Some of the comics characters/teams I am familiar with: Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, White Tiger, New Mutants

Shows:

Avatar the Last Airbender

The Legend of Korra

Castle

Doctor Who (Doctors 9 and 10 and their companions, can wing 11)

Firefly (rusty on this one, but I should be able to get back into the swing of it by watching some clips)

Gargoyles

Grimm

Huntik: Secrets and Seekers

Once Upon a Time (only main series - I stopped watching around the Frozen arc, but I'm still a sucker for Captain Hook and the Mad Hatter especially.)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix)

Stitchers

White Collar

The Witcher (Netflix show only)

Movies:

Birds of Prey/Harley Quinn

Disney (Various - ask)

Into the Woods

Pirates of the Caribbean

Hunger Games

Night at the Museum

Rise of the Guardians

Video Games:

Baldur’s Gate 3

Detroit: Become Human

Pokemon (games especially - Legends: Arceus has some PRETTY characters. I’ve played at least one game for each gen in the main series, as well as both Orre region games and several other spin-offs. For anime, I’m most familiar with the original Kanto arcs and Ruby/Sapphire)

Shapeshifting Detective

Telltale's The Walking Dead (No other TWD media)

Until Dawn

Anime/Manga:

Fruits Basket

Hana-Kimi

Inuyasha

Land of the Lustrous (anime only)

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Spy x Family

Other:

Oxventure (Web show)

Oxventure Blades in the Dark

Tamora Pierce's books

Things I can write for but have extra restrictions:

Shugo Chara - Due to the age of most of the cast, Ikuto is the only character I’ll write as romantic with the reader, otherwise I’ll only take platonic/family member requests.

Undertale/Deltarune - Sorry, no ‘boning’ the Skele-bros. I won’t write any Undertale/Deltarune smut, the most I’m comfortable with (for various reasons) is flirting and fluff.

Actors/Youtubers - My opinions regarding imagines about real people can be found here

Actors from the works in this list

Markiplier and Jacksepticeye

TheRunawayGuys and friends (only platonic/meeting them imagines)

Outside X-Box/Outside Xtra (Very iffy on anything more than platonic, though I’m totally fine with writing relationship stuff with their characters from Oxventure or Blades)

Things I can technically write but have particularly problematic creators so I’m hesitant to still include:

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Harry Potter

Even though Joss Whedon and David Cage are similarly problematic, I’ve not moved their works to this category because I personally feel that they’re far enough removed from their respective works that I’m still comfortable playing with their worlds and characters.

Particularly obscure stuff I can write that I don’t expect anyone to know, let alone request, but please do if you do know them. Or just talk to me/ask me about them if you’re a fan or curious about them.

+Anima (manga series)

Forever (crime drama show that only got one season)

Heaven’s Vault (video game)

Millennium Snow (manga series)

My Time at Portia (video game)

Secret of the Tally (book series)

Sentinels of the Multiverse (tabletop card game/video game with additional lore explained in podcast)

Three Delivery (animated show that aired on Nicktoons Network)

The Troop (obscure Nickelodeon show I got super into)

#Marvel #marvel imagine #avatar the last airbender #the legend of korra #detroit become human #ouran #mcu #white collar #until dawn #the witcher #she ra #bg3 #baldur's gate 3

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greatwyrmgold · 2 years

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Can superhero film series work?

This is not clickbait. At least, mostly not.

Overly Sarcastic Productions recently-ish released two videos about Superman. (The first is from July and is ~99 minutes long; the second is from Friday and is ~61 minutes long.) The second video is more relevant to this post; its thesis is, essentially, that superheroes need to rescue people instead of just fighting villains, a thesis I agree to with some caveats (not all of which were explicitly stated in the video, sadly).

A comment on that video got me to thinking about pacing and structure, and made me wonder whether superhero film series can work.

Now for the bit where I question whether my one-clause title was, in fact, clickbait.

Caveat #1: What's a superhero?

Not all "superheroes" need to fit in the model Red describes. Heroes in superhero media ranging from Dreadnought to Megamind to Hancock to One Punch Man to Worm are rarely seen rescuing people, and that works with how those sorts of stories conceptualize superheroes. But most superheroes aren't trying to be Worm, which is a good thing.

