Ironheart ending is one of the coolest things to happen in the MCU since endgame.
Mephisto played by Sacha Baron Cohen was so awesome. I hope he comes back and is the big bad of something like Midnight Suns. He could be the big bad with Riri, and the hood as his goons and countless others willing to sell their soul for something.
Riri was so far from perfect it's weird people saw 1 meme with her saying tony stark was a billionaire and I don't have any of that and got upset. At that point in the story it makes sense she is trying to improve her original suit and saying anything to not get kicked out of her school. Also it's true, she is defending herself for selling projects to other students while she is trying to advance her original mech which she has already made. When stark advanced his suit he had billions at his disposal. But alsoI for at least half the show She makes bad mistake after bad mistake. She is like Tony in that way. I mean by the end she literally sells her soul to the devil after taking magic from the dark dimension to best the hood.
Regardless making her a technomage who sold her soul to the devil and having a magic tech iron suit is pretty fricking cool. It could lead to so many things.
Riri was so far from perfect it's weird people saw 1 meme with her saying tony stark was a billionaire and I don't have any of that and got upset. At that point in the story it makes sense she is trying to improve her original suit and saying anything to not get kicked out of her school. Also it's true, she is defending herself for selling projects to other students while she is trying to advance her original mech which she has already made. When stark advanced his suit he had billions at his disposal. But alsoI for at least half the show She makes bad mistake after bad mistake. She is like Tony in that way. I mean by the end she literally sells her soul to the devil after taking magic from the dark dimension to best the hood.
Regardless making her a technomage who sold her soul to the devil and having a magic tech iron suit is pretty fricking cool. It could lead to so many things.
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Lady Thor/Jane Foster
Captain Marvel
So many wasted characters in the yeard since endgame
They were making like 3-5 movies a year before endgame, and were continuing on that kind of plan after endgame, but then the entire world shut down. After a while things started opening up again and they were able to finish the movies that were mostly done, including Shang Chi which got released. They would have had plans for a lot of movies because they had gotten used to making so many, Shang Chi 2 could be like 10th in the queue and it would have only taken them 2-3 years before it would have been released. But COVID stopped new movies from getting started at the same pace, and once they were started it took a much longer time to make them.
Then after Covid wasn't causing the same level of problems consecutive strikes shut down Hollywood for most of a year again preventing them from really progressing.
And to top it all off through a whole combination of other things happening, some which actually their fault and some which weren't the people in charge of the money decided they were releasing too many movies and needed to cut back to the point where we're more like to get 1 or 2 movies a year than the 3 or 4 we were getting and now something that they were planning on doing in 2-3 years is several years overdue and still not anywhere in sight.
But for it to be a fumble what were they supposed to do differently. Just stop Covid from happening? Don't let the writers or actors go on strike? Sure they could have made a Shang Chi 2 instead of one of the other movies they made, but then people would be saying the exact same thing about that character being omitted instead.
There was no winning in the situation they were put in.
But if I had the Feige hat I’d repackage her and a couple others in antagonist roles lol. Like if it was up to me I’d have the Eternals return reprogrammed to no longer have free will and be forced to eradicate the mutants once they’re seen as excess deviations ala Kieron Gillen’s Eternals/A.X.E event, so have them be a threat the X-Men have to deal with (and the X-Men saving them from it all by the end). Would be an X-Men story from their viewpoint but with the spectacle the Eternals bring to fights that can be used to power scale the X-Men, wrapping up the Eternals story in a way where they don’t have to be the primary focus. My point is it’s absolutely a waste to waste these characters when they could fill in an antagonist type role better than a one and done villain since they’re already established
Assuming we never get a proper follow up to Ironheart though they could explore it in a Spider-Man thing with Mephisto offering him the deal, but then Pete seeing the outcome in Ironheart (thrall of Mephisto or he has to fight) which has him not make the deal and also get Riri out of it. Dunno if they’ll put the character in a Spidey movie considering how much people would cry about it tho lol but surely a corrupted iron man suit fighting him shouldn’t be trigger people too much
I could see this working as a big crossover film ala Avengers titles, I think it's got the potential to draw crowds in like they are trying to do with doomsday/secret wars, and it doesn't waste the potential of the end of Eternals
Yes, Blade and Armor Wars went down the drain due to pre-production issues and you never know, Midnight Suns might fall in the same pitfalls, but we don't know that for sure at this point.