So for the purpose of this post, when I say "superhero" I mean "classic superheroes," who I categorize by that famed biologist's method. You'll see classic superheroes in the general memespace occupied by most big Marvel/DC heroes, The Incredibles, My Hero Academia('s main cast), Invincible*, Ben 10, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Spinnerette, that one terrible Disney movie most notable for a video essay about it, etc.

*Say what you will about Omni-Man, his son's trying to be Superman.

Caveat #2: What's a film series?

I'm focusing here on three related types of media—standalone movies, film series, and TV-style serials—because I think this problem only exists with one of them. (Which is, sadly, the dominant way superhero stories are being distributed these days.) For the purpose of this post:

Movies are single-installment narratives, generally 90-120 minutes in length, created without intending to follow them up with anything. The Incredibles are probably the clearest example, though plenty of pre-MCU superhero film trilogies started out this way. If I say "movie," I'm referring to standalone movies.

A film series is a bunch of movies meant to tie together, each with their own internal narrative, but also building into a larger narrative. Individual film series are released sporadically, months or years apart. By far the most obvious and successful example would be the MCU. For brevity, I'll use "film" to refer to this kind of film series.

A TV-style serial releases batches of much shorter episodes (usually 20-30 minutes each, sometimes 50-60 or some other length), sometimes all at once but more often weekly for a few months at a time. These batches are called "seasons," and usually last 10-15 or 20-30 episodes. Each episode has its own more or less self-contained plot, seasons usually have some kind of character and/or plot arc tying them together, and a series as a whole probably has something linking different seasons together beyond character names. This format was designed for TV, but these days lots of serials are produced for streaming platforms, and might not get any broadcast release. For brevity, I'm calling these "serials," even though that technically applies to film series and a bunch of other serial media.

TL;DR: The Incredibles is a movie, the MCU is films, Invincible is a serial.

I realize there's a lot of gray areas. The MCU includes a lot of serials in addition to the films, the DC universe has a bunch of loosely-linked animated movies, and I've mentioned more superhero stories with installments/versions in non-audiovisual mediums than ones which have only seen movies, films, and serials (as defined above).

But I'm not talking about all superhero stories, every way they can be structured, in every format. I'm talking about film series, and I'm using movies and serials as points of contrast.

Caveat #3: Let's not question OSP

To summarize OSP's thesis: Superheroes (as defined in caveat 1) need scenes where they save people from mundane peril to feel heroic. Superheroes are supposed to exist to save people, not just to fight villains.

If you disagree with these premises, if you think it's dumb for superpowered people to waste their time saving people from fires or industrial accidents or whatever, I'm not gonna argue. That's an argument about the philosophical nature of superheroism, which boils down to an argument over how "superhero" should be defined. I don't want to get involved in that kind of debate.

Instead: Starting with these caveats, let me get onto...

The Point

Story Structure

I'll be brief.

Stories have structure, and often recognizable structures. There are two big forces which drive stories to have the structures we recognize, or at least two I'll be discussing: The need for stories to tell a complete story, and time constraints.

Stories need to tell a complete story. The reason a lot of MCU knockoffs flopped as hard as they did is the amount of time they wasted on setups for future movies. MCU movies were reasonably restrained; each movie (or at least the movies I saw) did a pretty good job of telling a self-contained story, even as it built up to future movies. MCU knockoffs wanted to play catch-up, wanted to release their Avengers with as few introductory movies as possible.

But stories only have so much time to tell a story, and that time is very restricted in the mediums being analyzed here. Distributors don't really like movies and films more than 120-150 minutes long, because they either can't play as many times, require the theater to stay open longer, or both. And of course, serials have their episode lengths limited by broadcast schedules. In theory, streaming should give more runtime flexibility, but not many people have taken advantage of those possibilities so far.

In movies, the need to tell a complete story and the fairly strict runtime limitations have lead to a fairly strict structure known as the three-act formula; it's so ubiquitous that most films which try to avoid it end up reconstructing a form of the three-act structure, just to tell their whole story in one go.