And I got through Inhumans and both seasons of Iron Fist. But since realizing Marvel really doesn't have any kind of plan and isn't telling any actual larger story with these disconnected bits, they no longer feel like weaker chapters in an overall good story worth keeping up with, they just feel like weak shows and movies.
There were so many shows that I either liked the premise or the actors' performances, but ended up falling short for some reason or another. Ironheart is kind of the opposite, where the execution built interest in seeing more out of nothing. Kind of the anti-Secret Invasion, really.
The current format means that there's not enough time for the character development they're going for, and any lackluster elements stand out all the more due to the short format.
Seems weird to introduce a big character into a small show, happened with Emilia Clarke when I saw screenshots of her with a hulk arm when I never finished secret invasion lmfao, was like tf???
It's the same sort of question Tony faces. He built weapons that both protected American lives, but also took them and countless others due to the way US imperialism works. Was what Tony did ultimately for the greater good? Would the world be better if Tony never made weapons? Would the world be better if Riri opted to not become an engineer? It's a discussion about if the ends justify the means.
I dont buy this "does the end justify the means" discussion.. of course we're supposed to say she turned her life around. MCU shows and movies have been pretty mid. I dont think it really goes deeper than that.
I don't think Hulk is the best example for this sort of thing. Bucky killed a lot of people but most give him a pass because he was brainwashed and not in control. Banner and Hulk were two separate entities who shared a physical body, and now Hulk is just incorporated into Banner as Smart Hulk.
Basically, you can't really blame or punish Banner for what Hulk did.
*Agency*.
Riri is an ostensibly brilliant person acting with Agency.
Banner is brilliant, but he doesnt have *the agency* despite literally being willing to kill himself to try and protect people.
Bucky was *brainwashed* in the same way.
Frank Castle is a traumatized soldier, without the same understanding for long term downstream consequences.
"With Great power comes great responsibility".... Riri is not engaging with her power responsibly.
I feel like its still ridiculous to give anyone a pass considering they are criminals and everyone's kill count would be in the double digits (and more for pretty much everyone). I know we have to suspend disbelief though.. but maybe I've run out of stamina with MCU
As is so often the case, the issue is the execution. Tony was an arms dealer for a grand total of like 10 minutes on screen before he got humbled into the dirt and *actually* did something about his life. Riri has been going around doing bad shit for multiple on screen hours now, and I don't think we've seen her do something *actually* good since - yes yes, she keeps saying that she has good intentions, and sometimes she even helps the people she herself has endangered... but she hasn't actually *done* anything just out of the goodness of her heart.
You can have people like Frank going around just murdering everybody, it's a comic book universe, people are entirely fine with murdering in the name of good and they are entirely sympathetic about someone like Bruce basically being cursed and causing unwanted harm. But Riri isn't doing bad things to bad guys to punish the bad guys, Riri is doing bad things to people *in general* for some vague promise of eventually doing something nice, and unfortunately she doesn't have the excuse of not having control of her actions.
People dislike Riri because she has all the bad attributes of our flawed but beloved heroes, yet she hasn't displayed any of their positive attributes - and no, just talking about wanting to do good isn't good enough, just saving a guy you put in danger by breaking into their house with a crew of armed thugs isn't good enough, and, after all of that, making a deal with the literal devil certainly doesn't help her cause either.
You simply just can't have a character claim they have good intentions while doing nothing but evil shit and expect people to like them. That's not a dilemma, that just doesn't make sense.
Yes, but we're not *seeing* it. That's a subtle psychological difference. Seeing someone do bad shit is worse than hearing about someone having done bad shit. Seeing someone murder a guy is worse than having heard that someone murdered a guy.
Riri is not irredeemable. But the decision to introduce her at her worst for 6+ hours... is certainly a decision.
He also did it for the protection of his country (and to make money, and because he must always tinker). The fact that his patriotism was misplaced isn't entirely his fault, and that his mentor and supposed friend was going behind his back isn't his fault.
definitely wouldn’t ever see her in the movies, especially not in Black Panther 2
Him in Midnight Sons with Blackheart would be cool, but not as the main villain, just as a pop in.