Of course, films and serials operate on two different structural levels. Each film or episode needs to feel like a satisfying self-contained story, or at least a satisfying story fragment which went somewhere. An installment where it feels like nothing happened is often derisively called "padding" or "filler," because it is perceived to have added little to the series except runtime. You do not want your series to have filler if you can avoid it.

TL;DR: Every story, and every portion of a story released individually, needs to be structured in such a way that it tells its own story.

Where do we put the flood?

Consider the above point, and Caveat #3. Stories need to have structure, superheroes need to save people, and superhero stories only have so much time.

There's a well-established formula for movies. You put the disasters, petty crimes, and so forth late in act 1 or early in act 2, or maybe early in act 1 if your protagonist is an established superhero. This lets your hero earn their "superhero cred," and in the likely event that your protagonist isn't an established superhero, gives them a chance to establish themselves.

Movies don't need much. If you have around 100 minutes of movie, one 12-minute sequence where your hero discovers a burning building, finds people inside, and saves them is roughly an eighth of the movie. That's significant!

But that sequence won't cut it for a longer narrative. For a 12-episode serial with 22-minute episodes, the above sequence is less than 5% of the serial's runtime. Luckily, however, the serial structure makes it easy to work in multiple places where the superhero saves people, largely unrelated to the overarching seasonal plot.

You can have entire episodes focused on individual character conflicts, like the Hero and the Lancer having a pissing contest, or the Big Guy having a crisis of faith, or romantic bullshit, or whatever. At least some of these character-driven episodes should advance the overarching plot, but you can also have a couple which focus on more day-to-day heroism without losing too much—you just need the character conflict to go somewhere, and that can be the complete story you so desperately need.

Film series can't really do either.

The Problem with Superhero Film Series

Films are isolated in a way serial episodes aren't. It's easy to convince an audience to watch the first half of a two-part story if the second part is coming next week! It's hard to convince them to do the same if the parts are separated by a year. It worked for Infinity War/Endgame, but A. the end of Avengers: Infinity War was pretty definitive for a "part 1" and B. it's the culmination of a decade of genre-defining films.

And the year-long turnaround time is fairly short for film series. The MCU has been producing about three films per year, but I doubt anyone would argue that Avengers: Age of Ultron is the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy just because they're next to each other in Wikipedia's list of MCU films. The sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy is Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, which released ~2.5 years later. 2-3 years seems like the typical game between releases within MCU sub-series, and the DCEU seems to have a similar rhythm.

Anyways, whether one year or three, each film has immense pressure to tell the best self-contained story it can. (Assuming the studio heads are applying sensible pressures and not trying to do an Any% Cinematic Universe Speedrun.) That means it's easy to replace "filler" scenes where your hero stops a bank robbery or rescues people from a...volcano or something (I'm running out of natural disasters) with something relevant to the plot of this story.

From the perspective of the individual film, this is a good thing! Spending a full sequence on, essentially, just reminding the audience that Superman is a superhero is a waste of your limited time. At the very least, you should tie that rescue into the plot somehow; maybe the bank robbers have information on the Big Bad, or the volcano is part of their evil scheme. It would probably be less contrived if you just throw out the rescue angle entirely, though.

From the perspective of the film series, this is a disaster! The net effect is that superheroes in these film series only rescue people from non-supervillain-related situations when they still need to earn "superhero cred," generally when they're fresh and inexperienced. This is exactly what Red meant when she said heroes "graduate" from saving people to fighting villains. Saving people stops being the point of superheroism, and instead becomes its final exam.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I don't see a solution within the "film series" model. As long as film series are big individual segments, with each segment being released months or years after the last, those segments need to stand on their own. As long as films are being optimized for their standalone quality, there'll be incentives to cut the ordinary rescues from most films. As long as such incentives are there, superheroes will focus on the spectacular supervillain brawls at the expense of heroism.

In Summary

Stories are shaped by their structure, structures are shaped by medium and release format. Superhero stories these days are often lacking in "mundane" heroics like stopping muggers, rescuing trapped miners, and destroying meteors before they hit the Earth. In film series like the All-Consuming MCU, the release format discourages writers from including those scenes.

I'm obviously not saying superheroes can't work, or even that superhero movies can't work. Heck, even "superhero" film series can work, if they're not trying to be classical superheroes. But the MCU (and most other big-budget superhero films) are trying to be classical superheroes, and because they're film series, they're discouraged from letting their superheroes be heroes.