I would prefer more shows for the Young Avengers individually and then have a movie as a fully formed team. Gives them enough time to breathe and grow on fans.
But having the shows build to that as the climax would be good.
She was so smart to create a movable energy shield and sold for what ? Hundred dollars to a guy in university? Tha y is so stupid. Even a below average IQ would have sold to any security company for millions . Hey no I will join this group of thieves who clearly have a very creepy leader.
That premise ruined everything to me.
But selling her soul to the devil was unexpected
It’s fine to think it was just fine. It’s fine to say you didn’t like it.
But it is legit, one of the better Marvel shows. Not the best, but middle to middle high.
And Mephisto was so amazing. It felt like such a great pay off after all the theorizing from previous shows.
What a strange way of saying "Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong."
I specifically said it is fine to not like the show and that even I think it is on the high end of mid.
What I said is that the people who irrationally hate the show are too deep in the culture war to pay attention to. If they call it the worst show ever, too woke, DEI, whatever then they hate it for reasons outside of the actual show.
EDIT: Typo
However if they want to go about making her a villain or upper henchman, that'd be a great role to bring her back for.
do we really know?
IH was a brilliant showing of Mephisto’s manipulations at work, and it’s really well seeded on rewatches you can see how he is playing the long game to get her. Riri at the start would never have made the deal to get Natalia back, he had to chip away at the iron wall protecting her heart.
It began when Riri tried to make a new A.I., the way she did it should have killed her. It didn’t because Mephisto stepped in, that’s the real reason for the electrical interference (which happens when Mephisto is around) and Riri’s Brain not turning to goo. He stepped in and recreated Natalia’s soul as an A.I.
This is why Riri has no idea how she was made, can’t recreate it, and her mother lampshades like this by emphasizing this isn’t just some copy it’s like her soul was recreated so much so she wanted to know if Riri could do it for her dad.
The purpose of giving her Natalia wasn’t to help her it was to make ver vulnerable. He wanted Riri to soften, to let down her walls, to connect with and become attached to this Natalia. At what should have been the moment of Riri’s big growth all her friends coming together, Riri open and happy she adds the hood’s magic into her suit and….boom Natalia is gone. It’s gone because she was taken from her, now this more emotionally open Riri who has admitted to needing people and having bonded and accepted this new Natalia as her friend…. is vulnerable. The walls protecting her heart are gone and the desire for something Mephisto can offer is seeded.
That’s the reason for The Hood he was just a pawn, a tool in the long game to get Riri. He set it up to help her grow and become a hero so he could prey upon it, offer her a chance to martyr herself as the only one mephisto will target and get Natalia back in the process. He grew and manipulated her from start to finish and in the end he preyed upon her positive growth as the tool to her to agree to a deal with the proverbial Devil. She never stood a chance and it makes IH more or less a Greek tragedy.
The villain won, but that’s exactly how you handle mephisto. You show the scale he can work on, the very real power and miracles he can offer, the way he can prey on you and corrupt even seemingly good things, and you end on his victory making it clear he is playing on a different game level entirely.
That’s why I want to see him come back because I want to know where he is heading. He put in a lot of effort to get his talons into Riri and it’s doubtful he ends at her. His whole gimmick has historically been to try and corrupt the next generation of heroes and we have a lot of younger immature heroes ripe for the preying on.
Superboy, wondergirl, etc? Pass. Wonder how much of the general pop views it the same. Inherently childish, and a poor imitation.
But...on the other hand really really hate Tony Stark in the MCU.
My only problem with Riri is the meta-discourse.
She is *plainly* imperfect, and a not great person.
But then when you say "I dont like this sort of character" you get hit with "Oh its just because you hate women".
The show wasnt good enough for me to want that sort of toxic discussion/influence to continue in the universe... id rather just skip it.
they're making a show for some of the young avenger kids to gather in a magical context and they'll need a villain. currently we have:
America Chavez training at Kamar Taj
Billy (Wiccan) is looking for his brother along with his spirit guide
Ironheart getting caught up in dark magic
i don't see why you couldn't slap on Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, and Cassie Lang.
say "after the events of Doomsday, Stephen Strange recognizes that today's heroes won't always be around to save the world and the next generation needs to be inspired."
hell, maybe even bring in Kid Loki from that show.