Now, this problem isn't unique to superhero films. The Teen Titans (2003) were more likely to frame their character-development episodes around petty one-shot supervillains (or fighting, say, Plasmus again) than rescuing people from a natural disaster. But on a fundamental level, nothing about Teen Titans (2003) would need to change if they fought fire instead of Fang.

I'm not sure there's any such solution for film series, without structuring them more like standalone movies or TV serials.

Postscript

Thank you, [NAME REDACTED], for inspiring me to write this.

#meta #superheroes #film series #overly sarcastic productions

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crazeace · 2 years

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YJ Straightforward: An Open Letter to the Young Justice Writers

I really do not know if this somehow reaches their attention or if this will get any notes but I felt the need to just write this all down now that YJ Phantoms has ended.

First off, I would like to thank the entire YJ Production team for this wonderful season, you guys did amazing and I'm thankful you were given the chance to tell this story. The finale was crazy good and I was satisfied especially since episode 24 and 25 stressed me out real good.

I am being an optimist regarding you guys getting renewed so we shall see if the post ages like wine or milk. Point is, I wish to give some constructive criticisms for this season. I respect you guys as storytellers and admire your work, but I feel the need to express a few things I've seen from myself and from the fandom regarding Season 4.

One of the things I want to talk about is the expectations of Season 4 vs the actual season.

Season 4 become highly anticipated by fans when you guys revealed your first poster: the original Team (minus Will Harper but that's a whole other topic). And we all collectively thought: oh wow! The Original team are the main focus of this season just like Season One! We were all thrilled. You see the magic of Young Justice Season One was the dynamics of the original Team. We got to see their history, their growth and how they overcome obstacles from villains as well as their personal lives. It was a character-driven story where the Team's actions are what make the story very interesting.

The Season 4's arcs sets us up with the expectation that we are getting to see exactly that. And in fairness you delivered it so well with M'gann, Artemis, and Kaldur's arc.

However in the case of Zatanna, Rocket, Nightwing, and Superboy, we didn't get to see that. Instead we got a view of the magic community, the cosmic community, and the Phantom Zone respectively with plot-driven stories. I understand you had an overall story arc in mind for the season involving the Phantom Zone prisoners and I genuinely enjoyed seeing that. However, fans can't help but feel disappointment that we didn't get a character driven story arc that explores the other four team members' past, growth, and personal battles for the past decade, when we got it with the other three.

I completely respect the choices you've made in the stories you have told in Season 4. I actually loved the reveal of Vandal being connected to both metahumans and Homo Magi. The battle against Child and the Sentinels of Magic. Earth 17 holy multiverse. Exploring New Genesis and the Phantom Zone. They were all great to see.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, perhaps in the next season (yes I'm being an optimist in that regard), we get to see more character-driven stories. At the very least try to give us the proper expectations.

Now I'm not blaming the marketing or the writers with the disconnect between what the posters led us to think and what we actually got in the story, I understand that you guys may not have the final say in how the promotions are run, or thag it was nit your intention to give us the wrong idea on Season 4's plot. But perhaps based on the fans reaction to this season, you could consider trying not to make a repeat of this again.

I hope this doesn't offend you guys in anyway, I meant no disrespect. I just hope when we get a chance to have Season 5, we get to relive the magic of Season One, by seeing Dick, M'gann, Artemis, Conner, Kaldur, Raquel, Zatanna, AND Will (AND Wally too please we are still not convinced he is dead call me a clown I don't care) go on a mission together. I hope we get to see them interact now that they're adults to have a fun contrast to their Season One dynamics. I hope we get an episode exploring Zatanna's state of mind as the new Doctor Fate, more of Raquel learning how to form a healthy relationship with Amistad, Conner's dynamics with the entire Kent family, and that sweet sweet Batfamily story where Dick gets to interact with Jason. The fans really wanted that and I hope that we get to see that in some shape or form in the future.

This is getting long so I'll end it here. Again, thank you for the stories you have told in Young Justice Phantoms. And I hope to see some improvements for Season 5.

You can start by bringing back Wally West.

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